§ 6 contribute a good measure Neverthelâ—ss deâ—th reigned from Adam to Moses even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression who is the figure of him that was to come There are two respects wherein at least many of those over whom death reigned from Adam to Moses did not sin after the similitude of Adam's transgression First They did not sin against a revealed Law which Adam did in eating the forbidden fruit and there was no revealed Law or Covenant of life expresly and explicitely given from God after Adam's time before the fall untill Moses Secondly They did not all sin actually and in their own persons as Adam did yet death reigned over Infants who were in respect of actual sin Innocents And by what Law did Infants suffer death if not as they were included in Adam the first man and his offence becoming theirs thereby according to those words 1 Cor. 15. 22. For as in Adam all die so 1 Cor. 15. 22 in Christ shall all be made alive So that if it were not by the imputation of Adam's sin Children or Infants suffered a penalty without all Law which is contrary to the Apostles words Rom. 5. 13. But sin is not imputed when there is no Law But there was a Law then in force viz. the penalty of Adam's sin which by imputation reached to his posterity And in this very respect Adam was the figure of him that was to come viz. Jesus Christ So that if the righteousness of Christ of that one man Christ Jesus be not imputed to justification of all his children by faith or that are considered by God in Christ the whole frame of the Apostle's arguing seems but trifling and to conclude nothing of what it seems to aim at There are four Objections among others I have § 7 met with against the evidence of these Texts to the Doctrine I have vindicated Object 1. Christ was our example and therein did answer to Adam as his figure for sin came into the world by Adam's example and righteousness by Christ's Answ This is an old error and what error so old and rotten that the Quakers will not embrace who live in error as their element The Texts I have quoted have not the least appearance of sin entring the world by example and the Infants over whom death reigned were not capable of sinning by example Object 2. There might be a derivation of § 9 Adam's corrupted nature to all his posterity and so all of them might be guilty of sinfull disposition and habits in their own persons yet by generation from Adam and not by imputation of his sin committed in his own person so the righteousness that justifies may be derived in spiritual regeneration whereby the soul is disposed and enabled to work righteousness by that spiritual life and vigour it receives from him as its root Answ That cannot be the meaning frr then the condemnation spoken of would be by all and every one which though it be true that dispositions to sin are derived from Adam by natural generation and dispositions to holyness by regeneration from Christ yet cannot be the meaning of these Texts for the emphatical word which as upon the hinge the whole argument turns is the word one by one mans offence by the obedience of one whereas if the Objection did hit the meaning the Apostle must rather have said So by all or every mans offence condemnation came upon all But there is no mention of that middle thing mans corrupt disposition to knit condemnation to Adam's sin as a more original and remote cause Also it should then be in or into all and not upon all Object 3. The condemnation that came upon § 10 all and that reigned from Adam to Moses was but tempopal death and what is that to eternal or to bear a prnportion with justification to life spirtual and eternal Answ It is more than you prove or can prove that it was but corporal and temporal death and we can prove that it was the guilt of eternal death if we go no further to fetch the proof than from what is opposed to it in the last verse of the Chapter righteousness to eternal life And temporal death is not remitted or discharged to those who enjoy the benefit of the grace by the second Adam Jesus Christ Object 4. The Apostle James saith what doth it § 11 Jam. 2. 14. opened 21. profit my brethren though a man say he hath faith and have no works can faith save him Was not Abraham our Father justified by works c. Ye see then how that by works a man is justified and not by faith only To the first Instance in the objection I answer The saying a man hath faith is not sufficient to render him justified or to justifie him Secondly A dogmatical or historical faith cannot justifie or so act on the promise and Covenant as to put us under the imputation of justifying righteousness for such a faith the Devils have and there is a vast difference between believing the History of the Gospel and believing in Christ And this is the dead faith the Apostle speaks of verse 17. To the second instance Abraham's works though they justified his faith yet they did not justifie his § 12 person And the History of his offering up his Son doth give evidence for this Exposition Now I know Gen 22. 12. Jam 2. 18. that thou fearest God seeing thou hast not withheld thy Son thine only Son from me And I will shew thee my faith by my works To the third Instance which seems to joyn works § 13. with faith in justification that is our works I answer That although justifying faith is not without works yet faith justifies without works as a man cannot have seeing eyes if he have not lungs and heart and brains which are essential to life and the living motion of every member yet the eye only sees and not the lungs or brains c. but if you should pluck the eyes out of the head they would so alone be to little purpose So works are essential to the being of justifying faith yet faith alone is in the act of justitying or so acts on Christ as to justifie the person in the sight of God by cloathing the soul with Christs righteousness And although in the Text it is translated not by faith only it may and I was going to say ought to be translated alone and then the sense is but this That faith which is alone without works doth not justifie a man in the sight of God And I shall give two good Reasons for it The one because it may be so without wrong to the Original Secondly It must be so because it will otherwise contradict the Apostle Paul and the truth also as expressed abundantly in other Scriptures 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth as well signifie alone as only and is very § 14. often so rendred as Joh. 8.
these wild and worse sayings I know their mystery and depth of Satan but to spread them all in the light will ask more Paper than I am willing to write out in this Book Another expression and quality of the Quaker's § 7 Mystery of great Whâ—re p 4 Pennington quâ—stions Smith Cat. p 5â— justifying righteousness is That it is within them not without them Christ being within there is justification Now is the life the Faith the obedience of the Son the thing which is of value in us And by this power in us all our works are wrought for us So that the righteousness which Christ wrought before we were born even in the days of his flesh is to the Quakers a dead thing and Christ was mistaken shrewdly when he tells his Father That he had finished the work which he had given him to do intending thereby the last scene of death which he was then just entering upon and therefore speaks of all as accomplished § 8 Another notion they have for the countenance of the opinion of justifying righteousness to be within them not without them and wrought in the time of their life not by Christ in the dayes of his flesh above 1600 yeares since is That because the Scripture speaks of justifying by faith and faith being within and wrought in the Saints in this life and in every individual believer therefore the justifying righteousness is within the believer This is abused by the Papists to prove that works Iustifie because faith is a work or act of the soul though that be false for all grace consists essentially in the habit and disposition not in acts for else a man must be graceless when he is fast a sleep for then he is not in action nor grace in act But the Quakers though they embrace many of the Popish Tenets that are erroneous they want wit to manage them as they But to any purpose hâ—re their great Apostle This justification is by the faith of Fox great mystery p. 46. Christ within for all the holy men of God were justified by their faith and that faith is in the heart For â— 9. the right understanding of this we are to consider faith as a disposition and habit and therein a principal part of the new creature This disposition of trusting in relying on adhering to God hath its acts suitable to its self Now the acts of faith either respect its fruits and effects other parts of sanctification as love patience self-denial c. or its objects and aims Faith hath for its immediate objects the promises of God leaning trusting hoping according to them it is said to lean on the Lord trust hope in the Lord its aims and ends for which are the good things wrapt up in the Covenant of grace Now faith is not accounted for righteousness with respect to it self as a holy disposition or its acts as holy acts but as it looks on takes hold of and trusts in the righteousness of Christ It is no rare thing for the act to be denominated from the object Though faith which Justifies justifies as it hath for § 10 its object Jesus Christ who is the righteousness of God and so faith be within the righteousness of Christ which Justifies is not within for faith Justifies as it looks at somewhat without and above our selves Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his bloud justified by faith in Jesus Rom. 4. 25. Gal 2. 16 Heb. 11. 1 Christ Faith is the evidence of things hoped for Again Faith is made the condition of Justification and that not only as it may be considered singly but as it includes the whole body of sanctification in some parts and measures of it But to as many as received him Joh. 1. 12. to them he gave power to become the sons of God even to them that believe on his name So that faith is a receiving of Christ who is both Prince and Saviour Lord of life and prince of peace and receiving him as such is conditional of this acceptation with God and so may be said to Justifie as it performs the condition of Justification on our part But if faith were the meritorious cause of Justification § 11 it were Justification by works And if faith Justified looking no further than it selfe as it is subjected in the soul it were a strange faith indeed that hath it self for its object and then a man should believe in himself I might entertain you longer than your patience will hold out in pregnant proofs out of their own writings That as Christ's obedience so his sufferings upon which depend our Justification are all transacted within the heart of a believer his agony his crucifying and death c. But I will give you but one Instance lest I leave too little room for what I am willing to be ample in the Subjects Smith Cat. p. 12. of the succeeding Chapters We believe that Christ in us doth offer up himself a living sacrifice to God for us by which the wrath and justice of God is appeased towards us This is in stead of many though their Books do generally speak of the sufferings of Christ as propitiatory to be done over in every person before conversion And the maddest humour of all is That Penningtons quest p. 21. they make the seed or the light or Christ being crucified in the soul by the power of sin and lust to be the crucifying and death of Christ by which God is appeased Do not they which dwell there in spiritual Sodom put his flesh to pain crucifieing it in and to themselves Take one Scripture to guard you against all the fancies of this sort and to close this Chapter But this man after he had offered one sacrifice Heb 10 12 13 for sins for ever sate down at the right hand of God from thence expecting till his enemies be made his footstool for by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified CHAP. XVI The Quakers disown and deny the Christ of God and set up a false Christ in his room and stead and attribute all to that false Christ which is due and peculiar to the true Christ THis is the grand and root-errour of the Quakers SECT I that great non-such lye which travels with and brings forth that Babel and confused heap of errours wherewith their Religion if they have any such thing is abounding First They disown and deny the Man Christ Jesus who was born of the Virgin Mary who was of the seed of Abraham according to the flesh who was nailed to the Cross and crucified at Jerusalem without the gates to be the Saviour of believers and he who wrought that righteousness and underwent those sufferings by which mans Redemption was wrought This we certainly know and can never call Penningtons questions p. 33. the bodily garment Christ but that which appeared and dwelt in the body They do
doubt not the truth of Nailor's speech and that the Apostles and Disciples of Christ were all strangers to such a Conversion Before I part with this Subject it will not be unmeet § 3 to inform you what they mean by the Lords Supper which they own But if you eat in remembrance of him and so come to die to that which slew him then do you shew the Lords p. 57. Naylor Love to the lost death till he come and when he comes he shall not find you eating and drinking with the drunken c. So that mortification to sin taken in the best sense is with him the Lords Supper but in his own sense it is a dying to all that doth not obey the Christ of the Quakers The light within At another turn it is somewhat else and quite p. 56. contrary Which all know who come to his Supper where the Father and the Son are come in and sup with the Creature which all the Imitators and Observers of times are ignorant of whose contention is about outsides In the words cited before it was a Fast a Popish cruciating Fast But this last cited a Feast a Spiritual Feast and the Feast is constituted of the coming of the Father and the Son supping with the Creature whereas before his mind was that when Christ comes the Supper is ended but now it is no other but Christ himself present But the strangest Supper of the Lord is expressed by the same Author in these P. 54. words And this was to be done at all seasons when they eat and drink in their eating and drinking they were to do it to the Lord and therein to have Communion with his Body and Bloud yea when they were to eat with Gentiles they were to partake of the Table of the Lord as is plain 1 Cor. 10. Thus hath the Lord given up these people to confusion § 4 Sometimes the Lords Supper is quite gone and done away then it remains but 't is a fasting from and dying to sin and what they call Excess Then it is Spiritual and within and Christs coming makes the Supper And last of all 't is every meal you eat and every draught you drink you ought therein to remember the Lords death till he come at breakfast dinner supper and afternoons luncheons also And yet this Wretch Nailor to whom some of the Quakers sang Hosanna and worshipped him and calleâ— him the Son of God The Christ and none of the Quakers now that I can hear of but own him as a great Prophet and highly honoured and beloved of God and yet he dared to say concerning this false confused stuff What I have received of the Lord that p. 56. I shall declare unto you And again And this is known from the Lord in the Eternal to be the true end of the p. 57. Supper of the Lord c. If denying the Ordinances of Christ after the manner proved of the Quakers in this Chapter be Christianity or consistent with a Christian the holy Scriptures have given us a very unintelligible account of Christianity or a Christian And that mouth which said I deny that God did ever Ch Atkinson or will ever reveal himself by any of those things thâ—u callest the means of Grace was not full of blasphemy or in any fault against Scripture Prayer Hearing which were intended by it CHAP. XV. The Quakers deny the transactions of Jesus Christ when he was manifest in the flesh in Judea above sixteen hundred years since or as he is now at the right hand of God to have any influence into our Justification before God and our Salvation SECT I IN this point they come not short of themselves who in every path of Errour out-strip all others who are found in the same câ—ooked way I shall proceed to the proof All that are called Presbyterians Ed. Bur. Trumpet c. p. 17. and Independents with their feeding upon the report of a thing done many hundred years ago This he saith by way of reproach against all that act Faith on and receive comfort from the blessed Effects of Christs Righteousness and sufferingâ— by him wrought and suffered when he was in the world What Righteousness Christ performed without me was Farnworth not my Justification neither was I saved by it I believe it of himself if he died in the same mind Can outward Bloud cleâ—nse the Corscience Can outward Penningtons Questions p. 25. Water wash the Soul clean A plain denial of the Efficacy of the Bloud of Christ shed on the Cross to cleanse the Soul from the guilt of sin by its satisfaction to the Justice of God Seeing the Apostle speaks Pennington of purifying the heavenly things themselves Heb. 9. 23. it would seriously be enquired into and the Lord waitedon to know what nature thâ—se Sacrifices must be of which cleanse the heavenly things Whether they must not of necessity be heavenly If so then whether it was the flesh and bloud of the Vail or the flesh and bloud within the Vail Whether was it the flesh and bloud of the outward earthly nature or the flesh and bloud of the inward spiritual nature Whether was it the flesh and bloud which Christ took of the first Adam ' s nature or the flesh and bloud of the second Adam ' s nature § 2 By these Queries you may see how far he is from believing that the offering up of the Man Christ Jesus the Seed of the Woman hath any influence into our remission and cleansing from the guilt of sin contemning the value of the Flesh and Bloud of the Man Christ Jesus as beneath and short of such an Efficacy and that of necessity there must be flesh and bloud mysteriously included in the outward and visible flesh and bloud of a more heavenly and spiritual nature contrary to the words of the Apostle which he quotes Heb. 9. 23. which is the Apostles most forcible and plain argument to prove the Efficacy of the offering of Christs Flesh and Bloud For if the bloud of those Beasts as they were shadows and types of Christ were so effectual how much more the true Sacrifice shadowed out by them But we may with pity and horrour behold the woful shifts men are put to and bewildred in who forsake the plain paths of the Lord in his Word and are resolved to lay hold on any fancy and foolish imagination rather than let go the lye in their right hand § 3 And this we witness who through the Lamb our Saviour Parnel's Shield of the truth p. 30. do reign above the World Death Hell and the Devil but none can witness this whose eye is outward looking at a Redeemer afar off and still live in sin As for the qualification of living in sin they frequently express it to put a blind before the Readers eyes and are far from the true meaning of that phrase in the Scripture for whereas the Scripture
intends it of the unconverted and those who are not sincere in their hatred of sin and obedience to God the Quakers will needs have all to be such as live in sin who have any remains of sin in them or whose lives are not totally free from the stains of it But nothing is more plain than his utterly disowning the Christ without and Faith that looks at him to have any thing to do in the victory over Death and Hell c. and that the Man Christ Jesus who lived and died as far off as Jerusalem is not the Lamb their Saviour § 4 Let us hear one more that it may not pass for only one two or three of their Doctors Opinions And conclude to themselves a belief in Christ and apply Morning Watch p. 21 his promises what he did for them in the body that suffered without the gates of Jerusalem and by his death and offering all things is accomplished for them and no sin shall be imputed to them though they live in it And through his mediation and intercession for thom as he is at the right hand of God at a distance from them they believe that they have access to God and are accepted of him and yet they neither know God nor Christ nor the place where they say he sits at the right p. 22. hand of God and being in their mind perswaded that Christ hath satisfied and hath reconciled them to God though they be yet sinners Those he calls sinners and condemns are all that repair not to the light within as their Saviour by his teaching and power within them as is the scope of his Book I should but cloy you to cite more for this purpose It is their Opinion that Christ did what he did in the flesh which he took of the Virgin Mary and what he suffered therein also as our Example and no more The influence of Christs transactions without us above SECT II 1600 years since into the Justification and Salvation of Believers asserted and vindicated I shall not need to be voluminous in the agitating this subject many far more able and worthy having wrote on it at large And although amongst persons who deserve not only the name of Christian but Venerable in the Church of God there is not the same prospect into some of the more curious parts of it yet that the transactions of Christ without us and before we were born are the merit of our Justification and Salvation they are so firmly agreed in that they may as soon be perswaded to condemn and throw away their Bibles as to be of a contrary belief I shall therefore consider Christs Obedience as active and passive and prove them to have in them the efficacy denyed by the Quakers and answer some Objections And then shew you what Righteousness they profess Salvation and Justification by The righteousness of Christ's active Obedience without and before us considered § 2 And he received the sign of circumcision a seal of the righteousness of faith which he had yet being uncircumcised Rom 4. 8. 11. opened that he might be the Father of all them that Believe though they be not circumcised that rightousness might be imputed to them also The righteousness here spoken of is in a compleat sense and unlimited to this or that particular case 't is a righteousness without stain of sin or unrighteousness And indeed there is no such thing as a compleat righteounsess in the sight of God that hath any the least crookedness obliquity or fault in it 'T is that rightcousness of the Covenant of grace or thereby expressed for Circumcision the seal of this righteousness was a seal of that Covenant The imputation of it is according to this Text § 3 a reckoning it to a person verse 10 How was it then reckoned verse 9. Faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness not as James Naylor saith And Love to the Lost p. 7. with him his righteousness is freely imputed or put into the creature as if imputing were a putting in It was imputed to James Nailâ—r that he was a blasphemer was it then and thereby put into him to be a blasphemer A very fit Expositor of mysterious Scriptures However he hit right of the Quakers mind and therefore it must be no more but put in to this day But to return it being reckoned and that as a grace of the new Covenant it was not the righteousness § 4 of Abraham by him wrought or wrought in his own person as the subject of it for then it had not been any grace or favour from God to reckon it to him therefore it was a righteousness of another that was reckoned to him not his own Whose righteousness it was then may be gathered by the title of the imputed or reckoned righteousness verse 11. A seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had being yet uncircumcised Well then this consideration may lead us to the truth of imputed righteousness if we consider faith as being an act of the soul and therefore not the righteousness imputed for so far as that is righteousness in obeying the command of God it is our own act The just shall live by his faith His faith Hab. 2 4. Rom. 4 5. is accounted for righteousness It must needs then be the object of faith or that which faith acts on or looks to and this is no other but the Lord our righteousness Jer. 23 6. the great subject of the promise and Covenant and is therefore called The promise the Covenant and frequently The righteousness of God he being the worker of that righteousness in his own person which is of Gods appointment to justifie a poor believer which is not a believers but as it is reckoned or imputed to him A second ground of this Doctrine of imputed Rom. 5. 21 § 5. righteousness is in Rom. 5. 21. That as sin hath reigned unto death even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. That this righteousness of Christ is imputed to Justification and therein the abounding grace of God is plain in the 17 18 and 19 verses where the Apostle lays his argument for grace and righteousness through Christ in its similitude to the influence of Adam's sin by imputation For if by one mans offence death Rom 5 17 18 19. reigned by one verse 17. Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men verse 18. For as by one mans disobedience many were made sinners verse 19. much mâ—re they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ verse 17. so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men to justification of life verse 18. so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous verse 19. And further to clear this truth if clearer evidence may be possible the consideration of verse 14. will
between God the Father and God the Son Wherefore Heb. 10. 5. when he cometh into the world he saith sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not but a body hast thou prepared me Then I said Lo I come in the volume of the Book rseVe 7. it is written of me to do thy will O God What was this will but his fulfilling the Law both activelly and passively as Redeemer which he could not do as God therefore God prepared him a body that body which was born of the Virgin to which he being united and therein dwelling and performing our Redemption he became actually and compleately a Saviour and not before Therefore if you believed aright concerning the God-head of Christ yet denying his man-hood which was made a created Being a Being in time you disown and deny the true Christ And that is a notorious unmanning of Christ and § 6 denying him which one of your great Writers saith And the Scriptures throughout testifie of him and declare his unchangeableness who through all ages abides Morning Watch p. 4. the same what he was in the beginning Whereas if the man Christ were so the same he never had a beginning And the Scripture or you are much out for they tell us When he was twelve years old he went Luk 2. 42. up to Jerusalem and there disputed with the Doctors which would have been no matter of wonder if he had been as man from the beginning Bâ—t if you will read such a mystery of iniquity ignorance and bold perverting of Scripture as the world was never till of late acquainted with observe what follows out of the fore-mentioned Author And he John was sent of God to bear witness unto p. 5. this truth which was in the beginning But that is the true light saith John that enlightens every man that comes into the world John 1. 9. Observe he corrupts the Text and puts is for was which in my Exposition of this Text I shew to be the break-neck of the Quakers design You may hereby perceive they are sensible how much the word was makes for my Exposition But he proceeds Here was the light shâ—ne out of darkness in John the morning and the first day was come unto him as was unto Moses A most strange false and absurd passage to make Christ to be the morning and the first day but any thing to worm out our blessed Redeemer born in time In the beginning of his book he tugs hard to have the created light and the day distinguished from the night to be no other but Christ the light within And here he will have it shine out of darkness in John It follows a few lines after Then God sent him to bear witness to the light which in him was made manifest that all in the light might believe and he called to others to behold him and said he was the Lamb of God and was come to take away the sins of the world Joh 1. 29. Mark he behold him weigh this truth all ye Priests and professors and ponder it in your hearts What cannot the Devil lead men into who are led captive by him at his will and make them also glory in it and stand to 't with a mark in a Parenthesis and call on men to weigh their wickedness I am amazed The Lord have mercy on us and poor weak souls who know not how to espy such gross delusions as this That the Lamb of God John there spake of was the light in him and which shone forth in him The light within every man cannot be the Saviour § 8 John 4. 22. opened for salvation is of the Jews which the light within is not These words were spoken by Christ himself to the woman of Samaria to convince her of the Samaritans false worship Ye worship ye know not what that is ye know not what to worship nor for what end The Temple at Jerusalem was a type of Christ and the worship of God which shadowed out Christ as the Sacrifices Altar c. were restrained to that Temple to shew that what-ever worship was not performed in Christ should not be accepted Now saith Christ You know not what you do in worshipping at the Temple at Mount Gerazim for no Temple but that in Jerusalem is a type and representation of Christ and withal salvation is of the Jews The true Saviour is to be born in the true Church and from thence to bless the world There shall come out of Zion the deliverer and shall turn ungodliness from Jacob That is out of the Israelitish or Jewish Church For out of Zion shall go forth the Law and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem There is one Scripture much abused by those I oppose § 9 which I shall explain before I shut up this Chapter Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the â— Cor. 5. 16. flesh yea though we have known Christ after the flesh yet now henceforth know we him no more This Scripture is by them made a sufficient ground for their infidelity in the Christ of God the Son of Mary for they say he was a man of our nature of the flesh and bloud of the earthly Adam and nature as I have already shewed out of their Authors but therefore he is not to be believed in which you have had proof of sufficient By the flesh we are not to understand the body § 10 as if he should have said we are to take no notice of our own or others or Christs body of flesh for the Apostle calls them worse than Infidels who do not provide for the bodies of those who are of their own house or that we should have no remembrance of Christ as he was in the flesh for then we must forget and be ignorant of the great mystery and foundation of the Gospel Great is the Mystery of godliness God was manifest in the flesh But we preach Christ crucified I determined not to know any thing among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified The meaning therefore must be That he and his fellow-Apostles did not preach the Gospel for worldly respects and esteem of men and please their fancies and humours for the sake of outward and carnal advantages The grounds of this Exposition are three among others First The subject and scope of the Chapter is the life § 11 to come and to perswade so to walk and behave our selves in this world as those that must quickly be uncloathed of this earthly tabernacle and be concerned with only the things of another life Secondly The end of Christs death expressed in Verse 15. That they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves That is to their outward temporal interests as their prime and chief aim for to their spiritual and eternal selves they were to live which are best promoted by living to Christ Thirdly From what is expressed in Verse 17. as necessary to making the honour and interest of Christ our