answerably may doth speak of them more intelligibly and profitably As when it says The Lord hath set apart for himself the man that is godly Psal 4.3 Such a chusing or setting apart for himself as is there spoken of is and may be profitably propounded as an inducement unto godliness Also when it s said That God for such wilfull refusings of him and his Word Truth and Grace cast off reprobated or gave over such and such men as in Psal 81.9 10 11 14. Jer. 6.16 30. Rom. 1.28 Such a propounding of Reprobation may both be apprehended and good use may be made of it to and by men yet unrenewed to deter them from their obstinacy in evill and warn them to give diligent heed to God lest they should be so dealt with but in such a maner of speaking of and propounding these things I would not be understood there but as under those tearms men understand hidden abstruse acts of the Counsell and Will of God in himself from everlasting In Pag. 21. of the same Epistle there is lapsus memoriae a mistake of Hubberdine for Dr. Buckneham through the defect of my memory I not then having the Martyrology by me In Pag. 74. lin 15 16 17 c. some interlined passages of Mr. Owens Inferences were mistaken and misplaced by the Printer It should have been printed thus All that Christ dyed for 1. He gives that is compels to believe an inference wholly groundless from that Text it speaking of actuall believers and not of faith as a thing yet to be given them 2. All that he dyed for he justifies makes righteous and brings them to glory 3. All he dyed for he makes Intercession for for collating on them all the choise benefits of his death In Pag. 75. Where I say The ascribing an antecedent will Whose fulfilling depends on any free contingent act of ours fals not upon us my meaning is it fals not upon what I said in the beginning of that Chapter about Impretration and Application That that follows viz. But I conceive c. should have been yet I conceive that without injury to God that may be called an Antecedent will which respects some Antecedent condition in us in respect of some will of God respecting us as its proper object in a consequent condition in which I hope the ingenuous Reader will conceive that I speak of the Actings or determinations of Gods will which are called sometime 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and not that I assert that there are in God divers Wills or Principia volendi for that would be all one as to assert divers Gods or divers Essences of the same God What I say in Pag. 58. About Christs meriting his own exaltation in the humane nature is so clear that I hope none will deny it and yet I find that Zanchy was somewhat questioned about it by some in his time the learned Reader may see his defence of himself and his confirmation of the Orthodoxness of that assertion by the Testimony of divers of the Ancient Fathers as Augustine Jerome Ambrose Beda c. in Epist ad Lectorem tractatui de Fide Christianâ five Confessioni suae praefixâ amongst the rest that of Augustine is curt and pithy in Phil. 2.10 Wherefore God hath highly exalted him Humilitas claritatis meritum olaritas humilitireis praemium sed hoc factum est in formâ servi c. And by Humility he merited his glory and his glory was the reward of his humility but this was not in the form of God but in the form of a servant or as he was made man c. Zanchies Assertion that occasioned that defence is thus De Relig. Christ Cap. 11. Apho. 15. Credimus Christum suâ perfectâ obedientiâ non solùm sibi sed etiam nobis vitam aeternam promeruisse c. What I say Pag. 125 to that place in Phil. 1.29 That the phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 should rather be translated As pertaining to Christ is the judgment of divers Learned men as well as mine Zanchi renders it Pro Christi id est In Christi negotio vid. Zanch. in loc Beza In negotio Christo ad verbum in eo quod pro Christo suscipitur alioqui inquit redundaret articulus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bez Annot. in loc Camerarius in loc thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quod attinet ad Christum ea vobis contigit gratia c. In Pag. 173. That of every herb I think upon further conâ—â—deration may be numbered amongst those places which speak 〈◊〉 the species or sorts of things and so the sense is they took the tenth individual of every species of herbs but yet that will make nothing to prove the word All to be taken so in the places in question To the Reader Reader WHosoever thou art quaedam tecum vellem in limine I have a word or two to say to thee before thou goest any further I desire thee to peruse this Treatise throughly for it cannot harm thee but if thou beest not thine own hindrance it may profit thee Though it be hostile its only against that that would hinder thee of good or obstruct those passages by which thou mightest be led out to do good It pleads for God and thy good yea the common good of all that do not wilfully deprive themselves thereof for vanity It pleads for Love to defend and maintain that God loves thee and to let thee see that there is good ground and cause for thy loving him And it s the nature of love to stand enemy to nothing but that that hinders its course and keeps the parties loved from the good it wishes them It pleads for a truth a part of that Doctrine of truth which the Apostle and Teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth both instructed our Fathers in 1 Tim. 2.4 5 6 7. and left upon record for us their posterity namely that God wills that men be saved and come to the knowledg of truth and that evidenced in this that as there is but one God so there is one Mediator between God and men the Man Christ Jesus by whom God dispenses his goodness and makes known his good will to us and by whom we may have access to him and he is ready to accept of and imbrace us He having given himself a Ransome for all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A truth to be testified to men in due or proper or in their own times A truth it is though in these dayes covered over with reproachful tearms of error and heresie and as from the beginning the way of Christ hath been every where ill spoken of and exploded as little better then blasphemy Such force hath Satan Gods and mans adversary in the hearts of many that they love not nor believe that that speaks good of God to them and that which might do them good But marvel not at that good Reader for this beam of truth findes no worse entertainment
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
gives a good answer by his resurrection that is by it as not only acted in Christ but as discovered to us in the word and as its that medium by which we behold Gods goodness toward us Rom. 3.25 and 5.1 And so the bloud of Christ Justifies us by faith in it as by vertue of the satisfaction made by it Christ presents us righteous being brought into him through the faith of it and so for sanctification it 's by his bloud sprinkled on us and through the power of the spirit working powerfully in us That place in Heb. 9.14 quoted by him p. 64. to prove sanctification to be an immediate product of his death is horribly mistake for it speaks not of his Death simply assuffered or his blood as presented by him to God but as sprinkled upon the conscience and therefore it s brought to answer the type of the red heifer Numb 19. which not by its death and oblation immediately sanctified the people but the ashes of it being reserved and after mixed with clean water and sprinkled on the unclean then Sanctified to the purifying of the flesh and not otherwise so also he hath misapplyed 2 Cor. 5.19 in his first chapter p. 2. bringing it to prove Reconciliation accomplished in the Death of Christ When the Apostle speaks but of it in fieri not in facto its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Reconciling to the accomplishment of which in them he exhorts them in ver 20. Be ye reconciled unto God so in pag. 3. he hath to wrong purpose quoted Heb. 9.12 and 1 Pet. 2.24 as speaking of redemption or justification as accomplished upon men when they so far as he quotes them speak but of Christs finding or obtaining it of the father in himself or into his hand nor is it there expressed for whom or for how many he obtained it the words for us being not in the Text. Again he there misquotes Rom. 3.25 rendring it We have all sinned and are justified as if it were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereas it is indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All have sinned being justifyed c. But I pass from these things His drift in all this he afterward in pag. 4. and more plainly chap. 3. lib. 2. discovers to us It s to beat down a spreading perswasion as he calls it of Christs giving himself aransome for all and every one a perswasion which the Teacher of the Gentiles in truth and verity broached in those very expressions 1. Tim. 2.5 6 7. Heb. 2.9 a sad time when men of parts study to oppose his doctrine totidem verbis in the very tearms that he delivered it in But Hic labor hoc opus est To this purpose the aforesaid considerations were laid down to be the foundation and Basis of an argument or two as to that purpose he hath inlarged them also lib. 2 cap. 3. producing more scriptures tending to the same thing to which those above mentioned were produced as That he shall save his people from their sins shall see his seed and carry on the pleasure of the Lord Sanctified himself that they may be Sanctified through the truth gave himself for us that he might deliver us from this present evil world was made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him most or all of which we shall after meet with and speak more particularly to from all which he draws this argument That which the Father and Son intend to accomplish in and towards all those for whom Christ died by his death that is most certainly effected But the Father and Son intended by the Death of Christ to redeem purge sanctifie purifie deliver from Death Satan the curse of the Law to quit of all sin to make righteousness in Christ all those for whom he dyed Therefore He dyed for all and only those in and towards whom all those things recounted are effected and so not for All. This is a main pillar of his edifice let us by Gods assistance assay to shake and evert it And first not to speak to the form how the conclusion should have been inferred for the major if taken in this sense What the Father and Son did intend purpose and wholly take upon themselves absolutely to do by his death that was and shall be thereby effected His determinate purpose shall not fail so it s granted But if by intended we understand what he propoundeth as an end intended in which there may be something suspended in the proposition upon some condition in that way I say what ever is propounded as his intent may not be fulfilled and accomplished in All for whom he dyed But I know he intends it in the former sense and therefore 2. I shall deny the Minor and desire his proof for it namely that the Father and Son intended that is absolutely purposed and wholly took upon themselves without condition to redeem purge sanctify c. all for whom Christ died For 1. This is beside the scripture that saith He dyed for all but never that he so intended to purge sanctifie set free and save All. 2. It s against that intimation in Rom. 14.15 and 2 Cor. 8.11 that one for whom Christ dyed may possibly perish and makes a meer scare-Crow of the Apostles reasoning as if he would deter them from evils by propounding impossible consequences of it and suppositions quite contrary to the faith to say nothing that it thwarteth that too in 2 Pet. 2.1 3. None of all the Places quoted prove what is affirmed for either they say not that the object named is all that Christ died for but some specially distinguished from others by the intervention of faith either in the eye of God or in real existence in them as his people 1 Pet. 2.10 them that believe on him the Church that is a people called out of the world Vs who were then actually believers them that were given him out of the World had received his words believed were sent into the world by him to preach the Gospel to say nothing of his begging the question that by sanctifying himself he meanes his dying or setting himself apart to dye in Joh. 17.19 so that that Minor is peccant in that it wants proof none of those Scriptures saying that those things he aymed at in all he dyed for To illustrate the business the proof is like this It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe and he called you by the Gospel to the obtaining of the Glory of the Lord Jesus Ergo All to whom it pleased God that the Gospel should be preached shall be saved and obtain eternal Glory To propound as a truth that God intended to redeem purge and save All for whom Christ dyed and then to prove it by telling us he intended to do so to Vs that believe to his Church and people is as lame a proof as if I should propound for truth that God intended to
which is a preaching of Christ and offering him to men And then to bless us as if he spake of the believers whereas he saith to bless you in turning every one of you from your iniquities Which place duly weighed shews the vanity of his arguing from such speeches that mention the end of Christs sending For though there he is said to be sent to bless them in turning every one of them there spoken to from their iniquities by which he presses his exhortation to them for Repenting yet it no where appeareth nor can he prove it that all them people were ever so blessed and turned away from their iniquities onely there Christ was held forth to them as authorised of God and ready to do it in their listening to him the perception of which perhaps made him so cleverly to change the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into us and us But I leave that to his better consideration But the chief thing considerable in this Chapter is what he propounds about the Oblation and Intercession of Christ Propos to the same purpose as before in his fourth as That they are not in any respect to be separated or divided as if the one should have any respect to any persons or any thing that the other doth not in its kinde equally respect also Reas 1 they being 1. both alike intended for the obtaining the same end proposed Reas 2 the effectual bringing of many sons to glory and 2. what persons soever the one respecteth in the good things it obtaineth the same and none else doth the other respect in applying the good things so obtained Reas 3 and 3. The oblation being the foundation of the Intercession c. Which things are before spoken to in the precedent Chapter and being here again only propounded not proved especially the main proposition with the first and second reasons of it that place Rom. 4.25 which he brings for proof neither shewing what or how many persons were the adaequate object of his Death nor expressing any thing of his Intercession much less saying that it hath the same extent to persons and things as his Death and that other place of Joh. 17.19 being but a begging the question and impertinent as hath been shewed in that it extends but to those that Christ says he sent into the world as also the main proofs of it being reserved to the following Chapters we shall procede to view them only premising this that 1. Should we grant these things they would not prejudice our Cause as hath in part been shewed on chapter fourth He might offer himself to ransom men and to provide for means of grace and patience to be extended to them in attention to which they might meet with his power to Save them Luk. 13.7 8. and Intercede for those things too for them and yet many abusing the grace procured by both as is supposed in the parable of the barren fig-tree they might not be eternally saved So that his after-conclusion in this Chapter would not thence follow viz. That every one for whom he died must actually have applyed to him all the good things purchased by his Death except he can first prove that whoever Christ Intercedes for he Intercedes for all those good things for them which he procured by his Death Which I am confident he cannot prove For to speak in his own Dialect He saith that the Death of Christ purchased the Spirit and the whole confluence of the grace of God I would ask him then if it purchased not Apostleship and the gift of prophecy c. If no then are some good things conferred upon some that were not purchased by his Death contrary to his Assertion pag. 33. line 5. If yea then I demand whether every one for whom he dyed have the gift of Apostleship and prophecy conferred upon them if he say yes then he contradicts the Apostle 1 Cor. 12.28 if no then his Conclusion is proved false If it be replied that he means but of things essentially necessary to every one for eternall life then yet 2. We desire his proof for this That whoever Christ dyed for or that he intercedes for them he intercedes for eternall life or makes such intercession for them as the Apostle tels us he makes for them that come unto God by him which because he promises in effect in the next Chapter I now thither follow him to view his Arguments or Reasons which are as followeth His first Argument is taken from a powerful Vnion that the Scripture makes of both those On Chap. 7. Arg. almost alwayes joyning them together and so manifesting those things to be inseparable which are looked upon as the distinct fruits and effects of them Before I answer to his Arguments I shall repeat again the main proposition undertaken by him which is this that the Oblation and Intercession of Christ have not only the same persons for their Object but that they have also all the same good things for each person and all and only the same Which I oppose but as in the word Intercession he aimes at the prime exercise of it for that he intercedes for the most special favors for persons for whom he dyed I deny not but that he doth it for all those for whom he dyed that I desire to have proved His first Argument for which put into a form runs thus What things the Scripture almost always couples together they have the same adequate objects and their distinct fruits and effects are inseparable and extend to all the same persons joyntly but the Scripture almost always couples Christs Oblation and Intercession together Ergo c. The major proposition here is false as may be seen in many instances as the bringing the Israelites out of Egypt and possessing them of Canaan are very frequently joyned together as often at least as Christs Death and Intercession and yet had not the same adequate object though both means of performing Gods Covenant and promise to Abraham and his seed See for the proof of this Deut. 4.37 38. Exod. 3.8 6.68 Deut. 6.33 26.7 8. Psal 105.43 44. cum multis aliis Again the Scripture frequently mentions Christs preaching to the people and healing their diseases together as Math. 4 27. 9.35 Acts 10.36 38. Luk. 5.15 6.17 and both tended to glorifie his Father and make known his name But I suppose that none will say therefore that both had the same adequate object and that he preached to no more then were healed by him The like I might say for teaching or preaching and baptising both ordained to the same saving end and often mentioned together and yet not both of equal latitude the latter not done to All for and to whom the other was vouchsafed So that that Proposition hath no truth and it and therefore the Argument is invalid Nor doth he prove the Minor that Oblation and Intercession are almost always
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
againe but for whomsoever Christ riseth he rose for their justification Ro. 4. ult and they must be justified But All are not so Ans 1. That his Resurrection is conjoyned is true and so it is intimately in all the other places of 1 Tim. 2.6 Heb. 2 9. and where ever his Death for us is mentioned it s intimately the Death of him that rose againe for had he not risen he could not have been a ransome or propitiation it s not said here he rose again for them but simply He rose againe which indeed he must needs be conceived to have done as an Object to be lived to we cannot live to a dead man 2 That for whomsoever he riseth he riseth for their justification and they must be justified the places of Rom. 4. ult 8.34 say not they being believers onely that there speak applicatively of themselves He dyed for our sins this he did as and while we were ungodly and he rose againe for our justification that we believers as in ver 24. To whom it shall be imputed we believing in him that raised up Jesus he raised him with this intention that we believers might be justified The coupling of two such speeches together do not argue that the objects of the acts mentioned in them are of equall latitude as in Cor. 4.14 He that raised up the Lord Jesus will also raise us up by Jesus and present us with you It s not a good Inference because they two are put together therefore all that are raised by Jesus shall be presented with the believers And yet 3. If by Justification we mean a right and just giving Sentence of freedom from that Death that was come upon us in Adam as the reward of his disobedience so I grant it in its latitude according to Rom. 5.18 to All men to justification of life or if it be meant justification in the publick person as that that is open for all to partake of upon obedience of Faith and so for our justification be onely that we might be justified in his person and that he being perfected might be fitted to justifie All or any man upon his believing so I grant it too and affirme that he is able and fit to justifie All upon their looking by Faith unto him Otherwise if it signifie that we undoubtedly might have that justification and be presented righteous and acceptable before him then the equall extent of all so justified and all he dyed for is denyed and not at all proved from those places as is said before Justification so not being an immediate fruit or effect of Christs resurection but following upon Faith as is plaine Rom. 5.1 Gal. 2.16 Tit. 3.5 6. 1 Cor. 6.11 whence it s said to be by Faith by the name of the Lord by the Spirit of God c. But inasmuch as he could neither be an Object of Faith to any nor any be discharged from their sins nor presented righteous in him had Death swallowed him up and he never risen 2 Cor. 15.14 15 16 17. therefore he is said to rise for our justification that he might justifie us in believing on him and so us that beleeve on him That justification in the most speciall sense doth come upon many that Christ dyed for is granted and so both meet in many the same persons and such may say they are the Object of both but that thence they have equall Objects in point of number is denyed Those Israelites that intred into Canaan might truly say the Lord judged Pharaoh and the Egyptians to bring us out of Egypt and he led us in the wildernesse to possesse of Canaan and yet all that came out of Egypt or were led in the wildernesse were not possessed of Canaan 2. He says he speaks there of those only who by virtue of Christs death live to him are new creatures to whom the Lord imputeth not their trespasses who become the righteousnesse of God in Christ How God imputed not to the world their trespasses we have shewed before for the rest of the expressions they containe a shamefull way of reasoning Because that was one end of his dying for All that they might live to him therefore he dyed for no more then them that do live to him and fulfill that his end By that way of reasoning I will prove that God made not all because all seek him not from Act. 17.26 27. If Paul had said He dyed for all that live no longer to themselves but unto him it had been to M. Owens purpose but when he sayes no such thing but He dyed for All that they that live should live to him To say that he vouchsafed a mercy to no more then they that fulfill the end of that mercy is exceeding lame reasoning By that Argument John bare witnesse of Christ to no more then them that believed Johns Gospell was written for the use of no more then they that believe it Joh. 20.31 Psa 10◠43 44. God brought no more out of Egypt then them that kept his Statutes John bare witness onely to those that received Christ were made the sons of God received of his fulnesse grace for grace were borne of God saw the glory of Christ as the onely begotten of God For those phrases follow that other expression in Ioh. 1.7 12 13 14 16. Just with as much coherence to it as those phrases that Mr. Owen reckons up follow this we speak to in this Chapter And if we might take that liberty in expounding any verse we please by all the verses that follow it so as to say the subject spoken of in the one is what ever after is spoken of in the other as Mr. Owen doth here and in Heb. 2.9 we should make mad expositions 3. He tells us The Article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is joyned with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they all died or were dead evidently restraining that All. Thus He. But what All That all that died That Article is not put to Christ died for All but to All died and therefore were there any such force there in the Article it makes nothing against us for we speak not of restraining the All that died nor indeed is it any other then Relative if one died for All then they All died But that he treats only of believers there is meerly proofless as it hath been shewed By this reason in Rom. 5.19 the making men sinners by Adams fall should be restrained because its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the many or those many were made sinners These are sorry evasions 4. He tells us All those spoken of by the Apostle are proved to be dead because Christ died for them and that in a spiritual death to sin His proof of which latter clause is Vorstius Grotius good proofs to build our Faith on But 2. He says The Text proves that to be the sense But what part of the Text saith it Why he tells us That the intention of the Apostle
in hand evidently sheweth for he saith not onely As by one offence judgement came untocondemnation so by one righteousness to justification of life but expresly maketh the comparison too in regard of their objects As by one offence to all men to condemnation so by one righteousnesse to All men to justification of life I would faine know of M. Ow. what the Apostle says in the 18. v. distinct from what he said before in the precedent verses taking away his equalizing of the Object So that that speech looks but like an Assertion of one resolved not to own a truth be it never so plainely exprest if it suit not with his own opinion that he maintaineth Again whereas he denies that Heb. 2.9 holds out that Christ stood in the roome of every man and refers us for proof to what he said to that Scripture his saying to it being proved impertinent and vaine already we need not here give him any further Answer Sure he that dyed for every man stood in the roome of every man in that his dying or else M. Owens own Argument from the force of the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 chap. 10. lib. 3. are meer vanities Whereas he sayes further that no one word of God sayes that all men were given to Christ to redeem I answer nor did T. M. say so but having spoken of the Death of Christ in the roome of all mankind and his Resurrection he added by Parenthesis that they are all given him and shall be brought unto him quoting for proof Phil. 2.8.11 Rom. 14.9 which intimates his meaning to be that they were given into his dispose as upon his resurrection and that all are given to Christ in that sense Psal 2.8 9. fully declares I will give thee the Heathen for thine inheritance and the utmost parts of the Earth for thy possession and thou shalt rule them with an Iron Rod c. But I deny that ever the Scriptures say God gave any man to him that he should dye for him In dying for men he bought them rather and upon that God gave all to him in a generall way to rule over them and he gives him some by his gracious call to be his peculiar charge and to be set free by him from all their inthralments in conscience and from the power of pollution and temptation Whereas he sayes Christ is called the last Adam in respect of the efficacy of his death to the promised seed If he meane in that regard only it s but his meer Assertion and so till it be proved needs no more answering it being the same in substance with what he said before against the extent of the Object of his death contrary to Rom. 5.18 which we have even now answered Against this passage of T.M. that Christ by his death brought all men out of the Death they fell into by Adam he opposes this that the Death men fell into in Adam was a death in sin and the guilt of condemnation thereupon For which he quotes Ephes 2.1 2 3. To which I desire the Reader to remember what I said above about Redemption Chap. 5. lib. 3. that we fell into a twofold death in Adam one as the naturall and proper fruit and consequence of that sinning the deading all our powers to that that was spiritually good 2. The wages and punishment of this sin that is destruction and utter ruine Ioh. 8.31 32. The latter of these Christ bare for us not the former for then he should have had our pollution in him too which is crosse to truth Therefore when we speak of bringing us from the death we fell into in Adam we are to be understood of that Christ endured for us not the other which he brings us out of by his Word and Spirit received into us and not by his dying onely or Resurrection also And therefore M. Owen here prevaricates as in another passage fastned upon M. More he abuses him for he no where tells us as M. Owen charges him that the presenting himself just before the Father was the ultimate thing by Christ intended not a tittle that way He hath also many heavie words against M. More for saying God accepted the Sacrifice of Christ as if all had dyed risen sacrificed satisfied c. which spring from his owne mistake as if Christ in dying for All was said to dye and satisfie for all sins that ever they should or might commit and so procure an acquittance and discharge from them All to be without faile as on his part and what ever failing in any condition happen on their part made over unto all which as its contrary to those intimations that speak of their perishing for whom Christ dyed as a thing possible yea and of some ments pulling swift condemnation upon themselves whom he bought which could not be were that position true so it s also a gap to all carelesness and licentiousness for then let all men take what course they will Either Christ dyed for them or not if not no endeavour can do them good God is their enemy and hated them before they offended him even from all eternity and they must have no better do what they can then what the hatred of an Omnipotent God will produce unto them if he did Then eia agite nothing can pull a dram of wrath upon them their score are all wiped off both what they have run into and what they shall The Apostle never preached such Doctrine but that they that walk in the light as he is in it that walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit that are rooted in the Faith and not moved from the hope of the Gospell shall have this benefit by Christs death that no condemnation shall befall them all their sins are cleansed c. Verily Christ putting himself into the place of Adam in the day that he sinned and in due time bearing that heavie death that else had seised on All and overcoming it and presenting himself to God as a Conqueror over it was far more acceptable to God then if all men in the world had dyed and overcome For we had done it but for our selves and out of love to our selves but he out of obedience to his Father and love to us and the same worke is far more acceptable to God when done out of Charity then when done out of selfe-love and meer necessity Beside the dignity of his Person and neernesse to his Father far above ours but I pass that too Heobjects further against T. M. because he sayes comparing Christ and Adam in respect of the effect and fruit of their works in the publick place that as by the sin of Adam all his posterity were in and by him deprived of that life and righteousnesse they had in him and are fallen under sin and death though secretly invisibly and in some sort inexpressibly so by the efficacy of the obedience of Christ All men without exception are redeemed
it which is not to be seen by climbing up into heaven to search into Gods secrets but by finding in themselves faith and sanctification they say and those too such as are so and so qualified as may evidence them to be fruits of election and so men must have the effects before and without their proper cause which is love discovered to men Tit. 3.4 5 6. they must have all these Repentance Faith Love to God and men Justification Sanctification yea and perhaps too eternal Glory before they shall see any solid ground or motive to repent believe in him serve and love him or that Christ hath done any thing for them by vertue of which he can justifie and sanctifie them and bring them to glory with him And so they are not lead to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly righteously and godlily by Gods grace appearing in the Gospel to them but deny ungodliness and live godlily or rather pretend and seem to do so that so grace might appear to them and that they might see the gospel declaration to belong to them The Gospel doctrine is to them but like the law that is a doctrine that consists of duties commanded with promises and threatnings annexed without Gospel motives of Gods love propounded the viewing of which things the Spirit of Love breaths in to lead and to produce the things required and so their endeavours after those works and duties are looked upon as the fruits of grace and goodness yea as the arguments of their Election past and future happiness when they may be as far from both as the Pharisee that denied Gods free Grace to Publicans and sinners and yet judged himself a partaker of Gods Grace by his works of righteousness magnifying grace against free will and thanking God as giving such grace in those things which were but the products of his will neglecting and abiding ignorant of that grace in Christ which would have truly corrected both his Judgment and will such the effect of this limiting restraining doctrine as theirs also was Men are led hereby to bottom the Gospel it self with all arguments of love and goodness therein leading to faith and repentance upon their faith and repentance which they pretend they may have before they know whether they have any solid ground for them or no as if they could winde in themselves into the perception of Gods love by their frames and endeavors and not first be wrought up to them by the love and goodness of God perceived by them and as if men should look to themselves and their endeavors as the glass through which they shall see Gods love as for them and not rather upon God and Christ as declared in the Gospel to love them as the glass in which they may see their obligation to God in Christ and be moved to and strengthened in their seeking after him hoping in him In that their way thou mayst see that God commands thee to repent or change thy minde to Judg him good and to love him and that he threatens thee if thou dost not and promises great things to thee if thou dost but whether thou beest one of them that he intends any good in his promises to or that art in a possibility of attaining them or only hast them propounded to thy hearing without good will towards thee but that thou mightest thereby have the greater destruction that by it thou knowest not for it presents no act of love from him that according to it thou canst say respects thee or takes thee in as the object of it only do all those things first repent believe love serve him and then it shall be true for thee to believe that he hath good will to thee a most preposterous way that doth to men as Pharaoh to the Israelites takes away their straw and bids them get it themselves and yet exacts their number of brick takes away that declaration of Gods love and good will to men that should properly move them to repent believe c. and sets men upon seeking arguments and demonstrations of these to themselves and yet not fail to perform those duties required of them A doctrine it is that presents less love to this or that man then the Law it self did whereas the Apostle magnifies the true Gospel as more excellent and more un vailed for it set some certain demonstrations of Gods goodness to the Israelites before them as his bringing them out of Egypt chusing them in their Fathers to be a peculiar people to him and many typical sacrifices representing Christs death for them upon which they were commanded to love and serve him but for ought this tells thee thou wert hated by him from all eternity yea this suggests to thee that all he doth to thee may be but to bring thee to misery Nay I might safely say Gods dealings with the Gentiles represented more goodness as to their particulars without suggestions of eternal hatred of them then this kind of Gospell-preaching ascertains any one man of as yet unregenerate as truly goodness and out of good will to him in particular And O how injurious is that doctrine to men that withholds the most absolute perfect motive to their duties and way to meet with consolation Whence it comes to pass that first many are led by it into presumption to lean upon themselves and their own works as evidences of that distinguishing love of God that makes them sure of salvation as the Pharisee Luke 18.9 10. and so of their being pure and righteous when as yet they have never believed and through faith received that love of God into their hearts thats preached in the Gospel to wash and purify them yea to bring them out of themselves into Christ that they might be reckoned after him conformed to him to salvation These are of those that justifie themselves and labour to establish a righteousness of their own and are ignorant of and fight against the righteousness of God despising others and hindring them of that Gospel of grace that should be opened to them stumbling as much that the Death of Jesus Christ should be preached to all to ungodly and sinners not so qualified as they as ever did the presumptuous proud Pharisees that Christ should eat and drink with Publicans and sinners and that his Apostles should preach the Gospel to the uncircumcised Gentiles 2. Others again are held in bondage all their dayes and are ever ready to fall into desperation while not having the Love of God and his goodness and grace propounded to them as for them that should beget faith hope fruitfulness c. or being hindered from believing it as so propounded by occasion of this limiting doctrine and yet being pressed on to believe repent be humble and broken that so they may know that God hath good will to them and hath given his Son for them they labor and strive and finde nothing which they can attain to
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
thing I know not what is CHAP. II. On the latter part of his third Chapter lib. 2. in which he urges the phrases For many and for the sheep and pretends to answer what T. Moore hath observed about them HE proceeds in the next place to application and to demonstrate this Assertion That Jesus Christ according to the Councel and will of his Father did offer himself on the cross to the procurement of eternal salvation with all the branches and means of it and makes continual Intercession with this intent and purpose that all the good things so procured by his death might be actually and infallibly bestowed on and applyed to All and every one for whom he dyed according to the will and counsel of God A position manifestly false for then we must all be Apostles Prophets Evangelists Pastors and Teachers nay have a name above every name c. for these things Christ procured by his death But to pass that He endeavors to make good this by a threefold consideration 1. From Scriptures holding out the intention and counsel of God 2. From Scriptures laying down the actual accomplishment or effect of his oblation 3. From those that point out the persons for whom Christ dyed His prevarications and weakness in the pointing out and arguing from each of which we sufficiently shewed in our answer to the first Chapter of his first Book and therefore here shall add only this That his arguments run but to this purpose Some one subordinate end of Christs death only agrees to some therefore he dyed only for those and with no respect to the supream end dyed for any other and so by consequence God hath no glory brought to him by the death of Jesus Christ but only in and from the Elect and Christ hath got no glory from any other but them he leaving them as he found them and doing nothing in his mediation for them Truly God and Christ are not beholding to Mr. Owen for his arguing So again Believers have had such and such effects in and by the death of Christ believed in by them therefore he dyed only for them like this such as go to a feast are well refreshed by eating it therefore it was made for no more then them that go to it or this Such prisoners being ransomed and following the Prince that ransomed them met with such bounty from him Therefore he ransomed none but them And again Many were ransomed Ergo not All. God made Israel Therefore he made no body else c. but no more to them arguments only there are diverse passages in the latter part of this Chapter from p. 79. that we have not spoken to and therefore shall take them in here As He denies that the death of Christ in any place of Scripture is said to be for all men For Answer to which I desire the Reader to turn to 1 Tim. 2.5 6. Heb. 2.9 Rom. 5.18 I know his objection is elswhere that the word Men is not in the original To which I answer first That by the same reason he may say that in Rom. 5.12 It s not affirmed that All men sinned seeing its but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word Men is not expressed and the like in 1 Cor. 15.22 that All men dyed not in Adam But 2. The word Men is expresly in Rom. 5.18 And 3. The word Men is the substantive clearly to be supplyed because the whole precedent speech was about men All men to be prayed for 1 Tim. 2.1 and expresly verse 4. that God would have All men to be saved 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. and that demonstrated by this that there is but one God and one Mediator between God and men the Man Christ Jesus who gave himself a ransom for All. For All what must it not needs be men between whom and God he is a Mediator and whom he tels us God would have to be saved All men and so in Heb. 2.9 was not the Apostle admiring Gods goodness to man Lord what is man and the Son of man exalting man above all his works which is now verified in one Man Jesus that dyed for every one What can it be referred to as before spoken about but man or the sons of men But of this we shall have cause to speak further hereafter That there are more ends of the death of Jesus Christ then what is the immediate fruit of it by way of ransome and propitiation before faith in it we have shewed in the conclusion of the first Book and upon his first Chapter of the second Some fruits there are of it from God towards men before faith and while in state of unbelief as the opening the door for entrance and for exhortations to strive to enter a feast prepared in Christ and a way of participating of it made and invitations vouchsafed as in Matth. 22.4 Prov. 9.3 4 5. Luk. 13.24 and those for and to more then enter and eat other fruits there are of it that flow in upon faith as satisfaction justification sanctification the contents of the new Testament c. And he that cannot see these to be distinct fruits and produced for or upon diverse objects and objects diversly considered is blinde and cannot see afar off nor into the things evidently held forth in the Gospel And what the ransome either immediately with God and for men or mediately upon and in men produceth were subordinate ends and aimes that Christ had in his eye upon his death as Mr. Owen himself also implies when he makes the ends of Christs death to be coincident with its effects His following observation objected against that that where the word many is used there are more ends of Christs death mentioned I shall pass it being not material and in some passages at least doubtful But in page 80. To this exception of ours Christs death is not limited to many and to his sheep c. as the ransome and propitiation as if he dyed for them only he tels us 1. That Christ saying he dyed for his sheep and Church and Scripture witnessing that all are not his sheep they conclude and argue by undeniable consequence that he dyed not for those that are not so At which assertion I can but wonder when first I heard of Mr. Owens Book he was so commended to me for a disputant that I could not expect any such lame arguments from him If we must take his saying of a thing to be an infallible proof that it s so then we have done with him but sure no Logick rule or good reason that I have ever met with can prove this assertion Had he said Christ saying he dyed for his sheep and the Scripture saying all are not his sheep it argues that in that saying he extended not the speech there about his Death to All he had spoken reason but to argue that because he mentions no more there as the object of his Death therefore he had no greater
not with the word Men but the men being as bruitish as such creatures speak evil of things they understand not He compares them to the beasts that are made for such ends in regard of their absurd irrationall carriages as by the parallel place in Jude 10. appears and Master Owen would make men believe contrary to the originall which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the Apostle applies those words Made to be taken and destroyed to the men compared to them He tels us also that some are appointed to wrath 1 Thess 5.9 the Apostle says not some as faln in Adam or muchless as created were appointed to condemnation and that Christ should not dy for them We deny not that believers are not appointed to wrath and that 's all the Apostle there says nor that unbelievers are appointed to condemnation as they remain unbelievers not believing in him whom they had so good ground to have believed in he having done so much for them and having such a name of salvation as is reported to them John 3.18 but this comes not up to Mr. Owens intention His last quotation is Act. 1.25 To go to his own place which I conceive is rather applicable to the Apostle to be chosen and so the words to be read thus That he may take the lot of this ministration and Apostleship Compare Acts 1.20 with Psal 109.4 5 8. to go to his own place and the words From which Judas fell are only put in by a parenthesis but take it as it s usually understood yet then it shews but that such as requite Christ hatred for his love and betray him after the knowledg of the truth received loose whatever honor in the Gospel they had before attained and have for their own place hell and destruction and what doth this make against Christs having loved and come forth to ransom him as faln in Adam that he so highly abusing that love had a place fell to him amongst the Divel and his Angels What follows in his p. 93.94 95. is party impertinent and partly spoken to He tels of several ways that men go in to make out their conceptions in this point and I could also shew such differences amongst those that oppose the extent of Christs death some more fully opposing it then others some denying that there is any Gospel sent to any but to the Elect as Doct. Laighton Mr. How c. some that the Gospel is sent indeed to All and to be preached to All so the most of them Some that Christ dyed to purchase all into his dispose but yet bare not any sin of theirs nor did ransom them from any foregoing sentence upon them Some that he hath not bought them or dyed for them at all onely seemed to buy them others that he dyed to buy many good things for them but not to buy them c. but to what purpose doth he repeat or I recriminate such things which shew but that we have not attained to unity of faith in perfection or that there are imperfections in our apprehensions of truth not that this or that is the truth I doubt not but Veritas magna est praevalebit As truth shines forth more brightly so the many oppositions against it by them and the many swarvings from it in some conceptions that may be amongst us will all vanish and be scatterred nor shall its abettors need such distinctions as are not founded in the Scriptures nor such expressions as there finde no footing as many of Mr. Owens are as we shall see as what he gives us as the summ of the truth in this matter viz. That god out of his infinite love to his Elect sent his dear Son in the fulness of time to dy and pay a ransome of infinite value and dignity for the purchasing eternal redemption and bringing unto himself all and every one of those whom he had before ordained to eternal life for the praise of his grace Not that we deny that God sent his Son to dy and pay such a ransom or that he purchased eternal Redemption or will bring to himself all those that he fore-ordained to eternal life c. But that the Elect was the sole object of Gods love or that it was love to them only and none but them as he after concludes that moved God to send his Son Our Saviour himself expressed not himself so He saith not God so loved his Elect that he gave his only begotten Son that every one that believes should not perish c. but God so loved the World Mr. Owen confounds the Elect and the World together and makes as if Christ had said that every one of the Elect that believes should not perish Besides I would have Mr. Owen shew me that any persons were considered as Elect before the consideration of Christs dying for men and how they are said then to be Elect in Christ and not in Adam rather if men looked upon either as in Massâ purâ or as in Massâ corruptâ were the object of Election and not rather as Christ was eyed intervening between God and them What he says about the value and dignity of the ransom and price which Christ paid viz. That it was infinite and fit for the accomplishing of any end and procuring any good for all and every one for whom it was intended had they been millions of men more then ever were created we shall meet with it again in li. 4. ca. 1. and therefore I shal onely say this to it here That it fairly intimates that Christ hath merited more by it then ever shal be applyed the desert or merit of it being immeasurable for extent but the application of it bounded and so if strictly looked into he grants such difference between the meriting of it and its application as he faults his adversaries for nay and makes a great yea an infinite part of its merit to be to no purpose His following Assertions are things again and again affirmed but never as yet proved by Scripture viz. Either that the whole adaequate intention of God in giving Christ was the bringing many sons to glory or that all the things procured by Christs death are to be bestowed on All that Christ dyed for I conceive my expressions laid down in the beginning of this Chapter are cleerer and less cloudy yea and more consonant to the Scripture expressions then what he hath given us as the Sum of the Truth in this business CHAP. IIII. A view of what is further said by Mr. Owen to this matter in his fifth Chapter HIs next Chapter is spent in Arguments against that Distinction of Impetration and Application as he had expressed it in the Arminian sense which differing from mine I might pass over yet I shall speak to diverse passages in it which somewhat intrench upon what I have laid down in my second observation about Impetration As In the entrance he hath an Assertion without proof viz. That for
I have propounded that distinction Christ is not wanting to apply what is impetrated according to the will of God for application or compact made in Impetration and therefore his second Argument is vain too viz. That 2. It s contrary to reason that the Death of Christ in Gods intention should be applyed to any one that shall have no share in the merits of that Death None of all his adversaries produced by him say any such thing they rather deny the application of it to many then say that some to whom it s to be applyed have no share in his merits Whereas he says many know not of it we have shewed before that a man may have a fruit of love from another that he knows not Cyrus was girded and strengthned by God though he knew him not So men have a release from the dealing of God with them according to the merit of Adams sin which should else unavoidably have come upon them and this by Christ though many know not him And all receive some fruits of Adams sin though many knew not that there was such a one or what his sin was Whereas he saith it s against reason that a ransom should be paid for captives upon compact of deliverance and yet upon payment those captives not be made free and set at liberty that Christ should be a ransom upon compact of deliverance of captives and yet the greatest number of them never be released That is falsly bottomed for God released All from that deadly destroying sentence which hath God taken the forfeit of Adams sin in that very day had ruined Adam and his whole posterity Justification of life is to all so that they All have life here and shall however be released and brought out of the death that is ordered to them by occasion of Adams sin in the resurrection so far are all acquitted that if any perish it s not in that but in a second Death Yea all are released also in this regard that whereas all were cast out of Gods presence and might not approach to him now through Christ all have free leave to approach to him all are commanded to repent and turn to him to look to him and be saved whoever will may come and welcome yea God is so far from keeping them away that he faults men for not coming to him John 5.40 Now if a ransom be paid for captives and the prison doors opened and means afforded for leading them out and prisoners willingly and stubbornly refuse but will stay in prison still as in this later respect many do shall that be imputed as a defect of justice in him to whom the ransom was paid for them Surely no except it could be proved that that was the compact that he should in that regard compel and forcibly cause to come out of prison all that the ransom was paid for which I am sure Mr. Owen will not be able to prove in this matter Christ no where says to any God would not have you come to him you are not included in the ransom nor that all that he dyed for shall be brought in to him but he often tels us God would have them seek him and come to him and faults them that they will not For that after-shift as he cals it of conditional and absolute obtaining of things it fals not upon me I affirm that liberty from that first sentence's execution upon us was absolutely obtained Justification of life to All. And that liberty is opened in the Gospel to All and men exhorted to enter and for not striving to enter now the door comes to be shut upon many that which they have shall be taken from them because they liked to have it and then they cannot enter Also that all life remission and fulness are absolutely put into Christs hands only I say the will of God for his dispensation and so to his proposition of the things to be dispensed not his obtaining them into his dispose nor the freeness and openness of them for men to look after and come to him for them hath a condition annexed God wils Christ to dispense them to men upon coming to him and Christ holds them forth upon that condition to any Whoever will let him come c. we deny that Christ is bound to make known to all for whom he dyed the fulness that is in him like evidently or himself or the way of salvation to all alike expresly or expresly at all That all are bound to minde and imbrace what he revealeth to them is clear but that he is bound to make known this or that to all he dyed for I deny that Mr. Owen can any where prove He may bring infants to himself and dispense his salvation to them and yet never give them capacity to hear the condition of salvation and yet we believe what the Scripture saith John 1.9 that he is the true light that inlightens every man coming into the world He is not bound to give every man ten talents alike open and plain declation of himself and Father no not for saving them but every man is bound to improve and submit to God in what he gives them be it more or less and if they do so he is able and ready to give more being liberal and free and can tell how to save them if not he is just to take away what they have and not bound to save them He being Lord of them Nor yet say we that men have power of themselves to improve what is given them but he who gives them the talents gives them the power too in which he requires them to improve them and it s not inability but slothfulness and obstinacy for which they are faulted and condemned by him because they rather chuse to live idly in themselves and dy then stir abroad to seek God John 8.31 32 34 36. or yeeld to what he brings home to them and live Christ as he is the Truth of God is the great Physitian of souls and by revelations of truth both cals to himself for healing and by further revelations of it to those that come to him doth heal John 14.6 The truth shall make you free and this because He hath given himself a ransom for them in the first place without which neither ground of calling nor fitness to heal them Now this Great Truth of God doth send abroad his beams of divine light and so some sparklings of himself as the Word of God and God by vertue of his relation to the humane nature first virtually and then actually united to him to men in generall John 1 4 5 9 though not so clearly nor so many beams at all times as in some nor to All men as to some Yet to the generality some Beams of truth Rom. 1.18 19 21.28 Acts 17 27 28.27 Job 21.14 those beams have their force in their leading them to know something of God so to
seek him groping after him if happily they may finde him yea such power as that men are fain to suppress and keep them under and bid them be gone and shut their eyes against them lest they work too much upon them Now though they see not what a one or who he it whence these beams come and those operations in their hearts yet they knowing in their consciences that they ought to obey them and that it would be better for them so to do though what that betterness is they comprehend not and contrary to that knowledg they have willfully rebelling they cannot plead ignorance total ignorance of this great physitian but for not obeying what they know shall be excuse less before him So that Mr. Owens comparison of Christ to a physitian tendring cure he wholly unknown Rom. 1.20.28 is a mistake also nor shall men be able to make good that plea when he comes to judge them though many shall say in respect of his person and fuller appearances when saw we thee thus and thus as if they would plead ignorance of him yet he shall take away that plea from them making it appear that in such and such mediums as his poor people Matth. 25.42 43 44 55. he was evidencing himself to them and presenting himself before them and there they would not know him Nor is he as one tendring a thousand pound to a blinde man on condition he will see and yet giving no ability to see but he in tendring gives forth such light that men see some glimmerings and bids them look though but with their blinde holes that they may see which did they the light would make them see and see more clearly yea it would turn them Isa 42.18 and he would heal them Act. 28.27 but many wilfully loving their own ease and wils will not see lest they should be turned and be healed by him they see they should listen to him yea many see that in looking to him they might have healing and yet refuse to look to him they desire not his healing Whereas he saith the condition of faith is procured for us by the death of Christ or not I shall here say but this viz. 1. That Christ is become an object fit for us to believe on and hope in through his death which else he had not been for us sinners 2. That God in Christ hath done so much for All men and doth so much for them through him that he deserves highly at their hands to be trusted in by them I know this agrees not with Mr. Owens principles yet I shall stand to it against him that all men have good cause and ground to believe in him or to betrust themselves to him and so much we are in preaching Gospel to demonstrate to them not having sinned to death or blasphemed against the Holy Ghost It s but a righteous thing for any man to believe in God and in Christ and its unrighteousness and hainous sin not to believe in him being declared to them that is not to commit souls and bodies to him as to one ready to save them 3. All the ways and means with all the power that comes in and with them to inable men to believe are vouchsafed to men through the Death of Christ none of them had been afforded to us had not Christ dyed for us 4. It s the promise of God to Christ so to exalt and glorifie him that some should be brought in to him and be given him to believe and be his seed 5. Yea it s by the discovery of Gods good-will in the death and resurrection of Christ that God useth to overcome men to believe and so his blood and death as so discovered and set home redeems men out of their bondage to Sathan and world and corruption Rev. 5.9 10 14.4 But that Christ obliged the Father to make all those men that he dyed for to walk out in the exercise of such power and liberty of acting as he should in his gracious dispensations afford them for attendance to means receit of light given looking up to him in that light yea to believe in him and rely on him for salvation this I desire him to prove It s not proveable by Scripture so far as I can finde nay I may use this argument against it bottomed upon Mr. Owens own maxime viz. Whatever Christ procured or merited by his oblation that he intercedes to have collated or bestowed on men But Scripture no where shews that Christ intercedes for faith saving faith to be given to one or other Ergo Scripture no where proves that he procured that by his oblation The major is Mr. Owens own in cap. 4.6 7. lib. 1. The minor is easily proved by Induction no one place speaking of Christs Intercession mentions his interceding for saving faith not that platform as some say of his Intercession in John 17. as we shewed lib. 1. chap. 2. if not there no where else for in Rom. 8.33 he mentions his interceding for Vs men in Christ believers but says not for what much less for faith that they had already In Heb. 7.25 It s for those that come unto God by him that some might come to God by him I leave it for him to finde any one place in which Christ prays that God would make any to believe Nor will this diminish at all the honor and love due to him for as Mr. Owen says We are not to invent ways of honoring him but give him that that in the Scripture God gives to him He produces Tit. 3.5 6 2 Cor. 5.21 but neither of them say that Christ procured faith for us as obliging God to give it us the former shews but how God wrought it in discovering his love and the latter that Christ became sin for us that we might in him that is in believing in him be made the righteousness of God and so that he opened the way for our believing and making righteous not that he obliged God to make us or all that he dyed for righteously to believe no more then in vers 15. where He says he dyed for all that they that live might not henceforth live to themselves he shews that therefore he obliged God to make all cease from thenceforth to live to themselves and God performs not his obligation to him in that so many even after believing live so much to themselves and minde their own things as Paul complaineth That he shall bring in a seed to him I grant but that he is obliged to bring in this or that Individual to be of that seed muchless all that he dyed for I no where finde That in Eph. 1.3 Phil. 1.29 We shall meet with afterward and with the point it self also more fully urged viz. in lib. 3. cap. 4. where we shall speak to them only this I shall say to them here that neither of them say that Christ by his death obliged the Father to
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
sentence to that death as in this case A malefactor of an evil disposition is condemned to dye for some evil fact the day determined and way prescribed another steps in and intreats for his life to see if clemency may win him or however that he may be more excuseless if he persist after this mercy shewed in his wickedness to a new condemnation and whereas the sentence is to be executed he tenders sastisfaction perhaps to dy for him upon this the others life is given him but that the other being ill disposed must needs be now made a favourite or all the Kings anger wholly turned from him it follows not he may testifie yet such displeasure against him as ill-conditioned as to let him live at a distance from him not put all his anger or displeasure with him apart so as to bring him into his favor fellowship till this his accepting another for him and giving him conveniences for life though at a distance with other means for winning him to a better disposition work upon him and make him better So when Joab had mediated for Absalom and the King had reversed his sentence of Banishment yet he was not well pleased with him Suppose Joab had done it by exchange become a banished man that Absolom might be called home it would not follow that therefore David must receive him into his Court and make him a favorite not being changed in his disposition Indeed he could not justly banish him and the other too accepting that change for him but he might justly yet shew displeasure toward him and only receive him into favor as he submits to him So is the case here Reconciliation and Justification with admission into favor suppose more then only satisfaction by way of commutation of punishment It presupposes also the parties submission to and compliance with him that he is Reconciled to Reconciliation is when two parties agree not when one accepts the punishment of a third for a seconds fault he still retaining his evil disposition And when men are Reconciled that is brought to Gods tearms and into Gods favor then he justifies them so as to pronounce them and accept them as righteous Therefore let this be minded that I lay down as a positive truth That though Christ suffered by way of commutation of penalty and therein sustained acts of displeasure from God against the sin of man yet he did not suffer by way of commutation of affection that is God was better pleased with his Son in all his suffering when his humane nature was under all its punishment then with any man unconverted while unconverted though Christ hath dyed for him and he be exempted from that punishment He was wel-pleased in his Son in that he bare all our sufferings and he is angry with those for whom he suffered while not submitted to him And indeed if Mr. Owen thinks that Christ suffering for mens sins takes off all wrath and anger from those for whom he suffers then I would have him tell me whether Christ suffered not for all the sins of the Elect I know he says Yes Then I demand whether any anger of God comes or lies upon any of them at any time If he say No then he speaks contrary to many Scriptures and to his own contests with the Socinians in chap. 8. 9. If Yes then he overthrows his own inferences here and shews that he goes too far when from the minor granted he infers Then they reconciled justified and imputed righteous c. And in this also is answered that objection from Joh. 3.36 The wrath of God abides on him That is God never comes to be at one with and welpleased with him nor he ever comes to see life As if Joab changing sentence of banishment with Absalom and Absalom when called home refusing by all loving Arguments to submit himself to David Davids displeasedness with him abides and some testimonies of it as keeping him at a distance abide on him he never admits him to see his face yea for persisting in Rebellion after this favor shewed him He takes away his life from him In which also his second inference with the several branches of it are answered as also they are before lib. 1. chap. 2. for whereas he infers that 2. Then Christ made satisfaction for the sin of all and every man It s granted as to that or those sins that brought that sentence of death upon men which occasioned and as it were in the order revealed required Christs coming to satisfie for them that lire might be afforded to men and goodness extended to their persons See chap. 3. lib. 1. But his Assumption here viz. That he hath not satisfied for all the sin of All contains a quartus terminus as I appeal to learned judgment Joab might by commutation have satisfied to the penalty upon Absalom imposed for all his evil past and yet it follows not from thence that in that commutation supposed he satisfied for whatever should follow his return from banishment and so his after-rebellion His three following reasons then brought to prove that Christ satisfied not for all the sins of every man fall as so many prevarications with his Assumption As for Christs satisfying justice for them that were in hell before we have answered it in chap. 2. lib. 1. we might a little alter his simile and illustrate it thus A company of malefactors being condemned to dy one promises such a sum of money for their lives and freedoms from that sentence obtains it the sentence is reversed they are provided for and preserved and greater favor is profered to them upon tearms of compliance with him against whom they had sinned many of them rebell a second time and are taken and condemned anew and executed others of them are won and become obedient subjects and all this before the promised payment is performed I ask now seeing he that bought their lives had his bargain for that he compacted for shall it be thought injustice for him who upon that promise spared their lives to demand his Covenants because they being then spared afterward rebelled and were anew condemned and executed the case is like here If God gave such and such favors to men upon Christs promise of payment shall not he pay for it upon whose score he gave them what ere in the after estate become of them His Dilemma is the same verbatim which we had in Chap. 3. Lib. 1. Where we gave it its answer His seventh Argument is For whom Christ dyed Argu. 7 for them he is a Mediator I conceive that 's true for I think his dying for them was an high act of Mediation or coming between God and them But says he He is not Mediator for All because then he must be Priest too for them which he brings no proof for Joab mediated for Absalom yet was no Priest for him neither proves he that he is not Priest for All not that he applies not
should not serve sin But quorsum haec how doth this prove that all that Christ dyed for are and shall be sanctified by his blood Why he tels us That the fifth verse says That a participation in the death of Christ shall be accompanyed with a conformity to him in his Resurrection But what mean you Sir by a participation in it an having part in it or being a part of the object of it If so which word in ver 5. says so That says He that 's planted into the likeness of it not he that Christ died for Surely if Mr. Owen had dealt fairly he should have kept the same tearms in both branches of his Assertion as the Apostle doth thus Conformity to Christ in his death shall be followed with a conformity to him in his Resurrection Sure if planting into the likeness of him signify conformity to him in the latter branch as it doth it signifies so in the former too it being the very same maner of expression But Mr. Owen hath a little too much art of making quidlibet de quolibet But what follows The words of the later verse yield a reason of the former Assertion Because our old man is crucified with him that the body of sin might be destroyed c. What gathers he from that why this That our sinful corruption and depravation of Nature are by his Death and crucifying meritoriously slain and disabled from such a rule and dominion over us as that we should be servants to them But suppose this was the Apostles sense That Christ merited that such as are planted into the likeness of his Death by Baptism or conformed to him in his Death should have their sins subdued in them will it therefore follow That he says all that he died for shall be so conformed to him or shall have their sins subdued in them Let Reason judg of that Consequence But which word in the Text signifies a Meritorius slaying I suppose he means the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If so I deny it That signifies there a real crucifying in us according to that in Gal 5.24 They that are Christs have crucified the flesh c. That is have nailed it upon the Cross that is the Grace and Spirit of God which is cross to it and lusts against it they have given it up to be mortified by the Spirit that so the body of Sin might be destroyed It is not destroyed yet nor doth the Apostle say so as well he might if he had spoken of a meritorious slaying for what concerns the matter of Merit that is already accomplished though the thing merited be not But when was this crucifying I answer when the soul was brought to give up it self to Christ and not before Rom. 6.4 5. when it was Baptized into his Death not in the outward onely but chiefly in the inward spiritual Baptism 1 Pet. 3.21 and so begun to be planted into the likeness of it But perhaps he will say The word is Crucified with Christ and therefore must be referred to what was done in his crucifying I answer no It signifies but a companionship in being crucified as he was or after his similitude not a thing done when he was crucified as Col. 2.12 we are said to be buried with him but when was that He says not in his being buried but in Baptism which is a thing not inwardly accomplished no nor begun before believing And so You that were dead in sins and trespasses hath he quickned with him the quickning men up to hope in God and bringing them from their dead condition in which before believing they lay without hope is said to be with Christ Yea when we suffer for Christ and dye for his Name we are said to suffer and dye with him 2 Tim. 2.11 12. Rom. 8.17 which are not to be referred to the time of his suffering and dying as if we then suffered and died meritoriously with him So that first express saying is pressed too injuriously to speak for Mr. Owen besides its proper intention Again He brings 2 Cor. 1.20 All the Promises of God are in Christ Yea and in him Amen Which says nothing that God hath promised that All that Christ died for should be sanctified and cleansed from all their sins but that in him all the promises are surely to be met with The Covenant we have spoken to before That 's made or rather promised to be made with the House of Israel and the House of Judah of which houshold men are not accounted till brought to Christ to believe as is plain Ephe. 2.12 17 18 19. After Christ hath preached peace to us and given us access to the Father then we are of the houshold of God and fellow Citizens with the Saints The promise of circumcising the heart which he mentions as most famous in the New Covenant follows after obeying the voice of God in listning to his Son Deut. 30.1 2 3 4 5 6. so the Apostle intimates 2 Cor. 3.16 When the heart turns to the Lord the vail shall be taken away which I conceive answers to Circumcising the heart As impertinent to his purpose is that in Heb. 9.23 of purging the heavenly things except he prove that All that Christ died for are heavenly men even before believing and before their calling to God with a heavenly call And that in Col. 1.14 of the believer brought to Christ receiving and having the Redemption in him with which agrees the 1 Cor. 1.30 which says not all that he died for are made wise redeemed righteous c. by him but they that are in him by faith as see Rom. 16 7. have him in the vertue of his blood and by his Spirit for wisdom righteousness sanctification and redemption As impertinent is his allegation of Heb. 2.14 To destroy him that had the power of death that is the devil that he might free those that by reason of death or through the fear of death rather were all their life time subject to bondage No more is his Probandum proved by that then that all that Christ spake to are saved can be proved by that in Joh. 5.34 These things speak I to you you that had neither heard the voice of God nor seen his face And who will not come unto me that ye might have life ver 38.40 that ye might be saved Or from this That he brought us into Egypt that he might bring us into Canaan that all that came out of the one entred into the other Nor is there any more consequence from the other places mentioned in Ephes 5.25 26. and Tit. 2.14 He gave himself for his Church that he might sanctifie it provided in his death for the perfecting those that should believe in him Ergo All he died for shall be sanctified and saved So that the contrary to his Conclusion is true that he hath in no one place proved what was by him undertaken But to take off this that we say Many
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
say much to these places quoted by him to hold forth the thing meant by the word Merit viz. Isai 53.5 Heb. 9.12 Acts 20.28 save that they prove not any obligation put upon God to do those things there mentioned to all that he died for but onely that God was pleased to do such things upon such considerations or by such mediums Onely the latter place of Acts 20.28 seems least to the business for it speaks not of Christs meriting of God but Gods procuring acquiring or obtaining as the 〈◊〉 most usually signifies a people to be a Church by that way of his blood the sufferings of Christ But to pass those things Let this be observed which himself grants lib 4. cap. 1. That however pretious and valuable the sufferings of Christ be yet they oblige and binde God to nothing but according to his own appointment and free ingagement Having noted that we come to his Argument which is this That Christ did merit and purchase by his death for all those for whom he died all those things which in the Scriptures are assigned to be the fruits and effects of his death But all have not all those effects and fruits Ergo he died not for All. Ans If by his Major he means He procured them into himself as into Gods Treasury to be free for them all to look after and come to him for and to be dispensed to all that do look after him and come to him Then it nothing hurts us But then his Minor assumes not rightly as it doth not however for it should be thus That Christ hath not purchased all those things for All and not as it is That all have them not But if in his Major he means as he seems to do that he obliged the Father to bestow upon All for whom he died and bring them to enjoy all those things which his Death either as presented to God or as believed by us is said to effect as his after-enumeration of its effects argue him to mean then I deny it and desire his proof of it which because he brings not his Argument falls to the ground and needs no further answering Onely I shall minde the Reader that the effects enumerated by him are such for the most part as it produceth in us by believing on it such as the Delivering us from the hand power of all our enemies which we are not till called nay till raised from the dead from wrath to come which we are not till justified by faith as is evident by his own confession against the Socinians The works of the Devil which are overcome and destroyed by him in being believed on Ephes 6.13.16 the curse of the Law which he says we are subject to till believers Cap. 8. Sect. 6. from our vain conversation the present evil world the earth and from men all which he doth by his blood and sufferings as being accepted of God they are made known to us and withall the Covenant ratified by it held forth to us By letting us see such love in God towards us and such good-will in Christ with such perfection to save us and so great promises ratified to believers he moves and perswades us to let go our vain conversations renounce the world its fellowships vanities and wickedness to cease cleaving to the earth and earthy men and having our confidence in them and reliance on them for teaching worship satisfaction delight c. Thus God is said to have bought Israel to himself Deut. 32.6 in that he by so great things done for them purchased or gained them in to own and follow him And so in Hos 3.2 Gods buying Israel to be a people for himself is compared to Hoseahs buying an harlot off from other lovers to be his wise for a certain consideration or Sum given her So Christ buys men unto God from other things by setting before us his great sufferings for us and profering to us the great glory he will thereby bring vs to if we will renounce all for him But this note is over and above what was needful for shewing the invalidity of the Argument All his other quotations too are impertinent and none of them prove either that God is obliged by the Death of Christ and ought to grant to and possess all for whom he died of those good things that he mentions or that he was or is bound thereby otherwise then as he freely ingaged himself to do them to any They say That by his Death we are reconciled as we may say By Joabs Mediation Absolom was recalled from banishment and brought into Davids favor Which speech proves not that the inward worth of his Mediation bound David to that So He is our Propitiatory through Faith in his blood and God hath set him forth to be so that proves not that he obliged God to forgive the sins of All he died for The like I might say for Peace-making and salvation Believing on him we are at peace with God and shall be saved by him but no place sayes All that he died for shall be saved or that God ought to make them all believe and so save them as was before shewed For his next Instance from the Phrases 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Inst 6. For All and for Many and Interrogatory Whether Christ died in the stead of All It s answered in those Chapters that speak about Satisfaction with all the Queries he propounds upon it Onely I shall spake to one of them viz. Whether Christ hung upon the Cross for Reprobates I say I conceive as they were men faln in Adam he did but not as besides that Reprobated also It s like that The Gospel was preached to the dead 1 Pet. 4.6 and the Spirits in prison Was the Gospel preached to dead men and men in hell Yes To them that are now dead and in hell But not when and as dead and in hell Men were not Reprobates as they were the Objects of Christs Death but as they are considered and actually found guilty of sinning wilfully and pertinaciously against the truth discovered and benefits afforded to them through his Death If we will speak of things according to the Scripture If otherwise Eâdem facilitate rejicitur quâ asseritur The Scriptures say men that corrupt themselves and notwithstanding the means of purging used to them which sure are all consequent in order of Nature to the death of Christ for men there being nothing affordable to men towards purging according to the demerit of Adams sin but All were forthwith to have perished stand out and remain in their corruptions are the reprobate silver men rejected of God Jer. 6.30 And for such obstinacy against God in lower or higher means the Scripture often tells us that God reprobates or rejects men as is to be seen in Rom. 1.19 20 21 28. Gen. 6.3 Psa 81.9 10 11 12. Pro. 1.22 23 24 25. Matth. 13.15 16. Acts 28.27 2 Thess 2.10 11 12. And no
proclaime openly upon the house tops And then Gods chusing weak simple men to be the first Teachers and so by consequence the first understanders of the divine truth doth neither prove that others that were wise and prudent were left destitute of the means of salvation or operation of the Spirit in them or much less that Christ dyed not for them or for All men but only That these wise and prudent would they be saved must stoop to God in embracing the knowledge of his mind by weak and sorry men and that indeed is the Genuine meaning as I conceive of that Scripture Whenas God had he pleased might have opened his mysteries to the Learned Rabbies Scribes and Pharisees to have been divulged by them he pleased to hide them from them putting them beside their way and to reveal them to others poor simple men by whom they were to be preached to them and to All Nations and that meerly out of his good will that no flesh might glory in his presence c. His next alledged place is John 10.15 Scrip. 4. in cap. 3. lib 2. 16 27 28. which we have before considered and shewed the vanity of his inferences from it there is no new thing here to be spoken to that is not there answered except that he tels us of Christ dying as a Shepheard spoken of in that place and Therefore he dyed only for his sheep which indeed is a new fallacious argument Logicians call it fallacia à dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter as if I should argue thus In 1 Pet. 2.21 22. Christ is spoken of as dying as a pattern of patience to believers suffering unjustly from men Ergo he dyed for none but actuall believers so suffering Our question is whether Christ dyed for All or no not whether he dyed for All as a Shepheard though he laid not down his life for All as a Shepheard for sheep to preserve them in a life fore-given them yet he might and did lay down his life for All as a ransome to deliver them out of a Death come upon them for the sin they fell into in Adam and to be a propitiation for their sins c. To Matth. 20.28 a Ransome for Many we have spoken in Chap. 1. Lib. 1. for John 11.52 He dyed for that Nation and not for that Nation only but to gather together the children of God scattered abroad That tels us he dyed for the Nation which were not all Elect people to eternall life there being in it those Scribes and Pharisees whom he cals generation of vipers 2. He saith not For the Children of God much less for the Children of God only but shews that that was one end of his Death reaching further then the Nation namely to gather the scattered Jews or to bring all that should believe into an unity of faith and priviledges by slaying the enmity the Law of ordinances between them this puts no limitation to the Death of Christ nor saith that any were excluded it His next is Rom. Scrip. 5. 8.32 33 34. which indeed is brought as a consolation to believers in affliction assuring them they have God to justify them and he greater then any against them to condemn them and then they have Christ to intercede for them who had also dyed and risen and he would not faile them it being his business to present believers and walkers in the Spirit perfect before him as we noted before he that had given his Son for them would surely supply them with all strength them that were the called of God and believers in him Now whereas Mr. Owen observes that this act of giving Christ to dy for them was the greatest expression of Gods love toward believers I answer That the Apostle couples two acts together there 1. His giving Christ for them that expresly 2. His giving him to them that 's intimated in that repetition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with him for God gave not all things to be crucified with Christ nor did he give Christ to believers or to any in his beating him but delivered him up to Death and judgement and Christ gave up himself to bear the wrath of God but as one dead and risen God gives him with his excellencies to men Yea this is said to be done to the murmuring unbelieving Jews who not receiving him deprived themselves of that life and all those glorious things in and with him But to go on with Mr. Owens observation He infers from that thus If God gave his Son to dy for All then he had as great an act of love and made as great a manifestation of it to them that perish as to them that are saved But this follows not for though in it self it was exceeding great yea compared singly with other acts as to the outward expression the greatest act of love to give Christ to dy for men yet in regard of the heart of God in it and the conjoying that act with others he manifested not nor acted so great love to them that perish as to them that are saved 1. I say in regard of the heart of God for in chap. 8. Mr. Owen tels us Gods love is his velle bonum creaturis his purpose and will of grace which if so then that 's to be accounted the greatest to them to whom he purposed the greatest good by that act which was but the medium of good to men Now in as much as he purposed more grace to some through that gift then to others to the saved then to those that perish though in the medium they all shared yet it cannot be said that he manifested or acted as much love to one as to another To illustrate it take this comparison David put his life in hazzard from the Israelites when he fought with the Philistin in that he laid his life down at the stake as it were 1 Sam. 19.5 and it was the greatest act of love he could have shewed to his friend to lay down his life for him yet in this act he might love his Father with a more intense love then many others of them yet he hazzarded his life for them all and shewed forth that act of love to them all that in expression is highest 2. In respect of other acts Though that act was greater then any other act of love I say suppose that yet not so great as that and other acts also joyned with it He loved believers with that and diverse others as in compelling them in c. 3. Yea suppose all loved alike in that yet if some of them all so alike loved requiting that his same like-love worse then others As Hosea 9.15 are left and he takes their slighing his so great love so ill that he will love them no more And others not so requiting him but accepting it continue in his love as the phrase is Joh. 15.10 and he saves them shall we say he loves not these more then
All and dispenses of his goodness to All quite contrary to the Demerit of All in that sin And further he hath done for All so sufficiently in his Death that He is a meet object for All to believe on and hope in and especially where the Gospel-proclamation comes its great unrighteousness and iniquity in men not to depend on him live to and serve him even as great or greater then it was for the Israelites brought wonderously out of Egypt not to believe Gods word for bringing them to Canaan He hath done so much for All and every man that he is worthy they should look up to him and able in so doing to save them without renewing his sufferings or making a new bargain about them for them His inferences from that first premise I shall view also they are 1. That he conceives Infer 1. That the Assertors of Vniversall Redemption do much undervalue the infinite value and worth of the Death of Christ which I deny and challenge him to make it good against us which he assays By telling us that we Affirm that a door of grace was opened by it for sinners but deny that any were effectually carryed in at the door by it Which 1. Is a false imposition for we affirm that the sight and discovery of this hath such vertue in it that it effectually pulls in many at the door reconciles washes begets to hope c. Yea this is the proper or ordinary way of Gods bringing in men effectually to glorify his Son in these his sufferings and sacrifice to them 2. Suppose we should say he obliged not God by his Death to bring in any at All yet it will not thence follow that we extenuate the value and worth of the sacrifice of Christ If Mr. Owens principle be true it salves that for he says It s being a price for this or that man sure then by consequence too for this or that thing ariseth not from its inward worth but is meerly externall to that arising solely from the Intention of the offerer and accepter that is from the mutual part or Covenant agreed upon between them Therefore if it was not agreed upon by Christ and God that God should bring in this or that man or any at all to believe in him it would be no diminishing the vertue of it that being not hereby to be measured No should we say any of or All those things that he imputeth to the Arminians viz. That God might if he would and upon what condition he would save those for whom Christ dyed and Christ procured not a right of salvation for any so that God might have dealt with man according to a legall condition again or that all and every man might have been damned and yet the Death of Christ have had its full effect c. That Christ purchased no more for any then that they might go to hell with yet supposing that such had been the Covenant between God and Christ as doubtless they do suppose so that so express themselves by Mr. Owens own principle before laid down we should be acquitted of dishonoring or undervaluing the Death of Christ therein that not being the Measure of its worth what he purchased by it but what the dignity of his person and greatness of his sufferings The things purchased being only according to the agreement between God and Christ not the sufficiency of his Death to have purchased by it Such expressions may not rightly declare the agreement between God and Christ about the end of his sufferings but no way deny the inward worth of them by his principles from which this is wondrously inconsequently inferred 2. His second is Infer 2. That the innate vertue and sufficiency it hath is a foundation to the generall preaching of the Gospel to All Nations and of the right that it hath to be preached to every creature because the way to salvation it declares is wide enough for all to walke in How that should be a foundation for that I see not more then the paying for ten prisoners in a thousand ten times as much to ransome them as might have sufficed to have ransomed them all but yet excluding in the bargain All but ten is a good foundation to go tell all those thousand that there is very good news for them All ther 's as much paid for ten of them as would have ransomed them All ten times over but 990. of them were excluded the bargain yet good ground to bid every one of them look for freedom by it Sure it s not the wideness of the way that is ground enough to tell All that there is good news for them but the liberty that they may have to walk in it The Truth is that Doctrine not only makes the Gospel needless to be preached to All but needless also to be preached at All seeing none for whom Christ dyed can possibly miss of life by their doctrine All their sins past present and to come being satisfied for and of due to be discharged should they hear nothing at all But he infers further 3. That Infer 3. That inward sufficiency in it self made insufficient to the most by that exclusive intention is a good ground to call all men every where to Repent and to believe I wonder what ground that can be for that Sure as much as the telling a thousand prisoners That one had paid as much for the ransome of ten of them as would have sufficed for the ransoming ten times so many as they all are is a good ground to call upon them All to have good thoughts of him that gave the ransome for them some to be sorry for their faults against him and to be broken at the hearsay of his love to them and expect every one of them to be set at liberty by vertue of that Ransome I pray what greater ground should a thousand men have All to look for deliverance because of the payment of so much for so few more then if they should hear that he had paid only so much as would suffice to ransome them few How can we exhort All to admire and be affected with Gods love to them mourn for their follies against such a lover of them love him for his love and hope that he by vertue of Christs Death will fully save them if we cannot say by the word of God which is only meet to beget divine faith that Christ hath dyed for half nay for any of them for such may be the case for ought any of them know of their whole Congregation Is our humane conjectures and peradventures that such and such a one may be of that Number ground enough to bid men affect and love and hope in God as one that hath loved them Or do we speak of Faith and Repentance neither springing from Love believed nor accompanied with love to God in our hearts Sure such Faith and Repentance are not those the Scriptures call for
good a note as Mr. Garners that to tast is to put a tast and rellish into it That to tast signifies so to drink up a thing that no one drop remains for any to drink after one as Mr. Owen saith is an exposition of the word Tast contrary to its usual signification for men are said to tast when they do but sip or make tryal or the sweetness or bitterness c. of a thing not when they eat or drink it all up Sure when Jonathan tasted a little honey the meaning is not that he eat all up that he found 1 Sam. 14.43 or when some are said to tast the good word of God and powers of the world to come the meaning is not that they had got all the knowledg that was to be had of them and left none for others Surely Mr. Owen thinks not that the righteous tast of any afflictions or drop of anger and therefore this of Christs death need not be propounded to them by way of consolation to let them know that he experimented what they suffer and knows how to succour them for they need no succour that grapple with no death But grant that he tasted and swallowed up into victory too that death which was common to all in Adam and thence will raise all out of it by the vertue of his Death and Resurrection Will it thence follow there may no second Death befall any * De secundâ morte ita Ambr. in Comm. in Rom. 5.14 Est alia mors quae secunda dicitur quam non Adae peccato patimur sed ejus occasione propriis peccatis acquiritur for despising and despiting him living still to themselves and not to him or that whoever perish in a second death Christ never tasted the first for them even that displeasure which would have for ever taken away all dispensations of favor and goodness to them But 2. He tells us He sees an evident appearing cause why he should use that phrase and call them for whom Christ died All viz. because he writ to the Hebrews who were deeply tainted with an erronious opinion that the benefits purchased by the Messiah were proper to them of that Nation excluding all others Not to question here whether they had any such conception which we have spoken to in chap. 1. but supposing it to have been so yet how doth this expression any way help them The Apostle should rather have been the more wary of writing but the Truth to them and telling them that is was for every one that believes for that might have bin better born then for every one as if he extended to one and other believer and unbeliever If that had been an error he would not have made way for it to put the Jews out of one error into another that might rather more stumble them then the other it being an expression of large extent Sure if in any place this might have been limited to the Elect and believers it ought to have been to those that were ready to stumble that but they should share with them 3. He tels us There is a description of those for whom Christ died in the Chapter which will not suit to All viz. many sons to be brought to glory the sanctified ones his brethren the children that God gave him those that are delivered from bondage of death c. That Christ died for them and had in his eye such ends in his dying for them as are spoken of with reference to them is true But that he died for them onely or that those after-clauses are a full description of that All or every one that he died for I deny 1. Because its suits not with the phrase here every one or All by his own confession Sure that can be no description of the persons contained in the word All that will not suit with the expression it describes or that will not suit to All. 2. It s against those other places we have spoken to 3. It s an uncouth exposition making the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is an Adjective and so cannot have a full signification in it self without another word as its Substantive to stand alone without a just signification till another verse between which and it is a full period come to make up its sense and then that that is supplied for its Substantive is of a different number and hath another Adjective of number joyned with it A thing unusual and scarce to be parallel'd in any other place And here I might take up Mr. Owens own words in lib. 2. cap. 4. Such is the powerful force and evidence of the Scripture-expressions of this truth Mr. How 's Answer to the Vniversalist cap. 1. that it scatters all its opposers and makes them fly to several hiding corners as Mr. Garner upon this is forced to make the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Verb transitive and to signifie to put a tast into death leaving the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it was Mr. How with as silly an evasion as his throwing by the Proposition which he should have opposed in terminis and not as he did thrust another into its room and bend his Arguments against that as if I defending That Faith alone without Works justifies a Papist should come and tell me I mistake the question I should say thus Faith which is alone without Workes justifies and so spend his Arguments to prove that false he I say will have it read Hee tasted whole Death or every Death and not to expresse for whom at all though to make way for that conceit he breaks downe all Grammer rule and example making 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Verbe of sense to governe a Genitive case with the Proposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without giving any one example for such a thing And now M. Owen as also M. Stalham as fondly will make it stand alone without a Substantive till the other Verses afford it two or three whereas indeed its substantive was intimated before as it s ever in other places understood to be man when it s put alone without another to declare its meaning Lord what is man sayes he that thou art mindfull of him or the son of man that thou shouldst visit him thou madest him a little lower then the Angels which was true of him in Adam and in Christ both thou hast crowned him with glory and honor thou hast set him over the workes of thine hands which is true too of man in Adam and in Christ but we see not All things yet put under him that is under man spoken of before with reference to a second subjecting them in the world to come but we see Jesus made lower then the Angels that he might tast Death by the grace of God for every one for or by the suffering of Death crowned with glory and honor We see him who for that end that he might suffer Death for all or for every
is to prove that all for whom Christ died are so dead to sin that they should henceforth live no more thereunto but to him that died for them What a heap of vanity is here this is Idem per idem The Apostle means by Dead Dead to sin because it s his intention to prove all Dead to sin Where is there any such word as Dead to sin Or what ground was this for his being so zealous as if he were beside himself in pressing men to believe and live to Christ if they were all dead to sin already What means he by so dead to sin as that they should live no more to it means he so that they ought to live no longer to it I would know of him who is not so dead to sin that he ought not to live any longer to it Nay doth not his saying That they might not henceforth c. argue that hitherto many did what they ought not though Christ had died for them a long time before Or means he that they should that is that that should be the event they shall live no longer to Then I would fain finde proof for it in the Text. Is that they might not and they shall not all one Doth not Sense and History confute this Doth not many a man that Christ died for yet live to himself Did all believe Johns Witness because it s said He bare witness that all might believe He says this agrees with Rom. 6.5 but that 's untrue too for this speaks onely of Christs dying for us and to what end that speaks of our being baptized into Christ and planted into his likeness But to that we spake before lib. 3. cap. 4. 5. He tells us The Apostle speaks here of Christs Death in respect of application The effectualness of Christ towards those for whom he died is here insisted on But the falsity of this is sufficiently discovered in what is said already In a word here is not one concluding Argument His conclusion is very wrong That here is no mention for Christs dying for any but those that are dead to sin and live to him Let any man read the Text and he may see that untrue For that says not He died for all that live no longer to themselves c. but he died for all that they that live might live no longer to themselves intimating that as yet many do not as they ought to do But I am weary with raking in such impertinent Arguments 5. Another Scripture is 1 Cor. 15.22 In Christ all shall be made alive Whence we argue All that Christ raises out of Death he died for that they might be so raised Else how comes it by man if not by something acted in the humane Nature and not onely by the divine Power of God But Christ shall make all alive But Mr. Owen tells us This All is but All believers because he brings Arguments from Faith the Gospel and such things to prove it and speaks after of Christs members them of whom he is the first fruits As if the Apostle might not speak of the Resurrection of all men and yet speaking to believers bring proofs fitted to them And as if his after-mentioning of such as believe proves that he asserted not the Resurrection of any but them It s plain some of the Corinths denied the Resurrection of the Dead not onely that they themselves should arise but also the dead in general ver 12. Now what they denied he asserted VVhich its clear also is a Truth not to be demostrated by reason but meerly to be believed upon divine Authority and the foundation of it laid in Christs Resurrection And therefore whereas Mr. Owen and Beza too object this That the Apostles Arguments are taken from the Resurrection of Christ the hope faith customes and expected reward of Christians which would have been ridiculous to be held out to the men of the world to prove the Resurrection of the dead in general It s very absurd For 1. The Apostle never held out other Arguments to the Heathen then Christs Resurrection which he preached as a matter of faith to them and declared as a matter evidently known to themselves Act. 17.30 31. 2. They being believers that denied the Resurrection of the dead in general he might well shew the inconsistency of that denial with their own principles and how it overthrew the most of those things which they made profession of as Christians For the dead in general not arising then neither should they arise and receive the reward of their faith and sufferings His arguments of that nature shew but that they were Christians he writ to capable of such demonstrations not that he asserted only the Resurrection of Christians But 2. He says The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 denotes a blessed Resurrection a Resurrection to a good life and glory VVhich is but his assertion much more That its never used about the common Resurrection For I pray you doth not the Lord Jesus use it of the Fathers quickning the dead in general Joh. 5.21 As the Father raiseth the dead and quickneth them and is not the Sons quickning whom he will both applied after to his quickning here and raising all hereafter Doth that hinder the truth of his quickning whom he will that he will quicken All So 1 Tim. 6.13 Is it not said That God quickneth or gives life to all things and can that be in a blessed Resurrection Doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signine more then to make alive and shall not all the dead be made alive How else shall they come forth of their graves and receive their doom The Apostle here having shewed that Christ rose again proves by that that the dead shall arise too and that by Christs getting victory over death comes the Resurrection As man brought in death so by man came in again the Resurrection of the Dead for as in and by for the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is often Ev in signification Adam all dye◠so in or by Christ all shall be made alive He says not all in Christ As if he spake of the believers onely but in or by Christ all shall be made alive which he declares orderly First Christ then they that are Christs at his coming then afterwards 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 comes the end that 's the third step namely the general Resurrection of the rest which is the end of all as is declared Rev. 20.6 11 12. Now that Christ may not be called The first fruits of those that sleep with reverence to All as Mr. Owen suggests I see no ground more then that he may not be called the first-born ofeverycreature and the believers a first-fruits of his creatures Jam. 1.18 Nor doth his making peculiar application of the usefulness of this Doctrine to believers hinder his affirming the Resurrection in general For that 's an usual thing to make special application of any general doctrine to those to whom he treats
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
that deliverance from the death that they should have dyed which by his dying he procured for them to All. So that here we have a groundless proofeless Argument though he saith it neeeds no proof yet I think it needs more proof then he can bring for it in every particular Object But this makes but Christ at most an half Mediator Ans But why so If a man undertake to mediate for another to have his life spared and obtains what he undertakes shall that be imputed an injury in him because in so doing he did not also undertake he should never sustain any anger for any after-folly If Christ do his work he undertook in Mediation and that to satisfaction to the justice and will of God who shall dare to call him but a half-Mediator because many a man refusing to make use of his Mediation in higher things that is to come to God by him deprive themselves of the further acts of it which he tels them they shall have if they will be ruled by him A King and some Subjects are at difference they are attached condemned and must dy A third between them comes and procures that the sentence shall be reversed and favor shewed them from the King and then goes to them and tels them if they will follow his counsel and be ruled by him as he hath procured their release from that sentence so he will also bring them to be favorites and familiars some listen to him and are ruled by him and he performs his word to them to the utmost others reject all his counsels will not be beholden either to him or the King being spared break out into new insolencies against them both and for that are again condemned and executed Shall their wickedness be cast as an imputation upon him and make him be stiled but an half-Mediator because they refuse the better half of the benefit they might have had by him If this be rational let rational men Judg. I might illustrate it by the case of Moses mediating for the Israelites and yet refusing to pray for nay praying against the Rebels in Numb 16. But I leave it the matter being so evident CHAP. IIII. An Answer to his eighth Argument in which is considered whether Christ purchased faith for those he dyed for HIs eight Argument is thus If Christs blood doth wash purge Argu. 8 cleanse and sanctifie them for whom it was shed then certainly he shed his blood only for them that in the event are purged cleansed and sanctified But All are not in the event washed purged cleansed and sanctified Ergo He dyed not for All. The consequence of the major that he conceives undeniable is undeniably vitious nor is it any way proved by him The proposition being reduced is thus They whom Christ dyed for are or shall be sanctified and purged by his blood And so it being indefinite it s to be construed Particularly or Vniversally if Particular its peccant in this that the major in the second figure in which this syllogisme thus reduced is ought all to be Vniversal If construed Vniversally as he must needs intend it or else he says nothing then I deny it and he no where proves it that All that Christ dyed for are or shall be parged by his blood The consequence is like this If they that came out of Egypt entred into Canaan by the river Jordan Then they only came out of Egypt that passed over the river Jordan But let us view the proofs of his major as Vniversally taken He assays to do it first by viewing the types and then secondly by plain expressions but first he halts in laying down his probandum for in stead of this That all that Christ dyed for are or shall be so purged he propounds to prove that The blood of Christ is effectual for all those things washing purging sanctifying which I will grant him where it is received by faith but I say that comes no more up to the thing to be proved then if a man should affirm That all that God brought out of Egypt were preserved and kept till they injoyed Canaan and then for proof produce some Scriptures that shew that those that followed God in his leadings of them and believed in him were so preserved c. But let us see his proofes And first From the types he says That the Apostle says that the expiation-sacrifice legally sanctified the unclean as is exprest Heb. 9.13 But by his leave the Apostle saith not It sanctified them all for whom it was a sacrifice but them whom it sprinkled the words are sprinkling the unclean sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh not Being offered for the unclean sanctifies c. But Mr. Owen says These are never divided though distinguished but I see no word to disprove their being divided though he says he was about it Let us see if we can find any thing for proof of it we will then appeal to the Law of the expiation-offering in Numb 19. There we first finde a Commandment to take a red heifer and offer her up and then gather the ashes and keep them and it s said they shall be for The Congregation of the children Israel for a water of purification the sacrifice then was for a preparation of a purifying water for the Congregation here is no exception or exclusion of any in that That pertained to the Congregation and then he tels them how they should purifie themselves with it and in what cases but now mark what he says in vers 20. The man that shall be unclean and shall not purifie himself with it that sould shall be cut off from the Congregation It seems then God supposed the application divisible from the preparation of it and appoints a punishment for those that refuse its application Cutting off from the Congregation It seems he was of it before and ought to have been sprinkled and sanctified with it the refusal of which and presuming to approach to God without it was to be punished with cutting off from the Congregation To which the Apostle I conceive alludes in Heb. 12.24 25. Ye are come to the blood of sprinkling take heed that ye refuse not him that speaketh 2 Pet. 1.2 as in another place the believers are said to be chosen to the obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Now unbelievers are disobedient and in what but in not yielding up themselves to God and Christ to be sanctified and cleansed by his blood So that Mr. Owen hath got nothing by that legal typicall expiation his after exception about the Antitype to this we shall speak to in its due place Let us now see the express sayings His first is that in Rom 6.5 6. If we have been planted together with him into the similitude of his Death we shall be also in the similitude of his resurrection knowing that our old man is crucified with him that the body of sin might be destroyed that henceforth we