being translated into the English tongue for fear the Bakers and Plawmen not understanding some passages should be disheartned from or miscarry in their callings things without any great shew of weight worth other answering then Mr. Latimer gave to Hubberdine That in some places we are to take the Scripture as it lies none that are sober doubt Now if this objection suit not to the Scriptures in general but only to some places then who shall tell us what they are in which it suits not Sure the Apostles speak plainly in laying the foundation truths that are propounded to bring men to believe for if the language there be strange who shall understand what it is that is said if the trumpet there give an uncertain sound who shall prepare himself to battel Now this point we speak of namely the death of Christ and for whom it is is fundamental and the propositions that the Apostle the Teacher of the Gentiles lays down as the Testimony he Preached in the other parts of them are very plain and perspicuous And that this only that he gave himself a ransom for all should be obscure is a groundless evasion of them that do not believe the truth seeing in their preachings of the Gospel he himself tels us they put no vaile over their faces in their ministration but manifested the truth to every ones conscience which sure they did not if they spake so figuratively that many might mistake and few could perceive their meaning as is pretended It s true the Gospel is a mystery but yet a mystery now revealed many things hard to be understood says Peter speaking of Pauls writings but that 's spoken particularly in the things of Christs second coming the word is in the Original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in which things not in which writings Again the speeches that are figurative are generally conspicuous by the maner of speaking as plain as Latimers Fox preaching in a Monkes Cowle and sometimes expresly called parables but no such thing is conspicuous in those places except in the allusive words of ransom and propitiation nor will the places bear such limitations as they speak of as the following Treatise proveth As for that inference of transubstantiation we deny it or the rest proveable upon that supposal No one Scripture saying that either Christ called the bread his body or the cup he took in his hand his blood more then that he said to the Jews destroy the Temple that he was walking in John 2. but by this he might mean and indeed point to his present body and by this Cup his present instant sufferings that he was about to undergo which the Scripture and himself also cals a Cup and the Cup that his Father gave him much less say they that the one or other was turned into his natural body or blood nor is the parallel fair between the doctrines of the Gospel preached as the first principles of faith and these Sacramental and more mysterious speeches Gen. 17.14 15. with ver 2 3 21. As inept it is almost as to make the Every fowl and beast that entered into the Ark to be a fit exposition of the Every man that Christ dyed for whereas the Scripture there expresly limits them to seavens and to two and two of every kinde and excludes the rest and there is no such limitation to any sums numbers qualities or conditions about Christs death they would hiss at men that should produce such places to parallel and limit the All and Every that shall arise or give an account of themselves to God by which shews them to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 absurd and foolish men in these their reasonings for want of faith These and such like rubs are sorry Remoraes to any that are capable of understanding reason and will Judg impartially in this controversie 3. For free will we say that God deales not with men as with stocks and stones and so much all generally grant us But what other I pray are men if their wils have no power or freedome given it of God to act this or that but as external powers carry them if they can only go quò fata trahunt whether they are necessitated can avoid no evil that they commit or do no good that they neglect And yet good reader mistake me not I believe man hath no power but what is given him of God either in naturalls or in spiritualls nor any power or liberty to spiritual acts till some spiritual force or power come to him from God That men are naturally dead in sins and trespasses and wholly strangers to the life of God cannot come to Christ except God draw them and when they are brought to him they cannot of themselves as of themselves think any good thought that 's right and approveable without the grace of God But I believe that God in naturals hath given men as more understanding so also more liberty of choice then the bruit beasts to them more then to insensitive creatures and in reference to spiritual life he hath and doth afford means to the natural man suited to his liberty and power to make choice or refuse to make use of as to read the Scriptures hear the word look upon and view his works c. and we conceive that though those things have no natural ability in them to to save or spirituallize such as use them nor the acts of men in using them can do any more thereto then the blinde mans washing in cold water to open his eyes Yet in as much as God useth to work in them as mediums and sends forth his Spirit with them to inlighten and draw men they are justly guilty of their own destruction that neglect those things when God affords them Yea further I understand and believe that God by his goodness and with and in those means prevents men and wroks in them manifesting his truth in them and giving them a discerning apprehension of it with convincing or drawing power and that he then gives them ability to do what they could not before as to acknowledg the folly he shews them confess the truth and goodness he makes evident to them strive against the ways they see harm them c. though yet these are not spiritual acts of divine and Christ like life they springing from self-love and desire of their own proper good not out of love to God But they that when they are so prevented and in such preventions reproved called allured to listen further to God in the means afforded do stop their ears close their eyes harden their hearts imprison the truth they see and neglect to use the power given them in these strivings of Gods truth with them are justly guilty of their own destruction should God there leave them and strive no longer with them and they that turn at such reproofs and listen yet to the truth that speaks to them and do not slothfully
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
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
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
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
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
Soveraignty towards all in a most equal dispensation in which he justifies himself to all that plead with him to be good and holy And yet this doctrine leaves him at liberty too to do to any one more or less to make one more exemplary and singular in mercy and another in severity as he pleases But now the doctrine opposed by us derogates from God in these things for it speakes of him in respect of most as an Abaddon not a Saviour an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not a friend and lover of men but a hater and destroyer of them for what else I pray you speakes that language that they preach as a truth concerning the greatest part of men that God hates them from eternity and so in hatred made them and necessitated their sinning and perishing Is this to represent God lovely and gracious or dreadful and one that delights in mans misery and ruine I know they say his love is but velle bonum creaturis to will that that is good to creatures and so that he may be said to love them in that he gives them outward good things in which I conceive they either give too scant a definition of his love or call that good in it that upon second thoughts if made their own portion they would scarcely deem so I conceive his love is rather to be thus defined A velle bonum creaturis quo iis benè esse possit a willing good things to creatures for their good for otherwise the willing of a good thing is not good if it have in it a destructive intention as for a man to will another a massy Wedge of Gold that he might cast him into the Sea and drown him with it and yet such is their doctrine of Gods willing good things to most for they make his first or eternal thoughts of them as to themselves to be their misery and so all the bounty patience and whatsoever they have from him to be to that end that they might by them arrive at it as some have said Gods dealings with some men are as if one should hang a man in a Goldchain or tie a wedg of Gold about his neck to sink him Quis talia fando temperet à lachrymis Now while they thus deny the extent of his mercy and goodness and give such direful representations of him they also by consequence obscure his justice for whereas his justice is illustrated by mercy they that obscure this must needs obscure the other also Justice is then seen in acts Retributive when voluntary unnecessitated transgressions are severely punished and by how much the more have been the advantages incouragements and liberty afforded for doing what is required so much the cleerer is the equity of punishing the fault committed How do they then cleer or magnifie Gods justice that make him to punish only necessitated wickedness Yea that make the Decree of eternal vengeance upon such and such persons to be in order of nature Antecedaneous to any consideration of sin deserving it for these to be some of their conceptions and the sum of their expressions too they well know that are acquainted with any thing in this controversie Now I propound to any rational understanding whether of these two most declare and glorifie justice for a master to punish his servant for not doing something that he could not do or doing what he could not but do yea what he himself necessitates him to do or for a master to punish his servant for that he gave him command and ability yea also incouragement and promised assistance for doing and he voluntarily and slothfully neglected or refused to do it Sure any man that hath his wits about him will say this latter But now against this particular I know what they object and its Mr. Owens in his preface They say the earth-worms of the world must not prescribe to God what way to glorifie himself in it s rather for us to ascribe that glory to him that he makes his own then devise ways for his glory by our inventions and speak lies in his behalf which things are in themselves rightly spoken onely they therein intimate that those things which we have said of God are of our devising and ascribing to him which he neither ascribes to himself nor owneth at our hands to take off which we shall come to another particular viz. That 2. The perswasion I have defended is a truth of Gods own revealing and not of our devising but on the contrary theirs a falshood not revealed by him but devised by them in which they as well give God the lye as deny him to be love What I here defend is grounded on the Scripture-expressions in maintaining which I indeavor to keep close to them and subject reason to faith theirs have no Scripture expression to maintain it but leans upon reason exalting it self against faith They are the plain Scripture expressions that God is love hath loved the world is good to all the Saviour of all men especially of them that believe that he delights in mercy but delights not that the wicked should die but rather turn and live that he is not willing that any should perish but that all come to Repentance that his goodness forbearance and long-suffering is not to be despised it leading to repentance even such as not repenting treasure up wrath to themselves against the day of wrath c. So also that Christ dyed for all and every one that he gave himself a ransome for all and is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world if any hear him and believe not he doth not judg him because he came not to judg the world but to save the world That those whom he shall judg to death he will so judge for their not believing in the light he gave them for not hearing his voice not receiving the truth but imprisoning it in unrighteousness c. these and many such like are the revelations and expressions of the Holy Ghost in the Scriptures upon which we ground our perswasion desiring simply to believe and hold them for true yea though all things therein held forth we knew not how by reason to comprehend judging him true and his word pure and perfect but our reasons and wisdom against it and where it Judges it absurd to be folly and bruitishness We believe and receive also all those places that they produce to us as that he came to save his people gave himself for his Church Sheep c. that the Saints and faithful were elected in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the world that God said to Rebecca concerning Jacob and Esau before they were born or had done good or evil that the elder of them with his posterity should serve the younger with his and that God said by Malachy that he loved the one and hated the other and that God chuses not either according to birth or works in us
which is the thing the Apostle brings it to prove but that he hated either of them from Eternity and before they had done either good or evil or that he so hated the greater part of mankinde that God loved only his elect and chosen that he is only their Saviour that Christ died only for them and gave himself a ransom only for his sheep and Church and did not die for the greatest part of men nor hath any fitness or sufficiency as a mediator for them to save them that God did make the greatest part of men with intention to destroy them and never bare any good will to them that they perish for ever for the sin of Adam and that their condemnation is aggravated by their after sins for their neglecting that that was never for them and for not repenting and believing on him though there was neither object meet for them to believe on nor any power vouchsafed to them from God by which in attending to God in the meanes propounded they might have been brought to repent and believe that all that Christ died for shall be saved eternally and none of them shall perish these and the like positions maintained by them we finde no Scripture asserting and so have no divine ground of believing but to maintain them they rely on their reasons adding to and detracting from the Scripture-expressions as they please yea plainly contradicting them making particular affirmative propositions in Scripture equipollent to universal affirmatives as We or the Church are sanctified by his Death ergo All that he died for and particular Affirmatives to be repugnant and contradictory to universal Affirmatives as He gave himself for us ergo Not for all gave his life as a shepherd for his sheep ergo he gave not himself a ransome for all men and many such inept and unscholarlike inferences their wisdomes make to maintain and strengthen their devised Assertions drawing conclusions by them openly contradictory to the Scripture-expressions as ergo He died not for all and every one God would not that all men should be saved c. I would Master Owen and the rest of his minde would be content that God should be true and reason be judged absurd and vain where it opposes him that he may have but that glory of his mercy goodness truth and Justice that he in the Scriptures asserts to himself we should willingly hold us to that bargain with them But alas how injurious they are to the truth of God too and how unbelieving of and contradictory to the Scriptures thou mayst see by this litle tast here given and more fully I hope by the treatise itself here presented to thee as an answer to him but yet I have not set before thee all the good and usefulness of the truth here defended nor all the evil of theirs opposed For 3. This truth is profitable too for men both in respect of themselves and others in both which regards too their counter-positions are injurious First In respect of mens selves to whom its propounded who are to believe and receive it its profitable for them to hear and receive it because it presents to them an object for their faith a motive to repent believe serve and love God and matter of comfort to them that lye in sadness and distress for want of seeing ground to hope in him for this presents God as loving and gracious to them and what can be a greater motive to a man to listen to God then that his Doctrine comes in love and good will and brings good to him or what so powerful as love to break a man off from evils against him a loving carriage in David toward Saul melts him into tears and brings him from seeking to harm him to confess his evil and give good language to him how much more shall the love of God preached to men and believed by them work upon them Rom. 2.4 5. Psal 36.7 8. or else they shall be left the more excuseless and God shall be the more glorified in their destruction It is not commands to repent but love and goodness in him that is offended that indeed leads and brings in the heart to true repentance So what will so effectually draw a soul to trust in God as when it hears and believes the goodness of God Mansheart is so conscious of its own evil that neither commands or promises especially being so uncertain whether they appertain to us or no will draw us in to betrust our selves with God 1 John 4.19 except we perceive some real Testimonies of his love first towards us And what so strong a cord to love and service of him as to see his love preventing us Love seen and believed in him Tit. 3.4 5. begets love and service in us to him We love him because he loved us first Such our contrariety to God in our selves and such our apprehensions of his contrariety to us that till our hearts be purged from both by the demonstrations of his love and goodness we will not love and serve him not serve him in love without which our service is not acceptable and delightful to him so that from this love of God preached and believed springs true obedience and the hearty keeping of Gods Comandmments Yea herein it is that men see their sins most exactly odious and are abased in the sight of them True the Law saies what is good and evil righteous and sinful but the Gospel shews most lively the hainousness of that sin while it presents it not otherwise to be expiated then by the bloud of Gods own Son and shews otherway no remission yea this love and goodness at once both humbles for sin against God and leads to hope in and expect good from God yea and while it speaks not of an absolute certainty of life and happiness for all for whom Christ died but these things to be certainly obtained in submission to him believing on him and yielding up to his Spirit it leads the soul to serve the Lord with an holy fear and to rejoyce in him with trembling through which holy fear the heart is preserved from departing from him So that this doctrine from the very word and Oracle of God discovers to thee or any man while yet not sinning that great sin to death an object meet to look upon and admire God meet to be turned to sought after hoped in and served yea is a motive to and a ground foundation and spring of true comfort and godliness of all which the contrary position deprives a man No man by that beeing able as from the word of God to see good and right ground of loving hoping in and serving God till he see that he do love hope in and serve him there being nothing that bears witness of God to any particular soul in their doctrine that he loves and hath good will towards it untill it see the discriminating and distinguishing electing love of God towards
and so preserved his soul and ours also and so he yet as Mediator between God and us preserves us from many deaths being patient toward us when our follies deserve them to come upon us 2 Pet. 3.15 in which regard his forbearance is to be accounted Salvation by us And so when the Samaritans brutishly rejecting him had deserved such a destruction as the Disciples would have called for upon them Christ tells them No he came to Save mens lives even from such deserved destructions also not to destory them in them 2. To Save is sometime further to pull and deliver out of the state of ignorance blindness and corruption that men naturally lie in and so it s used in Tit. 3.5 saved us by the washing of regeneration 3. Sometimes to preserve a man in that Saved estate or in that grace of God to which the soul through the call of God is brought as in 1 Cor. 15.2 3. by which ye are saved if ye keep in minde how I have declared them to you and so in 1 Tim. 4.16 in continuing in them in the words of Christ thou shalt Save that is preserve from falling thy self and them that hear thee Again sometimes 4. To Save is ultimately to deliver from and out of all dangers fears and miseries and to bring to everlasting Glory And that 's the utmost and highest act of saving the obtaining the Salvation that is in Christ with eternal Glory 2 Tim. 2.10 Now in which of these senses Christ came to save the lost and sinners or whether he came to save each of them that he came for in All of them he declareth not but so far as I perceive he takes it as including all together and intends this proposition for a truth that whosoever Christ came to dye for them he came to save in all these acts of saving but then he neither proves that proposition so universally propounded but only brings some scriptures which say he came to save sinners to wash and purge his Church Vs believers c. not proving them to be the whole adaequate object of his Death as was before noted nor doth he tell us how we may understand the phrase of Coming to save which in the second place we shall briefly speak to for thereby we are to understand 1. Either that God sent him and he came forth to bring absolutely and effectually all and every sinner for and to whom he came and for whom he dyed to Salvation in its highest acts or to the utmost Salvation 2. Or else that he came from God with the authority and Office of a Saviour to reveal that to men and do that in dying for men by which they listening to him should be saved but rejecting him they may miss of that exercise of his office and work of saving which they otherwise might have from him Indeed in the first sense the series and drift of his discource argues that he takes it but the latter sense seemes to be as agreeable to Scripture which saith that he would have gathered them and they would not They would not come unto him that they might have life that he is the bread of God that came down from heaven and gives life to the world the true bread that God gave to the murmuring Jews who yet not eating him have not life in them All which expressions argue an authority and office given to Christ to save and give life to men and his readiness to give it though they also shew that the execution of that office or rather its fulfilling in men is suspended and takes not its effect towards those that refuse to come to him and submit to his order prescribed for executing it on them Such a phrase we have in Exod. 3.8 I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of the land into a good land and a large c. in which his meaning cannot be that he came with an absolute intent and purpose to bring all that his people certainly and effectually out of Aegypt into Canaan but there was an implicit condition couched in it of their hearkning to him and following him otherwise though he came down to bring them into Canaan many might never come into as the event also proved it Now if thus we take those Scriptures of his coming to save sinners and that that was lost then though we understand the word Save to comprehend all those forementioned acts it will be little to the Authors advantage But I pass from this part of his consideration to the next viz. 2 The effect and actual product of the work it self the thing effected and accomplished by the Death Oblation and blood-shedding of Jesus Christ which he expresses more distinctly to be Reconciliation Justification Sanctification Adoption Glory and Immortality for which he produces divers Scriptures some pertinent some not Now to this part we shall grant that by the death of Jesus Christ some men attain to all these things which is as much as those Scriptures produced by him prove But I shall briefly declare how they are by his Death 1. His Death and bloudshedding was that way through which God went to effect these things and so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may be translated through his Death as Gods dividing the red sea was part of that way by which he brought Israel into Canaan and the ordering Joseph to prison was the way through which God brought him to his preferment in Pharaohs Court and made provision for the people of those countries in the 7 years of famine Davids fight with Goliah was the way through which the Israelites were victorious over the Philistins c. Had not Christ died we had not been reconciled justified sanctified received the adoption of sons and so not glorified by that our sin was expiated the way between God and us cleared and made open Redemption obtained salvation is in Christ for us so as that by believing in his Name any may be saved Acts 4.11 12. 2. By his Death we are Reconciled Justified Sanctified made Sons c. as its the way through which discovered to us and believed in by us we are brought to union with Christ and to receive that salvation and redemption that is in him not that Christ in the act of his dying made us at one with God and so reconciled us to God in our selves or justified or sanctified us made us sons and glorified us in our persons But this death of his made known to us in the Gospel is that by which God draws us to his Son and to himself and so its it by which he reconciles us Thence the Colossians are said Now to be reconciled since the enmity in their minds was slain by him and so reconciled by his death is a phrase like those in 1 Pet. 1.3 and 3.20 begotten to a lively hope by the resurrection of Christ from the dead and so the conscience
bring into Canaan all that he brought out of Aegypt and then prove it by shewing that he so intended to all that believed and followed him Or else 2. Those places show not that those things so mentioned were the absolute intentions of God and Christ taken upon themselves to be effected by them without suspending them upon condition in us and if the Minor take not the word intended in that sense it suits not with the Major but contains a quartus terminus and the major not so taken is untrue If it be said the words are I came to save that that 's lost he gave himself that he might purge Vs and suffered for the unjust to bring us to God c. and where things are so spoken of as the ends and aimes of God in acting there though we have not the expressions He intended this and that yet we are to understand that God absolutely intended to accomplish and bring about those things and so that all those that are the object of those acts which were acted to such an end obtained or shall obtain that end Then I deny it and will prove it that in such speeches where two acts are mentioned as end and means and God the agent in the act directed to such an end it is not safe to say that alwayes that act propounded as the end in his acting was absolutely intended to be and answerably is brought about by him in all those upon whom or for whom he acted that act that 's mentioned as the means as to instance Act. 17 26 27. He made of one bloud all the kinde of men to inhabit all the face of the earth and hath determined the times appointed and the bounds of their habitation that they might seek the Lord c. Here is end and means propounded the making all of one bloud bounding their times habitations the means directed to this end that they might seek the Lord. Will any man hence say that God absolutely intended that he would cause all that he made and whose times and habitations he bounded to seek him and who ever seek him not and so call those in Rom. 3.11 were not made by him So John 1.6 7. John was sent to bear witness to the light that all through him might believe Doth it follow that because that was the end propounded therefore God absolutely purposed to make all believe to whom he bare witness and so its true that he bare witness to none else is not that contrary to Mat. 11.16 17 18. and 21.32 So John 5.34 Christ tels the cavilling Jews that he spake those things to them that they might be saved will it follow that it was his absolute intent that they should all be saved hear him or not or to make all hear him and be saved even those that would not come to him that they might live vers 40. Christ came to save that which was lost Doth it follow that he absolutely determined to bring all them to eternal life to whom he came even those also to whom he came and they received him not John 1.11 So Psal 105.33 34. He brought his chosen into Canaan that they might observe his Statutes and keep his Laws Therefore he intended to make them all do so and all that he brought into that land did so contrary to Psal 106.34 35 36. And to say no more God came down to bring Israel out of Aegypt to bring them into Canaan Exod. 3.7 and he brought them out thence that he might bring them into and give them that land Deut. 6.23 Ergo he absolutely purposed it concerning all that came out of Egypt and no more were brought out thence then were brought into Canaan Such his Argument Like to which he hath another taken from the effects of Christs Death Lib. 2. cap. 3. pag. 66. the Minor of which Affrmes that his Death sanctifies and and purges all them for whom he dyed redeems them from Law Curse Death c. none of all which he proves none of all those Scriptures alledged for proof This argument he hath again in lib. 3. cap. 4 where we shall speak further to it having such a clause in it as All for whomsoever he dyed or any thing sounding that way they being but applicative speeches not universal assertions It s such an argument as this The Lord brought us out of Egypt and brought us into this place viz. Canaan Deut. 26.8 9. And the Lord made you to go up out of Egypt and hath brought you into this Land Judg. 2.1 Therefore all that God brought out of Egypt he brought into Canaan Besides he hath for the bottom of this Argument this proposition in p. 4 line 71. and again in page 66. that the things before recounted are the immediate fruits and products of Christs Death namely Reconciliation Justification Sanctification Adoption Glorification which is as true as that the dispossessing the Canaanites and the giving their Land to the Israelites was the immediate fruit and product of their bringing out of Egypt over the red Sea as may be seen by what we sayed to them p. 10. No one of those things as accomplished in men is the immediate fruit and product of his Death Not Reconciliation though that be by the Death of Christ yet not immediately there is requisite to it beside Christs death the word of Reconciliation to declare it and that heard and submitted to as is plain 2 Cor. 5.19 20. We beseech you be ye reconciled to God yea and all these things come between the death of Christ and Reconciliation and are mediums of it Justification is not the immediate fruit and product of his death but mediante fide We are justified by faith Rom. 5.1 thence we have believed that we might be Justified Gal. 2.16 and that presupposes the word and spirit opening the death of Christ and shedding abroad the love of God and sprinkling the bloud of Christ upon the soul as in Tit. 3.5 6 7. He shed on us the Spirit abundantly that being justified by his Grace we might be made heires c so 1 Cor. 6.11 ye are Justified by the Name of the Lord and by the Spirit of our God Sanctification is not the immediate fruit and product of Christs Death but mediante fide too Sanctified by faith that is in Christ Jesus Acts. 26.18 and so there intervenes the being called out of the world and Church't Ephes 5.26 27. Adoption is not the immediate fruit and product of Christs death but hath Faith and Justification intervening John 1.12 To them that received him he gave this priviledge to be the sonnes of God to them that believed on his Name Gal. 3.26 27. Ye are all the Sons of God by faith in Jesus Christ Tit. 3.7 That being Justified by his grace ye might be made heirs c. And I am sure glory and immortality follows all these except we will have the inheritance go before the heirship and right to it
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.
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
give to this or that muchless to all he dyed for effectually to believe in him and to be saved not a word to that purpose So that that piece of doctrine viz. That for whom Christ dyed them he procured faith for is none of those Scripture-truths that will scatter the supposed clouds and mists Nor yet follows it that the whole impetration of Redemption is made unprofitable For 1. God hath ingaged himself so to glorifie his Son that some shall be brought in though he no were say All he dyed for nor that I know of any particular persons so as that this or that individuall must or else he should be unjust 2. He shall have much glory from his good bounteous and merciful dispensations to men through the Death of Christ that yet he compels not to believe on Christ Matt. 22.2 3 4 5. with Rom. 11.36 yea in the just and righteous condemnation of those that sin'd against that mercy and refused to submit to him For that condition upon which he supposes we will say Christ is to bestow salvation viz. so they do not refuse or resist the means of grace It s a mistake we know no such imposition put upon him for men may receive the means and yet rebel against the grace it self that comes in them have a form and deny the power of godliness and for that perish Though that all Pagans and infidels are left destitute of all means leading them to seek after God or that any that have no outward means from Christ nor ever resist Gods workings in them shall be condemned as Mr. Owen would perswade us I leave for him to prove Christ says to the Jews that if he had not come and spoken to them they had not had sin and for ought I know If Christ neither come in Word Joh. 15.22 nor in any spiritual way as he preached to the old world by his Spirit if any such he can finde they may not have sin charged on them to condemnation and destruction Yet if Mr. Owen can shew me otherwise I will believe it For making Christ but a half Mediator its frivolous yet we shall speak to it lib. 3. c. 3. where it occurs again That Christ did not dye for any on condition of their believing I believe nor that he dyed only for the Elect of God that they should believe nor finde I any Scripture calling any man while yet in and of the world an Elect person He dyed for All that being Lord of them and presenting his light to them according to the good pleasure of the Father whosoever believes might not perish but have eternal life And here ends this Second Book and my Answers to it The Third Book His third Book contains Arguments grounded for the most part upon his former premises against the universality of the Death of Christ we shall Favente Deo orderly view them CHAP. I. An answer to his two first Arguments contained in his first Chapter of this Book The first Chapter contains two Arguments Argu. 1 As FRom the nature of the Covenant of Grace established ratified and confirmed in and by the Death of Christ His Argument runs thus The effects of the death of Christ cannot be extended beyond the compass of the new Covenant or Christ died only for those that are within the New Covenant But this Covenant was not made universally with all but particularly onely with some Therefore those alone were intended in the benefits of the death of Christ A very vitious Argument whereof the Conclusion contains a quartus terminus for in stead of any effects the tearm propounded in the Major He says the benefits therein as is clear by what follows in him comprehending the choice benefits of the death of Christ applied The Major also is ambiguous and uncertain For either it is universal as No effect of the death of Christ c. or else particular as Some do not c. If the latter its impertinent and concludes not against the death of Christ for All but onely its having some effects in All which is besides the thing in question if the former as I suppose he intends it then I deny it I deny I say that Christ died for none or that none have any effect of his death extended to them but onely such as with whom the New Testament is made He brings no other proof for it which he perhaps therefore lisped in because he saw himself weak in the proof of it but onely from that title given to his blood that it s called The blood of the New Testament So that his Argument to prove that runs thus It s called the blood of the New Testament Therefore shed onely for them that are heirs of the New Testament Which is like this The Spirit is called the Spirit of Comfort and the Comforter Therefore whoever it works upon it comforts them and so when it convinces the world of sin it s their comforter too and when it kindles the fire of Tophet Isai 30.33 it comforts them that are tormented with it A wilde Argument and yet such is his The truth is As its an office of the Spirit to comfort and he is a Comforter to all that obey him so is it an office of the blood of Christ or rather one end of its shedding to ratifie the new Covenant which it also doth to all that believe in it But as that is not all the work or business of the Spirit to comfort so neither was that all the work or end of the blood of Christ to establish the new Covenant but first of all to ransom from the death that was passed upon men and then to confirm a Covenant to the house of Israel and Judah This blood where ever it s tendered the Covenant is tendred with it Hear and your souls shall live and I will make an everlasting Covenant with you the sure mercies of David and he that obeys this is entred into Covenant by it but not All for whom it was shed are in Covenant by its shedding no more then all for whom the water of Purification was made were therefore purified because it was made for them and called the water of Purification Numb 19 9.20 Mr. Owen also mistakes the parties with whom the Covenant is made For he understands them to be a certain number of persons yet lying in the world and that its one clause of the Covenant to give them faith or make them to believe whereas indeed especially as pertaining to the Gentiles the proper object with whom the Covenant is made is the called of God believers in Christ Jesus into those mens hearts God will put his fear not to bring them to him but to keep them from departing from him which argues their being brought to him before these shall have the Law written in their hearts an allusion to the old Testament written in Tables of Stone not before they were brought out of Egypt but after they
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
are not sanctified and purified by it because they believe not and that 's the reason why his death hath not such effects in them not that Christ died not for them therefore he undertakes to prove That Faith it self is a proper immediate fruit and procurement of the death of Christ for all those for whom he died Quod si perficiat fiet mihi magnus Apollo But I fear it for we see great undertakings hitherto but little performances Parturientes montes erepentes verò mures Before he come to perform his promise He premises some things which we must grant him and shall as far as truth appears in them He premises 1. That what ever is freely bestowed upon us in and through Christ that is wholy the procurement and merit of the death of Christ But how proves he this why he saith but his sayings are no proofs that nothing is bestowed through him on those that are his which he hath not purchased the price whereby he made his purchase being his blood If this saying were as firm as Scripture and somewhat firmer yet it would not reach his Assertion for he limits it to those that are his now by those that are his is sometime meant his peculiarly owned by him as his so Rom. 8.9 And so I conceive Mr. Owen means it and then he denies not here but that something granted to others not yet so his that yet have not his Spirit in them though through him may not be his purchase But because his words are no proof and as to the main matter it s but Idem per idem a repetition of his first saying Let us carry it to his Scripture proofs which are 1. 1 Cor. 6. I suppose he means ver 19 20. Your bodies are the Temple of the holy Ghost which is in you which ye have of God and ye are not your own for you are bought with a price Here is mention made of buying them with a price but no mention made of his buying the holy Ghost and their glorifying of God and yet the holy Ghost was a gift freely given them through Christ much less of all things given them freely in him so that that proof reaches not But then he adds out of Isai 53. That the Covenant made between his Father and him of making out all spiritual blessings to them that were given him was expresly founded on this condition that He should make his soul an offering for Sin But in viewing the place I finde no such expressions It appears but a tradition that that is a Covenant made between the Father and Christ For it s not the Fathers speech to Christ or Christs to Him but the Prophets of Christ to the Father or of both Father or Son When thou shalt make his soul or when his soul shall make an offering for sin he shall see a seed he shall prolong his days and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand He says not My pleasure as speaking in the person of the Father Nor doth he say because his soul shall put a guilt-offering or make an offering for sin therefore he shall see a seed c. But if his soul shall be so or when it is so then that shall follow Much less saith he that there was before that a people given him that should for that have all spiritual blessings made out to them Indeed in the twelfth verse there is a promise and that grounded upon his intercession and sufferings but then the contents of it are not all good things to be given to men but a glorious portion to be given to Christ So that he is deficient here too in his proofs And yet I will tell him how I will grant him this though he prove it not viz. that we had had none of those things had not Christ suffered I speak according to what is revealed for secret things appertain not to us He opened the way and passage for all good things to come unto us by removing the sin that did obstruct and hinder us of them The earth and we all in it were dissolved he bare up the pillars of it and in him all things now stand together I know not whether M. Owen will except or will also include Election and Predestination to Sonship for they are said also to be in and by Christ Ephes 1.4 5. I shall leave that to his consideration but if by procuring and meriting he means that he ingaged God and procured his good will that such things should be bestowed on us especially if by us he mean as he must all that he died for so as that what ever God bestows on any by Christ he bestows it out of debt to Christ and should be unjust to him should he bestow less on or deal any otherwise with any particular in point of favour then he doth that I cannot but question till I see it better proved 2. He propounds That faith in men of understanding is of such absolute indispensible necessity to salvation that what ever God or Christ hath done in his oblation and intercession for all or some without this in us is in regard of the event to us of no value worth or profit but serveth onely to increase and aggravate condemnation it being certainly true That he that believes not shall be damned all which I conceive true and what may be granted him with those limitations specified of men of understanding in regard of the event to us especially where the Gospel is plainly preached that being evidently the meaning of our Saviour in that last clause viz that the Gospel being preached by them He that believeth not the Gospel so preached and thereby in himself shall be damned and yet I deny not but both in former times and other cases he that by the light afforded was or is not prevailed with to believe on God and seek after him and glorifie him as power was or is vouchsafed thereto shall be condemned also But what infers he hence It follows So that if there be in our selves a power of believing and the act of it proceed from that power then certainly it is in our power to make the Love of God and death of Christ effectual towards us or not To that I say that no man doth at any time believe but he hath power to believe first in himself and in that power he acteth for the act of believing being an intrinsecal act of the soul the power in which the souls acts in it must needs be inward too but I suppose he means so in our selves as to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of our selves too but so I say not that we have power in our selves as meerly natural without Grace preventing and inabling us And yet were it so it would not follow that then it s in our power to make Christs Death effectual to our selves but as its the preventing assisting Grace of God that impowers the soul to believe So the soul
acting in that power it still remains in Gods Power onely to give it the promised efficacy the soul in believing onely puts it self into such a posture as in which it becomes the object of Gods Promise to make the death of Christ effectual to it As suppose I promise an alms to a poor man if he will come to my house for it though it be in his power to â—ome yet it s not in his power to make my promise effectual that appertains to me and is onely in my power still From this that 's said his following conclusion viz. That this being the absolute necessity of faith the cause of that must needs be the prime and principal cause of salvation as being the cause of that without which the whole would not be and by which the whole is and is effectual nothing harms us we making God the prime Cause our faith and the Will be its freedom what it will but instumental and no instrumental subordinate cause as the Will of man however considered must needs be the whole man and his Will being the Workmanship of God though a causa sine quâ non per quam totum can be said to be the prime cause As to instance that in Acts 27.31 Except the Shipmen abide in the ship the passengers could not have been preserved Their abiding in the ship was a cause of their preservation such a one as without which they could not have been preserved and upon which they were preserved and yet I hope no man will be so graceless as to conclude that they or the souldiers that caused them to stay were the prime and principal cause of their preservation So a poor mans asking an alms may be a cause of his receiving an alms and yet when anothers bounty propounding an alms to him upon that condition incourageth him to ask and gives him when he asks though his Will be never so free in asking yet it cannot be looked upon as the prime cause of his receiving So that this premise too as it tends to conclude the act of the Will from the former premises to be the principal cause of our salvation though specious is but fallacious and erronius 3. After both these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as one that forgot what he undertook to prove instead of performing his task He puts it to our option to chuse whether we will answer directly and Categorically whether Christ by his Death and Intercession merited and procured faith for us or no. To this I say as before that except Christ had died for us there had neither been a fit object for us sinners to believe on nor an instrument fit to beget it by nor a power to work with that instrument to inable us thereunto So that in that sense he did by his death procure it for us that is removed that which hindred us from having any of those yet there too that he obliged God to give Vs individually faith that is to make us act faith in that object according to the power given us in the medium or instrument so as that if God had not given Vs that in our individual persons he must have dealt injuriously with Christ that I leave for him to prove In the Interim That he obliged him to give it to All he dyed for that is to cause them All to believe unto life eternall I Categorically deny and expect his proof of it before which he seems to me to contradict his first premise while he denies That the granting a way of salvation by bringing life and immortality to light by the Gospel in Christ which passage he ascribes to T. More p. 35. was procured for us by Christ To say nothing that I finde no such passage in the place pointed to why may we not say this way was procured for us by Christ Did not he procure the bringing life and immortality to light by the Gospel Sure then not all benefits bestowed upon us for that is one and none of the least which the Apostle also ascribes to him in 2 Tim. 2.10 and then neither did he procure faith for us for he that procures a thing must procure all requisites to the working of that thing or else he doth not procure that thing Now if he procure not the bringing life and immortality to light then he procured not that we should have that by which faith is effected for that 's it that begets faith the appearing of light and immortality in the Gospel faith I say according to the present plainness of the Gospel and so he hath overthrown the thing he fights for Ah but it s a strange Contradictory Assertion that he should procure a way to life in himself But why so because he is the chiefest part of this way and sure procured not himself by his own Death c. But by that reason he procured few things freely bestowed on us in and by Christ for then neither did he procure us Wisdom Righteousness Holiness nor Redemption for all these he is called himself as much as he is called the Way See 1 Cor. 1.30 then he procured not our peace for he is our peace Ephes 2.14 He procured not our life for he is our life Col 3.4 But is it such a strange thing to say such a man got or procured himself to be made protector to such a people or to have the favor of admitting to or keeping out any from the Kings ear by such and such services and carriages Surely no And why then is it so to say that Christ procured himself to be the Way to life for sinners by suffering for them Was he the way to life to us without his sufferings and death I suppose not and if not then he obtained that power and title by his sufferings Heb. 5.9 through that way he became our way to life by sufferings he was perfected and so became the Author of salvation eternall to all that obey him And is this such a strange Assertion Sure I cannot but think it a just hand of God upon men as is prophesied Zech. 11.13 Isa 29.9 10 13 14. Jer. 8.8 9. that because they slight Gods Word the plain testimonies of Scripture God smites their eye that they cannot see reason But to return to our purpose I deny I say that Christ procured that is ingaged or obliged God that all should be brought to believe on him for whom he dyed though we deny not that he opened a passage for the grace of God to display and glorifie it self so that He presents himself to men as good and powerful an object meet to be looked to and stayed on as in John 5.8 9 10 11. especially in the Gospel as now published since the Appearance of Christ in the Flesh which presentation of himself to men as good grations powerful c. is the medium and instrument for begetting faith according to the degree and measure of the Revelation as Rahab believed to
to free Grace but leaves it still as free to some as if the Death of Christ obliged him to bestow such grace upon them Grace bestowed without an obligation to it is as free as grace bestowed upon obligation Nor set we up the power of Free will to the sleighting or undervaluing of Free-grace For we say that its grace that gives men that freedom to good they have and its mens abusing the freedom given by grace and turning grace into wantonness and not improving it but receiving it in vain that brings destruction upon many Therefore we exhort men so to magnifie grace as to believe and receive it and that not in vain and fault men because they will abuse the liberty that God gives them of his goodness and grace chusing their own ways and not his refusing to come to Christ c. And I think in such language the Scripture speaketh Nor do we 4. Contradict the received doctrine of our natural depravedness and inability to good We say that what power men have to good they have it in and by Gods striving with them light manifested in them and grace preventing them and that otherwise they are wholly unable to any thing that is good Nor say we 5. That a natural faculty is able to produce of it self without some spiritual elevation an act purely spiritual no more then the blinde mans natural act of washing was able to produce a supernatural gift of sight to him and so neither are we guilty of contradicting right reason Nor 2. Must we resolve almost the sole cause of our salvation ultimately into our selves as being able to make all that God and Christ do to that end effectuall or ineffectuall This we have before disproved And here say again That we leave it in the Power and Will of God to use what means he pleases to any man and how long and compell whom he will to come in and believe And yet it follows not that either Christ obliged God to do it to this and that man or much less to All for whom he died the thing he should have proved which he further endeavors after these premises by the following Arguments viz. Argu. 1 The death of Jesus Christ purchased holiness and sanctification for us as was proved at large Argument 8. But faith is a part of our sanctification and holiness Ergo he procured faith for us If this Argument should be wholly granted yet his Assertion goes unproved viz. That he hath purchased faith for All for whom he died The word Vs being applicative may be diversly expounded as Vs that are of this Nation Vs that are of this minde Vs that believe c. and so its ambiguous But if by Vs he means All for whom he died then the Major with the eight Argument brought to uphold it is already disproved Beside the Minor is questionable whether Faith be a part of our sanctification VVe are sanctified by Faith its true that 's the instrument that receives it but that no more proves it a part thereof then that the Israelites were healed by looking to the brazen Serpent proves their looking to it a part of their healing The Church Ephes 5.26.27 as a Church are a people called and believing and them he is to sanctifie and will sanctifie but that rather proves Sanctification a consequent of Faith then Faith a part of that sanctification All the fruits of Election are purchased by Christ Argu. 2 But Faith is a fruit of Election c. The Major is proof-less and deficient too for it should have been general as to the object of his Death thus All the fruits of Election were purchased by Christ for All he died for or it concludes not if he mean it so then I deny it as he takes the word purchase and desire his proof for it Nor yet is the Minor without exception Luke 8.17 For faith is scarce a fruit of Election in all that believe except such as believe for a time were elected for a time too His proofs as they reach not that so neither are they all pertinent to what he brings them In Eph. 1.4 the Vs is the Saints and faithful ver 1. if not of a narrower signification as distinct from the persons spoken to as the 12 13. verses seem to import as first speaking of their own experiences and priviledges and then of theirs At furthest the Text extends it but to Saints and faithful in Christ blest with all spiritual blessings in heavenly things in him And so it shews that it was according to the eternal purpose and counsel of God that men in Christ should be holy in him and that in chusing Christ before the world was they also were by consequent chosen He chose not either in Adam or in the Law or in mens selves but in * See further about this place in the Epistle to the Reader Christ a holy people for himself which holiness is a consequent of mens faith and being in Christ as was said before and as is proved 1. Cor. 1.30 I question too whether Rom. 8.29 says that unbelievers as so eyed was the object of predestination and not men fore-known as future believers to which in time they are called So that though that Scripture in a manner couples them yet it says not Faith at least in all that believe is the fruit of Predestination or Election Much more is that in 1 Cor. 4.7 impertinent to that it s brought for for as Beza also expounds it and as any man that seriously mindes the Apostles duft in the three foregoing Chapters and in the verse before may see the Apostle is not speaking of men differenced from the world by believing in comparison with the world but of believers differing from one another in gifts and crying up one above another according to that difference or lifting up themselves for that one above another Nor is the difference he speaks of in the act of believing as if one had believed and another not as if he had said Who made thee to receive but in the matter of their receits who had all received something What hast thou that thou hast not received The meaning is Believers are not to lift up themselves or one another one above another for their gifts in that one hath more or better gifts then another and so not to fault and disown them that have less and dote on them that have more But they may fault and disown them that believe not and commend them that do and they have good warrant so to do which they might not if the want of Faith in men was because there was none for them A company of poor beggers receiving alms some six pence some a shilling have no cause to brag one over another and fault one another when the gift was free to each and not out of desert to any more then other yet they may fault other beggers and glory over them that were slothful
place urged by him speak of Faith they being believers that were spoken of in that Speech as the Suppositum in it And how it should be meant when he says My Dinner is prepared and all things are ready come ye to the Wedding That the peoples coming was one of the dishes prepared I know not or that God hath put faith into Christ for us Yet suppose it mean that through him God hath blessed us with faith which I grant he hath such as do believe yet how either he obliged God to bless such particulars so or much more all that he died for I am sure no man can shew me from that proof So that Jesus is the Author and Finisher of our faith the beginning and the end of what we believe for or as the word is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the prime Captain and Perfecter of our faith or * The word Faith there signifies rather the profession or matter of Faith believed then the act of Faith in us the way of our faith and so greater then any of the cloud of witnesses I believe and so I desire to eye and look to him also yea as him without whose sufferings I could neither have had object of faith for me nor VVord or Spirit to inable me to it and as he that is the prime leader in it and finisher of it bringing about to me the whole end of it the salvation of my soul But yet that therefore he so obliged God to make men look to him as that had God passed me by and fastened upon some other he should have been unjust to him or that he hath procured that All he died for shall be brought to believe to eternal life that place shews not And now to review his whole Argument it runs thus If the fruit and effect procured by the death of Christ absolutely not depending on any condition in man to be fulfilled be not common to All then did not Christ die for All. But the supposal is true as is seen in the Grace of Faith which was procured by the death of Christ to be absolutely bestowed on them for whom he died is but yet not common to All Therefore Christ died not for All. The whole Syllogism is in clouds for either Proposition being indefinite may admit of truth or falshood as they may be interpreted If the Major be universal thus That if no fruit or effect procured or wrought absolutely by the death of Christ for All for whom he died be common to All then he died not for All Then it s granted but then the Minor is too scanty for it should be universal too taking in the whole Medius terminus or else the Argument concludes not negatively If the Major be not so universal then we deny the Consequence For we suppose Christ might procure some things not for All as the grace of Apostleship for Paul and that 's not common to all the Church yet it follows not from that that he died not for all the Church Again The terms for whom he died are equivocal for its either to be interpreted All for whom he died had the grace of Faith procured for them to be absolutely bestowed on them or not If not then it comes not up to the intent of the Major nor takes in the whole middle Term of it as it ought to run If so we have seen no proof for it and therefore to say no more that the whole Minor remains unproved the main thing opposed by him yet stands firm viz. That Christ died for All. Having done with this long labyrinthed Argument Argu. 9 he comes to a new one Thus. Those onely are spiritually redeemed by Christ who were typed out by the people of Israel in their carnal typical Redemption But by the people of the Jews in their deliverance out of Egypt bringing into Canaan with all their Ordinances and Institutions onely the Church of God the Elect were typed out which he sayes was proved before but I never yet saw it proved from the beginning of the Book hitherto and I am confident never shall Ergo c. Truly this is a very sorry Argument and I had thought such a man as Mr. Owen would not have mentioned such a one but sure he so much over-reasoned himself in the former that he forgat himself here For first to the Major He hath no proof for it at all and this reason may be given to deny it that he can no where prove that that was a type of Christs dying for us meerly But out of courtesie we will grant it him and fall upon his Minor in which he both adds a Quartus terminus in mentioning the bringing them into Canaan and all their Ordinances c. not mentioned in the Major and in saying Onely the Elect and Church of God was typed out by them saith falsely and so it s denied by me upon these grounds 1 The beasts were all brought out to a hoof of which some were clean and some were unclean for Sacrifice were all these types of the Elect and Church onely 2. The Murmurers and Rebels that fell in the Wilderness were brought out of Egypt were they also types of the Elect Sure then if Canaan be a type of heaven and heavenly Rest and Egypt a type of the Kingdom of Death and Darkness then it will follow That few of the Elect scarce two of six hundred thousand shall enter into Rest and that many that Christ died for and ransomed from death and misery through unbelief shal never come into heavenly glory Was not Corah and his company some of that people that was redeemed out of Egypt Sure they were See Numb 16. and yet the Apostle tells us they were types of them that perish for rebellion against Christ Jude 11. Were they think you the Elect of God And so the Apostle propounds those Murmurers and Fornicators and Idolators amongst them as types of them that now murmure against Christ and commit Fornication and Idolatry against him 1 Cor. 10.5 11. So that this Argument is notoriously erroneous Let us turn it thus rather All that were typed out in the Redemption from Egypt are ransomed spiritually by Jesus Christ But all men good and bad were typed out by them Ergo All so ransomed To make good the Minor for the Major is Mr. Owens own The clean beasts typified those of the Gentiles that are fit for sacrifices to God being sanctified by the holy Ghost Rom. 15.16 The unclean those that remain in unbelief and so are not fit to be so offered up Tit. 1.16 Likewise the good and faithful people and such as were chosen into Office types of the Elect and faithful in Christ Jesus 1 Pet. 2.5 And the Murmurers Complainers and Unbelievers types of the disobedient to and backsliders from Christ Therefore all such people though they come not all to heaven yet Christ gave himself a ransom for them But enough to this most incongruous Argument
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
me you have sinned against my blood and troden me under foot and therefore it now requires vengeance on you Mark by the way that it s not said Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods Elect because Christ dyed for them but God justifies them who is he that condemns them Not who shal condemn them but who is he that is in comparison of God that justifies them that here reproaches and condemns them It s Christ that dyed one who hath infinite favor with God dyed for them being enemies and shall not such a one being now at his right hand prevaile for more strength for God to uphold them they being his choise ones men in him and believers on him then is in all their adversaries to overthrow them But as for those that neglect his salvation he saith How shall they escape Heb. 2 3. not how shall they but be owned and protected in their way by him His next Scripture-proof is Matth. 11.25 26. Scrip. 3. Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent c. thence he gathers That from whom the Lord in his Soveraignty hides the Gospel either in regard of its outward preaching or inward revelation in their hearts Them Christ dyed not for But our Saviour here affirms there are such c. Both these propositions I deny The first for he reveales it not to children dying in infancy by the outward preaching yet we dare believe they are not all heirs of hell and he may justly hide the inward revelation from those that stop their ears against or attend not to the outward preaching and yet Christ might dy for them to ransome them from the Death that they were adjudged to in Adam that so he might further glorify the Father in his dispensations towards them and dispose of them Besides he hath not one patch of Scripture to attest that proposition Again I deny the minor for Christ saith not there that those wise and prudent men never heard of the Gospel in its power The words are not I thank thee that thou hast hid the Gospel from them much less that thou will never reveal it to them But These things which may be understood they way of his Judgments of which he had been speaking ver 20.24 and also how mens names are writ in Heaven Luk. 10 13-20.21 In Matth. 13.11 It s the Mysteries of the Kingdom Secreta abdita the things only to be shewed to those that are Scholars to Christ as there are certain mysteries in trades that are for none but those that are bound prentices to know and he there gives a reason in ver 15. they had closed their eyes against the powerfull convincements of the Gospel they refused to turn at Christs reproofs and therefore he would not pour out his Spirit Prov. 1.22 23 24. These things he hath hid from the wise and prudent and revealed to babes by babes he means men humbled and emptyed of themselves like infants that knowing nothing are docible and dispute not against what is taught them but believe it though they comprehend not what is in it attending till growing up to perfecter capacity they be able to comprehend the truth of it By wise and prudent men he means them that being strong-parted men of reason and learning do think by reason to finde out truth or to be the measure of truth propounded able to judge of what is said to them and therefore believe not upon the bare authority of the Master as Children and babes do but measuring what God says by their reason and prudence judge many things to be cross to reason and absurd and so receive them not Now these men while they thus lift up their wisdom and think to comprehend truth in a way of reason they finde fault with truth overlook despise and condemn it and so come not to see into the mysterious things of it which God hath put out of that way of reason in which they think to finde it But men that think not themselves wise but are willing to learn of to be taught of God and his word and therefore dare not but own and receive his sayings and cry to him for light about them they finde wisdom and to them he shews one thing after another even the mysteries of the kingdom Prov. 2.2 6. thence the necessity of mens becoming humble as little children and that they that are wise in this world become fools that is deny their own reason and wisdom not leaning to it as it objects against and findes absurdities in the truth of God that they may be made wise Now though God doth this according to his meere good will yet he doth it also as a just judgment upon some for exalting their reason against Gods word as in Isa 29.13 15. and also to abase flesh that he that glories may glory in God and that men might be instructed to deny themselves and cease from their own and other mens wisdome becoming as babes in a simple belief of Gods sayings so should they understand what now by the just will of God is hidden from them I might apply it by way of Caution to these very men who exercise not babe-like simplicity in giving credit to Gods word but exalt and lift up their own understanding they are sick about questions 1 Tim. 6.3 4. as the manner of unbelief is and say with Nicodemus How can these things be To what purposeshould Christ dy for All seeing all are not saved and many hear not of it c. who have the truth and usefulness of it hidden from them God having not ordained that men should know it by reason and wisdom but by faith and supplication Thence that in Isa 9.9 If ye will not believe ye shall not understand and that in Jam. 1.19 Be swift to hear slow to speak be more ready to hear what God says then to exercise thy reason in objecting against God Yet I will not say that Christ dyed not for these men that being prudent and full of humane wisdome and exalting that above faith have the things they dispute against hidden from them that would be found as too harsh so too unjust a censure Some of these wise and prudent from whom these things are hidden may become babes and then have them revealed to them Again we may apply that saying to the mysteries of Christ revealed to weak despised men to be published by them and not to the Scribes and Pharisees and wise men that so the glory of God might not be obscured by their Wisdom as if that found out or helped forward the propagating of the Gospel but even those things though revealed to poor weak simple men were not to be concealed by them but to be divulged to the wise and prudent also for their conversion or just confusion if they when revealed would not accept or yield up to them for what he told them secretly in the ear they were bidden to
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
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
end propounded to and attainable by the world on condition of believing as healing was to the wounded Israelites by looking upon the brazen Serpent unto which Christ is resembled ver 14 15. Christ so sets Gods good will before the world there as may let it see and move it to believing as its duty But as M. Owen would have it understood we may say VVhat He would fasten upon us Solvite mortales curas c. Let every man take his own course and swim down the stream of a fatal necessity If there be any salvation to be had for him he must have it God will bring him to it though he look not after it and if it be otherwise it s in vain to think of it it s not so much his fault as Gods Wil that he believs not as a late Resolver hath too badly insinuated While he determins that there is no other cause why some believe not the Gospel preached to them but only the Wil of God himself As for his Reason viz. because this is the most eminent and transcendent love of God c. That would be considered how far its true and whether it will insorce his conception quite beside the tenor of our Saviours expressions Love may be considered either according to the things it acts forth as tending to the good of the party loved or according to the inward strength of affection as affording us means of good or possessing us of that good In regard of the first this wasa most glorious eminent and transcendent act of Love God afforded many means of good to the world but none of them in themselves so worthy and so glorious as his Son nor is there any thing in which either so much of Gods heart or good will to the world is to be seen that he delights not in their death but rather in their conversion and living or so much good to be met with as in him In nothing hath God condescended more to man or provided so much good for him As to its act then and provision of means to our good this is the most eminent act of his Love to us But yet this act of giving Christ is but the provision of good for us and of the best mean and way to it It s not the possessing us of the good in him with reference to that some that were loved so as to have Christ given as a way to life for them may not be the objects of so intense affection as others for whom he also gave Christ nor come to experiment that love of Delight or Fellowship in which his Love in giving Christ perfects it self in them that believe on him This act then I say of love to the world in which God gave forth Christ though it be the most eminent and transcendent in regard of his provision of a mean to its good and though it be that through which the most choise delightful acts of his Love are met with by those that believe on him yet as its comprehensive of the world is not an absolute purpose of all their salvation The same most eminent expression of Love may be acted toward many and out of exceeding great good will to them All too and yet may not be with the like intensness and eminency of affection and purpose for endevouring to make it beneficial to All as we noted above in the instance of David lib. 3. cap. 9. In a word Gods greatest love to the world was not an unchangeable absolute purpose of saving every one of them and therefore the giving Christ out of love to the world was not a giving him out of such a purpose to save every one of them The phrase So God loved will not evince it For though that word So intimates so exeeedingly so really and heartily to such a remarkable astonishable heighth yet it proves not either that he loved it equally to his Son or so as to purpose absolutely the eternal salvation of all of them For our Saviour expressing that So tells us that it was so as to give his Son That every one that believes in him should not perish c. but not so as to give all things to it as he says of his Son v. 35. which yet is the same love in which he loves his chosen his called and believing ones Joh. 17.24 Nor says he so as to cause them to believe in him and have eternal life So that that word So will not prove that his conception It s true as he also minds us That the Scripture says God commended his Love to us in this That Christ died for us though that 's not all the commendation of it but that he did that for us while we were sinners and ungodly And I think its a marvellous commendation of his Love that he died for All while sinners and they are the more to blame that withhold this so great commendation from multitudes by which they should be induced to believe in him love and serve him But will that prove that that Love was not his compassion and pity towards men that is therein commended or that it was an unchangeable purpose of making all those he so loved to answer his love with love again and so to attain to eternal salvation Cannot Love be commendable exceeding commendable except it be so received by all it acts towards as to make them grateful and so to attain the effects that it produces to the grateful Was not Gods Love to Israel in bringing them out of Egypt by a mighty hand and outstretched arm and taking them out of the midst of another Nation by signs and wonders to be a people for himself and speaking to them out of the midst of the fire from heaven an exceeding commendable love a love flowing from and most eminently of any other acts tending to the accomplishment of his Covenant made with Abraham Deut. 4.31 32 33 c. and yet all they to and upon whom all those most glorious acts of his love were acted were not therefore possessed of that end The land promised to Abraham to which they tended nor was his love therein then a purpose absolutely to possess them of that end except as Mr. Owen here argues he failed of his end The greater commendation it is of Gods Love that he gave Christ the greater ingagement it is to the world to believe on him love and serve him and the greater its sin that it not so answer such a love to them and the greater will his terror be in judging them that Christ died for All and yet many that had their lives through his Death lived not to him 2 Cor. 5.10 11.15 for God is a jealous God and may be provoked to jealousie by men and what is jealousie but love inraged or the fury that springs up from love abused as when he that loves hath his love slighted and others prefer'd before him Sure the Apostle uses this very love and its greatness
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
their souls in particular whereby they become weary heavy laden and burdened 4. A serious full recumbency and resting the soul upon Christ in the promise of the Gospel as an Alsufficient Saviour able to deliver and save to the utmost them that come to God by him Ready able and willing through the preciousness of his blood and sufficiency of his ransom to save every soul that shall freely give up themselves to him for that end amongst whom he is resolved to be one Now says he in doing all this there is none called on by the Gospel once to inquire after the purpose and intention of God concerning the particular object of the death of Christ every one being fully assured that his Death shall be profitable to them that believe in him and obey him but after all this and not before it lies upon a believer to assure his soul of the good will and eternal love of God to him to send his Son to dye for him in particular I might here return him his own words with admiration Oh what a preposterous course is this and how differing from the right way of the Gospel 1. I would know what is that Gospel that men in the first place are to believe to be true Is it onely that Jesus Christ is the power and wisdom of God to salvation and the connexion of faith and salvation That we have shewed before to be untrue The Word of God it self tells us that the Gospel used to tell men of Christs being sent of God to turn them in particular from their sins and to lay down that as the ground of Repentance and believing on him 1 Tim. 2 4.6 And the Apostlesays expresly that that wâs the Testimony or Gospel that God ordained and sent him to preach ver 7. Acts 3.26 And that God would have all to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth for there is one God and one Mediator between God and man the Man Christ Jesus who gave himself a ransom for All and can a man believe that to be true and not believe that he gave himself a ranson for him Is he no body So that what he says in this first step overthrows him But 2. See the preposterousness of these men that that the Apostle writ about the High-Priesthood of Christ to the believers as peculiarly useful for them to lead them up to perfection in their faith and confidence viz. That Christ hath the office of an unchangeable Priesthood is able to save to the utmost all that come to God by him because he ever liveth to make intercession for them that is here produced as the ground to draw in unbelievers though the intercession there mentioned is not affirmed there for any as while yet unbelievers and on the other hand that which the Apostle tells us was the Testimony whereof God had made him a Minister an Apostle to preach to the Gentiles that were ignorant of God as that before repeated that is not to be preached as true for any ones particular and as so to be believed by him till they are made believers Who would think that wise men should go so preposterous a way but that its the judgement of God for their leaning to their own wisdom and no more then is fore-prophesied that God will destroy the wisdom of the wise c. 3. He impertinently mixes the object of faith with the operations of that object attended to and believed as conviction by the Spirit of their need of a Redeemer and recumbency in him with the truths of God that lead to that convincement and reliance on him The Argument is about the object of faith needful to be believed by all that hear the Gospel that they may believe to justification And he tells us of an order in the operations of God upon mens spirits before they believe as they should do And yet he minds not that the convincement of the great sin of unbelief is not kindly effected till men see they have ground of believing and yet believe not till when the heart rather thinks it is sin and presumption to believe But when it sees that Christ hath done so much for it then it must needs be convinced that it sins greatly in not betrusting it self wholly to him 4. He confounds the object of faith about the Mediation of Christ and the object of his Death with the secret Purpose and Counsel of God about our particular right to and injoyment of eternal salvation 5. He talks of rolling the soul upon Christ in a Promise whenas he cannot prove that any can have him in a Promise to be rolled on further then he is supposed first to have dyed for him the Promises being sealed in his blood and the way of closing with them is believing in his blood which how should men do whâ—le its wholly doubtful to them whether they have any thing to do with his blood or nor Indeed 6. He supposes that a soul is brought to believe in God and to trust in his mercie through Christ before it know of any love in God toward it whereas he uses to draw with the cords of love and testimonies of his goodness It s goodness seen in him leads us to repentance It s not only a letting sinners see a need of a Saviour that there is one able to save them that go to God by him that will suffice to draw in a man that yet cannot see him as a way for him to go to God by as he is not for any otherwise then he hath died for them Heb. 10.19 20. to rowl himself upon God for salvation Never yet could any sinner that indeed was convinced to be so and to be under wrath and that saw Gods Justice and Anger against him hope in and expect help from God by Christ not being first perswaded that Christ had done so much for him that he might have salvation through him Many men may delude themselves and take their own self-actings for acts of Grace as the Pharisee did Luke 18.10 11. and from their endeavors and self reformations seem to commit themselves to God and conclude themselves to be believers that yet never knew what it is rightly to believe The true Gospel-believers believe through Grace 2 Cor. 6.1 as they Acts 18.27 That is by the grace and goodwill of God declared to them in the Gospel The grace of God appearing to them teaches them to live godlily and saves them from their former disobedient condition Tit. 2.11 12. and 3.4 5. They do no per 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Pharisee argue Gods grace towards them by their frames towards him that God loved them first because they as they conceive love him but on the contrary they therefore love him because he first loved them and sent his Son for them Believing Gods Testimony of what Christ hath done for them they are helped through the power of God to believe
in him and cast themselves upon God for further saving So the Apostles were led Rom. 5.10 and not from believing on him to argue that Christ died for them So that this notwithstanding that Mr. Owen hath said I yet stand to my former Argument and shall not need to put it into the following frame in his Book into which he puts it By this that is already said Concl. 1. his following Conclusions appear clearly to be some of them untrue some impertinent viz. 1. That all called by the Word in what state or condition soever they continue are not bound to believe that Christ died for them by name but such as are so and so qualified Answ To which I oppose and have shewed That All called by the Word in that state in which they are when called and as it s required of them to believe the Gospel and to believe in Christ for salvation are therein also necessarily required to believe that God appointed Christ to be a Mediator for them and that he hath died for them and so is a fit medium for them to come unto God and to believe in him by 2. That the Precept of believing with fiduciary confidence that Christ dyed for him Concl. 2. is not proposed nor is not obligatory to all that is called nor the not performance of it any otherwise a sin but as it is in the root and habit of unbelief and not turning unto God for mercy To that I answer Answ That the Precept of believing with fiduciary confidence is proposed to all that are called by the word according to the Gospel yea this M.O. granted before inasmuch as it is justifying Faith and so its obligatory to them all And to that end as it thereto necessarily conduceth to believe that Christ dyed for them the not believing which is a giving God the lye it being contained in the record given of his Son which contrary to his fift and sixt Conclusions is too that there is one Mediator between God and men who gave himself a ransom for all men and not onely that he that hath him hath life but also first that God hath given us eternall life and that life is in his Son See that expresly affirmed to be part of the Record of God which the unbeliever makes God a lyer in not believing 1 Joh. 5.10 11 12. And whether Mr. Owen hath dealt faithfully or fraudulently with the Word of God in leaving out the first part of that Record as once before he left out God hath given us eternal life running into that fault which more groundlesly he called the trick of the old Serpent in T. M. and put the name of an Impostor upon him for I leave it to the Reader to judge As for his 3. That no Reprobate for whom Christ died not Concl. 3 shall be condemned for not believing that Christ died for him It shall be granted him when he hath proved what he here begs viz. That there is any such Reprobate for whom as faln in Adam Christ never died His 4. That the command of believing in Christ given to All Concl. 4 is not in that particular obligatory unto any but upon the fulfilling the condition thereto required is sufficiently spoken to It with all conditions or necessary conducements thereto are required of all those to whom the Word is preached Amongst which necessaries the believing Christs Death to be for them we have shewed to be one Therefore I shall say no more here to it but view what he says to a second Argument viz. That Doctrine that fils the mind of men with fears and scruples whether they ought to believe or no Argu. 2 when God cals them to it cannot be agreeable to the Gospell But such is the Doctrine of the Particularity of Redemption c. To which he tels us 1. That doubts and scruples may either rise from a doctrine it self in its own nature giving cause thereto to those who perform their duty rightly or from corruption and unbelief setting up it self against the truth of Christ I answer It 's corruption and unbelief setting up it self against the truth of Christ in the Gospell that makes men hold forth the Particularity of Christs Death as being undergone only for the Elect and the Doctrine it self gives occasions and causes of scruple to men in this that men seeing their sinfulness and looking upon God but according to what this doctrine presents of him to them they are wholly uncertain whether the Mediator was sent for them or not and so whether God be an object of faith fit for them 2. He tels us that obiection supposeth That a man is bound to believe that Jesus Christ dyed by the appointment of God for him in particular before he believe in Christ Jesus and that men that are of that perswasion of the restraint of the Death of Christ to the Elect may scruple whether they ought to believe or not which he says is to involve our selves into a plain contradiction for according to Scripture for a man to be perswaded that Christ dyed for him in particular is the highest improvement of faith including a sense of the spirituall love of God shed abroad into our hearts the top of the Apostles consolation Rom. 8.34 and the bottome of his joyfull assurance Gal. 2.20 so that we require that a man do believe before he do believe and suppose that he cannot believe and shall exceedingly fear whether he ought to do so except he believe before he believe To this I answer That for a man to be perswaded that Christ dyed for him is no where made the highest improvement of faith but only that faith by the belief of this hath been improved and so may be to highest pitches the soul that perceives see and mindes the love of God therethrough commended so as to be drawn to God thereby abiding therein may grow up to great assurance therein and find matter of exceeding great nourishment unto eternall life But it follows not that because from that believers have sprung up to such assurance of eternall life as in the greatest tryals and temptations to trust in him for it and make their boast of God which is the highest improvement of faith That the bare believing that Christ dyed for them is the faith of full assurance Some of the Israelites from beholding the great power and goodness of God to them in delivering them out of Egypt and bringing them over the red Sea c. were led to follow God with a full heart and to be silled with a full perswasion that they should be brought into Canaan and possess it but it followed not thence that the belief or knowledge that God so delivered them was the faith of full assurance of entering into Canaan by all that knew that they were thence delivered So Paul was lead with confidence to trust in God for future deliverance by this that he had delivered him and yet it s
not ever true that he that believes that God delivered him from one danger is confident he will from another much less That that belief in all that so believe yea or in any is the confidence that he will deliver from another 2. Whereas he askes if it include not a sense of the spirituall love of Christ I answer That where the Death and Resurrection of Christ are opened to the heart by the Holy Ghost there the love of God is shed abroad into the heart also but not wherever this proposition is believed viz. Christ dyed for me many a man believes that and yet seeth not into the glory of it nor the depth of goodness held forth in it and so hath not the love of God therethrough shed into his heart yet the minding God in this is the way to meet with the holy Ghosts displaying that love Many Israelites believed that God brought them out of Egypt 2 Pet. 1.9 that had not such a view of his power and love therein or at least like them that forget that they were purged from their old sins forgat what they had seen as to be lead to confidence in God for the future by it 3. Whereas he says By this a man must believe before he believe What strange thing is that with reference to diverse acts of believing did not he himself say that we must have a faith of reliance and recumbence in Christ and before that too believe many truths of the Gospell before we can believe that Christ dyed for us so that there is believing before believing and believing before believing again and yet he counts that absurd in us when we say only we must believe the word of God to be true before we can by it be led to believe in God we must believe Gods goodwill to us-ward and a medium provided for us by whom to go to God before we can be perswaded to go to him by faith whom otherwise we look upon as angry and dreadfull ready to consume us We cannot put our confidence in his blood and there through rise up to assurance of eternall life except we first be perswaded that he shed his blood for us So long as we doubt whether he be a Mediator for us or no and whether he hath given himself to ransome us from death we shall doubt whether God will accept us or no or whether he hare us from eternity or not and whether we have any thing to do to take incouragement from the blood of Christ to approach him because we know not we have any right unto it Nor can Master Owen nor all the world beside to help him make it appear to be otherwise but that the soul will question whether it may expect salvation from God or betrust it self with God so long as it knows not but he hates it and Christ hath never done any thing with him for it 3. He denies That a perswasion that it was Gods will that Christ should dy for him in particular neither is nor can be necessary that a sinner be drawn to believe because other grounds will do it without The consequence of this is that many things were spoken unnecessarily by the Apostles Act. 3.26 as when Peter says Christ was sent to turn every one of them from their iniquities And Paul that the grace of God reconciling the world 2 Cor. 5.19 20. 6.1 was to them Corinthians to perswade them to be reconciled That he preached to the Corinths in the first place that Christ dyed for our sins 1 Cor. 15.2 3. And so all those generall phrases that include mens particulars But let us see what other grounds he gives viz. That it is the duty of sinners as such to believe Math. 11.28 Isa 55.1 To believe in what in the blood of Christ as Rom. 3.25 Then it supposes it shed for them all and so it s a truth according to the Gospell-declaration but denying the extent of his Death how can he make it out that sinners as such * A quatenus ad omne valet consequentia which reaches to All sinners ought to believe in Christ What have sinners if not Elect to do with Christ besides he had said before they must be sinners so and so convinced and qualified before they are to be called upon to believe in Christ And I fear he will upon second thoughts say that those Scriptures hold forth that sinners not as such but as so qualified with thirsting after Christ and being weary c. are there required to believe but many a soul is hereby put upon doubting whether it be Elected or so convinced and thirsty c. as is required and so whether God be not an enemy to it from eternity and so whether it hath cause of trusting in him 2. The command of God John 3.23 That shews it to be its duty if it could be proved to extend to it for that says That we believe in his name and a soul may more justly doubt whether that We reach to it seeing they that deny the extent of Christs Death and teach it to doubt of it use such applicatives as We to oppose an Universality and to signify but the Elect and Church c. This therefore yet leaves the soul to doubt whether it may hope in him for salvation especially being told that these things God sends to men indefinitely that the Elect onely might be brought to him he hath no goodwill to any other and that its Elect it knows not commands to believe while men are taught to doubt whether the object to be believed in as such pertains to them can give no more security from doubting then the building with one hand and pulling down with another secures the building from falling 3. The threats against unbelief That indeed doth as much as the threat for not keeping the Law fils the soul with terror on every side while it hears that God commands more to believe then have cause so to do and threatens them for not believing and yet gives them nothing to induce them to it no evidence of his goodwill to them to draw them to believe this may fill them with hard thoughts of God representing him to them like one that bids another eat or else he will kill him but yet gives him no meat to feed on no evidence of his goodness that may induce him to hope and trust in him 4. The alsufficiency of the blood of Christ to save all believers This may make the soul say O how happy are they that do believe and that have his blood to drink for its able to save them but as for me I know not whether it belong to me or not or whether one drop of it was shed for me and so how I can lean upon it I hear it s not sufficient to save any that it was not shed for not for want of inward worth in it but because it s not for them and I may
be one of them for ought I know 4.5 The promise of life upon believing and the assured salvation of all believers without exception These two are of the same nature with the former only the soul hath this to except It s not every believer for many fall away in time of temptation having no root in them as my faith cannot have if I know not that Christ dyed for me and so grow not upon Gods love therein evidenced to me The soul cannot so believe as to love God and so but with a dead faith unless it believe his love first It may see all its endeavors to believe and to rest on God to be but fleshly strivings out of self principles and at the best it argues Gods love but from its own believing which it may justly question the heart being deceitfull and he a fool that trusts for it for evidencing his condition This is but a promise and an assurance of thriving to all that eat duely of a meat which it knows not whether it may or can duely eat or not for to eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ and so to believe on them is when the soul beholding the love of God and Christ in his Death and sacrifice commended to it doth gather boldness and incouragement to love and cast it self upon God and so grows up into the full assurance of peculiar love to him even to eternall life without the knowledge of love to the soul first it can but at highest come to this It may be I am one that God loves and perhaps not well I will leave thinking about it and tyring my self with thoughts if I can and let it alone I must submit when all is done to be disposed to Heaven or Hell by him which indeed is a condition most sit and needfull for the Gospell to be preached to but is far from faith in God which works by Love and is justifying These things The call to believe the command threatning promise c. are good evidences that the ransome is given and accepted for All and there is good provision in Christ for them God never using to call men to any ordinance that he appointed not for them and coming with this they may incourage thee to believe on and love him that gave his Son for thee to believe on And this implyed by them is that declaration that good tidings to sinners that indeed draws them into believe through the spirits working in them or else if they turn their backs upon it renders them throughly guilty when they shall say in their hearts O what did God for me and what cause had I to believe and to have stayed upon him but I refused it As the Israelites in Egypt were indeed sinners for not believing when God had done so much for them to ingage them to it His conclusion then under this head is false viz. That those are enough to remove all doubts and fears much less which I would rather urge against it are they sufficient to incourage and imbolden the heart and frame it to believe but more especially is that false that follows in him viz. That those are All that the Scripture holds out to that purpose It holds out others as we have noted from Acts 3.26 13 37. 1 Tim. 2.4 5 6. but of this he can take no notice they are nothing for his purpose I could give him back here some of his own expressions as that in pag. 283. That if pride and error had not taken too much possession of mens minds they could not so far deny what they reade in plain texts of Scripture as if they had never seen them to maintain their corrupt and false opinions But he answers further 4. That that perswasion which asserts the certainty of the Death of Christ to All believers and 2. That affirms the command of God and call of Christ to be infallibly declarative of that duty which is required of the person commanded and called which if it be performed will be assuredly acceptable to God 3. That holds out purchased free grace to all distressed burthened consciences whatsoever and 4. Discovers a fountain of blood alsufficient to purge all the sin of every man in the World that will use the appointed means for coming unto it that doctrine cannot possibly be the canse of any doubt or scruple in the hearts of convinced burthened sinners whether they ought to believe or no. I answer that this is in a manner the same with the former and there answered I will adde this touching the second particular that its ambiguous whether by the person called he mean by man in the preaching of the Gospell or by God effectually for many are of that mind that God cals not nor holds forth Gospell to all that the Ministers declare it to but only to the Elect if he be of that mind too it s not so undoubtedly true to the hearer as he would make it that God requires what the Minister doth because they may be divided the command and call may be intended only to some that the hearer knows not whether he be one of or not though the Preacher out of ignorance direct it to all and this may beget much doubting in the hearer whether its Gods voice to or him no. Again he supposeth more in this Doctrine he pleads for in two last particulars then is in it as that it holds forth purchased free grace to all distressed burthened consciences there are many among the Heathen have their consciences accusing them yea sometimes like furies burthening them there are many that profess Christ conscious of heinous sins and are ready to despaire and make away themselves for them there are many burthened that they can no more walk up to the righteousness and labor to stablish righteousness to themselves and cannot be setled Will Master Owen say that their doctrine holds forth purchased free grace to all these that I deny for it says he purchased free grace only for the Elect and that all such are Elected I suppose he will be put to it to prove seeing many such go on in their sins notwithstanding their burthens and many seek to put them off and sometimes do stifle them by worldly imployments and vanities and many actually despair and make away themselves If he say he means not such the matter is where it was the distressed conscience may yet doubt and is apt so to do whether it may not be one of those in the issue As for that in the fourth that there is an alsufficiency in the blood of Christ for all that will use the appointed means c. I will not stand to tell him though I might that his speech here is like one of them that in us he uses to tax with-holding Free-will which seeing he declaims against I hope he will be so charitable as to allow us the like liberty of speaking without fastening upon us that Odium But I say
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
's common to good and bad doth good to many being the power of God to salvation to them that believe The Death of Christ yea and the patience of God that 's common to all is effectuall for good to salvation to many and shall be to any that are led to repentance by it * The grace of God that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to all men saving teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live godlily righteously and soberly c. 1 it 2.11 12. He askes further If they be not the two properties of the grace of God that it be Discriminating and effectuall He should have proved rather then have moved questions only We say it is both effectuall in all that receive it rightly and Discriminates them both in priviledge and disposition from all those that reject it and so doth this that 's extended in Christ to All men Besides the grace of God in the Death of Christ discriminates men from fallen Angels its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If he say all they for whom it is and to whom it is extended in any degree are made to receive it effectually to life eternall we waite for his proof for it but surely Paul intimates otherwise 2 Cor. 6.1 These that follow are slanders viz. That we make the bestowing of Faith no part of free grace or at least leave room to free-will to have the best share in the work of salvation even of believing it self which is as untrue or more then that Naaman had the best share in the work of his healing because he washed in the river Jordan or the blind man Joh 9. in his receiving his eye-sight because he went at Christs bidding to the pool of Siloam and washed there would that be good Doctrine that Because upon the doing those triviall things God gave them healing therefore not God and Christ but themselves were to have the greatest share in the glory of it Apage has impietates calumniosissimas of which nature is that too that follows That this Assertion brings Roprobates to be the object of free grace and denies the free grace of God to the Elect makes it Vniversall to all but ineffectuall to the Elect all to have a share in it and none to be saved by it which are all as gross untruths against us as he could have invented But then he askes In what point their Doctrine makes it not free grace I answer in that ye debar the greatest numbers of any liberty and possibility of coming to partake of it ye make it not free to or for all but bound it up to some few We know in some regard ye make it free that is in point of any merit of it in them to whom yee say it is but not free for any to come to and hope in as pertaining to them nay for none so without much fored one by them to evidence that it belongeth to them but he says He cals not that grace that goes to hell No sure nor we neither nor is that goodness or patience that goes to hell or Gospell that goes to hell but I hope we may say they that having free grace extended and held forth to them not receiving it or receiving it in vain or turning it into wantonness may go to Hell as well as they that abuse Gods goodness patience Gospell and yet none of these things abused go to hell So Psal 139 8. Jonas 2.3 except in a sense to the disordered dismall conditions of men to bring them from the nethermost hell in that sense as David sometime speaketh Psal 86.13 6.3 I can but wonder that wise men should be so infatuated as to think there is any weight in such their sorry expressions but for not inlarging it to all he says Is it in their power to enlarge it No Sir not further then it is but it s in your power surely to let it alone to have its own bounds that God hath given it and so to speak largelyer of it then you do We know he will have mercy on whom he will have mercy in point of more abundant striving with men and compelling them and in receiving whom he pleases even the worst of sinners coming to him and hardens and gives over whom he will and we know too by the same authority that he is good to all and free for all to look to would have all to be saved and come to know the truth delights not in the Death of the wicked but rather that he should turn and live and that Christ hath given himself a ransome for all Le ts not have the Faith of our Lord Jesus Christ neither with respect of persons nor of places of Scripture either let us believe all or reject all He says further Should he throw the childrens bread to Dogs Nor Sir nor yet be wiser and holier then God to shun his words out of pretense of service to him nor call that common that God hath cleansed esteem any as Dogs but such as turn again and bite against the favours shewed them and are scorners of the mercies tendred them or deceitfull workers that bark against Gods truths and are ready to bite too if power be given them otherwise take heed that you deny not free grace to ungodly and sinners under opinion that they are Dogs to whom mercy is not to be tendred He saith further that they believe that the grace of God works faith in all to whom its extended Yes I believe that they are readier to believe their own conceptions for which they have no Scripture proof yea against diverse intimations of Scripture then the plain Scripture-expressions For the New Covenant here again mentioned by him I have before expressed my self about it I believe righter then that he can disprove it What follows are generally revilings of the truth of God despising the grace extended to All as not worthy mens thanking God for it a grace that doth no good a sigment of our own making c. only he tels us he will pray for us that we may have infinitely more of his love then is contained in effectual Vniversal Grace and indeavor to keep people from being seduced by us For the first We tell him it s his unbelief of it makes it seeme ineffectual to him Tit. 2.11 12. 3.4 5. but to such as believe it we we find it effectual both towards God and others and prove it an open doore and way for our approaching to him for those more especiall things that all through unbelief receive not For the second I pray God shew him and his companions in doctrine how much they stand in peoples light to hinder them from seeing that goodness by which they should be saved But what need he indeavor to keep me from being seduced Seeing he thinks it impossible for any that Christ dyed for to be seduced and all the rest must perish to to what end
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.
Gods Presence with the Israelites in the Cloud was ground of exceeding comfort to those of them that believed and yet it was common to them with the rest and to them that believed not hastened their destruction He bids men 3. consider by their own experience But who speaks he to here and whose experience will he take in this matter Them of his own minde they believe it not and therefore cannot experiment its good If them that believe it they will many of them say That they have met with great consolation by it and have been brought through it to believe and walk both holily and hopefully with God Yea some in their agonies upon death-bed have met with great comfort in it and dyed trinmphantly But of these things Mr. Owen is no competent Judge he being no believer of it Verily they have been carried above all other those considerations that reason suggests from others perishing Christs Death notwithstanding knowing that what ever befalls others it s for their folly and unbelief Heb. 4.2 1 Cor. 10.1 2 3 4.5.11 of which they see this Doctrine gave no cause nor gives any but for faith to them No more then the consideration of Gods like dealing with our fathers in giving to them the Gospel and like Gospel-Ordinances in a sort as to us and yet their perishing for their unbelief lusting and abusing them is an argument to discourage the Churches that have them now from believing Men being led through the sight of Gods Grace in the Death of Christ to trust in him they fear not wrath but rejoyce in mercy and in the hope of the glory to be revealed upon them They see that in it for them that contrary to his reasonings drawes them to believe whatever others do that listen more to their reasons then to God in it Caleb saw enough in Gods Presence to comfort them against discouragements from the strongest of enemies notwithstanding that yea with never the less confidence because many amongst whom he walked were for not trusting in it consumed by it But he says A soul may object Oh but Christ is not a propitiation for all sins To which we can tell him yes except that sin against the holy Ghost He hath so far obtained redemption for all other that he can forgive them yea will that his goodness and fulness of redemption prevailing with them to submit to him And in waiting on him in his Gospel we can tell them too that he will quicken them powerfully bring them out of their prison doors take them in c. In hearing they shall live So that all that objection is but frothy 2. To the second That the extending Christs Death cuts the nerves of all firm consolation to believers which we have already disproved he indeavors further to demonstrate thus 1. Because it divides the impretration and application Answ It conjoyns them both as to believers the parties spoken of most firmly We declare that whatever Christ hath impetrated that 's specially good he hath impetrated it to be conferred upon the believers and sealed the Covenant made with them for ever So that his after-reasoning there is vain and indeed he leaves it as pertaining to the believer the thing propounded and applies the case to an unbelieving sinner 2. He says We divide the Oblation and Intercession and that makes against the believers consolation Answ This is vain too for we say both these pertain to the believer He ever lives to make intercession for those that come to God by him Sure Mr. Owen hath been a prevaricator and did it so exactly that he hath not forgot to do it yet These two Considerations might rather make against unbelievers continuing such concerning whom we say That Christ makes not so special Intercession as for others And that to them that fulness in Christ shall not be applied or communicated But this is beside the business Amphoram instituit urceus exit We affirm and strongly maintain them both as to believers to which we also apply those two places cited by him viz. Rom. 8. â—2 33 34 and 1 Joh. 2.2 And yet in both places I conceive he strengthens their consolation from considering the general as I have before noted If he gave his Son up for us All how shall he not with him give us us the Elect of God the Called according to purpose all things Is he so good to all how specially good to us then that are made his friends and children But we deny that those further things as there spoken of at least are attributable to all that Christ died for one and other but onely to believers 3. He says Our denying the procurement of Faith Grace Holiness the whole intendment of the New Coverant cuts the nerves of believers consolation We deny not that he obliged his Father upon his Covenant to glorifie him and bring in people to him according to his own good will But suppose we wholly denied it what is this against the consolation of believers that have faith already given them we granting and firmly holding it that he is to wash sanctifie lead guide them by his Spirit and intercede for them for their perseverance unto glory and to mediate for them the performance of the new Covenant Such sorry mistakes I sometime hear out of Pulpits in which men meerly mistake themselves and slander us His Queries are all impertinent and to no purpose his Conclusions untrue and against the comfort that this Doctrine affordeth 3. In the third place he endeavours to shew that their Doctrine hinders not the consolation of Believers To that I say That he dyed for Believers hinders not their consolation that know themselves to be Believers but that that he dyed for such onely doth them no good it being contrary to the Scriptures and taking from them that Gospel that they should preach to others and also that motive that should lead them out to Charity toward All and to exhort them to prize and live to Christ they not knowing to whom these things appertain or not knowing at least the Gospel-ground for them I say also that it hinders men that yet believe not from seeing that Christ dyed for them and so from believing in him He says Many experiment the contrary To which I say but this That I have not yet met with any that I could perceive to be such or to prove themselves such by the limiting of the Death of Christ Indeed God may sometimes doth work by indefinite propositions as That he dyed for sinners for the unjust ungodly c. these sayings being his own and the subjects of them in themselves being of equavalent extent with Universals so that though they do not actually lead out their conceptions and thoughts to the Universall extent yet indeed virtually they do while the Soul is drawn in by considering his Death as propounded to or affirmed of men as under such a condition as is universall For his