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A86320
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An antidote against antinomianisme. The first dosis. The unjustifiablenesse of justification before faith. Prescribed and administred in a soft answer: I. To seven arguments. II. To the solutions of five objections. III. To the novell distinction of Gods reconciliation to man, without mans reconciliation to God. Penned plainly, for the undeceiving of the plain-hearted Christian; and mildely, for the regaining of our mistaken brother H.D. By D.H.
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D. H.
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1643
(1643)
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Wing H18; Thomason E42_23; ESTC P1317; ESTC R11942
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43,691
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against it And therefore tremble you to say That God loved Paul with as great love when he persecuted the Church as after when he preached the Gospel For purpose or preparation of a ground of love is not so great as actuall Love To purpose to wooe is not equall unto the Love of wooing Likewise tremble to say That Christ did not purchase his Fathers actuall Love For wee are not actually loved till actually found in him If it were so that God were alwayes reconciled to us why doe you condemne your selfe in your own words next following pag. 11. I conceive say you and consider what you say the drooping Conscience that sits in darknesse under the clowdy apprehension of an angry Junge c. Attentive to heare how God may be reconciled So you How is God an angry Judge how is there a may be of his Reconciliation to us terms importing future time if he was never at enmitie with us If it were so that God may be reconciled to us from all eternitie and so before we were in Christ why doe you say in pag. 11. 812. that God is freely and fully reconciled to the Elect and loveth them in Christ your words following of persons polluted and sinfull being in Christ import an actuall being in Christ as sure as an actuall pollution when they come to him So much of this distinction Pag. 12 You say that God is freely and fully reconciled to the elect and loveth them in Jesus Christ without any previous dispositions without any qualifications without any performances of Conditions on their parts unlesse to be polluted and sinfull be a previous condition or qualification Answer The Lord expresseth it as the Cardinall condition of the Gospel that men must as well feel their sinnes as be sinners Matth. 11.28 Come to me ye that are weary c. Which Christ explaines Luke 15.7 Joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth which is a sense of sin at the least then over ninety nine Iust persons that need no repentance who are they but such as think they have no need whom Christ calls not Matth. 9.13 speaking to the Pharisees who justified themselves Luke 16.15 It is true that the qualifications in man to prepare him for Christ as Iohn by telling men they needed to repent calling them generations of Vipers and telling them That the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand Mat. 3. is said to make ready a people prepared for the Lord must be from God If there be the qualifications onely of illumination conviction and humiliation for a man blinde or stubborn defieth Christ they are the common workes or graces of the Spirit of God which may be in a reprobate Esau Iudas c. Heb. 6.4 And therefore we cannot be understood in these to ascribe to man either merit or efficacy towards his owne salvation If they be the qualifications of Conversion-graces as of faith c. they come in a speciall manner from the Spirit of Christ as the divine nature of Christ and so cannot be imagined to be of man though in man and acting upon man and man by them For we cannot say that Faith or beliefe doth beleeve repentance doth repent love doth love but men acted and moved by these graces are said to be Beleevers penitent and lovers of God So that though there be no qualifications on mans part from man yet on mans part from God And though there be no performances on mans part by meer man yet there are performances on mans part in man from Christs Spirit when Christ will come and close with the soul actually then doth he act desires and faith into it to make way for himself Rev. 3. Christ knocks before he let in Christ opens Lydia's heart then comes in And Ephes 2.8 By grace are ye saved through faith and that not of your selves it is the gift of God where it is evident that besides the riches of Gods free favour explained in vers 9. there must be Gods gift of Faith to bring us unto and into Christ So Iohn 6.37 Him that commeth will I in no wise cast out There must at least be a restlesse desire that the soul cannot sit still without Christ though that be an effect of the Fathers gift in the same verse All that the father giveth me shall come to me and then Christ will not cast him out or leave him out but receive him in The holy Ghost in that 11. Matth. 28. Come that is beleeve ye that are weary and heavy laden that is weary of finne and desire to come out of it compared with Matth. 5. where there is such frequency and varietie of expressions of desires under the notions of poverty mourning and hunger and compared with Iohn 3. where there is oft mention of faith as necessary to bring into Christ and unto salvation I say the Holy Ghost by these places sets forth unto us that there is a double condition of the Gospel Viz. Qua Quae. 1. The qualification in which a man comes to Christ that is a sensible need of Christ 2. The qualification which brings a man to Christ that is Faith required unto salvation but both of and from the Spirit yea from the Spirit as Christs Spirit as sent by the Mediatour when effectuall So that still all is of God But that which Christ doth to men before they come unto him and into him cannot be denied And this method of the Lord is much for our comfort that the King comes not sine magno strepitu multo pulvere without some hurry somewhat to doe that we may know the commings in of the Lord and not derive all assurance from phanatick Enthysiasmes phantastick dreams that are neither from the word and work of Christ nor warranted there by him You think to comfort a sinner by this that Christ is his without any qualifications performances or conditions on mans part But if there be no conditions qualifications c. performed by Christ in mans behalfe as to put into him desires faith love c. How shall he know but that he is still a miserable sinner uniustified How shall they say to their comfort as 2 Tim. 1.12 I know whom I have beleeved unlesse they doe beleeve And that Rom. 8.28 Wee know all work together for good to them that love God unlesse they feel their Love to God And that 1 Epist Iohn 3.14 By this we know we are translated from death to life because we love the Brethren unlesse they doe love the Brethren But of these markes and signes in another place if God permit This Position being your main ground together with the foresaid distinction I have been the longer in confuting the one and cleering the other I shall be briefer in taking down your props and superstructures and that plainly and lovingly You offer to bring many Proofes for the aforesaid unqualified Proposition Proof I. Pag. 12. Of Gods preaching salvation to Adam and Eve in whom
Antichrisis or opposition between our Passivenesse and Gods Act vers 5. There God is said to quicken us and that with Christ Now how or whom shall God be said to quicken but by taking into construction that clause us that were dead in trespasses and sinnes That as Christ being dead was quickned Hebr. 13 So we from the death in sinne are quickened together with him 2. As for other Translations The Hebrew Copy and the Syriack Copy put at the word us in verse 4. their full stop or Period Nor doe I fee any other Translations point it as you would point 2. From words let us come to matter If we should lend you this Proposition that God loved us with his great love VVHEN we were dead in trespasses and sinnes what would you gaine For these kind of Whens in the Scripture as here when you ware dead and Rom. 5. when we were enemies and Ezek. 16. When thou wast in thy Blood doe but import an order of Nature or working not a difference of time That is at the same instant when wee were dead enemies in our blood in the same instant did God put us into Christ by faith and made us lovely and actually loved us with his great love in him So is the very scope of the Apostle here to shew wherein did appeare Gods great love namely in quickning us to a spirituall resurrection with Christ verse 5. And in raising us to a speciall Ascension with Christ verse 6. And so Rom. 5.8 9 10. God commends his love towards us that when we were enemies c. we were reconciled to God by the death of his Sonne And so in other whens They doe but shew the matter God makes lovely in Christ not a sinfull condition that he can love out of Christ In common Speech When must of necessitie so be taken to signifie order of things not antecedency of time As one saith I married my wife when she was a Widow This cannot be meant that when shee was a widow shee was married or made a wife And so God converted mee when I lay in a most profane unregenerate condition It cannot be meant that when a man is regenerated he is unregenerated So when it is said God loved us with his great love WHEN we were dead in Trespasses and sinnes quickning us together with Christ This cannot be meant that God loved us with great love being still in our state of sinne and out of Christ For why then is he said to be wroth with the self same Ephesians whiles out of Christ and unregenerated and unquickened verse 1 2. Your 5. Proof Pag. 15. Rom. 9.11 12. The children not yet borne and having done neither good nor evill that the purpose of God might stand according to election Answ The Apostle expressely in your quotation applies this to election And election is called even here as oft else-where a purpose and wee cannot say that in regard of us or upon us that Gods purpose of love is actuall love God distinguisheth himself between his Purpose and Act Ephes 1.3 4. and 2 Tim. 1.9 10. Of which at large afore Upon this place of Jacob you make an Objection pag. 16. What if Jacob after this had turned to be a notorious and profane Person would or could the Lord have continued his love to such a person as this I answer boldly say you yea For Gods love and mercie are mercies of eternitie Psal 103.17 Ps 136. Malach. 3.6 Should the Lord change as often as we change he should be more variable then the winde Answ By these your words and the Obiections of some that heare you as a Commentary upon them you seem to conceive that if the Lord should not love us with as great love in a profane and unconverted condition as after then there were a change in God and in his love which to be your minde is yet more plaine by many former Passages already alleaged and especially of that place out of Ephes 2. And that touching Paul after in pag. 23. That God loved him with as great love when he persecuted the Church as when he preached the Gospel But this inference will no wayes follow That if God doth not actually love us from all eternitie in the same manner that therefore there would be a change in God and his love O that in such deep things you would speak debitè in proper termes as a man that hath skill in Divine reason Let me aske you a question Whether God having chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the World that wee should be holy and without blame before him in love having predestinated us unto the Adoption of Children by Jesus Christ c. can save us without our being in Christ without holinesse c. If not for his purpose is unchangeable whether he doth not love to see us in Christ rather then out to see us holy rather then not c If so then there is a change in Gods acts though not in his purpose O that you would discrecely mixe your sweet drinkes lost they make your Ratients burst Poyson is sooner taken down lap'd in gold or sugared Keckerm Syst Theolog. lib. 3. cap. 1. Evermore say the Learned and Godly Schoolmen wee call not the Papists in put a wide difference between the Decree of God and the execution of that Decree The Decre is eternall but the bestowing or giving of the end by the means is done in time So Keck And he saith well For though Gods Decree be eternall yet the World was made in time in sixe dayes Therefore when God actually looked upon it and approved all as exceeding good Gen. 1. that was done was in time So Christ was sent in due time to die for us and to save us in him either at Third Sixt Nineth or Eleventh houre Rom. 5.6 Matth. therefore God doth actually love us in him in time Yet all this doth not alter Gods purpose but answeres to his purpose Medul Theolog. lib. 1 cap. 6. and is the perfection of his purpose carrying on it self to its designed end To effect worke or doe saith D. Ames taken actively as they are in God the Agent differ not really from God himself For there is no composition or change of Power and Act in Gods most simple and immutable Nature mark not in his nature But saith he to effect worke or doe doth adde a certaine relation of God to a reall effect And there belongs unto God an active power in regard of the creature which gives to the creature a posse recipere a power to receive which produceth an appearance of that act which formerly was not So hee So that Gods essentiall purpose is like himself is himself eternall and unchangeable but his outward actuall working is in time And it is as great contradiction to conceive an outward action of God upon the creature without all time as to conceive hee should make a body that should be in