in hand evidently sheweth for he saith not onely As by one offence judgement came untocondemnation so by one righteousness to justification of life but expresly maketh the comparison too in regard of their objects As by one offence to all men to condemnation so by one righteousnesse to All men to justification of life I would faine know of M. Ow. what the Apostle says in the 18. v. distinct from what he said before in the precedent verses taking away his equalizing of the Object So that that speech looks but like an Assertion of one resolved not to own a truth be it never so plainely exprest if it suit not with his own opinion that he maintaineth Again whereas he denies that Heb. 2.9 holds out that Christ stood in the roome of every man and refers us for proof to what he said to that Scripture his saying to it being proved impertinent and vaine already we need not here give him any further Answer Sure he that dyed for every man stood in the roome of every man in that his dying or else M. Owens own Argument from the force of the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 chap. 10. lib. 3. are meer vanities Whereas he sayes further that no one word of God sayes that all men were given to Christ to redeem I answer nor did T. M. say so but having spoken of the Death of Christ in the roome of all mankind and his Resurrection he added by Parenthesis that they are all given him and shall be brought unto him quoting for proof Phil. 2.8.11 Rom. 14.9 which intimates his meaning to be that they were given into his dispose as upon his resurrection and that all are given to Christ in that sense Psal 2.8 9. fully declares I will give thee the Heathen for thine inheritance and the utmost parts of the Earth for thy possession and thou shalt rule them with an Iron Rod c. But I deny that ever the Scriptures say God gave any man to him that he should dye for him In dying for men he bought them rather and upon that God gave all to him in a generall way to rule over them and he gives him some by his gracious call to be his peculiar charge and to be set free by him from all their inthralments in conscience and from the power of pollution and temptation Whereas he sayes Christ is called the last Adam in respect of the efficacy of his death to the promised seed If he meane in that regard only it s but his meer Assertion and so till it be proved needs no more answering it being the same in substance with what he said before against the extent of the Object of his death contrary to Rom. 5.18 which we have even now answered Against this passage of T.M. that Christ by his death brought all men out of the Death they fell into by Adam he opposes this that the Death men fell into in Adam was a death in sin and the guilt of condemnation thereupon For which he quotes Ephes 2.1 2 3. To which I desire the Reader to remember what I said above about Redemption Chap. 5. lib. 3. that we fell into a twofold death in Adam one as the naturall and proper fruit and consequence of that sinning the deading all our powers to that that was spiritually good 2. The wages and punishment of this sin that is destruction and utter ruine Ioh. 8.31 32. The latter of these Christ bare for us not the former for then he should have had our pollution in him too which is crosse to truth Therefore when we speak of bringing us from the death we fell into in Adam we are to be understood of that Christ endured for us not the other which he brings us out of by his Word and Spirit received into us and not by his dying onely or Resurrection also And therefore M. Owen here prevaricates as in another passage fastned upon M. More he abuses him for he no where tells us as M. Owen charges him that the presenting himself just before the Father was the ultimate thing by Christ intended not a tittle that way He hath also many heavie words against M. More for saying God accepted the Sacrifice of Christ as if all had dyed risen sacrificed satisfied c. which spring from his owne mistake as if Christ in dying for All was said to dye and satisfie for all sins that ever they should or might commit and so procure an acquittance and discharge from them All to be without faile as on his part and what ever failing in any condition happen on their part made over unto all which as its contrary to those intimations that speak of their perishing for whom Christ dyed as a thing possible yea and of some ments pulling swift condemnation upon themselves whom he bought which could not be were that position true so it s also a gap to all carelesness and licentiousness for then let all men take what course they will Either Christ dyed for them or not if not no endeavour can do them good God is their enemy and hated them before they offended him even from all eternity and they must have no better do what they can then what the hatred of an Omnipotent God will produce unto them if he did Then eia agite nothing can pull a dram of wrath upon them their score are all wiped off both what they have run into and what they shall The Apostle never preached such Doctrine but that they that walk in the light as he is in it that walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit that are rooted in the Faith and not moved from the hope of the Gospell shall have this benefit by Christs death that no condemnation shall befall them all their sins are cleansed c. Verily Christ putting himself into the place of Adam in the day that he sinned and in due time bearing that heavie death that else had seised on All and overcoming it and presenting himself to God as a Conqueror over it was far more acceptable to God then if all men in the world had dyed and overcome For we had done it but for our selves and out of love to our selves but he out of obedience to his Father and love to us and the same worke is far more acceptable to God when done out of Charity then when done out of selfe-love and meer necessity Beside the dignity of his Person and neernesse to his Father far above ours but I pass that too Heobjects further against T. M. because he sayes comparing Christ and Adam in respect of the effect and fruit of their works in the publick place that as by the sin of Adam all his posterity were in and by him deprived of that life and righteousnesse they had in him and are fallen under sin and death though secretly invisibly and in some sort inexpressibly so by the efficacy of the obedience of Christ All men without exception are redeemed
it which is not to be seen by climbing up into heaven to search into Gods secrets but by finding in themselves faith and sanctification they say and those too such as are so and so qualified as may evidence them to be fruits of election and so men must have the effects before and without their proper cause which is love discovered to men Tit. 3.4 5 6. they must have all these Repentance Faith Love to God and men Justification Sanctification yea and perhaps too eternal Glory before they shall see any solid ground or motive to repent believe in him serve and love him or that Christ hath done any thing for them by vertue of which he can justifie and sanctifie them and bring them to glory with him And so they are not lead to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly righteously and godlily by Gods grace appearing in the Gospel to them but deny ungodliness and live godlily or rather pretend and seem to do so that so grace might appear to them and that they might see the gospel declaration to belong to them The Gospel doctrine is to them but like the law that is a doctrine that consists of duties commanded with promises and threatnings annexed without Gospel motives of Gods love propounded the viewing of which things the Spirit of Love breaths in to lead and to produce the things required and so their endeavours after those works and duties are looked upon as the fruits of grace and goodness yea as the arguments of their Election past and future happiness when they may be as far from both as the Pharisee that denied Gods free Grace to Publicans and sinners and yet judged himself a partaker of Gods Grace by his works of righteousness magnifying grace against free will and thanking God as giving such grace in those things which were but the products of his will neglecting and abiding ignorant of that grace in Christ which would have truly corrected both his Judgment and will such the effect of this limiting restraining doctrine as theirs also was Men are led hereby to bottom the Gospel it self with all arguments of love and goodness therein leading to faith and repentance upon their faith and repentance which they pretend they may have before they know whether they have any solid ground for them or no as if they could winde in themselves into the perception of Gods love by their frames and endeavors and not first be wrought up to them by the love and goodness of God perceived by them and as if men should look to themselves and their endeavors as the glass through which they shall see Gods love as for them and not rather upon God and Christ as declared in the Gospel to love them as the glass in which they may see their obligation to God in Christ and be moved to and strengthened in their seeking after him hoping in him In that their way thou mayst see that God commands thee to repent or change thy minde to Judg him good and to love him and that he threatens thee if thou dost not and promises great things to thee if thou dost but whether thou beest one of them that he intends any good in his promises to or that art in a possibility of attaining them or only hast them propounded to thy hearing without good will towards thee but that thou mightest thereby have the greater destruction that by it thou knowest not for it presents no act of love from him that according to it thou canst say respects thee or takes thee in as the object of it only do all those things first repent believe love serve him and then it shall be true for thee to believe that he hath good will to thee a most preposterous way that doth to men as Pharaoh to the Israelites takes away their straw and bids them get it themselves and yet exacts their number of brick takes away that declaration of Gods love and good will to men that should properly move them to repent believe c. and sets men upon seeking arguments and demonstrations of these to themselves and yet not fail to perform those duties required of them A doctrine it is that presents less love to this or that man then the Law it self did whereas the Apostle magnifies the true Gospel as more excellent and more un vailed for it set some certain demonstrations of Gods goodness to the Israelites before them as his bringing them out of Egypt chusing them in their Fathers to be a peculiar people to him and many typical sacrifices representing Christs death for them upon which they were commanded to love and serve him but for ought this tells thee thou wert hated by him from all eternity yea this suggests to thee that all he doth to thee may be but to bring thee to misery Nay I might safely say Gods dealings with the Gentiles represented more goodness as to their particulars without suggestions of eternal hatred of them then this kind of Gospell-preaching ascertains any one man of as yet unregenerate as truly goodness and out of good will to him in particular And O how injurious is that doctrine to men that withholds the most absolute perfect motive to their duties and way to meet with consolation Whence it comes to pass that first many are led by it into presumption to lean upon themselves and their own works as evidences of that distinguishing love of God that makes them sure of salvation as the Pharisee Luke 18.9 10. and so of their being pure and righteous when as yet they have never believed and through faith received that love of God into their hearts thats preached in the Gospel to wash and purify them yea to bring them out of themselves into Christ that they might be reckoned after him conformed to him to salvation These are of those that justifie themselves and labour to establish a righteousness of their own and are ignorant of and fight against the righteousness of God despising others and hindring them of that Gospel of grace that should be opened to them stumbling as much that the Death of Jesus Christ should be preached to all to ungodly and sinners not so qualified as they as ever did the presumptuous proud Pharisees that Christ should eat and drink with Publicans and sinners and that his Apostles should preach the Gospel to the uncircumcised Gentiles 2. Others again are held in bondage all their dayes and are ever ready to fall into desperation while not having the Love of God and his goodness and grace propounded to them as for them that should beget faith hope fruitfulness c. or being hindered from believing it as so propounded by occasion of this limiting doctrine and yet being pressed on to believe repent be humble and broken that so they may know that God hath good will to them and hath given his Son for them they labor and strive and finde nothing which they can attain to
the truth of what it defendeth rest not in the bare belief of it as if that was enough for thee but follow on to inquire and seek after God that hath such good will toward thee and walk out in what he discovers of himself to thee that so he may be pleased to discover himself more to thee and draw thee by his Spirit into union with and conformity to his Son that thou mayest have the utmost healing that the death of Christ brings to the believer even salvation with eternal glory The right use of truth is in being lead from the world and thy own self to God by it and so attaining the end propounded to thee in it If thou not liking what is writ wi lt reply upon me I desire thee to do it soberly and as a seeker of truth rather then of victory bate pride and passion which will but darken thine understanding and nothing advantage thee in thy answering and take heed lest for fear of losing thine honour or for desire to get any thou robbest God of the honour of his truth and shuttest thine eyes against those flashes of his light that he darts into thee Better lose thine honour then ingage against Gods truth for it If thou likest the truth pleaded for but findest defect or wriness in any of my expressions in asserting it I shall be willing to be helpt to see better by thy spectacles if thou pleasest to lend them me In a word I say to thee with the Poet Si quid novisti rectius istis Candidus imperti Si non his utere mecum And so committing thee with my self and this ensuing Treatise to Gods protection I remain Thy friend and servant in the Gospel of Christ Jesus John Horn. ΘΥΡΑ ΑÎΕΩΓΜΕÎΗ OR A VINDICATION OF THE RECORD of GOD Concerning The extent of the Death of Christ in Answer to Mr. Iohn Owen of Cogshall in Essex The Preface WHereas God who is love it self beholding mankinde faln and through the subtlety of the Serpent plunged into death and misery was pleased out of pitty towards him to finde out a way for his recovery even to send forth his own proper Son his Word and Wisdom to take upon him the nature of man so faln with the infirmities weaknesses death and misery attending it yea the whole punishment that the sin of man had in that fall contracted to it that so he dying for man man might be delivered out of that death and life and immortality might be again brought to light yea whereas the Son of God having accordingly given himself a ransom for all it hath pleased the Father out of the same love he bare to man in sending him further to provide for his good in exalting this his Son that suffered and making him Lord and Christ a Prince and Saviour one that should have and answerably hath power and authority over all things and Salvation in him authority and fitness to save and deliver out of evil and to bring to life and glory whoever of the persons of men listen and look to him for Salvation whoever obey his Word submit to his Spirit and give up themselves to be ordered by him and to that end hath in these last dayes given forth a commission to certain Elected and chosen persons appointed for that purpose by him to be his Witnesses and Embassadors to the whole world in general to proclaim publish and declare this that God hath done in and by Christ Jesus for them and to let them know his good will toward them that he would not that any of them should perish but all come to Repentance and to the knowledg or acknowledgment of his truth that they might be saved to which end he hath also given and constituted his Son to be a witness and a Leader to conduct them to Salvation and upon these grounds hath willed them to exhort command intreat and urge all and every man as they have opportunity to it to accept this grace believe the Gospel repent and turn to God from their dead works and from their follies and to Jesus as the only one constituted by him to be his Salvation even to the ends of the earth So it is that since these holy men of God to whom the tenor of the Gospel and doctrine of truth was first committed have faln asleep the vigilant and wicked enemy of mankinde hath not only through his subtlety prevailed with multitudes of those men to whom this proclamation hath been made to reject persecute and put away this Embassage both from themselves and peoples under them and posterities succeeding them and with many others to be slothful and not to take care to propagate this Doctrine of their Lord and Master but also by occasion of this wickedness and slothfulness of men many that pretend themselves to be understanding men and servants of God unto their brethren have come with a counter-doctrine pretending to have better insight into the minde of God then the letter of the Apostolical preaching doth hold forth even as at first Satan pretended to the woman to have a more sublime knowledg of the minde of God and to teach her better understanding of it then in the simple belief of Gods words to them they had attained telling men that God sent not his Son for all of them but only for here and there one they nor any man else not knowing who they be and that Christ gave himself only for them and for no others and this they pretend to have from a more Seraphical understanding of a more secret will of God by which means they both contradict the tenor of the holy Commission delivered out to his Saints and left by them upon record for us by the instinct of his spirit and take away those certain and more excellent grounds motives and inducements to believe repent seek after and love God which that Commission affordeth making the Gospel to give such an uncertain sound that none can by it be induced to prepare himself to battel as is more largely shewed in the Epistle to the Reader In which doing they greatly deny at least disserve the Lord that bought them in that in stead of making him lovely to all and an object meet for all to commit themselves to and forsake all for the worshipping and confessing of they render it doubtful what one hath cause so to do and not rather to hate him as a fore yea eternal hater of them that had such desire to their misery as therefore to create them yea therefore to do all that he doth about them that they might at last for ever be more heavily tormented by him So that they do herein as a company of slaves or persidious Traitors should do to a King who having made open proclamation of satisfaction received by the hand of some Prince for the mischief done him by a company of rebells and of his good will toward them all that he would have them to lay
joyned together in the Scriptures He hath scarce any pertinent proofs that they are so ioyned at all not above one or two at most He alledges first Isa 53.11 By his knowledg shall my righteous servant justifie many for he shall bear their iniquities Which proves that many whose sins he bare shall by his knowledg be justified and that those many that by his knowledg he shall justifie had their sins born by him and he having born their sins could and should by his knowledge justifie them but that neither saith he should justifie all whose sins he bare nor should make Intercession to that purpose nor makes any mention of his Intercession And whereas he sayes they are so put together in the next verse that surely none ought to separate them Let us consider how they are put together The words are He hath born the sins of many and shall make intercession for the transgressors Which proves that both Oblation and Intercession are the Works of Christ which we deny not nor is that the thing to be proved but that his Intercession is for all the same persons for whom he died and that too for all the good things that his Death procured that place sayes not There are different words used to express the objects He shall bear the sins of multitudes or manies there is his oblation but now he adds not and he shall make Intercession for all them no nor saith he for them but using another word He shall intercede for Transgressors how many or who they be or whether he intercede for all good things procured by his Death for any or not that saith nothing It mentions Oblation and Intercession both its true but that 's but once yet and the Argument concludes not from it as is before shewed He quotes also Rom. 4.25 which mentions not his Intercession but his Resurrection for our Justification so that that 's impertinent as to the Minor Rom. 8.33 34. Mentions both its true but that is spoken to in chap. 4. and the vanity of his collection from there shewed His inferences That He died onely for the Elect and that none shall be condemned for whom Christ died and that there is proved there an equal extent of his Oblation and Intercession are not the Apostles but his own as we before noted on Chap. 4. The first of them being contrary also to 1 Tim. 2.5 6. and 2 Pet. 2.1 The second of them contrary to those suppositions of the Apostle in 1 Cor. 8.11 Rom. 14.15 Heb. 2.3 and that affirmation in 2 Pet. 2.1 For the third It s there asserted that the Elect and Believers in Christ have his Death Resurrection and Intercession all for them and that they are in a safe condition thereby but saith not that all he died for had them all as hath been noted For his giving all things with Christ we shall finde it elsewhere where we also shall answer it Now these two places of Isai 53.12 and Rom. 8.33 34. being the onely two places wherein Oblation and Intercession are coupled together and they scarce the tithe of the places where his Death is mentioned his Minor is also false and so the whole Argument ineffectual And the second is like it viz. 2. Arg. 2 Because they are Acts of the same Office of Priesthood The Argument from thence runs thus The Acts that pertain essentially to the same Office must be performed upon or for all the same persons and the one for All things for which the other But Oblation and Intercession are acts of the same Office Ergo c. The Major of this too is denied and proved false thus To Preach and to Baptize were both acts of the Office of the Baptist and of the Ministers of the Gospel sent by Christ into the world Matt. 28.19 and yet it follows not that whoever they preached to them also they baptized nor can it be proved that the Priests used to pray for whomsoever they offered up a Sacrifice for That of 1 Joh. 2 1 2. we have before scanned That he is appointed to intercede for All that come to God by him and so an high Priest for that purpose over Gods House he proves well out of the Epistle to the Hebrews but that all that Christ died for do go to God by Christ or that he is appointed to make intercession for all that he died for that he proves not nor doth any Text in that Epistle or elsewhere speak it His conclusion then That if he perform either of the acts of his Priesthood for any he must of necessity also perform the other for them flowes neither from the strength of his premises in his Argument nor from any of his proofs but is the issue fo his own misguided reason His absurd that else we make him but an half Priest or unfaithful is an absurdity it self For was not John Baptist a full Minister of the Gospel and so the twelve Apostles or shall they be taxed with unfaithfulness in their Office if they baptized not all that they preached to because Baptizing and Preaching were both injoyned them in their Commission and pertained to them as Christs Ministers but no more to that 3. Arg. 3 His third Argument is taken from the Nature of his Intercession which he saith is only a presentation of himself sprinkled with the blood of the Covenant before the throne of grace in our behalf an appearing in the presence of God for us Heb. 9.24 and so is nothing else but an Oblation continued in postulating those things which by it were procured Thence he argues How can he be said to offer for them for whom he doth not intercede when his Intercession is nothing else but a presenting his Oblation in behalf of them for whom he suffered and for the bestowing the the good things thereby purchased To which I answer that first This seemeth to swallow up his Intercession into his Oblation and so to confound those things that he before distinguished having no Scripture to back it that his Intercession is but a continuance of his Oblation nay rather the Scripture goes against it for it speaks of his offering as a thing done and perfected not continually doing Heb. 10.13 This man after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever sat down at the right hand of God he first offered that before he sate down And were it not so the difference between him and the Priests of the Law should not be so cleer The Apostle opposes his offering and sitting down to their standing daily to minister and offering oftentimes the same sacrifice Now if his intercession be a presenting or a continuation of his oblation then he should stand to minister and offer daily too for his intercession is a work in doing and continually to be done He ever lives to be make Intercession Heb. 7.25 Again though its true He appears or is manifested in the presence of God for us yet whether that appearing there
God might deal in a way of mercy with them And he eyed further the Testament of promises made to his called ones that God would bring in to believe in him layd down his life for confirmation of their faith in those promises and also for confirmation and ratification of the truth of his doctrine to those to whom he preached it Now in the first consideration he says he took in All men though not all but his called ones and such as he should have for his seed In the second against which Mr. Owen saith nothing worth the Answer but faults the things that he seems not well to understand and quarrels with want of smoothness in the expressions and unaptness of quotations not rightly taking them to the Authors meaning as I conceive For I suppose Heb. 9.9 26. He only quoted to shew that as a Priest he offered sacrifice Joh. 1.29 1 Joh. 2.2 to shew that he was as a propitiation and that extended to All Heb. 9.14 15. Matt. 26.26 he quotes to prove his Death to be for Ratification of his Testament and so the Apostle made use of it in Rom. 5.10 8.32 none of them expressing his utmost end that being known sufficiently and granted on every hand Now whereas Mr. Owen saith that his proofes for the sealing the Testament hold out but the first end of the death of Christ he speaks not rightly for neither of those places viz. Mat. 26.26 Heb. 9.15 speaks only of procuring of remission of sins or power and prerogative of forgiving but of sealing the Testament also which bequeaths not to all he dyed for but to all that heartily believe in him and such the Apostles were the receit and injoyment of forgiveness and of the inheritance it self which remission the believers indeed confess that they experimentally receive from him in his blood believed on by them Rom. 3.25 as in Eph. 1.7 Col. 1.14 which Scriptures speak not of procuring Redemption though that must needs be supposed as a thing fore-done but of the receit and injoyment of it that they being brought out of darkness into Christs Government met with and partook of as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 declares too Whereas he cals his distinction of these ends mentioned his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that 's only his want of discerning and so till he see better may be forgiven him as all the rest of that following froth he hath not worth repeating or answering for whereas he saith that he may this way answer any thing by saying its otherwise in his opinion it seemes strange to me that he cannot see the places above recited cleerly proving what was affirmed by him Doth not his being a Lamb to take away the sin of the world and the propitiation for the sins of the whole world shew that the work of his Priest-hood had something in it extending beyond the bounds and limits of the Church and chosen except he can first shew that the world the whole world is the Church of God and all of them the chosen of God and so confound the distinction so cleerly held forth in Scripture between the Church and the world John 14.17 22. 15.18 19. 16.20 17.9 1 Cor. 6.2 11.32 c. And doth not Heb. 9.15 with Mat. 26.26 plainly say that Christ also intended to confirm the faith of his called ones in expectation of the eternal inheritance and to make that sure to them Is there not a plain difference between these two the breaking in peices the bond of Death man was faln into and so delivering him out of that and the making a Covenant of promises with some of them so ransomed Is it all one for a Prince to ransom a thousand men out of prison in which they were to perish and save them from hanging when the rope was about their necks And his entring into a bond and Covenant to prefer so many of them being ransomed as will submit to and serve him Did not Christ undertake for both in his death both to ransom man faln and to confirm his Church in faith But who can give eyes or who shall perswade wise men to be willing to be fools in themselves that God may give them eyes I shall leave the Reader to God intreating sobriety from him and that he will not wink with his eye willfully when light is propounded to him And so having through Gods assistance finished my answer to his first book In expectation and confidence of the same assistance I shall follow him to the second The Second Book CHAP. I. A further view of his consideration of the ends of the death of Christ as further handled in his first and second Chapters of his second book COnsidering further the end of the Death of Christ He tels us it was either 1. Ultimate and supream viz. the glory of God the Father Or 2. Subservient to that viz. The bringing men to God and in that both 1. That men might have means of coming to God And 2. The end it self coming to God or Salvation Which I suppose not as so indefinitely propounded though I think the ends of it may be more fully and cleerly assigned thus viz. 1. Gods Glory Phil. 2.11 2. Nextly the glory of the Son of God that he might have the preheminence and God be glorified in him John 17.1 4. Phil. 2.9 10. Rom. 14.9 To this end he both dyed and rose and revived that he might be Lord of quick and dead So John 5.22 The Father hath given to the Son to have life in himself which I understand of the life communicable to men for that is said to be in him 1 John 5.11 and so life in him through his death for men that all men should honor the Son even as they honor the Father for that 's the life indeed for which he is so worthy to be honored of all men in their looking to him and believing on him as on the Father and that 's the honoring him as the Father to give him all the honor of believing and staying on him resting and glorying in him acknowledging his Lordship c as to the Father 3. To these purposes that all might be set free and ransomed from the sentence of death under which they were fallen that so God and Christ might be glorified in them all and an object of hope and faith be provided for them to look to and believe in for salvation and for God to glorifie the riches of his mercy in drawing men to according to his good pleasure Matth. 20.28 1 Tim. 2.6 2 Cor. 5.14 15. 4. That those that believe in him might have eternal life So in Iohn 3.16 be brought to God 1 Pet. 3.18 and to glory Heb. 2.10 having Christ for a witness and Covenant ratifying and sealing an everlasting Covenant with them and being an example and pattern yea a Captain and leader to them Isa 49.6 55.4 Heb. 9.15 Matth.
were Baptized into Moses in the Cloud and in the Sea and were come to Mount Sinai The Apostle alluding to that tells the believing Hebrews partakers of the heavenly Call Heb. 3.1 that they were not come to Mount Sinai to have a Law of works and death put upon them but to Mount Sion * Whence the Law of Grace goeth forth Isai 2.3 to hear him that speaks from heaven and so intimately to have the Law writ in their hearts Heb. 12.18 22 24 25. in which they came also to the blood of sprinkling He doth not say they were come to Mount Sion while they were yet uncalled but in obeying the Call they came thither to meet with and receive the new Covenant opposed to the Covenant made with their Fathers at Mount Sinai That that confirms me in this belief is this that it is by faith that we are made of one body with the Israel of God and are no where called the seed of Promise or Israel of God till brought to Christ but then we are all one with the believing Jews Jews in the inner man the Circumcision the seed of Abraham and heirs according to Promise Gal. 3.26 29. Now the Covenant spoken of is made with the house of Israel and Judah If Mr. Owen think men to be faederates in that Covenant before faith let him shew me that any unbelieving Gentiles or uncalled are called by the name of Israel and Judah Besides That the promises of God are made with Christ Gal. 3.16 and are in him yea and Amen 2 Cor. 1.20 But if any yet out of Christ should be faederates while out of him then they should have a larger object then Christ and a larger performance then in Christ Jesus But I say this ex abundanti to the Minor it being sufficient to the overthrow of the Argument that the Major is proofless Whereas Mr. Owen makes the difference between the Old and New Testament to be That this Covenants the giving of Faith and that not I deny it and say The difference between them is in this That was carnal weak and afforded not such operation of Spirit This spiritual powerful and full of life writing Gods teachings in the heart whereas that writ them but without in Books or Tables of Stones That propounded Precepts and Promises but gave not the performance This in Teaching conforms the heart to Gods VVill and gives in the injoyment and accomplishment of the promises whence as the Apostle saith The righteousness of the Law is fulfilled in us that walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit Rom. 8.4 That this Covenant is propounded conditionally too to those that are not yet believers we have shewed before in Isai 55.3 So that no man short of believing can say as Mr. Owens Objection supposeth The Lord hath promised To write his Law in our hearts but if we listen to Christ he will write them in our hearts but to the believer in Christ to him that is Christs the Covenant is free he being the proper heir of it as is before shewed He repeates his Argument again in the winding up of the Argument That the blood of Jesus Christ was the blood of the Covenant and his Oblation was intended onely for procuring the things intended and promised thereby and therefore it cannot have respect to All c. That it procured the good things contained in the Covenant or rather that he ingages the performance of them to the called for I think the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sponsor hath rather that signification then of a procurer we grant and to that the Quotation of Heb. 7.22 is pertinent but his inference from thence is yet unproved as we have shewed And so we have seen the fallacy and weakness of this Argument 2. His second Argument is thus That if the Lord intended Argu. 2 that he should and so Christ by his death did procure pardon of sin and reconciliation with God for all and every one to be actually injoyed upon condition that they do believe then ought this good will and intention of God with this purchase in their behalf by Jesus Christ be made known to them by the Word that they might believe for faith comes by hearing c. otherwise men may be saved without faith in and the knowledg of Christ or else the purchase is plainly in vain but all men have not those things declared to them in and by the Word c. To this Argument many things may be answered Answ As 1. That it concludes not against the Assertion that he undertook to oppose in lib. 1. cap. 1. pag. 4. viz. That Christ gave himself a ransom for all and every one But against his intention of purchasing pardon and reconciliation for All to be injoyed upon condition of believing which is a fallacy that we call Ignoratio elenchi 2. Again The Antecedent of the Major contains and crowds together divers questions which is another fallacy in arguing As with this Of Christs dying for All it jumbles Gods intention of his procuring Reconciliation and Pardon and the intention of bestowing it and upon what condition Now these are three distinct questions viz. First Whether Christ died for All The thing he set himself to oppose Secondly Whether in dying for them he procured Reconciliation and forgiveness for all And Thirdly Whether he procured it for All with intention that they all should injoy it upon condition of believing The first of these I absolutely affirm and Mr. Owen denies The second I thus affirm That for the offence of Adam and the condemnation that came upon All therefore he hath procured justification or pardon for All so as that God dealeth with All after another manner then according to its Merit and the Obligation to Death that came thereby And for their other sins there is with him a treasury of Forgiveness and Redemption full and free for All. So as that in answer to the third All may have forgiveness of all their sins and Reconciliation upon believing in him and it was his intention that whosoever of All yea were it All believe in him should have forgiveness of sins and be reconciled to God by him Whence it s propounded to men in general upon that condition in the Gospel But yet neither is that condition upon which God propounds it to be confounded as Mr. Owen here doth with the act of purchasing it and Gods intention therein nor may we binde up God to that condition in his dispensing it nor his intention of forgiving and saving men in his giving Christ to dye for them as if because All or Any may have it according to the Gospel-tender upon believing therefore he intended that none should have it that have not that believing condition For I dare not say That God intended not that any Infant dying in its Cradle or deaf man that never heard any word at all should have forgiveness or salvation by vertue of Christs purchase
because they have not that act of believing that comes by hearing whence also 3. I deny the consequence of the major proposition if by ought to made known he means as I suppose he doth that God ought or is bound so to have done for that word ought may be otherwise applyed as we shall see anon for though its true that whosoever by hearing the word believes shall have remission yet God nor tying himself in his dispensation thereof to that condition for them to dy in infancy and to be born and continue deaf to death should be necessary evidences of reprobation which I think none is so hardy as to affirm it will follow that God is not bound to that making known to every one the purchase and intention spoken of lest he should be frustrate of his intention Besides that a man may possibly be brought to believe and receive forgiveness that never heard of that purchase and intention and yet their Faith may come by hearing too a man may be brought to believe that God is is a rewarder of them that seek him which is as much as the Apostle says is of necessity for coming to him Heb. 11.6 yea many have believed so much that have not known of Christs death or that he should dy muchless of the purchase and intention of God in his death As the Disciples had faith and so had Cornelius too such as in which they were accepted of God before they understood that Christ should dye and by dying purchase them forgiveness and reconciliation and doubtless many of the Ancients heard less then they of him as Rahab Ruth Naaman and many others so that at least a making known to all for so he intends so much as he speaks of would not necessarily appertain to God though the Antecedent were granted in the very form in which he puts it Indeed God binds us to preach and declare in these last dayes since the ascension of Christ this his purchase and intention and men are bound to give credit to it when preached that so they might the better be brought to him and they that keep back that doctrine from men if they perish are guilty of their blood but God hath not by any thing he hath done or by his intention therein bound himself to make known to every one for whom he hath so done that his intention doing A Prince may ransom from destruction a Nation appoitned thereto for some default against their Soveraign with intention that every one that obeys his counsels shall injoy the priviledges of free subjects and so that they all shall have such priviledges so obeying yet that may put no ingagement upon him to cause every particular of them to know what he hath done for them what was his intention therein especially too they never knowing distinctly how they came to be lyable to their ruine from which he ransomed them only he may propound though at a distance from them and as to persons unknown to them some advices and counsels in obeying which he may do to them as he intended and in disobeying them frustrate them of the otherwise intended benefits yea and order punishment also to them without any absurdity or crosness to his intention 4. The words ought to be made known may signifie It ought to be made known by men such as are the messengers of Christ and preachers of the word and then indeed we grant it to be a truth that All ought to have it made known to them by us to the utmost of our opportunities and abilities and so it reproves Mr. Owen and many other Ministers for their faultiness herein because they not only make not known to All without restrictions this good will and purchase of Christ for them but they on the contrary make it uncertain to men whether Christ dyed for them or not yea hinder and oppose the making known this good will to All men I would they would cease to do what they ought not and do as they ought 5. But then The minor of this Argument is faulty and containes a Quartus terminus for whereas he should have assumed thus But this purchase good will and intention ought not to be made known to All he hath assumed thus All have not these things made known to them in and by the word But who sees not that between what men have and what they ought to have there is a great difference God may have done what appertains to him not only in giving to Adam and Noah the knowledg of his truth though less clearly that it might be propagated by one to another sucessively in all their generations but also and that more clearly in giving it forth to his servants to be made known to All Nations for the obedience of faith willing all to come to the knowledg of it as indeed he hath done Rom. 16.25 26. 1 Tim. 2.4 and yet those to whom this charge of divulging it appertains being slothful and negligent herein and others not coming to it when and as held forth to them as in many divulgers and others is too true they may not have what they ought to have and might have had had the will of God aforesaid been obeyed by them So that this argument the further we look into it the less hurt it doth us But I shall say no more to it lest I be too tedious many passages he hath about it are but the same with what we had lib. 2. cap. ult where I have answered them and shall not need here again further to repeat Only whereas he saith The Spirit forbad the Apostles to go to sundry places with the word as if God would not have some hear of his word though they might have had it the places he aims at are Acts 16.6 7. where Paul assaying to go to Asia and Bithinia were forbidden this is to be noted that that was not because he would not have the Gospel preached to them but because the Apostle not being able to go two ways at once and there being others whom God pleased to prefer sent them elsewhere first ordering others to preach at those places or the same to preach there when the other work was over therefore the Holy Ghost as if he would give us an account of this action to prevent our rash misprisions particularly names these places to have been peculiarly preached to As concerning Asia we have a fuller testimony then of any other place Acts 19.10 All that dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord and for Bithinia there were many believing people scattered abroad in it as appears in 1 Pet. 1.1 who were to shine as lights and shew forth the praises of him that called them in the places where they lived Again whereas in the conclusion of this Argument he saith That Paul tels us that by the works of creation they might be led to know his eternal power and Godhead but that they should know
should not serve sin But quorsum haec how doth this prove that all that Christ dyed for are and shall be sanctified by his blood Why he tels us That the fifth verse says That a participation in the death of Christ shall be accompanyed with a conformity to him in his Resurrection But what mean you Sir by a participation in it an having part in it or being a part of the object of it If so which word in ver 5. says so That says He that 's planted into the likeness of it not he that Christ died for Surely if Mr. Owen had dealt fairly he should have kept the same tearms in both branches of his Assertion as the Apostle doth thus Conformity to Christ in his death shall be followed with a conformity to him in his Resurrection Sure if planting into the likeness of him signify conformity to him in the latter branch as it doth it signifies so in the former too it being the very same maner of expression But Mr. Owen hath a little too much art of making quidlibet de quolibet But what follows The words of the later verse yield a reason of the former Assertion Because our old man is crucified with him that the body of sin might be destroyed c. What gathers he from that why this That our sinful corruption and depravation of Nature are by his Death and crucifying meritoriously slain and disabled from such a rule and dominion over us as that we should be servants to them But suppose this was the Apostles sense That Christ merited that such as are planted into the likeness of his Death by Baptism or conformed to him in his Death should have their sins subdued in them will it therefore follow That he says all that he died for shall be so conformed to him or shall have their sins subdued in them Let Reason judg of that Consequence But which word in the Text signifies a Meritorius slaying I suppose he means the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If so I deny it That signifies there a real crucifying in us according to that in Gal 5.24 They that are Christs have crucified the flesh c. That is have nailed it upon the Cross that is the Grace and Spirit of God which is cross to it and lusts against it they have given it up to be mortified by the Spirit that so the body of Sin might be destroyed It is not destroyed yet nor doth the Apostle say so as well he might if he had spoken of a meritorious slaying for what concerns the matter of Merit that is already accomplished though the thing merited be not But when was this crucifying I answer when the soul was brought to give up it self to Christ and not before Rom. 6.4 5. when it was Baptized into his Death not in the outward onely but chiefly in the inward spiritual Baptism 1 Pet. 3.21 and so begun to be planted into the likeness of it But perhaps he will say The word is Crucified with Christ and therefore must be referred to what was done in his crucifying I answer no It signifies but a companionship in being crucified as he was or after his similitude not a thing done when he was crucified as Col. 2.12 we are said to be buried with him but when was that He says not in his being buried but in Baptism which is a thing not inwardly accomplished no nor begun before believing And so You that were dead in sins and trespasses hath he quickned with him the quickning men up to hope in God and bringing them from their dead condition in which before believing they lay without hope is said to be with Christ Yea when we suffer for Christ and dye for his Name we are said to suffer and dye with him 2 Tim. 2.11 12. Rom. 8.17 which are not to be referred to the time of his suffering and dying as if we then suffered and died meritoriously with him So that first express saying is pressed too injuriously to speak for Mr. Owen besides its proper intention Again He brings 2 Cor. 1.20 All the Promises of God are in Christ Yea and in him Amen Which says nothing that God hath promised that All that Christ died for should be sanctified and cleansed from all their sins but that in him all the promises are surely to be met with The Covenant we have spoken to before That 's made or rather promised to be made with the House of Israel and the House of Judah of which houshold men are not accounted till brought to Christ to believe as is plain Ephe. 2.12 17 18 19. After Christ hath preached peace to us and given us access to the Father then we are of the houshold of God and fellow Citizens with the Saints The promise of circumcising the heart which he mentions as most famous in the New Covenant follows after obeying the voice of God in listning to his Son Deut. 30.1 2 3 4 5 6. so the Apostle intimates 2 Cor. 3.16 When the heart turns to the Lord the vail shall be taken away which I conceive answers to Circumcising the heart As impertinent to his purpose is that in Heb. 9.23 of purging the heavenly things except he prove that All that Christ died for are heavenly men even before believing and before their calling to God with a heavenly call And that in Col. 1.14 of the believer brought to Christ receiving and having the Redemption in him with which agrees the 1 Cor. 1.30 which says not all that he died for are made wise redeemed righteous c. by him but they that are in him by faith as see Rom. 16 7. have him in the vertue of his blood and by his Spirit for wisdom righteousness sanctification and redemption As impertinent is his allegation of Heb. 2.14 To destroy him that had the power of death that is the devil that he might free those that by reason of death or through the fear of death rather were all their life time subject to bondage No more is his Probandum proved by that then that all that Christ spake to are saved can be proved by that in Joh. 5.34 These things speak I to you you that had neither heard the voice of God nor seen his face And who will not come unto me that ye might have life ver 38.40 that ye might be saved Or from this That he brought us into Egypt that he might bring us into Canaan that all that came out of the one entred into the other Nor is there any more consequence from the other places mentioned in Ephes 5.25 26. and Tit. 2.14 He gave himself for his Church that he might sanctifie it provided in his death for the perfecting those that should believe in him Ergo All he died for shall be sanctified and saved So that the contrary to his Conclusion is true that he hath in no one place proved what was by him undertaken But to take off this that we say Many
CHAP. V. An Answer to his fifth Chapter In which is considered How Christ gave himself a ransom for All. HAving done with those Arguments we follow him now to Arguments taken from words used in this matter which he saith Disagree in their genuine signification from the Opinion that extends to all the matter spoken of in them Arg. 10 And first He lays down his Argument generally thus That Doctrine that will not by any means suit which and be conformable to the thing signified by it but contradicts the expressions literal and deductive whereby in Scripture it s held out to us cannot possibly be sound and sincere But such is the perswasion of Vniversal Redemption or General Ransom Ergo It s unsound And this strange Argument that grants the Doctrine held forth in Scripture expressions Instance 1. and yet contradicts those Scriptures he labors to prove by Induction and first from the word A 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dransom or price of Redemption He argues thus That the thing signified in it agrees not to all therefore the word is not to be so applied Which is in substance Paul spake unadvisedly when he made so general an expression this is not to believe the Scripture but to judge and deny it to be right VVell let us see what the word signifies It signifies a price for Redemption Now saith Mr. Owen If Christ pay a price for Redemption his aim is their deliverance for whom it s paid to that end he satisfies the Judge and conquers the Jaylor but this agrees not to All All are not ransomed Shall we believe Mr. Owen or the Apostle here who also tells us in Rom. 5.18 That by one mans Righteousness to all men to Justification of life And again in 1 Cor. 15 22. As in Adam All die so in Christ all shall be made alive But Mr. Owen says Why are not all saved then I might say Nay but O man who art thou that repliest against God But I have answered before From the first death they are from the second they are not because many are disobedient against their Saviour As all Israel were saved out of Egypt Jude 5. Its the Apostle Judes expression But why then not all preserved into Canaan He tells us He afterwards destroyed them that believed not So here he afterward in a second death destroyes all those that know like or approve not God and all that disobey the Gospel of Christ 2 Thes 1.7 8. All were in thrall to the sentence of death and so to the execution of vengeance from God upon them all in Adam in an utter ruine and again for slighting and sinning against Light and Goodness afforded deserve destruction to come suddenly upon them in plagues famines c. The bond that held them in the former was their sin in Adam and to the latter many sins against Gods goodness now exposes them VVhat price pays Christ Himself to bear that blow for them and be the propitiation for their sin Now in that the sentence passed not or rather lyes not upon men Men are not debarred reaccess to God for that folly the sentence of banishment is reversed and the banished called home again here is a Redemption made from that thraldom And whereas many times they are liable to destruction again in their persons Christ Mediating and Interposing himself as the Propitiation preserves them And on this ground we are to pray for All and make Intercession with thanksgiving for All as in 2 Tim. 1.2 6. But I suppose he thinks All not ransomed because many remain thralled in their corruption To which I might say but as Prosper Ad capit Gallor Sanguis Christi est totius mundi pretium pro omnium redemptione verè persolutum and that 's as much as 1 Tim. 2.6 says sed illi homines ab eo pretio extranei sunt qui aut captivitate delectati redimi noluerunt aut post redemptionem ad eandem servitutem sunt reversi and again Omnes rectè dicantur redempti sed non ownes a captivitate eruti But to clear it I shall propound these following considerations 1. That men in sinning fell under a double bondage 1. To death to be inflicted from God according to his sentence In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt die the death and death came on all in that all sinned 2. To corruption or sinfulness of Nature in themselves and the delusions of Satan Ephe. 2.1 Dead in sins and trespasses conceived in sin and born in iniquity 2. The latter of these thraldoms was not the curse or death inflicted as the punishment of the fall but the proper consequence of it That it was not its punishment nor any essential part of it appears in this that every essential part of the punishment of it Christ was to bear by way of satisfaction and so he bare anguish in body and soul death of body and separation from Gods presence but he bare not the inherency of sin for us nor inability for serving his Father nor was he subject to the deceits of Satan as if it had been an essential part of that punishment he must have done for it appertains to and spreads over the whole nature But the first was the punishment to which we were subjected and which had we abid never so pure in our natures must have been executed for the fault committed because the word was not If thou becomest so polluted but In the day thou eatest thou shalt die and therefore Christ also suffered that becoming a ransom for us though innocent 3. In the latter the Justice of God did not detain us but as man being debarred from any new grace without that could not do what he should but we ought that notwithstanding to do our best to serve him we had his permission to it if such a thing might be supposed that we might have lived under that sentence unsuffered for us He neither put sin into us nor kept it in us But the former came directly from God upon us and his Justice detained us in our Mediator in it till his sentence was satisfied 4. That first was the death of which Satan had power and the fear of which though but now a carkass detains men in their spirits in bondage Heb. 2.14 Men fear not but love the other their corruptions now Christ conquered Satan when he brake his snare and got victory over that death that should else have swallowed us up for ever So that Satan could not as else he would have done play the Executioner upon us 5. God neither putting men into corruption nor corruption into them nor his Justice standing against our doing better he would that they should come out of it if they could the price was not given to God properly as the price of Redemption from that but onely as the ransoming them from the death inflicted makes a passage for means also to be afforded to them for their recovery and setting free from
death of Christ to make them all affect him It reaches but to a way-making and foundation laying unto that And indeed it s to be minded that Reconciliation is neither there spoken of as the act of Christ toward God as had it signified an ingagement putting upon him it should rather have been but as the act of God in Christ God was in Christ reconciling nor as of a thing accomplished and done as had it been of a meritorious reconciling it might have been with respect to the act of Merit so spoken of the act of Meriting being a thing already done but onely as of a thing then * It s but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in fieri in the doing and as the following vers ver 20. argues not as yet done while that exhortation to be reconciled is but yet a pressing It s as if he should have said God hath been doing that in Christ for the world that tends to and makes for its reconciling or being reconciled to him he hath taken that out of the mid-way that stood against the shewing himself gracious to them and receiving them into favor nothing is wanting on his part to their being at one with him nay he hath done that in Christ that may induce them thereto as in Matth. 22.4 His Oxen and Fatlings are killed and he hath prepared a dinner and all is ready for receiving them upon which ground also as there the servants were sent out to the guests with that good tidings and thereupon to invite them to come to the wedding so here the Apostles were sent out former hints of his goodness in the Wisdom of God afforded Joh. 1 4 5. 1 Cor. 1.21 being not in the wisdom of the World understood or discerned plainly to declare this that God had done in Christ for them and to intreat them to be at one with him which as it intimates as I said before that they were not yet in their hearts reconciled to him for why then needed any further beseeching of them thereto So doth it no more prove that they must be all so reconciled and that Christ had obliged God thereto Mat. 22.4 then that phrase All things are ready come ye to the Wedding argues that Christ had obliged God to make all those bidden guests to feast with him and the following Caveat in Chap. 6.1 warning them not to receive the Grace of God in vain both argues that there is such a receiving it and that there is danger that some such as this grace is affirmed to concern may so receive it and so by consequence not be reconciled in their hearts at all to him So that this place duly weighed rather overthrows Mr. Owens Assertion then contributes any the least mite to its confirmation He produces also Rom. 11.15 The casting off of the Jews is the reconciling of the world which neither speaks a title of Christs death nor can be understood to make any thing for a meritorious reconciling Reconciliation there signifying only the occasional way and means of reconciling As Salvation Acts 28.28 is the means of saving He quotes also Rom. 5.10 If being enemies we were reconciled to God by the Death of his Son c. and Col. 1.21 Now are ye reconciled in the body of his flesh through death But neither will they serve him up to his purpose For neither of them either speak in that latitude as All for whom Christ died nor of a meritorious reconciling onely but of Reconciliation at least inchoativè accomplished in mens persons In Rom. 5. The Apostle having said Verse 1. That the believer being justified by faith in Christ is at peace with God which is all one with Ver. 2 3 4 5. is reconciled and is lead to rejoyce in the hope of the glory of God even in afflictions shews how Faith nourishes and acts the soul in that hope from what principle and by what considerations viz. By minding the great love of God in giving his Son to the Death for it when in a miserable condition Ver. 6 7 8. and the great love of Christ in so dying for it and the state to which God hath there-through already brought it viz. Ver. 9 10. A justified and reconciled estate VVhence it leads the soul thus hopefully to judge and reason Hath God shed his Sons blood for me that I might have good ground of believing in him and overcoming me to believe therein hath he justified me there-through Compare ver 1.9 with Chap. 3.25 how shall he not much more now save me me or us that are thus justified from wrath to come And again Hath God made me of an enemy his friend by such a way at such cost as the death of his Son how much more wil he now that I am no more his enemy but his friend reconciled to him save preserve me in and bring me safely out of all afflictions and trials unto glory by his life seeing he shall not need to die again to do that for me Yea not only so says he but it leads too to Glory in God himself through Jesus Christ through or by whom it hath now now that it believes and is justified received the atonement 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by a Metonymy the Grace of God that effected this reconciliation and brought it in to be the reconciled of God as he had before ver 10. affirmed He says not we were reconciled in the time of Christs dying that would have been rather 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But the reconciliation which we now have received in receiving him to wit and in which we are reconciled we have it by his Death That phrase By his Death that men so stumble at I have explained before lib. 1. cap. 1. This then says nothing of Christ meriting of or obliging God to reconcile that is turn the affections of all to himself for whom he died nor says that in Col. 1.21 22. any thing more for it but that the believing Colossians were of enemies to God become now his friends reconciled to him onely the Apostle there tell us what was the bond or medium of their agreement viz. The body of Christs flesh through or by means of death that is he having in that his body suffered for our sins and offered up himself to God God there takes up his delightful dwelling and is propitious towards us now we also by Faith closing with and feeding on that his body as it hath or he therein died for us God and we are at one But what is this to his meriting of God that he actually reconcile all for whom he died His last proof is Ephes 2.15 16 where the Apostle having said that the Ephesians sometimes strangers to God and his Church were now made neer by the blood of Christ which we may either understand of that cleansing of the state of the Gentiles in general and opening a free access into his Kingdom to
kinde of Faith not so infallibly attended with eternal salvation as that compared to the stony ground Matth. 13.19 20. And in those that made shipwrack of faith and a good conscience But he says That that 's the substance of the Gospel promulgation whoever believe shall be saved that 's the onely thing held out to innumerable That Faith shal be attended certainly with eternal life Truly I believe that that 's All the Gospel held out to innumerable indeed For they that know of no other Gospel predicable to them at least believe it not how should they preach it And truly though that 's a truth yet not a truth meet to beget Faith but that declares God in Christ an object fit for souls in general and particular to believe on That that 's all the divine Truth that God bids us preach as Gospel to innumerable of men I deny He quotes for it Matth. 16.16 1 John 5.11 but fails in them of his purpose He shews his mistake of the first in that he thinks that that in Mark 16.16 is a declaration of the Gospel that they should preach As if our Saviour had said This is the Gospel you shall preach He that believes shall be saved and he that believes not shall be damned Now that this cannot be the Gospel is plain for then the latter sentence He that believes not shall be damned should be part of the Gospel too and so good news which I suppose will be hardly judged so The truth is Our having Saviour bid them preach the Gospel informs them what should be the consequences of their preaching it He that believes that is that believes the Gospel that you preach shall be saved but he that believes not but rejects it shall be damned The Gospel that they were to preach was his Mission into the world as the Saviour of it his Death for our sins his Resurrection Ascention c. with the promises of Life to them that believing the Gospel believe on him and so the Apostle preached also as we have before shewed We declare to you good tidings that God hath performed his Promises to us in raising up Christ from the dead And be it known that in this mans name is preached to you remission of sins And to instance no more his other proof is plain that they preached more fully then as he tells us For in that 1 John 5.11 He says not onely this is the Record that life is in Christ and he that hath him hath it but also which he leaps over God hath given us that life eternal that is in Christ so as that it behoves us to receive it in receiving him or else we are ingreateful and guilty of our own destruction Whereas he chargeth us with a Conditional will in God for saving men I speak not of any thing conditional in him but I say God propounds to men salvation on condition and will make good his VVord where-ever that condition is performed by men That which follows in this Consideration is spoken to generally before and therefore I shall pass it and come to the next Consideration 9. He mindes us of the mixt distribution of Elect and Reprobates Consid 9. Believers and Vnbelievers throughout the world in the several places thereof in all or most of the single Congregations and that 's another ground of tendring the blood of Christ to them for whom it was never shed Here are a heap of beg'd questions all without proof As 1. That some are Elect and others Reprobates before the Gospel come to them and fasten upon some to pull them to Christ and his Justice pass upon others in hardning them for their rejection of Christ 2. That there are believers and unbelievers in the Congregations throughout the world antecedently to the Gospels publishing to them and therefore the Gospel must be tendred to All and the blood of Christ offered to them for whom it was never shed 3. That there are some men for whom Christ never shed his blood and that God hath ordered it to be offered to them But 4. Chiefly This is to be admired that the holy Ghost that knows the secrets of God and revealed them to the Apostles should out of these grounds affirm that Christ died and gave himself a ransom for All when he wrote to one of the Churches All which are no matters of our Faith till they have better proof VVhat he says of the Promises there is impertinent for it s not of those we speak but of the affirmations of the extent of Christs Death Propitiation and Ransom which are not promises upon any condition propounded but Declarations and Assertions of things done for us in Christ that are grounds to us for Faith Even such grounds as upon which the Apostles exhorts to Faith Matth. 22.4 2 Cor. 5.19 20. c. and from them though not from the promises which are the believers portion Faith meets with something to perswade us of his Death for All. VVhereas he says the offer is not absolutely universal If he speak of it as profferd in act by men its true but if as proferable and according to the terms of its Proposition in the Scripture its untrue for there it s expresly said To all the ends of the earth and to the whole Creation For Gods refusing to bestow Faith I would have him shew me that God any where expresses himself as unwilling and unready to bestow Faith upon men where they have not first wilfully rejected him as if it was a vain thing to preach to most and for most to hear because God will not afford them power of believing 10. His last Consideration is of the several degrees of Faith Consid 10. tending to clear this That men have an object fit to believe on though they believe not that Christ died for them Which I deny for this believing on God the onely ultimate object of Faith being a reliance or depending on him presupposes an apprehension of God as one able and willing to help him and that apprehension springing from his VVord reporting him to be such which cannot be apprehended with this in question Whether God hath given Christ for him or not for if that be doubted or uncertain its uncertain too whether God be willing to help him seeing he hath appointed help no ways but by him and through his dying for men But let us see what are his Positions He tels us there is 1. This That sinners cannot have salvation in themselves in as much as all have sinned and come short of the glory of God Nor can be justified by the works of the Law This is indeed a truth to be believed but not properly Gospel or good news much less doth it shew the object to be believed on 2. That life is to be had in the promised seed But this is a lame Proposition for it expresses not whether life is there for them to whom it s preached or onely for some
againe but for whomsoever Christ riseth he rose for their justification Ro. 4. ult and they must be justified But All are not so Ans 1. That his Resurrection is conjoyned is true and so it is intimately in all the other places of 1 Tim. 2.6 Heb. 2 9. and where ever his Death for us is mentioned it s intimately the Death of him that rose againe for had he not risen he could not have been a ransome or propitiation it s not said here he rose again for them but simply He rose againe which indeed he must needs be conceived to have done as an Object to be lived to we cannot live to a dead man 2 That for whomsoever he riseth he riseth for their justification and they must be justified the places of Rom. 4. ult 8.34 say not they being believers onely that there speak applicatively of themselves He dyed for our sins this he did as and while we were ungodly and he rose againe for our justification that we believers as in ver 24. To whom it shall be imputed we believing in him that raised up Jesus he raised him with this intention that we believers might be justified The coupling of two such speeches together do not argue that the objects of the acts mentioned in them are of equall latitude as in Cor. 4.14 He that raised up the Lord Jesus will also raise us up by Jesus and present us with you It s not a good Inference because they two are put together therefore all that are raised by Jesus shall be presented with the believers And yet 3. If by Justification we mean a right and just giving Sentence of freedom from that Death that was come upon us in Adam as the reward of his disobedience so I grant it in its latitude according to Rom. 5.18 to All men to justification of life or if it be meant justification in the publick person as that that is open for all to partake of upon obedience of Faith and so for our justification be onely that we might be justified in his person and that he being perfected might be fitted to justifie All or any man upon his believing so I grant it too and affirme that he is able and fit to justifie All upon their looking by Faith unto him Otherwise if it signifie that we undoubtedly might have that justification and be presented righteous and acceptable before him then the equall extent of all so justified and all he dyed for is denyed and not at all proved from those places as is said before Justification so not being an immediate fruit or effect of Christs resurection but following upon Faith as is plaine Rom. 5.1 Gal. 2.16 Tit. 3.5 6. 1 Cor. 6.11 whence it s said to be by Faith by the name of the Lord by the Spirit of God c. But inasmuch as he could neither be an Object of Faith to any nor any be discharged from their sins nor presented righteous in him had Death swallowed him up and he never risen 2 Cor. 15.14 15 16 17. therefore he is said to rise for our justification that he might justifie us in believing on him and so us that beleeve on him That justification in the most speciall sense doth come upon many that Christ dyed for is granted and so both meet in many the same persons and such may say they are the Object of both but that thence they have equall Objects in point of number is denyed Those Israelites that intred into Canaan might truly say the Lord judged Pharaoh and the Egyptians to bring us out of Egypt and he led us in the wildernesse to possesse of Canaan and yet all that came out of Egypt or were led in the wildernesse were not possessed of Canaan 2. He says he speaks there of those only who by virtue of Christs death live to him are new creatures to whom the Lord imputeth not their trespasses who become the righteousnesse of God in Christ How God imputed not to the world their trespasses we have shewed before for the rest of the expressions they containe a shamefull way of reasoning Because that was one end of his dying for All that they might live to him therefore he dyed for no more then them that do live to him and fulfill that his end By that way of reasoning I will prove that God made not all because all seek him not from Act. 17.26 27. If Paul had said He dyed for all that live no longer to themselves but unto him it had been to M. Owens purpose but when he sayes no such thing but He dyed for All that they that live should live to him To say that he vouchsafed a mercy to no more then they that fulfill the end of that mercy is exceeding lame reasoning By that Argument John bare witnesse of Christ to no more then them that believed Johns Gospell was written for the use of no more then they that believe it Joh. 20.31 Psa 10◠43 44. God brought no more out of Egypt then them that kept his Statutes John bare witness onely to those that received Christ were made the sons of God received of his fulnesse grace for grace were borne of God saw the glory of Christ as the onely begotten of God For those phrases follow that other expression in Ioh. 1.7 12 13 14 16. Just with as much coherence to it as those phrases that Mr. Owen reckons up follow this we speak to in this Chapter And if we might take that liberty in expounding any verse we please by all the verses that follow it so as to say the subject spoken of in the one is what ever after is spoken of in the other as Mr. Owen doth here and in Heb. 2.9 we should make mad expositions 3. He tells us The Article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is joyned with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they all died or were dead evidently restraining that All. Thus He. But what All That all that died That Article is not put to Christ died for All but to All died and therefore were there any such force there in the Article it makes nothing against us for we speak not of restraining the All that died nor indeed is it any other then Relative if one died for All then they All died But that he treats only of believers there is meerly proofless as it hath been shewed By this reason in Rom. 5.19 the making men sinners by Adams fall should be restrained because its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the many or those many were made sinners These are sorry evasions 4. He tells us All those spoken of by the Apostle are proved to be dead because Christ died for them and that in a spiritual death to sin His proof of which latter clause is Vorstius Grotius good proofs to build our Faith on But 2. He says The Text proves that to be the sense But what part of the Text saith it Why he tells us That the intention of the Apostle
is to prove that all for whom Christ died are so dead to sin that they should henceforth live no more thereunto but to him that died for them What a heap of vanity is here this is Idem per idem The Apostle means by Dead Dead to sin because it s his intention to prove all Dead to sin Where is there any such word as Dead to sin Or what ground was this for his being so zealous as if he were beside himself in pressing men to believe and live to Christ if they were all dead to sin already What means he by so dead to sin as that they should live no more to it means he so that they ought to live no longer to it I would know of him who is not so dead to sin that he ought not to live any longer to it Nay doth not his saying That they might not henceforth c. argue that hitherto many did what they ought not though Christ had died for them a long time before Or means he that they should that is that that should be the event they shall live no longer to Then I would fain finde proof for it in the Text. Is that they might not and they shall not all one Doth not Sense and History confute this Doth not many a man that Christ died for yet live to himself Did all believe Johns Witness because it s said He bare witness that all might believe He says this agrees with Rom. 6.5 but that 's untrue too for this speaks onely of Christs dying for us and to what end that speaks of our being baptized into Christ and planted into his likeness But to that we spake before lib. 3. cap. 4. 5. He tells us The Apostle speaks here of Christs Death in respect of application The effectualness of Christ towards those for whom he died is here insisted on But the falsity of this is sufficiently discovered in what is said already In a word here is not one concluding Argument His conclusion is very wrong That here is no mention for Christs dying for any but those that are dead to sin and live to him Let any man read the Text and he may see that untrue For that says not He died for all that live no longer to themselves c. but he died for all that they that live might live no longer to themselves intimating that as yet many do not as they ought to do But I am weary with raking in such impertinent Arguments 5. Another Scripture is 1 Cor. 15.22 In Christ all shall be made alive Whence we argue All that Christ raises out of Death he died for that they might be so raised Else how comes it by man if not by something acted in the humane Nature and not onely by the divine Power of God But Christ shall make all alive But Mr. Owen tells us This All is but All believers because he brings Arguments from Faith the Gospel and such things to prove it and speaks after of Christs members them of whom he is the first fruits As if the Apostle might not speak of the Resurrection of all men and yet speaking to believers bring proofs fitted to them And as if his after-mentioning of such as believe proves that he asserted not the Resurrection of any but them It s plain some of the Corinths denied the Resurrection of the Dead not onely that they themselves should arise but also the dead in general ver 12. Now what they denied he asserted VVhich its clear also is a Truth not to be demostrated by reason but meerly to be believed upon divine Authority and the foundation of it laid in Christs Resurrection And therefore whereas Mr. Owen and Beza too object this That the Apostles Arguments are taken from the Resurrection of Christ the hope faith customes and expected reward of Christians which would have been ridiculous to be held out to the men of the world to prove the Resurrection of the dead in general It s very absurd For 1. The Apostle never held out other Arguments to the Heathen then Christs Resurrection which he preached as a matter of faith to them and declared as a matter evidently known to themselves Act. 17.30 31. 2. They being believers that denied the Resurrection of the dead in general he might well shew the inconsistency of that denial with their own principles and how it overthrew the most of those things which they made profession of as Christians For the dead in general not arising then neither should they arise and receive the reward of their faith and sufferings His arguments of that nature shew but that they were Christians he writ to capable of such demonstrations not that he asserted only the Resurrection of Christians But 2. He says The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 denotes a blessed Resurrection a Resurrection to a good life and glory VVhich is but his assertion much more That its never used about the common Resurrection For I pray you doth not the Lord Jesus use it of the Fathers quickning the dead in general Joh. 5.21 As the Father raiseth the dead and quickneth them and is not the Sons quickning whom he will both applied after to his quickning here and raising all hereafter Doth that hinder the truth of his quickning whom he will that he will quicken All So 1 Tim. 6.13 Is it not said That God quickneth or gives life to all things and can that be in a blessed Resurrection Doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signine more then to make alive and shall not all the dead be made alive How else shall they come forth of their graves and receive their doom The Apostle here having shewed that Christ rose again proves by that that the dead shall arise too and that by Christs getting victory over death comes the Resurrection As man brought in death so by man came in again the Resurrection of the Dead for as in and by for the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is often Ev in signification Adam all dye◠so in or by Christ all shall be made alive He says not all in Christ As if he spake of the believers onely but in or by Christ all shall be made alive which he declares orderly First Christ then they that are Christs at his coming then afterwards 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 comes the end that 's the third step namely the general Resurrection of the rest which is the end of all as is declared Rev. 20.6 11 12. Now that Christ may not be called The first fruits of those that sleep with reverence to All as Mr. Owen suggests I see no ground more then that he may not be called the first-born ofeverycreature and the believers a first-fruits of his creatures Jam. 1.18 Nor doth his making peculiar application of the usefulness of this Doctrine to believers hinder his affirming the Resurrection in general For that 's an usual thing to make special application of any general doctrine to those to whom he treats
some are justified that are after reprobated and were never chosen or else that he made but an inconsequent inference Besides He imputes a meer falshood to him when he informs his Reader as T. Moores Assertion That the righteousness of God comes upon all Vnbelievers quite contrary to his Assertions as any man may see that reads his Book yea quite contrary to that for which Mr. Owen faulted him as stopping at that phrase unto All Whether Mr. Moore now hath corrupted the Word of God or Mr. Owen mistaken and corrupted Mr. Moore let the Reader judg But before he leaves this Place and Chapter He gives us some Arguments to prove That Christ in his Obedience Satisfaction c. was not a publike person for every man in the world Elect and Reprobate Believers and Vnbelievers A thing that we affirm not as he expresses it viz. We say not that he sustained the person of any either as Elect or Reprobate in giving himself a ransom from the death come upon all for their sin in Adam but of men as faln not as Reprobated for rejecting his Truth nor as elected through obedience of the Truth and therefore his first Argument being against his sustaining the persons of men under the notion of Reprobates and the seed of the Serpent c. needs no further answering Otherwise we say that for them that by denying the Lord that bought them come to be rejected and to be of the feed of the Serpent Christ sustained the place of a publike person as onely faln and condemned in Adam his other arguments follow viz. 2. Christ as a publike person represented only them for whose sakes be set himself apart for that office and imployment wherein he was such a representative but upon his own testimony which we have Joh. 17.19 he set himself apart to that service and imployment for the sakes onely of some and not for all and every one Therefore he was not a publike person in the room of All. To which I answer 1. By denying the Minor for neither doth Christ say for their sakes only I sanctifie my self nor were they there spoken of all the believers so that had he limited it to those only he had by this argument represented onely them that were sent into the world as he was sent to preach the Gospel for to them that speech is there applied and so excluded all that should believe through their words Read Joh. 17.18 19 20. 2. Nor doth he tells us that that that he sanctified himself to there was all that in which he was a publike person and representative in giving himself a ransom and if that be not proved he says nothing 3. Christ as a surety was a publike person but all are not in that Covenant of which he was a surety Therefore not a publike person for All. This Argument is fallacious leaning upon this foundation If Christ was not a publike person for all in every respect Then for all in none which we deny His being a surety relates to his undertaking in heaven to see the Covenant which he hath already sealed performed to the parties to whom it appertaineth It s like this The Parliament as a publike body have ingaged their publike faith for seeing all them paid that have lent them any thing but all the Commons in the Kingdom have not lent to them and so they are not ingaged to all of them in that way Ergo they are not the Representative of all the Commons in the Kingdom The business of Christs Suretiship he quite mistakes as if the Apostle there affirmed him to be a Surety for all for whom he died which that place says not 4. His Argument from Christs Satisfaction and Rom. 8.33 34. alledged to prove it I have answered before in l. 3 c. 7. l. 1. c. 3. 5. The fifth says That Christ never did any thing in vain in respect of any for whom he was a publike person But many things which he did as a publike person were altogether in vain and fruitless in regard of the greatest part of the sons of men c. To which If by fruitless he mean totally both in respect of His and his Fathers Glory and their good then the Major is confessed and the Minor denied For he was glorified and all they in their day had mercy and goodness by his Death even they that then at the time of the accomplishment of his Sufferings were dead But if he means in regard of mens receipt of that utmost benefit that they might have received by it Then I deny the Major For Christ as a Prophet and Teacher speaks to many men in vain in that respect See Isai 49.4 And I said I laboured in vain speaking in the person of Christ as the 5. and 6. verses make it plain So Matth. 23.37 and so the Apostle intimates that some that departed from the Faith and turned aside to seek righteousness in their works abrogated Christ to themselves and made his Death as a vain thing crucifying him again to themselves Gal. 2.21 and 5.2 4 5. Heb. 6.5 6. And that some receive his Grace in vain 2 Cor. 6.1 2. 6. His next is That if God was welpleased with his Son in what he did as a publike person in representing others then must he be wel-pleased with all those whom he did represent either Absolutely or Conditionally But so is he not either way with all c. As pertaining to an absolute welpleasedness I deny the Major David might be welpleased that Joab mediated for Absolom and yet not welpleased with Absolom As for a conditional welpleasedness we deny the Minor That God would not be welpleased with all men upon condition Did all submit to him seek him c. they should all finde him pleased with them Through Christs Mediation he would 〈…〉 wel pleased with Cain upon this condition that he had believed and done well as Abel did Gen. 4.7 So with Pharaoh had he loved his people and learned the knowledge of God by them Matth. 25.35 36 41 42 43 c. 7. His last Argument is onely a quotation of many Scriptures that say He prayed not for the world when he requested peculiar favors for believers That he gave himself a ransome for many Gave himself for his sheep his Church is our forerunner shall save his people c. to which we have before answered CHAP. V. A Vindication of our use of those Scriptures which we say intimate a possibility of such to perish for whom Christ dyed WHereas we have often made use of such Scriptures as intimate the perishing of such as Christ dyed for M. Owen in the next place seeks to wrest them from us intimating that we therein do injury to the consolation of poor souls and make vile the precious bloud of Christ and esteem it as a common thing Against which our defence is what he himself supplies us with in his Preface That we must not lye to comfort
see no one place that proves that His answer then is still as unsatisfactory as if to this who shall rise again I should answer they are many that sleep in the dust of the earth Dan. 12.3 and then quote that in 1 Cor. 15.27 first Christ then they that are Christs at his coming and that Rom. 8.11 if the spirit of Christ dwell in you he that raised up Jesus will also quicken our mortal bodies and 1 Cor. 6.14 He hath raised up the Lord and will also raise Vs up by his power and then say that these are a description of those many that shall rise again should I be thought substantially to prove that Many limited only to them And yet if such an answer would not be fair then neither is his If it be Objected That other Scriptures say that some shall rise to condemnation I answer that other scriptures suppose a possibility of his perishing for whom Christ died 1 Cor. 8.11 and say that the false Teachers were bought by the Lord and yet pull upon themselves swift destruction for denying him that bought them 2 Pet. 2.1 so that the arguments are alike as is evident to any judicious impartial reader We have nothing but Master Owens word that those forecited epithites and sentences are the full description of that Many for whom Christ gave himself a ransome and that 's too weak a ground to build our faith upon That they are included in that Many we grant that they are all that Many that he died for we deny and he hath not proved Now not to recriminate and fling back upon himself that froth of wit which in his coming to answer what is objected to his argument from the word Many he casts upon a godly though less learned writer I shall view his confirmations of his argument or evasions from objections made against it The Objection mainly insisted on is that the word Many is used for All and aequivalently to All as in Dan. 12.3 compared with John 5.29 and Rom. 5.19 To which he sayes 1. That if the proof was taken from the word Many meerly and not from the description of those Many annexed with a presupposed distinction of all men into several sorts by the purpose of God that exception would bear some colour So that he leans more upon his description then upon the word Many but now that description being a partial description and no where in Scripture averred to be the adaequate description of those Many for whom Christ dyed this argument will ex confesso fall to nothing with a following simile which runs not parallel with the argument for that distinction of men into several sorts that he mentions here we shall view it hereafter 2. To Dan. 12.3 he sayes that there a distribution of the word to the several parts of it must be allowed as thus the dead shall rise Many to life and Many to shame which is a meer evasion crossing the text for the word Many is the Totum congregatum and there are distributive particles of that whole following in the Text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these to life and those to shame or some to life and some to shame besides which he adds a gross mistake of the Apostle as if it might be said Many shall rise because the Apostle sayes All shall not dye Whereas the Apostle no where hath such a saying It s not all shall not dye but all shall not sleep which signifies a resting in death not a dying simply in that sudden change opposed to sleeping there is a death and resurrection though not a sleeping in death and resurrection from the grave Besides though that were granted that All dye not yet I hope the Many that sleep in the grave that shall thence rise Iohn 5.29 are the same with All that are in their graves shall come forth All that are in their graves have dyed and all them are called Dan. 12.2 Many that sleep in the dust 3 To that in Rom. 5.19 he sayes Many seems there to be all but not spoken with an intent to denote all with an amplification because no comparison there instituted between the numbers c. But neither is there any strength in that for 1. though here he mince the matter with seems to be All yet p. 77. he confesseth the word Many to be placed absolutely for All and instances this place and that 's enough to my purpose 2. It s plain that a comparison is there instituted between Number and Number thus far that both numbers are Many yea and verse 18. the Apostle is as strict in the words of number as in any thing else As by one offence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so by one obedience 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All men to all men and so in verse 19. Many to many the comparison is in this that both have their effects upon many as well as in the effects themselves Yea and the word Many is clearly a word of amplification of both parts The All made sinners are truly Many exceeding Many and that Many All for producing other places in which the word Many is All though it be a trivial business in which only the Author that he bends himself against is challenged yet because he is confident that there is no other I shall with the Authors leave and his propound one or two to consideration as that in Numb 6.36 Return O Lord to the many thousands in Israel is to All the thousands of Israel and not to many of those thousands only so Mic. 4.4 He shall Judg among many Nations is among all Nations for other Scriptures say The Lord shall be one and his name one in All the earth and he shall judge the World in Righteousnes and All Nation shall glorify him But to return to the first Chapter in which those expressions of the end of Christs coming that is to save sinners c. are good and approved by us as the word of God But how he understands this word Saved or how this phrase of Coming to save he doth not fully express to supply which defect I shall consider them a little And 1. For the word Save it s of a large signification in Scripture when it s attributed to God and Christ as 1. It signifies to preserve or keep life yea when it is forfeited by our sin and God might justly deprive us of it to keep out of perishing as in Luke 9.56 The Son of Man came not to destroy mens lives 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but to save them Truly I conceive that in the day that Adam sinned he forfeited his soul or life and in his own ours also who were vertually in him and had God strictly taken the forfeiture of him He and we all in him had in that very day forthwith perished but Christ who was fore ordained to this business stept in between God and man and by way of ingagement became the dead Man the Lamb slain for us
gives a good answer by his resurrection that is by it as not only acted in Christ but as discovered to us in the word and as its that medium by which we behold Gods goodness toward us Rom. 3.25 and 5.1 And so the bloud of Christ Justifies us by faith in it as by vertue of the satisfaction made by it Christ presents us righteous being brought into him through the faith of it and so for sanctification it 's by his bloud sprinkled on us and through the power of the spirit working powerfully in us That place in Heb. 9.14 quoted by him p. 64. to prove sanctification to be an immediate product of his death is horribly mistake for it speaks not of his Death simply assuffered or his blood as presented by him to God but as sprinkled upon the conscience and therefore it s brought to answer the type of the red heifer Numb 19. which not by its death and oblation immediately sanctified the people but the ashes of it being reserved and after mixed with clean water and sprinkled on the unclean then Sanctified to the purifying of the flesh and not otherwise so also he hath misapplyed 2 Cor. 5.19 in his first chapter p. 2. bringing it to prove Reconciliation accomplished in the Death of Christ When the Apostle speaks but of it in fieri not in facto its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Reconciling to the accomplishment of which in them he exhorts them in ver 20. Be ye reconciled unto God so in pag. 3. he hath to wrong purpose quoted Heb. 9.12 and 1 Pet. 2.24 as speaking of redemption or justification as accomplished upon men when they so far as he quotes them speak but of Christs finding or obtaining it of the father in himself or into his hand nor is it there expressed for whom or for how many he obtained it the words for us being not in the Text. Again he there misquotes Rom. 3.25 rendring it We have all sinned and are justified as if it were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereas it is indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All have sinned being justifyed c. But I pass from these things His drift in all this he afterward in pag. 4. and more plainly chap. 3. lib. 2. discovers to us It s to beat down a spreading perswasion as he calls it of Christs giving himself aransome for all and every one a perswasion which the Teacher of the Gentiles in truth and verity broached in those very expressions 1. Tim. 2.5 6 7. Heb. 2.9 a sad time when men of parts study to oppose his doctrine totidem verbis in the very tearms that he delivered it in But Hic labor hoc opus est To this purpose the aforesaid considerations were laid down to be the foundation and Basis of an argument or two as to that purpose he hath inlarged them also lib. 2 cap. 3. producing more scriptures tending to the same thing to which those above mentioned were produced as That he shall save his people from their sins shall see his seed and carry on the pleasure of the Lord Sanctified himself that they may be Sanctified through the truth gave himself for us that he might deliver us from this present evil world was made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him most or all of which we shall after meet with and speak more particularly to from all which he draws this argument That which the Father and Son intend to accomplish in and towards all those for whom Christ died by his death that is most certainly effected But the Father and Son intended by the Death of Christ to redeem purge sanctifie purifie deliver from Death Satan the curse of the Law to quit of all sin to make righteousness in Christ all those for whom he dyed Therefore He dyed for all and only those in and towards whom all those things recounted are effected and so not for All. This is a main pillar of his edifice let us by Gods assistance assay to shake and evert it And first not to speak to the form how the conclusion should have been inferred for the major if taken in this sense What the Father and Son did intend purpose and wholly take upon themselves absolutely to do by his death that was and shall be thereby effected His determinate purpose shall not fail so it s granted But if by intended we understand what he propoundeth as an end intended in which there may be something suspended in the proposition upon some condition in that way I say what ever is propounded as his intent may not be fulfilled and accomplished in All for whom he dyed But I know he intends it in the former sense and therefore 2. I shall deny the Minor and desire his proof for it namely that the Father and Son intended that is absolutely purposed and wholly took upon themselves without condition to redeem purge sanctify c. all for whom Christ died For 1. This is beside the scripture that saith He dyed for all but never that he so intended to purge sanctifie set free and save All. 2. It s against that intimation in Rom. 14.15 and 2 Cor. 8.11 that one for whom Christ dyed may possibly perish and makes a meer scare-Crow of the Apostles reasoning as if he would deter them from evils by propounding impossible consequences of it and suppositions quite contrary to the faith to say nothing that it thwarteth that too in 2 Pet. 2.1 3. None of all the Places quoted prove what is affirmed for either they say not that the object named is all that Christ died for but some specially distinguished from others by the intervention of faith either in the eye of God or in real existence in them as his people 1 Pet. 2.10 them that believe on him the Church that is a people called out of the world Vs who were then actually believers them that were given him out of the World had received his words believed were sent into the world by him to preach the Gospel to say nothing of his begging the question that by sanctifying himself he meanes his dying or setting himself apart to dye in Joh. 17.19 so that that Minor is peccant in that it wants proof none of those Scriptures saying that those things he aymed at in all he dyed for To illustrate the business the proof is like this It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe and he called you by the Gospel to the obtaining of the Glory of the Lord Jesus Ergo All to whom it pleased God that the Gospel should be preached shall be saved and obtain eternal Glory To propound as a truth that God intended to redeem purge and save All for whom Christ dyed and then to prove it by telling us he intended to do so to Vs that believe to his Church and people is as lame a proof as if I should propound for truth that God intended to
Whether the salvation of Abraham and Isaac c. was not in the Covenant made between God and Christ if not then some more are saved then were included in that Covenant If yes then I demand what passage in that Prayer requests that they might believe and be sanctified if none then he asked less in that Prayer then God had ingaged himself to him for To the second I desire him to shew in what passage he prayes for the faith of the Elect in all that Prayer not from the sixth to the twentieth for he tells his Father they had it already and I suppose he will not be able to prove that he prayed to his Father there to give them that which they had before that prayer at least in that degree in which they had it nor in ver 20. for them he supposeth as future believers as he makes them the suppositum of his prayer his prayer is not that they might believe but that believing which he supposeth they should they might be one viz in body priviledg and injoyment of the grace of God in Christ except he will say Faith is prayed for in ver 21. and 23. when he saith that the world might believe but first that 's for the world not for the Elect secondly that he himself denies to be the faith of the Elect and so the fruit of that love here said to appertain to the Elect but only a conviction not for any good of the world but onely for the vindication of his people cha 7. pag. 47. therefore I desire him to shew me in what place of that prayer that Faith he here speaks of as a fruit of Gods electing love is prayed for In pag. 19. He tels us That it seems strange to him that Christ should undergo the pains of hell in their stead who lay in the pains of hell before he underwent those pains and shall continue in them to eternity To which I need not say with many of the Antients that he emptied hell by his death Bishop Vsher in his Answer to the Irish Jesuit upon Limbus Patrum c. and descent into those pains as Bishop Vsher relates nor will I put him to prove that any were as then or yet are undergoing those pains before the judgment of the great Day when they shall be sentenced thither which will be somewhat hard for him to do except he take that in Luke 16. to be a Narration or History of things really done and think that the rich man see Lazarus in Abrahams bosome and could call from hell to heaven to him but I say it will not follow from our saying That Christ gave himself a ransom for All that he must undergo those torments for All which were properly inflicted upon men for their abuse of that liberty which he virtually gave them to injoy by his after-death His enduring the sentence of the death he found them under as in Adam was enough to pay for that dispensation of life liberty grace mercy to them which they in their several times injoyed upon the ingagement of his future dying See more to this in cha 3. li. 3. without induring those torments for them to which they stood by the word adjudged for their not receiving him who was the Author of such liberty and mercy to them in those hints of truth and reproofs and counsels in his Spirits strivings despised by them Hence we may fall into an Answer of a Dilemma there propounded to us and again repeated chap. 3. lib. 3. viz. That God imposed his wrath due unto and Christ underwent the pains of hell for either all the sins of all men or all the sins of some men or some sins of all men If the last then all have some sins to answer for and so no man shall be saved if the second then that is it he affirms if the first then all should be saved or why not This may seem at the first view such a three-headed Monster as that there is no conquering it but through Gods assistance we shall grapple with it About his suffering the pains of hell I shall not question with him it s an ambiguous word and variously used And as no Scripture uses his expressions perhaps in his intention so as the Scripture uses the word hell I have no ground from Scripture to deny the expression therefore to the thing it self I may say that in severall respects all those three branches of the Dilemma are true and yet his consequences will not follow As 1. He underwent the wrath of God for some fins of all men 1 Tim. 2.6 Rom. 5.18 else he could not give himself a ransom for them all nor his righteousness come to All men to justification of life nor any favor of God be extended to them except he interposed between God and that sin that in its desert and by Gods sentence of death stopt the passage of all good flowing upon them unless hindred by mediation But then he says All have some sins to answer for Nego consequentiam that follows not for he that bears some sins of all may yet bear also all of some those two are not inconsistent had he said But some sins of any that had excluded All of any but some of All doth not those that may be but some of one mans sins may be All of another as suppose he bare all sins in genere but the sin against the Holy Ghost he then bare all some mens sins Heb. 10.26 for some men are not guilty of that but are kept from it but yet in respect of their sins that run into that he bare but some of their sins not all as so considered 2. He underwent the wrath of God for all the sins of some that is gave such satisfaction to his justice that no sin they have shall be their condemnation namely of those that believe and walk in the light with him as it is 1 John 1.7 Rom. 8.1 otherwise the phrase as he expresses it the Scripture hath not But then that 's it he faith No sure for he says he bare only All the sins of some men and dyed for none else but those some but so neither the Scriptures nor we say He might bear the punishment of all the sins of some men and yet not them only 3. He underwent the wrath of God for all the sins of All men in some sense considered That is as they were sinners in his first stepping in to undertake for men as sin was upon them through the fall of Adam and bound them to curse and death and so they needed a mediator or else they must presently be cut off and perish and so in a consideration and view of them as previous to his steping in to mediate And his bearing all of them was enough to ransome them all from that first condemning sentence and yet neither follows it so that all must then be eternally saved because there are other
sins against his mediation and the fruits of it extended to them as considered in a condition consequent thereto as refusing the light and abusing the power and liberty given them in the strivings and operations of his grace and spirit a turning away from him that did so much for them a denying him that bought them not believing on his name c. But then he says further If this unbelief be a sin then Christ underwent the punishment of it or not if he did then why must that hinder more then other sins c. To which I answer that though properly and most directly those sins and evils came upon him into which the fall of Adam plunged us sins not against him as Mediator or God as giving a Mediator and dealing with us there-through which was consequent to the fall and to mans sinning yet inasmuch as God knew that which they would do against his Mediating for them he not only laid upon him that sin previous to it with its proper operations in that way but also provided in that his Death against other sins that would follow so as that he might be perfectly able to save to the utmost any that should come to God by him And so he did so much in that one Death and offering as by virtue thereof patience and forbearance might be afforded for some space to the Rebellious while God is striving with them by his Spirit and leading them to Repentance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And it s said there is forgiveness with the Lord that he might be feared and with him is plenteous Redemption Psal 130.4 6. with him before it be with us or before we have it made ours before we fear him for it s provided with him and he exercises patience answerably with Declarations of it that he might be feared and this held forth to such as yet are supposed may despise and perish Acts 13.37.40.41 And thence in urging the wicked to Repentance it s added as the motive for he is gracious and will multiply pardon He hath received so much satisfaction for any wicked man whoever short of that unpardonable sin that he hath power and readiness of forgiveness for them with him Matth. 22.3 4 7. and desires not their ruine but that they might turn and live such a Caution hath Christ put in with his Father for them and not onely so but also he so far fore-provided that upon submission of any of them to him all their sins against his light goodness and Mediation during the time of Gods calling findes Remission from him Isa 55.7 and the after-follies to that his own Called-Ones run into are provided against 1 Joh 1.9 remission is in him for them and upon their confession and returning they have it dispensed to them and for them he hath provided that they shall not fail of seasonable operations of Spirit with due chastisements Ephes 5.26 27. whereby they may be sanctifyed and made pure in his sight and for the sanctified he hath provided for their utmost perfection and all this in one sacrifice But all this power of pardoning obtained by his Death is deposited in his hand and the pardon not immediately passed over from God to us or any he died for as if Christ bare all the Curse and Death and then for his sake we have Remission blessing and life presently confer'd upon us but as Christ bare all our evil God-ward so he hath received and is the treasury of Gods fulness of blessing Man-ward and men receive it from him and with him it being Gods Ordinance that he and life go together so as that we have not life till we have him nor Redemption till translated into his Kingdom who then sets us free by revealing his Truth to and in us Iohn 8.32 36. Col. 1.13 14. 1 Corinth 1.30 But the persisting in obstinacy and Rebellion till the space of Grace be expired deprives men of that Mercy and Salvation they might have found in submission to him Jon. 2.8 Psalm 81.10 11 12. Luke 19.41 42 c. And so unbelief Condemns not onely as it deserves Condemnation for in that regard he hath power to forgive it but as its necessary operation is the keeping a soul at a distance from him in whom is all Salvation and Remission and without whom we cannot have whatever of that nature is given to us all being intailed upon and bound up in him 1 Joh. 5.11 So that in a word he hath born all the sins of all men as in their first transgression and as considered precedaneous to his mediation and hath obtained such power against all other sins of all or any man that he hath made them all pardonable except that blasphemy against the Holy Ghost that upon repentance he can and will pardon any of them though yet we say not that he bare upon himself all the sins of all men as considered sinning against his mediation CHAP. III. A Veiw of his fourth Chapter with Answer thereto IN his fourth Chapter he tels us how Christ was Agent in the work of Redemption by voluntary susception of the office imposed on him and so was incarnate and offered up himself a sacrifice to God which we affirme also only some of the Scriptures that he quotes for this though they intimate his suffering and offering yet speak to a further business as the washing us in his blood Rev. 1.5 is in the sprinkling his blood upon our consciences compare it with Heb. 10.22 1 Cor. 6.11 Ephes 5.26 so the sanctifying himself Joh. 17.19 is not his yeelding up himself to death fure or not that only that they might be yeelded up to death by his death but the devoting himself to God to receive and make known the knowledg of God to them that they might be sanctified and set apart through the truth to that ministration to which he sent them for neither speaks he there of all the Elect except Mr. Owen think that all the Elect are sent to minister to the world Psal 18. as Christ was but of those actual believers whom he sent into the world verse 4. for he makes this prayer as one that had finished the work that God gave him to do on earth and as one committing the business of the Father toward the world in point of ministration unto others fitted for it even as Paul prayed for the Elders of Ephesus when he was leaving them and the flock of God to them Asts. 20. but to passe that Besides those other two acts of his undertaking Incarnation and Oblation he mentions also a third viz. Intercession which we grant also but whereas he says It s for all and every one of those for whom he gave himself as an oblation he did not suffer and then refuse to intercede for them do the greater and omit the less that position though I will not peremptorily deny it yet as Mr. Owen by Intercession means and takes in
neither is that true that after follows in him That if he should intercede for All All should undoubtedly be saved meaning eternally for he may intercede for some for other things not for eternal salvation as in Luke 13.7 8. Lord let it alone this year till I dig about it dung it and if it bring forth fruit well if not then afterward thou maist cut it down sure he was the prime Vine-dresser and that 's likely to be his intercession for the barren Nation of the Jews or if it was of subordinate Officers yet sure their intercessions prevail not for patience and continuance of the means of Grace as that Parable compared with what went before v. 1.5 intimate they do where he intercedes not and carries not up their prayers for that particular so that how he should be there excluded I know not and so he may pray as Luke 23.34 Father forgive them they know not what they do and yet they not be saved for that 's not Father justifie them and bring them to life eternal there is forgiveness mentioned in the Scripture short of what is attended with that as Lord lay not this sin to their charge Acts 7.61 and such as are mentioned in Numb 14.19 Psal 73.37 38. Amos 7.2.3 5 6. Math. 13.27 34 35. So that neither of these is proved Either that he intercedes for All he dyed for or that if he do they are all saved eternally It s true indeed as he after saith He is able to save to the utmost all that come to God by him because he ever liveth to to make intercession for them but neither proves that he makes intercession for all that he dyed for nor that whosoever he makes Intercession for he makes it for them for ever and they shal be saved to the utmost The Fig-tree notwithstanding that intercession made for patience and means of grace yet not coming to God by him might be cut down It says not all that he goeth to God for any thing for shall be saved to the utmost but he is able to save to the utmost all that come to God by him because he ever lives to make intercession for them He is able to save them to the utmost by vertue of that powerful office but if men come not to God by him or withdraw from him he says not that he lives for ever to execute his office for them and to save them to the utmost Indeed from this his office and intercession founded on his oblation believers men that come to God by him have notable confidence as is expressed Rom. 8.33 34 another place quoted by him even as Caleb and Joshuah whose spirits were right with God had notable confidence from the great things God had done for them and his presence amongst them to possess the Land of Canaan and subdue their enemies Numb 14.9 and yet it was not therefore a truth that all that God had done those mighty things for and was walking amongst either had that confidence or their success which being considered keeps alive the General Ransom from that break neck with which Mr. Owen threatneth it for though its true that those for whom he dyed hearing and believing his love to them have no cause but to trust in him and seek and hope for great things from him as all the Israelites that came over the red Sea and see Gods mighty works for for them had no cause but to have believed in God as well as the rest Numb 14.11 yet as there all that shared in those great things did not so believe as some nor had the like issue but many through their unbelief sell short of Canaan so here many not believing the goodness of God to them for which in part many may thank their Ministers that leave them to seek whether they have a mediator appointed of God for them or not do not believe in Christ and so for not believing and by not believing perish for the Apostle saith not that All that Christ dyed and rose for he intercedes for nor that all that he intercedes for shall be saved and have no condemnation no more then Caleb said All that God brought out of Egypt and that he at that present was with should enter into Canaan but as he so the Apostle believingly feeding upon the goodness of God joyes in it and is raised up to exceeding confidence by it and shews that they who are in Christ and walk after the spirit as they did have no condemnation but are kept from it by the Death Resurrection and Intercession of Christ believed on by them but he affirmes not that of all that he dyed rose and intercedes for Whereas a little after he saith That God only promised to Christ that he should be Captain of all Salvation to all that believe and effectually bring many sons to glory he saith not truely for he promised him also Psa 2.8 9. That he should rule the Nations with an Iron rod and break them in pieces as a potters vessel as he tels us he hath also received Rev. 2.26 27. And therefore that Christ looked only and alone as Mr. Owen also saith for the accomplishment of those things that he there mentioned is false also He looked for and doth and shall see the other made good to him too But so much to his deviations in this Chapter The fifth only shewing that the Holy Ghost hath his concurrence and had his operation in the birth death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and no Argument being thence drawn to his purpose I shall pass it over and proceed to the following Chapters CHAP. IIII. A further view of what he affirmes of the equal latitude and extent of the Oblation and Intercession of Christ in his sixth Chapter and seventh HIs sixth Chapter goes over the same things again spoken of in the fourth only here they are considered as means conducing to an end namely the Incarnation Oblation and Intercession of Christ the last of which Intercession he says contains every act of his exaltation even his Resurrection for which he brings no proof at all nor any reason wherewith to back it only quotes Rom. 4.25 which saith no such thing but that he rose again for our justification no nor appears it as he saith that by his Resurrection all his following dispensation and perpetual intercession is there intended It s but his conception without proof it may rather he conceived that in saying For our justification he means that he might do all those acts conducing to our justification and so include his Intercession there then that in the word Resurrection those acts are intended Nor saith Acts 3.26 any such thing and her falsifies it doubly in his quotation of it For first he renders it thus that God raised up his Son Jesus to bless us Whereas the Text is having raised him up he hath sent him to bless I conceive he means it of his sending him in the Gospel
onely to present his oblation for the bestowing the good things thereby purchased be all the matter of his intercession or all the matter there aimed at is doubtful as also whether he so appear for all he dyed for as is there expressed For I suppose he so appeared as Mr. Owen mentions in his first enterance thither so soon as he entred offered he appeared and his continuance in his Fathers sight is contained in his sitting down or being at the Fathers right hand but the Interceding is spoken of as a thing beyond that Rom. 8.33 34. He is at the right hand of God and also maketh intercession for us that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and also puts the business of his intercession a little further every single expression of some act of Christ in heaven may not hold forth all his business there as every single expression of his returning acts holds not forth all he shall do at his return as in Heb. 9.29 He shall appear without sin to salvation doth not argue that his very appearing without any other act shall estate the Saints into the full possession of salvation sure he shall raise them and do other acts also Surely his Intercession hath in it also a presentation of his will to the Father concerning such or such particulars as indeed are founded upon his offering or he hath liberty and priviledge thereby to will or ask for the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 John 17.24 may signifie a willing by desire as it is otherwhere used as 1 Cor. 7.7 Mark 12.38 and sure it shall be granted to him whatever he so wils of God But suppose that that 's also included in that phrase of the Apostle and that Mr. Owen means as much in saying he postulates those things which by his oblation were procured yet then that he doth appear to will or ask all those good things to be dispensed to All for whom he dyed which his Death for any procured as his phrase with the whole tenor of his arguing intimates that he means or that Intercession and Advocation spoke of in Heb. 7.25 1 John 2.2 which are there said to be for such as are actually believers is for any but believers at least for all he dyed for that I deny That Advocation or Intercession being a presentation of his will for the believers consolation so as that he is Comforter therein 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 intreat for comfort and procure 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a comforter to be sent unto them Now to argue thus He presents his sacrifice yea and his will for some good things which he hath procured or obtained right to demand for all he dyed for Ergo he doth as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 make good the case of all he dyed for that 's the thing I say denyed and for which the argument is invalid though that indeed is the thing as is before said and as his expressions in the next argument do declare he chiefly aimes at the whole consideration otherwise making nothing against us or to his chief intended purpose 4. Argu. 4 His fourth argument is from the identity of the end that if the Death of Christ procured and obtained that every good thing should be bestowed which is actually conferred by the intervening of his Intercession then they have both of them the same end and aim his Minor should be that the Death of Christ procured and obtained that every good thing should be bestowed which is actually conferred by his Intercession c. which he neither proveth nor did he doth it conclude the Concludendum that is the same Object in all the things his Death procured So that his after inference viz That the promises upon which his Intercession is founded were an ingagement to bestow and actually collate upon them for whom he suffered all those good things which his Death and oblation did merit and purchase if by them for whom he suffered he mean All them which he must or else he saith nothing neither springs from his premises nor is true in it self For 1. There is no such ingagement on Gods part in Scripture as that All whom Christ should suffer for should have all things collated on them which by his suffering he obtained that in Psal 2.8 mentioned by Mr. Owen doth but say what should be collated on himself not what should be collated upon All the Nations there mentioned that he should be the Anoynted the Christ and King and all given him for a possession not that All he dyed for should be Christ and Lord. Nor do those places of Isa 49. 53. forementioned in chap. 3. say any such thing as that All he dyed or suffered for should have collated upon them all the good things procured by him they ingage that a people should be glorified but not all for whom he suffered 2. The speech in strict sense is evidently false in matters of act for then All of them should be Apostles and Prophets except we shall say that those graces were not procured by his Death and sufferings 3. The way of God in rewarding his Son is in giving him All things into his hands glorifying him and thereby drawing souls to him to stay upon him and then granting him all his desires in them of all the fulness of his glory as he sees good to measure out amongst them Not that he would make them all glorious that he dyed for but only all of them that in the day of grace are brought into him to believe on him So that neither will this Argument serve him up to his intention 5. His fifth proof is from Christs putting them together in Joh. 17. Argu. 5 which only proves that Christ doth as well intercede as he did offer up himself not that he intercedes for all them for whom he dyed much less for those speciall things accompanying salvation there prayed for which was the thing to be proved We have shewed the Impertinency of that in John 17. before in answer to his fourth Chapter his other proofes also of 1 Cor 15.17 Heb. 9.12 are impertinent too neither of them speaking a word of Intercession much less for whom or how many 6. His last Argument is Argu. 6 That the seperating and dividing the Death and Intercession of Christ in regard of the objects cuts off all that consolation which any soul might hope to attain by an Assurance that Christ dyed for him But that 's false for this doctrine of Christs dying for All men though joyned with this that he makes Intercession but for All that come to God by him gives both ground and incouragement for every man upon hearsay of it to look to God and go to him by Christ as one that hath testified such great love to him as to open such a way of accesse for him through the blood of his Son and also assures him of strong consolation upon his going to him
not as large an us as that in Act. 17.27 not far from any one of us for in him we live or as that our in those expressions Jesus Christ our Lord. Again I go to my father to prepare a place for you Ergo to mediate for nothing for any but you only So he ever lives to make Intercession for all that come to God by him therefore he mediates for nothing for any else Contrary to Isa 53.12 He excluded the world from his prayers for conferring such and such priviledges on believers not desiring His Father to confer them on the world or any of it while such Therefore he never prayed for any of the world while and considered as such contrary to Luk. 23.34 These are Mr. Owens reasonings which whether they be inconsequent yea or no and whether the * T. Moore Answerer that he opposes or himself that pretends to far more learning be more to be admired for their strange inferences I leave to the impartial Reader soberly to judge He Objects against his in consequent reasoning upon 1 Tim. 2 5. Between God and man Therefore for All men Are not the Elect men c. But in this he mistakes we reason it not meerly from that as barely so expressed but from that as laid down for a demonstration of Gods good will to All his willing all men to be saved and as the foundation of our praying for All and from that that the Apostle addes he gave himself a Ransom for All which I conceive to be an act of mediation Our reasoning then runs thus That which argues the good will of God to All pertains to All But Christs being a Mediator between God and men is an argument of his love and good will to All Therefore it pertains to all The major leans upon this proposition That which holds forth love but to some cannot be an Argument of love to All That that argues love to All must concern all The minor is the coherence of the fourth and fifth verses Again thus That which Christ hath acted in for All pertains to All but Christ hath acted in his mediation for All c. This arises from the fifth coupled with the sixth verse Again thus If the mediation of Christ be a good foundation for our praying for All or any men then it self must concern All But so it is as it s laid down by the Apostle in that place compared with vers 1 2 3. Our prayers are groundless for any that he is not appointed as mediator for therefore to incourage us to pray for all he shews us a mediator that hath acted for All. His conceit on 1 Tim. 4.10 we have seen and spoken to before in Chap. 3. and shewed it to be a vain conceit that God as the object of the Apostles trust in all his labor and sufferings should be considered but as a Saviour out of Christ for the word Saviour is but once used there and if it signifie at all a Saviour without Christs mediation then it doth so to both branches besides that neither he nor any of them can prove God a Saviour to sinners as all men are without the interposition of a mediator I would ask how he deals with men in that saving them whether according to the Covenant of works which curseth according to deserts If so then no room for saving them from the death deserved by them no not for a moment If not then I ask according to what he saves and what it is that procures that he deals not with them in that severe way of their deserts The case of beasts instanced in Psal 36. admits of a twofold exception 1. That they have not sinned nor is there a law imposed upon them the transgression of which needs a mediator for their saving as the case of man is 2. That as they partook of vanity for mans sins sake so why may not their preservation for and to men be looked upon as a mercy safed to man by vertue of Christs mediation for the sin of man which laid them open to destruction for the punishment of man as far wide is his instancing 2 Cor. 1.9 10. the Apostles trusting in God that raises the dead as if he would tels that God as he acts in raising the dead acts not through Christs mediation or through Jesus Christ and so that 's false that As by man came Death so also by man came the resurrection of the Dead for he intimates that he raises the Dead without eyeing the interposition or mediation of man the man Christ As vain is that that the place fore-quoted speakes of God the Father as if Christ was excluded from being the object of the Apostles faith for preservation and as if God the Father wrought without Christ contrary to John 5.20 and were a Saviour to sinners in any way out of Christ and not through him all which are postulata's no way proveable For his wonder that Christ should be a Saviour of them that are not saved it s no greater then that God should purge some that yet were not purged and yet the Scripture plainly affirms that Ezek. 24.13 or made a Feast for them that never eat of it Mat. 22.4 Luk. 14.24 to say nothing that in some acts of saving they are saved and might in more did they not by observing lying vanities forsake their own mercies But we shall say more to this in Chap. 2. Lib. 2 where it is further urged O but he never gives grace to some to believe I believe he gives to All more then they improve or well like of and would give them more did they not smother what he gives them and that 's all I shall say to it here for we shall meet with it in fitter place as also with that other absurdity as he thinks that he should be a Saviour to them that never hear one word of saving If they have the thing in any sense it s not material that they never hear of its name God did gird Cyrus though Cyrus knew him not Isa 45.5 and many may have real good by that whose right name they never heard of I hope Mr. Owen is so charitable that if one of his children should dy in infancy he would think it might be saved by Christ though it never heard or understood a syllable of Christ or of a Saviour He things it absurd too that Christ should be a Saviour in a twofold sense for all and for believers But I hope he doth what the Father doth Josh 5.19 but the Father is the Saviour of All and especially of believers as himself grants and Christ saith he came to save the lives of men Luk 9.56 whether he do no more to believers then is there spoken of I leave to his consideration He is the Saviour of the World 1 John 4.14 and the Saviour of his body the Church Ephes 5.25 26. whether the world be his Church and body I leave to him also
to shew Whether the condition of believing be procured by him for All or for any I leave to its place and in the mean time desire him to prove by Scripture his perswasion that to whom Christ is in any sense a Saviour in the work of Redemption them he saves to the uttermost from all their sins of infidelity and disobedience with the saving of grace here and glory hereafter and in particular that he so saved those to whom in the knowledg of himself as a Saviour he gave an escape from the pollutions in the world who afterward backslid from him 2 Pet. 2.20 21. Whereas answer was further made to his Objection T. M. that he in some sort intercedes for transgressors the sons of men yet in and of the world that they through Gods blessings on their ministration may be convinced and be brought to acknowledg that Jesus is the Lord c. but more especially for the called believers c. Here Mr. Owen first mistakes his Answer M. O. as if he had said he prayed for them that they might be brought to faith in God through Christ effectually saving to life eternal and then opposes him in that conception Whereas he only said to believe the report of the Gospel according to that in Joh. 17.21 23. and to come to some perceptions of light therein whereto attending they might be brought further or which refusing they may be hardned for it Then he askes 1. In what sort Christ intercedes for that for such John 17 I answer for him in that sort as Christ expresses himself in John 17.21 23. obliquely as we pray for the good of a Kingdom when we pray for a spirit of wisdom and government on Kings and men in authority It s true believers are the direct Object of his intercession for those things conducing to this convincement and to this knowledge and faith even as Kings and Magistrates are in those prayers instanced 1 Tim. 2.2 though in other instances they may be the direct object as the Fig-tree of that Intercession Luk. 13.7 and the persecutors of that in Luk. 23.34 But then he askes whether it be intended to be accomplished I suppose it is and shall be in due time according to the tenor of our Saviours praying for it but to me he seemes to wrangle with our Saviour himself about his expressions because he gives no fuller account of his petitions It s likely he would the same query about our Saviours praying for believers unity and say Did Christ absolutely intend it or no and if so then why is it not better effected but that there are so many divisions even amongst them Christs prayers have I conceive in part their Answer here but not fully till the perfect day when all the world shall see and say This is Sion the City of the Lord and this is the truth of God c. 2. He demands if it be by vertue of his blood shed for them I answer I conceive it is had he not offered up himself a ransom and removed their death and condemnation he had had no ground to ask any further favor for them had he not come with blood for sin that cryed for vengeance no hearing I conceive of any supplication for them But then he saith it follows that by his death he procured faith for all But that 's a mistake For first Neither is this asserted for All though for others then the Elect only Nor secondly Follows it that his death if he mean simply and per se procured it nay rather the contrary for then what need of any further Mediation or petition for it frustra fit per plura c. A man may with boldness go to request a new lone of another for a man that plaid the bankrupt had run far into his debt bringing pay with him for the former debt that perhaps might have had no admittance for his suit in that kinde without that payment made and yet that payment meerly procured not the second lone That may be causa partialis sine quâ non of a thing that is not causa propriè plenè effectiva of it It s not the payment of the old debt that either obliges him that pays to borrow anew or him that lends to lend anew but grace in both from the * Orgiver lender to the borrower and from both to him for whom he borrows it Christ hath such grace in his Fathers eyes that he having paid our old score may ask a new stock and obtain it though his meer payment without that asking did not oblige the Father to it 3. He askes if he interceded for them with an intention and desire that they should believe or not I answer Yes sure for I suppose else he would not so have prayed and so they do and shall though not so far as his question here supposes That which he desires to be granted conducing to that end shal be granted but the end that he would have men attain to by those means afforded may by them not be so far obtained as he desires them to press to He would have them being convinced of the truth cleave to it follow after it acknowledg it c. but many do not grant him his desires even as he would have gathered Jerusalems children and yet they would not and as he rather pleases that men would turn and live and yet many do not Matth. 23.27 Ezek. 33.11 Yet that that he asks of his Father to that purpose as conducing to that end viz. a blessing with his means afforded so far as that they have light drawn to them to attend on that they have and shall acknowledg when their mouths shall be stopt for abusing it And in this is answered his two following Queries As first Whether it be for all and every man in the world That neither was affirmed nor in that place Joh. 17.21 held forth but men of the world others then the Church Secondly Whether absolutely or conditionally so that absolutely that his Disciples might be made fit means for such an end but for the worlds further believing and making good use of what they have that 's left to them upon the means and those convincements whether to chuse the good and refuse the evil or persist in evil and not â—huse the good and yet not without divers exhortations motions end counsels to chuse that that 's good and therefore for not chusing ahe fear of the Lord they are after charged Pro. 1.29 Whereas he t' demands Whether Christ prayes that they may use well the means ' of grace or not I Answer I finde no such prayer and yet it follows not but that he prayed that they may believe those things there mentioned or rather that the Believers may walk so well as that the world did they not wilfully shut their eyes might see and believe those truths viz. both that that Doctrine concerning Christ is the truth and
26.26 1 Pet. 2.21 22. But that that was his end that Mr. Owen propounds towards the conclusion of his 1. Chap viz. That All and every one of them for whom Christ dyed should have All those things conferred upon him that he procured for any or that they All should certainly be brought to God and to eternal glory I deny and leave for him to prove which there he doth not But let us see if he disprove none of the ends laid down by me He tels us Chap. 2. that it was not meerly his own Good he aimed at in his death That it was not meerly his own is without doubt but that it was also his own glory to be manifested is as evident and therefore also he prays the Father for that Iohn 17.4 5. but he says further While he was in the way he merited nothing for himself Whereas the holy ones of God have deemed him worthy to receive honor and glory power and riches Rev. 5.9 wisdom and strength for that his suffering c. and I think God judged him so too for as a reward of his sufferings he hath given it him and that Christ had no eye at that in regard of his humanity as he insinuates is not to be believed seeing the Apostle expresses he had Rom. 14 9. Heb. 12.2 he procured the exaltation of his humane nature and the manifestation of his glory as the word of God more brightly by his sufferings and that God predestinated it to that glory otherwise then by sufferings I no where finde nor I think he neither It s true that was not the onely thing nor perhaps the main thing in his eye He aimed more at the glorifying of his Father and that the world through him might be saved but that That was not in his eye nor procured meritoriously by him and so no end aimed at by him in making satisfaction for sin seem strange positions and yet these are Mr. Owens Conceptions and Conclusions quite cross to that of Rom. 14.9 before mentioned Sure if he procured any thing meritoriously of the Father he procured his own exaltation in the humane nature especially that glory of it to be the habitation and storehouse of that fulness that he hath for us which to me is more plain then that it may be denied in that Psal 68.18 He led captivity captive and received gifts in the man and in Rev. 5. its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he prevailed to open the Book and unloose the seals which was his honor as well as our commodity ver 4 5. whence that after-confession 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thou art worthy to take the Book and open the seals c. ver 7 8. He errs again when he saith The Dominion he hath over All is not founded on his Death for the Scripture saith expresly to this end he died 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he might have Dominion and for this cause God highly exalted him because he humbled himself and bare the sins of many Isai 53.12 Phil. 2.10 11. But Mr. Owen seems here to leap over hedge and ditch to his own purposes not considering how full the Scriptures are against him And indeed how can we expect a concurrence of Scripture to disprove a Scripture Assertion But let us see how he confirms his opinion He indeavors it from Heb. 1.3 He was appointed heir of all things But what then In what nature was he so appointed Sure he needed no appointment or constitution for his Divine Nature seeing Dominion over all was essential to that If in the Humane Nature united to the Divine then through what way was he appointed to become heir was it not the same in which he was begotten to be his Son and is it not said of him upon his Resurrection in that regard Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee then he was begotten in the Humane Nature to possession of the Divine Glory Besides may it not as well follow that therefore he purchased no glory for his Elect for they were appointed preordained to it too before the foundation of the world So that this is proofless to that particular His next is Heb. 2.7 8. God hath put all things under his feet But doth he not speak of that as a consequent to his abasement Thou madest him little lower then the Angels thou crownedst him with glory and honor c And expresly in ver 9. We see Jesus for the suffering of Death crowned with glory and honor I marvel what could make him quote this place of all the rest it being rather full against him He asks if Christ died for all those things that are subject to him Sed quid hoc ad Rhombum It s enough that he died that he might have such dominion over them which he hath partly by dying for them as in men and partly by conquest over them as in the devils and partly by gift as a reward of his service performed by him to his Father as in all things Phil. 2.10 11. Again He asks if he have not dominion over the Angels Yes and what then But he died not for them True but what then Did he not die that through death his Humane nature might be taken up into glory transcending theirs But he sayes All things are rather given him out of the Immediate love of the Father What he means here by Immediate I well know not if that without consideration of his death and sufferings the forecited Scriptures say enough against him If he mean onely that that was the bottom-fountain of his giving all to him Then doth he not see how by that manner of reasoning he also overthrows the effect of Christs death that he pleads for in procuring grace and glory for his chosen for by the same reason he purchased not that neither nor eyed it they flowing from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the good pleasure and love of God as is declared at large Ephes 1.4 5 6 7. and 2.4 5. c. Certainly in all this Argument he hath horribly mistaken But yet at length he sayes Suppose this be true What proof follows from thence of the general Ransom seeing this Dominion is a power of condemning as well as saving and it s not reasonable to assert that Christ died to Redeem them that he might have power to condemn them nay if he died to Redeem them then he aimed not at any such power to condemn them To this I onely say 1. We ground not our Assertion of the generality of the Ransom upon this bottom meerly but upon plainer testimonies also onely we assert this end 2. We say at the power of saving or condemning them he aimed though not at their condemnation And that Rom. 14.9 proves He had not power over them to save them nor were there any just ground for their looking to him for salvation as the case stood he not dying to ransom them from the power of that condemnation that was already
passed upon them therefore that he might be able to save them and he and God in him be a fit object for them to look to for it to that end he died for them John 3.17 though t is true that by the same he is able also to judge and condemn them for neglecting and rejecting him and his salvation which he could not reasonably be thought to have had if there had been no salvation in him or way to salvation opened to them by him and so his power to condemn yea his actual condemning of them had not been with so much subserviency to the highest end of all Gods glory manifested Gods glory had been less gloriously manifested in condemning men for their sin in another meerly the sin of the publike man then for their personal abuses neglects refusals and wilful rebellions against grace afforded personally to them which they had no way to obtain but through his sufferings to ransom them from destruction in their former sentence of condemnation 2. Another end rejected by him is this That Gods Justice being satisfied he might save sinners In which in effect He either denies that Christ died to make satisfaction to Gods Justice contrary to his after discourse against the Socinians and his Chapter about Satisfaction or that that satisfaction was any means of the salvation of sinners Lib. 3. c. 7.8 9. or at best a needless means for God might otherwise have saved them None of which he proveth Now whereas he adds that the Arminians say that after the satisfaction made by Christ Deo integrum fuit it was freely in Gods dispose whether to save any or no I shall pass it as wholly impertinent either to what I have laid down as the ends of Christs death Chap. 1. or to the Position here rejected by him viz. That Christ died that Gods Justice being satisfied he might save sinners For this adds also he might or might not save any one sinner Which that Position said not But he further lays down this Position That it was not to procure any thing to God but to obtain all good things to us But how agrees this with those Scriptures that say He bought us by his blood to God Rev. 5.9 Act. 20.28 and God purchased a Church by it to himself Will M. Owen exclude these acts from being in Gods intention in giving Christ to die or doth he think Vs the Church to be nothing Besides what need I pray of obtaining any good to us if God was equally at liberty to dispense those good things to us without his dying as through it notwithstanding his sentence of condemnation forepassed and that the supream end aimed at was to be accomplished for we speak not of satisfying Justice or opening a way for Gods goodness to flow forth without consideration either of the sentence requiring satisfaction or the end of God in glorifying his Justice for how then should we make it a subordinate end thereto in which his first argument is answered We say if that sentence being passed He could otherwise have saved man and given him all good things then is the Death of Christ evacuated no need of him to have obtained any thing of God God from eternity loving them and being free to give them all good things and his justice as well dispensing with sin unsatisfied for as requiring satisfaction but this he declines the asserting of His second Argument being only against that clause That God might save none notwithstanding that satisfaction I pass over as nothing against our Assertions In his third He says that then Christ should be said rather to redeem a liberty to God then to us from evil to enlarge God c. To that I say He hath in a manner confessed himself that he dyed supreamly to make way for the breaking out of Gods glory for what else is it to manifest his glory as if otherwise it would have lain more hid and could not have so appeared had not Christ dyed and then doth not this absurdity lie as much upon himself as us We say but Posito Decreto God having decreed to have no fellowship with sinners nor to dispense favor to their persons but through satisfaction for their sins he could not act forth the manifestations of his glorious grace but through satisfaction and he says the same otherwise he will make it but a needless means to the supream end the manifestation of his glory And yet from neither his saying nor ours is it meet to say that Christ dyed to redeem a liberty to God rather then to redeem us for he was in no real bondage in himself nor ever a whit the less glorious in himself had he bound up himself for ever from doing us good but ours would have been the bondage and misery that thereby should have been debarred from experimenting his goodness upon us to eternity his love to us led him to think it as a strait as it did to Ephraim Hos 11.8 but that was because his love made ours his What he saith about the merit of Christ we shall have occasion to speak to more fully afterward in answer to Chap. 10. lib. 3. and Chap. 1. lib. 4. His next argument also being against the assigning that as All the end of the death of Christ so as that being accomplished none might be saved intrenches not upon us as is manifest by what I laid down in the beginning of this Chapter That Christ is given for a Covenant as is afterward affirmed by him I believe and that also as a Covenant is propounded in respect of future benefit conditionally to men upon submission and obedience is as true See this latter in Isa 55.3 4 5. Hear and your souls shall live and I will make an everlasting Covenant with you here is the promise of making that Covenant even the sure mercies of David which is Christ dead and risen c. but it s upon this condition hear and then your souls shall live and I will make it with you thence men that take hold on Christ by faith take hold on the Covenant Isa 56.6 the former is propounded Isa 49.6 I will give thee for a Covenant to the people c. that is as I understand one through whom believed on the people shall be in Covenant with me they accepting him as I accept him we shall be agreed and made at one but of this subject we shall have occasion to speak more afterward His after-denying that Christs death effected a liberty to God of doing that which otherwise his justice by vertue of his sentence of punishing the sinner would have hindred him from doing is as much as if he should say That Christ dyed in vain and without any need for he might have manifested his justice and his mercy as much in his dealings with the sons of men if Christ had never dyed in stead of them which if it be not to make the Death of Christ an unnecessary supervacaneous
thing I know not what is CHAP. II. On the latter part of his third Chapter lib. 2. in which he urges the phrases For many and for the sheep and pretends to answer what T. Moore hath observed about them HE proceeds in the next place to application and to demonstrate this Assertion That Jesus Christ according to the Councel and will of his Father did offer himself on the cross to the procurement of eternal salvation with all the branches and means of it and makes continual Intercession with this intent and purpose that all the good things so procured by his death might be actually and infallibly bestowed on and applyed to All and every one for whom he dyed according to the will and counsel of God A position manifestly false for then we must all be Apostles Prophets Evangelists Pastors and Teachers nay have a name above every name c. for these things Christ procured by his death But to pass that He endeavors to make good this by a threefold consideration 1. From Scriptures holding out the intention and counsel of God 2. From Scriptures laying down the actual accomplishment or effect of his oblation 3. From those that point out the persons for whom Christ dyed His prevarications and weakness in the pointing out and arguing from each of which we sufficiently shewed in our answer to the first Chapter of his first Book and therefore here shall add only this That his arguments run but to this purpose Some one subordinate end of Christs death only agrees to some therefore he dyed only for those and with no respect to the supream end dyed for any other and so by consequence God hath no glory brought to him by the death of Jesus Christ but only in and from the Elect and Christ hath got no glory from any other but them he leaving them as he found them and doing nothing in his mediation for them Truly God and Christ are not beholding to Mr. Owen for his arguing So again Believers have had such and such effects in and by the death of Christ believed in by them therefore he dyed only for them like this such as go to a feast are well refreshed by eating it therefore it was made for no more then them that go to it or this Such prisoners being ransomed and following the Prince that ransomed them met with such bounty from him Therefore he ransomed none but them And again Many were ransomed Ergo not All. God made Israel Therefore he made no body else c. but no more to them arguments only there are diverse passages in the latter part of this Chapter from p. 79. that we have not spoken to and therefore shall take them in here As He denies that the death of Christ in any place of Scripture is said to be for all men For Answer to which I desire the Reader to turn to 1 Tim. 2.5 6. Heb. 2.9 Rom. 5.18 I know his objection is elswhere that the word Men is not in the original To which I answer first That by the same reason he may say that in Rom. 5.12 It s not affirmed that All men sinned seeing its but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word Men is not expressed and the like in 1 Cor. 15.22 that All men dyed not in Adam But 2. The word Men is expresly in Rom. 5.18 And 3. The word Men is the substantive clearly to be supplyed because the whole precedent speech was about men All men to be prayed for 1 Tim. 2.1 and expresly verse 4. that God would have All men to be saved 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. and that demonstrated by this that there is but one God and one Mediator between God and men the Man Christ Jesus who gave himself a ransom for All. For All what must it not needs be men between whom and God he is a Mediator and whom he tels us God would have to be saved All men and so in Heb. 2.9 was not the Apostle admiring Gods goodness to man Lord what is man and the Son of man exalting man above all his works which is now verified in one Man Jesus that dyed for every one What can it be referred to as before spoken about but man or the sons of men But of this we shall have cause to speak further hereafter That there are more ends of the death of Jesus Christ then what is the immediate fruit of it by way of ransome and propitiation before faith in it we have shewed in the conclusion of the first Book and upon his first Chapter of the second Some fruits there are of it from God towards men before faith and while in state of unbelief as the opening the door for entrance and for exhortations to strive to enter a feast prepared in Christ and a way of participating of it made and invitations vouchsafed as in Matth. 22.4 Prov. 9.3 4 5. Luk. 13.24 and those for and to more then enter and eat other fruits there are of it that flow in upon faith as satisfaction justification sanctification the contents of the new Testament c. And he that cannot see these to be distinct fruits and produced for or upon diverse objects and objects diversly considered is blinde and cannot see afar off nor into the things evidently held forth in the Gospel And what the ransome either immediately with God and for men or mediately upon and in men produceth were subordinate ends and aimes that Christ had in his eye upon his death as Mr. Owen himself also implies when he makes the ends of Christs death to be coincident with its effects His following observation objected against that that where the word many is used there are more ends of Christs death mentioned I shall pass it being not material and in some passages at least doubtful But in page 80. To this exception of ours Christs death is not limited to many and to his sheep c. as the ransome and propitiation as if he dyed for them only he tels us 1. That Christ saying he dyed for his sheep and Church and Scripture witnessing that all are not his sheep they conclude and argue by undeniable consequence that he dyed not for those that are not so At which assertion I can but wonder when first I heard of Mr. Owens Book he was so commended to me for a disputant that I could not expect any such lame arguments from him If we must take his saying of a thing to be an infallible proof that it s so then we have done with him but sure no Logick rule or good reason that I have ever met with can prove this assertion Had he said Christ saying he dyed for his sheep and the Scripture saying all are not his sheep it argues that in that saying he extended not the speech there about his Death to All he had spoken reason but to argue that because he mentions no more there as the object of his Death therefore he had no greater
tast death for every one and where is the impetration in that By him whosoever believes shall receive the remission of sins Acts 10.43 He hath also diverse indirect and vitious inferences as when from Isa 53.11 He shall justifie many for he shall bear their iniquities he infers All whose sins he bare he also justifieth whenas such a conclusion cannot fairly be drawn from those premises no more then if a man should say from that in 1 Cor. 6.19 20. The Holy Ghost is in you which ye have of God and ye are not your own for ye are bought with a price that all that are bought with a price have the Holy Ghost in them and so those false Teachers in 2 Pet. 2.1 which bring upon themselves swift destruction That clause For he bare their iniquities shews the ground upon which by his knowledg he might and so did justifie them that he proceeded legally not the adequate object of his act of bearing sins Thence also he adds by his knowledg that is by making known his truth or doctrine or himself in it he shall justifie many how comes that about that he by his knowledg should produce such an effect the reason is rendred for he bare their iniquities He shall make known himself to them as one able to save them and so draw them in to him and then by vertue of his sufferings for them he shall justifie them for that was it by which he was perfected for conferring such a favor on them that obey him as in Heb. 5.9 He saith not he justifies many by bearing their sins as if that alone did it but by his knowledg which knowledg whoso regard not nor receive they go without that justification or accounting righteous there spoken of yea though he dyed for them and had they received that knowledg of him both could and would have justified them men stumbling at him and not believing on him may perish though Christ have dyed for them 1 Cor. 8.11 Again his inference from that in Isa 53.5 By his stripes we are healed Therefore All that he dyed for hath no more force then if some Israelites that were healed by looking to the brazen Serpent should say By the brazen Serpent we are healed Therefore All that it was set up for were healed by it Of no more force are those other inferences from Rom. 8.32 33. He that spared not his Son but gave him up to the Death for us All how shall he not with him give us all things Vs that are in Christ Jesus that walk after the spirit that have received the first fruits of it that are called justified c. It s like the confident reasoning of the believing Israelites Exod. 13.13 14 16 17. God that brought us out of Egypt by so mighty a hand redeeming us and bringing us forth in his mercy will guide us by his strength to his holy habitation Numb 14.9 10. bring us in and plant us c. that is such as in this confidence follow his conduct and rebel not against him Now as if one from thence should infer Ergo all that he brought out of Egypt he surely brought into Canaan just such are those three inferences of Mr. Owens from that Rom. 8. viz. That all he gave Christ for 1. He gives to believe in him that is compels them to believe And 2. Brings them to glory an inference wholly groundless from that Text that speaking of actual believers and not of faith as a thing yet to be given them and All that he dyed for 3. He makes intercession for for the collating all the choise benefits of his Death upon for that 's the meaning of his third inference though not so in terminis expressed otherwise I should not deny it but I have said enough before to these kinde of inferences and I shall speak fullier to that place where he more fully urges it lib. 3. chap. 11. That which follows in him hath something in it worthy the noting viz. those Assertions repeated and spoken to by him As 1. In that he denies Gods inclination to do us good to be naturall and necessary he crosses that common maxime Quicquid in Deo est Deus est every thing in God is God and if that be true then its necessary and natural to God for that which is God cannot but be and so whatever love is in him to us must be necessary it being something in him Besides the Scripture defines him by love God is love which sure hath in it an inclination to do good and what he is is natural to him and as necessary as he though what object to act forth his love toward and in what way is not necessary but meerly free to him and therefore when he says that every thing acted by him towards us is an act of his free-will opponit non opponenda seeing though his actings be voluntary yet his nature is essentiall and necessary and these two cross not each other Whereas he saith the ascribing an Antecedent will to God whose fulfilling depends on any free contingent act of ours is injurious to God This falls not upon us But I conceive that that may be called an Antecedent VVill of God which respects some Antecedent condition in us in respect of some VVill of God respecting us as its proper object in a consequent condition As to explain my meaning God viewing Adam as innocent willed him Paradise and fellowship with himself yet the injoyment of this to be according to his standing in that created condition but viewing him as voluntarily faln he willed to expel him from Paradise c. the former of these in respect of the latter may be called Antecedent as it was a Will respecting an Antecedent or former condition of Adam and the latter a consequent will to that fall from his former condition beheld by him So a Will to provide a Saviour for men as helpless and faln and to extend goodness to them through him compared with his Will to exclude them his Kingdom and seal them up under wrath as obstinately after light and power vouchsafed rebelling against his Son and abusing his goodness may be called an Antecedent will and the latter a Consequent though that denomination of Antecedent and Consequent arises rather from the priority and posteriority in the objects then the will it self For that place Who hath resisted his will as it makes nothing against what I have here said so I shall say nothing to it here but refer what I have to say about it to my Answer to cap. 4. lib. 4. where he urges it again as also his third Assertion viz. 3. That a meer common Affection and Inclination to do good to all sets not out the freedom fulness and dimensions of the Love of God asserted in Scripture as the cause of sending Christ To my Answer to his fourth Book and second Chapter where he further urges it again 4. Whereas he denies that all mankinde
I have propounded that distinction Christ is not wanting to apply what is impetrated according to the will of God for application or compact made in Impetration and therefore his second Argument is vain too viz. That 2. It s contrary to reason that the Death of Christ in Gods intention should be applyed to any one that shall have no share in the merits of that Death None of all his adversaries produced by him say any such thing they rather deny the application of it to many then say that some to whom it s to be applyed have no share in his merits Whereas he says many know not of it we have shewed before that a man may have a fruit of love from another that he knows not Cyrus was girded and strengthned by God though he knew him not So men have a release from the dealing of God with them according to the merit of Adams sin which should else unavoidably have come upon them and this by Christ though many know not him And all receive some fruits of Adams sin though many knew not that there was such a one or what his sin was Whereas he saith it s against reason that a ransom should be paid for captives upon compact of deliverance and yet upon payment those captives not be made free and set at liberty that Christ should be a ransom upon compact of deliverance of captives and yet the greatest number of them never be released That is falsly bottomed for God released All from that deadly destroying sentence which hath God taken the forfeit of Adams sin in that very day had ruined Adam and his whole posterity Justification of life is to all so that they All have life here and shall however be released and brought out of the death that is ordered to them by occasion of Adams sin in the resurrection so far are all acquitted that if any perish it s not in that but in a second Death Yea all are released also in this regard that whereas all were cast out of Gods presence and might not approach to him now through Christ all have free leave to approach to him all are commanded to repent and turn to him to look to him and be saved whoever will may come and welcome yea God is so far from keeping them away that he faults men for not coming to him John 5.40 Now if a ransom be paid for captives and the prison doors opened and means afforded for leading them out and prisoners willingly and stubbornly refuse but will stay in prison still as in this later respect many do shall that be imputed as a defect of justice in him to whom the ransom was paid for them Surely no except it could be proved that that was the compact that he should in that regard compel and forcibly cause to come out of prison all that the ransom was paid for which I am sure Mr. Owen will not be able to prove in this matter Christ no where says to any God would not have you come to him you are not included in the ransom nor that all that he dyed for shall be brought in to him but he often tels us God would have them seek him and come to him and faults them that they will not For that after-shift as he cals it of conditional and absolute obtaining of things it fals not upon me I affirm that liberty from that first sentence's execution upon us was absolutely obtained Justification of life to All. And that liberty is opened in the Gospel to All and men exhorted to enter and for not striving to enter now the door comes to be shut upon many that which they have shall be taken from them because they liked to have it and then they cannot enter Also that all life remission and fulness are absolutely put into Christs hands only I say the will of God for his dispensation and so to his proposition of the things to be dispensed not his obtaining them into his dispose nor the freeness and openness of them for men to look after and come to him for them hath a condition annexed God wils Christ to dispense them to men upon coming to him and Christ holds them forth upon that condition to any Whoever will let him come c. we deny that Christ is bound to make known to all for whom he dyed the fulness that is in him like evidently or himself or the way of salvation to all alike expresly or expresly at all That all are bound to minde and imbrace what he revealeth to them is clear but that he is bound to make known this or that to all he dyed for I deny that Mr. Owen can any where prove He may bring infants to himself and dispense his salvation to them and yet never give them capacity to hear the condition of salvation and yet we believe what the Scripture saith John 1.9 that he is the true light that inlightens every man coming into the world He is not bound to give every man ten talents alike open and plain declation of himself and Father no not for saving them but every man is bound to improve and submit to God in what he gives them be it more or less and if they do so he is able and ready to give more being liberal and free and can tell how to save them if not he is just to take away what they have and not bound to save them He being Lord of them Nor yet say we that men have power of themselves to improve what is given them but he who gives them the talents gives them the power too in which he requires them to improve them and it s not inability but slothfulness and obstinacy for which they are faulted and condemned by him because they rather chuse to live idly in themselves and dy then stir abroad to seek God John 8.31 32 34 36. or yeeld to what he brings home to them and live Christ as he is the Truth of God is the great Physitian of souls and by revelations of truth both cals to himself for healing and by further revelations of it to those that come to him doth heal John 14.6 The truth shall make you free and this because He hath given himself a ransom for them in the first place without which neither ground of calling nor fitness to heal them Now this Great Truth of God doth send abroad his beams of divine light and so some sparklings of himself as the Word of God and God by vertue of his relation to the humane nature first virtually and then actually united to him to men in generall John 1 4 5 9 though not so clearly nor so many beams at all times as in some nor to All men as to some Yet to the generality some Beams of truth Rom. 1.18 19 21.28 Acts 17 27 28.27 Job 21.14 those beams have their force in their leading them to know something of God so to
seek him groping after him if happily they may finde him yea such power as that men are fain to suppress and keep them under and bid them be gone and shut their eyes against them lest they work too much upon them Now though they see not what a one or who he it whence these beams come and those operations in their hearts yet they knowing in their consciences that they ought to obey them and that it would be better for them so to do though what that betterness is they comprehend not and contrary to that knowledg they have willfully rebelling they cannot plead ignorance total ignorance of this great physitian but for not obeying what they know shall be excuse less before him So that Mr. Owens comparison of Christ to a physitian tendring cure he wholly unknown Rom. 1.20.28 is a mistake also nor shall men be able to make good that plea when he comes to judge them though many shall say in respect of his person and fuller appearances when saw we thee thus and thus as if they would plead ignorance of him yet he shall take away that plea from them making it appear that in such and such mediums as his poor people Matth. 25.42 43 44 55. he was evidencing himself to them and presenting himself before them and there they would not know him Nor is he as one tendring a thousand pound to a blinde man on condition he will see and yet giving no ability to see but he in tendring gives forth such light that men see some glimmerings and bids them look though but with their blinde holes that they may see which did they the light would make them see and see more clearly yea it would turn them Isa 42.18 and he would heal them Act. 28.27 but many wilfully loving their own ease and wils will not see lest they should be turned and be healed by him they see they should listen to him yea many see that in looking to him they might have healing and yet refuse to look to him they desire not his healing Whereas he saith the condition of faith is procured for us by the death of Christ or not I shall here say but this viz. 1. That Christ is become an object fit for us to believe on and hope in through his death which else he had not been for us sinners 2. That God in Christ hath done so much for All men and doth so much for them through him that he deserves highly at their hands to be trusted in by them I know this agrees not with Mr. Owens principles yet I shall stand to it against him that all men have good cause and ground to believe in him or to betrust themselves to him and so much we are in preaching Gospel to demonstrate to them not having sinned to death or blasphemed against the Holy Ghost It s but a righteous thing for any man to believe in God and in Christ and its unrighteousness and hainous sin not to believe in him being declared to them that is not to commit souls and bodies to him as to one ready to save them 3. All the ways and means with all the power that comes in and with them to inable men to believe are vouchsafed to men through the Death of Christ none of them had been afforded to us had not Christ dyed for us 4. It s the promise of God to Christ so to exalt and glorifie him that some should be brought in to him and be given him to believe and be his seed 5. Yea it s by the discovery of Gods good-will in the death and resurrection of Christ that God useth to overcome men to believe and so his blood and death as so discovered and set home redeems men out of their bondage to Sathan and world and corruption Rev. 5.9 10 14.4 But that Christ obliged the Father to make all those men that he dyed for to walk out in the exercise of such power and liberty of acting as he should in his gracious dispensations afford them for attendance to means receit of light given looking up to him in that light yea to believe in him and rely on him for salvation this I desire him to prove It s not proveable by Scripture so far as I can finde nay I may use this argument against it bottomed upon Mr. Owens own maxime viz. Whatever Christ procured or merited by his oblation that he intercedes to have collated or bestowed on men But Scripture no where shews that Christ intercedes for faith saving faith to be given to one or other Ergo Scripture no where proves that he procured that by his oblation The major is Mr. Owens own in cap. 4.6 7. lib. 1. The minor is easily proved by Induction no one place speaking of Christs Intercession mentions his interceding for saving faith not that platform as some say of his Intercession in John 17. as we shewed lib. 1. chap. 2. if not there no where else for in Rom. 8.33 he mentions his interceding for Vs men in Christ believers but says not for what much less for faith that they had already In Heb. 7.25 It s for those that come unto God by him that some might come to God by him I leave it for him to finde any one place in which Christ prays that God would make any to believe Nor will this diminish at all the honor and love due to him for as Mr. Owen says We are not to invent ways of honoring him but give him that that in the Scripture God gives to him He produces Tit. 3.5 6 2 Cor. 5.21 but neither of them say that Christ procured faith for us as obliging God to give it us the former shews but how God wrought it in discovering his love and the latter that Christ became sin for us that we might in him that is in believing in him be made the righteousness of God and so that he opened the way for our believing and making righteous not that he obliged God to make us or all that he dyed for righteously to believe no more then in vers 15. where He says he dyed for all that they that live might not henceforth live to themselves he shews that therefore he obliged God to make all cease from thenceforth to live to themselves and God performs not his obligation to him in that so many even after believing live so much to themselves and minde their own things as Paul complaineth That he shall bring in a seed to him I grant but that he is obliged to bring in this or that Individual to be of that seed muchless all that he dyed for I no where finde That in Eph. 1.3 Phil. 1.29 We shall meet with afterward and with the point it self also more fully urged viz. in lib. 3. cap. 4. where we shall speak to them only this I shall say to them here that neither of them say that Christ by his death obliged the Father to
part of this distinction as The ungodly Rom. 5.6 8. The unjust 1 Pet. 3.18 The world 2 Cor. 5 19. 1 Joh. 2.2 False teachers that bring upon themselves swift destruction 2 Pet. 2.1 So that his Minor is evidently false If it be Objected That its never said He died for the Reprobate I answer No more have we this expression He died for the Elect. If that its never said For the vessels of Wrath so it is never said For the vessels of Mercy c. I say these expressions are not in the Scriptures And indeed there is good reason it should not be said for Reprobates Goats vessels of Wrath c. because God gave not Christ for them as such no more then it s said He created Reprobates Devils ungodly Men because they were not such as created by him but they after declined from him and were rejected by him So we say Christ dyed not for men as Reprobates Goats appointed to wrath for they were the objects of these Decrees as viewed in an after-condition as neglecting refusing and rejecting the goodness of God and grace afforded through Christs mediation for that he says in answer to our exception that it s no where us only sheep only c. we have taken it off before Creation and preservation and resurrection and judgment are also spoken of and applyed to Israel and believers when they are spoken of with some distinction from opposition to others and yet in none of them are those expressions sufficient to prove that they are applicable to them only One instance for Creation we gave in Isa 43.14 15. there is another like it in Isa 64.8 We are the clay thou art the potter and yet the whole precedent part of the Chap. with the latter end of the former speaks in a distinguishing way between the people of God their adversaries So for preservation The Lord preserveth the faithful Psal 31.23 and the Lord preserveth all them that love him and yet there are oppositions between them and others so for judgement Deut. 32.36 The Lord shall judg his people and they distinguished from their enemies So for Resurrection Rom. 8.9 11. there is an opposition of them that have not the Spirit of Christ in them and them that have and it s said If the Spirit of Christ dwell in you he shall quicken your mortal bodies Whether from those and the like expressions its safe to say God created and preserveth none but his people Israel the righteous c. will quicken the bodies of and judg none but his people and such as have Christs spirit dwelling in them I leave to any rational man to judg And whereas he says By the same reason in other places when it s said Christ is the the way the life the resurrection It pleased God that in him should all fulness dwell We might except too and say it s not said It s he only and in him only I answer the case is unlike For if the Scriptures say so in other places or extend it not in any other place to others its boldness to extend it but if the Scripture in other places affirms it of others we may then well speak against the putting in an only to limit other Scriptures The first is the case of those places the latter of this in controversie so that this exception is very answerable as for his confidence that It may be further urged when and where it is so I hope I shall further answer it In the mean time I have said enough to shew the vanity of this Argument 5. His fifth Argument is Argu. 5 That the Scripture no where says Christ dyed for all men which is vain and evidently false as was shewed lib. 2. chap. 3. The expression is plain the righteousness of one which I think all must grant to be his obedience to the Death to All men to justification of life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So he is the propitiation for the whole Worlds sins Joh. 2.2 So the expression in 1 Tim. 2.6 Heb. 2.9 2 Cor. 5.14 15. are equivalent to an expresse mention of All men as hath been shewed And it s against reason to say as Mr. Owen intimates that the Apostle there means all his Elect his Church children seeing in those places where those expressions are there is no mention of Election or Elect Church or Believers to which the words may rationally be joyned and it s against reason to think that the Apostle in his writing should more respect other writings other Books or Chapters to refer his Adjectives to some words in them or to some following verses in the same Chapters then to such substantives as he in the scope drift of those Scriptures in which those Adjectives are and in the preceding verses of it was manifestly speaking about which in those places its manifest are Men. Besides we might retort and let Mr. Owen minde it that no Scripture says in terminis Christ dyed for his Church Children Elect no one such expression that in John 11.52 which he points to is not He dyed for the children of God but that he might gather into one the children of God In Eph. 5.26 27. his other proof its He gave himself for his Church which might be in exchange thus He gave himself to her to be hers that she might be his holy to him So Acts 20.28 He purchased the Church by his blood that is by the preaching and presentation of his blood foreshed with the benefits thereby ratified to all that believe and so gathered in or acquired and obtained as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies properly them to be his Church So that we might as colourably deny those sayings as he That Christ dyed for All men to be the Scriptures expressions But enough hath been said to this fore-answered vain and false Argument CHAP. III. An Answer to his third Chapter containing two other Arguments HIs sixth Argument is That for whom Christ dyed he dyed as a Sponsor in their stead But he dyed not so for all c. How much he puts into the word Sponsor I know not well but in their stead he dyed I grant though his proofs might be questioned whether they will evince it A man may dy for another that is for his sake to do him good when the other man perhaps should not have dyed had not he dyed and so not in a way of commutation and if he might in any way dye for all and not so for all then his major is invalid but yet I say I will grant that and deny his minor but then he saith it will follow That 1. He freed them all from the anger and wrath of God and guilt of death which he underwent for them To which I say that will not follow It will follow then that he freed them from the death they should have dyed but not from all the anger or displeasure that occasioned him to
that deliverance from the death that they should have dyed which by his dying he procured for them to All. So that here we have a groundless proofeless Argument though he saith it neeeds no proof yet I think it needs more proof then he can bring for it in every particular Object But this makes but Christ at most an half Mediator Ans But why so If a man undertake to mediate for another to have his life spared and obtains what he undertakes shall that be imputed an injury in him because in so doing he did not also undertake he should never sustain any anger for any after-folly If Christ do his work he undertook in Mediation and that to satisfaction to the justice and will of God who shall dare to call him but a half-Mediator because many a man refusing to make use of his Mediation in higher things that is to come to God by him deprive themselves of the further acts of it which he tels them they shall have if they will be ruled by him A King and some Subjects are at difference they are attached condemned and must dy A third between them comes and procures that the sentence shall be reversed and favor shewed them from the King and then goes to them and tels them if they will follow his counsel and be ruled by him as he hath procured their release from that sentence so he will also bring them to be favorites and familiars some listen to him and are ruled by him and he performs his word to them to the utmost others reject all his counsels will not be beholden either to him or the King being spared break out into new insolencies against them both and for that are again condemned and executed Shall their wickedness be cast as an imputation upon him and make him be stiled but an half-Mediator because they refuse the better half of the benefit they might have had by him If this be rational let rational men Judg. I might illustrate it by the case of Moses mediating for the Israelites and yet refusing to pray for nay praying against the Rebels in Numb 16. But I leave it the matter being so evident CHAP. IIII. An Answer to his eighth Argument in which is considered whether Christ purchased faith for those he dyed for HIs eight Argument is thus If Christs blood doth wash purge Argu. 8 cleanse and sanctifie them for whom it was shed then certainly he shed his blood only for them that in the event are purged cleansed and sanctified But All are not in the event washed purged cleansed and sanctified Ergo He dyed not for All. The consequence of the major that he conceives undeniable is undeniably vitious nor is it any way proved by him The proposition being reduced is thus They whom Christ dyed for are or shall be sanctified and purged by his blood And so it being indefinite it s to be construed Particularly or Vniversally if Particular its peccant in this that the major in the second figure in which this syllogisme thus reduced is ought all to be Vniversal If construed Vniversally as he must needs intend it or else he says nothing then I deny it and he no where proves it that All that Christ dyed for are or shall be parged by his blood The consequence is like this If they that came out of Egypt entred into Canaan by the river Jordan Then they only came out of Egypt that passed over the river Jordan But let us view the proofs of his major as Vniversally taken He assays to do it first by viewing the types and then secondly by plain expressions but first he halts in laying down his probandum for in stead of this That all that Christ dyed for are or shall be so purged he propounds to prove that The blood of Christ is effectual for all those things washing purging sanctifying which I will grant him where it is received by faith but I say that comes no more up to the thing to be proved then if a man should affirm That all that God brought out of Egypt were preserved and kept till they injoyed Canaan and then for proof produce some Scriptures that shew that those that followed God in his leadings of them and believed in him were so preserved c. But let us see his proofes And first From the types he says That the Apostle says that the expiation-sacrifice legally sanctified the unclean as is exprest Heb. 9.13 But by his leave the Apostle saith not It sanctified them all for whom it was a sacrifice but them whom it sprinkled the words are sprinkling the unclean sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh not Being offered for the unclean sanctifies c. But Mr. Owen says These are never divided though distinguished but I see no word to disprove their being divided though he says he was about it Let us see if we can find any thing for proof of it we will then appeal to the Law of the expiation-offering in Numb 19. There we first finde a Commandment to take a red heifer and offer her up and then gather the ashes and keep them and it s said they shall be for The Congregation of the children Israel for a water of purification the sacrifice then was for a preparation of a purifying water for the Congregation here is no exception or exclusion of any in that That pertained to the Congregation and then he tels them how they should purifie themselves with it and in what cases but now mark what he says in vers 20. The man that shall be unclean and shall not purifie himself with it that sould shall be cut off from the Congregation It seems then God supposed the application divisible from the preparation of it and appoints a punishment for those that refuse its application Cutting off from the Congregation It seems he was of it before and ought to have been sprinkled and sanctified with it the refusal of which and presuming to approach to God without it was to be punished with cutting off from the Congregation To which the Apostle I conceive alludes in Heb. 12.24 25. Ye are come to the blood of sprinkling take heed that ye refuse not him that speaketh 2 Pet. 1.2 as in another place the believers are said to be chosen to the obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Now unbelievers are disobedient and in what but in not yielding up themselves to God and Christ to be sanctified and cleansed by his blood So that Mr. Owen hath got nothing by that legal typicall expiation his after exception about the Antitype to this we shall speak to in its due place Let us now see the express sayings His first is that in Rom 6.5 6. If we have been planted together with him into the similitude of his Death we shall be also in the similitude of his resurrection knowing that our old man is crucified with him that the body of sin might be destroyed that henceforth we
justification by a lesser revelation of God then Paul had Josh 2.10 11 12. with Heb. 11.31 and so Cornelius before Peters coming to him believed in a lower act by less light then Peter brought to him and the Ninivites by far lesser then the Jews rebelled against now that power accompanies these mediums too in their lesser or greater dispensations is evident in that the Spirit is said to have preached to striven with men even those that yet obeyed it not Gen. 6 3. 1 Pet. 3 19. the hand of the Lord was stretched out with his reproofs and councels Prov 1.24 and in the effects it produceth as that they attain to some knowledg of God convincements illuminations c. against which they often willfully rebel and close their eyes and I say further that God doth in many by these means effect faith and bring them actually to believe and I conceive many more might have faith did they not wilfully turn away from God for I conceive a fore going act propounded or injoyned to men you may call it a condition if you please upon which they might be brought to believe Whereas Mr. Owen askes what that is I answer it is to listen to the voice of God not hardning the heart So Isa 55.3 hearken diligently and your souls shall live by diligent attendance to the voice of God the soul is quickned up to a life of faith and hope in God so Isa 49.1 Listen O Isles unto me and hearken ye people from far and in Psal 95. To day if ye will hear his voice harden not your hearts Lift not up your reasons and understandings against the authority of God be swift to hear hear him out and make not haste to speak and cavil against him As also to minde those demonstrations of his Divine Power and Goodness that he affords not winking with the eye and wilfully turning from the light when he makes it appear or from the means of light which beheld would give us to see what he holds forth to us according to that Call Hear ye deaf and look ye blinde that ye may see Isai 42.18 So Behold my servant whom I have chosen ver 1. And look to me and be ye saved Isai 45.22 And consider the works of God Job 37.14 That that is to be known of God is in them manifested c. Rom. 1.19.20 But then Is not this same hearing and listening believing I answer No It s but a mean to it We are to attend that we may believe by this hearing Faith and the spirit of it are given unto us But it will be objected Its obeying and obeying is believing So M. Owen But there is a fallacy in that for neither is every Act of hearing obeying nor every Act of obeying the believing spoken of As obeying in some acts follows believing so in some it may be but a tendency to the meeting with that which will cause us to believe so believingly to obey Take this Simile Two men are at controversie suppose a Master and a Servant the Master would have him do such things as the servant doth not nor will The Master begins to expostulate with him and to shew him reasons for his demands the servant hears what he says this is not yet an act of obedience to his Master for perhaps he may yet prove refractory and more obstinate then before and perhaps in hearing he may be perswaded and become obedient to him being convinced and changed in minde by what he hears till which change his act of hearing will not denominate him obedient or pass for an act of obedience Mr. Owen saith If we can propound a condition for Faith that is not Faith he will hear it And yet I suppose he will not think his hearing us propound it an act of obedience to us at all But then he says This is procured by by Christ or not In the sense before explained we grant it procured otherwise not and that to the power of exercising it is absolute but as to the act of exercising of it its voluntary and to the most uncompelled or unnecessitated Many have absolute power and ability given them of hearing and seeing the hints of Light and Truth that come from God that yet have it in their choise whether they will act so or so and therefore are faulted for not acting as they might for not chusing the fear of the Lord Prov. 1.29.30 For shutting their eyes against his Light and stopping their ears Matth. 13.15 Acts 28.27 And yet the cause of Faith is not resolved into our selves but into him that gives the power to hear and that speaks such words when we do listen as overcomes our reason and our hearts Our faith is justly still ascribed to him For if he spake not we could not hear yea if he gave us not power to hear yea if when we hear he spake not suitable words and exercised not power with his words we should not yet believe in him So that Inference is as absurd as these That because the blind man went and washed in the Pool of Siloam Therefore he was the cause of his own healing or Not Christ so much as he and The ten Lepers were the cause of their own cleansing because they went on their own legs to shew themselves to the Priests at his Commandment VVe avoid also all his following Consequences If by procuring Faith he means his meriting and obliging God to cause all to believe in him for whom He died For denying that it follows not either 1. That Faith is an act of our own wills and so our own as not to be wrought by Grace and that its wholly sited in our own power to perform that spiritual act No such thing follows upon that Proposition denied 1. That Faith is an act of the VVill no man can deny for in it the Will closes with an Object propounded as good to be relied on but that it s not wrought by Grace is clearly false from what is said above It s our act to hear and yet not that without the VVord of God buts t is Gods Act even the act of his Grace to perswade us by what he speaks to lean upon him and believe in him Besides 2. God might freely work it in some without being obliged to it by the Death of Christ the same love that led him to give Christ may sin being removed and the enmity being slain by Christ work as much as it pleases without being obliged and tied to work it Besides 3. Christ might oblige him to work it in some and yet not in all He died for So that every way this is inconsequent And we neither 1. Contradict any Scripture Nor 2. Speak contrary to the nature of the new Covenant of Grace which indeed is sealed by Christs Death to believers but says not that Christs Death obliged God to make this and that man much less all he died for to believe Nor is it 3. Destructive
them of which we spake above or else more especially of the believing Gentiles such as the Ephesians written to made of one body with the believing Jews he shews how that nighness was effected viz. in Christ our peace and how he is our peace viz. in that he hath broken down the partition wall and so slain the enmity the Law of Commandments in Ordinances in his cross or sufferings Which work of his he amplifies by his ends in it viz. 1. That he might create of two peoples one new man in himself which is done in their believing on him 2. That he might reconcile them in one body unto God that is in his own body fed on by both or in one mystical body consisting of both by the Cross that is the vertue of his sufferings having slain the enmity there as above ver 15. Now note that he says not he reconciled them to God in dying no more then that he had new created them therein but he slew the enmity there that is the power of the Law upon us which was the bond of enmity and difference between us that by it he might reconcile us that 's spoken of as a further and future thing to his dying and slaying the enmities Unto which also it follows that he came and preached peace to them So that this proves not Reconciliation of man to God an immediate fruit of his death but through the interposition of the Word and Spirit and Faith as ver 18. bringing us to feed on that one body of Christ and into one body with the Saints of God Much less is there is any Scripture saith That Christ merited that all for whom he died should be effectually brought in to be friends to God He is indeed worthy to be believed on by us as I said before but hath no where obliged God to cause us in so doing to become at one with him So that that Argument also is a gross mistake And this takes off all the following Queries in that Chapter which need no other Answer Onely there is a touch in it needs a little clearing It s said 2 Cor. 5.19 God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself Object not imputing their trespasses unto them And I acknowledg he hath done so much for the world But then are not the world blessed and made righteous seeing it s said The man is blessed to whom God impuses not sin Rom. 4.5 6 7. To that I say No not in themselves Answ though in the promised seed And onely here propound this difference to be considered between the places In this its onely in the time past and hitherto Not imputing there it is He will not impute He is not a blessed man in the prime sense of the word Blessed to whom God hath not been imputing sins but preaching peace and forgiveness and diverting his Wrath in regard of the Testimonies of it against the sins that brought condemnation on us to his Son But he that is so far brought into favor as that he will not Impute sin As he is blessed that shall not come into condemnation but not every one whom Christ now judgeth not or condemns not Except the man that believes not is also blessed For in Joh. 12.47 It s said If any man hear my words and believe not I judg him not Psal 41.1 So he that considers the poor is blessed in this That the Lord will deliver him in the time of trouble He is a blessed man whom God will deliver in all times future but it s not true that he is blessed that God hath in times past and perhaps hitherto doth deliver in times of trouble he being not yet by all those deliverances brought to believe in him Except we should take blessedness in a lower sense then there as it s taken in Psal 144. the former part of the last Verse Object If any object That if God was reconciling the world and they all never come to be reconciled Then God doth his work imperfectly Answ Let him consider that as much might be said against his bringing Israel into Canaan that he was bringing them unto Canaan and yet many thousands not following him fell short of it and yet that of Moses is true As for God his work is perfect All his wayes are Judgment Deut. 32.4 And let that suffice to that Chapter and Argument CHAP. VII About Satisfaction HIs next Chapter treats of Satisfaction Instan 3. containing the same Argument in substance that we have answered before in lib. 1. cap. 3. and lib. 3. cap. 3. The main thing in it is That for whom Christ died All their sins he satisfied for And therefore being just he ought to discharge them c. But first he fails in the proof of both He proves not that Christ undertook to satisfie for all the sins of All he died for as well Consectaneous as Antecedaneous to his Mediation for such a proof would be to some purpose and make the Apostles caution as well as our perswasion ridiculous it would be out of fear that any man should occasion one to perish for whom Christ died seeing whatever sin such a one can commit is paid for and discharged beforehand So that I say Those passages in Rom. 14.15 and 1 Cor. 8.11 would be as vain as if he had said Take heed lest ye annihilate Christ or swallow him up through sorrow in the mids of all his glory Such kinde of vain intimations are not to be fixed on the Apostles Doctrine But if it be true indeed that there the Apostle supposes viz. That a man for whom Christ died may by stumbling at Christ and departing from him perish then is it not true that Mr. Owen propoundeth that for such sins as any do so commit Christ hath so fully satisfied that the forgiveness of them is due debt and God unjust in case they for them perish We grant he hath satisfied to the utmost of that Obligation that he undertook and so removed the sentence of death from off all that the benefit of his righteousness is to All to justification of life but not that he hath made the remission of all sins past present and to come for all for whom he died due debt so as that its unjust that any perish for them The onely place he brings to prove it is 1 Joh. 1.7 which he seems not to understand for that neither saith The blood of Christ hath cleansed All them for whom he dyed from all their sins that they have or shall commit nor that it cleanseth all us absolutely from all our sins but it saith If he walk in the light as he is in the light that is in other Scripture phrase If we walk in the Spirit and continue rooted and grounded in the Faith and be not moved from it then have we fellowship one with another and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all our sins He forgot that If he walk in the light
c. It s the same in meaning with that in Rom. 8.1 There is no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus that walk not after the flesh but after the spirit He saith not There is no condemnation to any that Christ hath died for nor to all in Christ Jesus for some such may be unfruitful branches and grieve and rebel against the Spirit and so be cut off Joh. 15.4 It s like that too in Col. 1.23 To present you blameless and unreproveable in his sight if ye continue stedfast c. The meaning in a word is this That such is the force of the blood or sufferings of Jesus Christ with God and such Gods wel-pleasedness in that his obedience and such the mutual consent of God and Christ upon his sufferings That whoever receiveth the light that comes from God walks therein as God is in it affording power and strength to him there-through with him God hath fellowship and him God admitteth into communion with himself or such have joynt participation one with another are presented spotless in the sight of God So as that though they have sin in them that hinders them from doing as they would from attaining to walk in that heighth perfection that they desire yet they not yielding to that sin but siding with the light and Spirit of God against it God imputes it not to them All such mens sins being sins of weakness to which they are meerly drawn are so covered that there comes no condemnation upon them for any of them no rebuke from God nor * So 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used in Rom. 14.23 Gal. 6.7 self condemnation to burthen the conscience The blood of Jesus Christ believed in presenting the soul spotless to God and speaking peace unto the conscience But now it s neither so with all that Christ died for nor with all that are in Christ Such as walk after the flesh and sow to it though believers do and shall of the flesh reap corruption It s not the agreement between God and Christ that his blood or sufferings should present men in that condition unblameable before him his blood speaks no such protection to sin or to men as walking after sin but such notwithstanding Christs Death for them God rebukes and punishes There are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that come upon them as appeares 1 Cor. 11.29.30 Revel 3.19 It s true those judgments are not to destruction but that they might be brought to see and confess their follies and turn to the Spirit and Light of God again which if they do they shall finde the blood of Christ then effectual for them to remission again as it follows in 1 Joh. 1.9 Otherwise they shall perish also 1 Cor. 8.11 And this is the plain meaning and scope of that place which by what is said appears to be notably misapplied by Mr. Owen And indeed the not discerning of this is the ground of their error whom they call Antinomians who deny that God is angry or punishes any believer or any Elect man though an unbeliever for his sin It s grounded upon and undeniably flows from this very conclusion of Mr. Owens That for whom Christ died all their sins are satisfied for past present and to come and God ought not further to molest or trouble them for them Nor can Mr. Owen Maintain what he says in Chap. 8. against the Socinians viz. That the state of those that Christ died for during their unregeneracy is all one with such as he died not for that they are unacceptable in all their services in bondage to Death yea under the curse and condemning power of the Law obnoxious to judgment and guilty of eternal Death I say these things cannot be true of any of them if Christ hath made for all their sin such satisfaction as that they ought to be discharged of all suits charges and molestations as here he saith they ought How can it be conceived That a man whose debts are all paid that he hath or shall contract is liable to the Law and obnoxious to perpetual imprisonment still for them But we say a man whose debt is paid he discharged may run into a new debt and become obnoxious again to Law And that the case is so here appears as by that intimation before noted 1 Cor. 8.11 So also by many other Scriptures So the Israelites that were pardoned all their rebellions and murmurings from Egypt till they sent Spies to Canaan and that rebellion too that insued Numb 14.19 20. yet were many of them cut off and consumed without pardon for the Rebellion of Korah Dathan and Abiram that soon after hapned Numb 16. Nor would Moses intercede for them in that though he hath for all the rest formerly ver 15. And accordingly those who are said to have had their old sins cleansed yet growing purblinde and Apostatizing for so it s clearly intimated by way of Antithesis that they may fall yea are in the way to it 2 Pet. 1.9 10. yea denying the Lord that bought them and turning his grace into wantonness are said to perish in the gainsayings of Korah no pardon for so high rebellion Jude 11. Again as God is That Creditor to whom as Mr. Owen saith we owe a thousand talents Matth. 18. So our Saviour there tells us That they who receive forgiveness of those talents from him and yet afterward walk not in the Spirit of God in love and Christlike dispositions but forgetting their own purging from their old sins are destitute of Vertue Knowledg Temperance Charity c. God will so deal with them as he that having forgiven his servant a thousand talents afterwards for his cruelty to his fellow-servant threw him into Prison till he should pay the utmost farthing So says our Saviour himself in that very place instanced by Mr. Owen Matth. 18.32 35. So that all Mr. Owens Inferences and Queries in that Chapter built upon the former premise are meer fallacies and amount to just nothing The needs no Oedipus to resolve his Riddles the Spirit of God in the Scriptures hath plainly enough resolved them to any that have understanding CHAP. VIII An Answer to his Arguments from the Word Merits and the Phrases 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 HIs two following Chapters scil the eigth and ninth being a digression and in some points as is shewed a contradiction to his inferences of Gods being bound to surcease all actions and molestations against those for whom Christ died and not concerning the Question debated but opposing the Socinians I pass them Instan 4. and come to his Chapter of Merit in which he confesses That no word is found in the Scripture that may justly be so translated From which concession I might take advantage to tell him That then he can prove nothing against a plain saying of Scripture by any Argument drawn from this Word which is not found in Scripture but I pass it Now will I
say much to these places quoted by him to hold forth the thing meant by the word Merit viz. Isai 53.5 Heb. 9.12 Acts 20.28 save that they prove not any obligation put upon God to do those things there mentioned to all that he died for but onely that God was pleased to do such things upon such considerations or by such mediums Onely the latter place of Acts 20.28 seems least to the business for it speaks not of Christs meriting of God but Gods procuring acquiring or obtaining as the 〈◊〉 most usually signifies a people to be a Church by that way of his blood the sufferings of Christ But to pass those things Let this be observed which himself grants lib 4. cap. 1. That however pretious and valuable the sufferings of Christ be yet they oblige and binde God to nothing but according to his own appointment and free ingagement Having noted that we come to his Argument which is this That Christ did merit and purchase by his death for all those for whom he died all those things which in the Scriptures are assigned to be the fruits and effects of his death But all have not all those effects and fruits Ergo he died not for All. Ans If by his Major he means He procured them into himself as into Gods Treasury to be free for them all to look after and come to him for and to be dispensed to all that do look after him and come to him Then it nothing hurts us But then his Minor assumes not rightly as it doth not however for it should be thus That Christ hath not purchased all those things for All and not as it is That all have them not But if in his Major he means as he seems to do that he obliged the Father to bestow upon All for whom he died and bring them to enjoy all those things which his Death either as presented to God or as believed by us is said to effect as his after-enumeration of its effects argue him to mean then I deny it and desire his proof of it which because he brings not his Argument falls to the ground and needs no further answering Onely I shall minde the Reader that the effects enumerated by him are such for the most part as it produceth in us by believing on it such as the Delivering us from the hand power of all our enemies which we are not till called nay till raised from the dead from wrath to come which we are not till justified by faith as is evident by his own confession against the Socinians The works of the Devil which are overcome and destroyed by him in being believed on Ephes 6.13.16 the curse of the Law which he says we are subject to till believers Cap. 8. Sect. 6. from our vain conversation the present evil world the earth and from men all which he doth by his blood and sufferings as being accepted of God they are made known to us and withall the Covenant ratified by it held forth to us By letting us see such love in God towards us and such good-will in Christ with such perfection to save us and so great promises ratified to believers he moves and perswades us to let go our vain conversations renounce the world its fellowships vanities and wickedness to cease cleaving to the earth and earthy men and having our confidence in them and reliance on them for teaching worship satisfaction delight c. Thus God is said to have bought Israel to himself Deut. 32.6 in that he by so great things done for them purchased or gained them in to own and follow him And so in Hos 3.2 Gods buying Israel to be a people for himself is compared to Hoseahs buying an harlot off from other lovers to be his wise for a certain consideration or Sum given her So Christ buys men unto God from other things by setting before us his great sufferings for us and profering to us the great glory he will thereby bring vs to if we will renounce all for him But this note is over and above what was needful for shewing the invalidity of the Argument All his other quotations too are impertinent and none of them prove either that God is obliged by the Death of Christ and ought to grant to and possess all for whom he died of those good things that he mentions or that he was or is bound thereby otherwise then as he freely ingaged himself to do them to any They say That by his Death we are reconciled as we may say By Joabs Mediation Absolom was recalled from banishment and brought into Davids favor Which speech proves not that the inward worth of his Mediation bound David to that So He is our Propitiatory through Faith in his blood and God hath set him forth to be so that proves not that he obliged God to forgive the sins of All he died for The like I might say for Peace-making and salvation Believing on him we are at peace with God and shall be saved by him but no place sayes All that he died for shall be saved or that God ought to make them all believe and so save them as was before shewed For his next Instance from the Phrases 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Inst 6. For All and for Many and Interrogatory Whether Christ died in the stead of All It s answered in those Chapters that speak about Satisfaction with all the Queries he propounds upon it Onely I shall spake to one of them viz. Whether Christ hung upon the Cross for Reprobates I say I conceive as they were men faln in Adam he did but not as besides that Reprobated also It s like that The Gospel was preached to the dead 1 Pet. 4.6 and the Spirits in prison Was the Gospel preached to dead men and men in hell Yes To them that are now dead and in hell But not when and as dead and in hell Men were not Reprobates as they were the Objects of Christs Death but as they are considered and actually found guilty of sinning wilfully and pertinaciously against the truth discovered and benefits afforded to them through his Death If we will speak of things according to the Scripture If otherwise Eâdem facilitate rejicitur quâ asseritur The Scriptures say men that corrupt themselves and notwithstanding the means of purging used to them which sure are all consequent in order of Nature to the death of Christ for men there being nothing affordable to men towards purging according to the demerit of Adams sin but All were forthwith to have perished stand out and remain in their corruptions are the reprobate silver men rejected of God Jer. 6.30 And for such obstinacy against God in lower or higher means the Scripture often tells us that God reprobates or rejects men as is to be seen in Rom. 1.19 20 21 28. Gen. 6.3 Psa 81.9 10 11 12. Pro. 1.22 23 24 25. Matth. 13.15 16. Acts 28.27 2 Thess 2.10 11 12. And no
proclaime openly upon the house tops And then Gods chusing weak simple men to be the first Teachers and so by consequence the first understanders of the divine truth doth neither prove that others that were wise and prudent were left destitute of the means of salvation or operation of the Spirit in them or much less that Christ dyed not for them or for All men but only That these wise and prudent would they be saved must stoop to God in embracing the knowledge of his mind by weak and sorry men and that indeed is the Genuine meaning as I conceive of that Scripture Whenas God had he pleased might have opened his mysteries to the Learned Rabbies Scribes and Pharisees to have been divulged by them he pleased to hide them from them putting them beside their way and to reveal them to others poor simple men by whom they were to be preached to them and to All Nations and that meerly out of his good will that no flesh might glory in his presence c. His next alledged place is John 10.15 Scrip. 4. in cap. 3. lib 2. 16 27 28. which we have before considered and shewed the vanity of his inferences from it there is no new thing here to be spoken to that is not there answered except that he tels us of Christ dying as a Shepheard spoken of in that place and Therefore he dyed only for his sheep which indeed is a new fallacious argument Logicians call it fallacia à dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter as if I should argue thus In 1 Pet. 2.21 22. Christ is spoken of as dying as a pattern of patience to believers suffering unjustly from men Ergo he dyed for none but actuall believers so suffering Our question is whether Christ dyed for All or no not whether he dyed for All as a Shepheard though he laid not down his life for All as a Shepheard for sheep to preserve them in a life fore-given them yet he might and did lay down his life for All as a ransome to deliver them out of a Death come upon them for the sin they fell into in Adam and to be a propitiation for their sins c. To Matth. 20.28 a Ransome for Many we have spoken in Chap. 1. Lib. 1. for John 11.52 He dyed for that Nation and not for that Nation only but to gather together the children of God scattered abroad That tels us he dyed for the Nation which were not all Elect people to eternall life there being in it those Scribes and Pharisees whom he cals generation of vipers 2. He saith not For the Children of God much less for the Children of God only but shews that that was one end of his Death reaching further then the Nation namely to gather the scattered Jews or to bring all that should believe into an unity of faith and priviledges by slaying the enmity the Law of ordinances between them this puts no limitation to the Death of Christ nor saith that any were excluded it His next is Rom. Scrip. 5. 8.32 33 34. which indeed is brought as a consolation to believers in affliction assuring them they have God to justify them and he greater then any against them to condemn them and then they have Christ to intercede for them who had also dyed and risen and he would not faile them it being his business to present believers and walkers in the Spirit perfect before him as we noted before he that had given his Son for them would surely supply them with all strength them that were the called of God and believers in him Now whereas Mr. Owen observes that this act of giving Christ to dy for them was the greatest expression of Gods love toward believers I answer That the Apostle couples two acts together there 1. His giving Christ for them that expresly 2. His giving him to them that 's intimated in that repetition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with him for God gave not all things to be crucified with Christ nor did he give Christ to believers or to any in his beating him but delivered him up to Death and judgement and Christ gave up himself to bear the wrath of God but as one dead and risen God gives him with his excellencies to men Yea this is said to be done to the murmuring unbelieving Jews who not receiving him deprived themselves of that life and all those glorious things in and with him But to go on with Mr. Owens observation He infers from that thus If God gave his Son to dy for All then he had as great an act of love and made as great a manifestation of it to them that perish as to them that are saved But this follows not for though in it self it was exceeding great yea compared singly with other acts as to the outward expression the greatest act of love to give Christ to dy for men yet in regard of the heart of God in it and the conjoying that act with others he manifested not nor acted so great love to them that perish as to them that are saved 1. I say in regard of the heart of God for in chap. 8. Mr. Owen tels us Gods love is his velle bonum creaturis his purpose and will of grace which if so then that 's to be accounted the greatest to them to whom he purposed the greatest good by that act which was but the medium of good to men Now in as much as he purposed more grace to some through that gift then to others to the saved then to those that perish though in the medium they all shared yet it cannot be said that he manifested or acted as much love to one as to another To illustrate it take this comparison David put his life in hazzard from the Israelites when he fought with the Philistin in that he laid his life down at the stake as it were 1 Sam. 19.5 and it was the greatest act of love he could have shewed to his friend to lay down his life for him yet in this act he might love his Father with a more intense love then many others of them yet he hazzarded his life for them all and shewed forth that act of love to them all that in expression is highest 2. In respect of other acts Though that act was greater then any other act of love I say suppose that yet not so great as that and other acts also joyned with it He loved believers with that and diverse others as in compelling them in c. 3. Yea suppose all loved alike in that yet if some of them all so alike loved requiting that his same like-love worse then others As Hosea 9.15 are left and he takes their slighing his so great love so ill that he will love them no more And others not so requiting him but accepting it continue in his love as the phrase is Joh. 15.10 and he saves them shall we say he loves not these more then
the other If David venture his life for All the Israelites alike and after that he coming to have Power and Government one is by that knit to him and loves him again as Jonathan did and he enters into Covenant with him to be his choise friend and another regards him not for this but churlishly requites him as Nabal did and for that he destroyes him shall we say now That David loved Nabal as much as Jonathan because he acted the same highest act of love for them both formerly would not that be a notorious falshood And is not this then a notorious fallacy in Mr. Owen 2. He infers That for whomsoever he hath given his Son to them also he will assuredly freely give all things But I deny that the Apostle sayes any such thing But thus That having given his Son for us all he will surely give us all things with him Vs that is such as believe on him Vs that are in Christ that are called according to purpose c. Jonathan or Abigal making this Inference If David spared not himself but put his life in his hand for us all when we were strangers to him will not he that had so much love to us then give us Vs his federates and dear friends with himself having also given himself to us by Covenant whatever is in his power to the half of his Kingdom Will it follow from such a speech that Therefore whomsoever David loved so well as to venture his life for them against the Philistin to them he will give any good thing that 's desirable of him yea though many of them are his arch-enemies and do rebel against him Who sees not this to be a false Inference and yet such is this of Mr. Owens The believer doth or may expect all good things from Christ that died for them even upon that consideration that he died for them and shall have them therefore whosoever he died for shall have all good things too Thence also that Faith is not in the number of that All things spoken of appears because the parties thus speaking and of whom this is spoken are actuall believers before the making of this Inference That conception is like this He that was at such cost as to make a great Feast for us who are brought in to it already and are at it with thankful acceptance how shall he not give Vs to eat any dainty that is provided therefore it s from this speech inferable That he that was at such cost to make such a feast will make all that he invited to come and eat every dainty of it Whereas he saith His description of those persons there spoken of to be Elect not All but those chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world confirms the restraint of the Death of Christ to them alone 1. He proves not nor I am perswaded can he That any man yet uncalled hath that denomination of Elect in Scripture 2. We may see the vanity of his Argument by this insuing Similitude David venturing his life and conquering the Philistin and obtaining the Kingdom Shall he not stand by his friends familiars and kindred He that did that for them when mean will he suffer any enemy to vex and spoil them being invested with the power of the Kingdom Ergo David hazarded his life onely for his friends familiars and kindred and not for any that were his enemies or that afterward dealt injuriously and rebelliously against him Is this a good inference The Elect of God be they what they will shall be preserved by the Death Resurrection and Intercession of Christ from perdition which is all the Apostle there says he sayes not they are the adequate object of Christs Death Therefore Christ died for no more then they nor desired any good thing to be granted to any other but to them Who that understands Reason would not hiss out such arguments So from these words of the Apostle concerning the Elect Who is he that condemns its Christ that died doth this Inference fairly follow That whosoever he died for shall not be condemned more then from this If David's brother or good Subjects had said Who is he that accuses us It s David the King that ventured his life for our good and now raings to defend us from harm it would follow Ergo None that he ventured his life for against Goliah shall be put to death for any after-carriage toward him It doth but undeniably appear to me from all this that Mr. Owen understands not the drift of the Apostle nor sees the maner of his reasoning but no whit evident That Christ died onely for the Elect as he sayes He next Allegation is Eph. 1 7. We have redemption in him Scrip. 6. That is still we that are brought to him made accepted in him translated into his Kingdom as Col. 1.14 and as himself grants in his Chapter against the Socinians where he denies any of the Elect to be freed from wrath till regenerate we have that is injoy or possess Redemption that is remission of our sins clearing freeing us from all our bonds c. Therefore all that he died for or Therefore he died onely for us Is this right reasoning put it into form and then judg of it it s thus If the believer hath redemption in Christ Then all that he died for But the believer hath c. I deny the Consequence of his Major Proposition and leave him to prove it And it in what sense All have release and in what not we have said before There is redemption in Christ for All to seek after and so remission with him preached or predicable to all that they might look after it but All for whom he died I say have it not that is have not received it and so injoy it not How also they may be comparatively to what their case should have been blessed and how not blessed in that sense spoken of Rom. 4.6 7. we have shewed in Chap. 7. His next is Scrip. 7. 2 Cor. 5.21 He made him to be sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him that is in believing on him Thence he infers All that He was made sin for are made the righteousness of God in him It s like that He brought them into Canaan that they might keep his Statutes Ergo All that were brought into Canaan kept his Statutes as we noted at the beginning So by his stripes we we believers are healed Ergo All that he died for shall though they never submit to have the playster applied David by hazzarding his life brought us his friends to honor Ergo He ventured his life for no more but them that come to honor As weak is that from Joh. 15 13. Greater love than this hath no man If he acted the greatest Why not all the rest In which there is nothing but Reason exalting it self against the Word of God David put his life in
his hand for All Israel Why seeing that was the greatest act of love a man could shew did he not do all other acts of love to them all as to Jonathan Again This This life is more then food Matth. 6.25 Why then doth God suffer any to perish for want of food which is the less seeing he hath given them life which is the greater Why doth he not inrich and furnish them to the utmost Where is the sobriety of Faith that should keep men from being sick about such questions His next is Scrip. 8. I pray for them I pray not for the world and for their sakes I sanctifie my self Joh. 17.9.19 Ergo He died onely for them This is answered before lib. 1. cap. 2 3 5. It s like this A Prince procuring pardon for a company of Rebels releases them from the sentence of death and by publishing his grace to them gains in some of them to be his servants whom he makes his Favorites and imploys them to negotiate for him with the rest that they also might become his servants and finde favor Being about to leave that Country and go a far journey he commits them to his Father and intreats him to have a special care of them his Servants and Favorites admit them at all times into his presence make them acquainted with his counsels assist them in their work against all Opposers And tells him in his request making he asks not those things for the Rebels yet standing out but for those reconciled ones for whom in special he set himself apart to make this request and yet intreats him also That whoever of the Rebels yet in Arms shall by their ministration be won in to like affection and service to him they might finde like respect from him as they Ergo. This Prince procured not the former pardon for all the Rebels or did not rescue them from the death they were going to A baculo ad Angulum Such also is his last His last is Ephe. 5.25 Acts 20.28 Christ loved the Church Scrip. 9.10 and gave himself for it Ergo Christ died not for all David fought with the Philistin and exposed his life to danger for his friends and Fathers House suppose to bring them to honor Ergo He did it not at all for All Israel The Church People called are properly the object of Christs care to be washed and presented glorious as a fit Bride for himself Ergo He loved he died for no more It s like this A mans wife is properly the object of his Conjugal affection Ergo A man may love none but his wife with a love of charity The brazen Serpent was to heal no more then looked up to it Therefore it was provided for none to look to but them that did look to it and were healed Such are Mr. Owens Inferences Christ eyed such as were to be given him of the Father as a people that would stand in need of much healing and washing and provided in his Death that such should have what ever tends to their perfection Ergo he laid down his life for no more to ransom them and set them at liberty to seek after him A Prince ransoming a thousand prisoners makes it in his bargain that all of them that submit to him upon view of this act should be made Courtiers Onely fifty of them submit and are made so Ergo he ransomed no more out of Prison Such Arguments as these are scarce worth so much time and labor as to answer No one of the places alledged by Mr. Owen says That Christ died not for All or tells us that there are some that he died not for nor can such a Conclusion be fairly and by Scripture-proof be inforced from any one of them or all of them together And whereas he thought to have added more He did better as he did except they had more force in them And so I have passed through all his Arguments which I have found propounded with more confidence of their weight then he had reason And so we have done also with his Third Book Lib. Quartus A view of and a reply to his Fourth BOOK His Fourth Book is spent about answering our Arguments for the extent of Christs Death as a Ransom So that as in the other three we had his Arguments to throw down So in this we have to defend our own against him CHAP. I. A view of an Answer to the Premises laid down by him in his first Chapter IN the first Chapter of this Book he lays down some Previous Considerations as Grounds upon which he intends to frame his Answers to our Arguments Of which 1. The first is Consid 1. about The innate Sufficiency of the death of Christ That the death of Christ is sufficient for the Redemption of the whole world for the expiation of all the sins of All and every man in the world and that arising from the dignity of his person the greatness of the pains that he suffered he undergoing the whole curse of the Law and wrath of God due to sin This he says is its own Internall worth which I will not deny but then he adds that It s being a price for any and being beneficiall to them according to the worth that is in it arises not from that but is meerly Externall and depends upon the Intention and Will of God The intention of the offerer and accepter that it should be for such some or any All which I will grant him also But thence he comes to view the Distinction used by some Protestant Divines Of his Dying for All Sufficienter but not Efficaciter in regard of the Sufficiency of the Ransome he paid but not in regard of the Efficacy of its Application which he denies except in this sense That it was sufficient to have been made a Price for All but it was not a sufficient price and ransom for All not because not sufficient but because not a Ransome In which he speaks 1. Improperly as to his own intention for that it was a Ransome is as undoubtedly a Truth as that it had an innate sufficiency for All but he should have said had he spoken rightly to his own meaning not because not sufficient but because not intended for All as a Ransome 2. Untruly and so as he overthrows that distinction for that which was not done at all for All was not sufficiently done for All. Now I on the contrary affirm That it was sufficiently indured for All yea as a ransome yea and so effectuall with God too for All that he inflicts not upon All what justice exacted according to the sentence gone out upon Adam and All in him had he dealt with All men according to that word He and all in him had that day perished and been cut off for ever but Christ interposing made All things to consist and upheld the pillars of the earth which else were dissolved Yea God deals mercifully and bountifully with
to all that call upon him Which with other like expressions are general and opposed to the restrictive speeches proper to the former Dispensation large enough to take in the Believers and Elect of all Nations and to remove the restraining expressions and yet far enough from comprehending an Universality of all individual men all not having these adjunct qualifications But of such expressions is not our Controversie but of those that are comprehensive of an universality of all Individuals as All All men The whole world Every one Now that in them is intended onely the Elect of All Nations is to beg the Question and is denyed by us and that neither weakly nor groundlesly as I hope will appear when we view the particular Scriptures There are other passages in that Consideration untrue also As that there is not in the world Greek Jew Circumcision Barbarian Scythian c. but Christ is All in All that is only truly of the new Creature Col. 3.10 11. not of the world Again That the Spirit was poured out upon all flesh in its being poured out upon the Apostles That was of it indeed but not the accomplishing or full fulfilling of it that 's referred yet to a further day in which the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth as the water shall cover the Sea that indeed was partly fulfilled that was forespoken about their Sons and Daughters prophecying Again that That in Rev. 5.9 10. contains a Distribution of that that is set down more generally in other places meaning the 1 Tim. 2.6 and the like which is untrue for that speaks of another business the buying men to God to serve and live to him by the blood of Christ not only as shed by him but also as presented in its vertue and excellency to their hearts as Hosea bought him a wife by a price given to her and as God bought him a people by bringing them out of Egypt and doing great things for them which prevailed with them to be Gods and not their own and this is out of all Nations and Languages But the other in 1 Tim. 2.6 comprehends all the Nations and Languages out of which these were taken too whence also there is Gospell still to be preached to all Nations and Languages c. after these redeemed ones are mentioned Rev. 14.4 5 6 7. What he says to John 11.52 is answered before in the close of the last Chapter of the third book 3. His third Premise is Consid 3. That we must distinguish between mans duty and Gods purpose That 's true God doth not alwaies purpose to make us do what we ought to do or effect what he wils us to do Nor do we confound these two nor say that God purposed to make all to believe that he bids to believe whether they listen to him or not or save all that he bids look up to him and be saved whether they look to him or not but we would fain have Mr. Owen shew us that God ever bids any man attend upon an ordinance that was not provided for him and punished any for not attending on what was not ordained for them to attend to that he bids any believe in Christ for whom he did not send Christ bid any believe in his blood for whom he shed no blood As we distinguish between the precept and purpose of God so do we also between the foundation of the precept and his purpose and affirm that God bids not men to attend to him for Good where he hath not appointed them some medium in attendance to him in which they might have good He bid none look to the brazen Serpent for whom he had not set it up nor punished any such for not looking to it So that for his after-inference I shall only put this to Mr. Owen to shew that it is acceptable to God and the duty of man that any man for whom Christ dyed not and for whom God sent him not should believe and stay upon his Mediation or approach to God by him that those men whom Christ excluded his Mediation as much as he did the Devills have any more duty lying upon them to believe in Christ then the Divels have or that they should in so doing be any whit more acceptable unto God As we would not confound Gods precept and his purpose so neither would we disjoyn Gods precept from the true ground of it 4. His fourth is Consid 4. That the Jews had an ingraffed erronious perswasion that the salvation or deliverance of the Messias or promised seed belonged only to themselves who were the off-spring of Abraham according to the flesh which is also untrue they ever held and believed that any people of any other Nations being converted and proselyted to them were capable of fellowship with them in their ordinances and blessings and thence they endeavoured to make many proselytes which had been bootless had they thought by so doing they should yet have had no share in their blessings the rest its true that remained unproselyted were looked upon as Dogs but any man though not of Abrahams seed yet by Circumcision and being proselyted did grow into one body with them Thence the false Apostles zealous of the Law and honor of the Jewish Nation did not plead against Gentiles coming to their priviledges but that as Gentiles and Uncircumcised they should be so admitted that was their great stumble as in Acts 11.3 Thou wentest into men uncircumcised and didst eat with them and Chap. 15.2 Except ye be circumcised and keep the Law of Moses ye cannot be saved but to the proselyted Gentiles as well as to the Jews of the flesh of Abraham they preached from the beginning without scruple as in Acts 2. Peter and the rest preached to peoples of all Nations round about that were proselytes c. and so in Acts. 6.1 2. Their Church consisted of Jews and Grecians Not that but this was the Mysterie that the Gentiles being yet such uncircumcised in the flesh should be made fellow-heirs of the same body and partakers of the promises of Christ But he tels us That this taking in of the Gentiles gave occasion to many generall expressions which we have granted before But that therefore the words All men World Whole world signifie only the people of God scattered throughout the Whole World I deny and desire Mr. Owen to prove seeing those expressions of All that fear God Jew and Gentile All that believe Jew and Gentile c. were sufficient for that purpose expressions used frequently when the Apostles speak of the participation of the speciall benefits that come by Christs Death as salvation acceptation to favor the promises of God c. in which cases the words All men the World the Whole world are never used It s never said the Whole world is accepted of God All men shall be saved c. and yet in those cases there are such words used as exclude all limitations
tears from all faces Esa 25 7.8 it hinders not but the Reprobates may be cast out tò eternity I answer He did in and by his Death wipe off tears from all faces giving himself a ransome for All and being the propitiation for the sins of the whole world he keeps off many a judgment that else would seize upon all and produce many tears and much sadness to them yea and delivers all from many a trouble and sorrow that would else overwhelm them though he doth not wipe off all tears from off all faces as he will do off from some namely such as believe on him and follow him Rev. 7.17 and 21.4 Others abusing his goodness and sinning against those mercies towards them and deliverances of them pull upon themselves tears and sorrows afresh that shall never be wiped off them And besides it s more equal that the Apostolical expressions should expound the prophetical then on the contrary the prophetical to expound them the prophetical expressions being as in a darker manifestation of Christ so more obscure then the Apostolicall who were to unfold the things of God more plainly And to speak in the light what was told them in darkness 6. He bids us observe Consid 6. That the Scripture speaks of persons and things often according to appearance and not to reality as calling men wife just and righteous c. he names no Scripture-instance for them but I hope he knows of righteousness in morall acts and performances and that reall and true in its kind an humane righteousness not only in semblance but in reality though not enough to present a man righteous to God as pertaining to his rule for admittance into his Kingdom and so wisedom after the flesh which is really a fleshly humane wisdom though not the wisdom of God but foolishness with him and yet a real wisdom in its place and kinde for worldly things Luk. 16. but of the Death of Christ there is but one kinde so that it must be really or not at all His instance of Mat. 27.53 that Jerusalem is called the Holy city and yet it was a den of theeves is his mistake to conceive holiness to be inherent frames in the heart which Jerusalem as a place and building was not capable of Holiness as we have noted before in Scripture more frequently signifies the being separated to God for his name and service and so it was really holy not seemingly only Nay rather in appearance it should be unholy but in its reall consecration and separation to God a thing not visible to the eye a holy eye So he instances 2 Chron. 21.23 That the Gods of Damascus smote Ahaz which says he were but stocks and stones and could never help nor smite him but it was God that smote him Sure he hath forgotten that the Gentiles did not only sacrifice to stocks and stones but to Devils also by them idols 1 Cor. 10.20 And I trow the Devills might really smite him or strengthen men to it and yet God suprcamly smite him too God as supreme Judge Sathan as the executioner or hangman using men as instruments as in the case of Job So that this fails too but much more his after-proof of John 5.18 where he brings the Jews imputing to Christ that he brake the Sabbath day in which they spake falsly to interpret Gods sayings by his Apostles by as if he spake so mistakingly too To which he adds That many things proper and peculiar to the children of God are often assigned to them that live in outward communion with them though in truth aliens in respect of inward participation of the grace so assigned But whether things were so assigned to them by the unerring and infallible spirit of God or by the erring and fallible spirit of men he tels us not nor in what Scriptures they assigned things to them as erring men that wrote not by Gods spirit Therefore I can say no more at present to it but that his conclusion That some may be said to be redeemed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which are not so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is ungrounded and hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A dangerous suggestion of a rule which men may make use of to any Scriptures as well and subvert the truth of them as is also his next consideration viz. 7. That the Apostles spake many things according to the judgement of charity otherwise in themselves untrue Consid 7. and therefore those things not to be exactly squared and made answerable to verity in respect of them of whom any thing is affirmed This I say in substance is one with the former and both of them are dangerous principles and the very openers of the gap to all the abundance of error brought in by the Antiscripturists they are directly their principles That the Apostles writ as other good men by a judgment of charity and appearance and so what they say may be false we must not square them to verity because they would not then hold out And grant this that the Apostles were not in all things guided by an infallible spirit except where they themselves faithfully tell us so and where shall we stay who shall tell us where that infallible spirit assisted them and where it left them Nay though Paul tels the Thessalonians That he knew their Election and that of God yet Mr. Owen will tell him he might be deceived in that knowledg though 1 Thes 1.4 and 2 Thes 2.13 But I believe Paul durst not have said he knew it if he did but think so out of a charitable perswasion grounded upon a truth fallibly applied to or discerned in them But perhaps the Apostles spake not of Election there as Mr. Owen doth He thought perhaps that it might be made firm or sure and perhaps it might be neglected He perhaps spake of it as Moses of the Election of the Israelites who though he tells them they were chosen to be a special people to God Deut. 7.6 7. and yet freely too yet tells them That if they walk after other Gods and forget Him they should surely perish as the other Nations that he destroyed before them Chap. 8.19 20. I do but propound that to Mr. Owens consideration as also whether he by Election meant not an actual choise of them in pulling them out of the world and bringing them to look after his salvation But however I will by no means yield him That the Apostle spake at random and out of a fallible humane conception of charity and not by the infallible Spirit and so he hath no advantage for his following And why not why not when he says That Christ died for some that might possibly perish 8. He tells us of The infallible connexion according to Gods Will and purpose of Faith and Salvation Consid 8. Which we grant understanding it of Faith rooted in the heart and having singled the heart to God for otherwise there is a degree or
blinded Rom. 10.1 2. and 11.5 6. His Premises being so faulty his Conclusion must needs be untrue viz. That all men then must be saved if by all men be meant every man in the world To the consideration of which words he nextly proceedeth 2. By All men he says the Apostle intends all sorts of men indefinitely living under the Gospel or under the inlarged dispensation of the means of grace That this is in it no man I think will deny but that this is all the truth of it I expect he should confirm but in coming over it again he says That by all men is meant only of all sorts of men that is but some of all sorts Which is larger then the former expression in this that before he confined it to men living under the Gospel now to all sorts indefinitely for indeed there is a sort of men that through their own former wickedness or others slothfulness have not the Gospel now preached to them as we have as the Indians c. which here he may seem to include too and then this latter expression contradicts the former but scanter in this that he said before all sorts of men which might reach to all of all sorts Now it s but of all sorts that is but some of all which he endeavors thus to confirm 1. That the word All most usually signifies in Scripture many of all sorts and therefore it must do so here too To this I answer 1. That his Proposition is false Where it signifies many of all sorts onely in Scripture once it signifies all of all sorts of those things whereabout the word is used twenty times And this I will undertake to make good against him 2. In those very places he propounds to shew that it so signifies he doth but Petere principium * Viz. About Christs curing all diseases and the Pharisees tithing all herbs We have spoken to them before 3. I say That when it speaks of the actions of God towards men or of his purposes thoughts knowledg or the like it very feldom if ever signifies in any other place but many of all sorts but all generally or universally if the speech be not bound up to some particular Place or Countrey Besides 4. Did it so elsewhere it would not follow It must do so here too Whereas he says There is nothing to impel another signification that 's larger I answer yes This that it s laid down as a ground of praying for all men Now we are not to limit our prayers to some of all sorts for then we should be ready to say though we refuse to pray for such and such as we have not seen sin to death yet we have done our duty Yea though we pray but for them all that seem to be of our minde of all sorts for then we might say we have prayed for some of all sorts that 's all that 's required however in praying for the Church only we might say we have prayed for many of all sorts and so that we have done what is required there being as we think some of all sorts of the Church and so we should elude the Apostles exhortation by our own Tradition as the Jewish Elders used to do with Gods Commandements the Apostle speaking here of all men as a distinct party from yea all the residue above and beyond the Church of God who are to pray for them And that his former gloss is untrue also of all sorts of men living under the inlarged dispensation of grace is here evident for we are not onely to pray for all those that live under the Gospel but for all not under it also that it might be extended to them seeing he would have all men imbrace that and be saved by him But by Mr. Owens Exposition we need not pray for inlarging the Gospel to those Indians or any further then it is but onely pray for such as have it preached unto them and not for all of them neither but for some of them which when it s left to our judgments and wills to regulate us in the Apostles precept will scarce amount to this Pray for whom ye list or will 2. He says Paul leads us plainly to this Interpretation for having wished us to pray for all men he expresly intimates that by all men he understands men of all sorts ranks conditions c. To this I say That his intimating that we should pray for all sorts and ranks doth not prove that he limits it to but some of all sorts and ranks which is the thing to be proved Nay The words of the Apostle confutes such a limitation rather for he says not for some Kings some people c. but for Kings indefinitely and all in Authority universally so that he mentioning but one sort of men as especially to be prayed for amongst all men because they are such as all the rest are chiefly concerned in and bidding us pray for all them that is all in Authority and place of Government he rather shews us by that instance of all of one sort what he would have us do in all the rest then any way teaches us to limit it but to some of all For that those words contain a formal distribution of All into many sorts I deny But onely there he particularizeth one sort in praying for whom all the rest under them are in a manner included so that his paralleling it with Jer. 29.31 where after the people are mentioned Kings Queens Eunuches Princes Carpenters Smiths is both vain and impertinent For besides that there is no such destribution here except he include Carpenters and Smiths under that phrase All in Authority it would not did he serve his purpose it not proving a limitation of the former General to but some of all sorts As if Jeremy had said Some of the Kings and Queens and Princes onely were carried away 3. He says We are to pray for all whom God would have to be saved But we ought not to pray for all and every one knowing that some are Reprobates and sin to death concerning whom we have an express Caution not to pray for them To this I answer First That the words are not Pray for All that God would have saved but absolutely Pray for All for God would have all saved c. Secondly We are to pray for all or any whosoever by this Precept only the other tells us how long till we see they have sinned to death That doth but exclude a certain condition or sin of some not exclude their persons in all conditions Nor are we to judge any Reprobates by an eternal purpose and so exclude them God no where calls any so but such as have actually rejected and are given over of him As he doth good and affords patience and mercy till then to leade them to repentance 1 Joh. 5.16 so till then we are not to reject them Thirdly Nor are the words Thou shalt
restored made righteous justified by the redemption that is in Christ Jesus the righteousness which is by the faith of Jesus Christ being unto All c. Thus M. Owen relates him upon which he infers What remains then but that All should be saved the Holy Ghost affirming that all those whom he justifies he also glorifies Rom. 8.30 thence runs into that Rhetorick which as we shewed above belongs to his Doctrine Solvite mortales curas Besides which he excepts also against his parenthesis and quotation of Rom. 3.22 to which I shall first Answer and then to his Inference 1 He says he knowes not what he means by secretly invisibly and in some sort inexpressibly sure he supposes not that these things may be made the Objects of our senses I answer He doth here Nodum in scirpo quarrels at what is true without exception for may not both sinne and death be both seen and felt in their power inwardly doth not all the powers of a man feel the paines of Death and the conscience see and feel the guilt of sinne and yet no one of all them condemned in Adam in that day of his sentencing felt them but Adam nor could they not being as yet descended from him and yet all of them were virtually condemned and should have perished in him had not Christ stept in are there not sensus interni as well as externi why else cals the Apostles some men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ephes 4.19 And is not this imputation in some sort inexpressible can any set it out to the full If they can I would I could see them do it 2. He cals him Impostor c. because he quotes but part of Rom. 3.22 the righteousnesse of God by the faith of Jesus Christ unto All c. And is this is such a piece of evill as to make him worthy the name of a wicked Impostor because he stopt there and cited not the following passage and upon all than believe which he apprehends to speak to a further businesse What name deserved M. O. then for gelding the Text in Lu. 2.34 as we noted at the close of the 3d. Chapter Sure he was there the Impostor Alas how many such advantages might I have taken to have given M. O. such Epethites for leaving out adding altering expressions of Scripture more groundlesly That the righteousnesse of God is unto All the Apostle sayes and that was as much as he needed in that passage to make use of but that it comes upon all that believe pertaines to his following consideration and is frequently acknowledged by him and whereas M. Owen says the word Believe pertains to both All 's it s but his conception the Text is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and therefore except he give us some proof for it Mr. Moore and I too may question what he says yea and make use of this part of the verse too to prove That the Righteousness of God according to the Gospel-Declaration is to All without deserving the name of Impostors this very place Rom. 5.18 holding out that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 justification is to All men may warrant us to understand that so without danger of heresie or imposture but that it comes upon as many as it extends towards I have no such Scripture proof to warrant me Surely Dr. Preston in his Treatise of Faith about pag. 8. asking whom Gods Righteousness is giving to and answering to All without exception thought it not an Imposture but called it the ground of all comfort or consolation nor made he such a conclusion Ergo it comes upon All and so All shall be saved Solvite mortales curas c. But I shall now pass to his Inference And first I note That Mr. Owon deales fraudulently with T. Moore in relating him for whereas by way of distinction and to prevent mistake he says That this recovery is in Christ so as that in him and by him in that done and wrought in his own body they are again redeemed restored and made righteous and that it might be said as things are looked upon in Christ who was in the room of All that as all in the former respect have sinned c. so all are justified freely by his grace c. This clause In him and as things are looked upon in Christ which was the principal distinguishing clause in this parallel he wholy omits and fals upon the rest as if he had said They are in themselves justified redeemed restored c. and then upon this man of Clouts he falls very fouly as if he beat all to pieces Master Moores comparison in it The leaving out that Clause which was the most special thing in it made way for all the following absurdities that Mr. Owen puts upon him and the keeping that in would Answer them all For a man may be all this in another and yet not the better for it in the issue For I ask Were not we once all righteous holy innocent in the image of God in Adam Did not God make us so there And what now shall we infer holy and righteous and yet condemned dye accursed will God cast his own Image into hell And shall we produce the Scriptures that the righteous shall shine as stars in the Firmament but all were made righteous in Adam Ergo All shall shine as stars in the Firmament but this is untrue and contrary to Scripture Many shall perish Ergo All were not righteous in Adam Who would not hiss out such reasonings Again All were sinners and condemned to death in Adam yet Enoch never died and Elias was taken up into heaven and many shall be glorious with Christ Like this The Kingdom is all at peace and agreed with the King in its body Representative the Parliament therefore none in the Kingdom opposeth him nor shall any ever be condemned by him suppose he come to power for doing any thing against him Auditum admissi risum teneamus Christ the representative person was justified and so all justified and restored in him Therefore all men in their own persons shall be eternally saved He cleared the score for them as Death was come upon them in Adam Therefore though they remain Rebels yet in themselves they must be saved These things being the off-spring of Mr. Owens fraudulency how impertinently is that Scripture quoted by him Rom. 8.30 that speaks of justification as coming upon men by receit of Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those that he justified he glorified And again How vain is his inference whom he justified he glorified Ergo all that he justified he glorifies too Might we not by the like authority from this foregoing passage whom he called them he justified deny that wisdom called those in Prov. 1.24 That she gave over to destruction and those many that were but some of them chosen Matth. 22.14 or else he must of necessity grant that either
not finding that which they had mistakingly looked for but that he was a dry tree and barren wilderness to them was it not more excusable that they should leave him and take such comforts as the world would afford them and not go on to suffer for him that would not save them he having not dyed for them Whereas he further adds that the Apostle is silent about washing them in the bloud of the Lamb what a sorry shift is that How many places speak of buying men and yet mention not the washing them in the bloud of the Lamb where yet there is no doubt but his bloud was the price that bought them as to instance in Rev. 14.4 1 Cor. 6.20 Again What is it to wash in the bloud of the Lamb I feare there may be some mistake in that Is it any thing else but when the death sufferings or bloud of Christ declared in the Gospel set home by the Spirit do cause the heart for his loves sake that so loved it to renounce its vanities affections lusts c. and removes its fears despairs horrors c. that the guilt of sin before the remedy was known filled it with do we think that this washing the souls in the bloud of Jesus is without application of the bloud to it Was there ever such a washing heard of in which the medium of the washing and the thing washed were not to each other applyed Or do we fancy any bodily or materiall application of the materiall bloud of Christ that issued out of his side Sure it s nothing but through the Spirits revelation of the death and sufferings of Christ for us and the hope therein set before us a cleansing of the heart and conscience from guilt and pollution And is not that intimated here Is not the knowledge of Jesus Christ Lord and Saviour to know him as one that dyed for us and is appointed to be our Mediator and way to God able and ready to save us by vertue of those his sufferings for us could there be lesse in that knowledge of Christ that will give a man escape from the worlds pollutions and when that knowledge doth wash from pollutions is it not the bloud of Christ therein known that washes Was not that it that washed Paul from his former conceits in his Pharisaisme and from all his pollutions Phil. 3.7 8 9. Tit. 3.4 5 6. and that washed the believing Corinths 1 Cor. 6.11 because he names but the knowledge of Jesus Christ and the appearance of Gods love to man the name of Christ and Spirit of God as the way of his and their washings shall we say neither he nor they were washed in the bloud of Christ These are sorry evasions unmeet to shift off the shining truth with 3. But his last evasion is vainer then any of these viz. That he might speak of them only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not according to Truth but according to appearance for which he quotes again that formerly answered place of 2 Chron. 28.23 As if the Apostle writing Dogmatically and laying down Propheticall declarations of things that would be and aggravating the hainousness of their sinne that should deny Christ should conjoyn things according to truth not conjungible If he had spoken of some particular person then in being there had been somewhat more shew for such an evasion and yet in truth not enough to make the Apostle couple as incompatible things together in his expressions as to talk of Christs or his Elects perishing But much lesse colour when he speaks of things in the Theory and Dogmatically not with Designation of this or that person This is but all one as to say Christ or God seemed but to be their Lord and Master and they to be his servants by way of purchase and so they had the more ground of denying him seeing he was not what he seemed to be nor had done what he seemed to do And whereas he addes That its the custome of the Scripture to ascribe all those things to every one that are in fellowship of the Church which are proper to them only that are true spirituall members of it as to be Saints Elect c. Not to examine the truth of that again were it so yet it could not be of force here these in the very formality of them as the subject spoken of being stiled false Teachers Sure though he might write to All in fellowship with the Church that is in Doctrine and Profession as Saints c. as in some sense they were truly yet it s not supposeable that he judged these he looks upon as departed from the Truth and false Teachers to be such or to be bought by Christ if he thought indeed such manner of people were never so bought To be a member of the Church and to be Elect are terms very competible but to be and so to be spoken of as a false Teacher bringing swift destruction on himself and yet in the same view to be looked upon and spoken of as bought by the Lord if no such are indeed bought is componere non componenda to couple words and things together that are we not competible like those that talk of Almighty nothings So that wee see no solidity in his exceptions to this place neither Whereas in his winding up he tels us that this will not conclude Vniversall Redemption and 2. That those who are so redeemed may perish is contrary to expresse Scripture and 3. That this could be no peculiar aggravation of the sin of any if the matter was common to All. These are but prevarications For 1. We conclude not hence the universality of Christs death but onely that it s not so bounded up to the Elect onely as Mr. Owen and his partners bound it 2. That its contrary to expresse Scripture as to Rev. 14.4 That any so redeemed should perish is a speech fallacious and untrue For 1. How knows he that that in Rev. 14.4 is expresse Scripture and speaks according to truth and not only according to appearance more then this might not we by as good Authority say that the Apostle speaks there but according as things seemed to him in a vision but not that all he sayes there is spoken according to truth as he hath to say so of Peter here 2. What means he by So redeemed if only that Christ dyed really for them and not in shew only and that the knowledge hereof and of that salvation that thereby is in him even for them to look after and attainable to them by Faith bought them really off from the world and engaged them to Christ then there is no such passage in Rev. 14.4 as that none such can perish That speaks onely of a certain number redeemed from the earth and men that were virgins and defiled not themselves but followed the Lamb where ever he went But it says not either that All bought by Christ and brought to escape the pollutions of the
world by the knowledge of him do keep themselves such unspotted Virgins and walk constantly after Christ nor that they shal All be saved Not a syllable to that purpose It says those 144000. did keep themselves Virgins pure and chaste to him and that they overcame and triumphed according to the promises set before the Churches in general But these false Teachers did not so but returned back again to their pollutions and therefore though bought yea the rather for that they should be destroyed I wonder that men have no more fear of God before them then to say the Scripture expresses such things as are not expressed in it and in the mean time tell us they are but appearances like seeming dreams that are expressed 3. How this is a peculiar aggravation of their sin may be seen by what is said above viz. in that it hath more in it then meerly a dying for them yea more then is common to every one especially in the degree of their being bought As also further in that all do not so disserve him that bought them no not all of them that perish as these that by false doctrine should deny him and lead many others into the transgression with themselves 4. The last place is Heb. 10.29 of how much sorer punishment shall he be thought worthy who counts the blood of the Covenanted a common thing c. He should have done well to have taken in ver 26. also If we sin willingly after the knowledg of the Truth received there remains no more sacrifice for sin c. And told us whether such a one as so sins had any sacrifice before his so sinning or not and so whether they deprived themselves of any benefit they might have otherwise had by Christs Sacrifice I have asked one or two that question from whom I could never yet get answer to it But let us view what he says to that other verse He tells us It s an argument to perswade to continuance in the Gospel-Doctrine taken ab incommodo and that 1. He speaks here onely of professors of the Gospel and so it cannot be applied to All that 's granted nor do we so apply it but to prove that mens perishing for whom Christ died is a thing that the Apostles supposed and so that Doctrine that confines Christs Death to them onely that shall be eternally saved is erroneous 2. That the Apostle asserts not what is or may be but onely adds a commination upon a supposition to deter from a thing impossible he should have said but if the Apostles speech doth not imply a possibility for one that is sanctified by the blood of Christ to count it a common thing and so to fall into condemnation yea if this doth not sometime fall out how is it that men generally make use of this place to describe the sin against the holy Ghost that is unpardonable Is there not such a sin as that or do they take incompatible and impossible expressions to describe it Certainly if the description be of impossibilities and things that never fall out then the thing defined is of that nature too Again will any say that its never found that any man tramples Christ under his feet that is despises and scorns him or that none ever despite the Spirit of Grace I suppose all will agree that these things sometimes at least are committed And why then shall we think that the expressions of either side are suppositions of things that may be and sometimes are and onely think otherwise of this that lies between them and is as much supposed as either of them Either let us say they are none of them possible or else say they are all so or shew some weighty ground to the contrary He tells us Paul supposed that if the Marriners left the Ship Acts 27. they could not be saved and yet it was not possible that they should not be drowned because God had told him he had given him all that were in the ship with him But first that concludes not this supposition to be of a thing impossible at least no more then it doth the other too that before it and that after it or then it doth any other supposition in Scripture it being to another business Secondly That saying of God might not hold forth to Paul that it was impossible they should any of them be drowned For Paul was not unacquainted that God oftentimes in such speeches intimates a condition As when he told David that Saul would come to Keilah and the men of Keilah deliver him up 1 Sam. 25.11 12. and yet neither of them came to pass because there was intimately ver 13. this condition in his Answers viz. if David staid there So he told Ely that his house and the house of his Father should walk before him for ever yet he after tells him it should not be so because he had not hearkned to him 1 Sam. 2.30 so he said by Jonas Yet forty days and Niniveh shall be destroyed and yet there being a condition implyed in it they were not destroyed Jonah 3. and 4. So Paul knew how to interpret Gods Sayings that they held forth a certainty of the event upon submission to him by them to whom they were spoken in the use of such means as he sets before men but yet include a possibility of missing upon tempting him or rebelling against him and so he might well say Except these men abide in the ship ye cannot have Gods Promise accomplished ye cannot be saved God doth not so promise us an end that 's that to be attained though we tempt him and reject the means as clearly appears by multitudes of the rebellious Israelites failing of the promised Canaan Yea the words I have given to thee all that are in the ship with thee might signifie a giving their lives into his hand so that he using the means propounded of God to him they should be preserved but his neglect of them might have been a willing throwing away or letting go what God had given him Again thirdly the case is different in this That there Paul had a promise of all their lives but I know no one word that says none of them that Christ died for or that are sanctified in any degree by his blood can or shall perish That they that believe in him hear his voyce and follow him shall not it s confest but in those speeches there is intimated an abiding and perseverance for else it s an evident case they would not But that all that do at any time in any measure or degree believe or that at any time hear his voyce shall alwayes do so or that they that in any degree are sanctified shall persevere therein to the end and cannot neglect Gods Salvation and by willing neglects fall away I finde no Scripture that affirms it but much to the contrary That he hath for ever perfected by his Sacrifice those that are sanctified is true if either
of old and yet is too common a fashion Philosophical Speculations and the Elders Traditions are used as pillars in Gods building and many lean more upon them then on the pillars of Gods own erecting setting up their posts and pillars by his and slighting his for them which we approve not Lastly Whereas he sayes The common faith is the faith of Gods Elect. I easily grant it and say That the Apostle in Tit. 1.1 4. in both places means The faith delivered to the Saints the Doctrine of Faith as it s no unusual thing for him to do which is the faith of Gods Elect because its that which they believe and hold forth to others even to the world and it s the common faith because as it s believed by them All so its common to the world in point of right to be preached to them and imbraced by them It s that that contains good news for and matter to be believed by All. But I have done with these his prevarications with which he Answers T. Moors twentieth Chapter I have passed over many of them the whole being a heap of mistakes and disdainful jerks anwhat seems to be of any weight is already fully answered CHAP. VII A view of and Reply to Mr. Owens Answers to some other pretended Sophisms as he calls them against his Doctrine IN his last Chapter he pretends to Answer some usual Sophisms and captious Arguments of the Arminians which he stiles empty Flourishes yet remaining As first this Argument That which every one is bound to believe is true Argum. But every one is bound to believe that Christ died for him Therefore that Christ died for every one is true An Argument which for my part I own not in this form as to All and every man in the world it being not preached to every one that Christ died and is risen And I conceive that God requires not an explicit faith of propositions that they have no Revelations of giving them ground to believe But thus I own it against their restrictive doctrine of tying Christs Death to the Elect onely viz. That which of every one to whom the Gospel is preached is required as necessarily to be believed that he might come to believe on Christ for salvation that is for every such man true in it self But that Christ died for him in particular is required to be believed of every one to whom the Gospel is preached as necessary for his believing in Christ for salvation Therefore for every one to whom the Gospel is preached That is true The Major leans upon this truth That he that is required to do or believe any thing is therein required to do or believe all those things that are necessary thereto so as that without his doing or believing of them he cannot do or believe those other things required of him The Minor we shall speak to by and when I have examined some things that he saith to the Minor of the Argument as mentioned by him As 1. He saith The believing that Christ dyed for a man is the saving application of Christ to the soul as held out in the promise In which he mistakes for its onely a believing Christ to have so satissied for his sin by his death and to have such fulness of Redemption in him for him that he may hopefully go to him for remission and salvation there is good ground for him so to do and it s his sin if he having opened such a way for him to God and to salvation he should neglect it But for the promises they belong only to those that through this belief of the grace of God Gal. 3.22 are drawn actually to trust in Christ and love him whence they are called the things prepared for them that love God and that trust in him before the sons of men and for the confirmation of these men in the expectation of those promises the belief of Christs death for them is further usefull The Death of Christ was for sinners enemies the ungodly All men but the promises of God in Christ and so the Kingdome are not the portion of any such but men are made heires of them through believing Ioh. 1.12 Gal. 3 26.29 Tit. 3.6 7. so that here is a very foundamentall mistake as to the question in hand in this very saying 2. He says To believe that Christ dyed for any must be with reference to the purpose of God the Father and intention of Jesus Christ himself and that that is it which with regard to any Vniversality is opposed by him Which words I well apprehend not his meaning in If he mean by Reference to Gods purpose and Christs intention according as God purposed and Christ intended for them or that God purposed and Christ intended that he should dye for them so we indeed mean by that phrase But if by it he means that God and Christ purposed in so doing eternally to save him we so mean not that every man is bound to believe of Christs death for him But that such was Gods purpose and intention in Christs dying for him that if he believe in him and in God through him he shall undoubtedly be saved Ioh. 3.16 And yet we put no If unto Gods purpose which as secret concerns not our Faith for as Luther well says De Deo abscondito nulla est fides cognitio c. But we put that If into the way of mens participation of that salvation as God hath revealed it Besides to tell us how he opposes the Universality of Christs death when he hath almost done opposing it was not done no though he had exprest himself more clearly in it very learnedly He says The term Every one must relate to All men in the like condition which we grant it may And that like condition in my stating it here is not only as sinners unregenerate c. but also as the Gospell coming to them and reporting good news to them in Christ requires obedience of Faith of them that they may be puld out of that sinfull estate Something he sayes to the Major too viz. That that every one is bound to beleive is neither in it self true nor false but good which to me is a Paradox good being not the Object of Faith but of appetite desire and love Truth is the Object of Faith chiefly of that that is divine and required by God for men may believe and in some cases ought to believe that that in it self holds forth evill to them as men are bound to believe that they are sinners though its good that they should believe so yet it s not a good thing that they are bound to believe therein their being sinners is not a good thing But now to the Minor not only as in the first place mentioned by himself but also in a manner as owned by me He denies that every one that 's called to by the Gospel Preached is bound to believe in particular that Christ dyed
to pass that I fear he will be put to it again to prove this also by his doctrine seeing many are willing to run to Ordinances and do any thing to have ease and comfort and yet afterward forget that they were purged from their old sins and having escaped the pollutions of the world and walked in the means appointed for a while afterward imbrace the present world and fall off again which their doctrine intimates they must do and will if not elected or else never meet with any thing of God to purpose though they should continue attending the means to the last gasp I fear he will not say Christ had any Free grace for these and yet all weary heavy laden sinners one and other Christ calls to him yea and the fools and scorners too the wicked unrighteous and who not to listen to his Doctrine for salvation So that these are but fair flourishes that being looked into wind up onely in this Though ye be never so much troubled and weary and never so diligent now in the use of means yet forasmuch as your Election is unknown to us we cannot say that there is any thing purchased by Christ for you or that the blood of Christ is sufficient to purge you because we yet know not whether it was shed for you whatever inward worth it hath in it yet it being shed onely for the Elect he may not be able to save you by it nor unless ye be elected will all your use of means profit you if you should continue in them And so all depends yet even its future use of means too upon that hidden purpose and till that be known whether there be any cause for it to rely on Christ and love him and God in him he knoweth not so that all these answers avail him nothing therefore he doth well to leave his answering and fall to querying viz. What that is that according to our perswasion men are bound to believe when they first know that Christ died for them I answer They are to believe that Christ is their lawful Lord and able to save them and that they ought to live to him also that God is good and loving to them which is not a thing known before-hand as he says but in and through the knowing Christ to have died for them as the Cause though it be before the Effect yet in ordins cognoscendi it may be through and in order of nature after the knowledg of the effect which also the Spirit will there through be now glorifying and presenting to the soul they attending the doctrine of Christ and following him therein till it raise them up to full assurance as it did the Apostles Yea upon the knowing of the death of Christ for them it s to believe that God delights not in their death but is ready in and through Christ to save them and will do it they as they herein see good ground and as also they are by the Gospel that declares it obliged to do waiting on him and trusting in him Now whereas he says That they cannot there being no fruits of his Death but what are common to All which may be Damnation as well as Salvation That 's very untrue 1. Damnation is not the fruit of his Death but of mens abusing the mercies they have by his Death and their refusing to listen to him and look to him for salvation 2. The fruits of his Death in them and to them that come to him are washing purging sanctifying giving in remission peace joy spirit and life everlasting So that that is either an ignorant mistake or a wilful slander and yet as its true that some men may so abuse the Doctrine of Christs Death for them or so disserve him that his Death for them may be an aggravation of their punishment and misery so in that sense As the fruit of Gods Presence with the Israelites that led them out of Egypt into the Wilderness was to them that believed as they all had reason to have done protection and guidance into Canaan and possessing them thereof but to others that causlesly rebelled through their own folly destruction So is Christ and the Gospel of Christ a Savour of life to life in them that receive but of death to death in them that reject him So that as he answered impertinently and inconcludently for himself before so he answers untruly and irrationally here for us But I leave that also From this he comes to tell us That there are two things that both perswasions pretend to the exaltation of Gods free Grace and the Merit of Christ To the first of these he plays the Rhetorician more then either Logician or Divine He asks what that free grace is And I answer This That God hath given his Son to die for All and through him tenders salvation freely in the Gospel to All Whoever will let him come he is ready to receive him rejecting or reprobating none from it to destruction but for their rejecting his Truth and goodness made known to them His Queries Whether it stand in Election effectual Vocation Justification Sanctification Redemption in the blood of Christ If by Redemption in Christs blood he means the actuall setting their spirits at liberty from sin and corruption and from the power of Satans delusions to worship and live to God effected by the sprinkling of his blood upon them Heb. 9.13 14 as is there intended Rev. 5.9 miss the cushion Though Free Grace standeth in all these things which we maintain as well as they yet the extent of it we say not standeth in them but in giving his Elect one in whom his Election and purposes all are to the death for All and setting him up as a medium to whom coming any of them may and in coming shall finde Justification Sanctification Redemption and what ever follows which the Gospel holds forth freely to All as ready in him for them and to be dispensed by him to them upon believing which so held forth is the medium also of his effectual calling Whereas he asks If it be not universally a figment of our own brains or a new name for the old Idol Freewill I answer That it is not the first the authority of Gods Word acquits us which we dare not for all the Sophisms he hath brought against it renounce to cleave to that onely Elect which he and the Elders traditions have created and to which they bow the knew of their faith more then to Gods Word And if no device of our own then no new name For that Idol of Freewill which we no more adore if so much as they who substracting the declaration of Gods good Will to men as pertaining to them the medium appointed by him for his power to work in to uninthral men and impower them to believe do yet call upon men to believe and get Christ as if they had power of themselves to get him and to believe on him thundring damnation
will he busy himself to prevent impossibilities or about them that God hath hated from eternity What follows about Christs merit are but Rhetoricall disparagements of the grace of God as Universall in which he frequently puts the ly or brat of our own brain or some such like language upon Gods and his Apostles declarations for such are these That Christ dyed for All and is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world c. To which we shall give no other Answer they being not Arguments but frothy flourishes but remembring him that brought no railing accusations refer it to the Lord to rebuke Sathan the adversary of Gods free-grace and goodness He applands afterward his own opinion and casts dust upon the truth representing his own in these four following propositions 1. That Christ dyed only for the Elect. 2. That all those for whom Christ dyed are eternally saved 3. That Christ purchased all saving grace from them he means for All that so as to be effectually made over to All for whom he dyed 4. Christ sends the means and reveals the wayes of life to all those for whom he died I suppose he means in the declaration of the Gospell to them in this their life time If M. Owen can prove any one of these to be true from Scripture for in all this his book he hath failed of it then I will be bound to give up the cause to him and say that he hath done more then all his brethren could yet attaine to The Assertions he lays down as ours are diverse of them meer slanders as that we say 1. Most of them for whom Christ dyed are damned which is more then we know or dare determine not knowing what a numerous increase there may be of believers in the last Ages of Christs reigne nor being able fully to comprehend those sayings 1 Pet. 3.19 4.6 2. That he purchased not any saving grace for them that he dyed for 3. That he ratified and sealed not any Covenant of grace with any federates 4. Hath no intention to redeem his Church c. as if he had learned to practise that evill principle Calumniare andacter haerebit aliquid His last disquisition is about Gospel-consolation Whether perswasion gives the most before which he propounds some considerations as 1. That all true Evangelicall consolation belongs only to believers but I think this at first dash is unsound for I hope poor sad souls that sit in distress and through the sight of their sins dare not believe nay prehaps are in despaire have nothing in the Gospell to comfort them and induce them to believe 2. That to make out consolation to them to whom it is not due is as great a crime as to withhold it from them to whom it is I grant that both are crimes 3. That T. M. attempt to set forth the Death of Christ so as All might be comforted is a proud attempt I can say this for him of my own hearing from his mouth that he is cleer in that for I heard him say long since that the title was not of his appointing but the Printers or some other above for him 4. That Doctrine that holds out consolation to unbelievers from the Death of Christ is a crying Peace peace where God says there is no peace That 's true if by unbelievers he means men as such and so persisting otherwise it may not be true as is noted to the first we endeavor not to comfort unbelievers in their unbelief further then to let them see there is ground for their repentance but as the Gospel was first preached to Abraham and his Family before the Law so we preach the Death of Christ for all as a medium to their better convincement of their unbelief and impenitence and an argument to perswade them to Faith For how shall they indeed be convinced that its their sin not to believe or be perswaded to believe except they have God set forth as a meet Object for them to believe on And if they persist in their disobedience we have in the Gospel-Declaration Acts 10.36 Luke 10.5 6.9.11 12. that that will strike terror and amazement into them for their unbelief It was the preaching of Christ and so of his Apostles whom we desire to follow first to preach peace to the world and exhort them not to rest without it and in so doing we preach peace to none but whom it s to be preached to God first hangs out a white Flag of Reconciliation and Peace in Christ before he holds out his red of Judgement and Indignation which follows where that peace is despised Mat. 10.12 13 14 15. Having premised these things he lays down these four Conclusions 1. That the extending the Death of Christ to an universality in Object cannot give the lest ground of consolation to them whom God would have to be comforted by the Gospel 2. That the denying the efficacy of the Death of Christ towards them for whom he died cuts the nerves and sinews of all strong consolation such as is proper for the believer to receive and the Gospel to give 3. That there is nothing in the restraining Christs Death to the Elect that in the least measure debars consolation from them to whom it is due 4. That the Doctrine of the effectual Redemption of the sheep of Christ by the blood of the Covenant is the true solid foundation of all durable consolation 1. To confirm the first He premises That all Gospel-Consolation belongs onely to believers which I have before shewed to be untrue The Gospel propounds comfort also to souls ready to despair utterly that they might believe And the best way to comfort such is to let them know that Christ died for them and that by opening to them according to the Scripture-affirmation the extent of Christs Death and of Gods goodness therein Having propounded that he nextly argues against its being of use to believers as that 1. No Scripture so propounds it Which is untrue also for that in 1 Joh. 2.2 doth as we have seen for Mr. Owen confesses his business there is to comfort believers and the Apostle to that propounds Christ as a Propitiation for the sins of the whole world and not onely of us the believers to be comforted See what I have said to it largelier cap. 3. lib. 4. He says further 2. That no comfort can accrue to them from that which is common to those 1. That shall perish to eternity Isa 51.13 Psa 100.2 1 Pet. 4 19. Ps 31.15 and 103.18.22 c. 2. That God would not have comforted And 3. that stand in open rebellion against Christ And 4. That hear not of Christ This also is disproved De facto from the forementioned place as was shewed before upon it Besides The Creation is common to them All that he mentions and yet that 's of Consolation to the believer and so Gods Governing all things the Resurrection Judgement c.