Law it might have availed to Salvation as well as the Gospel with the supplemental righteousness of Christ there might have been an imputed righteousness as well under the Law as under the Gospel I answer That I conceive that the Moral Law delivered by Moses obliges us Christians as I have before proved and I suppose our Church is of that mind too for I cannot imagine that she should in her Catechism instruct Children in an abrogated Law How there should be an imputed Righteousness without a Gospel I know not it pleased God to found the Gospel upon a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a satisfaction and that cannot be or be profitable to us without an imputation The impotency of the Law was as I noted before that it could not justifie us for want of perfect obedience But God translated the impletion of the Law upon Christ and his Righteousness being made ours by imputation the Law is said to be fulfilled in us To the same purpose the Apostle discourses Mr. Sherlock Rom. 7.4 5 6. Wherefore my Brethren you also are become dead to the Law by the body of Christ who put an end to that imperfect dispensation by his death that you should be married to another even to him who is raised from the dead that we should bring forth fruit unto God for when we were in the flesh under that carnal and fleshly dispensation of the Law of Moses the motions of sins which were by the Law which grew more boisterous and unruly by the prohibitions of the Law vers 8. did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death That is did betray us to those wicked actions which end in death But now we are delivered from the Law that being dead in which we were held that we should serve in newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the Letter So that the reason why the Law of Moses was abrogated was because it could not make men good it nursed them up in a ritual external Religion taught them to serve God in the Letter by Circumcision Sacrifices or external conformity to the Letter of the Law but the Gospel of Christ alone teacheth us to worship God in the Spirit to offer a reasonable Sacrifice to him to fulfill the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all the internal Righteousness of which those legal Ceremonies were the Signs and Sacraments This is the plain meaning of the Apostles which can never be reconciled with imputed Righteousness which would make his argument foolish and absurd Therefore he tells us in other places what little reason we have to be so zealous for the Law of Moses since we have the perfection of it in the Gospel what need is there of the circumcision of the flesh which the Law required When in the Gospel we have the circumcision made without hands 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of that fleshly circumcision What need of legal washing and purgations When they are all fulfilled in the washing of regeneration in the Gospel baptism Thus we are compleat in Christ who bath perfectly instructed us in the will of God and instiluted such a Religion as is the perfection of all Ceremonies Col. 2. We must now offer another Sacrifice than the Law of Moses commanded not the Sacrifices of dead beasts but of a living and active soul Rom. 12. The Apostle Answer Rom. 7. vers 4. Shews that we are dead to the Law by the body of Christ that is by Christ crucified we have remission and the holy Spirit and so are dead to the cursing and irritating power of the Law that we might bring forth fruits of holy works to God Before when we were in the flesh in our corrupt unregenerate estate the motions of sin which were accidentally irritated by the Law did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death that is to bring forth sinful actions which tend to death vers 5. But now saith the Apostle we are delivered from the Law from the curse and irritating power of it That being dead wherein we were held that we should serve in newness of Spirit and not in the oldness of the Letter vers 6. That is in those new Divine Prinples which our spirits have from Gods not in the old nature which by the outward Letter of the Law is irritated unto sin This I think is the scope of the Apostle he discourses of the regenerate and unregenerate the one dead to the Law the other irritated by it he discourses not of the difference between those under the Old Testament and those under the New for the regenerate under the Old Testament were dead to the cursing and irritating Law they had internal Righteousness which the Author calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they had the circumcision of the heart Deut. 30.6 which in the Author is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the fleshly circumcision they had the law in the heart Psal 37.31 And by consequence they had true regeneration in which saith our Author all the legal washings and purifications are fulfilled they were not irritated by the Law but delighted in it as in their joy choice treasure hony-comb of sweetness and what not as appears in the Psalms They served in the newness of the Spirit in new Divine Principles which they had from the holy Spirit in the easiness of the New Creature to which the Will of God is natural Even in their Rituals and Sacrifices they knew all must be done in newness of Spirit in the exercises of internal Graces The very Heathens themselves thought that they were to Sacrifice Mente candidâ expurgatâ conscientiâ How much more did the servants of God under the Old Testament do so they knew that there were better Sacrifices than the outward ones Sacrifices of righteousness Psal 4.5 And sacrifices of a broken spirit Psal 50.17 They understood that the heart the truth in the inward parts was more than all the rest On the other hand the unregenerate under the New Testament they are in the flesh the motions of sin carry all before them they have nothing of internal Righteousness they are uncircumcised in heart as well as in flesh they are baptized yet want the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of regeneration they are irritated by the Law their inward malignity swells and rises against the holy commands which stand in Scripture as so many damms and bars to their impetuous lusts Whatever they do in Evangelical Ordinances they do all in the oldness of the Letter the Letter the outward Rule presses them to Duty but there is no inward acting of Faith no suavity of Love or holy Affections all is done in a dead dull flat manner nothing is minded but the opus operatum the meer external work By this we see clearly where the difference lies It s true the Ceremonials of Moses were abrogated by Christ but I suppose the Moral Law was not it s own intrinsecal Rectitude and Righteousness immortalizes it so
Answer who is acquainted with himself may learn his own impotency to good from the inward pressure of corruption which is in him However the Apostle in that 2 to the Ephesians doth notably decypher it out to us there he speaks not so much of a spiritual Death in actual customary sins as of such a Death in Original corruption for he opposes it to quickning Grace which by divine Principles infused heals the same and a little after tells us that we are by nature the children of wrath Hoc uno verbo quasi fulmine totus homo quantus quantus est prosternitur saith Beza on the place this shews him dead indeed It 's true the Pelagians Contra Julian l. 6. c. 4. as St. Austin tells us would have omitted the word Nature and in stead thereof have read Prorsùs altogether children of wrath but the Church would not suffer it This spiritual Death in Sin is a total one it runs over all the Soul there are saith the Apostle lusts or desires of the Flesh the sensitive Faculties and of the Mind the rational Powers nothing is left in Man but what is dead in sin not a drop or a spark of Spiritual Life or true Grace For then a man should be naturally regenerate and under a Promise of that Evangelical Mercy which is indulged to the least measure of Grace though it be but as a smoking flax or bruised reed Man is wholly void of spiritual Life by Nature and hence it evidently appears that he is not able to reach so high as any spiritual Act such as Conversion is unless he be elevated above his own Line by supernatural Grace This is fully the Doctrine of our Church who tells us Man of his own nature is fleshly 1. Hom. for Whitsunday carnal corrupt naught sinful disobedient without any spark of goodness in him And in another place The condition of Man Article the 10th after the Fall of Adam is such that he cannot turn and prepare himself by his own natural strength and good works to Faith and calling upon God Wherefore we have no power to do good Works pleasant and acceptable to God without the Grace of God preventing us that we may have a good Will and working with us when we have that good Will We are said to be created to good works Mr. Sherlock and to become new Creatures and therefore we can contribute no more to it than to our first Creation and we are born again which signifies that we are wholly passive in it Which were true indeed if our being created unto good works did signifie the Manner and Method of our Conversion and not the Nature of the new Creature which is the true meaning of it That as in the first Creation we are created after the Image of God so we are renewed after the Image of God in the second which is therefore expresly called in other places the renewing of our minds The new Creature is indeed after God and his Image Answer but it is also from him and his glorious Power in a way of Creation He takes it upon himself A new heart will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you Ezek. 36.26 His great Power is put forth in it Eph. 1.17 and it is brought forth in a way of Creation even as God commanded the light to shine out of darkness 2 Cor. 4.6 May there be a new Creature without a Creator Or may poor dead impotent Man without any spark of Goodness in himself be such Or if he cannot do it alone may he be a Co-creator with his Maker and put in for a share in so great a work No surely all must be ascribed to the Grace of God alone Non est devotionis dedisse prope totum sed fraudis retinuisse vel minimum saith Prosper We must not rob God of the least Atom in Nature For my own part were I as I am not under a necessity to do one I should rather think it tolerable to steal away the old World as the Manichees did than with the Pelagians to take away the new from him But suppose a man could indeeed as some have presumed new-make his own Heart after God's Image might it be called a Creation Is not that Title too high for any Creature and where doth the Scripture give such an one to Man 'T is God's Royal Prerogative to new-make the Heart Of his own will begat he us saith the Apostle Jam. 1.18 To this our Church agrees It is the holy Ghost 1. Hom. for Whitsunday and no other thing that doth quiken the Minds of Men and a little after He is the only worker of Sanctification and maketh us new men in Christ Jesus When this fails they take another course with Metaphors to make them serve their purpose that is by considering all the properties of those things Christ is compared to and applying all that will serve their turn to Christ without regarding the end to which they are used thus the Kingdom of Heaven is compared to a Pearl of great price Mat. 13. This Pearl signifies Christ who as Mr. Watson saith makes us worthy with his worthiness Though all the Parable means is that we should part with all for the Gospel Thus Christ was prefigured by the Manna this was circular and so a figure of Christs perfection it was meat dressed in Heaven and Christ was prepared of his Father it suited every ones palate and Christ suits every Christians condition he is full of quickning strengthning comforting virtue that is He is what every man fancies him to be relishes to their gusto what precious discoveries are here of Christ What irrefragable proofs for them Thus Christ is a Rock 1 Cor. 10. A rock for defence and for offence and for comfort to screen us from Gods wrath and contein the honey of the promises Christ is resembled by the brazen Serpent Brass as inferiour metal signifies his humanity and as solid metal the power of his Godhead it shines but doth not dazle the eyes and so signifies the Godhead veiled with Manhood thus the brazen Serpent was like a Serpent but no reall one so Christ was in the likeness of sinful flesh but no sinner the Serpent was lifted up to be looked on and so was Christ to be looked fiducially upon Never man so happy in expounding types never Serpent so subtil Thus Christ is a Vine a Vine is weak Christs humane nature was fain to be supported by the Divine the Vine grows in the Garden Christ in the Church not known amon the Heathen It had been more grand to have said that Christ made the Garden where he grows The Vine communicates to the Branches Christ to Believers the Vine hath rare fruit and the promises grow upon Christ the Blood of Christ is the wine which chears mans heart What fine work might a prophane wit make at this rate but further they jumble all together and prove
collectio sed fideles singuli rectè appellantur Templum quia in ipsorum mentibus Spiritus Dei habitat Mr. Sherlock Eaptism and the Lords Supper represent and signifie both our external and real union to Christ Baptism doth signifie to all baptized an admission into the Church Visible Answer and to Believers it seals the Mystical Union with Christ Thus the Apostle speaking of Believers such as are the children of God by faith in Christ Gal. 3.26 saith As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ you are mystically united to Christ and Baptism seals up that Union to you The Lord's Supper doth import to all receivers a Communion with the Visible Church and to Believers it seals the Mystical Union hence the cup is the Communion of Christs blood and the bread is the Communion of Christ's body 1 Cor. 10.16 The Greek word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and why was it not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 St. Chrysostome upon the words answers Because the Apostle would shew something more even 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a great Conjunction with Christ Baptism signifies our profession of becoming new men Mr. Sherlock of Conformity to Christ in his Death and Resurrection We are buried with Christ by Baptism into death that like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father even so we also should walk in newness of life Rom. 6.4 Baptism signifies our dying to sin and walking in newness of life He that is baptized into Christ hath put on Christ Gal. 3.27 that is hath engaged himself to be conformed to Christ's image and likeness Baptism signifies our profession of Conformity to Christ very well Answer But first of all it signifies our Union to him without which there can be no participation of his Death and Resurrection nor conformity thereunto In that place Gal. 3. putting on of Christ imports an Union with him and in that Rom 6. after that discourse of Conformity to Christ's Death and Resurrection the Apostle immediately raises up himself to the Fountain of that Conformity and tells us that we are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 implanted in the likeness of his death and resurrection ver 5. Aptissimâ translatione arctissimam illam nostri cum ipsa Christi substantiâ conjunctionem vivificam illam virtutem inde in nos manantem expressit saith Beza on the place The Apostle by that Metaphor of a Plant expresses our intimate Conjunction with the very Substance of Christ and the quickning virtue flowing from thence unto us to assimilate us to his Death and Resurrection Thus the Lord's Supper is a spiritual feeding on Christ Mr. Sherlock eating his flesh and drinking his blood which signifies the most intimate Vnion with him that we are flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone Eph. 5.30 That as we are redeemed by his death and so taken out of his crucified Body so by this spiritual feeding on Christ we are transformed into the same Nature with him as much as if we were of his flesh and bones This is eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ when the visible figures of his death and sufferings affect our minds with such a strong and passionate sense of his love to us and excite in us such a firm hope in God as transforms us into a divine Nature And this is our real Vnion to Christ In the Lord's Supper all true Believers feed upon Christ Answer Those words of our Saviour He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him Immanuel 52. Joh. 6.56 declare as the most Reverend Vsher hath it That by a mystical and supernatural Vnion we are as truly conjoyned with him as the meat and drink we take is with us And what this Mystical Union is the same Author tells us That it is made by the Spirit and Faith But saith our Author This spiritual feeding on Christ is when we are transformed into the divine Nature But I take it that transformation cannot possibly exist without a Mystical Union to Christ who is the great Treasury of Grace nor without the Spirit and Faith which are the bonds of that Union Therefore our Saviour tells us He that eateth me shall live by me Joh. 6.57 Spiritual Life follows after eating or Union to Christ No man saith the Reverend Vsher can participate in the benefits of Christ Serm. before the Commons 1620. except he first have comunion with Christ himself We must have the Son before we have Life and eat him we must that is as truly be made partakers of him as of our food if we will live by him The Apostle tells us how the divine Transformation comes Beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord we are changed into the same image from glory to glory as by the Spirit of the Lord 2 Cor. 3.18 The heavenly Change is from the two bands of the Mystical Union that is from the Spirit which is called the Spirit of the Lord and from Faith which is set forth by a transformative View of Christ Excellent is that of Calvin and by him quoted out of St. Chrysostome Inst l. 4. c. 17. Vinculum istius conjunctionis est Spiritus Christi cujus nexu copulamur Et quidem veluti canalis per quem quicquid Christus ipse est habet ad nos derivatur The Spirit of Christ is the Bond of Vnion between Christ and us and the Chanel of derivation whereby Christ and all that he hath is conveyed to us 1 Joh. 1.3 Mr. Sherlock That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you that you may have fellowship with us and truly our fellowship is with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ Observe that our fellowship with the Father and Son is first founded on our fellowship with the Christian Church 1 Cor. 1.9 God is faithful by whom ye are called into the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord where the fellowship of Christ can signifie no more than the fellowship of the Christian Church whereof Christ is Lord and Head and therefore the Apostle adds in the next Verse Now I beseech you Brethren by the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ that you all speak the same thing that there be no divisions or schisms among you but that you be perfectly joyned together in the same mind and in the same judgment Where he argues from the nature of their Faith in Christ to the Obligations of Peace and Vnity which plainly evinces that this fellowiship with Christ is that relation we stand in to him as Members of the Christian Church whereof he is Head The true Notion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is plain 2 Cor. 6.14 where the Apostle disswades from fellowship with heathen Idolaters where we have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all which Expressions decypher to us the Nature and Foundation of Fellowship The
Dr. observes that this is the only Law he could be liable to as a man for an innocent man in a Covenant of works as he was needed no other Law nor did God give any other Law to such persons the Law of Creation is the only Law that an innocent Creature is liable to with what Symbols of the Law God is pleased to add But now Jesus Christ yielded perfect obedience to all the Laws which came upon us by the occasion of sin as the Ceremonial Law yea those very Institutions that signified the washing away of sin and repentance from sin as the Baptism of John which he had no need of himself this therefore must needs be for us This looks something like but I fear it will prove like all the rest that is to no purpose I would willingly have had some proof of it that an innocent man can be bound by no other Law than that of Creation God as he acknowledges might add what Symbols he pleased to that Law for he remembred the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil and I know not what these Symbols are but positive Laws and such the Ceremonial Laws were and if God may require the obedience of an innocent man to one positive Law he may if he please enjoyn twenty And though they were at first commanded upon occasion of sin an innocent man may observe them to good and wise purposes as solemn acts of Worship external expressions of Devotion a publick profession of a virtuous Life to which purposes among others the Sacrifices and Ceremonies of the Law and Baptism of John served And if there were no other reason this were enough that an innocent man should set an example of reverence to all divine Institutions But this is not worth contending about for the Righteousness of the Ceremonial Law could never justifie any man neither can I understand why the Doctor should suppose that Christ fulfilled the Ceremonial Law for all Believers when the greatest part of them the Gentiles were never under the obligation of it God gave unto innocent Adam symbolical Precepts Answer over and above the Law of Creation but what were those Precepts Not Washings Purifications Circumcisions Expiations Sacrifices nothing that was significative of sin but such only as were congruous to that State The true One would not have the least shadow of a lye in his Service neither is it to me imaginable that Christ should for his own sake be put under such Laws as are unsutable to his Innocency what need had he of Circumcision who had no corrupt flesh in him or of Baptism who was without spot But saith the Author an innocent man may observe such Laws for profession or examples sake But surely what he doth must be done in truth We find in Scripture that at the Jewish Sacrifices there was a confession of sin the form of which as their Doctors say was thus O Lord thy people the house of Israel they have sinned they have done wickedly c. and might an innocent Israelite had there been such an one have joyned in this confession and that without the forfeiture of his innocency I doubt he could not Besides when the Scripture assigns no such reason for Christ's subjection to any Law who may be so bold as to do it But saith the Author Christ's Obedience to the Ceremonial Law justifieth no man Neither according to the Author doth his Obedience to the Moral Law and therefore he might have left his Obedience which is the compleature of all divine Laws undivided and in its entirety The Dr. saith Mr. Sherlock There can be no other reason assigned of Christ's Obedience to the Law of God but only this that he did it in our stead Now this Argument would be good were it true and were there not a great many things done which we cannot assign the reason of and yet done for great and weighty reasons but this reason is sufficient because he was as much bound to it as any other man The Dr takes it for granted That if Christ were not bound to obey these Laws upon his own account it must be either for us or to fit him for his Death and Oblation but it was not to fit him for his Death therefore it was for us He tells us that he answered all Types and was every way fit to be made an offering for sin by his Union and habitual Grace If his Obedience were not for us and upon our account there is no just cause to be assigned why he should live here in the world so long as he did in perfect obedience to all the Laws of God Had he died before there had been perfect Innocence and perfect Holiness by his habitual Grace and infinite Virtue and Worth from the dignity of his Person and surely he yielded not that long course of Obedience but for some great and special purposes in reference to our Salvation Yes truly but must this needs be his actual fulfilling all Righteousness for us What do you think of his preaching the Gospel throughout all Judea which would take up some time What of the many Miracles which confirmed his Doctrine What of training up his Apostles to succeed him in his Ministry as Eye-witnesses and Ear-witnesses of his Miracles and Doctrine What of the holy Example of his Life which was no less necessary than his Laws These are all great and special purposes in reference to our Salvation though we should suppose him fit to have been a Sacrifice as Herod designed he should have been as soon as he were born though by the way I think he could not have answered the Types and Predictions of him had he dyed so soon notwithstanding his perfect innocence and holiness I take it the Doctor 's Scope was this Answer That the end of Christ's Active Obedience could not be assigned to be that he might be fitted for his death and oblation and that because be was every way fit to be made an offering for sin by his Vnion and habitual Grace the Dr. intended not that Christ lived here so long only that he might obey and for no other ends It 's true that Christ lived here so long that he might preach and do Miracles and instruct his Apostles and it 's true that he lived here so long that he might fulfil all Righteousness all these were ends of his living here but the Quaere is What was the end of his Active Obedience I never yet read that the end of that was his preaching doing of Miracles or instructing his Apostles these were simultaneous and concurrent in time with his Obedience But Christ obeyed the Law that he might give us an holy Example by his Life I grant it but that was not all Christ died also for to leave an Example to us but there was much more in his Death in truth both were for our Justification As we are justified by his blood Rom. 5.9
him That is Christ died as a Sacrifice for our sins that we might be reconciled to God So that our Righteousness as well as Innocence is owing to the death of Christ to that Sacrifice he offered for our sins his Blood had a great vertue in it to make us righteous to purge our consciences from dead works that we might serve the living God and our righteousness and accceptance with God is wholly owing to that Covenant which he purchased and sealed with his Blood I suppose the Author to be a very unfit man to put in this accusation Answer Who attributes most to that Blood the Author or these men is a very short issue and will soon he tried Christ's Blood sealed and confirmed the Covenant this is the all of it saith the Author These men though they do not stint it with an All yet they freely own That Christ's death did seal and confirm the Covenant evidently therefore they attribute as much to Christ's blood as the Author doth But do they stay here No they say with the Apostle That we are justified by Christ's blood Rom. 5.9 And doth the Author do so No surely We are justified by his blood that is by the Gospel-Covenant which was confirmed with his blood Thus the Author Now if justifying and confirming the Covenant be one thing then the Author allows justification by Christ's blood But justifying and confirming the Covenant are not one thing Christ's blood according to the Author confirmed the Covenant for all but it doth not justifie all Hence it appears that the Author allows not justification by Christ's Blood and yet he charges these men with being injurious to it to which they attribute remission or non-imputation of sin But for the matter it self I conceive that the Obedience and Blood of Christ are to be taken in conjunction both together are the completure of the Law both are imputed to us both justifie us unto life eternal Hence I conceive where one is expressed in Scripture the other is implyed when the Scripture saith That we are justified by Christ's blood Rom. 5.9 It doth include his Obedience and when it saith That we are made righteous by his obedience Rom. 5.19 it doth include his Blood also Hence our Church takes in both into justification 1. Hom. of Salvation He paid the ransom for them by his death he fulfilled the Law for them in his life so that in and by him every true Christian man may be called a fulfiller of the Law But though our pardon and justifieation be attributed to the Blood of Christ Mr Sherlock yet I could never perswade my self that this wholly excludes the perfect Obedience and Righteousness of his life For the Apostle tells us That we are accepted in the beloved Eph. 1.6 Whatever rendred Christ beloved of God did contribute something to our acceptance For because he was beloved we are accepted for his sake No man will deny that God was highly pleased with his perfect Obedience We know how many blessings God bestowed upon the children of Israel for the sake of their Fathers Abraham Isaac and Jacob who were great examples of Faith and obedience which made them very dear to God and no doubt God was more pleased with the Obedience of Christ than with the Faith of Abraham and therefore we ought not to think that we receive no benefit by the Righteousness of Christ when Abraham 's posterity was so blessed for his sake But then Christ's Righteousness and Death serve not two such different ends as these men fancy but they both serve the same end to establish the Covenant God was so well pleased with what Christ did and suffered that for his sake he entred into a Covenant of Grace with man As Abraham 's Faith was not imputed to his Posterity as their act but for Abraham 's sake God entred into Covenant with them and chose them for his peculiar people Here we have the Author acknowledging Answer that the obedience of Christ did contributé something to our acceptance with God The children of Israel were blessed for Abraham 's obedience and why may not we for Christs The confequence is undeniable but there is a vast disproportion between Abraham's obedience and Christs Abraham's was but the obedience of a man and of an imperct man but Christs was the obedience of God His Blood is called the blood of God and for the very same reason his obedience may be stiled the obedience of God Abraham's had not a jot or tittle of merit in it he had nothing to glory in before God But Christ's was so richly meritorious as to purchase the Blessings of both Worlds Abraham's was not imputed to his Posterity it was little enough and without Christ's Righteousness to cover its defects too little for himself But Christ's is imputed to us and is long enough and broad enough to cover a multitude of Believers and to justifie them before God The Covenant made with Abraham was the very Covenant of Grace The Gospel was preached to Abraham Gal. 3.8 And Abraham saw Christ's day and rejoyced Joh. 8.56 And hence it appears that the Covenant with Abraham was not founded in Abraham's Righteousness but in Christ's and therefore the Apostle tells us expresly That it was confirmed before of God in Christ Gal. 3.17 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 before confirmed The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tells us that the Gospel was in Abraham's time The obedience of Christ's life was one thing Mr Sherlock which made his Sacrifice so meritorious which was the precious blood of Christ as of a Lamb without blemish and spot And this is the most that can be made of Rom. 5.18 19. As by the offence of one judgement came upon all to condemnation So by the Righteousness of one the free gift came upon all to justification of life For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous There is no necessity of expounding this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 obedience of the Righteousness of Christ's life for it may well signifie no more than the obedience of his death notwithstanding the Doctors distinction that doing is one thing and suffering another For the Apostle tells us That he became obedient unto death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phil. 2.8 And his offering himself in Sacrifice is called doing God's will Heb. 10.9 10. And whether this be properly said or not I will leave the Doctor to dispute with the Apostle It is plain that in this Chapter there is no express mention made of any act of obedience and righteousness whereby we are reconciled to God But only his dying for us in vers 8. the Apostle tells us That Christ dyed for us In vers 9. That we are justified by his blood In the 10. That we are reconciled by his death which makes it more than probable that by his Righteousness and Obedience here the Apostle understands
his death and sufferings because this was the subject of his discourse but yet these expressions His righteousness and obedience seem to take in the whole compass of his obedience in doing and suffering the Will of God and the meaning of the words is this That as God was so highly displeased with Adam's sin that he entailed a great many evils and miseries and death it self upon his posterity for his sake So God was so well pleased with the obedience of Christ's life and death that he bestows the rewards of Righteousness on those who according to the rigor of the Law are not righteous that for Christ's sake he hath made a new Covenant of Grace which pardons our past sins and rewards a sincere though imperfect obedience For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall be made righteous is the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall be justified That is treated like righteous persons So that Christ's Righteousness is not the formal cause of our justification that very Righteousness whereby we are righteous But it is the meritorious cause of that Covenant whereby we are declared Righteous and rewarded as Righteous for the Apostle tells us in vers 17. who those are who are thus justified by Christ and shall reign with him in life not those who are Righteous by the imputation of Christ's Righteousness But those who have received abundance of Grace and the gift of Righteousness that is who by the Gospel which is the abundant grace of God are made holy and righteous as God is which Righteousness is called a gift because it is not owing solely to humane endeavours but is wrought in us by supernatural means We are made righteous by the Righteousness of Christ not that his actual obedience is reckoned as done by us which is impossible But because we are made righteous both in a proper and forensick sence by the Gospel-Covenant which is wholly owing to Gods Grace and Christ's Merits and Righteousness So that the Righteousness of Christ is our Righteousness when we speak of the foundation of the Covenant by which we are accepted but if we speak of the terms of the Covenant then we must have a righteousness of our own for the Righteousness of Christ will not serve the turn Christ's Righteousness and our own are both necessary to our Salvation the first as the foundation of the Covenant the other as the condition of it We are now arrived at that famous place Answer as by the offence of one judgement came upon all to condemnation so by the Righteousness of one the free gift came upon all to justification of life as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous Rom. 5.18 19. The Apostle here uses two words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Righteousness and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Obedience both these signifie the doing of God's Will which doing for its rectitude is called Righteousness and for its subjection Obedience neither of them do properly signifie suffering Meer suffering which is not spirited with a right and subjective mind is not Righteousness or Obedience The Apostle here speaks of Righteousness in general and Obedience in general and who may pare off ought and say it is not all Christ's Righteousness or Obedience but some especially when that some the passive I mean is less properly such than the active and what necessity or cogent reason is there for doing so The Antithesis in the Text evinces the contrary Act is here set in opposition against Act Christ's Obedience against Adam's Disobedience Now for what the Author alledges I say it is true that of Christ's being obedient Phil. 2.8 reaches down to his death but it takes in all the Obedience of his life and that of Christs doing Gods will Hebr. 10.7 extends to the Sacrifice of himself but it comprises all the righteousness of his life too It is true that the Apostle in this 5. Chapter to the Romans doth first speak of Christ's Death and Sufferings but his active and passive Obedience are so near in conjunction that the Apostle may in his discourse easily pass from the one to the other Nay as I before noted when the one is expressed in Scripture the other is implied so that the Apostle doth not indeed pass from one thing to another but only vary his Phrase The Author himself confesses That those expressions his righteousness and Obedience seem to take in the whole compass of his Obedience in doing and suffering the will of God And how doth the active and passive righteousness of Christ justify us or make us righteous Why these procured that Gospel Covenant whereby we are declared righteous and rewarded as righteous Now this Interpretation may stand good when justifying and procuring the Covenant shall be what they can never be one and the same thing Christs active and passive Obedience according to the Author procured the Covenant for all Men But surely they do not justify all Men. The whole Obedience of Christ may be confidered two wayes either as it is procurative of the Covenant and so it renders us justifiable or as is it received by Faith and so it actually justifies us But neither of these can be without a Divine imputation without that first fundamental imputation which is implied in such Scripture expressions as tell us that Christ died for us the Obedience of Christ could not have rendred us justifiable any more than it doth Devils and without that second particular imputation which is implied in such Scripture expressions as tell us That we are justified by Christs Blood that we are made righteous by Christ's Obedience the Obedience of Christ could not justify us for it justifies us not as it procures the Covenant that is done according to the Author for all Men and all Men are not justified but it justifies us as it is particularly made ours and made ours it cannot be without an Imputation According to the Author the Apostle must be interpreted thus By the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all unto Justification of life that is by the righteousness of one the Covenant was procured and so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous that is by the obedience of one the Covenant was procured But this Interpretation is so harsh and strange that I suppose few will be able to receive and own it But the Author tells us That the Apostle in ver 17. acquaints us who the justified are not those who are righteous by imputed righteousness but those who by the Gospel which is the grace of God are made righteous as God is But by the grace of God vers 17. is not meant the Gospel but the rich mercy of God and by the gift of righteousness there is not meant inherent graces but the righteousness of Christ which is made over to us by a gracious imputation the very same righteousness which is called the
AN ANSWER TO THE Discourse OF Mr. WILLIAM SHERLOCK TOUCHING The Knowledge of Christ and our Union and Communion with Him By EDWARD POLHILL of Burwash in Sussex Esquire LONDON Printed for Ben. Foster and are to be sold by most Book-sellers in London MDCLXXV TO THE READER IN that excellent Piece the Soul of Man which is too great for this lower World and in the very Frame of it aspires after an Infinite Good the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or uppermost Room is the Vnderstanding and among all the Truths which are the Furniture thereof none are so rich as those Theological ones which are drawn out of the Golden Mines of Scripture Arts and Sciences are in comparison but the Poor of the Mind the Riches and Treasures of Knowledge lie in Evangelical Mysteries these out-shine the Sun and out-weigh the Earth They have the highest Certainty as coming down immediately from heaven and withall the noblest Tendency as leading us thither Infinite Truth is the Fountain and infinite Goodness the Center of them These when in their Lustre make a spiritual Day and derive such a pure Influence upon the Hearts and Lives of Men as moulds them into the Divine Image and thereby makes them meet for the bliss-making Vision in Heaven No sooner can these be under an Eclipse but there will be a Night and a Chaos of confusions the Path of Life and Happiness will be wrapt up in darkness black Legions of Errors and Corruptions will creep forth and pious Souls will wish for the day I mean for a fresh Illustration of Truths from that sacred Spirit which at first breahed them out into the World and after all the Clouds and dark Veils put upon them can bring them forth in their Oriency and true Glory These to Believers are as Pearls and sacred Jewels dearer than the Apple of their Eye nay than their own Souls They build upon them by Faith espouse them by divine Love lay them up in a pure Conscience distil the Vertue of them into a holy Life and if it were possible they would have none of the sacred Light put out nor the least Jot or Tittle of those Truths fall to the ground O what a rate did the famous St. Austin and others set upon God's special Effectual Grace How highly did the heroical Luther value the Point of Justification Jacente articulo Justificationis jacent omnia saith he as if a Christians All were in it When such Truths are violated Christians how meek soever in other things must earnestly contend and not give place no not for an hour here if ever Luther's pia sancta pertinacia is in season Not to stay any longer on the excellencies and great Concerns of Evangelical Truths which no tongue of Men or Angels is able fully to express I shall now speak a little touching Mr. Sherlock's Book When I read it I thought my self in a new Theological World Believers appearing without their Head for want of a Mystical Vnion strip'd and naked for lack of imputed Righteousness the full treasures of Grace in Christ which have supplied all the vessels of faith emptied out of sacred his person transfused into the doctrine of the Gospel as if according to Pelagius all Grace were in doctrine only The holy Spirit the great Origen of Graces and Comforts in its Illumination seems to be superfluous in its Testimony to Believers an Enthusiastical Fancy and in the work of Regeneration if any at most but a partial Co-cause parting stakes with the Will of Man Faith in Abel and Enoch lying as low as Natural Principles in Noah and Abraham raised up a little to particular Revelations but not so high as the Messiah In Christians standing off and at a distance from Christ its dear Object not daring to lay hold on or so much as touch him to draw any Vertue from thence As if Socinus had hit it right when he said Christi apprehensio merum commentum inanissimum somnium est The immutable Love of God the only Cement of the Church seems to be turned off from Persons to Qualities and towards Persons to be as variable as the fickle Will of Man is and yet he is immutable still he loves for the same Reason or as Socinus saith Non sine causa mutat The Pontifician Thesis touching Justification by inherent Righteousness seems to be revived a fresh and that in a way less tolerable than among the Romanists They though they would have inherent Righteousness come in for a share yet allow the Imputation of Christs passive Obedience but in the New Scheme inherent Righteousness takes up all the room and leaves none for imputed The Drollery and sarcastical Reflections in the Book are but the Cover of it within there is a dark Eclipse upon many excellent Truths which hitherto have been owned in the Churches of Christ and particularly in our own Among other Truths none have had a greater share of suffering than those two touching our Mystical Vnion with Christ and the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness to us both which are to me very momentous The Mystical Vnion hath I suppose been generally received in the Church Indeed Gregory de Valentia once cavilled at it as if it were Mysterium Calvinisticum and yet he seems to own it when he saith Animum nostrum posse per fidem corpus Christi etiam ut in coelo existens atque adeo ut est extra Sacramentum manducare He that denies the Mystical Vnion cannot hold the head Jesus Christ from which all the body by joynts and bands hath nourishment ministred Col. 2.19 Take away that Vnion and Christ is a Head of no Influence the Joynts and the Bands which were made to convey divine Nutriture from him are but empty Titles and signifie no more than those Conduit-pipes do which are severed from the Fountain Again he that denies the Mystical Vnion must lose that piece of his Creed the Communion of Saints their Communion among themselves primarily depends on their Vnion with Christ the Head from whom the whole body is fitly joyned together and compacted as the Apostle tells us Eph. 4.16 All the Harmonies in the Body Mystical hang on its Vnion with the Head without this Believers could have no Communion one with another save in this only that they must all die one common death hy being severed from their Head The living Stones once off from their Foundation can hang no longer together in the spiritual Building but must totter down into a Chaos of Confusion Moreover he that denies the mystical Vnion must turn off the Believer from his true standing according to the Gospel the Believer is a man in Christ he is built on him as on a Foundation he subsists in him as the Branches do in the Vine he hath vital Influences from him as the Members have from the Head he is acted by his divine Spirit in all the pure ways to heaven and all this is his security his
as the Apostle mentions That I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable to his death Phil. 3.10 And whence had they this Learning they heard him and were taught by or in him not from the personal Preaching of Christ in the flesh but in and by his Ministers and holy Spirit I add his holy Spirit because the Gospel alone cannot do it which made St. Austin say De Praed Sanct. cap. 8. Cùm Evangelium praedicatur quidam credunt quidam non credunt sed qui credunt praedicatore forinsecùs sonante intùs à Patre audiunt atque discunt qui autem non credunt foris audiunt intùs non audiunt neque discunt that such is the Learning meant here appears from the after words As the truth is in Jesus Truth is in the Gospel notionally but in Christ practically all Graces being exemplified in him and the true learners are conformed to his Image and as the Apostle hath it in the next Verses they put off the old man and put on the new and so are assimilated to his Death and Resurrection It is acknowledged by all Mr. Sherlock that Christ sometimes signifies the Church which is his Body Thus we must understand those Phrases of being in Christ engrafted into Christ and united to Christ It is acknowledged by all Answer that Christ sometimes signifies the Church how then can he charge those whom he opposes that where-ever they meet with the word Christ in Scripture they always understand by it the Person of Christ pag. 4 As for the Phrases of being in Christ c. I shall reserve them till I come to the Mystical Union To what the Author infers from the various significations of the Name Christ That such mistakes have been occasioned thereby that some are very zealous to advance Christ's Person to the prejudice and reproach of his Religion I shall only say It is not so Instead of the substantial Duties of the Love of God and Men Mr. Sherlock and an universal Holiness of Life they have introduced a fanciful Application of Christ to our selves and Vnion to him set off with those choice Phrases of closing with Christ and embracing Christ and getting an interest in Christ and trusting and relying and rolling our selves on Christ Fanciful Answer alas that a Christian a Divine should let drop such a reproachful word on so sacred a thing as the Application of Christ Without this the excellent Scripture must I fear labour under very odd Glosses such as these A Believer may be in Christ and out of him he may put him on and off at the same time he may have Communion with him without Union and feed on him without so much as reception Christ may dwell in the Believer at a Distance and abide in him without the least approach Which are such kind of Absurdities as a man would hardly name for fear of grating pious Ears and Hearts But this is not all Without this true Faith which as Learned Dr Ward observes is uppropriativa Christi must forfeit its Nature unless it can appropriate without Application and Christ its precious Object must lose the Vertue of his Blood and Merits unless they can heal at a distance For what shall we say May an unapplied Christ be in us the hope of Glory or may his unapplied Obedience make us righteous or his unapplied Blood justifie us or his unapplied Death reconcile us to God It is not for ordinary Capacities to apprehend it However if Application fail may the Universal Holiness of Life which the Author speaks of consist Our Saviour tells us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 separate from me ye can do nothing Joh. 15.5 In which words the Melevitan Fathers observe a great Emphasis Non dicitur sine me difficiliùs potestis facere sed sine me nihil potestis facere And how any man should either not be separate from an unapplied Christ or lead a Life of Universal Holiness in such a statu separato I cannot imagine But what speak I of Universal Holiness Never any man off from that divine Root of Grace hath since the Fall bore so much as a Blossom of true Sanctity Instead of Obedience to the Gospel and Laws of Christ Mr. Sherlock they have advanced a kind of Amorous and Enthusiastick Devotion which consists in a passionate love to the Person of Christ in admiring his personal Excellencies Fulness Beauty Loveliness Riches c. the foundation of all which Riddles and Mysteries is that they may make the Person of Christ almost the sole Object of the Christian Religion To slight the Fulness Answer Beauty Loveliness Riches of Christ is very hardly tolerable among Christians and to question why they so passionately love such an one is as the Philosopher told him who asked why men were so taken with outward Beauty 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a blind man's question none but the spiritually blind can wonder at the loving of one altogether lovely But these men are for an Amorous and Enthusiastick Love Amorous all Love is so but what in a gross and carnal way No it is far from those Men who are not at all a kin to Castalio who as is said called the Song of Solomon an obscene Ballad not relishing that divine Love between Christ and the Church which all along is pourtraied therein in Allegories and beautiful colours Enthusiastick why so possibly because it is a thing inspired from the Spirit it is so Scriptures and Fathers will own such a blessed Enthusiasm Ipse nobis fidem amorem sui inspirat saith the Arausican Council But which is the fundamental mistake they make the Person of Christ almost the sole Object of the Christian Religion I confess and it is no shame to say so they esteem themselves compleat only in Christ they trust in him they love and obey him their acceptance is in his Merits therir assistance from his Spirit their Graces hang on him as Beams on the Sun their good Works are perfumed with his sweet-smelling Sacrifice they look on him as their great All and do all they do in him and for him Quicquid oratur docetur vivitur extrà Christum est Idololatria coram Deo peccatum said Luther CHAP. II. THose men who talk so much of the Person of Christ Mr. Sherlock frequently without any Sense and Generally without any just Ground from Reason or Scripture are very clamorous and alarm the world with strange jealousies and fears as if there were a Party of men started up who design to make Christ useless What! without Sense Reason Answer and Scripture too Alas poor inconsiderable Creatures What need such strong impetuous opposition be made against them or how are such men likely to alarm the World with fears But for the thing it self I hope the Author designs not to make Christ useless but what he doth towards it in denying
the Prima Sapientia In the Sale of Joseph Man was cruel but God merciful In the Act of Judah and Tamar Man was unclean but God holy aiming at the Messiah in it In Rehoboam's rough Answer Man was foolish but God wise to accomplish his word In the Assyrian Tyranny Man was unjust but God righteous to correct his people In the strong Delusions sent to those that love not the Truth Man was weak but God strong in Spiritual Judgements and to name but one more In the Crucifixion of Christ there was Malice Blood and Wickedness on Man's part but Love Justice and Righteousness on God's one Attribute or other of his glitters in the Event with no more taint than is upon the pure Sun-beams by their converse in unclean places It 's true God needs not Sin to recommend his Glory no nor Virtue or Holiness in the Creature but sure he uses Sin that way and that so holily that it deserves a more reverent Expression than trucking with sin and the Devil As to the Event God preordains it I confess the Event of sinful Actions is evil in it self but in some respect it may be good to a third person Confess li. 9. cap. 8. A railing Servant wrought a cure upon Monica as St. Austin relates Nay in some case it may be good to the sinner De Civit. l. 14. c. 13. Audeo dicere superbis esse utile cadere in aliquod apertum manifestúmque peccatum unde sibi displiceant qui jam sibi placendo ceciderant saith the same Author And again on those words Omnia cooperantur in bonum Rom. 8. he adds Etiam si deviant exorbitent De Correp cap. 9. hoc ipsum eis faciat proficere in bonum quia humliores redeunt doctiores But however the Event be evil to the sinner it is not so to God as Ordinator The Event of Adam's Fall was evil to him but as it made way for the Redeemer was not so to God which made one cry out O foelix culpa quae tantum meruit Redemptorem The Event of the vile Affections in the Gentiles was evil to them but as it was punitive of their Idolatry was not so to God Hence St. Austin saith elegantly Tradit Deus in passiones ignominiae Contr. Jul. lib. 5. ut fiant quae non conveniunt sed ipse convenienter tradit even those inconvenient Affections were convenient for Gods Justice to inflict on them Is it not good that Sin should be punished with Sin The Scripture plainly affirms it and if the Event may be good as to God because of the Order of just penalty why may it not be such because of the Order of wise Conducibility God by his holy Ordination 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dion de Div. Nom. cap. 4 as far as that Ordination is Hence the Apostle puts a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon the Event of Heresies Dial. de Ver. cap. 8. and Anselm puts a Debet esse upon the Event of Sin and St. Austin lays it down clearly Euch. cap. 96. Vt sent mala bonum est aliter nullo modo esse sinerentur ab omnipotente bono every thing is good so far as ordinated by him In this sence the Medes are God's sanctified ones without sanctity in themselves and Events are good without goodness in themselves that which is evil in Specie may be good in Ordine and so far as it is good it is a fit Object for his Will especially seeing it is ordained to come to pass Deo permittente on the one hand and Creaturâ liberè agente on the other On such Terms as these I may say Deo ordinante pulchra sunt omnia But saith the Author The Creature cannot act freely for nothing can withstand the Decrees of God To which I answer Gods Providence is ever salvative of the Creatures Liberty inferring not a necessity of Coaction but Immutability Instances in Scripture are abundant Antiochus blasphemes according to his own will yet it was determined Dan. 11.36 The Chaldees march in violence and in the pomp of freedom insomuch that the Text saith That their judgment and dignity proceeded of themselves yet God had ordained them for judgment Hab. 1. The Kings in Revel 17. gave their Kingdom to the Beast and what freer than gift yet God put in their hearts to do so The Jews freely crucified Christ yet God's hand and counsel was in it After such pregnant Scriptures ought we not to acquiesce in this Truth That God's Decree and Man's Liberty may consist together Cajetan is an excellent Pattern for us who laying down the Common Opinion That Humane Acts are evitable as to us but inevitable as to Providence and then mentioning some distinctions to reconcile the matter piously concluded that he would captitivate his Uunderstanding in obsequium fidei and so we should all Having so prolixly spoken of the Ordination of such Events a very little may serve as to the End when God preordains such Events to be sure he doth it in great Wisdom and Reason some End there is in it If any will say it was done quià Voluit I am content his Will is never irrational if he will say further that it was for his Glory I am satisfied that is the supreme End if he will yet go on and say it was for the manifestation of his Justice and Mercy I cannot tell how to assign a better End if the after-use made of Sin may interpret God's meaning that shews forth the Illustration of both those Attributes The Apostle tells us That God is willing to shew his wrath and power in some and to make known the riches of his glory in others Rom. 9. Suppose there were no Ordination but only a nude Permission a man may ask Why did God permit such an Apollyon as Sin to enter the World Why suffered he so many glorious Angels to fall into sin and immediately without any place for Repentance to sink into Chains of Darkness for ever There is scarce any appearance but of meer Sovereignty Justice in it Why suffered he Man and all his Posterity with him to fall into sin and wrath It is plain that the work of Redemption in which Justice and Mercy were both shewed forth was ushered in upon it It 's true as the Scripture saith That God delights not in the death of a sinner not in death as it is the misery of the Creatute not in the death of a repenting sinner his Repentance which is there opposed to Death is more grateful However the sins of men fall under his Providence and without repentance their death as an act of Justice wil be grateful to him insomuch that he will laugh at it Prov. 1. There are behind yet two other Expressions the one puts the Doctor 's Opinion into odious colours after this manner It pleased God that Man should sin but when he had sinned he is exceedingly displeased at it But upon the very
who is the Mirrour of divine Perfections and the great Illuminator by his Spirit But saith the Author they such is their intolerable presumption shape Religion according to their Fancies and stuff it with an infinite number of Orthodox Propositions none of which are to be found in express Terms in Scripture but are pretended to be deduced from thence by such imaginary consequences from some little hints of things and is not this unpardonable in those men who cry down Reason as a prophane and carnal thing and yet lay the Foundation of their Religion on some little shews and appearances of Reason To which I answer The harsh Censure of Eccius made Vrban a German Divine cry out O infaelicem Urbanum Melch. Adam in vit Urb. si Eccii calculo caelum datur negatur Miserable were these Men if they were to stand or fall by the Authors Judgment These Men as the Author tells us pag. 98. abound with Scripture stuff their Books with it and talk of little else yet alas they shape Religion according to their Fancies If they urge express Scriptures they consider only the sound of words Pag. 2. If they urge Scripture-consequences they stand upon little hints and appearances of things Reason they cry down as a prophane and carnal thing and yet they found their Religion on little shews and appearances Oh unhappy Men But the best is all this to say no worse is but meer Accusation each of them can plead Not guilty to it and say as Vrban to Eccius Hominis judicium audio Christi tribunal expecto They are Men who desire to set every thing in its due place Fancy below Reason and Reason below Scripture upon which last as the unerring Rule they stand like the Karaei among the Jews so precisely that they are not willing to admit any thing in Matters of Religion which is not found there according to that of Origen Sicut aurum quod fuerit extra Templum non est sanctificatum sic omnis sensus qui extra Scripturam non est sanctus When men argue from the Nature of of God Mr Sherlock his Works and Providences from the Nature of Mankind and those eternal Notions of Good and Evil and the essential Differences of things that is from plain and undeniable Principles which have an unchangeable nature and so can bear the stress of a just Consequence this is carnal Reason I cannot imagine that they call or think it so Answer Principles of natural Theology carry a Divine Stamp on them yet I conceive these in Discourses if taken within their proper Sphere of Natural Light only may not wear that Crown set on the Head of the Gospel to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The ministration of the Spirit as the Apostle speaks 2 Cor. 3.8 Should a Man preach such Principles only without setting forth Christ and the regenerating Spirit he would scarce be worthy to be called a Spiritual Evangelical Divine But now the Author gives a Scheme of Religion deducible from an Acquintance with Christ's Person I am glad that he owns any such thing and shall not have much to say upon it When we consider Mr. Sherlock that this heavenly Ambassador and Mediator is no less than the Son of God by whom the Worlds were made we may reasonably conclude that he came upon no less Design than of universal Goodness for he can have no temptation to Partiality as being equally concerned in the Happiness of all men and we cannot imagine why he should lay a narrower design of Love in the Redemption than in the Creation of Mankind When in the first Creation he designed all for Happiness that in this new and second Creation he should design only the Happiness of some few is to make him less good in Redeeming than in Creating Mankind Christ in his Coming and satisfactory Sufferings had a respect to all Men Answer so far as to procure for them Salvation on Gospel-terms but he had not an equal respect to all it being utterly unimaginable that he should have as great a respect to those in the Pagan World who have no Christ no atoning Sacrifice no Promise of Life and Salvation revealed to them as he hath to those in the Church who have all these glorious Objects evidently set sorth before them Greater Donations argue greater degrees of Love or else which is very hard to believe God loves all Creatures alike notwithstaneing that he measures out his Goodness to them in a very various and different manner to some more and to others less But because the Author hath before laid down a good Rule That the Virtue and Efficacy of Christ's Death doth depend on God's Institution and Appointment and therefore can be known only by Revelation I shall apply my self only to the Scripture There as we find he died that he might gather together the Children of God that were scatered Joh. 11.52 He gave himself for his Church that he might sanctifie and cleanse it Eph. 5.26 He gave himself that he might purifie to himself a peculiar people Tit. 2.14 He laid down his life for his sheep so as to bring them into his fold and make them hear his voice Joh. 10.15 16. He redeems some from among men Rev. 14.4 And out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation Rev. 5.9 All which Scriptures do emphatically shew that Christ had a special respect in his Death unto his own above others But further Christ by his precious Blood founded those Evangelical Promises of taking away the stony Heart writing the Law in the Heart and putting his holy Spirit there but did he found them for all men What for those whom God will harden Rom. 9 What for those Pagans who have not so much as the Law before them in the Letter nor that Gospel which is Vehiculum Spiritûs sancti How or which way or by what means can such Promises be made good to them How shall they be regenerate without the holy Spirit or have that without the Gospel It is not at all credible such special Promises in the Covenant founded by his Blood speak a special respect to his own Elect. The Author's Reason from Creation cannot hold good The lapsed Angels had their share of Goodness in Creation but none at all in Redemption God who is the Great Donor of his Son to the World may give him with what Respects and to what Intents he pleases and if he have special purposes in it no man may presume to say that he is partial or less good then he ought to be Christ's Death and Sacrifice for sin seals the Covenant of Grace and Pardon to all penitent and reformed Sinners Mr. Sherlock and seals the irrevocable Decree of Reprobation against all others God's Decree of Reprobation may be taken two ways Answer either for an Act of Preterition not giving men saving Grace but leaving them to final Sin or for a Decree of Damnation
In this latter God looks on Men as final Sinners and reveils his Justice in their Condemnation In the former he doth not look on men as final Sinners but pass them by and leave them to themselves to become such and in this he shews forth his infinite Sovereignty in dispensing Grace as he pleaseth This made the Divine Goodness so restlesly zealous Mr. Sherlock and concerned for the recovery of mankind various ways he attempted in former ages but with little success but at last God sent his own Son our Lord Jesus Christ into the world to be the great Shepherd and Bishop of Souls to seek and to save that which was lost Various ways attempted Answer what distinct and separate from Christ Was not Christ in the first plot and design of our recovery Was not he the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world Immediately after the Fall he was promised in the Seed of the woman and after that first Gospel the light was still a breaking out in a succession of Promises and Sacrifices Various ways saith the Author were attempted to little Success what was it to any success at all Was ever any one lost son of Adam saved without a Christ without a Satisfaction No Christian ears will endure such an opinion however God having a design in those ways as the Author imports why did not those plots take effect and save Christ the labour of coming in the flesh May it become his infinite wisdom to attempt this and that and at last light upon the right way Or may it comport with his infinite power to be posed and nonplust and that in so great a concern as Man's recovery To think so is as S. Austin saith To hazard the first Article of our Creed Euchir cap. 96. Credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem And if in those various ways there could be an obstacle to the Almighty what might it be Was it for want of a satisfaction No according to our Author that was not necessary God might have pardoned without it or was it because the corrupt obstinate Will of man did frustrate those designs Very well after that last greatest design by Christ may it not do the same According to our Author God as passionately desirous and restlesly jealous as he is in this matter affords yet no higher than suasory resistible Grace and let any judge how reconcileable such opinions are with infinite wisdom or power or indeed with the Scripture which tells us That he doth whatsoever he pleases Psal 115.3 It 's true the great Grotius glosses on that place thus Ideò homo libertatem habet quia Deus voluit which is true within the Text but if that liberty be of so vast a latitude that it may frustrate so great a design as that of Salvation by Christ the truth of the Text cannot possibly consist Those sins which are not expiated by the Sacrifice of Christ as none are Mr. Sherlock till we repent and reform shall certainly be expiated by the death of the sinner I conceive that Christ expiated our sins upon the Cross Answer but that expiation avails us not till it be applied by faith He gave himself a ransom for all 2 Tim. 2.6 But all do not repent and believe such as continue in their hardness and unbelief cannot have the benefit of that ransom but fall into death eternal ever suffering but never able to satisfie or expiate their sins If our Faith in Christ have reformed our lives Mr. Sherlock and rectified the temper of our minds and made us sincere lovers of God and goodness though we are not acquainted with those artificial methods of repentance have not felt the workings of the Law nor the amazing terrors of Gods wrath nor the raging despair of damned Spirits and then all on a sudden as if we had never heard any such thing before have had Christ offered heard his woings and made a formal contract and espousal with Christ and such like workings of a heated fancy and religious distraction though our Conversion be not managed with so much art and method we are never the worse Christians for want of it Certainly it is very sad Answer saith a worthy Divine That scoffing at the doctrines of repentance and humiliation which was wont to be a badge of prophaness should be adopted into religion The Author tells us a little before Christ and his appearance were not designed to cause tempests and earthquakes in our minds without such artificial methods of repentance saith the Author our lives may be reformed and minds rectified but what saith the Scripture Our Saviour preached up repentance S. Paul tells us of a spirit of bondage going before the spirit of Adoption S. James would have sinners be afflicted and mourn and weep and to turn their laughter into mourning and their joy to heaviness and to humble themselves in the sight of the Lord that they may be lifted up And what saith Reason Sin of all things in the world calls for sorrow sorrow was made for sin if for any thing at all sin is so intimately in us that it will not easily come out being contracted with joy it must be dissolved with sorrow The hard heart unless melted by the fiery Law will not run into the Gospel-mould nor will the proud heart unless bowed down under the weight of sin and wrath ever stoop under the Divine command the new creature is not born without pangs nor the inward Circumcision which cuts off the dear but corrupt flesh of the heart done without some anguish self-judging ushers in justification before God and despair in our selves a lively hope in our Saviour On all hands we are summoned to methods of repentance the groaning Creation shames us into that posture and the indwelling sin presses us into it the broken Law calls for a broken heart and the storm of wrath black in the threatning for a trembling one a crucified Christ asks a mourning eye and an exalted one gives it Why the Author should call these penitential acts artifices or effects of ignorance or think them unnecessary or improper under the Gospel I see no just reason at all for it SECT IV. THese men abound in Scripture Mr. Sherlock but they accomodate Scripture-expressions to their own dreams and fancies being possest with Schemes and Ideas of Religion whatever they look on appears of the same shape and colour wherewith their minds are tinctured if any word sound like the tinkling of their own fancy it is no less than a demonstration that that is the meaning of the spirit of God every little shadow confirms them in their preconceived opinions As Irenaeus observes of the Valentinians that they used one artifice or other to adopt all the speeches of our Saviour and Allegories of Scripture malè composito phantasmati to the contrived figment of their own brain These acquaintances of Christ first contrive their religion and possess
as the fickle Will of Man doth that standing there is an Election that falling there is none and so toties quoties as often as it pleases man to shew himself variable Election will be something or nothing as it happens This Opinion doth not ascribe Eyes and Hands to God as the gross Anthropomorphites did but it assimilates him to the filly turnings and windings of the Creature But to speak more directly to the Author God's electing Love antecedes all Goodness in in Men and if his elect Vessels fall into great sins as holy David did and this after their Conversion however the Light of God's Countenance be for a time suspended however their habitual Graces be weakned and their Consciences wounded yet the Foundation of God stands sure electing Love remains unvariable and will revive them again by Repentance When God elected a People to himself he did not as Mr. Shaw speaks in allusion to the words of the Apostle use lightness or purpose according to the flesh after the manner of men unsteady and wavering in their determinations no the foundation of God standeth sure the Lord knoweth those that are his But if the Love of Christ be infinite Mr. Sherlock eternal unchangeable fruitful I would willingly understand how sin and death and Misery came into World for if this Love be so because the Divine Nature is so then it was always so for God always was what he is and that which is eternal could never be other than it is now And why could not this Love as well preserve us from falling into Sin Misery and Death as love Life and Holiness into us for it is a little odd first to love us into Sin and Death that then he might love us into Life and Holiness which indeed could not be if this Love were always so unchangeable and fruitful as the Dr. perswades us For if this Love had always loved Life and Holiness into us how should it happen that we should sin and die The gracious Decree of Election is Answer as becomes the Divine Nature eternal unchangeable fruitful yet was it a free Act terminating upon what Object it pleased Hence God saith Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated he infallibly brings his Elect to Glory But no man may be so vain or presumptive as to limit the holy One or chalk a Way or Method for him to walk in who works all things according to the counsel of his own will But how then came sin and death into the World Why surely it came in by Man's Transgression and under God's-Permission But why could not this eternal unchangeable fruitful Love preserve us from falling I doubt not at all but God who is Almighty could have kept up Man and all his Posterity in their primitive station as well as he did the standing Angels but if you ask on Why did he not do it I have nothing to answer but that it was not his pleasure God loves no man into sin the Expression is too odd for a Christians Mouth or Ear but he suffers his very Elect to fall into sin yet is his Love eternal unchangeable fruitful towards them if I may allude to that of Hezekiah Isai 38.17 He loves them from the pit of corruption he fetches them out of the corrupt Mass of Mankind by his effectual Grace and though afterwards they have many falls and lapses yet electing Love sets to its hand again and revives them by a fresh Repentance shewing it self fruitful in their recovery and safe conduct to Heaven and all this is managed in a way of unaccountable Sovereignty Not that I deny that the Love of God is eternal Mr. Sherlock unchangeable fruitful that is that God was alwayes good and alwayes continues good and manifests his love and goodness in such wayes as are suitable to his nature which is the fruitfulness of it but then the unchangeableness of Gods love doth not consist in being alwayes determined to the same object but in that he alwayes loves for the same reason that is that he alwayes loves true virtue and goodness where-ever he sees it and never ceases to love any person till he ceases to be good and then the immutability of his love is the reason why he loves no longer for should he love a wicked man the reason and nature of his love would change and the fruitfulness of Gods love with respect to the Methods of his Grace and Providence doth not consist in producing what he loves by an omnipotent and irresistible power for then sin and death could never have entered into the world but he governs and doth good to his Creatures in such wayes as are most suitable to their Natures he governs reasonable Creatures by Principles of Reason as he doth the material World by the necessary Laws of Matter and bruit Creatures by the instincts and propensities of Nature After all the rest Answer the Author himself confesses that there is in God an eternal unchangeable fruitful Love how so There is a Love of Virtue and Goodness and is there not a Love of Persons too The Scripture is express in it St. Paul is a chosen vessel Act. 9. Jacob was loved and that before he was born or had done any good at all Rom. 9. The Lord knoweth those that are his 2 Tim. 2. He calleth his sheep by Name Joh. 10.3 Some are drawn of the Father Joh. 6.44 Some are called according to purpose Rom. 8.28 On some God will have mercy when he hardens others Rom. 9.18 All which places places prove that electing Love is of particular persons who as St. Austin hath it certissimè liberantur are certainly saved when others are left in massa perditionis Unless this be owned that great Design of a Church which is the Master-piece of Providence must be carried on in such a lame and imperfect manner as if God which is unworthy of him should say I would have a Church but I intend not who shall make it up Such a Jeofail is hardly to be found in a prudent Man But saith the Author The Vnchangeableness of God's Love doth not consist in being determined to the same Object but in that he always loves for the same Reason that is he always loves true Vertue and Goodness where-ever he sees it and never ceases to love any person till he ceases to be good he always loves for the same Reason where Goodness is there he loves where Goodness is not there he loves not This is the Author's meaning this is loving for the same Reason But if this had been so what could have become of Man corrupt lapsed Man in whom as our Church tells us there is not a spark of Goodness How desperate must his case have been Divine Love could not possibly have let out a drop of Mercy to such an one much less have shewed forth it self in such an unparalle'd Act as the Mission of his own Son for our Redemption there
Gen. 22.18 That is with all spiritual and eternal blessings in Christ It is not imaginable that God should suffer the Faith of so great a Believer as Abraham to hang in the thickets of carnal things when he had such spiritual Promises before his eyes our Saviour saith Abraham saw his day and rejoyced Joh. 8.56 He saw the day of his Incarnation and as some the day of his Passion How far God carried the eyes of his Faith I know not however he saw so much as put him into those joys and triumphs of Faith which pointed beyond this World to that Salvation which is the end and center of Faith To me it suffices to say that Abraham rested upon Christ for Salvation and then Christ's Righteousness though unknown to Abraham was imputed to him The Author saith That from in thy seed shall all nations be blessed to imputed righteousness is a train of thoughts beyond Mr. Hobs and yet Abraham discerning the Messiah in that Promise it may be absolved in two short words that the Messiah shall merit Spiritual Blessings for us and that that merit shall be applyed to us there being no other way of applying of what is anothers but by Faith on our part and Imputation on Gods The Author ask's the question Is there no possible way for God to bless the world but by imputed Righteousness I answer had not Christ dyed for us which involves an imputation nothing of blessing could have been expected the wrath of God would no more have spared us than it did lapsed Angels The Jews about Christ's coming thought only of a temporal Messiah the very Apostles for a time thought not of Christ's death but this was because they then lived in the dregs and darkness of the Jewish Church I suppose in former ages the Jews had another manner of Prospect of Christ and above others Abraham whose Faith stands in Scripture with a more than ordinary crown on it probably had so Now if you would know what the Faith of Abraham and if all good men in ancient times was Mr. Sherlock the Apostle to the Hebrews gives us a full account of it Heb. 11. that he discourses there of a justifying Faith that is such a Faith as renders men approved of God and which he will count for Highteousness appears from the tenour of this Chapter in the second verse he tells us That by this the elders obtained a good report that is the Fathers were approved and rewarded by God for the sake of this Faith as he shews particularly That Abel obtained witness that he was righteous ver 4. That Enoch had the testimony that he pleased God ver 5. That Noah became heir of righteousness which is by Faith ver 7. Now this justifying Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A firm and confident expectation of those things hoped for and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an argument of the being of those things which we do not see Faith is such a firm and stedfast perswasion of the truth of those things which are not evident to sense as makes us confidently hope for them the object of Faith must be unseen things and the nature of it consists in such a firm assent to those unseen things as produces some answerable effects in our lives This is the general notion of Faith by which the elders obtained a good report Faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen Answer Heb. 11. This saith Erasmus is encomium fidei rather than definitio Dialectica However be it that justifying Faith is here meant Christ the marrow and center of the Covenant must be included in it Faith is the substance of things hoped for that is hoped for by vertue of the Promises and in a special signal way by vertue of the prime fundamental promise touching the Messiah which as we see Gen. 3.15 was delivered to Adam as an heavenly treasure more worth than a world and by him was no doubt handed down to his posterity not meerly in the bare words and letters of it for that protevangelium or first Promise of the Gospel was ministerium spiritûs but with such Divine Commentaries upon it as the illuminating spirit was pleased to give in to the heart of believing Adam Faith such is its excellent nature presentiates and makes to subsist the good things hoped for in such a lively manner as if they were actually at hand and before our eyes Nay as learned Pareus observes on the place it makes them subsist not only speculatively and assentively in the mind but fiducially in the heart Now by Faith in the Messiah the Elders had their divine Testimony Abel was righteous before God Enoch pleased God Noah was an heir of Righteousness all of them were Justified and accepted in their persons and holy walking The Author makes Faith to consist in a firm assent only without any thing more in the nature of it Thus the Romanists Thus Bellarmine proves it to be only assensum firmum 〈◊〉 certum ad ea omnia quae Deus credendae proponit And to that purpose among others quotes this Text Heb. 11. But I cannot find that this will down with Protestants Faith is set forth by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 confidence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a firm perswasion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a fiducial liberty 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a perswasion with full sails 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a fiducial subsistence of things hoped for which expressions speak more than a naked assent Faith receives Christ puts on Christ feeds upon Christ such an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it was to the Fathers in the days of Moses that they did eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of God even before his Incarnation 1 Cor. 10.3 4. Meer assent cannot do this Through faith we are justified and have peace with God Rom. 5.1 We have our hearts purified Act. 15.9 We have the Spirit of all grace Joh. 7.38 We quench the fiery darts of the Devil Eph. 6.16 We have a victory over the world 1 Joh. 5.4 We rejoyce in the hope of the glory of God Rom. 5.2 Nay not only in the hope of it but with joy unspeakable and full of glory 1 Pet. 1.8 as if we had a piece of heaven here below meer assent cannot reach such admirable effects Nay it may be in wicked men who have not the least mite of those Graces or Comforts Our Saviour hath excellently expressed the nature of true Faith Every one which seeth the Son and believeth on him hath eternal life Joh. 6.40 Here are two acts the one is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to see the Son to assent that he is the Redeemer of the World the other is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to believe on him by fiducial recumbency by which saith Bishop Davenant Dav. Det. 165. Vitam à vitae fonte haurimus in
those external Ceremonies of Circumcision Washing Purifications and Sacrifices This was the design of the Gospel to work in us that inward Holiness and Purity which is the perfection and accomplishment of the typical and figurative Righteousness of the Law I know very well that this place is expounded of the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness but is there any mention here of the Righteousness of Christ That he fulfilled all Righteousness for us that his Righteousness is imputed to us and so we fulfil the Righteousness of the Law in him The Apostle's design is to shew the great Virtue of the Gospel in delivering from the power of sin which the Law could not effect The Law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus that divine and spiritual Law which Christ hath given us which governs our Minds and is a Principle of Spiritual Life makes us free from the Law of sin and death from the power and dominion of sin which is called a Law and the Law in our Members warring against the Law of our Minds For what the Law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh what the Law could not do to deliver us from the power and dominion of sin this God effected by sending Christ into the world to publish the Gospel to us and confirm the Promises and Threatnings conteined in it with his Blood that the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit How can Imputation come in here What pretty sence would this make of the Apostle's Argument The Law was too weak to make men throughly good to conquer their sin reform their hearts and lives therefore God sent his Son into the world What for to give them better Laws more excellent Promises and more powerful assistances to do good No by no means but to fulfil all Righteousness for them that they may fulfil the Righteousness of the Law not by doing any thing themselves but by having all done for them by having Christ's Righteousness imputed to them There was no reason to abrogate the Law of Moses for this end it might have continued in force still and have been as available to Salvation as the Gospel is with the supplemental Righteousness of Christ but the weakness of the Law the Apostle complains of was not the want of an imputed Righteousness which might have been had as well under the Law as under the Gospel if God had pleased but a want of strength and power to subdue the sinful appetites of men It was weak through the flesh by the prevalency of lusts which the Law could not conquer therefore the Gospel must supply this defect not by imputed Righteousness but by an addition of power to enable men to do that which is good to fulfil the Righteousness of the Law by a sincere and Spiritual Obedience The Righteousness of the Law as you have already heard is an external Righteousness Answer Thus the Author We have heard so from the false Glosses of the Pharisees we have had such a rumour from the Socinians as if the Law were but a lame imperfect thing Socinus as I have him quoted by Calovius was not afraid to say That Praecepta Veteris Testamenti were levia vana parùm Deo digna but surely this will not down with Christians The Law is Sanctio sancta the Image of the divine Sanctity the Summary of all Duties The Psalmist in the 19. Psalm having set forth how the Glory of God breaks forth from the Sun and Heavens elevates his discourse to the pure Law which as it enlightens the inner Man is a brighter Luminary than the Sun which shines to Sense and as it comprizes all Duties within it self is a nobler Circle in Morality than the Heavens which environ all other Bodies are in Nature The Law of the Lord is perfect converting the soul the testimony of the Lord is pure making wise the simple saith the Psalmist in that place So perfect it is that nothing is to be added to it or diminished from it Deut. 4.3 so spiritual that even the Saints under the Gospel are but carnal in respect of it Rom. 7.14 It calls upon us to love the Lord with all our heart with all our soul and with all our might Deut. 6.5 to love him in such a divine degree as to love nothing else suprà aequè or contrà and is this external Righteousness Or what is inner purity if this be not so It tells us Non concupisces and so meets with the very first risings of corrupt Nature with the very motions and titillations of the flesh it would have an heart all of purity and holiness without any 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or reliques of corruption in it and what can be more divine St. Paul therefore saith that in his Pharisaism he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without the Law because without a sense of its spiritual Nature Rom. 7.9 Unless we own its divine Spiritualty we are as it were without it In a word whatsoever it be that makes up the just posture of Man towards God or his Fellow-creatures is there delineated in such accuracy and full perfection as no man in this life but Jehovah our righteousness only ever arrived at But to go on with the Author The Righteousness which is by the Faith of Christ is internal This God requires of us under the Gospel Thus the Author To which I answer The Author pag. 259. makes the Righteousness of Faith in those under the Old Testament distinct from the Righteousness which is by the Faith of Christ and here he makes the Righteousness which is by the Faith of Christ to consist in internal holiness and renovation But surely there were New Creatures under the Old Testament as well as there are under the New Job was a perfect an upright man and therefore a New Creature David a man after Gods own heart and therefore a New Creature without this internal renovation there could not have been that circumcision of the heart Deut. 30.6 nor the law in the heart which is made the Character of a righteous man Psal 37.31 That Covenant of writing the Law in the heart Jer. 31.33 was in substance one and the same in both Testaments Those under the Old Testament unless regenerate could never have entred so holy a place as Heaven that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or general Assembly which takes in all the Saints of the Old Testament is the Church of the first born Heb. 12.23 There are none else but New Creatures in it However the Racovian Catechist appropriates the New Creation to the New Testament yet I must assert that it was under both Testaments but under neither was it the justifying Righteousness But the Author goes on God sent his son into the world that the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us Rom. 8.3 4. that we might have inward holiness and purity that we might be delivered from
the power of sin and that by the Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Thus the Author to which I answer God sent his Son indeed into the world that we might be sanctified by his Spirit but that was not all he sent him that we might be justified by his Blood and Righteousness to which purpose it will be worth while to consider that place Rom. 8. The Apostle in the first verse sets forth believers men in Christ by two excellent things first by Justification There is no condemnation to them no though there be reliques of corruption in them as is imported in the seventh Chapter there is none and then by Sanctification which is in conjunction with the other they walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit And in the other verses he confirms both but inverso ordine first he confirms their Sanctification from the great Origen of it the holy Spirit The Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the Law of sin and death vers 2. The power of the holy Spirit hath subdued the power of sin and then he confirms their Justification from the sufferings of Christ with which his active obedience is to be taken in conjunction What the Law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin condemned sin in the flesh vers 3. Their sins were condemned in the flesh of Christ there was an atonement made for them which certainly must relate to Justification from these sufferings of Christ with which his active obedience must be taken in conjunction the Apostle inferrs That the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us vers 4. The Law was not able to justifie us for want of a perfect obedience in us but God translated the impletion of the Law upon Christ Christ fulfilled all Righteousness for us Christ bore the wrath of God for us and these things being imputed unto us the Righteousness of the Law is fulfilled in us But then the Apostle returns again to Sanctification and subjoyns Who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit assuring us that those who are justified by the imputed Righteousness of Christ are also Sanctified and led by his holy Spirit This I take to be the meaning of the place But let us hear our Church treating upon this place in conjunction with other Scriptures r. Hom. of Salvation St. Paul saith Rom. 3. We are justified freely by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ And Rom. 10. Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to every one that believeth And Rom. 8. That which was impossible by the Law in as much as it was weak by the flesh God sending his own Son in the similitude of sinful flesh by sin damned sin in the flesh that the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us which walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit In these places the Apostle toucheth three things which must go together in our Justification upon Gods part his great mercy and grace upon Christ's parts justice that is the satisfaction of God's justice or the price of our redemption by the offering of his body and shedding of his Blood with fulfilling of the Law perfectly and throughly and upon our part true and lively Faith in the merits of Jesus Christ which yet is not ours but by Gods working in us So that in our Justification is not only Gods Mercy and Grace but also his Justice which the Apostle calleth the Justice of God and it consisteth in paying our ransom and fulfilling of the Law And so the Grace of God doth not shut out the Justice of God in our Justification but only shutteth out the justice of man that is to say the justice of our works as to be merits of deserving our justification And therefore St. Paul declareth here nothing upon the behalf of man concerning his justification but only a true lively Faith which nevertheless is the gift of God and not man's only work without God and yet that Faith doth not shut out Repentance Hope Love Dread and the fear of God to be joyned with Faith in every man that is justified but it shutteth them out from the office of justifying so that although they be all present in him that is justified yet they justifie not all together These are the excellent words of our Church worthy without flattery be it spoken to be written in Letters of Gold but much more in the hearts of all true Christians We see here that there is in justification nothing on the behalf of man but Faith only no internal Holiness Repentance Hope Love Fear of God are in the justified but shut out from the office of justifying God's Grace and Christ's Righteousness are the great causes of justification But saith the Author Is there here any mention of Christ's Righteousness or the imputation thereof I answer Our Church surely thought so and we have his passive Righteousness expressed vers 3. and where that is expressed the active is implied This is clear when the Scripture saith That we are made righteous by Christ's obedience Rom. 5.19 It doth include his blood also and when he saith That we are justified by his blood Rom. 5.9 It doth include his active obedience also so that the Scripture because it expresses justification by both and because it must be consistent with it self in expressing the one includes the other When therefore Rom. 8.3 his sufferings are expressed his active obedience is also included both therefore are intended and withall an imputation without which they cannot be profitable to us But saith the Author The Law could not do it that is the Law could not deliver from the power of sin I answer The Law could not do it of it self and without the Spirit of Christ but if that divine Spirit take the Law into its hand and write it in the heart I suppose there will be a New Creature But the Author saith That the righteousness of the Law may be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit vers 4. How can imputation come in here What pretty sence will this make of the Apostles argument I answer The sence is very clear the Righteousness of the Law is fulfilled in us by Christ's Righteousness imputed to us and withall we to whom that is imputed walk after the Spirit the one is our Justification the other our Sanctification Both the Apostle proves to be in Believers and both consist very well together as appears from the first verse There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit The No condemnation appertains to Justification and the walking after the Spirit to Sanctification and both stand very well together As to what the Author saith afterwards That there was no reason to abrogate Moses ' s
that it stands faster than the Pillars of Heaven and Earth and must be so as long as God is God and Man Man The Reason of Man must be bound in duty to point to God as the Primum Verum and the Will of Man to resign to him as the Primum Amabile these are Foundations never to be shaken The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Law amounts to so much more than the inherent Righteousness of all Saints put together that it is no were to be found but in the perfect spotless obedience of Christ neither can that be made ours but by imputation Hence Christ is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mr. Sher-Jock the end of the Law the perfection and accomplishment of it for Righteousness to them that believe Rom. 10.4 That is the Gospel of Christ requires that Rightcousness of us which the Law did only typifie and represent that holiness and purity of mind which is the perfection of all legal Righteousness For that Christ should be the end of the Law by imputation of his Righteousness to us hath no foundation in the Text. The Apostle explains what he means by this in the following verses where he gives us a description of the righteousness of the Law and the righteousness of Faith The righteousness of the Law is an external conformity to the letter of the Law the man that doth them shall live in them that is shall enjoy all the Temporal Blessings of Canaan which were promised to the observance of the Law But the Righteousness of Faith is a firm and stedfast belief of the Divine Authority of Christ that he is the Lord and more particularly a belief of his Resurrection from the dead as the last and great confirmation which God gave to the divinity of Christ's Person and Doctrine This is that Faith that overcometh the world and purifies the heart and transforms us into the likeness of God which is the perfection of all the ritual righteousness of the Law Vpon this account Christ is said to be made to us Righteousness 1 Cor. 1.20 He of God is made to us Wisdom Righteousness Sanctification and Redemption He is our Wisdom as he is our great Prophet who instructs us in true Wisdom our Righteousness as we are justified by Faith in him by a sincere belief of his Gospel which is the only Righteousness acceptable to God our Sanctification because the law of the spirit of life in him makes us free from the law of sin and death our Redemption as by these means he bath delivered us from the bondage of the Jewish Law from the idolatrous Customs of the Heathens and the tyranny of wicked Spirits and the wrath of God which is the merit of sin Christ is the end of the Law Answer even of the Moral Law and what did that call for Not external Conformisty only but all Holiness and Righteousness and that in pure sinless perfection this our Faith or inherent Graces because imperfect can never amount to The Law therefore hath its end only in the perfect spotless Righteousness of Christ and that being made over to Believers by Imputation Christ is truly said to be the end of the Law for righteousness to the believer The man that doth them shall live in them Rom. 10.5 that is saith the Author shall enjoy the temporal blessings of Canaan Indeed the Racovian Catechist will go no further Nusquam in Lege Mosis reperies vitam aeternam promissam saith he But we find the Saints in the Old Testament fixing their Faith upon eternal Life My Redeemer liveth and I shall see him saith Job Job 19.25 and 27. Abraham desireth a better country that is an heavenly Heb. 11.16 The just shall live by his faith Hab. 2.4 which is interpreted of eternal Life Rom. 1.17 Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved Joel 2.32 that is with eternal Life as it is applied Rom. 10.13 Paul said no other things than the Prophets and Moses did Act. 26.22 and yet surely he spake of eternal Life Moses and the Prophets are frequent in promising the Messiah and in him all the Promises are contained Do this and live is meant of eternal Life a Curse that is eternal Death is threatned to the violaters of the Law Gal. 3.10 therefore Life and that eternal is promised to the keepers of it When the Lawyer asked What shall I do to inherit eternal life our Saviour answered him that he must keep the Law Luk. 10.25 28. If the Law did not promise eternal Life then it did not threaten eternal Death and by consequence Christ who redeemed us from the Curse of the Law redeemed us only from a temporal one But to pass on Christ of God is made unto us righteousness 1 Cor. 1.30 that is saith the Author we are justified by Faith in him by a sincere belief of his Gospel That we are justified by Faith in Christ I acknowledge but not in the Authors sence he makes Faith properly and as an Act to justifie he makes the nature of Faith to consist only in a firm assent But I have before proved that Faith justifies as it receives Christ and his Righteousness and that justifying Faith over and above assent includes in it a fiducial Recumbency Christ is made to us righteousness one of these two ways either by the Graces of his holy Spirit imparted to us or else by his perfect Obedience imputed to us He is not made Righteousness to us by the Graces of his Spirit imparted to us for with respect to these he is made Sanctification to us and Sanctification and Justification must not be confounded As we have holy Graces from him to sanctifie us so we have Righteousness from him to justifie us He is therefore our Righteousness because his perfect Righteousness by Imputation becomes ours Bellarmine speaking of this place at sâ—â—â—interprets it of the inherent Righteousness in us which comes from Christ but afterwards as convicted of the truth De Jusiâ—â— 11.2 cip 10. he saith Nobis imputari Christi justitiam merita cùm nobis donentur applicentur ac si nosipsi Deo satisfecissemus That the Righteousness and Morits of Christ are imputed to us when they are given and applied to us as if we our selves had satisfied God Further our Author upon this Text saith That Christ is our wisdom as he is cur Prophet our Righteousness as we are justified by believing the Gospel our Sanctification as we have the Law of the Spirit of life and our Redemption as by these means he hath delivered us I see not what room is left here for the redeeming Blood of Christ nevertheless I suppose the Author meant to include the same This is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mr. Sherlock the foundation of all other mistakes that by the Righteousness of the Law and the Righteousness of Works most men understand an internal Holiness and then conclude That if this Righteousness will
are By our Marriage to Christ his personal excellencies cannot be ours though his person were In Marriages there are private contracts and the truth is Christ hath not made such an absolute settlement of himself upon us as these men dream he hath for the Gospel contains the Articles of this Marriage and there we must learn to what purposes and upon what conditions Christ gives himself to us and must challenge no more from Christ by vertue of our Marriage to him than what the Gospel the Marriage Covenant promises and we find nothing there of his personal Righteousness to be made ours And for what they tell us That a woman under covert is not liable to an arrest at Law but all must fall upon her Husband It is true as to matters of debt but does not extend to crimes if a woman kill or rob her being under covert secures her not from the Gallows How secure soever any man may fancy himself of his Marriage to Christ I would nâ—t advise him to venture too much upon it for if he be guilty of any gross wilful sin there is some danger that the Law or Gospel may condemn him unless he timely repent and reform When the Scriptures calls Christ our Husband and the Church his Spouse it means no more but that Christ is our Head and Governour who rules his Church with as great kindness tenderness and compassion as an Husband exerciseth towards his Wife and that we are to pay the same Love Duty and Obedience to Christ that Wives owe to their Husbands And here we must have done with the Metaphor unless we will turn Religion into a Romance Christ being our Husband his Righteousness is ours Answer the Law cannot take hold of us our Husband must be responsable for our faults But this is a very hard Law saith the Author and the Husband in a very ill case In truth our Husband though the eternal Son of God was made under the Law wounded bruised cast into a bloody sweat made a curse and as the Septuagint hath it Isai 55.3 he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a man set in the stroke of Gods wrath But all this he was not by chance or fortune but out of choice and unparallelled Love to his Spouse The essentials of Marriage lie in a narrow room a consent per verba de praesenti does it but the just necessary consequents of it are as the Civilians tells us Consortium omnis vitae divini humani juris communicatio the Wife participates of his sacred and civil good things neither can it be otherwise where there is as there is in Marriage such an intimate union of minds and bodies there must needs be a communio bonorum nature and reason tells us that the Wife in so near an union must have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 alimentum indumentum food and raiment out of the Husbands estate Nay and all things in a decorum thereunto and can we think that Christ should do less for his Spouse when her necessities exceed all those in nature Will he who infinitely transcends all humane Relations leave his Spouse to the rags of her own Righteousness or suffer her to perish in an eternal prison for debt and that when he hath fulfilled the Righteousness and bore the curse of the Law on purpose to cloth her and satisfie for her The whole Book of Canticles is a divine Ditty which under the parable of Marriage streams all along as a full torrent of Spiritual Love interchangeably passing between Christ and his Church Well might the Doctor bring his proof from thence Christ calls his Spouse all fair and without spot Cant. 4.7 She was not so naturally but by Marriage neither is she so in this life by inherent Graces but by the Righteousness of Christ put upon her by a gracious imputation Christ calls her from Lebanon from the top of Amana Shenir and Hermon from the lyons dens from the mountains of the Leopards vers 8. That is from the brutish lusts and idolatries of the World and he calls her thus Come with me with me my Spouse as if he had said that he would provide for her as a Spouse and therefore she should come away with him But saith the Author Personal virtues in the Husband were never settled on the Wife for a Joynture by our Marriage to Christ his personal excellencies cannot be made over to us To which I answer the Righteousness of Christ cannot be made ours so as to inhere in us But it may be made ours by imputation or if not neither can his blood be imputed to us and by consequence there can be no such thing as satisfaction or redemption through his Blood But for the truth of imputed Righteousness these men desire to appeal no further than the Articles or Marriage Covenant contained in the Gospel beyond this they desire to claim nothing from Christ their Husband and Saviour But saith the Author A woman under covert is not liable to debts but she is to crimes I answer Our debts are crimes and that above Felonies they are High-treasons against the God of Heaven and if these fall not on our Husband Christ they must fall upon us and then who where is the man that can stand before the Divine Tribunal What room can there be for the least drop of mercy or forgiveness Remarkable is the form that in Anselms time was used in the Visitation of the sick the weak man is there directed thus Si Dominus Deus te voluerit judicare dic Domine mortem Domini nostri Jesu Christi objicio inter me tuum judicium alitèr tecum non condendo si tibi dixerit quia peccator es dic Domine mortem Domini nostri Jesu Christi pono inter me mea peccata He was not to contend with God but to put the death of our Lord Jesus Christ between himself and God's Tribunal and to put it between himself and his sins unless our Husband had undertaken to discharge our debts we could never have had any possibility of Salvation Christ and Believers are legally united Mr. Sherlock Dr. Jacomb tells us That Christ is the Saints 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Surety he struck hands with God as the words imports put himself into their stead took their debt upon himself and bound himself upon this account to make satisfaction to God Now in the Law the debtor and surety are but one person the Law looks on them as one and makes no difference between them and therefore both are equally liable to the debt and if the one pay it is as much in the eye of the Law as if the other had paid it Thus it is with Christ and us he is our Surety he took our debt upon himself engaged to pay what we owed upon this Christ and we are but one person before God and accordingly he deals with us for he makes over our sins to Christ and
our hand for that end purpose that we might not be condemned but accepted of God This satisfies me Christ our Mediator was made under the Law under the command and under the curse of it he fulfilled the command of it by his active obedience he bore the curse of it by his passive This entire obedience of his which fully answers the Law is by God imputed to us not as if we were Mediators or had done it as Mediators no by no means Christ is the great Actor of it the Mediatorship is his own But it is imputed to us so far as to justisie us and make us righteous before God we were no efficients in it but are meer recipients and it is applyed to us in order to our justification It is not for us to reach the works of our Saviour these are far above our Line we must indeed lay down our lives for the Brethren as St. John tells us But what in a way of atonement and expiation of sin No it is too high for us so to do Paul was not crucisied for us nor can any other Saint be only we must as we can Procul ejus vestigia sequi as Calvin expresses it imitate him as far as our model goes We must be conformed to the Death and Resurrection of Christ Rom. 6. We must dye unto sin and be alive unto God But after we have in our little resembled him we must confess that the merit is only in him not in us we are but receivers he is the great purchasor But saith the Author it is strange that Christ should do whatever was required of us by vertue of any Law when he was neither Husband Wife Father Merchant Soldier Captain or Prince and how could he discharge the duties of those relations which he was never in To which I answer After this rate would the Socinians rob us of the satisfactory passion of Christ For say they If Christ had satisfied for us then he must have suffered all that we should have suffered that is eternal torments which he did not But one answer serves for both Christ suffered the same which we should have suffered in the substantials and essentials of it though not in the accidentals or circumstantials of it and what was wanting in the duration of his sufferings was compensated by the dignity of his person and Christ fufilled the command of the Law in the substantials and essentials of it though not in every relation this latter not being poslible for him to do because he could not possibly be in all relations he had that Love in perfection which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the fulfilling of the Law and what of accidentals of obedience was not in him was compensated by the dignity of his person The Doctor tell us Mr. Sherlock That of this exexpression as Mediator there is a double sence it may be taken strictly as relating solely to the Mediator and so Christ may be said to do as Mediator only what he did in obedience to the Law that is only what he did as Mediator which is a pretty Observation But in the sence now insisted on that is not strictly as Mediator but as not Mediator whatever Christ did as a man subject to the Law he did as Mediator because he did it as part of the duty incumbent on him who undertook so to be The meaning is that he who was Mediator being bound to do such things though not as Mediator but as a man subject to the Law yet he did them as Mediator because he was a Mediator who did them which is such an exposition of Quâ as subtilest Schoolmen never yet thought of I suppose there is no need of the subtil Schoolmen Answer who yet sometimes take Quâ specificativè sometimes repliducativè I suppose the Doctor wants only a fair Interpreter he tells us expresly pag. 182. God sent Christ as a Mediator to do and suffer whatever the Law required at our hands for that end and purpose that we might not be condemned but accepted of God It was all to this end that the Righteousness of the Law might be sulfilled in us that is which the Law required of us consisting in duties of obedience this Christ performed for us The Doctor doth not meerly intend that the Mediator did fulfil the Law or that he who did fulfill it was a Mediator but that he did it as a Mediator and was by God sent to do so and that for us This I suppose will appear to any Reader who seriously peruses the places in the Doctors Book a little piece of a face and that wrested will hardly reprsent the whole as it ought The difficulty of Christ's doing those things as Mediator Mr. Sherlock which did not belong to the Laws of his Mediation is a very material one and requires great skill in Logick to get rid of it but however it is wisely done to make a shew of saying something to that which cannot be answered for he was sensible that what Christ did purely as Mediator could not be imputed to us as though we had done it though the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or fruits of it are because we were never designed to be Mediators and the Righteousness of a Mediator is as improper to be imputed to those who are not Mediators as it is to impute the Righteousness of a Prince to a Begger therefore he was forced to consider him not as Mediator but as a private man though this too was impossible for he could not at the same time act so wany different and opposite parts as there are relations and conditions of men in the world and yet when he thought on 't again he found that it was not the Righteonsness of a private person that would avail us becausè we have no way to come at it to make it ours but only the Righteousness of the Mediator who did what he did for us and in our stead and so wheels about again and is caught in the net and labyrinth of his making The Doctor asserts positively Answer that Christ as Mediator did do whatever the Law required at our hands and I can never perswade my self that he should exclude the fulfilling of the Law from the Laws of his Mediation But then as the Author would have it we run upon another rock that is If what Christ did as Mediator be imputed to us then we must become Mediators and much such an Argument against imputed Righteousness we have in Bellarmine whose words are these De justif l. 2. cap. 7. Si vere imputaretur nobis Christi justitia profectò non minus justi haberi censerique deberemus quà m ipse Christus proinde deberemus dici atque haberi Redemptores salvatores mundi Upon which Bishop Davenant gives this censure that it is ridicula illatio The Righteousness of Christ was in himself by inhesion or from him by personal action but it is ours only by
imputation and who ever heard of a Mediator made such by imputation or by that Righteousness which another performed for him The Righteousness of Christ is imputed to us but what Secundum totam latitudinem to all intents and purposes whatsoever Oh no it is not imputed to us to do that which is impossible to make us Mediators or the Efficients of it but so far only as to make us Righteous before God by the imputation of it we are justified and saved but we are not Mediators and Saviours The Righteousness is formally Christ's the one Mediators but materially it becomes ours by imputation so far forth as to justifie us The Righteousness it self is one thing and the manner of application another Bellarmine himself who made the objection can say in another place passiones Christi quae sunt infiniti pretii De Indulgent l. ◠cap. 4. applicari per indulgentias finiso modo So say I the Righteousness of Christ is imputed to us not to all intents and purposes not to translate a Mediatorship upon us but in a limited manner to justifie and save us who are the receivers of it It is imputed to every Believer but it makes never an one of them God-man and no man that is a meer man or less than God-man can be an expiating and saving Mediator or if he could he could not be such without a Divine Call or Ordination which no Believer can pretend to The Mediatorship is totally solely Christ's but the Righteousness which he performed is so far imputed to us as to justifie and save us The satisfaction of Christ's death is made ours and that by imputation or else we must be pardoned without a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and yet that imputation doth not make us satisfying Mediators Our Church tells us 1. Hoim of Salvation Christ is the Righteousness of them that believe he for them paid the ransom by his death he for them fulfilled the Law in his life So that now in him and by him every true Christian may be called a fulfiller of the Law And yet our Church never dreamed of any such thing as that such an imputation would turn a Believer into a Mediator there is therefore no ill consequence but an infinite comfort in this assertion that the Righteousness of Christ our Mediator is imputed to us The Doctor tells us Mr. Sherlock That Christ was under no obligation to obey these Laws himself And to make this appear he discourses particularly of the Law of our Creation and the Ceremonial Law given to the Jews And for the first the Law of Creation that comprehends those eternal Laws which result from the essential difference of good and evil which all mankind are bound to observe by the very frame of their natures Now he dares not deny that Christ was bound to obey this Law for himself but then his obedience was voluntary And what of that For so the obedience of every good man is for by voluntary he tells us he doth not mean That it was meerly arbitrary and at his choice whether he would obey or not but on supposition of his undertaking to be Mediator it was necessary it should be so but he voluntarily and willingly submitted to it and so became really subject to the commands of it And is it not very plain now that Christ was not obliged to obey those Laws because he willingly submitted to them but he means somewhat more by this voluntary than he could tell how to express and all that I can guess is that whereas we are bound to obey these Laws antecedently to our choice it was not so with him for his obligation was consequential upon his being born and becoming man which was his own choice and yet even then as he tells us As he was Mediator God-man he was not by the institution of that Law obliged to it being as it were lifted up above that Law by the hypostatical Union Now this is very profound reasoning for the meaning of it is this That Christ had not been bound to live like a man unless he had become man and yet I can grant something more that it was impossible that he should have lived like a man without being man But when he chose to be man he was bound to discharge all the duties of a man for himself But how could he be exempted from this Law by being Mediator God and Man When the Doctor acknowledges that upon supposition of his being Mediator it was necessary it should be so that is that he should obey now not to be obliged by the Institution of the Law as Mediator and that it should be necessary for him to obey as Mediator are at so great a distance that it may serve for another trial of skill to reconcile them Christ Answer when he assumed the humane Nature was as man subject to the Law of Creation for his humane Nature was but a Creature and its will not being Supreme in it self was under the Divine Will but Christ freely and voluntarily became man and so put himself of his own accord into the state of subjection and as he was not made man for himself but for us So neither was he made under the Law for himself but for us Hence the Apostle joyning both these together He was made of a woman made under the Law Gal. 4. 4 5. Superadds as the end common to both that he might redeem us he assumed humanity and with it duty neither for himself but both for us that he might 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fulfil the Law Matth. 5.17 for us not only doctrinally by opening the pure Spirituality of it but practically too by fulfilling all the Righteousness thereof Christ as man was bound by the Law but this hinders not but that his obedience may be for us and may be imputed to us in justification No sooner was that Divine Decree which put a must upon Christ's sufferings made known to him as man but he was bound to dye and yet his death was a sweet Sacrifice for us and a propitiation for our sins And as the Blood of Christ was the Blood of God so the obedience of Christ was the obedience of God being stamped with his Deity it amounted to an infinite summ enough for himself and a world besides Christ was in some sence as it were exempted and lifted up above the Law by the hypostatical Union he might have carried up the Humane Nature into heaven in the very first instant of its assumption he need not have performed the Law in such a debased manner for such a space of time and in such a place as earth he was not simply and absolutely bound to it in himself but upon supposition that he took upon him the Mediatory Office he was bound to fulfil the Law for us as he did Though we suppose Mr. Sherlock that Christ as man was bound to yield obedience to the Law of Creation yet the
Moses under which they never were God sent forth his Son made of a woman Answer made under the Law to redeem them that were under the Law that we might receive the adoption of sons Thus the Apostle Gal. 4. 4 5. The Son of God was made of a woman in his Incarnation made under the Law under the rule of it in his active obedience under the curse of it in his passive and the end of all was that he might redeem us that we who were captives under the wrath of God might be redeemed ones And further that we might receive the adoption of sons that we who were children of wrath might be sons of God and so heirs of eternal life and that it may be thus indeed that Christ's being under the Law his active and passive obedience may procure such a redemption and adoption such an exemption from wrath and title to heaven for us His obedience must be applyed to us and become ours which cannot be but by imputation But saith the Author This us is not in the Text it is not to redeem us but to redeem them that were under the Law that is the Jews But was not Christ a Redeemer of the Gentiles also Or is he not their Redeemer within this Text Yes surely observe the words of the Apostle To redeem them that were under the Law that we might receive the adoption of sons The Apostle alters his phrase and turns them into we which takes in the Galatians into the adoption and by consequence into the redemption too and to make it more clear he alters his phrase again and turns we into ye in the next verse which hangs upon the former And because ye are sons vers 6. ye Galatians ye Gentiles are sons and ye Galatians ye Gentiles are redeemed ones within the Text Otherwise which is very strange the Apostle should argue from the Redemption of the Jews only to the Adoption of the Gentiles But to go on Christ saith the Author redeemed the Jews from the bondage of the Mosaical Law that is I suppose the Ceremonial Law and introduced a better Covenant the adoption of sons To which I answer Christ did indeed redeem from the bondage of Mosaical Rites and Ceremonies But is this all the Redemption within the Text If we stop here we fall in with the gloss of Socinus who understands only a freedom A jugo legis De servat part 2. cap. 24. ut Spiritûs servilis loeo filialem spiritum adipiscerentur The Redemption here is not to be restrained to a freedom from Mosaical Ceremonies only Christ was made under the whole Law and the Redemption which must be parallel to his being under the Law must not only be a Redemption from the Bondage of the Ceremonial Law but a Redemption from the curse of the Moral of which the Apostle had discoursed but a little before Gal. 3.13 Our Saviour was never made under the whole Law to redeem from a part of it only Again Redemption from the Ceremonial Law was peculiar to the Jews But the Redemption here spoken of reaches as far as the Gentiles also who as I before noted have a share in the Adoption of Sons as well as the Jews The Redemption here spoken of is not a part or piece of Redemption but Redemption in its fulness and excellency Christ by coming into the flesh introduceth a better Covenant that is the beams of Evangelical Light were purer and the effusions of the holy Spirit larger than before But still we must remember that the Covenant of Grace was for substance one and the same under both Testaments Under the Old Testament true Believers had the Law in their heart the Adoption of Sons the free Spirit and a true title to eternal Life And on the other hand under the New Testament unbelievers have the Law and Gospel too but in the Letter their bondage is far greater than that of beggarly Elements The unclean spirit dwells and works in them and the dreadful wrath of God abideth on them Christ's being under the Law saith the Author is his being such a person as should exactly answer all the Types and Figures of the Law Unto which I add His being under the Law is his being such a person as should exactly answer all the demands of the Moral Law in its mandatory and minatory parts I shall now examine what influence the Sacrifice of Christ's Death Mr. Sherlock and the Righteousness of his life have upon our acceptance with God And all that I can find in Scripture about this is that to this we owe the Covenant of Grace that God being well pleased with the obedience of Christ's Life and the sacrifice of his Death for his sake entred into a new Covenant with mankind wherein he promses pardon of sin and eternal life to those who believe and obey the Gospel This is very plain with reference to Christ's death Hence the Blood of Christ is called the blood of the covenant Heb. 10.29 And Christ is called the great Shepherd and Bishop of souls through the blood of the everlasting covenant Heb. 13.20 And the Blood of Christ is called the blood of sprinkling which speaks better things than the blood of Abel Heb. 12.24 which is an allusion to Moses his sprinkling the blood of the Sacrifice whereby he confirmed the Covenant between God and the children of Israel Heb. 9.19 20 21. For when Moses had spoken every Precept to all the people according to the Law when he had declared the terms of this Covenant to them he took the Blood of Calves and Goats with Water and scarlet Wool and Hysop and sprinkled both the Book and all the People saying This is the blood of the testament which God hath ordained to you Thus the Blood of Christ is called the blood of sprinkling Because by his Blood God did seal and confirm the Covenant of Grace as the sprinkling of the blood of beasts did confirm the Mosaical Covenant Hence we are said to be justified by the blood of Christ Rom. 5.9 that is by the Gospel-Covenant which was confirmed with his Blood Christ is called a propitiation through faith in his blood Rom. 3.25 that is by a belief of his Gospel Hence the Scripture uses these phrases promiscuously To be justified by Faith and to be justified by the faith of Christ and to be justified by Christ and to be justified through Faith in his blood to be justified and saved by grace Nay by believing that Christ is the Son of God Joh. 20.31 And that God raised him from the dead Rom. 10.9 All which signifie the same thing that we are justified by believing and obeying the Gospel for faith or faith in Christ signifies such a firm belief of the Gospel as brings forth all fruits of obedience and the Grace of God is the Gospel of Christ expresly so called Tit. 2.11 As being the effect of Gods Grace and Faith in the Blood of Christ
is a belief of the Gospel which was confirmed by his death and believing that Christ is the Son of God the Messiah and Prophet whom God sent to reveil his will includes a general belief of the Gospel which he preached and believing that God raised him from the dead doth the same because his Resurrection was the last and great confirmation of the truth of the Gospel Hence the Apostles attribute such things to the Blood of Christ as are the proper immediate office of the Gospel-Covenant because the Blood of Christ is the Blood of the Covenant and therefore all the blessings of the Gospel are owing to it because the Gospel-Covenant was procured and confirmed by it Thus the Gentiles who were a far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ and the Gentiles and Jews were reconciled unto God in one body by the cross Eph. 2.14 15 16. That is the Gentiles were received into the fellowship of God's Church and the Jews and Gentiles united in one body Now this union of Jews and Gentiles is owing to the Gospel which takes away all marks of distinction and separation and gives them both an equal right to the blessing of the New Covenant This New Covenant belongs to all mankind there is now no distinction of persons Neither Jew nor Greek Barbarian Scythian bond nor free but Christ is all and in all No man is acceptable to God because he is a Jew or Greek but the only thing of any value is Faith in Christ or a belief of the Gospel which is indifferently offered to all Now this is attributed to the Blood of Christ and to his death because thereby Christ put an end to the Mosaical Covenant and sealed this New Covenant of Grace with Mankind as the Apostle explains himself in the following verses 17.18 c. That Christ having abolished the Law of Commandments by his death he came and preached peace that is the Gospel of peace to them who were a far off to the Gentiles and to them who were nigh to the Jews he abrogated the Mosaical Law That Law of Commandments contained in ordinances which was peculiar to the Jews and separated them from the rest of the World And he broke down the middle wall of partition which kept the uncircumcised Gentiles though Proselites at a distance from God as confining their worship to the outward court of the Temple which the Apostle seems to refer to in that phrase Them that were a far off And now by the Gospel he admits the Gentiles to as near an approach to God as the Jews As he adds For through him we have an access by one Spirit to the Father vers 18. The Author enquiring Answer what influence the obedience and death of Christ have upon our acceptance with God resolves it thus All that I can find in Scripture is that to this we owe the Covenant of Grace Christ's Blood is called the Blood of the Covenant because it did seal and confirm the Covenant I answer Christ's Blood did indeed seal and confirm the Covenant But is this the all of it Socinus will own as much as this comes to Sicuti alicujus animantis sanguine fuso foedera antiquitùs sanciebantur De servat l. 1. cap. 3. confirmabantur ita Christi silii sui sanguine foedus suum novum atque aeternum quod nobiscum per ipsum Christum pepigerat sancivit confirmavit Deus Thus he telling us too that it is therefore called Sanguis aeterni foederis To the same purpose speaks the Racovian Catechist with others of the same Tribe But the Scripture tells us more of the Blood of Christ That we are justified by his blood Rom. 5.9 But saith the Author we are said to be justified by his Blood that is by the Gospel-Covenant which was confirmed with his Blood This is a strange way of interpreting Scripture We are justified by his blood that is by the Gospel We may as well go on to verse 18. and say justification of life is by the righteousness of one that is by the Gospel And to verse 19. and say We are made righteous by the obedience of one that is by the Gospel And from thence we may go on at the same rate with other Scriptures as He hath washed us from our sins in his own blood Revel 1.5 that is in his own Gospel The blood of Jesus Christ who through the eternal Spirit offered up himself without spot to God shall purge your consciences from dead works Heb. 9.14 that is the Gospel shall do it This is my blood of the new Testament which is shed for many for the remission of sins Matth. 26.28 that is this is my New Testament of the New Testament which is shed for many for the remission of fins Rather than make such work with Scripture we were as good let the Blood of our dear Lord stand there as it ought in its justifying Glory We are justified by Christ's blood that is by the Gospel And is Christ's Blood the Gospel Or where in all the Scripture is the Blood of Christ so taken The Scripture rarely if ever speaks of being justified by the Gospel but it speaks much and often of being justified by Christ's Blood It cleanses us from all sin 1 Joh. 1.7 It purges the conscience Heb. 9.19 It was shed for the remission of sins Eph. 1.7 It washes us from our sins Rev. 1.5 And yet all this contrary to the express words and genius of Scripture must be understood not of the Blood of Christ but of the Gospel and why of the Gospel Because his Blood confirmed the Gospel And is justifying and confirming the Gospel all one Christ's Blood according to the Author confirmed the Covenant with all Mankind but all men are not justified When the Scripture speaks of Christs Blood and Death as confirmative of the Covenant or Gospel it speaks sometimes in general of all men Thus he died for all men 2 Cor. 5.15 Hee gave himself a ransom for all 1 Tim. 2.6 with many other places to the same purpose But when the Scripture speaks of Christ's Blood as justifying it speaks not in general of all but in particular of Believers only and yet if justify and confirming the Gospel were all one it might be as truly said that Christ justifies all as that he died for all The Gospel is the Charter of Justification but besides the Charter their must be a Righteousness to be the Matter of our Justification God never justifies any man without a Righteousness and what is it Is it the very Act of Faith Thus Socinus would have it De servat part 4. cap. 4. that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Credere is loco justitiae in the room of all Righteousness But I have before proved that Faith as an Act and absolutely in it self considered canot justifie us Or is it our inherent Graces This is the express Tenet of the Papists Thus Bellarmine would have
justifying Grace to be donum in Animainhaerens Renovation and Regeneration Against this our Protestant Divines have sufficiently testified Indeed no man who understands either himself and his own Errata's or the necessary distinction which is to be made between Justification and Sanctification can assert it And now nothing remains to be our Righteousness in Justification but the Obedience and atoning Blood of Christ and these cannot be applied to us and become ours but by Imputation By this it appears that the Blood of Christ doth not only confirm the Covenant but that it justifies us also And this further appears by the place quoted by the Author Moses sprinkled the blood on the book and on all the people Heb. 9.19 He did not only confirm the Covenant but sprinkled the People too this was the Type or Figure but Christ who is the Substance not only confirms the Covenant but sprinkles the hearts of Believers by his Blood Hence their hearts are sprinkled from an evil conscience Heb. 10.22 and they have the sprinkling of the blood of Christ 1 Pet. 1.2 But to go on The Scripture saith the Author uses these phrases promiscuously to be justified by Faith by Christ by Grace nay by believing that Christ is the Son of God or risen from the dead To which I answer All these concurr to the same Justification but not in the same manner Grace which is the inward impulsive Cause of Justification is not Christ or his Blood the Blood of Christ which is the Matter of our Righteousness is not Faith Faith which is the Hand to receive Christ and Grace is not the Gospel the Charter of Justification which contains the Evangelical Axioms such as those touching Christ's being the Son of God or touching his Resurrection from the dead are These are distinct things and not to be confounded As for that place Eph. 2.14 15 16. the Apostle speaks indeed of reconciling Jews and Gentiles but that is not all he speaks too of reconciling both to God ver 16. and of making them one new man in himself ver 15. which notes a further reconciliation than that among themselves even a conjunction with God and Christ according to our Saviours Prayer That they maybe one in us Joh. 17.21 Christ saith the Author abrogated the Mosaical Law I answer He did so as to Types and Ceremonials but the Moral Law which is immortalized by its intrinsecal Sanctity stands to this day and the Grace which was under the Old Testament was not abrogated but made more illustrious than it was before The Gentiles saith the Author were at a distance from God But if they had natural Faith and could by it please God the distance was less and more tolerable though they were but in the outward Court of the Temple nay though they were a thousand miles off from it they would do well enough in the other world Mr. Sherlock Thus the Jews are said to be redeemed from the curse of the Law by the accursed death of Christ upon the Cross Gal. 3.13 Because the death of Christ put an end to that Legal dispensation and sealed a new and better Covenant between God and Man and the Gentiles were redeemed from their vain conversation received from their fathers that is from those idolatrous and impure practices they were guilty of not with silver and gold but with the precious blood of Jesus Christ 1. Pet. 1.18 19. Now the Gentiles were delivered from their Idolatry by the preaching of the Gospel which is called their being redeemed by the blood of Christ because we owe this unspeakable blessing to his death Thus the Jews are redeemed from the curse of the Law by the accursed death of Christ Answer Gal. 3.13 so the Author and thus Socinus De Servat part 2. cap. 1. Ad Judaeos tantùm pertinet This belongs only to the Jews But the Curse which fell upon Christ was not a ceremonial one but a real such as put him into Agonies and a bloody Sweat neither were the Jews only redeemed from it but the Gentiles also what else was this to the Galatians who were Gentiles Were not the Gentiles also under the Curse and by nature children of wrath No doubt they were the Apostle saith That Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ ver 14. And surely he would not argue from the Redemption of the Jews only to the Benediction of the Gentiles but from what was common to both of them The Gentiles were redeemed from their vain conversation that is from their idolatrous practices with the blood of Christ 1 Pet. 1.18 19. that is they were delivered by the preaching of the Gospel So the Author But when they were redeemed from their vain Conversation they were redeemed from the guilt of it and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for this was not the Gospel but the precious Blood of Christ who was a Lamb without blemish and without spot Those men are injurious to the Blood of Christ Mr. Sherlock who attribute no more to it than a non-imputation of sin That by his death Christ Dr. Owen Com. 193. bearing and undergoing the punishment due to us paying the ransom due for us delivered us from the wrath and curse of God And thus by Christ's death all cause of quarrel is taken away But then this will not complete our acceptation the old quarrel may be laid aside and yet no new friendship begun we may be not sinners and yet not so far righteous as to have a right to the Kingdom of heaven So that the Blood of Christ only makes us innocent delivers us from guilt and punishment but if we will take the Doctor 's word for it it can give us no title to Glory this is owing to the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness to the Obedience of his Life But you see the Scripture gives us a quite different account of it we are said to be justified and redeemed by the Blood of Christ nay We have boldness to enter into the holiest by the Blood of Jesus Heb. 10.19 which is an allusion to the high Priest's entring into the Holy of Holies which was a Type of Heaven with the blood of the Sacrifice Thus by the Blood of Christ we have admission into heaven it self though the Dr. says That the Blood of Christ makes us innocent but cannot give us a Title to Heaven The Scripture takes no notice of their artificial Methods That the guilt of sin is taken away by the death of Christ and that we are made righteous by his Righteousness But the Blood of Christ is said to justifie us and to give us admission into the holiest of all into heaven it self nay we are made righteous by the death of Christ too 2 Cor. 5.21 For he hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in
The plowing of the wicked is sin Prov. 21.4 Take him in sacred or Devotional affairs His Sacrifice is an abomination Prov. 15.8 And so is his Prayer too Prov. 28.9 Whatever his outward work or posture be To the unbelieving there is nothing pure Tit. 1.15 The very mind and conscience is defiled and will be so till it be purified by Faith Mr. Shephard places Justification before Sanctification and what doth the Church of England do It tells us in the 12. Article That good works are the fruits of Faith and follow after Justification that they spring necessarily of a true and lively Faith And in the 13. Article That works done before the Grace of Christ and the inspiration of his Spirit are not pleasant to God forasmuch as they spring not of Faith in Jesus Christ Nay in the close of that Article our Church saith of such works We doubt not but they have the nature of sin As for Mr. Shephards speech for Christ come in a sense that they have in some measure resisted his Spirit refused his Grace and wearied him with their iniquities the inviting of such is no more than that of our Saviour which calls the weary and heavy laden to come to him for rest in which all are concerned except such as can without Christ earn a sanctity or holyness at the fingers ends of Nature and take a nap at home in a presumption of their own worthiness and self made righteousness But let us consider Mr. Sherlock the whole progress of the Soul to a closure with Christ the several steps to this are Conviction Compunction Humiliation and Faith which is the uniting Grace Now if there be nothing of forjaking of sin included in all this then Men must be united to Christ before they forsake their sins Now Conviction is a great sense of the evil of sin and the evil after it of its abominable accursed Nature and the Judgments which follow it and this is as it ought to be Men must be awakened to see these evils before they will reform their lives Reform nay you are out this is not the end of Conviction to reform sin that is a legal way but Compunction is the end of it well then what is this Compunction Why Compunction is first a great fear of being damned he sees death wrath eternity near to him next to this succeeds a great sorrow and mourning for sin and that which perfects this Compunction is a separation from sin this is something like but by a separation from sin you must not understand a leaving sin but such a separation as consists with living in it For it is nothing but a being willing or rather not unwilling that the Lord should take it away the Lord doth not wound the heart that the Soul should first heal it self but that it may desire the Physician the Lord Jesus to come and heal it So that all he means by separation from sin is to be content that Christ by an irresistible power should take away our sins By this Separation the Soul is cut off from the will to sin not from all no nor from any sin in the will for that must be mortified by a Spirit of holyness after the Soul is implanted into Christ Now this is down right non-sense for he must be a subtil Man who can distinguish between a will to sin and sin in the will and all that can be made of it is this that this separation is a willingness or rather not unwillingness that Christ should take away our sins against our wills and therefore he tells us That this Separation is no part of our Sanctification The whole design of this Compunction is to work humiliation in us which is the work of the Spirit whereby the Soul broken off from self-conceit and confidence submitteth and lieth under God to be disposed as he pleaseth this self-confidence is any hope of pleasing God by Reformation or Repentance or any thing he can do When Men feel this Compunction the great danger is lest they should seck ease by Repentance and Reformation if they can repent and reform they have some hopes as well they may if they do so that this will heal their wounds and pacify the Lord towards them when they see no peace in a sinful course they will try a good one But this is a dangerous mistake for while it is thus with the Soul he is uncapable of Christ For he that trusts to other things to save him or makes himself his own Saviour or rests in his duties without a Saviour that is according to this Author all those who repent and reform he can never have Christ to save him So that true Humiliation is this when the Soul feels its own inability and unworthiness that it may lye under God to be disposed of that is contented to be saved or damned as shall please God and when the Soul is at this pass it is vas capax a vessel capable of Grace And now they are made thus hollow and empty by Humiliation they are capable of receiving Christ as an hollow vessel is of receiving any thing This is a new notion of our union to Christ that it is a receiving Christ into us as an hollow vessel receives any liquor poured into it This is a Philosophical account of the nature of Humiliation that a man must have such a sense of his inability to please God that he shall never dare to be so prophane as to attempt it but must leave repentance and reformation to carnal christless men and that he may be so sensible of his unworthiness that he shall contentedly submit to God to be damned or saved as he pleases And now the Soul being thus hollow is fit to receive Christ and being grown careless of its Salvation and indifferent whether it be saved or damned for it is impossible thus to submit without being indifferent in some measure which God shall chuse it is a fit object for mercy certainly it is a very hard thing to bring any man in his wits to this and I find by this Author that God is very hard put to it to humhle the Soul thus For he is forced to irritate and stir up original corruption to stir the dunghil a very unfit office for an Holy Being that so men finding themselves sensibly grow worse and worse may despair of growing better and leave off such vain attempts and sit down humble under God Nay the Lord loads and tires and wearies the Soul by its own endeavours till it can stir no more That is when the Soul labours to repent and reform the Spirit of God which should assist such pious endeavours withdraws it self because it knows the Soul would rest therein without Christ Now I know not who suffers most by this The sinner who is thus humbled or God who thus humbles him for it must needs be as contrary to the holy merciful nature of God to use such
to wait for the Sun to have all Grace come down to us in the healing Beams of the true Sun of Righteousness Jesus Christ And as for the second thing a sense of our unworthiness so as to submit to God whether he will save or damn us it is no such strange thing to me that poor finners should lye prostrate at Gods feet acknowledging their worthiness to be for ever condemned and Gods Soveraignty in dispenfing Grace as he pleases it is no more but only to subscribe to that of the Apostle He will have mercy on whom he will have mercy and whom he will he hardneth Rom. 9.8 Theodorus Cornhertus though in his life he had writ against Calvin and Beza in the point of Predestination yet at his death professed to God Se animam suam à Deo possidere quam Deo integrum sit pro suo beneplacito servare vellet an reprobare sibi nil esse quod conqueratur Either we have power in our hands to work true Faith in our selves to regenerate our own hearts or not 5 if we say we have such a power in our selves how shall those Scriptures be salved which tell us That God begets us of his own will James 1.18 That he worketh the will of his own good pleasure Phil. 2.13 That the regenerating spirit bloweth where it listeth Joh. 3.8 That faith is not of our selves but the gift of God Eph. 2.8 How shall Gods Royal Prerogative which is to make a new heart to take away the stone of it to sprinkle the clean water to put his Spirit into men as we have it Ezeck 36. ever be preserved inviolate It cannot be but if as becoms us we fay that God is the great Worker of regenerating Graces in us how can we do less than lye prostrate at his feet and pleasure for it The case is very short either Gods will must depend on Mans or Mans will must depend on Gods and one would think it very reasonable that Man a Creature a meer Receiver should depend on him who is a God and great Donor of all The Fathers in the second Arausican Council Can. 4. determine thus Si quis ut à peccato purgemur voluntatem nostram Deum expectare contendit non autem ut etiam purgari velimus per Sancti Spiritus infusionem operationem in nos fieri confitetur resistit ipsi Spiritûi Sancto You see they make Mans will hang upon Gods and not è contrà This submission to Gods will is not as if we might be indifferent whether we were saved or damned but that we must lye at Gods feet humbly confessing our desert of eternal damnation on the one hand and the Soveraignty of Gods free Grace on the other And that such a man is in his wits hear the judgement of learned Bishop Reynolds Sinful of sin 262. That man who can in secret and truth of heart willingly and uncompulsorily stand on Gods side against sin and against himself for it giving God the glory of his Righteousness if he should condemn him and of his unsearchable and rich mercy that he doth offer to forgive him I dare pronounce that man to have the Spirit of Christ for no man by nature can willingly and uprightly own damnation and charge himself with it as his due portion Thus he But saith the Author I find God is very hard put to it to humble the Soul thus For he is forced to stir up original corruption which is a very unfit office for an holy Being To which I answer God is too high to be put into an office and too wise to do that which is unfit yet in Scripture we find him withdrawing from and hardening of men The Church cries out O Lord why hast thou made us to err from thy way and hardened our hearts from thy fear Isai 63.17 Nevertheless God doth what he doth in a just decorum in a way congruous to himself so that his Holiness or any other Attribute suffers not thereby and withall in a way profitable to men When God left good Hezekiah to fall I doubt not but it was so far profitable to him as it did humble him for the pride of his heart when he withdraws and leaves the humbled sinner to the stirrings of inward corruption it hath a very merciful issue if it carry him out of himself to Christ The very withdrawings of the Spirit are by it self made use of to make the sinner hasten out of himself to Christ Mr. Shephard saith Mr. Sherlock That true Faith is the coming of the Soul not unto duties of Holiness which is obedience properly but unto Christ Which notion of our union to Christ is such that according to it wicked men who live in sin may be united to Christ But the Scripture places the formal nature of our union to Christ in a subjection to his Authority and obedience to his Laws an holy life must not only follow our union to Christ as an effect of it but must at least in order of nature go before it because by this we are united to Christ We are not real members of Christ till we sincerely obey him till our minds are transformed into his Image Our union to Christ is more or less perfect according to our attainments in true Piety and Virtue The first and lowest degree of Vnion to Christ is a belief of his Gospel which in order of Nature must go before Obedience to it But yet it includes a purpose of obeying it and in this sence we must be united to Christ before we can be holy because this belief of his Gospel is the great principle of Obedience as our Saviour tells his Disciples Abide in me and I in you as the branch cannot bring forth fruit of it self except it abide in the vine no more can ye except ye abide in me Joh. 15.4 But then our Vnion is not perfected without Obedience This makes us the true Disciples of Christ when we are fruitful in good works as he adds in vers 8. Herein is my Father glorified that you bring forth much fruit so shall you be my Disciples A belief of the Gospel and a purpose of Obedience is all can be expected from beginners but this doth not give an actual title to all the promises of the Gospel unless we actually obey it But when in the strength of this Faith we conquer the world and the flesh and improve all opportunities of doing good This makes us the Disciples of Christ indeed and heirs of Glory Nothing can be a greater dishonour to our Saviour nor a greater contradiction to his Gospel than to affirm that wicked men while they continue such are actually united to Christ and thereby have an actual right to pardon and eternal life St. John understood not this Doctrine when he told us God is light and in him is no darkness at all If we say we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness live in any
sin we lye and do not the truth but if we walk in the light as God is in the light then have we fellowship one with another 1 Joh. 1.5 6 7. This doctrine doth not only take away the necessity of Holiness in order to our Vnion to Christ but destroys the necessary obligations to Holiness and Obedience for the suture and so thrusts Holiness quite out of the Christian Religion Our Vnion to Christ is perfected while we are unholy and when we are united to Christ there is less need of Holiness than before For now the merit of Christs death is imputed to us to remove the guilt and punishment of sin and his actual obedience is imputed to us to make us righteous and to give us an actual right to glory So that if men will obey Christ out of a principle of good nature and thank fulness they may but according to this notion there is no necessity of it because they are delivered from wrath and have a right to eternal life without it Still the Author goes on with this charge Answer That wicked men who live in sin may be united to Christ Mr. Shephard holds that we are united to Christ by Faith And are Believers wicked men they receive Christ whole Christ as their Prophet to teach them their Priest to satisfie for them their King to rule them and upon account of this receiving they are the sons of God Joh. 1.12 And are they wicked men for all this they have the promise of pardon and justification Act. 13.39 The promise of the Spirit Joh. 7.38.39 The promise of eternal life Joh. 3.16 And may we call them wicked men If wicked men may be intitled to such promises there is no need at all of Holiness or Obedience But saith the Author an holy life must not only follow our Vnion to Christ But at least in order of nature go before it because by this we are united to Christ To which I answer Without doubt that Faith which in Scripture phrase doth come to Christ receive Christ put on Christ and feed upon Christ must needs unite to him and of this Faith Obedience or an holy Life is not a part but a fruit all those worthies Heb. 11. First believed and then by that Faith produced all those acts of Obedience there recorded First We are married to Christ by Faith and then we bring forth fruit unto God Rom. 7.4 And in that fifth Chapter of John quoted by the Author First there are branches in Christ by Faith and then there is holy Fruit brought forth An holy Life must needs presuppose Faith it flows out of a pure heart and the heart cannot be such without Faith It is a conformity to the Divine Rule and that Rule cannot be assured to be such but by Faith It is levelled at the Glory of God and the single eye which looks at that great end is Faith without which the whole Body of our Works is full of darkness Now if Faith unite to Christ and precede Obedience or an holy Life then it is evident that Obedience or an holy Life do not go before our Union to Christ but follow after it But saith the Author our Vnion to Christ is not perfected without Obedience Hence our Saviour saith Herein is my Father glorified that you bear much Fruit so shall ye be my Disciples Joh. 15.8 To which I answer Our Union to Christ is not indeed perfect before Obedience as to its Fruit and Consequences but it is as to its essentials for the Believer in the very instant of believing hath a true title to the promises of pardon of the Spirit and of eternal Life So that should he immediately and before any one act of Obedience depart this Life he should undoubtedly and without any scruple enter that blessed Region where are the spirits of just men made perfect as for that place Joh. 15.8 where our Saviour tells them That bearing of fruit they should be his Disciples it is parallel to that place If ye continue in my word then are ye my Disciples Joh. 8.31 In both they were Disciples before In that Joh. 8.31 they were Disciples before that period of life unto which their continuance in the word extends it self or else their discipleship must have been adjourned to the other World And in that Joh. 15.8 they were Disciples before their bearing of fruit for they could not bear fruit without being branches in Christ and Branches they could not be without being Disciples when there fore our Saviour saith so shall ye be my Disciples the meaning only is that by their fruitfulness they should give a real proof and demonstration that they are indeed true Disciples and Branches of Christ But saith the Author This Doctrine destroys the obligations to holyness and thrusts holyness out of the Christian Religion our union to Christ is perfected while we are unholy and when we are united to Christ there is less need of holyness than before for now the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us To which I answer As to that that our union to Christ is perfected while we are unholy If by unholy be meant only before a holy life Believers before that are so perfectly united to Christ as to have a true title to the promises of Pardon the Spirit and Salvation If by unholy is meant a wicked Man no wicked Man is united unto Christ this would be a dishonour to our Saviour a contradiction to the Gospel such a one walks in darkness and cannot have fellowship with God who is Light as St. John speaks But a Believer who before an holy life is united to Christ is not must not be called a wicked Man As to the other That when we are united to Christ there is no need of holyness because of the righteousness of Christ imputed to us I answer That before I have proved that this assertion that imputed righteousness makes holyness needless is but a Popish calumny and without any ground at all SECT V ACcording to these principles Mr. Sherlock there is no certain way to get into Christ the method prescribed is Conviction Compunction Humiliation and Faith which is the uniting Grace Now I observe first that a Man is passive in all this and can contribute nothing to it himself any otherwise than as he is acted by an irresistible power and it is a vain thing to give such rules and directions as no man can follow this only tells us by what methods God unites us to Christ not what we must do but what we must suffer in order to this union A Sinner may stir up in himself some natural Conviction of sin some natural fear sorrow c. And in a sense of this may set upon the work of Reformation of leaving his sins and performing duties But all this they tell us is to no purpose for unless this Conviction Compunction Humiliation be wrought in us by the irresistible power of the
Grace is consistent with taking all fair opportunities of sinning so we do not design it before hand Secondly When the temptation easily prevails then it is the Law of sin in the unregenerate This is an Argument indeed that a Man is a willing Slave but when a Man is conquered by a temptation though he make some resistance it is an Argument that sin is his Master which rules and governs especially if this be often such a Man surely is none of Christs freemen and therefore not to fail Thirdly When sin carries it in spite of all opposition against all external discouragements threatnings of the Law the Scepter of the Gospel the Love of God and his Wrath the Death and Wounds of Christ Reproofs Resolutions Vowes Promises c. then it is the Law of sin So that it seems when sin carries it in despite of all external oppositions only it is the mark of an unregenerate Man but when it carries it against internal and external oppositions that is a sign of a regenerate Man for a regenerate Man has the same external oppositions to preserve him from sin that an unregenerate Man hath and besides these he hath internal oppositions the checks of his own conscience which he says the unregenerate Man has not And Fourthly When it is sinning and no sense of sin no after Repentance for it then it is the Law of sin Now what bad Man is there who does not at one time or other repent of his sins complain of them And how many are there that repent of their sins and make large Confessions of them and return to them again There are no Men but do at one time or other express some sorrow for their sins which he calls Repentance and there are a great many who pretend thus to be sorry for their sins who it is to be feared are never the better Men for it and yet were there any such who sin without any sense of it they would be much better then those regenerate Men who feel the gripes of conscience for sin and yet return to it This working of the Law of sin in Gods People is an ill thing Answer Oh! that we had perfection But while we are here sin will be in us and whilest it is in us it will work in some measure Concupiscere nolo concupisco saith St. Austin De Temp. Serm. 45. The first mark in the Doctor is sinning industriously and designedly and this is a sure one and found in all the unregenerate although all of them are not alike cunning and Artists at the Trade of sin all more or less make provision for the Flesh the frame of their Heart stream of their Thoughts run this way The Flesh as the Doctor speaks hath the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the projecting and forecasting ability at command in them thus it is not with the regenerate The Second is The temptation easily prevails in the unregenerate and what more certain The old heart is as dry tinder ready to take fire upon every little spark thus it is not with the regenerate who hath a higher and a better Spirit than his own to guard him against the temptatation If he be overcome in a particular Act of sin sin is not yet his Master because it cannot gain the bent of his heart and the course of his life The third is When sin carries it against all external Discouragements against the threatnings of the Law the Scepter of the Gospel the Love and Wrath of God the Wounds of Christ Reproofs Resolutions Vowes c. then it is the Law of sin Upon which the Author inferrs thus It seems when sin carries it against external oppositions only it is a mark of an unregenerate Man but when it carries it against internal and external oppositions that is a sign of a regenerate Man To which I answer It is true when sin carries it in a regenerate Man it carries it against such internal helps and principles of Grace as are not in the unregenerate but then it carries it only in a single Act But in the unregenerate it carries it in a course of life too against Law Gospel Wrath Love the Blood of Christ the smitings of Conscience Reproofs Promises Judgments still he will sin on whilest he is unregenerate thus the regenerate doth not The Fourth is When 't is sinning and no sense of sin no after Repentance for it then it is the Law of sin But saith the Author What bad Man is there who does not at one time or other repent of his sins and yet were there any such they would be better than those regenerate Men who feel the gripes of conscience for sin and yet return to it Unto which I answer Surely all bad Men do not repent of their sins such as God gives up to a reprobate mind to a fat heart to a spirit of slumber to a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a brawny hardness which feels nothing do not do so and yet I suppose these are the worst of Men Sinning against gripes of Conscience is a great aggravation but an hard senseless heart is the worst state imaginable on Earth But suppose bad Men have some kind of Repentance is it such as the regenerate have after their falls No surely the regenerate as the Doctor hath it are greatly humbled they recover again by true Repentance they rise after their falls thus unregenerate Men do not It is wonderful to consider Mr. Sherlock how little a matter will serve for an evidence of Grace after all their talk of Sanctification when they come to administer comfort to distressed consciences Oh saith the Soul I find sin prevail Sheph. Sts Jewel and how can I be comforted not by Sanctification sure Answ I will subdue your iniquities and cast your sins into the midst of the Sea Obj. But the Devil will be busie with me Ans God will tread him down Obj. But I cannot go to God by Prayer to fetch comfort Comfort what hast thou to do with comfort get quit of thy sins first and then it is time enough for comfort Ans Though it be so yet believe and thou shall have thy desire But I doubt the Soul that cannot pray cannot believe neither Obj. But I am afraid I shall fall away from God Afraid of it thou art fallen from God already if sin prevail so much for sin is the great Apostacy from God Answer None can pluck thee out of Christs hands neither sin nor the Devil But how if they be not in Christs hands yet sin I doubt may keep them out if God cut off barren Branches there is some danger of putrid ones God hath said I have made an everlasting Covenant with thee I will not turn away from thee Obj. This is good news had I a right to the promise but alas I cannot believe and take a naked promise Ans Doest thou desire to believe and to have Christ and say thus If it