be had An open Door is the necessities and willingness of the People with protection or connivance of the Magistrate if possible 3. In Ordination God in Christ confers the whole Office as principal and supream by his Word And the Person or Persons ordaining confer the whole Office as instrumental and subordinate Therefore it is not in the power of Men to ordain whom and how they please because they ordain not as Lords but as Stewards they have no power touching this matter but what is simply ministerial subordinate and dependent If therefore God's Word for substance do not go along with the Ordination it is null and void and the same holds good as to Suspending Degrading Silencing and Prohibiting of Ministers from doing the Ministerial Work. Every Minister to be ordained ought to be a faithful Man and able to teach others also 2 Tim. 2.1 For which cause those unto whom it pertaineth to ordain and impose Hands ought to use all possible Care and Circumspection and to lay Hands suddenly on none without due Exploration He may be a valid and justly authorized Minister who is not truly Godly And yet he that is not truly godly can have no sound Comfort in his Ministry as being in a state of Damnation his Ministry may profit others tho not himself But yet all Care is to be used that Persons to be ordained be truly godly so far as Man can judg and that also they be able to teach the People and by good Doctrine guide Souls in the way to Heaven 4. No Power on Earth may impose a Minister upon a People against their just liking For what is against Justice is against God. And no People may refuse a Minister tho unjustly imposed on them when they cannot without general inconvenience and hazard of the publick Peace remedy themselves For of two Evils the lesser is to be chosen Provided the imposed Minister be Orthodox and not Heretiâ—â—â— tolerable and competently able for the Work in some measure But Heretical Schismatical Idolatrous and Wolvish Pastors and Ministers the People are bound to forsake and turn from Where Ministers Residence is necessary by Divine Law there no Law of Man can dispense with it Where it is not necessary by Divine Law there needs no Human Dispensation and the exacting of Money in such case is unrighteous Gain The principal Work of Ministers and the substance of so much Church-order and Discipline as is incumbent on them as Ministers to perform and see to consists in labouring in the Word and Doctrine in preaching the Gospel in giving heed to Doctrine to Exhortation to Reproof to Admonition and Instruction publickly privately in season out of season Where this is not the substance of the Ministerial Work and Discipline is wanting Where this is all the rest will easily follow so much as is necessary and what is not necessary is better forborn 5. The Church is no Church of God unless she have just respect to time and place for publick Worship and she is equally no Church before God if she prefer time and place and bare assembling for publick Worship before Christian Faith Hope and Love and Edification therein As the Sabbath so Time and Place were made for Man and not Man for them And therefore the Church is to meet in one two or three or more places at the same time according as it shall be for Edification And look as it is a good Argument for Infant Baptism the Primitive Patern is baptizing whole Housholds and therefore in baptizing Infants we keep to the Primitive Patern Infants being a necessary part of Housholds So I should think it a good Argument against the Congregationalists The Primitive Patern was that all the Christians in a City be one Church particular and therefore if now every Christian City be one particular Church tho the Christians in it are so many as to make a hundred or two hundred Congregations at the fame time the Primitive Patern is kept Act. 14.23 Tit. 1.5 It is not the place which make the Church but the Church makes the place Every Christian Nation as such is a Church governed invisibly by God through Christian Faith according to the Scripture and governed visibly by the Prince as sole Supream under God over all in his Dominions by the Sword. Tho God do make use of Pastors and Ministers in the guiding and governing of his Church yet he himself is sole Lord over the Couscience and only his Voice is to be heard in the Church and Pastors and Ministers have no Authority but what is Temporal and yet it differs in kind from the Authority of the Prince and Magistrate The Church Militant consists of Mortal Men and Mortal Men can have no Authority Immortal and Eternal Pastors die no less than Princes CHAP. XVIII Of Death Judgment Heaven and Hell everlastingly 1. IF Sin had not been Death had not been and yet Death unto Elect Men through Faith in Christ is rather Life than Death as being through God's Grace the way and passage to Life Everlasting They die who die eternally But they who by Death pass into eternal Joy immediately in respect of their Souls and whose Bodies rest and as it were sleep in the Grave till the Morning of the Resurrection and then shall awake and be raised glorious immortal spiritual like the glorious Body of Christ may be said rather to live than die 2. The Resurrection of the wicked is truly from the Merit and purchase of Christ and specially the Resurrection of the Just The Resurrection as in it self is a Priviledg and Blessing That it proves otherwise to the Wicked is from themselves not from Christ As in Adam all die so in Christ shall all be made alive 1 Cor. 15.22 3. As Heaven is it into which Christ ascended when he left this World so it is a proper place created and made by God distinct from Earth and Hell. As Heaven means the Saints everlasting Rest prepared for them from before the Foundation of the World so it is not a place but a state of Felicity and Joy above both Time and Place and all that Man's Heart can now conceive yet not repugnant and contrary to Time and Place For it is God himself as enjoyed in eternal Blessedness Hence it follows that the Spuls of the Godly by Death do all of them pass into eternal Happiness immediately For eternal Happiness not being a place but a state and the Godly by Death passing into Eternity there can be no imaginable instant in which they are not with God in eternal Felicity Only they do innocently long for the Resurrection and rejoyce in the sure hope thereof Psal 16.9 10.11 With respect to the Eye of Sense outwardly the Triumphant State of Christ began not till he rose from the Dead and it was compleated by his Ascension and fitting at the Right-hand of God in Glory With respect to the Eye of Faith inwardly his Triumphant State began
immediately after his Death and while his Body hung dead upon the Cross his Soul was with God in Triumphant Joy. In Memory of Christ's Resurrection we rightly observe the Lord's-Day as a Day appointed by God for solemn Religious Worship both publickly and privately The fourth Commandment considered as repugnant to Life eternal by Faith in Christ is meer Judaical Righteousness damnable Impiety and no Command of God But considered as subservient to Life eternal by Faith in Christ so it was typical of Christ's Rest in the Grave and as typical by his Resurrection it was to cease and have an end and in the room of it comes the Lord's Day as the joyful Day on which our Lord rose from the Dead and â—â—th begotten us unto a lively Hope 1 Pet. 1.3 4. Thus the fourth Commandment by Faith in Christ is not abolished but established Rom. 3.31 4. At the Day of Judgment there shall be a perfect opening of all the Good that was in the Wicked and of all the Sin that was in the Righteous not for the Shame and Terrour of the Righteous nor for the Honour and Comfort of the Wicked but that all may have according to their Deeds and it may appear to all that God did not like and approve Sin in his own and that he did not condemn and drinke what was good and commendable in the Wicked that so the Righteous may for 〈◊〉 rejoice in God's Praises and the Mouths of the Wicked may for ever 〈◊〉 This perfect opening shall be by Conscience as God's 〈…〉 in each ones Bosom 5. Eternal Felicity considered as 〈…〉 of no Degrees Thus all both Saints and Angels in 〈…〉 and all in Hell be equally miserable For greater 〈…〉 thâ—n Eternal there cannot possibly be Eternal 〈…〉 admitteth of Degrees For God as he is the Righteous 〈…〉 the World cannot but by Conscience as his Agent in the 〈…〉 and Men eternally difference as between the Righteous and the 〈◊〉 and between the more Wicked and the less Wicked so also between the more and the less abundant in the Love and Service of God and 〈…〉 according to their Deeds Thus the Manhood of Christ hath a 〈…〉 of Glory than the Angels and the Angels who never linned than the Saints and eminent Saints such as Prophets Apostles and Martyrs thâ—n ordinary and common Saints Thus there is perfect Unity and perfect Diversity sweetest Harmony and sweetest Variety no one hath cause to complain no one hath cause to boast he that hath least hath no lack and he that hath most hath nothing over God is All in All and Eternity is All in All. Set aside Eternity and Heaven and Hell Holiness and Sin Angels and Men are meer Dreams and Notions God may do with his own what be pleases but he cannot deny himself and overthrow his own Name Kingdom and Glory And therefore he can in no instant annihilate or eternally torment a holy Man For so to do is not Power but Impotency not Dominion but Tyranny and the abuse of it God's Dominion is by his Will and not against it his Will is essentially and yet freely holy just and good But it is repugnant to infinite Holiness Justice and Goodness to annihilate or eternally to toâ—â—ent a Holy Man. CHAP. XIX Of the Way of Peace 1. TWo Things as I conceive do greatly conduce to Unity and Peace among Christians touching Religion A clear explication of Gospel-Truth and forbearing one another in Love. The former I have endeavoured in the foregoing Chapters and among Persons truly consciencious a clear explication of the Truth is in effect the whole Cure. The latter it is not in my Power to procure Yet this one thing well weighed may do much towards it that Persons eminently Godly may ignorantly hold an Opinion in it self heretical and against the Foundation of Faith and yet not hold it heretically and so as do the Ungodly The reason is because Heavenly and Fundamental Truth is not by way of Syllogism and Human Argumentation Major Minor and Conclusion common to us and Heathens but by way of Holy Likeness to God through Christian Faith which Heathens have not He then who holds one Divine Truth with Holy Belief is thereby free not from all Errour but from all reigning Errour No Errour is safe and yet no meer Man since the Fall of Adam is wholly free from all Errour and every Godly Man is in a safe State not because of his Errour but because Heavenly Truth and not Errour reigns in him 2. The Apostles for some time were in an Errour touching the Nature of Christ's Kingdom which Errour as in it self considered did by consequence overthrow the Kingdom of Christ and yet as it was in them it was no reigning Errour Acts 1.6 The Apostle Peter was in an Errour touching the difference between Jew and Gentile which Errour considered nakedly as in it self was destructive of true Godliness because it did by consequence infer God to be partial unrighteous and a respecter of Persons And yet Peter in this instant was eminently godly Act. 10.34 35. There is no such thing in God as Major and Minor Premises and Conclusion Antecedent and Consequent because all in God is God And therefore there can be no such thing in the Image of God For as all in God is God so all in the Image of God is the Image of God. Therefore no Man is to be counted an Heretick and damnably Erroneous barely because he holds an Opinion in it self Heretical and by Consequence against the Foundation of Faith all the while he doth sincerely hate and detest and disown the Consecouence of his Errour not discerning that it is justly deducible from it There is great difference between ignorantly holding an Errour and bowing to an Idol or worshipping a false God. 3. If Christian Princes and Supream Civil Rulers in their several Dominions would according to their Duty and as becomes nursing Fathers to the Church see with their own Eyes and upon hearing the Arguments and Allegations on both sides wisely and impartially discern between what is plainly contained in God's Word and what is not but is only School-Sophistry and vain Philosophy corrupting Men's Minds from the simplicity that is in Christ and serving only to create Strife and to make plain things obscure and would enjoin all sides to insist upon and unite in plain and wholsome Truth evident by its own intrinsick Light to the Conscience of each Godly Man through Faith and either to cut off and forbear all further Disputes or manage them in Love and in the Spirit of Meekness we should soon see an End of Controversies concerning Religion In the mean time it concerns us all to get and keep well grounded Certainty through Faith of our own Salvation and earnestly to contend for this Faith. This Certainty is by way of special Revelation For all Divine Revelation since Adam's Fall is either Principal and Special or Subservient and Common Special and
Men specially of them that believe 1 Tim. 4.10 3. Christ considered as God hath no Office but is above Office yet not contrary to it Christ considered as Man hath indeed an Office and but one From his Conception to his Birth thence to his Death Burial and Resurrection thence to his Ascension and Sitting at God's right Hand in Glory thence to his coming to judg the World all this is but one entire office of Christ as Man admitting of just Conception but no Division His Office as Man is to be subservient to himself as God in the work of Redemption this one comprizeth all 4. Christ as Man obedient unto Death is our Pattern and Example a real Martyr and the Prince of Martyrs he discharged his own Debt and Duty and not ours and evangelically merited for himself not for us all that Glory and Reward which as Man he hath for ever at God's right Hand Christ considered as God incarnate is not our Pattern nor a Martyr but infinitely above us he is our Lord and our God our Saviour and Redeemer our Ransom and Atonement for Sin through Faith our All in all he merited nothing for himself but all for us Without shedding of Blood is no Remission And therefore Christ as Man died for Sins yet not his own but ours not as deserving his Death but as deserving our Death and he as Man in obedience to God and out of love to us died for us one Man for all Men as fallen in Adam and so became a Propitiation and Counterprize for the Sin of the whole World yet not without Faith For he that believeth not makes God a Lyar is condemned already and God's Wrath abideth on him 1 Joh. 5.10 Joh. 3.18 36. The obedience of Christ was not two active and passive but simply one as Christ is one As to Eternity the opposition is not between active and passive but between active and idle passive and being at ease Christ as Man nailed to the Cross and pierced with a Spear was invisibly active for God and our eternal Good and not idle And yet in the fame instant he was visibly passive in great pain and not at ease His Death was indeed the most eminent proof of his obedience to God and love to us But still it was obedience and therefore pleasing to God and truly meritorious because it was so For no suffering of Man as distinct from obedience can please God and profit the Soul and merit heavenly Reward 5. Had God not saved fallen Man at all he had done him no wrong but then he had been conscious to himself of going contrary to his own eternal Purpose For from Eternity God the Son was purposed to permit the Fall of Man to be incamate and as Man to dye for Sin and so to enter into Glory and thus to save fallen Man by Christ through Faith and not otherwise This supposed God could not but save fallen Man this only way and yet he thus saved him most freely and willingly and not as constrained and under Law to a Superior And the true reason why the Incarnation doth not change and compound God is because it is the exact fulfilling of his own eternal Purpose Which Purpose if he had not in time fulfilled then indeed he had been changed and compounded of Yea and Nay and had not been himself Yea and Amen the same for ever 2 Cor. 1.17 18 19 20. Eph. 3.9 10 11. The work of Christ as Mediator is to reconcile Sinners to God. When this is fully done and all Sin is for ever abolished and God and Men are no longer two divided by Sin but one in perfect Love then shall the Mediatorship of Christ cease and have an end as being fully accomplished As when the Wound is perfectly healed there is no further need of Plaisters The change is not in Christ but in us 1 Cor. 15.24 25 26 27 28. CHAP. IV. Of the Nature of God. 1. WE cannot rightly conceive of God without diversity and distinction and we may admit of no diversity and distinction repugnant to infinite Unity and Perfection Unity and Diversity are well consistent but not Unity and Division 1 Cor. 12.4 5 6. God is for ever good to those in Heaven yet just but not severe And he is for ever severe to those in Hell yet just but not good For the opposition is not between Goodness and Justice nor between Severity and Justice but between Goodness and Severity Rom. 11.22 Therefore the divine Goodness as such is not the divine Severity Nor the divine Severity as such the divine Goodness They are most really and not chymerically truly and not feignedly eternally and not temporally divers and distinct and thus all in God is not God. But then what is Goodness to those in Heaven through God's abundant Grace in Christ the same is Severity to those in Hell through their own Sin And what is Severity to those in Hell through their own Sin the same is Goodness to those in Heaven through God's abundant Grace in Christ and thus all in God is God without accident parts and composition and he is truly all in all Not as excluding the Creature and subordinate Causes but the Creature and subordinate Causes as such consist by and depend on God and yet they add nothing to him they do not make him more wise holy just good powerful perfect blessed Of Him through Him and to Him are all things He is simply perfect and unto what is simply perfect there can be no addition God cannot be beholden to us 2. God is a pure Act eternally active and in no instant idle and God being one the divine Act must needs be one Creation Sustentation Gubernation of Angels and Men Incarnation Redemption Regeneration Justification and the like these are neither immanent nor translent Acts of God but Effects produced by God after the Counsel of his own Will which is the same for ever and can have no new Act. The things produced by God are numberless in them is Order Succession Priority and Posteriority dependence of one thing upon another But in God by whom they are unsearchably produced there is no Number no Order no successive Moments and Instants nothing before and after no dependence at all but unsearchable Unity Diversity Eternity Independency Truth Simplicity Goodness Perfection and Excellency above Number Order Time and all that we can conceive yet not repugnant thereto Angels and Men are dependent Beings and not having Blessedness in themselves they go out of themselves by heavenly Self-denial and seek it in God in whose good Will and Pleasure they rest and terminate as their beginning and end their all in all and so they are happy But God being simply independent true and Truth it self cannot deny and go out of himself for any thing that he hath a mind to effect It is but his Omnipotent Word let this or that be and it is when and how he would have it
not then the Infant will outlive the State of Infancy and will live and die ungodly and perish in which Case his Baptism will be an everlasting Witness against him it being supposed that his Conscience was privy to it Baptism is a Seal of the Covenant of Grace which Covenant importeth God's Purpose to give Perseverance and Salvation to all the Regenerate and to Regenerate such and so many as he from Eternity foresees will by his Grace and Free-gift sincerely believe And yet while Unregenerate they are in a State of Damnation As to Life Temporal and Humane Society on Earth ungodly Men have Power over their own Will and Liberty to act or not to act as themselves list and they can if they will refrain from all Sin outwardly and do all Good outwardly and be blameless before Men. But as to Life Eternal and Heavenly Conversation they have no Power they are dead in Sin under the Power of Satan their Power is Impotency Sin hath Dominion over them they are not Lords but Slaves and lorded over by their Lusts and if God shall not prevent them with his Heavenly Grace it is certain that they will never deserve it Therefore the first step to Salvation is holy Despair thereof by all that we of our selves can do without God's eternal Grace in Christ And look what is First in Divinity that same is Last even All in All. CHAP. XIII Of the Lord's Supper 1. LOok as all in God is God without Parts and Composition So all in the Lord's Supper is the Lord's Supper Considered as a Supper so the whole is visible Food for the Belly eaten and drunk with the Mouth outwardly Considered as the Lord's Supper so the whole is invisible Food for the Soul eaten and drunk with the Heart inwardly There may be the Lord's Supper without saving Belief but not without Belief For he that believeth not makes God a Liar and by Consequence the Sacrament a Lie also 1 Joh. 5.10 2. There is no Change at all of the Elements by Consecration but only Religious Use If the Religious Use of Things do necessarily infer a Change in the Things used then God must needs be changed and then he is not God. We use God's Name religiously and God's Name is God Himself as named by this or that Name Jehovah Lord God. I am the Lord that is my Name Isa 42.8 What Change is by Consecration is in the Communicants not at all in the Elements Consecration importeth in all Godly Communicants a real Heavenly Change as to Conversation Conversion from Sin to God they are new Creatures 2 Cor. 5.17 This heavenly Change they evidence exercise and shew forth at the Lord's Table in religious partaking of the Elements in Remembrance of Christ crucified All Change in the Elements by Consecration is simply repugnant to intellectual Sense in all Men and is therefore simply incredible 3. These Words This is my Body as understood without Christian Faith are false and absurd But as understood through Christian Faith they are indeed mysterious yet Superlatively plain true apt and proper The Lord's Supper is truly a Figure as is Baptism 1 Pet. 3.21 yet not a Verbal and Rhetorical Figure common to Us and Heathens but a Divine Celestial and Mysterious Figure instituted by Christ and not understood without Christian Belief which Heathens have not In Points that concern us as Men in common with all the World Christ spake with the Vulgar and so as to be understood of very Heathens But in Points mysterious and Supernatural as is the Doctrine of the Lord's Supper he spake above the Vulgar and so as not to be understood aright without Faith which Heathens have not Ungodly Communicants considered as Ungodly do not eat Christ's Body but inwardly contemn and shut their Hearts against it And thus their partaking doth differ in kind from the inward partaking of the Godly But Ungodly Communicants considered as Communicants do with their Mouth outwardly eat the Bread which is really and not chimerically yet sacramentally and symbolically the Body of Christ no less than do Godly Communicants outwardly And thus their partaking is the same for kind with the partaking of the Godly 1 Cor. 10.1 2 3 4 5. 4. Unto worthy Communicants the Lord's Supper is the Communion of the Lord's Body and Blood the holy Memorial of his Death heavenly Nourishment for the Soul a sure Pledge Seal Sign and Token of Pardon of Sin Perseverance and Life eternal and a Divine Engagement to Watchfulness and holy Fear of Apostacy No Godly Man doth partake unworthily he may partake not so worthily as some do but the least degree of true Godliness doth produce a degree of worthy communicating differing but in measure and degree from the most Godly Communicants Unto unworthy Communicants the Lord's Supper through their own Sin is a Seal of their Damnation if they die without sound Repentance And in the mean time it layeth a Divine Bond and Engagement upon them instantly to repent If their Repentance by God's eternal Decree be future then the Lord's Supper is a Divine Sign and Seal that it is future If their Repentance be not future then they will die in their Sins and perish and will remember with eternal Self-tormenting Anguish in Hell their partaking without Godly Sincerity Those who contend that Men Unregenerate sin less in not coming than in coming to the Lord's Table do yet expresly grant But yet they that do come unworthily and unwarrantably do find that there which tendeth to their Conversion and frequently effecteth it Mr. B. in his Disputations of Right to Sacraments pag. 31 32. And they who contend that the Unregenerate sin less in coming than in not coming do yet hold and contend that the Persons so come must be adult baptized orthodox and not heretical free from enormous Crimes and Scandals before Men. The bare Elements as distinct from the Word can neither convert nor confirm But the Word as distinct from the Elements and giving being to the whole Sacramental Service may through God's Grace prove effectual for sound Conversion of the Unconverted and certainly will be effectual for building up of the Converted 5. The Flesh and Manhood of Christ is under God the prime instrumental Cause of Life eternal to the Godly in all Ages through Faith As such his Flesh is heavenly Meat and his Blood is heavenly Drink and we through Faith do really and not chimerically spiritually and not corporally eat and drink it What is eaten in that it is eaten must be really present For no Man can eat a thing that is absent There is Relation between the Manhood of Christ and the whole intellectual World as between sole Supream under God and Subjects This Relation is real and not imaginary eternal and not temporal From Eternity it was future and it remains to Eternity by the free Pleasure of God. What is eternal is truly infinite above all Predicaments and consequently above Time and Place