a Reprieve of about Eighty Years Our Opposers can show no Context of Holy Scripture in which their threefold Death for this Sin is contained or in which the Posterity of Adam are said to have his Sin imputed to them and that they are punish'd for it The only Offer they make is from Romans Chap. 5. the Apostle there at v. 19. saith As by one Man's Disobedience many are made Sinners so by the Obedience of one shall many be made Righteous By one Man's Disobedience say they that is by God's Imputation of one Man's Disobedience to them even Adam's in Paradise so many have been made Sinners How much more dexterously and agreeably to the Justice and Wisdom of God Pelagius and the Vnitarians By one Man's Disobedience that is saith Pelagius not as Austin has newly fancied by God's Imputation but by our Imitation of one Man's Disobedience so many have been made Sinners and on the other hand by the Obedience of one that is by Imitation not by Imputation of one Man's Obedience even the Lord Christ's many shall be made Righteous Trinitarians make the same Blunder at ver 18. As by the Offence of one Judgment came upon all Men to Condemnation even so by the Righteousness of one the free Gift came or shall come upon all Men to Justification and Life Here again they see not that by the Offence of one Man and again by the Righteousness of one Man are not as much as to say by the Imputation of one Man's Offence and of one Man's Righteousness but by Imitation of one Man's Righteousness and of another Man's Offence Justification and Condemnation have come upon all Men. We die for imitating the Disobedience of Adam and we shall be justified and saved for and by imitating the Righteousness of the Lord Christ And thus it is that St. Paul himself explains himself in this very Chapter v. 12. As by one Man Sin entred into the World and Death by Sin so also Death hath passed upon all Men for that or because all have sinned He saith not as Trinitarians do because Adam sinned but because all have sinned therefore Death hath passed on all that is all of us have deserved the Death we must undergo or have undergone by our own Sins But they say Infants die and what Sin have they unless you allow the Imputation of Adam's Sin to all his Descendents But why do they not consider too that Beasts die is Adam's Sin Imputed also to them They ought therefore to know that Holy Paul in that Context is speaking only of Adult and Grown Persons as for Infants Beasts and such like that have not Sin because they have not Vnderstanding of Good and Evil of Moral and Immoral such die because they have Mortal Bodies liable to Diseases and Accidents From which Accidents and Diseases to deliver and rescue them it does not please God to Interpose by an Extraordinary and Miraculous Power For which sort of Providence towards them divers Probable Reasons might be given but being not Necessary or Proper to be here inserted I omit them Of Partial Redemption THE Transgression of Adam in Paradise or his eating the Forbidden Fruit was in Him Actual Sin in his Descendents 'tis called Original Sin but the Effects of it are the same in Both namely the before-mentioned three-fold Death or three Deaths Death Temporal which is the separation of the Soul from the Body and all temporal Calamities and Evils Death Spiritual which is the Corruption of the Faculties that we are averse to all Good and inclined to all Evil. Death Eternal which is the everlasting Suffering of Body and Soul in Hell-fire These Deaths are the Consequences and Desert of Adam's Sin to himself as the Actual Offender to us as his Sin is Imputed to us by the Justice of God But the Mercy of God and his Wisdom have found out a most Gracious and Glorious Expedient by which to deliver Mankind though not from Temporal Death yet in part from Spiritual Death and wholly and altogether from Death Eternal But before we speak more particularly of the Expedient 't is necessary to caution Learners that they fall not into this Error that God designed the Benefit of the Expedient for All Men and Women For when we say Mankind or all Men have been Redeemed from the before-mentioned Deaths our meaning is that the Elect or as that most consider'd and weigh'd 17th Article of the English Church speaks Those whom God hath chosen out of Mankind are as that Article farther says brought to everlasting Salvation as Vessels of Honour These are called according to God's purpose in due Season his Spirit working in them And they through Grace obey that Calling These Elect are a definite certain and unalterable Number that can neither be increased nor diminished as is Expresly and in words declared by the Suffrage of the Divines of Great Britain at the Synod of Dort Suffrage p. 9. It is saith the same Suffrage at p. 43. for the Elect that Christ died that He might Effectually obtain for them and Infallibly bestow on them both Remission of Sins and Salvation If the Unskilful ask here How this Doctrine agreeth with those Declarations of Holy Scripture so often repeated which seem to say that Christ died for the Sins of the World or for All Men The Divines above said answer at p. 47. Here it is that the secret Decree of Election sheweth it self inasmuch as the Price was indeed payed for All yet is not Beneficial to All because All have not the Gist of fulfilling the Condition of the Covenant They mean All have not Saving Grace given to them whereby to Believe and to Obey the Gospel They rightly add at p. 55. We no where meet in Scripture any Promise by which God hath bound himself to impart his Grace to All and every One Farthermore the same excellent Suffrage teaches at p. 27. that 't is a Supposition without any good ground that all Infants are saved It saith that those Infants who are saved are saved by virtue of their Election which respecteth not the Age of Persons but only looketh upon the common heap of Fallen Mankind out of which it chooseth And concerning such Choosing or Election it teaches at p. 34. that Grace doth find some whom it Adopteth out of the most Wicked and at their last End while Many who seem less Guilty have no part in this Gift Therefore when All are said to be Redeemed or when 't is said Christ died for All or such like Expressions are used this is to be understood of All sorts or orders of Men and Women He died for High and Low for Old Men and Infants for Youth and Middle-age for Rich and Poor for Wise and Unwise for all these sorts for some particular Persons of all these for such of all these sorts as are Elected And those whoever they be who extend any farther than this the Redemption purchased by Christ are Arminians But
Person They confound us yet more if more can be by telling us only and so often of the Creator never of Creators as Trinitarians would have us to speak Gen. 6.7 Jebovah said I will destroy Man whom I have made Isa 42.5 HE that created the Heavens HE that spread out the Earth HE that giveth Breath unto the People Nehem. 9.6 THOV hast made the Heaven the Heaven of Heavens with all their Host the Earth and all things therein the Sea and all that is therein and THOV preservest them all and the Host of Heaven worshippeth THEE This Text assures us there was no dividing the work between two or more Persons It was one THOU who both created and preserves all things and THEE saith the Text the the Host of Heaven worshippeth not YE not THEM not more Persons but one only Isa 4.28 The CREATOR of the Ends of the Earth fainteth not Rom. 1.25 Served the Creature more than Gr. besides the CREATOR But what is not really found in Scripture for their purpose Trinitarians know how to discover that 't is there which with respect to the case before us they do these two ways First by interpreting the Texts which by Confession of their ablest Criticks speak of the new Creation or Renovation of the World from Idolatry to the Knowledg of the one true God which was by Christ concerning the old Creation or the making of Heaven and Earth which was by God Secondly They oft-times honestly add the word or words that were wanting on their behalf which they have done in abundance of Contexts But for both these Artifices their Detection and their Confutation I refer to the brief History of the Vnitarians Of Original Sin SOon after the Creation Adam the first Man transgressing the Law given to him of not eating the forbidden Fruit he thereby incurred the Penalty of Death that was the Penalty annex'd to the Law which he had violated But first he incurred this Penalty not only for himself who was the actual and real Offender but for his whole Posterity God impating to them or reckoning to them his Offence as if they had been the Doers of it Secondly We are to know that in the word Death there is implied not only what is naturally and commonly meant thereby even the Separation of the Soul from the Body and the Body's returning to Dust but first such a Corruption and Depravation of our Faculties that we are all born naturally averse from every good Word and Work and inclined to Evil only and to all kinds of Evil. Then all Temporal Calamities and Evils to which human Life is subject and finally Eternal Damnation All these are implied in the words of the Sanction The day thou eatest thereof thou shalt die and they are by Divines commonly called the three Deaths or the threefold Death Spiritual Temporal and Eternal But we mean not to say that the word Death doth in its first or proper Signification import all the abovesaid Evils But it pleased God when He passed Sentence on Adam to extend the Signification of that Word which exprest and contained the Penalty of his Law 'T is true 't would be cried out on as most unjust among Men to reckon or impute the Transgression of a Father to his Children and other Posterity and much more if they were punish'd for it in a far more extream manner than is truly and indeed implied in the Penalty annex'd to the Law that was violated that is if the Word or Words of the Penalty were extended and strained beyond their proper and natural meaning Yet these things cannot be unjust with God because He can do no Unjustice and the reason of that is because Things or Actions are not just or unjust in themselves or in their own Natures but only as God who hath all Authority and Power either willeth and commandeth them or on the contrary nilleth and forbiddeth them The Notes This Postulatum that Things or Actions are not just or unjust in themselves or in their own Natures but only as the Supream Authority and Power that is to say GOD shall please to will or nill them to command or forbid them is indeed necessary to the Defence of such Doctrines as these that God doth arbitrarily impute the Sin of one Man to all Men and that in punishing those whom he hath made guilty by his meer Will he infinitely exceeds the true proper and natural Signification of the Words in the Sanction that is of the words of that part of his Law which contain the Penalty of transgressing it That Postulatum is so necessary to this Doctrine of Original Sin that it must be owned that the Calvinists have judged better and spoke more consistently than their Opposers of some other Sects and Churches who hold Original Sin as 't is before described and yet seem unwilling to allow of that only Basis on which Calvinists have rightly seen it will stand namely this that Just and Unjust Good and Evil are only the Will and Prohibition of him that hath Supream Power But as the Postulatum is necessary to the Doctrine for which it was devised so it as much destroys the Eternal Rectitude and Holiness of God as the Doctrines in the foregoing Paragraphs which have been already considered overthrow the Unity the Omnipresence and other his Essential Perfections and Attributes It is horrible but to think that these Imputations on the most Holy God are such as would make up the just Character of an Almighty Devil For if the Devil had Supream Power what worse could he do than they feign is done by the Fountain it self of Rectitude and Holiness Could he do worse than impute the Sin of one Man to all Men and punish them for it besides and beyond his own Sanction with an utter Inability to all that is good then punish Inability which was neither their Act nor Desert and of which himself was the only cause with Eternal Damnation Here many to help themselves a little say God saves some from this Ruine he rescues his Elect tho not from Sin and Temporal Death and Calamity yet from Eternal Damnation nay bestows on them the unspeakable and everlasting Beatitudes of Heaven But this is no better than the other For the highest Injustice to the far-greater number is so far from being excused by an ungrounded Partiality for a very few that this latter may be truly called a new and fresh Instance of sort of Unjustice Is it not Partiality and Vnjustice too to make a great number of Creatures of the same kind and tho one deserves no more than another of them either for Good or Evil cherish one with whatsoever Omnipotence can do for him and burn against the other with Wrath eternal and insupportable But they say God having all Authority and Power what He willeth must needs be Law that is to say Justice and what He nills or forbids must be Transgression that is to say Evil Sin and Vnjustice
Arminianism is only a Limb of Socinianism as a Map of a Province or Kingdom is but a Limb of a Quarter-map or of a Map of the whole World For Arminians have borrowed all they have both Doctrine and Argument from the Socinians or Vnitarians And for that reason it must be farther said that Such as extend the Redemption by Christ beyond what is above declared are so farforth Socinianiz'd have departed from the Articles of the English Church and from the Suffrage of the British Divines at Dort The Notes They tell us that God so Imputed the single Transgression of one Man to all Men as to make all Men thereupon obnoxious to the Three Deaths Temporal Spiritual and Eternal but that soon Repenting him of this Rigour he took up a Contrary Resolution even to Redeem all Men. Well do they hold of that Mind For if they do 't is no very Hurtful Tragi-comedy because however Unjustly all Men were Condemned yet if they are all Pardoned they have been more Scared than Hurt But the Matter it seems is otherways for when God resolves to Redeem all Men the meaning is he intends to Redeem Some and farther in Electing or Choosing those Some his Election oft-times is from the most wicked and those also at their last End or when they have sinned as long as they can In a word of those Few whom God is pleased to Redeem from that Ruine which his Imputation of Adam's Sin to them brought on them he chooses They say the least Worthy for Objects of the Highest Mercy and exercises the uttermost Unjustice and Cruelty on those that are Better or however not so bad Let us consider these two Notable pieces of Orthodox Doctrine 1. God hath Elected to Salvation and has Redeemed only Some of those Many who were undone by his Imputation of another Man's Transgression to them Now though Vnitarians deny there was any need of a Redeemer to rescue us from Adam's Transgression or the Punishment thereof because neither could that Transgression be Imputed to us nor could we be justly Punish'd for it yet on other accounts we own there was need of a Redeemer As to reconcile the World to the one True God from whom they were departed by an Universal Idolatry and to reconcile God to the World for that and Other Actual Sins and divers other Reasons But we say also that whatsoever was done or suffer'd by Christ the Redeemer or Saviour was equally done for all Men and Women none excepted We deny not that Holy Scripture speaketh of the Elect but we say it means not thereby some few certain Persons chosen out of the rest of Mankind to Eternal Life while all others are doomed to Damnation or lest in an incapacity of Salvation But the Elect are all Such as turn to God all such are by him Elected that is chosen and designed for Salvation and he would have all Men and Women to be of that number if they are not it proceeds from their own Negligence or Wilfulness not from Adam much less from God This is most clearly the Doctrine taught in Holy Scripture even that the Redemption by Christ is intended for All John 6.51 The Bread which I give saith our Saviour is my Flesh which I give for the Life of the WORLD The beloved Disciple saith the Lord Christ was a Propitiation for our Sins and not for ours only but for the Sins of the WHOLE World 1 John 2.2 St. Paul to the Romans saith By the righteousness of one even the Lord Christ the free Gist is come upon ALL Men to Justification of Life Rom. 5.18 The Author to the Hebrews saith By the Grace of God Jesus Christ hath tasted death for EVERY Man Heb. 2.9 Or if they want a Text wherein the very word Imputed is found St. Paul saith God by Christ reconciled the WORLD to himself not Imputing their Transgressions to them 2 Cor. 5.29 To tell us Here as our Opposers do that the WORLD the WHOLE World ALL Men EVERY Man are only some Men and those also a very Few what is it but to give us a Flat denial of Scripture instead of an Interpretation thereof And I will Here leave it with the unprejudic'd Considerer whether these Texts do not sufficiently prove this part of the Damnable Socinian Heresy But they say farther 2. In choosing or electing out of the heap of fallen Mankind God's Election or Choice is sometimes from among the most wicked and those also at their last end or after they have sinned as long as they can The next thing that we may expect from some Men is that they will write a Panegyrick in Praise of the Devil If they had said that the Election for which they contend is made by the Devil or falls upon Persons by chance of the Dice it had been credible that Redemption and Salvation is the chance of the most wicked and at their last end But to say People are elected to Salvation and that by God and yet that they are the most wicked and at their last end who are elected and saved is not said without such manifest Impiety that I will not now stand to dispute against it but leave it with every sincere Lover of God to judg betwixt us and our Opposers But this one thing I will observe that when they were loading their Maker with such scandalous Imputations they should have so contrived their Calumnies as to be self-consistent and not contradictory to one another as they are in this Article For of what worse or worst Men and Women elected to Salvation do they dream when themselves have before assured us that the Imputation of Adam's Sin to us makes All averse to all Good and inclined to all Evil Of such Persons there is neither worse nor worst but all are bad alike so bad that Satan himself neither is nor can be worse If we all have such an Inclination to Evil only and to every kind of Evil as is neither restrained nor corrected but by an extraordinary and particular Grace of God it unavoidably follows that all are bad alike and that 't is a Contradiction to say the worst or the most wicked are chosen to be Subjects of the Grace of Redemption and of a Pre-eternal Election 'T is no manner of Evasion here to say that the Restraining Grace which God bestows more or less on every Person even on the Reprobate hath several degrees and from hence it comes to pass that some are not so bad as the rest For seeing 't is not their own Choice or Act but merely the Momentary Grace blown into them that restrains any from any sort of Wickedness it can no more be said of such that one is better or less bad than another than a chained Lion can be said to be tamer or less fierce than a Lion who is loose and at full liberty Of the Satisfaction WHen the Divine Wisdom and Goodness had determined to redeem all Men that is some
Infinite Punishment of all Mankind no nor of one Man 4. But if it were admitted that one Man was so dignified by the Inhabitation of God in him as to be an Equivalent for all Men admitting also that the three days Temporal Death of such a Man amounts to as much as the Deaths Temporal and Spiritual and the Eternal Damnation of all Mankind What will follow hereupon It will follow that God is obliged in Equity to release all Mankind from all the three Deaths Temporal Spiritual and Eternal else He hath received an Equivalent on behalf of Mankind without discharging those for whom He received it which is contrary to Equity nay to Justice For in Equity an Equivalent ought to discharge the Person whether he be Offender or Debtor but if the Equivalent be not only tendred but accepted also on behalf of the Debtor or Offender the Offender hath Wrong done him if he is not immediately discharged of his Punishment and the Debtor of his Debt But do Trinitarians pretend or dare they that God doth discharge Mankind from the three Deaths on the Oblation and Sacrifice of himself made by the Lord Christ on their behalf By no means they own we are not at all discharged from Death Temporal but in some part from Death Spiritual and only a few Persons from Death Eternal It follows that the Sufferings and Death of our Saviour were not in deed an Equivalent to the three Deaths of Mankind 5. To add now no more The Unitarian Doctrine is consistent nay is the very same with what the Scriptures every-where say namely that Almighty God of his Grace the Riches and Abundance of his Grace and Love has pardoned Offenders for Christ's sake on the Conditions on their part of Faith Repentance and Newness of Life But the Trinitarian Doctrine which saith the Punishment laid on the Lord Christ was truly equivalent to the Punishment due to all Mankind doth deprive God our Maker and Father of the Glory of his Pardoning Grace and Mercy Nay it saith in effect that we are not beholden to God our Father on that account It saith he hath been harsh nay hath been apparently unjust in that he hath received more than an Equivalent for our discharge from the three Deaths and yet he hath not wholly releas'd any and but very few are at all released I will only add Whereas Trinitarians call the Sufferings of the Lord Christ a Punishment and will have that Punishment to be equivalent to the Infinite Punishment due they say to Mankind for Sin Original and Actual and whereas they call this Doctrine the Doctrine of the SATISFACTION by the Lord Christ they have mistaken in the Name as well as in the Thing 'T is the Unitarians who in proper speaking hold that the Lord Christ made Satisfaction to God for Sin not Trinitarians We say that the Sufferings of the Lord Christ not being equivalent in the exact Scales of Justice for what all Mankind have deserved yet God was satisfied with them that is was graciously pleased to accept them as an Intercession on our behalf and this is the proper Notion of a Satisfaction But Trinitarians in saying the Sufferings of Christ were equivalent to the Demerit of our Sins were a full Payment to the Justice of God for them do not hold a Satisfaction but a Reparation or Plenary Amends The more elegant Latinists call Confession Deprecation and such like imperfect and partial Reparations and Payments by the Name of Satisfactions Of the Incarnation BEcause no other but a Person of Infinite Merit and Dignity could satisfy the Divine Justice for Adam's Transgression therefore the second Person of the Blessed Trinity called the Son offered himself to undergo the Equivalent to that Punishment or threefold Death which belonged to Adam and his Descendents and this Offer was accepted by the other two Persons of the Trinity It was agreed that the Son should become incarnate in an Human Nature should be Whole and All united to a Finite Man even the Man Christ Jesus and be one Person with him By this means the Man Christ Jesus became of that unspeakable Merit and Dignity that one drop of his Blood was an Equivalent to the Eternal Punishment of all Mankind in Hell-Fire and his Holiness and the Merit thereof was infinitely more than enough for himself it was meritorious of Heaven for never so many Sinners The Son was so incarnate in a particular Human Nature as to be personally thereto united in the very Womb of the Virgin Mary so that Mary as General Councils of the Orthodox have rightly defined was not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Mother of Christ but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mother of God This Incarnation of the Son in the Man Christ Jesus begets also such a Communication of Idioms that is of Properties and Attributes between the Divinity and the Humanity of the Lord Christ that we must say on the one hand God was born God suffered God died as we must say also on the other hand the Man Christ Jesus is Eternal Omnipotent Omnipresent Creator of Heaven and Earth As all Learned Divines acknowledg and Cardinal Bellarmine in particular has largely proved from Fathers and Councils of the Orthodox Bellar. de Christo l. 3. c. 9. The Notes The Doctrine of the Incarnation claims the place of all the Trinitarian Doctrines even of the Trinity it self in regard of its Seniority For while our Opposers were only Homo-ousians that is believed and professed only two Eternal and Consubstantial Persons not having yet dreamt that the Holy Spirit is God in the days of the first Nicene Council even then they held the Incarnation of the second of those Persons Neither does this Doctrine come behind any of their Doctrines either in the Number or the Rarity and Strangeness of its Wonders and Mysteries but of these three are more remarkable than the rest I will make a short Reflection on each of them The first Wonder is that an Infinite Person is whole and all incarnate in a Finite Nature Which amounts to this That Infinite is less than Finite for else how should Infinite be incarnate that is cased in the Finite But make the greatest Allowances possible yet the Infinite which is whole and all incarnate in the Finite can at most but be commensurate to the Finite that is but equal to it Now these are two such Paradoxes that till our Opposers can separate them from their Doctrine of the Incarnation they will never perswade that Doctrine to any who make use of their Reason and Consideration The second great Mystery or Wonder of this Doctrine is that the particular Human Nature in which a Person of the Trinity vouchsafed to be incarnate became thereby of Infinite Dignity and Merit for 't was an Equivalent for an Infinite number of Men and for the Infinite Punishment due to them and yet still remained and continued a meer and bare Human Nature Which is to say a