account of his death undertaken pag. 65. the second when he came in mans nature to suffer that death It is to your purpose that you should mean the first But that cannot be meant because it is said If I had not come and spoken and If I had not come and done the works that none ever did of his second coming therefore it must be meant Now let me ask Had Christs capital enemies no sins to be charged upon them before Christ came or unless he had come You have had some dealing with the people called the Quakers Did ever any of them take a text of Scripture more crudely than you do this Was there no guilt of sin laid to the Nation upon killing of the Prophets or messengers sent beforehand till the Son himself came Doubtless there was a stock of sin charged upon them before though now it came to be compleated and filled up in measure It is wonder you would not compare this with other places which might soon have shewed you how soul your errour was Or why would you not view the context or that which went before v. 20. If they have persecuted me and v. 24. You have both seen and hated me It was the kinde of sin Persecution and hatred and it was the degree of the sin it was hatred without a cause it was malice against cause to the contrary against so many good deeds convincing and obliging That was the sin which they had not been guilty of if Christ had not come You bring another text Sect. the last out of Rom. 5.14 where you say the Apostle implies a distinction answerable to what you make Some sins are after the similitude of Adams transgression namely against light knowledge and engagement or with free unnecessitated consent Other sins are not so Now man being fallen and restored again sinneth as Adam did upon a new engagement by Christs death against Gods goodness and some libertie brought into their wills Answ Adams sin was against a positive and express law others till Moses came sinned against the law of nature written in their hearts The Apostle speaks nothing of light nor of libertie nor engagement and dare you set on soot such a pestiferous opinion as you do because the Apostle implies something answerable which yet he doth not Where doth he so much as obscurely or implicitely teach that all men from the beginning were brought to a new engagement new light and new libertie in their wills Or where doth he say that some sins are forgiven of due debt and some not but upon Repentance Your discourse in the other Sections is so frivolous that I must not bestow much time upon it I will consider that place which you bring in your 10. Section the which as it seemeth you esteem alone sufficient to uphold the Universalists cause and to prove the necessitie of teaching their doctrine as without which there is no hope of any good to be done upon any man in the world by preaching of the Gospel The words are 2 Cor. 5.14 15. The love of Christ constraineth us because we thus judge that if one died for all then were all dead and that he died for all that they which live should not live unto themselves but unto him But I suppose you would not have spent so great a part of the fourth chapter of your Essayes in your boisterous and uncharitable deductions from that place if you had bestowed a little time rightly to understand it Be pleased therefore calmly to take notice First that the Redemption there spoken of is not that universal Redemption which you so much insist upon but that which is efficacious and actually applied so that a Christian thereby is regenerated justifyed and sanctifyed and Those for whom Christ is said to have died had been dead and were now alive and ought therefore in all good reason not to live to themselves but to him that died for them The like exhortation and upon the same ground we finde Rom. 14.9 Christ died that he might be the Lord of the living and that they might live to him and 1 Pet. 4.1 2. forasmuch as Christ hath suffered for us let us cease from sin and live the rest of our time to the will of God And if it be such a Redemption as is actually salutiferous and bringeth with it a new life and if it be such a Redemption of which Sanctification is a consequent as clearly it is by the Apostles discourse and by parallel places then it cannot be that which is called Universal This is further confirmed because Secondly The love of Christ there spoken of is not in probabilitie to be taken actively for that love wherewithall Christ loveth us but passively for that whereby we love Christ To this sense the scope of his words there do best sute as even they seem to acknowledge who interpret it otherwise He would not have them to imagine that what he spake of the Dignitie of his Ministerie tended to his own commendation or that such carnal end or designe had any place in him If we be besides our selves as you may think we are it is for Gods sake whom we seek and serve The love we bear to him compelleth us to do what we do whom alone we desire to know and no man else and nothing else And if it be the love active that is there spoken of for I will not much contend with you about it then we are to know there is a twofold love that God beareth to man as well as a twofold Redemption A general love spoken of Joh. 6. So God loved the world and a particular or special love most commonly understood where his love is spoken of Rom. 5.8 9. Love to the justified and those that shall be saved 1. Joh. 4.19 Love that causeth us to love him again we loved him because he first loved us such must that love be that constraineth and that causeth extasie that setteth us as it were besides our selves and is not likely to be that which is born towards all mankinde whatsoever in right reason it ought to be And thirdly whereas you say that the Apostles were carried out to all their service for Christ because of the love he bare to all men as if they would not have been half so zealous in preaching the Gospel to all men if they had not thought all men had been alike chosen without difference and no man had been denied the gift of Faith it is a very weak phansie of yours What they did was principally done for the elect people of God for his Bodies sake which is the Church Col. 2.24 for the Elects sake 2 Tim. 2.10 As for the rest they knew and testified and held themselves contented that they were unto God a sweet savour even of death unto death in them that perish The love they bare to Christ did carrie them on to do the work appointed them leaving unto God the success of their work
For what should hinder Not all that are drawn come whether that be so or no may soon be known by considering other expressions of the same thing in that place John 6.37 All that the Father giveth shall come and v. 65. No man can come unto me except it were given unto him of my Father and v. 45. Every man that hath heard and learned cometh and v. 44. No man can come except the Father draw him To give and to draw and to teach are of the same import All that are given and all that are taught and likewise all that are drawn do come Your Masters have thought that they eluded this word of Drawing and fairly came off from all force of argument from thence when they found out that it was to be interpreted by teaching in the very next verse following they shall be all taught of God not remembring that Gods teaching is not like mens and that none teacheth like him No nor so much as considering how that it follows in that very verse Every man that hath heard and learned cometh Which as it wholly overthroweth that evasion of theirs manifestly also sheweth the falshood and absurditie of what you here say not all that are drawn come In your 8 Section you yield that Gods Grace doth remove infidelitie but not give faith unless thus explicated Faith or power to beleeve this I take to be all one with what some others say that He doth not give credere but onely posse credere and for this you quote Hos 11.4 I did take off the yoke on their jaws and laid meat before them This is spoken of the civil state of the Israelites and when you have made it appear that the yoke there mentioned is to be taken for a muzzel you are driven to betake your self to a vein of allegorizing for proof of your opinion when it is well known that many plain and direct places prove the contrary Your other texts shew what God doth outwardly to a Nation or Church visible but do not shew that he doth no more than so in the conversion of a particular person Sect. 9. Therefore he may think with himself if I be of the former I must be brought in take what course I will and if of the other I must perish take the best course I can Therefore I had as good take the present good things while I may have them and live as I list He must needs be a man absurd and unreasonable and for the time given over of God that shall in earnest speak in his heart after this manner And if ever he return to his right wits he will begin thus rather to argue with himself If God hath chosen me to be a Saint in heaven and doth intend to bring me to glory then I must out of all doubt beleeve and repent and amend my ways and continue in Gods holy laws to my lives end knowing that without holiness no man shall see the Lord. And although the book of election be now closed up and a seal set upon it yet there is an inscription upon that seal which I can easily see and read Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity But if God doth intend to condemn me to Death eternal it will be for my wickedness and for my rebellion and for being so graceless as to argue thus scornfully against Gods mercie and the dutie that I ow to him I will therefore with my utmost diligence apply my self to the faith and fear of his most sacred name and take heed while I live of such desperate and blasphemous thoughts knowing they proceed from none but the Devil who out of his endless malice to God and envie towards me would perswade me to be a more sot in things concerning life eternal than he dareth to perswade me to be in matters of this life and bodily health For if I knew assuredly that God did now purpose to prolong my life to such a term of years it were too gross a temptation to be put upon me to make me beleeve that it were well done of me henceforth to cast off all care of providing food and raiment and avoiding deadly dangers and not to call for a boat when I am to pass over the water and when I go into the field to battel to leave my armour behinde me In those things therefore that far more nearly concern me I will never be so vile an hypocrite or in effect so forlorn an atheist as to discourse and conclude in such a sort upon supposal of Gods foreknowledge and determination whatsoever some have told me I may do CHAP. XIII Whether all in Adam be pardoned THe Doctrine maintained by you in this chapter is That although all sins whatsoever springing from the sin of Adam be forgiven as of due debt through Gods mercie and the sacrifice of his Son Nevertheless by the manifestation of this his Death and Sacrifice and by occasion of this his goodness made known to men all their actual sins become new debts because they are done against Gods Grace and Truth shining upon all men In defence and explication of this detestable Doctrine You afford us a twofold distinction the first is this such sinning as doth arise from force of natural corruption is not charged upon men but onely sinning voluntarily and unnecessitatedly against the Truth striving to reclaim them pag. 63. The second distinction is so fine and of so great subtility that it flies quite away from all good sense You distinguish of sins considered before or without Christs coming from sins considered as before or without his coming and you ask pag. 68. if I cannot so abstract as to consider them as in the root and according to what they had onely by virtue of that from what they are as against Grace vouchsafed But what say you in the mean time to those sins that are both natural or in some sort necessitated by corruption of nature and voluntarie too as many sins if not the greatest part of them are Shall they be forgiven as natural and punished as voluntary Consider sins as before or without Christs coming they would yet have been against light the light of nature and should not they have been charged upon any man because they were not against the light of grace or the Gospel And know you not that to love darkness more than light resisting of the truth and hatred to be reformed and offending against mercy and goodness are all of them as necessarily derived from the root you speak of and are as truly parts and products of our hereditary pravitie as any sins are whatsoever you can name The chief place of Scripture you alledge is Joh. 15.22 24. If I had not come they had not had sin it had not been charged upon them You make a twofold coming of Christ of this sort One as he came spiritually in his light and truth into the world in all ages upon the
or belyed Bellarmine Now though I will not say to you mentiris pro. Bellarmino and set you on work to compare this with your other two above yet any one may plainly see how you have run your self a ground and are gravelled more ways than one for Bellarmines sake who yet will con you no thank and if you had done him any service he might thank me because for my sake it was that you became his Advocate CHAP. XXIII The Remedie to be general Sect. 1. THe Son of God did offer a full perfect and sufficient oblation and and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world That is as much as I desire or assert If you may have leave to interpret the words of the Article or Liturgie according to your own meaning and Doctrine and contrarie to the known meaning of the Church it is as much as you need to desire But where doth the Church of England teach that all sins proceeding from the first Adam are forgiven of due debt to the impenitent without further and particular application of Christs Death Windeck a Papist who wrote largely of the efficacie of Christs Death and mustered up 286 arguments to prove that he died for all men yet called puccius Execrabile monstrum who held that Christs Death was actually efficacious to procure justification and restore life to all men whatsoever until by new wickedness they rejected that life and drew a second destruction upon themselves and his opinion he calleth stultum paganicum paradoxon a foolish and heathenish paradox praesentissimum venenum a poisonous Doctrine that dispatcheth presently and killeth outright those that take it in I pray you therefore learn to distinguish between that Redemption which is universal and that which is particular belonging onely to such whom God doth choose and to whom he vouchsafeth the gift of saving faith Had you done so now you would have contented your self with those places of Scripture that shew Christ died for all and not confusedly and dangerously have added those places which speak of the justification vevification and salvation of beleevers as namely these two Rom. 3.23 24. All have sinned being justified freely by his Grace All have sinned and all are justified by his Grace Answ If all absolutely that have sinned be justified why should he restrain it v. 22. to them that beleeve The scope of the Apostle is this to prove that the Jews who thought well of themselves in regard of their excellencies and priviledges above others have nevertheless no other way to be justified and saved but even as the Gentiles are saved and that is by beleeving For because they have sinned as well as others and have no righteousness of their own more than others have they must be justified as others are by the righteousness of another Because all have sinned therefore all that are justified must be justified by Grace and none can be justified otherwise So also is the extent to be taken Rom. 11.32 God hath concluded them all in unbelief that he might have mercie upon all that is each people Jew as well as Gentile Rom. 5.18 By the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men to justification of life Answ The meaning is that as all that sprang from the first Adam as their head or root were guiltie of Death so all that belong to the second Adam are partakers of life the very next verse before there is a restraint to them that receive the abundance of Grace Gal. 3.22 The Scripture hath concluded all under sin that the promise might be given to them that beleeve Is it not the constant Doctrine of the Bible that the benefit Christs Death as to life and justification and forgiveness is limited to them that hear and to them that come To them that eat and drink of him to them that beleeve and to them that obey will nothing serve with you to mitigate and mollifie the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the rigidum and the aridum of the letter but that against reason against so many Parallel places and the generally received Doctrine of Christians the universalitie of mankinde must be intended It may be you regard the testimonie of Conradus Vorstius more than you do some others hear his words in his Commentarie upon the Epistle to the Romanes ch 5. v. 18. Apparet eos graviter errare qui ex hoc loco colligere conantur omnes omnino homines per Christi gratiam actu regenerari justificari nec perinde quenquam perire posse nisi qui acceptam gratiam malitiosè suâque impaenitentiâ atque incredulitate novam Dei indignationem sibi attrahere velit Quae sententia haud dubie valde periculosa est That is It is evident that those men are in a grievous errour that from this place endeavour to gather that all men whosoever are by Christs grace actually regenerate and justified and that none do perish but such as wilfully reject this grace and through unbelief draw upon themselves a second time Gods wrath and indignation which opinion out of all doubt is very pernicious Yet this opinion you contend for with all your might as if it were as true as the Gospel as if it were the very Gospel and as if all that gainsay it were hinderers of the Gospel Concerning the equalitie of Gods love towards men you refer me to your Essays where you say thus pag. 20. He may take his own libertie to give more or less as he pleases and yet deal equally and graciously with all Which is either a manifest contradiction or a sophistical ambiguitie Gods ways are equal that is just whether he give more or less yet are they not equal that is is alike to all because he giveth to one more than to another CHAP. XXIV Reasons why the remedie should be general HOW doth it appear that such holders of it love others seeing they are my adversaries for holding it because I hold it not in all things as they do Is enmitie to a man because he is not of their minde a signe of love For he says not they be my dissenting brethren but my adversaries God grant their other frames be righter for not he that commends himself c. I intended not to commend my self nor all that are of my minde in these matters but spake indefinitely of your adversaries if but some if but a few it is sufficient And I hope you will never infect your own partie with that dangerous point as you count it of Pharisaisme to say Non sumus sicut caeteri though now you are readie to censure us for this and to suspect us for the rest But as not he that commends himself is always the best no more is he that is the forwardest to censure others There is difference betwixt an adversarie and an enemie howbeit you by vertue of your trope called confusion do make them all one May not a man wage law against his friend and yet
the Law of Moses were matters hard to be understood by the Jews and in which were many perplexities yet were plainly delivered by the Apostle The impossibility of Apostates repentance and renovation was plainly taught yet attended with difficulties and wrested by the Novatians So is the final period of the world foretold in holy Scripture yet are there many obscurities about it and many errours The Resurrection of the dead is fully and manifestly declared and confirmed yet because it was hard to be understood and beleeved it was wrested to this sense as if it were already past whether interpreted of rising from the death of sin or any other way These particular doctrines now by me named are by divers diversly conjectured to be intended by S. Peter as well as that doctrine to which you apply his words Gods gracious and free Election likewise final Perseverance are evidently taught by the Apostle Peter 1 Epist ch 1. ver 2 and 5. as well as by the Apostle Paul Rom. 8.29 30. and in the chief part of the ninth chapter And because these things are hard to be yeelded to and hard to be received and because there be many things belonging thereto that are secret and unfathomable let not therefore that which is plainly taught be either denied or in such a manner interpreted and perverted that it amounts to a denial You and yours have so gone to work that to an ordinarie capacitie the chapter spoken of is made scarce intelligible You say God decreed not to choose particular persons but to choose all such as beleeve the promises of the Gospel and to refuse all such as seek justification by works whereas certainly had there ever been any such decree made then Paul had never been chosen who was a law-worker as you call it So were many of the Jews and Pharisees who yet were brought to life eternal And whereas the Apostle teacheth Election and Salvation to be Not of man that worketh willeth er runneth but of God that sheweth mercy you have so wrested it that now it is Not of man that willeth or worketh but of man that beleeveth and continueth in Faith and Repentance to his lives end And indeed if Election be of such as such who persevere in Faith and Repentance then is Election of workers in respect of their works namely Beleeving and Repenting and Persevering which are works all of them belonging to Gods law And thus have you overthrown your own doctrine which you have devised wherewith to overthrow the doctrine of S. Paul Sect. 12. It is one thing to look boldly another that it may do so Humane frailties hinder not Christian boldness But he that saith I may look boldly doth there-withall and in so saying look boldly indeed Now you made your book look boldly whether it might do so or no when you taught it to say in the Preface that it might look your worst Adversaries boldly in the face And although he that hath humane frailties may look boldly yet his humane frailties may not and if he saith they may he doth then justifie his frailties And thus much for your Preface or first Chapter CHAP. II. The word Creatours I Shall put him in minde where he may read it in Ainsworth upon Psal 149. The Christian Churches never forbad us to read Eccles 12.1 in the Hebrew tongue or to turn it into English according to its proper force or Idiome You have helped me where to finde the word in our language but that it is found in our Church I cannot admit for you know that Ainsworth was a professed Separatist from the Church of England It was somewhat boldly done of him to turn it so who yet in his Title professed to explain the Hebrew words but it was far more boldly done of you to learn the children at the very first to speak so As you have helped me to the notice of one so will I in lieu of him help you to the notice of another whom perhaps you have not yet observed or if you have I dare say you never before took notice of one of his places which he hath added to yours and Ainsworths It is Th. Br. of N. in a small tract published last year His fourth instance is in these words Eph. 2.12 And ye were without Gods in the world so it is in the Greek plurally but it is falsty tran slated God singularly as if there were but one God in the Trinity I hope there is a mean on this side the Tridentine Restraint without such libertie as many men affect who are afraid that they shall not be known but pass in obscurity and not be counted more learned and judicious than others are if they do not mend and alter something or other though it be without exception generally received and of long continuance AEneas Sylvius before he was Pope or Cardinal or Bishop was Secretary to Frederick the Emperour and having indited some letters at his first coming to the employment he sent the copy to a Bishop then living at the Court who procured him that preferment desiring him to examine it and alter what he should finde needed alteration who soon after returned him again his copie in sundry places blotted but no way bettered having put out divers words here one and there another placing such in their stead as were no way so fit and proper and when the Secretarie asked him the reason and what he misliked in those words that he thus corrected Atqui said the Bishop non vidisse me scripta tua suspectare poteras si nihil immutatum reperisses you would have thought I never read or perused your writing had you received it again just such as you sent it to me I could wish that those men who are forward to show their diligence and their skill in the learned languages or perhaps their ignorance as it hapned in the instance I now gave you by mending the vulgar version would innovate in matters of less moment for these be indeed above any profanae vocum novitates I know it is one thing to teach that such a point of Faith is implyed in such an Hebrew Idiom another thing to teach children and common people to use the plural number upon pretence of drawing the Church to the Scripture Christian Churches forbid not to read Eccles 12.1 in Hebrew but they are against rendring every word just as it is in that language as their practice doth plainly witness And would you indeed that the English Bible should begin in the same manner and with the same pretence that you began your Catechisme withall The Gods created heaven and earth I hope you would not and yet you are in the way to it And though you teach your scholars at your fourth Question to answer There is but one God yet if they be wonted to read or hear that word in the plural and be used so to speak will they not go near to forget your Answer in your Catechisme and
so extraneous Per sexdecim paginas exâ—urrit D. Grotius in alia ea excutienda relinquam iis quorum interest that is I leave the matters contained in so many pages to those that are concerned in them As for the person understood and concealed although I think he may be better known by some other tokens there specified than by Latinè non didicit yet my chief aim being now to demonstrate who it was not it is reason I should be so courteous to him in suppressing his name as Grotius was who yet had receiued at his hands no small cause of distast And in this I have followed that great example But he who thought it not impertinent to render odious a person of so great note of such merit and praise in the Churches upon no other ground that I know but because he was not of his own opinion in those things wherein libertie of dissent was wont to be pleaded for and pressed must not think me curious or over-busie while I have done what I can to wipe off so unworthy a blur from the names of the illustrious Hugo Grotius and Doctour Rivet CHAP. V. The prepared Sacrifice Sect. 1 2 3. I Said not he offered up himself in heaven but in his ascending ihto heaven Strictly the offering of the sacrifice was either the act of the man bringing it to the Priest be-before the slaying of it or the act of the Priest and that after it was slain causing the savour of it to go up by fire toward heaven His yeelding up himself to obey and suffer yea humbling himself and obeying to the death though acts of sacrificing and of the sacrifice offering it self to be sacrificed were but preparatorie to his Priestly oblation strictly so called in in which the virtues of his bloud went up to God and was in the eternal Spirit the altar and fiery love of it carryed up into heaven a spotless Sacrifice Strictly the offering of the sacrifice was that which you have omitted namely the killing of it in relation to God That which you call the oblation of the sacrifice was a thing consequent upon the oblation or at most the compleating of the oblation that is the burning of part of it and the ascending of the fire and smoke For this is the nature of sacrificing which I shall now tell you The The Priest is the officer or Mediatour betwixt God and Man Man offereth his gift to God when he wholly resigneth up his gift to him this is done partly and preparatively by himself in the presentation principally and fully by the Priest in the mactation or slaying of it The Priest killing the Sacrifice at the foot of the altar doth then mans part in offering to God mans gift Now hath man done offering In the next place God doth by his Priest dispose of the gift being thus made his How his altar devoureth one part the Priest and the people the other If therefore you would rightly know the true nature of sacrifices among the Jews you must consider them not onely as exercises of obedience and divine worship in the general or as acknowledgements that death was the stipend of sin or as shadows and types that Christ should die for the sins of the world though all these they were But further they are to be considered as Federal rites or signes of a Covenant Friendship or Agreement betwixt God and man As always feasting or eating together was a Symbol of familiarity amitie and mutual consent Psal 41. My familiar friend that did eat my bread and 1 Cor. 5.11 by those words With such an one no not to eat familiaritie is forbidden 1 Cor. 10. We are one body because we are partakers of one bread Thus the Altar is called Gods Table Ezek. 41.22 and in the first of Malachi The Table of the Lord is contemptible and the sacrifices are called Bread there they offered polluted Bread upon the altar when they offered the blinde and the lame for sacrifice Levit. 21.6 The offerings of the Lord made by fire and the Bread of their God they do offer Bread it is well known in phrase of Scripture signifieth all that is eaten Malach. 1.12 His meat is contemptible Levit. 3.16 The Priest shall burn them upon the altar it is the Food of the offering made by fire God is brought in in figure and allusion or analogically as eating what is burnt upon the altar Calvins words upon the place last named are these Notatur familiaris Dei cum populo suo communicatio ac si communem cum illis haberet mensam se cultoribus suis convivam facere dignatus est that is When the part of the sacrifice which was burnt upon the altar is said to be Gods Meat or Food it noteth that God is pleased familiarly to converse with his people and as it were to feast together on the same feast with them And to the same purpose Grotius Annot. in Evag. p. 451. Quasi scilicet amicorum more communes cum ipsis epulas sumeret As humane passions are in a borrowed manner ascribed to God after the same manner was eating in the burning of the sacrifices in the time of the Old Testament In the fiftieth Psalm when it is said Thinkest thou that I will eat Bulls flesh though it be denied of God in a gross and carnal manner and as if he needed it or did it out of hunger yet is it even there intimated as true in a figurative signification And it would never have been denied had there been no colour for it no likelihood of it had there been no likeness of it more or less The altar and the fire of the altar do take Gods portion the rest the Priest and people eat 1 Cor. 9.13 They which wait on the altar are Partakers of the altar The altar taketh part and they take part as servants usually wait on their master make ready the meat serve him til he hath eaten and afterwards they eat Thus did the Levites make the dinner ready the Priests attended upon the table that is Gods altar where he is supposed as it were to eat and afterward they did take their share and feed upon the reversion Praecerptos cibos as Minucius Felix calleth the meats that were left of the heathen sacrifices So that the act of offering was past before the fire came to be kindled although the gift that was offered did remain there readie to be burned They who rendred Idolothyta things offered to idols did not think that the offering consisted in the burning for then the ashes must be eaten there being nothing else left Incense was offered strictly when it was burnt but strictly Beasts were offered when they were slain though they might be said to be offered too in some fort when they were consumed by fire And the reason which you seem to give out of the Texts in Leviticus chap. 1. and 3. is as weak as water It is called a Burnt-offering made by
fire doth the offering therefore consist in the burning No but that which was before offered is now burnt and there is the Burnt-offering or the offering made by fire or the offering fired And you know well enough that other languages give not the least colour for this your new conceit whatsoever the English with some that are ignorant may do And if the whole Burnt-offering one kinde of sacrifice were called so as you say from ascension it doth not follow thence that the offering consisted in the ascending And whereas you make application of this your fansie that Christs Priestly oblation should strictly be when he went unto God and was carryed up to heaven you do after your wonted manner confound Christs oblation with his Ascension and his state of Humiliation with his state of Exaltation Hebr. 9.25 26. Nor yet that he should offer himself often for then must he often have suffered Doth not the Apostle say plainly here to your understanding that Jesus did offer himself then when he suffered and in his suffering And although you say It is one thing to offer himself in heaven which you meant not and another to offer himself in his ascending into heaven which was your meaning yet in your page 22. you declare yourself plainly for the Socinians teaching that the purgation was made in heaven so you contradict one falshood with another Your words are Yea how did his sacrifice purge the heavenly things themselves but by his entring in once into the heavens as Hebr. 9.23 where also in v. 26. his offering himself is made by the Apostle to answer to the high Priests entring once into the holy place In what sense soever it was that the heavenly things were purged or purified or dedicated it was by that which was done on earth and not by that which was done in heaven Neither doth the Apostle v. 26. oppose the high Priests entrance into the holy place to Christs entrance into heaven but the high Priests entrance into the holy place with the bloud of others to Christs entrance into heaven with his own bloud that is the vertue and merit of his own bloud Still you deceive your self or your Reader with the ambiguity of the word offer as if there were no difference betwixt presenting himself and offering sacrifice Sect. 4. That the Altar was the Cross a great mistake Matth. 23. Which is greater the gift or the altar that sanctifyeth the gift by which reason they make the cross greater than Christ as sanctifying him When the Altar is said to be the Cross the meaning is that as sacrifices were offered or slain at the altar not upon it but at the foot of the altar or as Revel 6.9 uuder the altar so was Jesus Christ offered and slain upon the cross neither is there any fear from the words of our Saviour though the altar be called the cross because as Christ was in divers respects The sacrifice which was offered and the Priest that offered and the altar that sanctifyed the sacrifice so might the cross in another respect be called the altar because there he died for these two being mutually related so that where there is a sacrifice there is an altar also whether we make the altar to be the cross or the Divine nature as you call it the fierie love of it or whatsoever it be that beareth most proportion to other altars still we shall finde there will be some dissimilitude betwixt this altar and that upon which the sacrifices were wont to be burnt And whereas you compare the ascending of the smoke of the sacrifice which God is said to smell as a sweet savour unto Christs ascending into heaven It is Christs Passion not his Ascension in which God was well pleased as with the smoke of the burnt-offerings Eph. 5.2 Christ loved and gave himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour He gave himself for us when he was crucifyed and then was his love shewed to us when he laid down his life for us And accordingly is our justification ascribed to his bloud or death 1 Joh. 1.7 The bloud of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin Revel 1.5 He hath washed us from our sins in his bloud and chap. 5.9 Thou hast redeemed us unto God by thy bloud Contrary to your doctrine therefore I may boldly affirm That Christs death upon the cross was that which did answer fulfill effect and accomplish both the killing of the beasts and the burning of them also The question with you is about this latter Hebr. 13. V. 11 12. The bodies of those beasts whose bloud is brought into the Sanctuary by the high Priest for sin are burnt without the camp wherefore Jesus also that he might sanctifie the people with his own bloud suffered without the gate Hence is proved invincibly that the crucifying of Jesus Christ was typifyed and prefigured by the burning of the beast and that it did perfect and compleat the sacrifice of him as much as the sacrificing of the beast was finished and completed then when it was burnt and consumed to ashes His note from Hebr. 9.26 28. That to suffer and offer and die are made the very same thing is a gross mistake to offer was active to suffer was passive These three were in that case the verie same thing howbeit the words differ in their severall significations If it were true which you now teach in this matter That Christs oblation of himself consisted in his ascension into heaven you might very well say that his oblation and ascension are the very same thing yet to offer is one thing and to ascend is quite another You have many a nimium nihil just like this same in this chapter which I passe by but this I have noted that our Reader may observe how little heed is to be taken to you when you call aloud A gross mistake or use any the like false and deceitfull out-crie He is too much to blame that observeth your custome and will trust you And thus much for this Socinian chapter CHAP. VI. Head of the Church FOr your first Section I direct the Reader to the Review and for your second where you would prove the Apostles to be not temporary but of perpetual standing because it is said Ephes 4. Till we all come c. I answer it is sufficient for verifying these words that some of the officers namely Pastours and Teachers continue to the end of the world And secondly The writings of the Apostles do abide still and the Gospel preached by them at first is brought along to our times and as our blessed Saviour saith Joh. 15.16 Their fruit remaineth and yet it cannot well be said in common manner of speech and you leave us to guess at your meaning when you say the Apostles are of perpetual standing Sect. 4. pag. 33. I did relate what was done in the time of Henry VIII without any desire to harm you
1 Cor. 15.24 speaketh of the second kinde of Kingdome which shall at the end of the world cease when the Churches warfare shall have an end and her immediate communion with God shall begin when the blessed and glorious Trinitie shall be all things in all men shall supply the want or absence of all things there shall not be because there shall be no need of them Magistrate Minister Word Sacrament Temple Sun or Moon Then cometh the end you tell us that then or deinceps should be afterwards but others think it were better rendred mox statim that is by and by or presently after Strange that the Apostle should say Every one in his own order and yet finde no order or time for the resurrection of the unjust if there be it is not mentioned with the just Answer Under this Unusquisque no other are comprehended but Christ they that are Christs the term here reacheth no further you may finde just and unjust mentioned elswhere Acts 24.15 I have hope towards God that there shall be a resurrection of the dead both of the just and the unjust The twentieth chapter of the Revelation the fourth and sixth verses do imply two Resurrections the first and the last yet not both of the bodie but one of the soul from the death of sin and errour during this world The other of the bodie out of the dust of the earth at the end of this world These two resurrections are plainly and distinctly laid down by our Saviour in the fifth chapter of S. Johns Gospel the first in the 25 verse The hour is coming and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God and they that hear shall live The second in the 28 and 29 verses The hour is coming when all that are in the graves shall hear his voice and shall come forth It 's a Resurrection after they had been beheaded and therefore not in this life time now if that be not the last Resurrection then there is a Resurrection follows in which the rest shall rise ver 5.12 I answer but I neither rehearse nor retort your insulting words The fourth verse speaketh neither of bodies nor of resurrection but of souls onely and expresly I saw the souls of them that were beheaded and they lived and reigned to wit in heavenly glorie it is not said they rose again or lived again But the rest of the dead lived not again That is Satan detained many still in Paganism and Antichristianism who would not rise out of sin and errour Until the thousand years were finished That is Not all that time of Satans binding not that they rose afterward but they rose not at all it is not a limitation of the time but an absolute denial This is the first Resurrection Which is as if he had said thus This living again that I speak of is to be understood of the first Resurrection which is from the death in sin and I pray mark it well It is not the same life or kinde of living that is affirmed of those in the fourth verse and denied of those in the fifth it is said of those quod vixerint that they lived of these quod revixerint that they lived again And betwixt these two there is not to be conceived any Synonymus contradiction but a diversitie Metaphorical Those in the fourth verse lived the life of glorie those of the fifth verse did not arise or live again to the life of grace And you unskilfully put together the fifth verse with the twelfth whereas the fifth speaketh of the first Resurrection the twelfth of the second or last which is of the bodie at the day of Judgement Because you say that though you speak besides the ordinary rode yet you speak not besides the Scriptures I would desire your scholars whom you instructed in the Doctrine of the Millenarians though very obscurely in your Catechisme and have added now an explication or vindication of it That they would read over that chapter which you refer them to and which hath from the beginning of this errour been accounted the principal place of Scripture giving countenance to such belief that is the twentieth chapter of the Revelaion you say the dead in Christ shall rise first and reign with him a thousand years and then the rest shall rise to judgement of condemnaion by themselves apart Now in reading this chapter they shall finde that after the thousand years are expired there followeth what The Resurrection of the ungodly no. But Satan loosed Cog and Magog going forth to battel with armies of innumerable souldiers making war against the Saints and which are to be devoured with fire from heaven And whence should these wicked ones be there were none but the just living upon the earth for the rest of the dead lived not again for all that time If they read on to the 12 verse there Saint John seeth the general judgement at the last when both sea and land give up their dead they were judged every man according to their works good as well as bad and they were condemned who were not written in the book of life not those who were not raised at the first Resurrection And if the chief authority of Scripture for your opinion be so palpably impertinent and the proof taken thence so weak how weak is your opinion So much for the Scriptures which you bring Now we are to consider the judgement of the ancient orthodox To say nothing that Justin Martyr one of the ancientest of the primitive writers tells us that in his times all that were in all things orthodox Christians so beleeved Dial. with Tryph. So also Tertull lib. 3. contra Marc. and Lactant. lib. 7. the Reader that hath the books may if he please consult them I study brevitie You would not name Cerinthus who was somewhat more ancient though much more heterodox yet he it was who broached the opinion you speak of so witnesseth Saint Augustine in his eight book of heresies He held it indeed in a more gross manner some of the fathers following refined it from the more feculent parts Justin Martyr had it from the Jews with whom he conversed and his opinion is meerly Judaical that Jerusalem shall be built again enlarged and beautified and that the Prophets and the Patriarchs the Jews and the Proselytes who were before Christs coming shall meet there in a joyfull manner but not that all they who belong to Christ shall be raised with them as you teach And secondly you would not let us know because you studied brevitie what authorities your authours had for that their belief though fairly you give us leave to consult them Now I finde that the first place brought by the first of your three is out of Isa 65.22 As the days of a tree are the days of my people the meaning whereof is to be gathered from the words next before the similitude is taken from the matter there spoken
blessings a sure foundation to them that beleeve in him he abideth firm as a rock though we and all men that now cleave to him come to suffer shipwrack one after another Therefore that is no way likely to be the scope of the place Next is to be considered whether our Saviour Jesus Christ be chosen to salvation In the funeral sermon upon which you wrote your exercitations called them Essays when you met with that saying That there should be any one chosen was the infinite free mercy of God in Christ you would scarce admit it to pass under your approbation unless with this your interpretation It was Gods infinite mercie to choose and save one man even the man Christ Jesus which proposition of yours howsoever you may please your self therein hath little salt or savour in it For then is God mercifull when he helpeth his creatures out of miserie To save and mercie in saving these terms in all reason suppose a lost estate It was infinite mercie in God to send a Saviour but to save a Saviour comes too near the scoff of the Jews If thou be the king of Israel save thy self There is little hope of him being a Saviour that standeth in need himself to be saved What they said had thus much of truth in it He who needed a Saviour was not likely to save others Howbeit that Death from which they would have him save himself was the means to save us Was not Christ chosen to life and salvation as man could any part of the seed of David or Abraham have escaped death or been glorified in life had it not been chosen of God thereto and that by Christs dying Here you implie and teach plainly enough that Christ by his own dying escaped death and attained the life of glory and that he came to save himself as well as others And this were not so ill as it is if want of sense were the worst For death being the stipend of sin if Jesus Christ had need by reason of the common law and manner of men to save himself from Death then how could he be our high Priest holy and undefiled and separate from sinners and a spotless sacrifice offered on our behalf There is no Christian that hath learned his Creed and been well instructed in those words of the third Article conceived by the holy Ghost but must needs take check at what you have here written That which is born of the flesh is flesh The imputation and the pollution of Adams sin are conveyed to all his posteritie by natural or carnal generation But Jesus Christ as man was conceived supernaturally and that stream or flux of original sin which universally and uninterruptedly descended upon mankinde from the first Adam was cut off and stopped by the miraculous work of the holy Ghost so that Christs humane nature was not defiled thereby but was preserved free from all taint and touch of the flesh or sinfull corruption And because as he was man he had no father therefore is he said to be FACTUS Rom. 1.3 and Gal 4.4 not Genitus not begotten but made made of a woman or of the substance of his mother and because he was so and that by the holy Ghost Ideo quod nascetur sanctum Luke 1.35 Therefore that which was born of her was holy perfectly exempted from sin and the guilt of sin otherwise than as the took upon him the sin and guilt of others You quote two places for your purpose Zach. 9.9 Thy king cometh having salvation or saving himself you choose to take it passively with the Jews who take occasion hence to calumniate rather than actively with the most and best interpreters Christ was called Jesus because he saved his people not because he was saved or if it be said that he saved himself it was that he might not be swallowed up of Death after his passion The other text is Hebr. 5.7 He offered prayers to him that was able to save him from Death and was heard this is spoken of bodily Death which our Saviour did in some sort for a time shrink from praying that the cup might pass from him and he was saved from Death so as that he triumphed over Death or if you understand it of his prayer upon the cross what is that to salvation from Death eternal and the wrath of God in the world to come which salvation we stood in need of but he needed not Lastly We are to consider whether onely Christ and none else be personally chosen Now although this be your Doctrine plainly yet you will not allow me to gather it out of the Answer in your Catechism which in effect and in brief was this Election is that whereby God did choose Jesus Christ to be united to the Godhead and all that beleeve in him to blessing Here I observed thus All in general none in particular not any determinately Hereunto you make answer I thought the general had included the particulars not excluded them I am sure in stead of having new Doctrines he hath new Logick All in general therefore none in particular I answer first A General doth include every particular but All in general doth not include any one in particular And secondly the Generals where-ever they are include the particulars but where the generals are onely upon supposition it is possible the particulars may have no positive being Whosoever doth perfectly keep the law of God shall be saved This proposition is true in the general yet in particular no one person in the world shall be saved by keeping the law of God So when it is said whosoever beleeveth shall be saved this being the Election which you teach there may in the event be some particular person saved but as to the choice no one particular person is chosen before another because they are all without any difference beforehand Neither said I All in general Therefore none in particular It should be supplied thus nevertheless none in particular and I have told you who of your own partie held that though salvation be intended to all yet possibly to none particular it may befall And let me tell you now what you heard not yet from me that the second part of the Definition that you give of Election is a mock-answer as well as the first For as the first part is of the union of the two natures in one person that is the Incarnation So the second is concerning the Gospel but not at all concerning Election For what is the Gospel He that beleeveth shall be saved Mark 16.16 The preaching of Christ crucified to save them that beleeve 1 Cor. 1.21 And this is that very thing which you in words metaphorical others of your partie in words more proper do call Election both removing the old terms bounds and words faulting modern systemes to make way for new-coined opinions The Gospel proffers life upon condition of beleeving As the Law did upon condition of working Gods
be his friend still they that plead the causes of other men are adversaries one to another and yet out of the court agree well enough among themselves May not one Christian Prince wage war against another Prince and yet be in Christian Charitie he may And what do you call them that call you adversarie You call them the pretended orthodox which is a term more censorious by far and more supercilious then adversarie which hath no hurt in it I am your advarsarie and you are mine and no man thinketh amiss of us for this unless perhaps he mislike the cause why we are so And thus much shall serve for this hungrie cavil and also for this chapter CHAP. XXV Signes of Gods love IN the second section you explain your self and what your meaning is when you usually teach that we should not gather Gods love to us by faith obedience new frames and repentance namely we may gather by these that the benefits of Christs passion are applied to us for our spiritual life but we must not gather by them that the Remedie is provided for us This will I beleeve to have some truth or at least some reason in it when I shall beleeve that there was ever any Christian that did search into his own heart and seek there for good desires and good affections and inclinations to the intent he might thence conclude and know assuredly that Jesus Christ died for all men in the world or when you can shew me who he was that ever yet taught any Christian to do so You made profession in your fourth page above That you armed the children against the dangers and deceits of the pretended orthodox as Antidotes are to be given against the present reigning diseases Now their doctrine is that a Christian person from the fruits of sanctification in his thoughts words and works and especially from the frame and disposition position of his heart may gather the love of God and the benefits of Christs death for his glorification in heaven This was the reigning disease this was the Doctrine against which you framed your Antidote and not against this that we should take heed how we conclude from fruits of holiness that the Son of God offered a sacrifice for the sins of all the world or that he is the Saviour of all men especially of them that beleeve I cannot imagine you spake against that which never any man did or was taught to do but against that rather which all good Christians do practise except those that are commonly called Antinomians There is a seal of Gods spirit which is in this life set upon those that are his and by which he will own them at the last and is not set upon those that are none of his This difference you cannot endure should be made or spoken of He is a Pharisee that is not as other men are but if he gives thanks to God that he is better than others better than this Publican or suppose then this malefactour or this traytour which he seeth or heareth to be executed This this is the poison that needeth the Antidote this is Pharisaisme that must be cried down this is the spirit that must cast out this must be followed upon all opportunities and occasions I noted before how you plied this point in one of your funeral sermons and in another which you preached the year before upon Prov. 14.32 pag. 12. your words are But thou wouldest have some signe or token of the truth of this as concerning thee from him in something to be done by him to thy soul then doest thou as that adulterous generation Mat. 12.39 which Christ reprooveth seeking signes and tokens and if thou shouldest persist in that way thou maist be given up to delusion to believe a lie But when the Apostle in the second Epistle to the Corinthians and the last chapter biddeth them Examine themselves whether they be in the faith and prove their own selves did he bid them do that for which our Saviour reprooved the Scribes and Pharisees Thus you teach but they are deluded that believe you You cōplain Brief Disc pag. 21. That too many of the Teachers love to slumber and content themselves with Dreams in stead of searching out the Truth and giving it forth to the people Is this the truth you have searched for and found it out at last to impart to the people or what shall we call a sick mans dream I will suppose that most of your Auditors had sormerly learned and could then remember that part of the Church-Catechisme wherein they were taught to professe and rehearse after this manner I believe in God the Father who hath made me and all the world and in God the Son who hath redeemed me and all mankind and in God the holy Ghost who sanctifieth me and all the elect people of God And I will suppose also that some good Christian well weighing these words with himself should not rest contented with the common love of God who created all things and hateth nothing that he hath made nor with that generall love of Christ whereby he redeemed all mankind but should endeavour further to finde that he is sanctified by the holy Ghost having heard that there is a seal of the Spirit and every seal is more than a signe but a signe it is having heard also of the fruits of the Spirit Gal. 5. If now this person should be perswaded by you and your Sermon that if he goeth on in this way he is descended of that wicked and adulterous generation of the Scribes and Pharisees that tempted God and provoked our Saviour by calling for signes I cannot think you have done any good service for his soule but rather that he forsakes the right way and gives over the truth to be abused by you When we look for fruits of Faith this is not to enquire whether Christ died for us or not for he dyed for all but whether the holy Ghost hath sanctified us or not because he sanctifieth only the elect people of God and consequently whether we have Christs death applyed to us according to his speciall intention If you had perceived any of your people so fond as to apply that reproof Mat. 12.39 for confirmation of the doctrine you elsewhere teach By the place and office you are in and by your skill and learning in Logick and Languages you should have informed them that a Signe there signifies a Miracle or a Wonder above the sphere and force of nature as Isa 7. Ask thee a signe aske it in the depth or in the height above And Mark 16. The Apostles confirmed the word with signes following much less ought you to have put such a conceit into their heads as if when they examined their own hearts as the Apostle biddeth them they were as blame-worthy as some Atheist or Epicurean who after all the Demonstration which he daily seeth should demand some miracle some signe or proof extraordinary