of causes and I say your mistake is the not understanding of causes I do allow of as many distinctions of causes as the Scripture doth but I am not so simple as to make several causes of one thing to be diametrially opposed against each other as ye do but consentaneous to one another so that Gods declared cause is adequate to his essential meritorious or final causes My third mstake as you say is my not understanding the extent of the word all and the word world and in this you make a great puther and a stir to prove that the word World is taken many times for lesse then all Who knows not that but 't is sometimes taken for all as you and all men confess and in this case touching the death of Christ I am certainly assured 't is meant all as I have already evinced from John 12.47 Nay moreover you grant it for you also affirm that he dyed for all and therefore when you except against my large extending the word world it may be conceived you are a little out of your self if not I am sure ye are out of the truth For what man that is compos mentis would first assert that Christ died for all and for the world and then except against the places that prove it as not extending unto all because sometimes those terms in other cases extend not to all I hope you will see your folly and be ashamed 4. My fourth mistake you say is my not understanding Ezek. 33.11 where the Lord saith As I live I delight not in the death of a sinner For from this place I conclude you say all sinners and so indeed I do yea the worst and perishing sinners and so the text saith expresly Ezek. 18 ult. I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth Who told you that God makes three sorts of sinners and one of them he calls sinners in a Gospel-sence have you eaten of the forbidden fruit if not how come you to know more then is written and more then is true that some sins and sinners are greater then others I do not deny but to divide sinners into so many sorts that exclude the greatest part of them from Gods desire of salvation to them I allow not but detest it as abominable I am sure God tells us no such thing in his word as that he would save onely sinners in a Gospel-sence But he either saith Sinners indefinitely or else particuliarly of such sinners as Mr. Hobsons wisdom excludeth as these Scriptures will abundantly testifie Jer. 25.3 unto 8. Jer. 35.12 unto 17. Chap. 29.19 Chap. 18.11 12 Chap. 6.16 17. Chap. 13.11 Isa. 48. 17 18 19. Where you may see he endeavoured with all earnestness even unto admiration to save not onely those that did accept but those also that refused Salvation and perished That all this was done out of true compassion to them doth appear 2 Chro. 36.14 15 16. That all this also was not a bare outward and helpless means which God used by his Prophets but a most efficacious powerful and prevailing means the Spirit of God going with the word of the Prophet and yet not received doth most manifestly appear in that remarkable place of Zechariah 7.11 12 13. as also Act. 7.51 This is yet farther confirmed and illustrated by the ever blessed Son of God in his most pathetical expressions of sorrow and grieffor and the shedding of tears over the miserable sons and daughters of Jerusalem who had unavoidably and full sore against his blessed will brought themselves into an irrecoverable estate by not knowing the time of their visitation when they were most gently allured and earnestly called upon it being now too late to reverse the Decree that was gone out against them I say yet did our Saviour weep for them Luke 19.41 and weeping he most affectionately breatheth forth this most blessed wish and desire for them O that thou hadst known in this thy day the things that belong to thy peace c. in which desire he is like unto God his father See Deut. 5.29 Chap. 32.29 Psal. 81.13 Isa. 48.18 Let all this be well weighed without prejudice and see then if you you cannot understand our Saviour as he speaks that is That he came not to call the righteous that is righteous indeed but sinners to repentance that is sinners indeed his designe into the world being more to amend that which was amiss to seek that that was lost and heal that that was sick then to those that were already in a good way and in a saveable condition that had not need of a Physitian Mat. 9.12 Mark 2.17 Whoever do but mark upon what occasion our Lord here speaketh these words they may with ease understand that he means worse sinners then Mr. Hobsons Gospel-sinners for our Saviour being at meat with Publicans and sinners in Levi's house the Scribes and Pharisees complain of it thinking 'tis like as Mr. Hobson doth that he was sent onely to the precise and Gospel-sinners which when our Lord perceived he said unto them They that are whole have not need of the Physitian but they that are sick I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance Next you say I mistake in putting one person for another as in Heb. 10.29 where the text saith Of how much sorer punishment suppose ye shall he be thought worthy who hath troden under foot the Son of God and hath counted the blood of the Covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing c. Now you say my mistake is That I take the word he for the party that treads the blood of Christ under foot whenas 't is meant if all were true as you say of Christ himself that was sanctified This fond and I think your own interpretation of this place is not onely against all the judicious learned but against the scope of the Apostle which is both to aggravate the punishment and the sin of the person here spoken of who trampled under his foot the blood of Christ which he aggravates by rehearsing the vertue of it and what it had done for him to wit sanctified him from his sins which the party wickedly how slighted and rejected though formerly had imbraced it and been sanctified by it and this right well agreeth with Saint Peter 2 Pet. 1.9 2.20 21 22. I am still filled with amazement that you should be so void of reason as to interperet Scripture after such a heedless manner as to confront all wise and learned men yea and the truth also Do you think it would aggravate the sin of the sinner to tell him that he hath trampled under his foot that blood which he had no benefit nor sanctification by but that blood by which Christ was sanctified or do you think that Christ needed to be sanctified by his own blood himself I am well aware that sanctification is sometimes taken for setting apart but sanctification by Christs blood is never
And as many as were ordained to life or had acceptance with the King humbled themselves will you be so weak as to judge that their humbling was not before their choice though mentioned last in words when as 't is made a condition of their acceptance 1 Reas. Next you come to your Reasons in which you most unreasonably say That whatsoever comes to pass was before determined of God Oh impudence the height of blasphemie what every thing determined of God what if a man lieth with another mans wife or be drunk was that determined of God every thing was then these things were Oh! blush and be ashamed in maintaining such sordid opinions as these are 2. Reas. Secondly you say Whatsoever God doth for us in relation to heaven before Grace was wrought in us is done beforetime But Election or chusing of us is done for us before Grace is wrought in us Ergo The bold assumption of this foolish Syllogisme is most notoriously false being against the current of Scripture and those places you alledge for probation thereof do prove no more but that God loves us and hath given his Son to die for us even before we loved him and so he hath done for all But this is no chusing or Election such as you speak of from the rest but onely a general loving of all so as to endeavour their salvation by his Son Jesus Christ This shall be more fully cleered when I have done answering to your particulars when I come to speak of conditional Election made in intuition of our being in Christ and against irrespective decrees 2. Your second particular That God hath a special designe for the advancement of his grace and love to carry on by Christ for them and them onely is directly false and diametrally opposite to these Scriptures Mat. 9.13 Rom. 5.6 18 19. 2 Pet. 3.9 Ezek. 18.30 31 32. Chap. 33.11 and therefore I shall return no more answer to it his design being to work grace in all that he might save all though most will not receive grace and some receive it in vain 3. Your third particular being grounded upon the former false ones must of course be also false it self and so much for it 4. Your fourth particular That Gods designe was satisfaction for all sin and the purchase of eternal life c. If you mean he have purchased these things conditionally I assent to it and so he hath done for all But if you mean he hath done it for any other wayes then upon conditions performable by them then I deny it as most untrue according to the speech of our Saviour to his Disciples Matth. 6.14 If ye forgive not men neither will your heavenly father forgive you So that 't is to be noted that forgiveness is upon condition and also 't is to be noted that forgiveness and blotting out of sin is not properly in this life no other wayes then in a promise we may be said to be forgiven even as we may be said to be now saved see Act. 3.9 Sin being properly blotted out when there can be no more remembrance of it But now yet sin may be remembred against those righteous men that turn from their righteousness and all their righteousness shall be forgotten That which causeth you so plentifully to erre in your next particulars is your not understanding what Christ came to do you take it for granted I see that Christ came to do all the work for the Elect so that their sins are pardoned and they saved ipso facto and without any condition in them if that were true indeed that those he died for he had done so for them then his death indeed could not have been for all unless all should have been saved But 't is most evidently true That he hath not so died for any What the Father intended he should do by death that indeed he did finish and compleat viz. offer up himself a propitiatory sacrifice to God that he might open a way unto remission of sins and salvation for all but did effect it fully for none without themselves And because the greatest part of the errours of your book are founded upon this gross mistake I shall speak a few things more to it before I leave it although I have said enough already in a manner to a considering person first I will note wherein we differ in this point You hold that when Christ was offered upon the cross he took away put an end blotted out and utterly destroyed all his peoples sins for ever and presented them just righteous and holy before God now I for my part do distinguish between the cause and the effect between the time of the one and the time of the other but you jumble both together These things were done says your opinion whilst Christ was on the cross but I say they are indeed doing but are not compleatly finished till his second comming And now I will proceed to prove it which if I do not by plain and unwrested Scriptures then believe me not The first place is 1 Cor. 5.21 He hath made him that knew no Sin to be Sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him This Scripture was wrritten by Paul after Christs death now note here he hath made him sin that we might be made righteous he hath been that we might be past in him and to come in us he is sin in us first we are righteousness of God in him afterwards his being sin for us is the cause our being righteousness is the effect A second proofe is Tit. 2.14 He gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purifie c. Note here also that Christs end in giving himself was that he might purifie and cleanse c. and we are cleansed but in part then his end is acomplished in part but when we are cleansed throughly then his end is wholly acomplished he shall first travel and afterwards shall see of the travel of his Soul Isa. 35.11 A third proofe is Col. 1.12 21. You that were enemies he hath reconciled in the Body of his flesh through death to make you holy unblameable and without fault in his sight from whence doth appear plainly 1 that Christs death was then past 2 that their spirits were in part reconciled then 3 that their being without spot was yet to come A fourth proofe Eph. 5.25 26.27 where note he gave himself for his Church that he might cleanse it with the washing of water by the word and that he might present it not having spot or wrinkle c. Minde it he gave himself that he might cleanse 2. cleanseth that he might present spotless c. First he in love gives himself second he cleanseth by his word third after clensing he presents it without spot or blemish but spotlesness is not before but at the appearing of Jesus Christ as you may see yet further in 1 Cor. 1.7 8. That ye may
salvation unto all men for the same purpose that they should deny ungodlyness and worldly lusts and live soberly and righteously in this present world W. P. Sound Doctrine OR The Doctrine of the Gospel about the extent of the Death of Christ DEar friend I received your book in which you prerend to answer my fourteen Queries and ten Absurdities which how well you have done let the Godly wise judge that have read it I am amazed to take notice how consident you seem to be in so bottomless a business as you maintain and with what subtilty not to say fraud you pass over the energie and force of my Arguments without notice and how you pretend that 't is an opinion very dangerous to hold that Christ died for all alike and yet you your self maintaining he died for all as if he died more for one then another and as if he died to save onely some and dyed for the rest to damne them I pray where do you learn that distinction of dying for all but not all alike was ever such a thing heard of among any that had the use of their reason I desire no greater advantage against you then that you are constrained and so are all of your opinion to speak without Art without Scripture without Reason and against all the best of Antiquities The holy Scriptures do indeed most plainly tell us that Christ died for all as you have also quoted Joh. 3.16 16.33 2 Cor. 5.19.1 Jo. 2.2.1 Joh. 4.14 Heb. 2.9 but do any or all of these or any other say that he died not for them alike or that he died for some more then other I shall not take upon me to write an answer to all your impertinent allegations and particulars in your book because I judge 't will be a mis-pence of time and blotting of paper to no purpose And were it not that I feared my silence would occasion you to be wise in your own conceit I would not have troubled my self to make any Reply unto your feigned doctrine for I do not much fear that many considerate good and sober men will be misled by such groundless conceits But being perswaded that possibly some weak persons may be misled by the pretended holyness of your self and Doctrine therefore I did resolve to write an Answer to your book which if you will weigh seriously in the balance of truth I hope it may put a stop to the exorbitancy of your Judgment it being the most fit way yea the way of our blessed Lord Jesus to reduce mens vile conversations by first purifying their hearts by faith and he who is not first cleansed in the inside of his heart no marvel if his actions be unclean he that judgeth not rightly of Gods wayes no marvel if he order not his own aright if I judge that God may pretend the grace of the Gospel i.e. remission of sins and Salvation upon amendment of life unto all protesting to them all that he desires their weal and yet intends it onely to a few of them I say If I judge God may do thus and yet be just no marvel then if I do also deal so with men my self this opinion altogether indulging such a practise for we are to follow the example of God both in Justice and holyness and all other perfection and 't is notoriously known to all considerate men that the Doctrine of the Gospel in every part of it is calculated for the Meridian of Godliness that being the great design of God in the world by all the Doctrines and preceps of the Gospel to lay obligations upon men to be holy in their conversations now by this you may know Truth from Errour for that Doctrine whose natural tendencie is to excite and provoke men to good and godly life is most assuredly from heaven but that teaching or those opinions that so much as but incline men to or allow them in any unclean or unrighteous pathes as your Doctrine doth is certainly not from heaven but earthly sensual and devilish as will afterward more fully appear I shall now begin with your first thing You say page a that I did not propound my questions to be informed and therein you were very right for indeed I thank my God I was not diffident of but believing in them when I put them to you but I did it to inform you and to rectifie your and others Judgements that judge not aright of God You say That my Queries are founded upon a groundless supposition to wit that you do not hold that Christ died for all which you say you do but not all alike I answer My Queries have a good foundation for if you maintain Christs dying for all in no other way then your nonsensical way 't is all one as if you had said in terminis he had not died for all for if he did not die effectually for all at least so far as to open a door of salvation for one as freely as another to what purpose was his death and what benefit have most men by his death you say They are freed from the curse of Adam but is that all are you so carnal have you such ignoble thoughts of the ever-blessed God and have you forgotten Joh. 3.17 Joh. 1.7 That all men might be saved and the many other places might be named wherein the Lord declares his desire to have all saved bâ—ing grieved and troubled in spirit when they will perish according to these Scriptures Ezek. 18.32 Chap. 33.11 Jer. 4.19 Judg. 10.16 Luke 19.41 You make such a confused work in your proofs for Christs dying for all as I never heard First you will not have it proved from these places Joh. 3.16 2 Cor. 25.19 c. because you say the word World is taken diversly in Scripture Sometimes for the whole sometimes for a part sometimes for the wicked and sometimes you say also for believers also but that 's false that the word World is taken many times for less then the whole I know and you needed not so have belabored your self to prove it What if it be meant for less then all sometimes yet sometimes it doth include all as you also confess and whensoever the death of Christ for all or his desire to save all is spoken of in this case it must be meant all for several good Reasons and Considerations as you shall hear afterwards onely take this one to chew upon in the mean time 'T is taken from Joh. 12.47 where our blessed Saviour saith If any man hear his words and believe not he will not judge him that is now rendring this reason For I came not to judge the world but to save the world By the word World here which Christ came to save and not to judge cannot be meant onely believers if at all but such as hearing do not believe or else the text will not be sense nor will the latter part be a reason to prove the affirmation in the
fore part of the verse but the sense would then be this nonsence If any man hear and believe not I judge him not for I cause not to judge believers but to save believers I trow this reason may satisfie a man of reason And whereas you say that the word World is sometimes taken for the believers that 's most untrue it being never taken for the better part though many times for the worse or greater parts Your three proofes for it are so weak that I think you might as fairly and to as much purpose have cited Matth. 1. to 17. the former of your three being grounded upon nothing but the malitious and lying opinion of the Pharisees what if the Pharisees did say thinking a few too many to follow Christ That the world was gone after him was it therefore true that they were a world or might properly be called the world see your self now in this glass Your second place Rom. 11.12 doth prove no more to a man that hath any brains but that the Gentiles are there called the World not the Elect onely among the Gentiles but the Nations of Gentiles who usually were called the World in opposition to that one Nation of the Jews Your third place Joh. 17.21 23. is meant of the world not of believers our Saviour being there praying for his own disciples that they might be so united to the Father and made one with him that they might the better be enabled in their great work of preaching the Gospel to all the world that the world might thereby be convinced to know that thou hast sent me and I sent them for he saith vers. 18. As thou hast sent me into the world so have I sent them into the world that is into believers quoth Mr. Hobson Also he prayeth that they may be kept from the evil of the world vers. 15. is that from the evil of believers Truely I have wondred that your understanding should be so infatuated as to summon Scriptures together so unduly but I remember 't is said The Lord catches the wise in their own craft God is just therein I pray God you seriously lay it to heart for what cause the Lord hath thus blinded or suffered your minde to be blinded so as you are not able to discern a Truth from an Errour nay to love Errour rather then Truth and would bring Scriptures to prove it too and for want of them you bring them that rather disprove it Next your come you say to your affirmation viz. that Christ died for all but not all alike pag. 6. First you prove that he died for all out of Tim. 4.10 Heb. 2.9 who denies it you might have as well proved it from those forementioned places which you excepted against the word every man Heb. 2.9 being taken as diversly as the word World but that you thought you would have some new-sangled way forsooth by your self to prove it for I think truely we may give you the honour or rather dishonour of inventing it never any before having so much boldness or so little wit as to maintain Christs dying for all from those places and not from the other or that held he died for all but not all alike In the next place you bestir you most monstrously and lay about you to prove that which scarce any will deny sâ—il that Christ by his death hath taken off the curse due to Adam from all men and freed all men from the killing power of that state And not contented with your Scripture-proofs you still huddle in more then a good many of a kinde of Scholastical Arguments to back that which will easily be granted but this peradventure was to shew your Scholarship and it may be your manliness how couragiously you can fight when none opposeth you But what of this what if Christ did do all this for all men doth that prove he did no more for them if not you have laboured in vain But it may be that shall be proved in the second part of your affirmation therefore I hasten to it i.e. that Christ died not for all alike And this you say you will prove in eight particulars some of which are so notoriously untrue and others so impertinently alleged that they are scarce worthy of an answer Yet lest you should triumph and crie Vicimus I shall give a brief reply to each of them in their order First That there is a people which God hath chosen and Elected in his Son mark that before the world was Who denies it and yet what a quoil the man makes to prove it do I deny Election or chusing out of the world no I believe it That God chuseth as the Prophet very fitly saith the godly man to himself Psa. 4.3 and also that before the world was he determined so to do and that is as much of Election as can be proved in Scripture that God doth use And whereas you say That Faith was an effect of ordination and you bring Act. 13.48 to prove it I say as 't is most untrue and against the current of Scripture and Reason so particularly that of Act. 13.48 is directly and plainly against you and I shall retort it unavoidably upon you The Evangelist Luke there being about to let Theophilus know who or what persons were ordained to life he doth most plainly say they were believers yea he restrains it from any others but believers in saying As many as were ordained to eternal life believed not a man more was ordained but such as believed Let any man now ask his Reason which of these is first Ordination or Believing and certainly Reason will tell him that Believing must be first especially if he consult with Joh. 1.12 Even to so many as believed on his name to them he gave power to become the Sons of God But perhaps you may fancie that Ordination must there be first because the order of the words is first If you should be so senceless then consider would it not be a ridiculous conceit to think that a Bullock hath horns before he hath hoofs because 't is said Psal. 69.31 This shall please thee better then a Bullock which hath horns and hoofs and would it not be as ridiculous to think that men are saved before called because 't is said 2 Tim. 1.9 Who hath saved us and called us If yet ye should be so dull as not to understand that Luke here intends Believing was before Ordination because he names Ordination first I shall give you a Similitude Suppose the King of a Nation having many Captives at his will and mercy do make Proclamation unto them all that whoever humble himself shall be ordained to life they that refuse shall be pursued with fire and sword unto death now suppose that I being in that country see divers of them humbling themselves and so finde acceptance with the King and are ordained to life and I come over to you and tell you the story I say thus
properly is an act of judgement a preferring of the better before the worse They that say God elected such a number of men without the least intuition of their qualifications by which they are differenced from the Reprobate crew do speak illogically to say no worse how much safer is it to say that because such men as are in Christ by faith are better then such as are out of Christ by infidelity therefore those are taken and these are left And it seems this very Argument from the nature and use of the word Election did prevail with St. Austin who saith expresly That Justification precedeth Election and his Reason is Because no man is elected unless he differ from him that is rejected Fourthly I consider That the whole tenure of Scripture and that in the judgement of all the Ancients teacheth no other predestination then in and through Christ which is respective and conditional First the Scripture gives us none but conditional promises such as If any man keep my saying he shall not tast death Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he reap And we shall reap if we faint not If any man hear my voice and open the door I will come into him c. If ye be willing and obedient c. If ye continue rooted and grounded and be not moved away from the hope of the Gospel c. Nay even the very texts which are wont to be urged for irrespective Election do seem very precisely to evince the contrary For when God is said to predestinate according to his good pleasure which he purposed in himself the word {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} which is rendered good pleasure doth not signifie the absoluteness but the respectiveness of his will for it relateth to something in which God is well pleased and that is Christ it being impossible for God to please himself with Mankinde any other wayes then in him of whom it was said This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased Besides all those Scriptures that do teach universal grace and redemption of which there is a multitude do seem to me most clearly to infer a conditional Election For if it be true that Christ did die really for all if he did earnestly desire that every one would come in upon the preaching of his word and receive the benefit of his death and passion if his warning were not in jest and his invitation were serious if depart from me ye cursed was therefore foretold that every one might beware and not obtrude himself upon that sentence if he is unwilling that any should be caught in the Serpents snare who shews to all without exception a certain way to escape if he is not desirous to strike who bids us look to our posture and stand upon our guard if he shews his power to punish none but onely those that refuse his mercy Then his refusing of the Goats in respect of that which makes them differ from Sheep inferreth his Election of the Sheep in respect of that which makes them differ from Goats Unto this fourth thing let me adde but this one thing more viz. That since our Saviour upon the cross did very heartily pray even for those * Homicides that put him to death we have no reason but to believe that he layd down his life for those that took it away and that he died for all for whom he prayed And yet we reading of their murders but not of their repentance I should be loath to say that those crucifying wretches were precious vessels of Election in compliance with your wicked opinion that say Christ died onely for Elect and yet to him that hath but a shallow judgement he must needs die for those he prayed for and 't is as plain that he died for those that cursed themselves his blood be upon us said they and on our children and yet said he Father forgive them he made his murderers execration become his prayer he wished as well as they that his blood might be both upon them and their children but in his most merciful not in their barbarous and cruel sense for they meant the guilt he the benefit of his blood and yet I dare not affirme that they were all a portion of Gods elect Fifthly and lastly I consider which to me is an Argument of some weight That the main stream of those ancient learned men that are usually called the Fathers doth run this way as it is notoriously known to any man that is acquainted with History and because I would not overburthen my self in writing nor my Reader in reading I shall not recite the innumerable quotations that might be I shall onely refer you to the Paraphrases of Erasmus and the Confessions of Beza and Dr. Twiss. First Beza in his Comment upon Rom. 11.2 rejects the Judgement of the Fathers because they were not as he would have them for the absolute unconditional way Secondly D. Twiss confesseth That all the Ancients before St. Austin did place the Object of God's Election in * fide pravisa at which Austin was so far from being displeased as that with great Reverence to their Authority he made it appear to be an innocent and harmless Opinion he affirmed That all the Fathers who lived before himself agreed in this And because Dr. Twiss so readily subscribeth to it also I ought in reason to be secured from being guilty of novelty or singularity herein for truely I am loath to forsake the Ancients until I plainly see them shaking hands to part from Truth And so I will conclude these five Considerations onely with desiring the Liberty of Conscience to believe from what hath been spoken with St. Paul That God is a Respecter not of persons but of works That my sins are perfectly and intirely my own and That if I do any thing that is Good it is the Grace of God in me yet so as that I may do all things through him that strengthens me and who doth so strengthen me that I may do them but not so force me as that I must If all this doth not yet satisfie and convince you I have small hope that any thing will that is behinde yet because it may do much good to others as I am confident it will to considering people I will proceed to what doth follow In the next place you pretend to answer to some Objections which are made by some of my Judgement The first Objection made against Eph. 1.4 and such other places where 't is said That God haâ—h chosen us in Christ before the world was you say is this Object 1. That God is pleased many times to cast things that are not as if they were Rom. 4.17 as he did to Abraham And so Christ is said to be a Lamb slain from the beginning of the world Rev. 13.8 So must Election be understood in posse but not in esse The force of this Objection you think to take away with