in Flesh and offer up himself a Sacrifice in his Body of Flesh for the sins of the World and should dye and rise again and by his Death and Resurrection should bruise the Serpents Head that is conquer and break his Power in all the faithful so as perfectly to deliver them from Death both Spiritual and Natural the Spiritual here and the Natural hereafter at the Resurrection of the Dead And by the bruising of his Heel is understood his Sufferings and Death in the Flesh occasioned by the Devil's Instigation as all sound Christians of all Professions generally acknowledge and in Testimony of this Faith it was that the Faithful before the Law and under the Law by Gods direction offered up Sacrifices of clean Beasts that were Types and Memorials of Christ the Lamb of God that was to be slain and offered up for the sins of the World and the Faith of all the faithful for the Remission of sin and cleansing and sanctifying was not in the Sacrifices which they offered but in Christ whom they represented and of whom they were Types And before Christ came in the flesh not only the People of Israel offered Sacrifices and practised Circumcision all which were Typical of Christ in the Flesh but many other Nations as not only the Posterity of Ishmael and Esau but other Nations that learned it of them And that Circumcision was Typical of Christ and had a special Relation to Christ and Faith in him as he was to come in the Flesh and to his Death and sufferings is clear from Rom. 4.11 where it is called A Seal of the Righteousness of Faith And as the Church of God hath never failed in the Earth since the beginning of the World nor will to the end of it so nor hath the Doctrin of Gods Salvation concerning the Saviour of the World and the Mediator betwixt God and Men who should be both GOD and MAN failed or been wanting as in respect of the essential parts of it even from being outwardly preserved delivered and conveyed from from Age to Age in some measure and degree for the benefit of Mankind in general and therefore in all Ages even in the Darkest Christ as he was to come in the Flesh and be an Offering for the Sins of the World was sufficiently set forth for that time to be the Object of mens Faith in those Ages and Parts of the World where these Types and Figures of Sacrifices and Circumcision were extant and even these who did not practise them yet might hear of them by others and it may be very probably defâ—nded by a rational Hypothesis and so doth R. B. call his Doctrine in his 6 th Thesis viz on Hypothesis that no Nation under Heaven was so left destitute of all outward means but that partly by the Report of the Sacrifices of clean Beasts offered to the true God and by Circumcision and other Types Figures and Shadows that had been used from the beginning and partly from the Types and Figures given to Mankind in general in the whole visible Creation the Mediator betwixt God and Men the Saviour and Redeemer of the World who should be both God and Man or God manifest in Flesh and who as Man should dye for the sins of the World and rise again was proposed in some sort though obscurely answering to that Dispensation wherein Christ was the Mystery hid from Ages and Generations that was in after Ages clearly to be revealed according to Ephes cap. 3. 5 9. Col. cap. 1.26 Rom. cap. 16.26 and set forth to be the Object of mens Faith and Hope of Salvation and Remission of sin and Reconciliation with God the inward Light of the divine Word that is the Light of men that ever did in 〈◊〉 Ages and ever doth and ever will enlighten every man that cometh into the World acting or operating by its heavenly and divine Influence upon their reasonable Faculties of Understanding and all their national Powers to cause them both know and believe that God would be merciful to them and forgive their sins upon their Repentance and Amendment of Life for the sake of the Mediator Redeemer Saviour of the World who should be both God and Man or it by an unavoidable case as R. B. wordeth it in his 6 t Thes some or many are excluded from this benefit of having it outwardly revealed to them as others had yet that defeâ—t may be supplied by inward divine Râ—velation in all extraordinary Cases revealing at least the substance of that great Mystery of the Mediator the Saviour of the World by whose Death and Blood men through Repentance and Faith in him should be reconciled unto God and have their sins both forgiven and pâ—rged or washed away 3 dly But yet we ought not universally to confine this Faith of Christ as without us or within us to the narrow bounds of outward Preaching it either by the Prophets in their Day or to the Evangelists and Apostles in their Day or to the hearing or reading of the holy Scriptures or to the outward Ministry of Angels oâ— Men well knowing and believing That as God gave it to our first Parents without all Ministry of Men and as he gave it to Abraham to Job to the three Wise Men that came from the East to worship Jesus in Bethlehem so he hath given it to many others and can or may give it to as many as he pleaseth without all outward Ministry yet I say in Gods ordinary way he is pleased to give it by the Ministry of Preaching and for this cause he revealed it to the holy Prophets and Apostles that by their Ministry and Writings it might be made known to all Nations for the Obedience of Faith Rom. 16.26 and the said Doctrine as outwardly delivered by their Ministry and as delivered by the Ministry of faithful men succeeding them in the same Faith God is pleased to bless with a New divine Visitation and Illumination of more Light and Grace than was or is given to such where this Doctrine is not outwardly preached to bring them to the Obedience of that Faith And to declare my Mind with all plainness As I can find no Faith in Christ in all the Scripture but what hath always a respect to Christ as that great Offering and Sacrifice for sin without us as well as to his inward and spiritual Presence and Appearance in us according to measure teaching us and enabling us to apply to us the benefit of his Death and Sufferings Resurrection and Ascention and Mâ—â—â—â—tion for the Remission of our sins and our Eternal Salvation as the â—â—â—ness of all Grace and Truth dwelt and still dwelleth in the Mâ—â— Christ Jesus without us and of whose Fullness we daily more and more partake who believe in him and in God the Father through him and who pray to God in his Name and Worship and Obey him so I can own no other Faith but this to be the true Christian Faith
demonstrated that the said Doctrine doth expresly without any far-fetcht Consequences contradict some Article of the Christian Faith the which remote and far-fetch't Consequences are not allowable among vulgar Christians however sincere because there may be a Fallacy or at least a great uncertainty in them but an Error in the Antecedent to wit That the Gospel and Faith of our Lord Jesus Christ as he was crucified for our sins and rose agian for our Justification and is our Elder Brother and high Priest in Heaven without us making Intercession for us is not necessary to be preached to the Nations for Remission of Sin and eternal Salvation to finish and perfect it is a most vile and abominable Heresie most worthily to be detested by all sincere Christians and the Assertors and Abettors of it most worthily to be judged No Christians yea worse than honest Heathens who have never had Christ preached unto them A further clearing of the Truth by a plain Explication of my Sence when I say That Faith in Christ Jesus not only as the Light in us but as he was and is Man without us and as he dyed for our sins and rose again for our Justification is necessary to perfect Justification and finishing the work of mens Salvation universally and by which I show and demonstrate That my present Doctrine concerning the Faith of Christ is well consistent with all my former printed Books and with R. Barclay's printed Books and particularly his Apology and with the Doctrine of our sound Friends and Brethren both aentient and lately raised who have declared their Charity towards all Pious and Conscientious Gentiles to whom the Gospel was not outwardly preached by the Ministry of men That they were not or are not excluded from Gods Mercy and Salvation although they have not had the express Historical Knowledge and Faith of Christ as Man without them either outwardly preached or inwardly revealed to them THe Explanation of my sence in this weighty matter I deliver in the following particulars viz. 1 st By Faith in the Man Christ Jesus without us which I assert to to be universally necessary to mens eternal Salvation I do not understand an express distinct Faith in Christ as being so necessary to all whereby all that were or shall be saved must necessarily have such a Knowledge and Faith of him as to these great and weighty Passages and Cases delivered prophetically concerning him in the Old Testament and Historically in the New Testament that were a fulfilling of the Prophecies of him such as 1 That he should come in the Flesh as such a precise Age or Time of the World 2. That he should be born at Bethlem 3. That he should be the Son of Abraham and David according to the Flesh 4. or That his Mothers Name should be Mary or his own Name Jesus 5. That the place of his Death should be Golgotha without the City of Jerusalem in Judea 6. That the manner of his Death should be by being crucified his Hands and Feet pierced and his Side pierced with a Spear 7. That he should be betrayed by Judaâ— and sold for thirty pieces of Silver and sentenced to Death by Pontius Pilate and accused and slain by the Jews and crucified betwixt two Tâ—iâ—ves whereof the one should be penitent and dye believing in him 8. That he should be laid in Sepulchrs where no mans ever lay that belonged to Joseph of Arimathea 9. That he should rise on the third Day and after forty days ascend into Heaven 10. And lastly That he should appear to the Women first of all after his Resurrection These and many other very weighty and great Cases Passages belonging to his outward Coming Death and Sufferings Resurrection and Ascention I do not say are necessary to be known and believed universally to mens eternal Salvation and this I have called in my former printed Books The Express Clear and Distinct Knowledge or Faith of his outward Coming see my Book called The Vniversal free Grace of the Gospel asserted pag. 117. printed in the Year 1671. and R. B. in his printed Apology and Theses printed in the Year 1676. calleth it as I do the distinct outward absolute Knowledge i. e. the perfect Knowledge of the outward History see his Latine Apology Thes 6. the which Doctrine as laid down by him in his 6 th Thesis he calleth an Hypothesis in that very place and others of our antient Friends who have writ in defence of the People called Quakers have called it the Historical Knowledge viz. as containing the knowledge of the above-mentioned Historical Passages and others the like for as concerning these great and weighty Passages Cases fore-told by the Prophets and Historically declared to be fullfilled by the Evangelists and Apostles concerning him many of the faithful knew or believed few or none of them before Abraham's Time and even after Abraham to whom Christ was promised to be his Seed and to come out of his Loyns the Doctrine concerning the Time and Manner of his Coming Death and Sufferings Resurrection and Ascention was gradually revealed to the Prophets from Moses to Samuel and from Samuel to David and from David to these who followed after as Isaiah Jeremiah and others and still the nearer the Time approached of Christs coming in the Flesh the Prophets did Prophecy the more clearly and expresly concerning him 2 dly I do with great Assurance and Freedom affirm as God hath perswaded me and opened it out of the holy Scriptures to me That the Faith of all the Faithful from the beginning of the World was in Christ as he should be that Seed of the Woman that should bruise the Head of the Serpent and whose Heel the Serpent should bruise which was the first Gospel Promise that the Lord himself preached to our first Parents after the Fall and though this Promise was not committed to writing so far as we know until Mosâ— who was the first â—on man of holy Scripture yet it was without all doubt faithfully delivered and preached by Adam to his Children and by the faithful of their Children such as Seth to their succeeding Posterity even until Noah and if it was lost again it was restored to Abraham for we have good cause to believe that the Church of God from the beginning of the World hath never failed in the Earth universally to this Day nor will to the end of the World however at times it hath been much obscured and hid both under the Old and New Testament And by this Seed of the Woman is to be understood the Man Christ with the spiritual inward blessings of Grace Light and Life flowing from him and though the outward Name Jesus and Christ is sweet and comfortable to every true Believer by the Spirit of Christ that knoweth it yet it is no more simply necessary than the other above-mentioned weighty Circumstances concerning him the Saviour and Redeemer of the World who should be born
necessity of the Implicit or Implyed Faith The Express Knowledge and Faith respecting those particular Cases Passages and Circumstances above mentioned or any others recorded in the Scriptures Historically related in them This Express Knowledge and Faith I say neither was nor is indispensibly necessary to all men but such only to whom it is revealed or preached yet is most profitable and comfortable to all to whom it cometh The Implicit Knowledge and Faith of it respecting Christ as he was to come in the Flesh suffer Death for the Sins of the World and be a Sacrifice unto God for their Reconciliation and rise again for their Justification so that the Substance of the Doctrine hold forth in that Promise Thaâ— the Seed of the Woman should bruise the Head of the Serpent c. and in the Sacrifices and other Figures of the Law and in the Figures and Types of the outward Creation as inwardly opened to mens reasonable Understanding by the divine Light of the Word in them might suffice to such who had no more given them or by what other means and helps whether both outward and inward or only inward as at the instant of Death according to Job 33.22 23. God was or is pleased to afford beyond our reach for we know but part of his ways which are most equal and yet are far above our thoughts and much more as the Heavens are above the Earth 2 dly By distinguishing Salvation begun and Salvation finished and perfected and the two-fold inward States Ministrations and Births which are both of God and Christ the first making men at best Servants of God or Sons by the Bond-woman or the Law of the first Ministration and this may he had without all Faith of Christ as come in the Flesh and this beginneth a good Work of God in men and may be called Salvation begun and may be compared to Corn or Fruit in the Blossom the second making men Sons of God by the Free-woman and receiving the Spirit of God and Christ as it is a Spirit of Adoption and may be compar'd to Corn or Fruit in the Kirnel and this is never had nor never was had without the Faith of Christ and the Faith of Christs Doctrine as to the substance of it to wit that God was to save men by a Saviour who should be both God and Man and as Man should dye for our sins and rise from the dead and thereby overcome the Power of Death first in his own Person and last in his Members this is the substance of the Gospel-Promise and Doctrine comprehending in it an inward enjoyment of God and Christ to all who have the true Faith of him as to the Substance of it from the beginning of the World implyed and folded up in that first Gospel-Promise concerning the Seed of the Woman and that the promised Seed of the Woman should be both God and Man as the Faith of all the faithful from the beginning of the World is demonstrated from Eve's words expressing her Faith at the Birth of Cain Gen. 4.1 I have got the Man the Lord the Hebrew word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is one of the greatest Names of God so doth Luther in his High-Dutch Translation of the Bible translate that place and so doth the English Cann and so doth the Hebrew bear it which yet hath not this sence as if Eve had been so for mistaken as to imagine that Cain should be the Messiah or Saviour of the World as some have thought she did so miserably Mistakeâ— but as was common to faithful Men and Women to do to give Names to their Children sâ—gnifying their Faith of some great Blessing that they expected afterwards to come or some great benefit formerly received thus Rachel called her first born Joseph i. e. joyned with respect to Benjamin that was born divers years afterwards and Joseph named his two Sons Names that did not relate to them but to himself and Eve named Abel that signifieth Vanity not with respect to Abel who was the first Martyr for the Faith of Christ but with respect to the vanity of Mans miserable state by sin 5 thly And that the Faith in Christ as he dyed for us and rose again to reconcile us unto God is altogether necessary to mens perfect Justification and Salvation is evident from this that as Paul reasoneth and proveth most clearly both in his Epistle to the Romans and Galatians By the Work of the Law no Flesh is justified but by the Faith of Christ â—or the Law worketh Wrath and by the Law is the Knowledge of Sin and the Law saith Cursed is every one that abideth not in every thing to do it that the Law saâ—th And this was not only the outward Law among the Jews but the inward Law or first Ministration of Light both in Jews and Gentiles for as Paul said He had proved both Jews and Gentiles to be all under Sin so that every Mouth is stopped and the whole World is guilty before God for none but have sinned at one time or another and one sin bringeth Wrath and the Curse on him that hath sinned and no Obedience can remove this Wrath or Curse without Christ who became a Curse for us and gave himself a Ransom for us and paid the Debt of our sins for us the Just suffering for the Vnjust And some are justified by Christ but through Faith in him as he dyed for them and rose again c. for he that believeth yet is Condemned already and therefore the Ministration of the Law whether outwardly writ on Tables of Stone or inwardly writ on stoney Hearts is the Ministration of Condemnation preparing for Christ and leading unto Christ and such who are under the Law â—et them be ever so Obedient just and Conscientious because they have sinned and are not Perfect are held under it shut up as in a Custody or Safeguard as the Man-slayer in the City of Refuge and are not perfectly justified but are under fear their Thoughts Accusing and Excusing for though they are Excused or Accused or to say justified in some good things done by them yet that can be no perfect Justification because their state is imperfect and therefore for that all have sinned all have absolute Necessity to flee to Christ and lay hold on him by Faith as he dyed for us and rose again and hath by his Obedience unto Death purchased for us Remission of sin and eternal Redemption and Salvation and Life Eternal without which Faith as to the Substance of it there is no Remission of Sin nor perfect Justification nor Salvation and to say otherwise is to contradict the whole current of Scripture and to preach another Faith and Gospel than Christ and the Prophets and Apostles Preached and therefore is not to be received but rejected if an Angel from Heaven should preach it G. K. FINIS