am wholly a stranger to as I believe all those are who are so much charged with it When we hear a man zealously purging himself of some Notorious Crime noysed abroad onely in the general without praevious Accusation it 's apt to fly-blow our Heads with jealousie he may be Tardy an over-forward Vindication being reputed more than half an Accusation But I dare be one of his Twelve-Godfathers in this matter that he does not make Christ useless but will allow him to be of some use that is to say that Christ is good for something and in effect a little Better than though next to Nothing and I can with more security become Bound for Him because he has given me good Counter-security that I shall not forfeit my Recognizance P. 330. I could never perswade my self no not for your heart though you had attempted it that the perfect Obèdience and Righteousness of His Life was wholly excluded So that whatever rendred Christ beloved of God contributed something to our Acceptation P. 331. We ought not to think that we receive No Benefit by the Righteousness of Christ. And I hope something is better than Nothing Nay such is his Charity he can be content to Allow that God was somewhat more pleased with the Obedience of Christ than the Faith of Abraham ibid. And that his Sacrifice was of greater value than the Blood of Bulls and Goats p. 19. Naughty men are they then that wrong Him and Them so as to insinuate that they design'd to make Christ useless the rather because they proceed upon so bad a Ground We are charg'd with making Christ useless onely because we dare not make his Laws so And thus it seems they have unhandsomely payd him in his own Coyn who charges them with making his Laws Useless onely because they dare not make his Person so And yet to deal plainly with Him for all this I find a Double charge upon the File against him 1 That though he has not made Christ altogether Useless yet he has made him Needless Though he can use Him yet he could have spared him though he can make a shift with him he could have made a Rubbing shift without Him Ut tecum possum vivere sic sine te So p. 46. I should rather have thought that Gods requiring such a sacrifice as the Death of Christ was not because he could not do otherwise And if Gods Iustice could be contented without that sacrifice I may presume it shall not stick at our Authors good Nature p. 43. Had Christ never appeared in the World yet we had Reason to believe that God is thus Wise and Good viz. to Pardon sinners And as he labours to Prove Enoch Noah Iews and Gentiles who knew nothing at all of Christ p. 44. yet understood God to be a God pardoning iniquity without him And surely if the World jogg'd on for four thousand years without Christ it might have worn out the Remainder without him too 2 I find a second Charge against him That though he make not Christ useless as to some common ordinary and general Ends which might have been attain'd and reach'd without him yet he renders him wholly Useless as to those special those main and glorious purposes for which he came into the World The making satisfaction to Divine Iustice the Imputation of his Righteousness to Believers his powerfull and effectual sanctifying them by his Spirit for whom he undertook Whereof we shall meet with abundant Evidence in the progress of his Discourse So that a Declaration contrary to the Fact is of small weight with considering Readers and sinks it self below all consideration But to return Two things fill up this Chapter First That the Person of Christ is of some Consideration and Secondly That the consideration of his Person is of some use onely the difficulty to be assoyled by His Abilities is Of what use the consideration of his Person should be 1. Then the Person of Christ is of some consideration but e're he ventures upon that Province he bethought Himself it would be a Task worthy his great Parts to indoctrinate our Plumbeous Cerebrosities in the Nice Point What the Person of Christ is P. 15. By the Person of Christ I mean what all men ought to mean nay there 's no doubt of that All men at their utmost Peril ought to mean to a hairs breadth just as our Author means Christ Himself Had it not been a Prodigy as great as ever was in the World if by Christs Person had been meant any body else Such then is Christ's Person The Consideration thereof follows And as he assures us the onely proper consideration here is the Greatness of his Person This is the onely or however The onely Proper or at least the onely Proper consideration here whatever other improper considerations of it there may be in other places or cases upon other accounts or occasions at other times it skills not for Here at this Time and in this place the onely Proper Consideration is the Greatness of his Person And yet methinks the exceeding loveliness of his Person standing betwixt God and lost Sinners his laying down his Life as a Ransome payd to God his standing as a Surety in our stead his bearing our sins in his Body on the Cross might have claimed a Place and come in for a share in our consideration of his Person But thus much for that 2 The Use of this consideration follows And some good Use he has assign'd it 1 And first it 's a plain demonstration of Gods love to Mankind that he sent so dear and so great a Person into the World as his onely begotten Son to save Sinners It is so indeed but a very weak demonstration of Gods Love to his own Son to send him into the World to grapple with all those Miseries he met withall in his Soul in his Body from Enemies from Friends from Men from Devils nay from himself whom it pleased to bruise him and lay upon him the Iniquities of us all to make his soul an Offering for sin nay to be made sin for them who himself knew none to Die a cursed Death and all this without any Absolute or Indispensible necessity Contrary to all the Rules of Decorum Nec Deus intersit nisi dignus vindice Nodus inciderit And it would be of use to consider also the Love of Christ his Willingness to Accept the Terms of being a Redeemer though He knew well they were severe and would cost him Sweat and Blood and yet He cheerfully Undertook Underwent and went through with them He voluntarily assumed a Body that He might become a Sacrifice Heb. 10. He was willingly for a little while made lower than the Angels by Dispensation who was above them by Nature for the suffering of Death Heb. 2. 9. He understood well the Debtor was Insolvent and yet he became Surety He knew well the Righteousness of God and yet He was ready to put in sufficient
without considering either Antecedents or Consequents to Nibble at some Expression that seems most lyable to Exception but herein we begge not his favour onely demand Iustice That he may not Usurp a Liberty to suppose that the Doctor asserts Revelation to be wholly silent in this Matter Revelatition silent Alas it rings loud with the continual sound of Gods pardoning Mercy to Sinners onely the Doctor judges that Revelation directs us to this Mercy of God through a Mediator for the obtaining of it When therefore our Author asks fo pertly whether the Doctor be not a confident Man to lay down such a Position I onely teturn that I have known our Author far more confident upon far less Grounds when the Doctor has a Foundation for his Confidence let him be so and spare not A great deal less Confidence may be sinfull when it wants a Basis proportionable to beare its weight and a great deal more Justifiable when it 's born up with sufficient Warrant Tell not me of the Doctors Confidence but examine his Reasons for it and let us see what our Author can do to dismount it Truely he offers us but one thing but I assure you it 's a knocker The Experence says he of the whole World confutes him Never was Man so confuted and confounded as he that stems the Experience of the whole World for though I ever look'd upon Experience as a very ticklish way of Confutation and the best way of employing them is to Experience in our own Souls the Virtue and Efficacy of certainly revealed Truths and not to make them the Umpires of questionable Doctrines yet I should be loth to run counter to the universal Sentiments of Mankind and the Experience of the whole World shall carry a mighty stroke in my Judgement but has our Author taken their Experiences by the Pole and do they one and all give in their Suffrages against the Doctor Yes Both Iews and Gentiles who knew nothing of what Christ was to doe in order to our Recovery did believe God to be gracious and mercifull to sinners I must own it That Jews and Gentiles are a sufficient enumeration of particulars they did once divide the World betwixt them and if they both agree in their Verdict against the Doctor Nemine contradicente he is gone for ever being over-born with Epidemical Experience 1. For the Iews the Day is like to goe for our Author if it be true what he tells us That God assured them he was a Gracious and Mercifull God pardoning iniquity transgression and sin which certainly he is and then that They knew nothing at all of what Christ was to doe for our Recovery but all the stick lyes there and we must enter a Friendly Debate with him upon the issue For 1. Whatever Manifestation of Gods Sin-pardoning Mercy was given to the Church of Old it had reference to the Blood of Christ who was as really sacrificed to their Faith as he was crucified to the Faith of the 〈◊〉 Galat. 3. 1. The Jewish Sacrifices were Types designed and appointed by God to represent that one Sacrifice which Christ should once offer upon the Cross to God and without reference to the Expiation of Sin Atonement and Propitiation of God made by him and manifested by them it would have puzzled the Faith of any particular person that God would pardon sin notwithstanding that Revelation Exod. 34. 6. for is it not immediately added And that will by no means clear the guilty God in that place reveals to Moses his Name that is his Nature and if we consult particulars we shall find that it 's as fair a Letter in Gods Name not to clear the Guilty under which Character all the world stand before God Rom. 3. 19. as to pardon iniquity but all this was cleared up and made easie by a believing attendance to those bloody Sacrifices which though weak in themselves yet receivâ—…d a Sacrament al strength from Him who travelled in the greatness of his to reconcile God and Man by the Blood of his Croâ—…s 2. There 's nothing more vain and idle than to 〈◊〉 that the Iews knew nothing at all of what Christ was to doe in order to our Recovery For 1. It was sufficient for that Dispensation that God had Revealed a Mediator who should take up the Controversie between God and sinners and this he did when it was early day with the world to Adam when received into a Covenant of Grace T is true the more minute Circumstances of when and how He should come in what manner he should accomplish his work might be veyled with some Obscurities and perplexed with some difficulties at the first yet still they had a Promise in the Lump that the Seed of the Woman should bruise the Head of the Serpent which the Apostle interprets Heb. 2. 14. by destroying him that had the Power of Death even the Devil And as it seemed good to the Wisdom of God to give forth the Promise at first in gross so in process of time to graduate and heighten the discovery of the Messias That there should come a deliverer out of Sion to turn away ungodliness from Iacob Isa. 59. 20. was evidently laid before their Faith to these Revelations did true Believers attend and by this Key did they open the difficultie how God should be a God pardoning Iniquity and yet by no means clear the Guilty And as the prefixed time of Christs appearing in the World drew nearer so the Prophesies and Promises of his Person Nature Work and Design thereof with the Circumstances attending it were multiplyed and more explicitely made out to them that so as they were growing up out of the State of Childhood and emerging from under their Bondage the discoveries of a Saviour might enlarge their Hearts and Minds in Knowledge Joy Love and Peace By Isaiah it was revealed that he should be born of a Virgin Isa. 7. 14. that he should be Immanuel God with us therein discovering both his Natures in one Person and his design to bring God and Man into one Covenant By the fame Prophet was it distinctly revealed what should be his Work and Employment his Dignity and Authority and the Success of all Isa. 9. 6. For unto us a Child is born unto us a Son is given and the Government shall be upon his shoulders and his Name shall be called Wonderfull Counsellor the Mighty God the Everlasting Father the Prince of Peace of the encrease of his Government and Peace there shall be no end By the fame Prophet it was revealed Chap. 53. by what means mainly he should accomplish the Ends of his coming into the World by being wounded for our Transgressions bruised for our Iniquities healing us by his stripes by Gods laying upon him the Iniquities of us all that it pleased the Father to bruise him to make his Soul an Offering for sin by the travel of his Soul by pouring it out to death being numbred amongst the
which he now confesses was not one word to the purpose For that which they call pardoning Mercy he sayes is not to be seen in Scripture-Revelation and perhaps that which he calls so may be seen in the Discoveries of Nature and found growing upon every Hedge We shall go near to entertain more Charitable thoughts of the Schoolmen and the old Systematical Divines hereafter for they would have set the Terms of a Question to rights and stated the due bounds of the Meaning of words before they had made a noyse and blunder about the Confutation of their Adversaries what our Author means by these things we must leave in the Clouds as we found it what others mean we are pretty well secured But we are not so secure of our Authors Honesty in this matter who jumbles together those things which the Doctor had separated and puts them all Pell Mell into the common Box as if he had asserted That the Love of God to Sinners his Justice against Sinners his Patience with and Long-suffering of Sinners were none of them discoverable but by Christ whereas the Doctor plainly and in terms asserts that Gods Iustice Patience Long-sufferance may be otherwise known as we have heard before and shall see again by and by The Rise of our Authors Fury and Indignation against the Doctor is from these words p. 93. Com. God hath manifested the Naturalness of his Righteousness unto him in that it was impossible that it should be diverted from Sinners without the interposing of a Propitiation Now says he this is such a Notion of Iustice as is perfectly New which neither Scripture nor Nature acquaint us with And if it be so I could heartily wish it underwent the Deleatur of an Expurgatory Index but how strangely is our Author wheel'd about it was but p. 42. that he deliver'd it with as much Confidence as most men are guilty of That the Light of Nature the Works of Creation and Providence besides Revelation doe assure us that God hath a Natural Love for all good men but that he hates sin and will certainly punish incorrigible sinners from whence we might have been prone enough to have dropt into such an Error that if Hatred of Sin be as Natural to God as his Love to good Men he cannot but hate the one and love the other for God cannot act against his Nature and must act according to his Nature Nay we should have concluded that it holds more strongly a great deal for his hatred of the one than for his love of the other seeing there 's something of sin in good men in the best of Men which may allay his Love towards them consider'd in their single and Personal Capacities but there 's nothing at all in sin not the least that may qualifie his Indignation against sin And had we not been snib'd we should have ventur'd further to say that as God has a Natural Love to good Men and will not fail to reward them so he has a Natural displicency against sin and therefore will not fail to reward it according to its demerits And then because we are assured from a surer hand Rom. 6. 23. That the wages of sin is death which by the opposition clearly intends eternal death we could not much doubt that a righteous and holy God will give to every one their wages without the interposition of that Propitiation whereof our Author makes so light Thus I say we had concluded but that our Author limits the Certainty of punishment to incorrigible and obstinate Sinners but this is but a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and will not much mend the matter both because those corrigible ones are not so wholly corrected but that still some remaining sins lodge in them which are the Object of Divine abhorrency and also because those Corrigible ones are onely pardoned and received to Grace through the Interest which they have in the Sufferings of Christ hence 1 Iohn 1. 9. If we confess our sins he is faithfull and just to forgive us our sins which Faithfulness of God has the Foundation of its Exercise in the satisfaction of his Vindictive Iustice which being once answer'd God that cannot lye promises the pardon of Sin through Christ which because he is faithfull and just he will make it good to the truely penitent Sinner But what Reason will our Author favour us with of his Blunt Negative Why All Mankind have accounted it an act of Goodness without the least suspicion of Injustice in it to remit Injuries and Offences without exacting any punishment I much doubt whether our Author was ever Principal Secretary of State to all Mankind that he should be so privy to their Sentiments his own daring Fancies and crude Conceptions are no just Standard of their Apprehensions and I am well assured that some of Mankind and such whose Learning and Judgement may vye with his and may be supposed to know Mankind as well as himself yet think not with him in this business but I shall lay a few things in his way let him remove them 1. The Strength of his Argument lyes in a most gross and palpable Absurdity viz. That there is the same Reason for Gods pardoning sin against his most holy Law that there is for a private Persons charitable remitting a trespass against himself That God as he is the Governour of the World may wave the Execution of the Sentence threatned against and due to the violation of his Rules of Government because a private Person may depart from his Right in a Six-penny matter but these things are wonderfully mistaken For 1. Our Author confesses that God will certainly punish all obstinate and incorrigible Offenders but if sin be consider'd onely as an injury against a private Person God may pardon even Impenitency and Incorrigibility it self And if it be an act of Goodness to remitt such an Injury without the least suspition of Injustice the greater the Offence is the greater will that Goodness triumph in remitting the greater Injury The degree of sin alters not the Case He that can pardon a Penny justly may also a pound who shall set limits to him how far he shall depart from his Right 2. That the Case is not the same between God and Man is evident from hence Man may depart from his Right to his Servant may Manumitt him and release him from all dependance on him from performance of all duty to him as his Master but it 's impossible to suppose that God should discharge and acquitt a Creature from its dependance on and its subjection to himself 3. God is to be considered not only as our Proprietor and Owner but as our Governour and Ruler Now the end of Government being the good and welfare of the Community every violation of the Law claims either that Judgement and Execution pass upon the Offender according to it or if not that good Security be put in that neither the Honour of the Legislator suffer Offenders be
he spared him not in exacting Punishment Death came into the World by sin and yet Christ dyed who never sinned Rom. 5. 12. The Law in its Penalty had nothing to do with him who had not offended the Law in its Rule So that I profess I know no greater wonder in the world than that the Father would have him suffer and that he should be Capable of Sufferings till the wonder be removed by viewing Christ in the stead of others and thus the Scripture assoyls the difficulty Isa. 53. 10. His Soul was made an Offering for sin Nay he was made sin for us though he knew no sin that we might be made the Righteousness of God in him 2 Cor. 5. 21. He so loved the Church that he gave himself for it And appearing in this Quality Death the Officer of Gods violated Law might justly arrest him and the Father be pleased to bruise him delighted in his Sufferings upon one account who was so infinitely satisfied in his Person upon another And yet all this while our Author can see no necessity of Christs Death I should rather have thought sayes he that Gods requiring such a Sacrifice as the Death of Christ was not because he could not do otherwise but because his infinite Wisdom judged it the most effectual way of dispensing his Grace Then 1. It seems though Gods infinite Wisdom saw this the best way yet it might have consisted with his Wisdom to have pitch'd upon a worse and then it will be a Question whether that had been Wisdom or no For we are told p. 48. That Wisdom consists in the choyce of the fittest and best Means to attain an End when there are more wayes than one of doing it If then Wisdom consist in choosing the fittest and best Means and the Death of Christ was the best Means for dispensing of Gods Grace either it was impossible for God to choose any other way than this or it is possible for God to act in a way not consisting with Wisdom But 2. Our Author had highly obliged the World had he discovered how sin might otherwise have been expiated than by the Sacrifice of Christs Death The Iews have pitch'd upon a Cock and at last upon their own Death But it 's twenty to one when our Author shall substitute any in the room of the perfect Sacrifice of Christ we shall find as many real Inconveniences in it as he has found imaginary absurdities in the Necessity of Gods requiring satisfaction to his Justice and Christs Tendring it upon the Cross. But 3. Who ever asserted simply that God could doe no otherwise than to require the Sacrifice of Christs Death Alas our Author is wide the whole Heavens in this Matter It must first be supposed that God will treat with the sinner and that Christ will accept the Terms of being a Mediator between God and Man The Necessity proceeds upon a presupposed Voluntariness both in the Father and in the Son and when you have supposed them there are who will dispute it with our Author when he pleases that upon supposition God will accept and justifie a sinner a just Compensation must be made to wronged Iustice. I find our Author and his Confederates now and then speaking a good word of Mr. R. B. and I doe the more wonder at it because I did not think they had had a good word for any man but themselves I shall therefore give him a taste out of his learned Labours and if he likes it he may have more at the same rate 'T is in his Reasons of the Christian Religion Part 2. Chap. 4. Sect. 6. No Religion doth so wonderfully open and magnifie and reconcile Gods Iustice and Mercy to Mankind as Christianity doth It sheweth how his Iustice is founded in his Holiness and his Governing Relation It justifieth it by opening the Purity of his Nature the Evil of Sin and the use of Punishment to the right Government of the World and it magnifieth it by opening the Dreadfulness and Certainty of his Penalties and the Sufferings of our Redeemer when he made himself a Sacrifice for our Sins But the storm is not yet over nor our Authors Fury quite spent Dr. O. had said Com. pag. 94 95. That there are many Glympses of the Patience of God towards Sinners shining out in the Works of his Providence but all exceedingly beneath that discovery which we have of it in Christ for in him the very Nature of God is discovered to be Love and Kindness whatever discoveries were made of the Patience and Lenity of God to us yet if it were not withall revealed that his other Attributes his Iustice and Revenge for Sin had their actings assigned them to the full there could be little Consolation gather'd from his Patience and Lenity It were very hard if a Spider could suck no poyson out of these words and I should conclude she had renounced her Nature but what was there in all this that could exasperate a sweet natur'd Gentleman Whilest a sinner hangs by the meer forbearance of God he hangs but over Hell-fire by a single Thread and if that breaks he falls irrecoverably into Everlasting Burnings and it can be little Consolation the Doctor was gentle he might have used a harsher word and said just none at all to an awakened Conscience to have a place in Gods forbearance when he has none in his Forgiveness or to depend upon mere patience without an interest in Gods pardoning Mercy God may have patience with when he has no pardon for a sinner he had so for the Old World for Sodom for Ierusalem which yet perisht under his just displeasure A sensible Soul will be apt to argue thus I am reprieved but is my Pardon sealed God visits not my Iniquities upon me but will he remember them no more Those that are the familiar Acquaintances of Nature and of the Cabal to Common Reason have told me that Forbearance is no Acquittance that Patience abused turns into Fury Nay perhaps it may be in Judgement that a Sinner is forborn for God hath sometimes suffered the Nations to walk in their own wayes Acts 14. 16. And endured with much long-sufferance the Vessels of Wrath fitted to destruction But now through Christ the Nature of God is discover'd to be Love and Kindness for seeing Provision is made for and regard had of all his other Attributes and Essential Perfections God can secure to himself the Glory of them all and yet the Sinner escape wrath to come And indeed it 's altogether as unaccountable why God should be mercifull to the reproach of his Holiness as why he should be severe to the disparagement of his Mercy As the Goodness of God naturally discovers it self in doing good where all due requisites are found so does Justice as readily exert it self upon the Sinner where a Propitiation doth not interpose And if Conscience were rightly instructed in its Office from the Word it would mind the Sinner
in determining the Will And if by irresistable Grace no more be meant than a powerfull and effectual production of the principle of Grace in the Soul it 's no more than what God has promised in the New Covenant Ezek. 36. 26. A new heart also will I give them and I will take away the heart of Stone out of their flesh and I will give them an heart of Flesh And he that removes the onely resisting Principle in the Soul the Heart of Stone may be said well enough to act irresistably in the working of Grace Nor can I see any danger in ascribing such a way of working to the Holy Spirit nor did the Apostle Eph. 1. 19 20. who believe according to the working of his mighty power which he wrought in Christ when he raised him up from the dead where the Apostle is not afraid nor ashamed to ascribe the working of Faith to the same Power that raised up Christ from the dead and he that had a mind to make a fluster with Greek like our Author could take a fair Opportunity to tell him what 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doe signifie and then to rub him up with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And whether these denote not the Creatures Impotency and Gods Efficacious Power let the Reader judge 3. Our Author is much mistaken if he thinks that the work of Gods Grace and Spirit in Conversion of a Soul to God may be compared to the moveing of a Machine Perhaps he had seen about Billingsgate the Maugeing of a Crane where a lusty Fellow with a Mastiffe-Dog in a Wheel will take you up an incredible weight otherwise unmanagable and he being taken with the Omnipotency of the Engine knew not how to bestow his pleasure better than upon the Operation of the Holy Spirit But Gods Spirit knows how to act effectually and yet not offer violence to any of the Faculties of the Soul He can lead the Creature powerfully and yet in a way agreeable to its Frame and Constitution He that has engaged Ioh. 6. 37. That all that the Father has given him shall come unto him knows well how to bring them in without committing a rape upon their own wills he can make them willing and yield by surrender and not need to take them by storm he can powerfully and yet gently and sweetly lead his Creature he makes no Assault and Battery upon it When then the Psalmist prayes and we with him Psal. 119. 36. That God would encline his heart to his Statutes there 's enough in his Prayer to imply his own disability and Gods Power and yet enough in the Souls Inclination to exclude all Force and Violence But still he presseth upon the Doctor who p. 106. had said There are Four things in sin that clearly shine forth in the Death of Christ 1. The Desert of it 2. Mans Impotency by reason of it 3 The Death of it 4. A New end put unto it Against the two former he has sufficiently Discovered his feeble Passion the third he waves and now against the fourth he Rises up with incredible Zeal and Fury For says the Doctor Sin in its own Nature tends merely to the Dishonour of God the Ruine of the Creature but now in the Lord Iesus Christ there is the Manifestation of another and more Glorious end viz. The praise of Gods glorious Grace in the pardon and forgiveness of it God having taken order in Christ that that thing which tended merely to his Dishonour should be managed to his Infinite Glory And here our Author has need of all his Machines and Engines that he may disorder things so as to serve his turn of them and therefore upon good advise no doubt reserved them all for this place 1. One Machine which he plies is that old Rotten Engine called Invidious Representation and this will do good Service still for want of a better That is says he lest Gods Iustice and Mercy should never be known to the World he appoints and Ordains sins to this end that is Decrees that Men shall sin that he may make some of them Vessels of Wrath and others the Vessels of his Mercy to the praise of his Grace in Christ. It 's a sad Drudgery to satisfie wilfully blind Malice For what more plain from the Doctors words than that he speaks not Hot or Cold of Gods Ordaining men to sin but of his putting a New end to sin upon supposition that it is already in the World Cannot God bring Good out of Evil but our Author must go Mad It 's a very Ruful cause that needs such Subsidies to maintain it Let any one Read the Doctor again pag. 112. Sin in its own Nature tends merely to Gods Dishonour In the Lord Iesus Christ there is the Manifestation of another end And as he said before pag. 106. There 's a New end put to it of Gods Ordaining and Appointing and Decreeing men to sin not a word not a syllable only he says that supposing sin to be already in the World carrying on its fatal Designs of Dishonouring God Damning Souls God has in Infinite Wisdom Curb'd and Restrained its Natural Tendency Over-rul'd its native malice against and thirst after the blood of souls and made it Comply with his own Glory So said Austin God is so Good that He would never suffer sin to be in the World if He were not also Omnipotent to bring Good out of the Evil. 2. Another Machine which our Author plies upon those words is That famous Engine of Archimedes of which he used to boast that Give him but a place out of the World where to fix his Engine and he would undertake to Unhinge the Earth from its Center The same Confidence has our Author in this Machine which indeed never failed him And no less truly than commonly called a Down-right falsehood Let the Reader mark it well he charges the Doctor for saying pag. 112. Com. That the glorious end whereunto sin is appointed and ordained is discovered in Christ for the Demonstration of Gods Vindictive Iustice in Measuring out to it a meet recompence of Reward Now remember the old Caveat Hic nervus est sapientiae nihil fidere Take the Book and read with all the Eyes you have and can borrow and there you shall find the clear contrary The Comminations and Threatnings of the Law do manifest one other end of sin even the Demonstration of Gods Vindictive Iustice in measuring out to it a meet recompence of Reward but here the Law stays with it all other Light and discovers no other use or end of it at all but in the Lord Iesus Christ there is the Manifestation of another and more Glorious end c. And now after all this sorrow we shall have a fine Scene of Mirth for our Divertisment Nature says he would teach us that so Infinitely glorious a Being as God is needs not sin and misery to
his Death c. and the Salvation of all Mankind I presume the man 's either unborn or long agoe dead that ever asserted that there was any Connexion either Natural or Necessary between Christs Death and the Salvation of every individual Person that should be upon the Earth Does he mean any one of all Mankind I then do affirm and will abide by it that upon supposition the Son of God was incarnate took our Nature upon him and in that Nature dyed a cursed Death there is a Necessary connexion betwixt the Death of the Son of God and the Salvation of some at least of Mankind It 's very unconceivable that Christ should submit to such a Dispensation and have no fruit of his Labour But to put him out of fear that he may sleep at hearts ease we do not fancy any natural connexion of these things that Bond that tyes them together is the compact betwixt the Father and the Son that upon his Souls being made an Offering for Sin he should see his seed and the pleasure of the Lord should prosper in his hand Isa. 53. 10. The Total is this The Concurrence of the Sons Will with the Fathers good Pleasure gave the Death of Christ a necessary Connexion with the Salvation of some at least of Mankind But to talk at this loose Rambling rate is tedious All this while you see but very little into our Authors Design For as your great Politicians have their Causae justificae which they Hang out to view but the Causae suasoriae lie deep and are not to be Exposed to and Prophan'd by common Eyes Thus however our Author makes a Flourish and Vapour about the Connexion of Necessary causes and Necessary effects as if we see Fire we know it burns something and if we see Smoak we may safely conclude there is some Fire Which poor Reynards Experiment would have Confuted Notwithstanding I say all this Ostentation of Mysterious Philosophy there was something lay nearer his heart than this Bombaste and how to bring it upon the Stage handsomely required good Deliberation In plain Terms it was nothing but to state a Parallel betwixt the Rational and your Systematical Divine and to Demonstrate the excellency of himself and those of his exalted Intellectuals above those low Spirited Phlegmatick Tigurine Doctors who Trade all in gross Bodies and unweildy Systems of Divinity For these latter they Dull-men shape all Religion according to their Phancies and Humours and stuff it with an infinite Number of Orthodox Propositions such as the 39 Articles But now for your Rational Men They Argue the Nature of God his Works and Providences from the Nature of Mankind and those eternal Notions of Good and Evil from the Essential differences of Things from plain Principles which have an Immutable and unchangeable Nature and so can bear the weight and stress of a just Consequence Which singular Happiness may sooner be Envyed than Mistated Indeed it would do any man good at Heart to hear with what Nerves and Sinews of Brawny Reason they will Argue how they Drive all before them how they will Trounce a poor amazed Auditor into As. and Con. and force the most Obstinate herds of Contumacious Animals into good Behiavour by Duress In a word all their Discourses are Muscle and Cartilage And in one of these you shall have the Marrow and Pith the Quintessence and Elixir of your Profound Irrefragable Subtile Angelical Seraphical Doctors But I Chide my self for comparing them to the School-men who are Systematical Theölogues Let the Reader content himself with a short Specimen of their Abilities And 1. They argue from the Nature of God How Facile is he to Pardon sin all sin without any Compensation or Satisfaction made to his Justice For seeing Justice is but a secondary Attribute a mere Instrument or Tool of Government He may spare or punish as he sees Reason for it without being unjust in either For though the Scripture has told us Iosh 24. 19. That God is a jealous God who will not forgive Transgression nor sin and that He is of purer Eyes than to behold Evil and cannot look upon Iniquity Hab. 1. 13. And also that the wages of sin is Death which is the Religion of the Scripture yet now one of these familiar acquaintance of Gods Nature can inform you better that there was there was no necessity of Christs Death to declare the Righteousness of God that he might be Iust but that as he Pardoned the Old World for Four Thousand Years together who knew nothing of Christ 〈◊〉 he might have done for one poor Sixteen Hundred Years more and as much longer as it shall continue That Caution which he Hints to others pag. 76. he has as much need of himself That we be wary in drawing conclusions from Gods Nature since 't is so seldom we have any good Assurance those Inferences are Genuine Thus when he argues pag. 43 from Gods Long-suffering and Patience towards the World and the various Methods God uses to reclaim them that therefore he is as ready to Pardon sinners as a kind Father is to receive a penitent Prodigal I would have him Cautious lest he should over-run the Constable for God stands not related to sinners in the state of lapsed Nature as a Father but as an Enemy and our Son-ship and Adoption comes in by Jesus Christ and this may perhaps a little disturbe the Connexion of his Antecedents and Consequents And this for distinction-sake may be called his New Religion of Gods Nature from whence we learn those greater and deeper Mysteries whereof the Scripture is so silent And then 2. They argue with marvellous Success from the Works and Providence of God As how pag. 44. Those Natural Notions the Heathens had of God and the Discoveries God made of Himself in the Works of Creation and Providence did assure them that God is very Good and that 't is not possible to understand what Goodness is without Pardoning-Grace For you may be sure they cloud not see the Sun shine but presently they must conclude that the Light of Gods Countenance would shine upon them also nor have a showre of Rain but it did Demonstrate that God would wash away their sins nor forbear them a day but He would acquit them for ever But then 3. From the Nature of Mankind they Reason with incomparable Judgment As for Instance That because Man was Created upright therefore he is so still how Vegete Sprightly and active mans Nature is that without the Subsidiary assistance of effectual Grace working both to will and to do it can fulfil all Gods Commandments and that to talk of our own Impotency to Spiritual performances is to suppose us to be acted like Machines by an External force and the irresistable Grace and Spirit of God And further 4. They make admirable work from the eternal Notions of Good and Evil That God may punish sin if he pleases and if he sees good he may
but the working of heated Fancy and Religious Distraction that to speak of Christs beauty loveliness fulness and preciousness are but Romantick Descriptions of him That is All is Fancy that comports not with his own extravagant Whimsâ—…y The Knowledge of Christ informs our Judgements affects our Hearts reforms our Lives and it will argue little love to our Redeemer if we entertain meaner thoughts of him by loud Clamour and impotent Reflections upon him 2. It moves their Passions and if we be a little passionately affected with the love of our Redeemer it 's a pardonable Errour When our Author would curry favour with his Reader and perswade him that for all his scandalous Expressions he was no Enemy to Christ he could say as much as that came to p. 184 185. This is a Sacrament wherein we celebrate the Love of our dying Lord and express our most passionate Love to him Here is Love passionate and most passionate Love and yet others Passions must not be moved for fear they set the Town on fire 3. They find great breakings of heart I would we experienc'd them more upon Condition we were ten times more reviled for them but I cannot well conceive how the Heart should be broken from sin that is not broken for sin and though this is grown so despicable a Matter in his eyes yet we have this Relief that a broken and contrite heart God will not despise 4. But they melt and dissolve into Tears when they remember what their Lord suffer'd for them They are content he should be called their Lord if others renounce him they are willing to own him It 's better to be reproached in this World that they have a Saviour than condemned in the next World because they have none and let it be their and all our Cares that Men may not hate us for professing Christ and God too because we do but profess him But is it so heynous a Crime to weep at the remembrance of what Christ suffer'd for us We pray that God would fulfill upon us that Promise Zech. 12. 10. That he would pour out his Spirit upon us that we may look upon him whom we have pierced and mourn over him and for him as one mourns for an onely Son and we say with Holy Herbert If thou hast no Sighs nor Tears Would thou hadst no Sins nor Fears Who hath These Those ill forbears But 5. They see him hang upon the Cross and have all his Agonies and dying groans in their ears Well if Faith represents to us a crucifyed Christ the Galatians were not called foolish upon that Account When we read that Christ was amazed and sore troubled that his Soul was exceeding sorrowfull even to death that it express'd from his Body clods of Blood all the Question is whether we ought to Read these things between sleeping and waking or get the most lively and powerfull Impressions of them upon our Souls The Primitive Church used to pray 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 libera nos Domine And the Present Church of England By thine Agony and bloody Sweat by thy Cross and Passion good Lord deliver us 6. They Curse their Sins that nayled him there The truth is they do not bless their Sins for crucifying Christ though he was a Person above our Authors scorn that used that Hyperbole Foelix Peccatum quod peperit Christum But sin has proved so dishonourable to our God so wounding to Christ so grievous to the Spirit so bitter to the Conscience that we would say the worst by it we can on this side Cursing And this we have good Authority for pag. 185. The Memory of what Christ has done and suffered excites in us a just Hatred of our sins So that were we but Masters of his Regular Proportions could we but find the just Measure of the Hatred of sin and Nick it exactly betwixt too much and too little hatred of sin we might escape the severity of his Censure Hitherto we have been taught That the just Measure of loving Christ is to love him without Measure and the just Measure of the Hatred of sin is to hate it without Measure but our Author good Man is very solicitous least we should over-love Christ or over-hate our iniquities 7. They tremble at the Thoughts of the Naturalness of Gods vindictive Iustice to him And if they doe consider God as one of purer eyes than to behold Iniquity if they do view his Holiness and in the sense of their own vileness cry out Woe is me for I am undone because I am a Man of unclean lips As good as they or he have trembled at 〈◊〉 sight of this Glorious Holy and Righteous Judge 8. But they feel all the Horrors and Agonies of damned Spirits I knew we should have a Rapper before we had done Is this the Fruit of Acquaintance with Christ I question not but a Cain a Iudas a Spira may have felt in this Life something of the horrours of the Damned The Apostle denounces some such dreadfull vengeance against Renegadoes from the Christian Faith Heb. 10. That there remains no more Sacrifice for sin but a certain fearfull looking for of Iudgement and fiery Indignation to devour the Adversaries v. 26 27. But these despairing horrours proceed not from an experimental Knowledge of Christ as our Author either ignorantly dreams or maliciously calumniates but from an Ignorance of him the true design of his Death in Reconciling God and Man This is one of their Extreams for at other times they are ravish'd with his Love charm'd and captivated with his Beauty refresht and ravisht with his Comforts c. It is easie to observe that our Author alwayes writes pro re natâ just as the present occasion invites him for he will tell you p. 396. That the Soul many times feels such great and Ravishing delights in all the Acts of Religion as infinitely excell all the pleasures of Sense they relish great Pleasure and Satisfaction in the sense of Gods Goodness P. 397. They must needs feel sometimes such divine Touches and Impressions as are the Effects if I may so speak of a mutual Love and Sympathy And had these men but the Happiness to have express'd themselves in his very words and Syllables they might have said either the worst or best of Religion they had pleased without Rebuke But all this he tells us may be no more than the working of a warm and Enthusiastick Fancy but then if it should prove the work of the Holy and Blessed Spirit which he ascribes to Fancy and Conceit how near it may come to the sin of those who ascribed that to Beelzebub which was effected by the Finger of God I must leave to his serious Consideration Enthusiasm is much reproached and little understood 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Enthusiasme is when the Mind is wholly enlightned by God In which sence I pray God make us all Enthusiasts And let the End of all that Ioy and Satisfaction that we have
of these two is more accepted of God He that performed equal Obedience upon more feeble encouragements or he that upon stronger Motives yet gave but equal Obedience If Reason might determine this Controversy it would clearly carry it for him that bore equal burden with less strength performed equal duty upon less inducements If then this be all the influence that the Obedience and death of Christ have upon our Acceptation with God that thereby we have got a greater help to obedience the best Answer to the Question had been that it has no influence upon our Acceptance with God § 2. His Answer signifies nothing or very near it For the Question was What Influence Christ's Active and Passive Obedience have upon our Acceptance with God And he has framed an Answer to another Question What Influence Christ's Active and Passive Obedience have upon our Obedience Which is quite another thing If Christ's Obedience have any influence upon our acceptation with God then God for Christ's sake must accept us and our Obedience for the sake of Christ which otherwise he had not would not have done and Christ must be supposed to have done and suffered something which had such an influence upon God as to procure the favour of God towards our persons and services which without that consideration had not been could not be procured But if this be all That God has made us a Promise to accept that Obedience for Christ's sake which without any respect to Christ would have accepted though not say be would accept then if our obedience be little Christ will not make it reputed much if imperfect Christ's Obedience will not render it perfect and thus in plain Terms The Sacrifice of his Death and Righteousness of his Life procure no acceptance at all no not the least of our Persons or Obedience with God 3. His Answer is so like nothing as cannot be discerned from nothing The Question was What influence Christ's Righteousness and Sacrifice have upon our acceptance with God The Answer is God for Christ's sake entred into a New-Covenant with Mankind c. which is to leave the Question just as he found it and if he leave it no worse it 's pardonable for it will be enquired still What influence the Righteousness of Christ's Life and the Sacrifice of his Death had upon God to move him to enter into such a Covenant Under what Notion did his Life and Death operate upon God Did Christ make a proper Reconciliation and Atonement with God Was his Death a proper Sacrifice Did it expiate the Guilt of Sin No! not a syllable of all this only for fashions sake it must be said to have had An influence though what it is or how it had that influence he cannot tell But he will speak to these things more distinctly 1. What influence the Death of Christ has upon our Acceptation with God But it is to be supposed that we have had our Answer and must sit down by it That God was so well pleased with the Sacrifice of Christ's Death that for his sake he entred into a New-Covenant with Mankind The Proof is all in all Why this is plain says he in reference to his Death Hence the Blood of Christ is called the Blood of the Covenant Heb. 10. 29. It 's plain that God for Christ's sake entred into this Covenant because his Blood is called the Blood of the new Covenant but yet it 's not so very plain neither A man may possibly mistake it for all that he has said to satisfy him well But then Christ is called the great Shepherd and Bishop of Souls through the blood of the everlasting Covenant Heb. 13. 20. but I can find no such Scripture well However The Blood of Christ is called the Blood of sprinkling which speaks better things than the Blood of Abel Heb. 12. 24. which is an Allusion to Moses his sprinkling the Blood of the Sacrifice wherewith he confirmed and ratified the Covenant between God and the Children of Israel c. I expected it would come to this at long run God entred into the Covenant for the sake of Christ's Death because his Death confirmed the Covenant A very trim Reason The confirming of a Covenant supposes a Covenant in being If then all the design of the Blood of Christ was to confirm and ratifie a Covenant it will not follow that therefore God did enter into such a Covenant for the sake of the Blood but therefore he did not I deny not that the Death of Christ was a great Confirmation of the true Covenant of Grace to our Faith For what stronger Confirmation could the most jealous Soul desire of the reality of free Grace promising to pardon sin and bestow Eternal Life upon believers than that the Son of God himself should first take upon him our Nature and in that Nature offer up himself to God to atone and reconcile him to us that he should make satisfaction to God's rectoral Iustice and pay the price of our Redemption thereby removing out of the way of our Faith the grand impediments of it the Justice of God and the Commination of the Law which stood in the way of our Pardon and Salvation But to obviate our Author's design I shall a little divert the Reader with the consideration of these Propositions 1. The Confirmation of such a Covenant as he has described viz. a Promise of the Pardon of sin and Eternal Life to those who believe and obey the Gospel was not the main end of the Death of Christ 1. Because there is such an end ascribed to his Death which the Death of no other person in the world could in any wise reach but now to confirm the Gospel and all the Promises thereof was an end which the Death of another might reach therefore this was not the main end of the Death of Christ. The crucifying of Peter the Martyrdom of Paul were a great Confirmation of the Doctrine which they Preached the Doctrine which they Preach't was the Gospel and all its Promises yet neither was the Death of the one or other able to reach the great Design of the Death of Christ 1 Cor. 1. 18. Was Paul Crucified for you Or were you Baptized into the Name of Paul None could be Crucified for Sinners in that way that Christ was Crucified for them into whose Name they might not be Baptized but into the Name of no mere Man might they be Baptized therefore no mere Man could be Crucified for sinners in that way and for those ends which Christ was Crucified for Paul suffered Death for the Churches good but not in the Churches stead He dyed to Confirm what he Preacht and he Preacht the Covenant of Grace with all its Promises yet he was not Crucified for the Church his Soul was not made an Offering for sin God laid not upon him all our Iniquities his Death was not a Sacrifice of Propitiation And yet all this may be said of Paul's
Adams sake implies that Adams sin had an influence and it had this influence but how it could righteously or indeed possibly have that influence is still a Question and till that be resolved we shall never have the advantage from hence to know How the Righteousness of Christ could have an Influence upon God to shew us any kindness for Christs sake 3. God says he entail'd a great many Evils and miseries upon his Posterity for his sake Now seeing there are but a Many though a great many evils entailed upon them and not all Evils it 's very much our Interest to understand which are the Entailed evils and which our own Personal evils which are hereditary and which of our own procurement that so having found out which are entailed upon us we may search if there be not a way found to cut off the Entail by the Recovery wrought out by Christ. And the rather because the Text mentions not only Evils many Evils but seems to include all Evils As Life and Absolution comprehend all spiritual Mercies so Death and Condemnation comprehend all spiritual Curses And by these comprehensive words the Apostle expresses those Evils which God upon the Account of Adam's Sin has entailed upon Posterity I know how easily our Author presumes to dock the Entail by pleading that Death signifies onely Temporal Death but the Apostle has obviated that Cavil v. 11. As by one Man Sin entred into the world and Death by Sâ—…n and so Death passed upon all Men for that all have sinned By one man by Adam that Sin whose wages is Death and that Death which is the wages of Sin enter'd into the world even upon all his Posterity for that all have sinned And what that Death is which is the Wages of Sin he assures by opposing it to Eternal Life v. 21. As Sin reigned unto Death so might Grace reign through Righteousness unto Eternal Life by Iesus Christ our Lord. So again Chap. 6. v. 23. The Wages of Sin is Death but the Gift of God is Eternal Life 2 Qu. What Influence has Christs Righteousness and Obedience upon our Acceptation with God And had our Author answered the former question to purpose he had answered this in it and saved himself a great deal of needless pains in a New prosecution of it But he answers God was so well pleased with the Righteousness of Christ Life and Death that he bestowes the Rewards of Righteousness on those who according to the strictness and rigour of the Law are not righteous That for Christs sake he hath made a New Covenant of Grace which pardons our past sins and follies and rewards a sincere though imperfect Obedience A few notes also I shall make upon this and so dismiss it at present And First here is certainly a great Iuggle in these words God says he was so well pleased with the Righteousness and Obedience of Christs Life and Death that he bestows the rewards of Righteousness upon us Now these rewards of Righteousness be they what they will or can are either the proper and immediate effects of the Life and Death of Christ or not If they be then I am sure he was tardy p. 323. The Apostles attribute such things to the Blood of Christ as are the proper and immediate Effects of the Gospel Covenant And what that is in his Dialect I hope we are not to seek at this time of day But if they be not the proper and immediate Effects of the Life and Death of Christ then 1. He has juggled here with his Reader placing the rewards of Righteousness as bestow'd for Christs sake before any Consideration of the Covenant 2. If not then he has not drawn a fair Parallel between the Influence of Adams Sin and that of Christs Obedience For he tells us that God for Adams sake entailed a great many Evils Miseries nay Death it self upon his Posterity there are particular evils entailed upon Individuals for the sake of Another without any intervention of their own personal Transgressions Ay but there our Author will perhaps tell me That the truth is he means all this while by a secret reserve that Adams Posterity when they commit Adams sin or and other they then render themselves obnoxious to those miseries evils and death it self But then this is not to the purpose for then 't is not for Adams sake but for their own Not for that One Mans Offence but for every mans own Offence that judgement came upon them to condemnation Which is not to interpret the Apostle but dictate to him and indite his Epistles for him Miseries then and a great many miseries none knows how many are entail'd upon Adams Posterity for his sake without any intervention of their own sin But now here 's no Blessing not one single Blessing entailed upon such spiritual Posterity of Christ that they shall receive any one the least Favour without the Intervention of their own Obedience And so things are where they were at first Secondly I must note also That he says God bestows the rewards of Righteousness on those who according to the strictness and rigour of the Law are not righteous That is as he explains himself they shall be justified or treated like righteous Persons Now 1. If God can treat them like Righteous Persons who are not really so because he is so well pleased with Christs Obedience why may not God conceive me to have done that which I have not done as well as to be what I am not Why not to have obeyed in Christ to have suffer'd in Christs sufferings as to be a righteous Person in my self when there is no such matter Andthus our Author has laid a block in our way at which a well-meaning man though against our Authors meaning may stumble upon the Notion of the Imputation of Christs Righteousness It 's altogether unintelligible how God should punish me for Adams fault with Justice if Adams fault were not some wayes or other my own and fully as unaccouutable How God should deal with me as righteous who am not so for the sake of Christs Obedience if Christs Obedience some way or other become not mine I can easier satisfie my Reason how the Righteousness of the second Adam may make me righteous and accepted of God than how the unrighteousness of the first should make me a sinner and yet Faith believes both though it conclude stronglier for Christ Rom. 5. 17. For if by one mans Offence Death reigned by one much more they c. 2. God he says bestows the rewards of Righteousness on those who in strictness are not righteous Let some enquire at his house as they go by What he means by the Rewards of righteousness Is it Inherent Righteousness Then it 's Non sence or worse God gives them inherent righteousness who have not inherent Righteousness which in sensu composito is Non-sence and in sensu diviso not agreeable to our Authors Principles But if he mean the
Another The short of the Business lyes here Our Lord Jesus Christ by his Resurrection Ascension into Heaven and sitting down at the right hand of the Majesty on high is visibly exalted to more Dignity and Honour he exercises his Regal power in a way more glorious and agreeable to his exalted state yet was he truely a King from his Incarnation and all along in this world and gave such Proofs of his Royal greatness and Power that the Devils had not Impudence enough to out-face them And now to conclude all with this excellent Gloss upon the whole matter It was an Act of his Regal Power to conquer Error and Ignorance to destroy the Kingdom of Darkness by the Brightness of his Appearing to erect his Throne in the Hearts and Consciences of Men. These Metaphors of conquering destroying erecting a Throne came in as luckily as the heart of man could wish to prove a Royal Power for what man will now be so refractory but he will confess and so senseless and stupid but he may smell a Kingdom in the wind when he hears such language but now if you strip these Metaphors to their bare skins and uncase them of all our Authors Bombast and Fustian they shrink into a mere declaration of Truth leaving the matter to the umpirage of an habitually prejudiced and prepossessed Will and some think here 's no great Kingship in all this for all this is done by the Power and evidence of Truth which argues a Prophet teaching an Oratour pleading or a Disputant arguing but little of a King commanding conquering and subduing the heart to himself and there erecting a Throne in opposition to all the force that Satan and Helâ—… can make against him We do freely own that to conquer and destroy the Kingdom of Darkness to erect a Throne in the Hearts of Men are proper Acts of Christs Kingly Office but then there goes a little more to the business than the bare Evidence of Truth the Arm of a King must be revealed as well as the Mouth of a Prophet opened a Power to deal with the enslaved and obstinate Will as well as a Light to shine into the darkened understanding which Light yet requires something of the Kingly energie to render it savingly enlightning to the mind and understanding And now our Author has made the kingly Office to swallow up the Prophetical have but patience till he has made it â—…at up the Priestly Office too and then â—…e day is his own for ever Secondly He comes to Attacque the Sacerdotal Office of Christ. He was saith he a Kingly Priest Well! so he was and so he might be and yet though both the Offices center'd in his Person they might be formally distinct in their Acts special Ends and proper Objects Nay we will allow that All his Offices conspiring in the same general Ends their Acts might have mutual respect and give reciprocal assistance each to other And he could not have chosen a fitter Instance than that of Melchizedek who being King of Salem and Priest of the most high God Heb. 7. yet would it savour of too gross Absurdity to say that when he offered sacrifice or blessed Abraham he appeared in the Quality of a King or when he enacted Civil Laws he bore the Character of a Priest but our Authors Proofs are as Pertinent as his Doctrine True His Doctrine is When he offered himself a Sacrifice for sin he acted like a King p. 6. Really one would think he acted as like a Priest as we could reasonably desire For 1. Here is a Sacerdotal Act he offer'd 2. A Sacrifice Himself And 3. This was for sin And what of a King do we spell out of all this The truth is there 's nothing in all this but a pitifull Socinian Iuggle who having resolved not to own Christ as a true and proper Priest at all and yet not daring to deny express phrases of Scripture found out this Expedient to own the thing in words and then to shuffle it off with a Metaphor The Proof of his Doctrine is of the same Leaven Ioh. 10. 18. No man took his Life from him he had power to lay it down and he had power to take it up again Our Author had told us p. 2. of a crafty sort of Men in the World that consider nothing but the sound of words and from thence form such uncouth Idaea's of Religion as are fitted to the meanness of their understanding and will tell us further p. 102. of some who Interpret Scripture by the Sound and Clink of Words and Phrases And it seems the Contagion of this vanity infected his own intellectuals he found the word Power in the Text and he runs away with a full crye 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but the Mischief on 't is it 's not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not a Physical but a Moral Power that Christ owns there a Power which is common to all his Offices he had Power or Commission to Preach Power or Authority to Rule and govern Power or warrant from his Father to lay down his Life for the great End that was agreed on between them both For he explains himself in the same Verse Not this Strength but This Commandement I received from my Father Nor yet is it denyed that Christ made use of his Kingly might in laying down his Life and taking it up again all we plead for is that the Offices and their peculiar Acts may not be jumbled and confounded together Thirdly Having dispatch'd out of the way the two great Eye-sores of the Prophetical and Priestly Office he thought it not amiss to send the third after them And that to which we commonly appropriate the Name of Regal Power that Authority he is vested with to govern his Church to send his Spirit to forgive sins to dispense grace and supernatural assistances to answer Prayers and raise the dead and judge the World All this is the reward of his Death and Sufferings I confess I wondre'd why he should make the Regal Office of Christ so over-top all the rest but I soon satisfied my self from Volkelius lib. 3. de verâ Relig. p. 41. Maximè Regibus id habebatur honoris ut Christi sive uncti appellarentur ita ut cum Christum dici audis Regem imprimis dici intelligas Kings had chiefly that Honour that they should be called Christs or Anoynted ones so that when you hear the Name Christ mention'd you must understand that a King is especially intended This I confess quieted me but why our Author should be so zealous to set up a King of his own making and then all o' th' sudden to pluck him down again to enthrone and dethrone at pleasure is at present to me unaccountable for I observe he has removed these great Things from his Kingly Office and placed them upon another Foundation viz. the reward of his death and sufferings Now take away Preaching the Gospel from
Proof thereof For in Christ Jesus c. Did the Apostles Premises speak of one thing and his Conclusion of another 2. Here 's this lies in the way that no Cogent Reason can be assigned why we should depart from the Plain Ordinary Primary acceptation of the Word Christ for a Figurative Improper and Secondary acceptation but only to humour our Author for which at present I am not in the Mood 3. He is miserably short in his Foundation for after all his pains to prove that Christ signifies an Office a Doctrine a Church he must go over with all this again and prove that Jesus signifies a Doctrine and Jesus a Church or else he 's just in Statu quo For he had told us before that though Christ was an Homonymous word a Name of Desuetory Lubricous and Versatile sound Jesus was his Proper Name given him by the Angel before he was Born and therefore surely that has not been Warped and Twisted and Scrued at that Rate that this other poor Name has been for as it falls out unhappily Here 's Jesus joyned with Christ and that perswades us almost that a very Person is intended But yet secondly The apparent Falshood of it sticks more with me than all this I could easily down with a few Absurdities For I think and believe according to the Scripture That there is something besides a Vertuous Life of value to Recommend us to the Favour of God nay something more of Value and I shall not be Hector'd out of it by Blustering words 'T is the Righteousness of Jesus which I mean and we have the Apostles Warrant for it Ephes. 1. 6. He hath made us accepted in the Beloved If God should enter into Judgment with us according to the Exactest of our Obedience perhaps we should be willing to accept of Christ's Recommendation to the favour of God notwithstanding our most vertuous Lives but secondly I indite it of Falshood that he makes a new Creature and a vertuous Life equivalent Expressions For I had thought that a vertuous Life is but the Fruit that Grows on the Tree but the Tree must be made good e're the Fruit can be so A vertuous Life the Streams that flow from the Spring of the new Creature and the Fountain must be cleansed e're the Streams will be so In plain Terms the vertuous Life is but the Result of a new Heart the product of a Renewed Nature without which Principle of a vertuous Life and without Christ to Recommend both to God there is no hope to find favour in his sight His second place is Col. 2. 8. Beware lest any man spoil you through Philosophy and vain Deceit after the Traditions of Men after the Rudiments of the World and not after Christ. Where says he after Christ is oppos'd to the Traditions of Men and Rudiments of the World and therefore must signifie not the Person but the Religion or Gospel of Christ. Must And what necessity of that I can see none from the Text But if our Author has impos'd upon himself an absolute and indispensible necessity of being Baptiz'd into Volkelius then indeed it must be so Interpreted no remedy Lib. 5. c. 10. p. 437 438. Divinitatis Nomine nec Dei nec Christi Natura sed Divinae voluntatis notitia Deique colendi ratio Intelligi porest atque ideo debet By the name Deity not the Nature of God or of Christ but the knowledge of the Divine Will and the manner of Worshipping God May be and therefore Must be understood The Reader is now satisfi'd why it must be so 1. It may be so and therefore necessarily it must be so 2. Volkelius says it must be and therefore it must But let us be Judg'd by the words following Not after Christ for in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily ver 9. Does the fulness the all fulness of the Godhead dwell bodily in the Doctrine or in the Person of Christ ver 10. And ye are compleat in him who is the Head of Principality and Powerâ—… Is iâ—… Christs Person that is that Head of Angels or his Doctrine and so the Apostle runs it on till he comes to the Cross of Christ ver 14. Must we now to Gratifie these Gentlemen renounce our Reasons and say that a Doctrine is the Head of â—…roncipality and Power A Doctrine is rais'd from the Dead That we are Buried in a Doctrine That the Hand-writing of Ordinances was Nailed to the Cross of a Doctrine I confess I would go as far as another for Peace-sake but here I must fairly shake hands and leave my Author and his Masters to their own ways But though the words following the Text do frown severely upon them and their Cause yet they promise themselves much from the foregoing ver 6. As you have therefore received Iesus Christ the Lord so walk ye in him i. e. Obey the Doctrine of Christ as you have been taught it by us It must be remembred what our Author is endeavouring to prove still I hope he has not forgot it and I hope we shall not viz. That the Name Christ signifies the Gospel Now it is easily granted that though the Name Christ do Immediately signifie the Person of Christ yet Mediarely it may imply the Doctrine and yet all this while the Name or Word Christ stand in its Original posture and Purport As the name King does primarily signifie the Person of a Supreme Magistrate and yet that Treason which is committed against the Person of a King is against his Law and yet none will say that because Treason against the King is Treason against the Law that therefore the name King signifies Law To violate the Commands of the Gospel reflects upon Christs Person and he that sins against the one sins against the other because of that Privity of Interest that is betwixt a King and his Laws a Prophet and his Revelations a Priest and his Sacrifice yet it were harsh to say that Prophet does signifie Revelation or Priest Sacrifice or King signifie Laws Those things may have Relation one to another one be Inferred from another and not the one signifie the other As 1 Cor. 7. 12. When ye sin against the Brethren and wound their weak consciences ye sin against Christ To sin against the Brethren is by consequence to sin against Christ. Yet none will say that the Name Christ signifies Brethren But more particularly I answer 1. That Christ Jesus the Lord does signifie in the first place a Person And secondly That consequently it Includes the Promises the Precepts the Revelations the Death Sufferings the Intercession and the whole of Jesus But his main strength lies here That after Christ is opposed to the Traditions of Men and the Rudiments of the World and therefore must not signifie the Person but the Religion or Gospel of Christ. So argues Volk Lib. 3. de verâ Relig. p. 125. His mundi Rudimentis omnem Divinitatis Plenitudinem in Christo
we cannot Imitate them for those special Ends which Christ had in His Eye yet must we Imitate that Moral principle from which and the General End unto which he Levelled those Actions Thus we cannot Die for that end for which Christ Died especially to Attone sin yet may we must we Conform our Souls to that Love which carried him out to the Work and Eye the general Advantage of the Church in laying down our Lives when called to it 1 John 3. 16. Herein perceive we the Love of God that he laid down his Life for us and we ought to lay down our Lives for the Brethren And the Argument concludes strongly If Christ a Person so great laid down his Life a Life so precious for us so unworthy and in such a way to be a Propitiation for our sins how much more ought we Inconsiderable Creatures to lay down our Lives so useless for the Brethren so dear to God when our single Death may by the Providence of God prevent some Impending danger or notable Ruine that Threatens the Community So again Col. 3. 13. As Christ forgave you so also do ye We are to forgive as Christ forgave And yet the As is a Note of Similitude not of Equality Christ's forgiveness is one thing ours another they differ Specifically yet there 's a Moral equity which holds that if Christ freely pardons our sins much more ought we in our way to pass by and not Rigidly exact those Trespasses committed against us But the Actions of Christ as a Man Living in Obedience to the Moral Law and especially that Frame of Cheerfulness Readiness Sincerity therein these call for our Imitation 4 This assures us of the Infinite value of his Sacrifice and the power of his Intercession I have heard some Travellers when they have met with a spot of good way after long tedious laping in the Dirt say they could be tempted to ride it over again but the consideration how long they have been and how soon again they must be engaged in wayes of the same difficulty has reformed the vanity of that Crotchet I could gladly dwell upon some pleasant passages in this Chapter which prove undenyably that there 's no such thing as summum malum in the world but that I am importun'd by the approaching foul way to make haste into it that I may get the sooner through it Sun-shine is pleasant but it often proves a breed-storm and a Dead calm in our Master Aristotles Philosophy is the Prognostick and Prodrome of an Earth-quake But yet why should we kill our selves for fear of dying and make our selves miserable for fear another should do it for us We will then make the best we can of the present Halcyon tranquillity This assures us of the Infinite value of his Sacrifice and the Power of his Intercession 'T is so indeed for though the Manhood onely was the Sacrifice yet the Person God-Man was the Priest and though the Sacrifice was not God yet was it the Sacrifice of him who was God none can therefore wonder that our Author calls it of Infinite value Nor on the other hand let any surmise that he uses the Term Infinite to impose upon us though some perhaps may carry a jealous Eye over him because he has dropt an odde word or two elsewhere which seem to warp the sence of Infinite to Finite or Indefinite In p. 208. he denyes that the Divine Nature it self hath endless boundless bottomless Grace in it Though God be rich in Grace he hath no where told us that his Mercy was bottomless and boundless which yet is that Notion of Infinite that we have ever Received and yet the same Author in the same Page will allow Grace to be Infinite A world of sin is somewhat though it bear no Proportion to infinite Grace Hence I perceive some would inferre that if the Grace of the Father may be infinite and yet not boundless the Blood of the Son may be so too of Infinite value that is of a great uncertain worth in which sence Vorstius will allow God to be Infinite They do also foment their own suspicion from what here follows as it were by way of Exegesis His Sacrifice was of greater value than the Blood of Bulls and Goats Nay then if there was onely a Magis and a Minùs in the case all this might be and yet Christs Sacrifice come infinitely short of Infinite These things may be objected but for my own part though he be angry at it in other places when he is not concerned I shall interpret his words according to their Chime and clink and charitably expound his meaning by the sound of words That which follows is Truely excellent God cannot but be pleas'd when his own Son undertakes to be a Ransome and to make an Attonement for sinners which is so great a Vindication of Gods Dominion and Sovereignty of the Authority of his Laws the Wisdom and Iustice of his Providence that he may securely pardon humble and penitent sinners without reproaching any of his Attributes What pity 't is a single word should here be lost 1. God will not indeed cannot pardon any sin to the reproach of his Attributes The hopes of sinners are small if these be their hopes that to pardon them God will destroy Himself It would be the reproach of pardoning Mercy it self should we conceive it ready to pardon without respect to the Interest of other Attributes As therefore God is ready to pardon a way must be contrived that he may securely pardon and when 't is said he cannot 't is no Impeachment of His Omnipotency He is therefore Omnipotent because he cannot Doe some things the Doing whereof would imply want of Power He cannot Dye and is therefore the rather Omnipotent because he cannot He cannot Deny himself and therefore he can doe all things because he cannot doe that for he that can Deny Himself his Word Promise or Threatning may be presumed Able to doe very little Thus therefore God cannot pardon sin without security that his Attributes be not reproached for so to doe would argue a Remisseness and languid easiness in a Governour which is a weakness and no perfection 2. We gather from our Author That even humble and penitent sinners need the Interposition of Christ that God may securely pardon them for besides that even they are but imperfectly such and that sin still cleaves to their Repentance and Humiliation and further that the displicency of God against sin as it is sin small or great is essential to Him besides all this those however humble and penitent ones turning from sin for the future have yet old scores to discharge former Reckonings to clear and have need of Christ to cross the Book for old Arrears though for the time to come they should reach the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which yet it 's much to a little they will not doe but when Christ undertakes to be a Ransome God may securely
he afterwards throwes up his Nose so scornfully at Some other matters may have a Room in our Consideration As 1 That this Knowledge of God was Natural had need be a little better trimmed than ordinary Natural either imports what is constitutive of our Beings or flows immediately from the Principles of Nature or else what is congruous and agreeable to our Natures as designed for such an Employment as is proper to them If he take Natural in the first sence I softly deny that The Knowledge of God which made or would have made Adam happy was Natural to him And my Reason is that what does so constitute Nature or flow immediately from the Principles thereof cannot possibly be separated from that Being but withall the very Being is destroy'd but we see damned Souls and Devils retain all that knowledge of God which did constitute their Essences and yet have lost all that knowledge of God which is or may be a Means to their happiness they retain their Beings are not physically stript of them though they are Morally devested of all the Comfort of their Beings but then if by Natural Knowledge no more be intended but that upon supposition God would create man to serve love and enjoy him it was due to a Being so posited to be so qualified If man must serve his Maker and in that service enjoy him and in that enjoyment be Happy in him then indeed is it natural such a Knowledge such a Will such a Heart should be bestow'd upon him but I would have this Bush soundly beaten by a better Huntsman than my self and ten to one he may from under it start a Pelagian 2 It would be enquired whether this Natural Knowledge was a sufficient means for Adams Happiness Our Author seems clearly to assert it but I confess I cannot joyn with him as believing that much more was required of and indeed bestow'd upon him than a Natural Knowledge of God He was made in the Image and likeness of God Gen. 1. 26 27. A main part of that Image lay in Righteousness Eccles. 7. 29. God made man upright 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rectum there was a Rectitude of all the Powers and Faculties an exact conformity of them to one another and of all to the Revealed Will of God And this appears In that the Image of God restored by Grace assures us what that Image was which he once had but since has lost Eph. 4. 24. And that ye put on the New Man which after God is created in Righteousness and True Holiness And indeed the first man not being capable of a forreign Righteousness whereby he might be justifi'd that Covenant either not needing it supposing he had stood or not admitting it on supposition of a Fall he must necessarily have a Righteousness inherent one of his own to qualifie him to hold Communion or to speak warrantably with our Author converse with God 3 I question much that Expression of Innocence as not very Innocent it has been taken upon suspicion many a time and sometime could not give a good Account of it self Casta quidem sed non credita And it has been the more narrowly observed since a Generation of Men arose in the world who would perswade us That the Perfection of Man in his first Creation lay not in any positive Qualities of Holiness Righteousness and Truth but in a bare Freedom from sin That is they would fancy Man to have been created as pure white and Innocent as a sucking Lamb but not so much as the first preparative blue towards the tincture of any Vertues but whether this one word in our Author may be iuterpreted so high time must discover And hitherto of the State wherein God created Man 2. A second Period of Time into which our Author has Thrown the World is that from Adam to Abraham inclusively Upon which Interval he Philosophizes even to our wonderment In after-Ages as Mankind grew more corrupt and declined to Idolatry Here I want our Authors Accuracy or must complain of a Fallacy for methinks it 's a deadly long stride to step from Adam to after-Ages without the Bridge of some Neat Transition he might have made two steps of this just now we found Man in the state of Innocency and now we find him corrupt and declined to Idolatry and yet none can imagine how this evil of Sin and Misery invaded the world The Heathens were at their wits-ends about it the Manichees could not invent a way to assoyl it but by assigning a double Eternal Cause or Principle the one of Good the other of Evil And now when we expected great matters from this Gentleman to be left in the lurch and fobb'd off with a blind account that this was done in after-Ages In after-Ages as Mankind grew more corrupt Oh! it seems they were Corrupt before and enclined to Idolatry but in these villanous after-Ages they grew more Corrupt Religion pass'd through many hands and in long Tract of time gathered Moss and Furre Men sliding insensibly none ever knew how into this degeneracy and Trace it up as high as you can yet Nilus hides his Head beyond the Mountains of the Moon That Men are corrupt and stark naught we see but how they became so or when first turn'd out of the way that 's hid in darkness and perpetual Night But there is one St. Paul as obscure an Author as some would represent him that would have spoken a thousand times more to our satisfaction than this Gentleman Rom. 5. 12. By one man sin entred into the World and Death by Sin and so Death pass'd upon all men in that or in whom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all have sinned V. 17. By one Mans Offence Death reigned by one V. 18. By the Offence of one Iudgement came upon all to Condemnation That the evil that we experience in the world and that 's abundance may be reduced to two heads it 's either Malum Culpae or Malum Poenae Either the Evil of Sin or the Evil of Punishment for sin Now this Excellent Author tells us that both these Evils came from one root one spring and that was one Man and that one Man was Adam This seems to have a probable face of the Origine of Evil but he was a dark Writer There is therefore another Author that wrote a Book called The Catholick Doctrine believed and professed in the Church of England one with whom our Author has some Reason to be acquainted for a Reason or two that I know of now this Author tells us Art 9. Of Original or Birth-sin That Original sin standeth not in the following of Adam as the Pelagians vainly talk N. B. but it is the Fault and Corruption of the Nature of every Man that Naturally is ingendred of the Off-spring of Adam whereby Man is very far gone from Original Righteousness and is enclined to evil so that the Flesh lusteth against the Spirit and therefore in every person born
that Sacrifice once for all to be offer'd up to God for that end 6. And it was Necessary that the gracious God who had trusted the World so long with Pardon Peace and Life should at last be satisfied and not alwayes be put off without due Compensation to his Justice and Truth 7. The Case and Condition of the Elect of God made by the common Apostacy Enemies to God and under the Curse annex'd to the Violation of the Law upon this one Supposition that God would pursue his Original Love and Purposes of Grace to them that a due Compensation should be provided for his wronged Justice Sin had perplexed matters and involved things in such Intricacies that Humane Wisdom could not find out an Expedient How God might be Just and yet the Justifier of him that believes how Mercy and Truth should meet together how Righteousness and Peace should kiss each other Many Salvo's have been propounded to the World many Expedients set on foot but upon severer scrutiny have been found Physicians of no value not able to heal the wounds of an inquisitive Conscience awaken'd with the sense of the Souls worth and Gods wrath in the Judgement to come All these things does the Lord Christ alone compromise adjust all these Accounts and reconcile these Intrests The Justice of God is satisfied the Law fulfilled the Truth of God secured his Holiness vindicated and all his Attributes unreproached 'T is true indeed God is a free Agent and absolutely consider'd might have left the world to perish under the Curse but seeing it pleased him to carry on his design of Love still notwithstanding the intervention of sin what others may pretend I know not but to our Apprehensions as there is but one God the Father of whom are all things and we in him so there is one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we by him 2 Cor. 8. 6. 2. The Work of Christ whilest in the World was the discharge of his whole Mediatory Undertaking as Prophet Priest and King To divide Christ is to destroy him As half a Heart is no Heart in Gods Acceptation so half a Christ is no Christ as to any saving advantage the Soul can possibly reap from him He was therefore 1. A Prophet to acquaint us fully with the Preceptive will of God in which rank we must place that great Command of Faith in Christ 1 John 3. 23. And this is his Commandement that we should believe on the Name of his Son Jesus Christ. He acquainted us also with the Promissory Will of God as the great Encouragement of our Souls in walking resolvedly with God in wayes of New Obedience He acquainted us also with the Purposes of God which should follow his Promises and Precepts to invigorate them with Efficacy and Success And this he does by the Ministry of his Word but more especially by the Holy Spirit inwardly and powerfully and yet sweetly not offering violence to our Faculties but making us a willing People in the day of his Power 2. He was a Priest and as such he offer'd himself a true and proper Sacrifice to God thereby answering the Sacrifices of the Old Testament which though they were Typical yet in their way were true and Real Sacrifices and all this in pursuit of the Fathers Love and his own 1 Joh. 4. 10. Herein is love not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the Propitiation for our sins what Intercessions as a Priest he made for those the Father had given him we need no other pattern of than that Prayer John 17. per totum 3. His Kingly Office he exercised in gathering governing defending protecting his Church abolishing those Laws which were accommodated to that other Dispensation and would not fit its present posture and instituting New Ordinances of Worship agreeable to the oeconomy of the New Testament which Office yet he exercised in such a way that little of Glory and Majesty appeared therein to a Carnal Eye the Grandeur thereof being vailed under the form of a Servant 3. The general Design of this Work we may assure our selves was exceeding Glorious nothing but admirable could be the Product of such an undertaking with what Joy and Triumph was it entertain'd by the Angels who were less concern'd therein than poor fallen Man Luke 2. Glory be to God on high on Earth peace good will towards men 1 Tim. 1. 15. This is a faithfull saying and worthy of all acceptation that Jesus Christ came into the World to save sinners the chiefest of Sinners Which Great End that he might attain he dealt with God as a Priest to reconcile him to us with Us he dealt as a Prophet enlightning our Minds in the Knowledge of God and our selves and as a King subduing our hearts by his Spirit of Grace to accept of those Terms which might secure the Glory of God in our Eternal Salvation But the main Design I shall express no otherwise than in the words of the Church of England Art 2. who suffered and was crucified dead and buried to reconcile his Father to us and to be a Sacrifice not only for Original but all Actual sins of Men. From whence we learn 1. That Reconciling and Sacrificing Work is onely proper for a state of Humiliation it 's annex'd to his Death Sufferings Sacrifice 2. That the Death of Christ according to the mind of this Article supposes God to be incensed against and angry with Sinners and therefore he suffered to Reconcile God to us 3. That the Death and Sufferings of Christ are of sufficient value to secure Gods Honour and appease his Anger 4. That Original Sin how small a mote soever it may seem in some mens eyes is yet such a troublesome Beam in Gods eyes that it requires the same Blood of Christ to be a Sacrifice for it 5. That all Actual sins even the smallest if any may be called small need the Blood of Christ to reconcile God to the Sinner without which they will infallibly destroy the Soul Thus far the Church of England of whose Doctrine our Author has great Reason to be very tender if not for the Truths sake yet for his Credits sake having subscribed it and above all for St. Georges sake Buttolphs-lane for otherwise it may be easie for some poching prolling Fellows to dismount George-a-horse-bâ—…k and get into our Authors Saddle CHAP. III. Sect. 2. Of Acquaintance with the Person of Christ. INterest is beholden to the Eagle for two of its greatest Excellencies a quick Eye to discover and sharp Pounces to seize the Quarry When once it had appeared in some pregnant Instances that the High-road to Preferment lay in the way of exposing Religion under the Persons of the Non-Conformists it 's incredible how soon sagacious Interest discern'd and made her advantage The old dull Methods of Marrying the Chamber-maid or Trucking with the young Gentleman grew as Obsolete as Systematical Divinity An unhappy happy
Nature and the Rules that he shall prescribe to him and therefore 3. Agreeable to his holy Nature and holy Law it shall not be with the Righteous after the way of the Wicked nor with the Wicked after the way of the Righteous for the Iudge of the whole Earth must do right This God has revealed and we believe and as much more as shall be made known to us to be of his Revelation But that God is so indifferent about Sin as these men would perswade us that those Scoffers Zeph. 1. 12. The Lord will not doe good neither will he doe evil did charge God wisely we do not believe but that he insists upon the Honour of his Attributes the Credit of his Laws the Vindication of his Authority which Ends if they may be otherwise attained than by Christ and his Sacrifice yet our Author has not yet discover'd to us the Way and however he has confessed that Christ is the best and most effectual Means of attaining them There are a few drops which follow this Storm yet behind The Doctor had said p. 96 97. That God does sometimes bear with Sinners and forbear them long and yet there may be no special design of Mercy in it neither But now evidently and directly the End of the Patience and Forbearance of God which is exercised in Christ and discovered in him to us is the saving and bringing unto God those towards whom he is pleased to exercise them God is now taking a Course in his infinite Wisdom and Goodness that we may not be destroyed notwithstanding our sins which a little before p. 97. sect 15. he explains to be by leading us to Repentance Now I knew it would be no difficult task to a willing Mind to put an ugly Vizor upon the fairest Face which thus he has done As before the least Sin could not escape without a just Punishment c. so now the Iustice of God being satisfied by the Death of Christ the greatest Sins can do us no harm but we shall be saved notwithstanding our sins But I doubt our Author will be miserably disappointed in his Markets and lose Money by his dirty Ware 1. The least Sin cannot escape without Punishment Very true we own it The wages of Sin is Death the Threatning is level'd at Sin as Sin and therefore against all sin A quatenus ad Omne valet Consequentia and therefore go scold with the Apostle that which will bring him off will bring off the Doctor 2. The Justice of God is Natural and Essential to him Well let him mend himself how he can we are of the same mind still and are like to be so 3. He cannot forgive sin without punishing it Goe on somewhere or other the Punishment must lye which amounts to no more but this that God cannot forgive sin but in such a way as may secure his Glory 4. The Iustice of God is satisfied by the Death of Christ It is so but that Satisfaction is applyed to particular persons in that way that God has appointed that no other of his Attributes may be damnified 5. Now the greatest sins can doe us no hurt Nay there our Author is quite out For Unbelief Impenitency Unregeneracy obstruct the Sinners having any share in the Satisfaction of Christ or the Benefits procured by it But 6. The Doctor had said We shall be saved notwithstanding our sins He does say we shall not be destroyed and let that amount if he pleases to We shall be saved That is 1. Former Sins repented of shall not be charged upon the Sinner to Condemnation 2. Such sins as are consistent with the state of Grace the Power and Predominancy of Godliness shall not eventually ruine the repenting Sinner and for those that are inconsistent with that state he that undertook to satisfie for them will also take care they shall not commit them that he may not lose the Fruit of his Death and Sufferings and therefore he has promised that he will put his Fear into their hearts that they shall never depart from him And now I think our Author has either lost Money by his Discourse or got it over the Shoulders All his hopes were to perswade us That the Doctor design'd to assert that the satisfaction of Christ would save sinners notwithstanding their sins lived in continued in delighted in and dyed in in sensu composito but let an ordinary Understanding with ordinary diligence read over that Paragraph and he shall find all conspiring with that great Truth Without Holiness no man shall see God And thus he has talk'd his pleasure about Mercy and Iustice. As to Gods Wisdom which most gloriously appears in this design of Saving sinners by Christ the Doctor had said Com. 98. That Gods Wisdom in managing things for his own Glory is clearly discovered in Christ And if Wisdom display it self in the works of Creation and Providence and in his holy Law yet still Wisdom is most eminently revealed in a Mediator and he was the more emboldened thus to speak because he had encouragement from the Apostle 1 Cor. 1. 24. We preach Christ crucified to the Iews a stumbling-block and to the Greeks foolishness but to them who are saved both Iews and Greeks the Power of God and the Wisdom of God And here I confess our Author had just Cause of Complaint That the Apostle should so unluckily place this Wisdom in a crucifyed Christ to the utter undoing that laudable Invention of Christ for an Office a Church a Doctrine and this might well vex every vein of his heart But still the Doctor proceeds and for ought I can see minds our Author no more than you would be concern'd about that peevish thing that infests your skins as you walk the streets with impotent Noyse shewing That this Wisdom of God is such a Mystery such hidden Wisdom such manyfold variegated curiously wrought Wisdom that the Angels desire to pry into it and the Wisdom thereof lyes much in this That by Christ things are recovered into such a state after the Confusion wherein they were involved by the Curse as shall be exceedingly to the advantage of Gods glory P. 98 99. This indeed was pungent and galled that tender part which cannot endure to hear too much Good spoken at once of Christs Person For says he if Justice be so Natural to God that Nothing could satisfie him but the Death of his own Son this may discover his Justice but not his Wisdom Why so Oh the Reason is plain Wisdom consists in the choyce of the best and fittest Means to attain an End where there are more wayes than one of doing it but it requires no great wisdom where there is but one possible Way Where I am stumbled at our Authors Philosophy as much as at his Divinity For 1. Saving to our Author his good Learning Wisdom lyes also in Managing fit Means in such a Way as may reach their Ends effectually that there be no disappointment in
sayes he for though it be not exact and perfect in every thing yet if it be sincere we shall be accepted for the sake of Christ by vertue of the Covenant that he hath Sealed with his Blood But I am afraid he has conjured up a Spirit that he cannot lay again with so sorry a Charm For 1. I do not find that God has abated any thing of his Law but is as peremptory as ever for Do this and live Nothing will please God less than exact and perfect Obedience though in the Covenant of Grace he is pleased to admit Another a Mediator to doe it for Believers I had rather he would hear the Reverend and Learned Bishop Reynolds upon Psal. 110. p. 492. In point of Validity or Invalidity there can be but Five things said of the Law 1. Either it must be Obeyed and that it is not for all have sinn'd and come short of the Glory of God Rom. 3. 23. Or 2. it must be Executed upon Men and the Curse and Penalty thereof inflicted and that it is not neither for there is no Condemnation to them that are in Christ Jâ—…sus Rom. 8. 1. Or 3. it must be Abrogated or extinguish'd and that it is not neither for Heaven and Earth shall sooner pass away If there were no Law there would be no Sin for sin is the Transgréssion of the Law And if there were no Law there would be no Iudgement for the World must be judged by the Law Or 4. it must be Moderated and favourably interpreted by Rules of Equity and that it cannot be neither for it 's inflexible and one jot or tittle must not be abated Or lastly the Law it self remaining the Obligation thereof notwithstanding must towards such or such Persons be so far forth dispensed withall as that a Surety shall be admitted upon a Concurrence of all their Wills who are therein interested God willing to Allow Christ willing to Perform Man willing to Enjoy both to doe all the Duties and to suffer all the Curses of the Law in behalf of that Person who in Rigor should have done or suffer'd all so that the Law nor one jott or tittle thereof is abrogated in regard of the Obligation therein contained but they are all reconciled in Christ Thus far he But 2. That Sincerity which he talks of is indeed allow'd in the Gospel in the Matter of Inherent Righteousness and Sanctification there it has a proper and excellent place but comes not into the business of Iustification at all And 3. This Sincerity will be but a Cover-slut for the Omission and Neglect of our Duty for if Sincerity will do the work without Universality and Integrity of Obedience the best way will be to shrowd our selves under a profound Ignorance of Gods Commandements and then the less we know of Gods Will the safer we are under the shelter of Sincerity And 4. The Question will be How much shortness of Obedience will this Sincerity compound for It may be our Author will prescribe a Drachm of Sincerity to a Scruple of Disobedience but then Another will make a Grain of Sincerity a very little upon a knifes point serve to sweeten a whole Pound of Defect in Duty and thus every Mountebank with a dose of his Electuary of Sincerity will pretend to heal mens Consciences of those wounds that Sin has given them 5. Whereas our Author addes that we shall be accepted for the sake of Christ it 's a meer Iuggle for when he comes to enquire What Influence the Righteousness and Death of Christ have upon our acceptation with God he professes he can find nothing in the world but that God will pardon us if we believe and obey the Gospel p. 320. which doubtless he would have done without him But this is onely to make the same use of Christ that Politicians doe of the Foxes Case to piece the Lyons skin when it 's too short just so must Christ serve to eke out the shortness of their Obedience with his own and when they have stretcht their own Righteousness upon the Tenters as far as it will hold to be beholden to Christ for the Rest God for Christs sake does indeed accept our imperfect Duty Obedience Service and pardon the shortness of it according to the Tenour of the Covenant of Grace but not that it should thereby stand for our Iustification which we have onely upon the Account of what he has done and suffered for us made ours by accepting him upon his own Terms 3. We are come with much adoe to the third and last Addition that these men make or are supposed to make to the Gospel Viz. Concerning our Wisdom to walk with God To which thinks Doctor Owen there is required Agreement Acquaintance Way Strength Boldness and aiming at the same End and all these with the Wisdom of them are hid in the Lord Iesus It were worth the while to transcribe the Doctors discourse upon all these Heads but our Author has saved me the Labour The summe of all is this That Christ having expiated our sins and fulfilled all Righteousness for us though we have no Personal Righteousness of our own but are as contrary to God as Darkness is to Light and Death to Life and an universal Pollution and Defilement to an universal and glorious Holiness and Hatred to Love yet the Righteousness of Christ is a sufficient nay the onely Foundation of our Agreement and upon that of our walking with God Now without doubt our Author would have his Reader believe that the Doctor has said all this and that he intends we may have Communion with God whilest we continue thus I confess at the reading hereof I was amazed knew not what to think Have I been all this while so narrowly watching the Doctor that a false Print much less a false Doctrine could not escape me and is our Author come after me and findes all this filth and abominable stuffe Once again therefore because I durst not trust my own Eyes or Ears and am under a Vow never to trust our Authors Tongue or Pen speaking evil of the Doctor I took down the Book and what I find I will transcribe and let all the world judge Com. p. 119. The Prophet tells us that two cannot walk together unless they be agreed Amos 3. 3. Untill Agreement be made there is no Communion God and Man by Nature or whilest Man is in the state of Nature are at the greatest Enmity He declares nothing to us but wrath neither do we come short of him yea we first began it and continue longest in it In this state the wisdom of walking with God must needs be most remote from the Soul He is Light and in him is no Darkness at all we are Darkness and in us is no Light at all he is Life a living God we are dead Sinners dead in Trespasses and sins he is Holiness and glorious in it we wholly defiled and an abominable thing he is Love
106. And was God ever denied the Liberty before t'other day to bring Good out of Evil 2. He lays it down as their Doctrine It pleased God that man should sin but when he hath sinned He is displeased with it This seems to be a piece of Wit designed to make the Devil Merry but all the Humour of it lies in the Ambiguity of one poor word It pleased God to permit sin and yet when man had sinned he was justly displeased with it Gods permission had no Influence upon mans Transgression But how would he have Insulted over that man that should openly Preach and Write That against the Holy Child Iesus whom God anointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate and the People of Israel were gathered together for to do whatsoever Gods Hand and Gods Counsel determined before to be done and yet when it was done according to the Determination of his own Hand and Counsel he was extreamly displeased with it And yet I could tell him of one that has so said who Scorns his most scornful Censure It may please God that a thing may be done and take no pleasure in the thing done nor in the Instruments that did it It pleased him to suffer his own People to be afflicted by the Heathen and yet he was sore displeased with the Heathen that helped forward the Affliction Zech. 1. 15. It pleased the Father to bruise his Son and yet he was displeased with the Instruments that bruised him God can do the same thing Righteously which Men and Devils do unrighteously Judas delivered up Christ out of Covetousness the Iews out of Envie Pilate out of Fear or to pick a Thank from Caesar but God Delivered him for our Offences 3. He charges them with this Doctrine That nothing can withstand the Decrees of God We have scarce another Instance wherein he has Candidly represented their Judgment and was not able to throw some Dirt upon it 4. He proceeds to play the Lucian and Scoff at Gods Justice It 's impossible says he for God to forgive the least sin without a compleat and perfect Satisfaction Let him but grant that God cannot forgive the greatest sin without compleat and perfect Satisfaction and they will undertake to prove from thence that none is so small but needs a Satisfaction 5. He proceeds This falls hard upon those miserable Wretches whose ill fortune it was to be left out of the Roll of Election without any fault of theirs To be left out of the Roâ—…l of Election by Fortune is a piece of prophane Nonsence which at once discovers the depth of his Intellectuals and the height of his Boldness What more Desultory than that which Heathens call Fortune What more stable and fixed than that which the Word of God calls Election The Old Church of England would have Taught him to have Spoken otherwise of that Tremendous Mysterie Art 17â—… Election to Life is the everlasting purpose of God whereby before the Foundation of the World was laid He hath constantly Decreed by his Counsel secret to us to deliver from Curse and Damnation those whom He hath chosen in Christ out of Mankind and to bring them by Christ to everlasting Salvation c. Now though he believes little of all this yet he might remember he had Subscribed the whole and considered also t is the Doctrine of that Church whereof he is a Member and therefore might have Covered their Nakedness and at least Perfum'd them with a few good Cheap words against their Burial It were tedious to pursue the particulars I only say If this Scheme of Religion as it stands here upon Record be the Subject of his Scorn and Reproach I hope we may read it backwards and then 't will be his own Creed some few Slanders indeed which were inserted as a Haut goust to giue it the better Grace we may Omit but for the rest no doubt he will own it to be the Standard of his Belief God from the Beginning never Designed to Glorifie either his Iustice or Mercy and because there would have been Occasion abundantly Administred both to Punish and Pardon too though man had never sinned therefore he never concern'd himself how things would go And indeed it had been to no purpose for God to Decree any thing since if he had all his Decrees and Appointments had been easiâ—…y withstood And therefore man sinned whether God would or no and full sore against his Will for if he could have prevented it we may be sure he would but when man had sinned God was not much displeased with it for you must know that his Justice is so Facile and Easie an Attribute and if it be one at all it 's but a Secondary one that he can easily forgive the greatest sin without Satisfaction made to it This is very good News if it be true to all the World especially seeing there 's no such thing as the Roll of Election and by Consequence no preterition neither but all men stand upon even Ground and every one upon his own Legs which they may the better do because they have many ways left if need were to pacifie Gods anger in case he should happen to be a little displeased with sin viz. By their own Temporal sufferings Repentance and Obedience which though they answer not Gods Law yet being sincere it s well enough By this it appears that God is not Essentially Just and Righteous seeing He can Pardon the greatest sin and serve his own Glory without any regard to the Death of Christ or Inflicting upon sinners Eternal Sufferings But now this is but one part of the Glory of God that He can pardon sin without Propitiation made by Christ the other is that he can reward the sinner too without the Righteousness of Christ And therefore there 's more ado than needs about a pretended Difficulty how to Reconcile Gods Iustice and Mercy For neither is Iustice so severe as to require Satisfaction and the Merit of our own Obedience is so Considerable that we need not much be beholden to Mercy And to speak in a word the Demerit of sin is short of Infinite and therefore the Creature may Expiate its own sins by enduring Finite that is Temporary Torments whereas then men Talk that to Unite these two Extreams and reconcile such Contradictions was a work of Infinite Wisdome as well as Goodness they Talk Idly for as I said before whatever there was of Goodness in it there could be no great Wisdom and therefore it 's vainly said that to Effect it God should send his Son into the World to satisfie all Righteousness in his Life and to make a full satisfaction for sin by his Death for neither could his Blood be of Infinite value though for Fashion sake we call it the Blood of the Son of God nor Expiate an Infinite guilt or make satisfaction to Gods Justice if so be he had stood upon 't And therefore to Instruct you aright in these Matters sin
let it alone sin it seems is one of those Adiaphorous Trifles that it needs not the Blood of Christ to satisfie for it for our own repentance without any respect to the Death of Christ will stop that Gap Wherein I confess I as little admire his Divinity as he does other mens Philosophy But 5. They argue from the Essential differences of Things and what rare Feats they can do from hence is Incredible For whereas other poor Sneaks only deal with the Rinde and Bark of Beings as they are cloathed with Circumstances and crusted over with Accidents these Gyants of Reason will strip your Nature stark naked and show her for a Sight at Bartholomew-Fair in her first callous Principles Thus our Author tells us pag. 94. That Christ came not to distract us with the Inexorableness of Gods Iustice and yet p. 95. He assures us that God is an Irreconcileable Enemy to all sin For he could pry out an Essential difference between the Inexorableness of his Iustice and his Irreconcileableness to sin And pag. 82. He can shew us the difference between being astonisht and surprised with wonder which though any other might have stumbled on Yet to shew you just to a Hairs breadth where Wonder ends and Astonishment begins this was reserved for the Acumen of a Rational Divine It were tedious though useful no doubt to Instance with what Dexterity they Wire draw Discoveries out of Immutable and Unchangeable Natures how they call Fire out of Smoak but never steams out of Light At what Killing undoing Rates they Syllogize how they run their Enemies all on Heaps and perplex their Discourses all into Snicksnarles but every one would Live as long as he can This though the better half is but one part of that Design which he is driving on Incognito The other is to Besmear a sort of pittiful Fellows he has often but never with respect mentioned For it 's a very great Question whether he be a greater admirer of his own Excellencies than a dispiser of other Mens Imperfections But what is their Crime Why they Cry down Reason for such a Prophane and Carnal thing as must not presume to Intemeddle in Holy Matters I have met with some who decry Carnal Reason but never with one that affirmed Reason was Carnal I know none that are very ambitious to put on Brute and put off Man and for those who are so Pelted with empty clamour I have ever found them as much in love with and as great Improvers of Reason as their Neighbours only their unhappiness is they have not so vast a Stock to set up with and sometimes may be out of Sorts However they are not ashamed to own or disown that Thing which many vend for reason as it behaves it self and for what I understand in this Matter I shall freely confess where I had it viz. From the Ninth Article of the Church of England of Original or Birth-sin This Infection of Nature doth remain yea in them that are Regenerated whereby the Lust of the Flesh called in Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which some do Expound the Wisdom some the Sensuality some the Desire of the Flesh is not subject to the Law of God I have met also with others who will not scruple to own 1. That Reason is the sole and proper Iudge within her own Iurisdiction and that as we must give unto Faith the things that are Faiths so must we yield to Reason the things that are Reasons let her move within her own Sphere and they will not Iostle her nor Enterfere with her Motions 2. They are earnest that the best Reason that can be got for Love or Money be employed in Spinning conclusions out of those Premises which are of pure revelation though for scanning the Truth of some propositions may be she 's not so good at it 3. They say that our Service and Worship of God ought to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a reasonable Service that in all our Worship of God our Actions be under the Conduct of Reason So Idle is our Authors reproach that they will not allow Reason to Intermeddle in Holy Matters Can she not meddle but she must be Lady Paramount Can she not look into the Temple but she must peep into the Holy of Holies 4. They say they never affirmed Hot nor Cold that Reason was Carnal but that there is some Carnal Reason That Carnal is not Epitheton generis as if all Reason were Carnal but only Specieâ—… that there is such a thing as Carnal Reason and they bring the Church of England for their Voucher On the other side they do affirm 1. That the Reasonings of Men as they are found in all the Sons of Adam are Vitiated and Corrupted they cannot see how Reason scaped better in the common Shipwrack than the other powers of the Soul 2. Hence they put a difference betwixt Reason in the abstract as it is in it self and as it is found Immerst in Matter and Drencht in Hyle betwixt Reason as it ran clear at first and as it now tastes of the Cask And when the Apostle Paul who passes now-a-days for an Obscure writer could give us the Hint of this Difference Rom. 1. 21. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They became vain in their own Reasonings or Argumentations and their fool-heart was darkned Methinks they that Trade in the Essential differences of things should not have over-lookt it but Bernardus Non vidit omnia 3. Therefore where the Infallible Word of God has clearly revealed any Doctrine and propounded it to their Belief they look upon 't as their business to Believe not Dispute as owning the Reason of the Scripture to be the Supreme and Sovereign reason which is nothing but the Authority of an Infallible Revealer When therefore they cannot Grasp how some things should be with Consistence to their apprehensions they trouble not themselves much but are satisfied that Thus they are 4. That there are some Doctrines in the Scripture fairly laid down to be Faith which yet are above the most Exalted reason to give an account of any other way than by Faith's Old answer to all New Objections The Mouth of the Lord hath spoken it 5. These men are not aminded that those great Masters of Wit should have their reason to be the common standard and Assize of the Reason of all Men unless they can bring better Evidence that they are Clerks of the Market to seal all measures of Truth and Error Good and Evil then their new Lights hang out in Dark-Lanthorns If it come once to this that God must not be God unless he please their Humours If Scriptures must pass the Ordeal of their reasons before it be Canonical we humbly desire to be Excused if we rather chuse to Walk alone in the Ways of Truth than for companies-sake as well as we love them to be Seduced into their Misprisions This is the grand Crime of these men there are others not to be
never told us that he was bottomless and boundless And if God be not a God of bottomless and boundless Mercy it will not bear a regular proportion to enquire Whether Christs Goodness became less Infinite and boundless than it was before 3. He considers The Holiness and Innocence of Christs Life that he was a great Example of unaffected Piety towards God c. Hence does he reasonably conclude that he came to restore the Practice of Piety c. which had been banisht out of the world by the hypocritical pretences of a more Refined Sanctity in washing of Hands and Dishes in tything Mint and Cummin as he calls it Now this is to be fear'd is not very regular and exaâ—… for some would conclude as if Christ came to destroy the Ius Divinum of Tythes but we are to understand that the Venome and Villany of this Hypocrisie did not lye in Tything Egges or Pigs Chickens Ducks or Goslings Apples Pears or Plumbs much less those fatter Praedial Revenues of the Church but only in those uncanonical things Mint Annise Cummine and bate but those two or three and Tythes are Sacred out of all things from the Cedar in Lebanon to the Hyssop upon the Wall 4. Our Saviour by his Example as well as Laws taught us Another Lesson that as we lost our Happiness at first by Sin so the way to regain the Favour of God and an Immortal Life is by the practice of a Sincere and Universal Righteousness I must freely confess I would never desire any man to be more ridiculous whilest I live than our Author in these few words If he has forgot his design or lost himself in a Wood yet does he presume the Reader also has his wits gone after him a Wool-gathering He has pretended over and over that he would give us Another Scheme of Religion from acquaintance with Christs Person more beautifull for Colour more exact for Proportion than what all other men have been able to shew and all this without Gospel-Revelation And yet here contrary to all the Laws of Proportion he takes in Christs Laws from which we must learn this other Lesson but though his Laws came in by an Anomaly surely his Example is Regular and that teaches us that The way to regain Gods Favour is by the practice of a sincere and universal Righteousness Now if Christ has taught us this by his Example we must suppose that He had once lost Godâ—… Favour but happily regain'd it by this Expedient of a sincere and universal Righteousness Whether this be a Truth or no in it self is out of our Charter to examine for we are obliged onely to consider the Regularity of his Proportions and the self-consistency of his Notions 5. When We remember that Christ died as a Sacrifice and Propitiation for sin this gives Us a great demonstration of Gods good will to us how ready he is to pardon former sins in that he hath appointed an Atonement for us and given no less a Person than his own Son for our Ransome It 's very strange that none else may be allowed to gather all this from the Revelation of the Gospel and yet our Author with his Scrues of Artificial Connexions and Regular Proportions can draw it every Letter and Syllable from an Acquaintance with Christs Person But by what secret wayes he became Master of this Mystery is to me a greater mystery How the Person of Christ the Death of Christ should teach us the proper Ends and Designs of his Death unless he had Acquainted us with them I am yet to seek and so was our Author himself within these few leaves pag. 78. The Incarnation and Life and Death and Resurrection of Christ were available to those Ends for which God designed them but the Virtue and Efficacy of them doth depend upon Gods Institution and Appointment and therefore can be known onely by Revelation 6. He assures us That the Death of Christ assures him of the Desert of Sin and what it is And I aâ—… heartily glad to hear the News and wish it had been attended with Proof from Scripture which is pregnant in it and not shuffled off with that which is next dore to none Surely then there was somewhat in the Death of Christ which Answer'd the Demerit of it which was Gods Anger and Displeasure against it or it will be impossible from Christs Death to learn Sins Demerit without a Scripture-Comment upon the Text of his Crosse and Sufferings 7. Christs Death seals the irrevocable Decree of Reprobation That 's as terrible News as the other was comfortable but I fear he must be beholden to the Gospel for his Intelligence or he will never learn it from a bare acquaintance with Christs Person And now we may fairly presume there is such a Decree so irrevocable so immutable else how does the Death of Christ seal it It 's supposed ever that the Decree is made e re it be sealed but the vigour and quickness of our Authors Fancy is incredible and so at length those poor wretches whose hard Fortune it was in our Authors phrase to be left out of the Roll of Election without any fault of theirs are in the same Predicament they were in before Our Author has reserved one thing for the shutting up of this Section which being a matter of very great importance and yet so easie and accountable we may not doubt but he has handled it with much Exactness It is the True Method of a Sinners Recovery by Christ. From hence says he it 's easie to understand what is the True Method of a Sinners Recovery by Christ. And there are two parts of his Undertaking 1. The Erecting of his own regular and exact Method 2. The demolishing the confused Method of others And First For his own Method for so he is pleas'd to Nick-name it for divers good and valuable Considerations him thereunto especially moving it is no more but this When we are so affected with all the powerfull Arguments to a New Life which are contained in his Christs Incarnation and Life and Doctrine and Example and Miracles and Death and Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven and his Intercession for us as to be sensible of the Shame and Folly of Sin and to be reconciled to the Love and Practice of true Piety and Holiness Then What then O then we partake in the Merits of His Sacrifice and find the benefit of his Intercession and have A Title to all the Blessings and Promises of the Gospel This is the True Method of a Sinners Recovery But still I doe not see the Regular Proportion of it to his Design for as has been oft observed he pretends to give us a Scheme of Religion from the Person of Christ never medling with his Doctrine and yet now when he thinks it so easie to give us from thence a Method of a Sinners Recovery he is glad to be beholden to the Doctrine of Christ for he sayes When we are
for his safety He wounded men that they might seek after healing and laid load upon their guilty minds that they might be content to take his Yoke upon them And that this is so 1. We have an Argument which is Instar omnium a Thousand Reasons by it self That is what our Author says That we must be affected with all the Arguments of Christs Incarnation c. so as to be sensible of the shame and folly of our sins Now how a man should be ashamed of sin till he sees its vileness and baseness and how he should see its vileness and filthiness till it s brought to the Test of Gods Holy Law which is the Rule of righteousness the Measure of Good and Evil is past my Conjecture Nay further that shame which fills a Soul does not merely arise from a sence of the Souls vileness but as compared with Gods Holiness who is a God so Pure so Holy c. that the Soul may well be ashamed and filled with Confusion of face to appear before him Now shame upon the account of the filthiness and dread upon the account of the guilt of sin are very near Neighbours Shame expresses the Souls sence of its own unworthiness to appear before God upon the score of its baseness and deformity and Fear expresses but the sence of Gods Authority which he hath Impressed and Stampt upon his Holy Law with the Souls reflection upon it self that it has violated that Law and thereby become liable to that Penalty which his own guilt has bound him over to And this was clear in Adams case He was Naked and therefore ashamed he was guilty and therefore feared to appear before this Holy God and Iust Iudge Now our Author will allow it lawful to fetch Arguments from Christs Incarnation Life Doctrine Death and what you please to make us ashamed of sin but by no means to be afraid of the Great God But the very truth is none say that it is the duty of Men to be Distracted and Unhinged in mind with slavish fears and Hellish apprehensions of Gods Justice But that this Dread may possibly run up some poor Creatures so high as to a literal distraction when the apprehensions of the Curse due to the Transgression of a righteous Law of a Holy and Jealous God shall overset a weak Judgement and dark Mind that sees its danger but no way to escape sees its Disease but not its Cure its sin with the demerits thereof but not a Saviour with his Merits and at once considers that Wrath of God which it concludes to be unavoidable and knows to be Intollerable 3. That our Saviour did use the Law and it's Terrors to awaken the Souls of men to a due apprehension of their sin and their danger thereupon the whole Tenour of the New Testament prove It was the Method of his Precurser Iohn the Baptist he laid this Ax to the Root of the Tree Mat. 3. 10. denouncing against them That every Tree that brought not forth good Fruit should be hewen down and cast into the fire And where-ever the Pharisees got it yet a warning they had got to flie from wrath to come The Apostle Paul both felt it and Preacht the use of the Law for Conviction of sin with all its Consequents and leading the sinner to Christ He felt it Rom. 7. 9. When the Commandment came sin revived and I died he saw himself a dead and lost man He Preacht also the Use of the Law Gal. 3. 24. to be a Schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. What use our Saviour in his own Person made of the Law may be seen from Matth. 5. and also chap. 23. where he thunders upon the dead and secure Consciences of Sinners with Arguments taken from the Law of God and the dreadfull Curse annex'd to the violation of it And though our Author will allow no more than an Awfull regard and reverence for God who is a holy and righteous Iudge and an irreconcileable Enemy to all Sin yet when a Sinner shall be throughly convinc'd that he is so and shall know that the wages of Sin is Death and that he that gave forth this Law and must sit in Iudgement upon him is both a Holy and a Righteous Iudge and an Irreconcileable Enemy to all Sin there will be more than an awfull regard and reverence for this God unless he have the faculty to tell a Sinner how he may stand guilty before his Judgement-Seat and not be filled with horror and unspeakable amazement But I see our Author can be both more severe than Christ where his severity is not due and more mercifull too at other times when his Clemency will destroy He will dawb over the chinks of their Consciences with untemper'd Mortar and skin over their wounds very smoothly he will not have men feel the workings of the Law nor any amazing terrours of Gods wrath Though it be hard to conceive how a Soul should see Sin and not see Gods wrath or seeing it not be terrified and amazed with it But such was not the Way and Method nor such the End and Design of Christs coming He never preach'd Peace when Destruction was nigh he accommodated not his Doctrine to the Lusts and Tempers of Sinners but Acted according to his Commission Isa. 61. 1 2. Preaching the Acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God But our Author has imposed it upon himself as his constant Method to discourse pro re natâ to fit the present purpose for pag. 3. of this excellent Piece he had told us That the Gospel of Christ is as severe a Dispensation as the Law which dooms men to Eternal misery that live not very vertuous and innocent Lives And they must be very vertuous and innocent ones indeed who escape that doom for just now he assures us That God is a righteous Iudge and an irreconcileable Enemy to all sin After all this storm there are yet a few drops behind which we may do well to shelter our selves from if we can He falls into some heat against our having Christ offer'd to us to be our Saviour against the Beseechings of Christ against Covenanting with Christ which is well express'd by Contract and Espousal And for this there is good warrant 2 Cor. 5. 20. As though God did beseech you by us we pray you in Christs stead be ye reconciled to God This was Scripture before he was born and will be so when he is gone and therefore he may speak his pleasure against Christ and his Gospel But he has a License and let him make the best on 't for our parts we hope we shall not be Scoffed out of the Concernments of our Souls and Salvation and if that must Anger him let him repeat over the Alphabet or which will do as well Turn the Knot of his Girdle behind him To conclude the Persons whom our Authors lot is fallen out to reproach Doe build their Faith
to Christ we must go to Him And therefore Faith which is the Instrument of this Union is very Luckily called coming to Christ from whence it is very evident that to believe in Christ is to go to Him for Salvation Which Metaphors of coming and going are a very Intelligible Explication of Believing But does this Gentleman think we have not sins enough of our own to answer for but we must be Responsible for all the faults the Black-Jaundies of Malice can find in Scripture Or does he Fancy that we Penn'd the Scriptures and therefore must lie at Stake for all the Incongruous expressions that he is able to suppose in them Well thanks be unto God that the Scriptures never yet found a Match able to Cope with them For 1. It 's apparently false which he says These Metaphors of coming and going are a very Intelligible explication of Believing Whenas indeed Believing is that which Explicates those Metaphors of Coming and Going With the same Fore-head he might have reviled Christ for Interpreting the Preaching of the Word by the Sower Sowing his Seed whereas the Sower sowing his Seed is explicated by the Preaching the Word 2. Faith says he is very Luckily called coming to Christ. I shall spare him that Ignorant Expression that Faith is called coming to Christ No Sir not Faith but Believing not the Peace but the Acting of that Grace is so called But I shall not wave his blasphemous Flirtings of the holy Spirit What ever Expressions he has used to express Faith or its Acts by were upon advice with his own wisdom who will not learn of him how to guide the Heads and Hearts and Tongues and Pens of his Amanuenses in revealing to us the Mind and Will of God He has better Authority to Justifie Quod scripsi scripsi than either Pilate who once really Crucified Christ Or that other who has often Crucified him in Essigie It was advisedly so called but unluckily reproached 3. Those Metaphors of coming and going do very aptly and Intelligibly express the Motion of the Soul in its turning from sin to God by Faith in Jesus Christ For as in all Local Motions there is a Term from which and a Term unto which we move so in this Spiritual Motion there is a State or Term from which we pass that of Sin and Enmity against God and another to which we pass that of Holiness and Peace with God Our Saviour thought meet and we are to Acquiesce in his Sovereign Wisdom sometimes to employ a Metaphor in the Explicating of a Metaphor Mat. 13. 19. Then comes the wicked one and catcheth away the word that was sown in his heart ver 21. Yet hath he not Root in himself ver 22. The deceitfulness of Riches Choak the Word and yet till of late he was never branded for unintelligible explicating of his Notions If now the Reader would have an Instance to what Height encouraged Prophaneness may rise let him read what follows But when the Soul is come to Christ is this enough No sure the Soul then must receive Christ as St. Iohn tells us 1 Ioh. 12. To as many as received him to them he gave power to become the Sons of God That faith which serves us for Leggs to goe to Christ must be a Hand to Receive him and to apply all his Merits and Fulness and Righteousness to our Souls And now when we have Received him we must embrace him in our Arms too as good old Simeon did when he found him in the Temple which is a little nearer Union as plainly appears from the Example of the Patriarchs who saw the Promises afar off and embraced them Heb. 11. 13. and now we have Christ we must trust and lean upon Him as we are often commanded to doe which signifies that Act of Faith whereby feeling our own weakness as unable to support our selves we do lean and rest on Christ and if leaning be not enough we may make a little more bold and Roll on him as appears from Psal. 37. 5. Roll thy wayes on the Lord as the Original Gal signifies which is that Act of Faith whereby we being weary and heavy laden with sin and seeking Ease at last discharge our load and cast it on Christ and this is plain from the phrase of Believing in Christ and on him for what can that signifie but leaning and rolling on him laying and building our selves on him as on a Foundation And now we have thus brought our Souls to Christ we must commit them to his trust to take charge of them and if they perish it shall be his fault he must give an account of it Thus St. Paul did 2 Tim. 1. 12. I know whom I have believed and I am perswaded that he is able to keep that I have committed unto him against that day and Now we must hide our selves in Christ from the fierce wrath of God as the Dove in the Rocks But this is not enough yet for we must be cloathed with the Righteousness of Christ. And when we are thus united to Christ and made one with him then All Christ is ours as the Apostle tells us All is yours and ye are Christs and Christ is Gods The Merit of his Death is ours to free us from the Guilt and Punishment of sin and his Active Obedience to the will of God his Righteousness is ours for our Justification as is plain in that he is called The Lord our Righteousness and as I. O. well observes we are reconciled to God by the Death of his Son and saved by his Life Rom. 5. 10. And now I hope there 's none needs question but our Author is laid in with a Competency of those Endowments that may enable him to Deride the whole Bible from the first of Genesis to the last of the Revelations If our Author does not judge with others about the Meaning of these phrases and Expressions of Scripture he had the liberty for ought I know to discover and if he must needs to expose their Mistakes but to droll upon the very Expressions of Scripture without reference to any Interpretation and if to any to that which is most evidently the True is a Degree above the superlative of Blasphemy Let others admire which of his Talents they see good for my own part I read more of Ignorance in it than of all his other Characters 1. One gross piece of Ignorance is that he makes the Patriarchs embracing of the Promises explain Simeon's embracing Christ in the Temple 2. That in his goodly supposed Method of the Souls coming to Christ he fancies first that we have Christ and trust and lean upon him and yet after a while as if it were a new degree of Faith he tells us we must commit our Souls to him 3. He fancies that to come to Christ to receive him to embrace him are several Acts of Faith distinguished by some Intervals of time But let us hear the guilt of these Scriptures and
about the Necessity of Good Works For says he when they are pressed with those Scriptures that urge the Necessity of Good Works What do they then Nay that he could not tell but carries on a suspended Sence for almost two whole Pages and in the end leaves it unintelligible Nonsence But however let us hear those Texts that are so pressing for Good works and a holy Life Why VVithout Holiness no Man shall see God The wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all Unrighteousness and Ungodliness of Men. Truly these Scriptures do press upon our Consciences and Practices but not upon our Principles Well then there are others that assert Our Acceptation with God depends upon a Holy and Vertuous life I promise you that presses indeed But it does not press me Our Acceptation with God depends upon a Holy life as the Qualification but it depends upon Christ for Procurement But the places are Acts 10. 35. God is no Respecter of Persons but in every Nation he that feareth God and worketh Righteousness is accepted of him Well let us examine whom this Text does press most The Apostle Peter in that excellent Discourse ver 43. tells us To him Christ give all the Prophets witness that through his Name whosoever believeth in Him should receive Remission of sins Whatsoever of acceptation with God then they that fear God and work Righteousness do obtain still it 's through the Name of Christ. The Text then presses not us he must call for more weight if he designs to Press us to Death But as I remember pag. 44. our Author with much Confidence would bear us down that the Iews who knew nothing at all of Christ yet undeâ—…stood God to be a Sin-pardoning God And yet the Apostle assures us 1. That all the Prophets gave witness to Christ. 2. That their Testimony was this That they were to expect Remission of sins through the Name of Christ. 3. That the Means of acquiring the Remission of sins through Christ was by believing in Him And now let him ask his own Shoulders whether this Text does not press him But there is another Scripture that will break their bones Mat. 5. 20. Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees ye shall in no case enter into the Kingdom of Heaven And what was their Righteousness Why he tells us They were a company of Immoral Hypocrites who placed all their Righteousness in observing the Ceremonies of the Law without the purity of their Hearts and Lives Well and we think a Man may Travel a great many Leagues beyond such Debauches and never come near the Kingdom of Heaven Let them then Groan under the weight of it who place their Religion in Ceremony and prophane Drollery it presses not them who professing Faith in our Lord Iesus Christ and Repentance from Dead works subject themselves to his Gospel Well but there is one more that will Grind them to Powder ver 19. He that breaks the least of these Commandments and teaches men so shall be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven And this will certainly press them who Renouncing their part in the Satisfaction given to God by Christ trust to their own Imperfect repentance wherein there are so many Flaws as will amount to the breach of some Commandment and then our Author has quite shut them out of the Kingdom of Heaven To conclude this Section our Author has one round Fling at Doctor Owen and it is ex Officio no doubt I suppose he may hold some fair Estate by this Tenure That he Persecute the Doctor with Fire and Faggot as far as a pair of Shooes of a great price will carry him The Question is What necessity there is of Obedience The Doctor had said That Universal Obedience and good Works are Indispensibly necessary to Salvation by the sovereign appointment and Will of God To this our Author answers This is not one syllable to the purpose Why then It 's the end of the Fathers electing Love That 's not one syllable to the purpose It 's the end of the Sons redeeming Love That 's not one syllable to the purpose It 's the end of the Spirits sanctifying Love That 's not one syllable to the purpose Well but it 's necessary to the Glory of the Father Son and Holy Ghost That 's not one syllable to the purpose neither If neither the Sovereignty of God over us the Love of God to us nor the Glorifying of God by Us be to the purpose of Obedience let our Author speak to the purpose So he will God hath commanded Obedience but where 's the Sanction of the Law Will he Damn all that will not Obey for their Disobedience Where 's the Sanction of the Law I am sure that Question is very little to the purpose It 's the Command it self that makes a Duty that creates a necessity The Authority of the Law-giver lays the Obligation upon the Subject It 's our Interest to Obey upon the account of the Sanction but it 's our duty to Obey upon the Command it self But not to hold him in suspense God will Damn all those that will not Obey for their Disobedience Our Author has now quite run himself a Ground and is Pumpt dry of his Drollery and therefore turns Catechist and Persecutes us with Impertinent Queries I have heard some say that an Ideot may tye more Knots in an Hour than a Wise-man can untye in a day But however though we might plead it's Coram non Iudice yet for once let him suppose himself in his Desk and his poor Catechumens humbly waiting upon his Foot-stool Quest. Will God Damn those who do not Obey for their disobedience Answ. Yes and it please you Sir Qu. But will he save and reward those who do Obey for their Obedience An. He will reward their Obedience but not save them for their Obedience Qu. But will the Father Elect none but those that are Holy An. Yes and it like your good Learning he Elects them that they may be Holy but not because they are Holy Ephes. 1. 4. Ephes. 2. 10. Qu. But wil the Son Redeem none but those that are holy An. Yes indeed Sir a great many for a Redeemer supposes them to be sinners and Captives under sin Qu. But will he reject and Reprobate all that are not Holy An. God has not Reprobated all that were or are not holy for then he had Reprobated all the World but he will reject all that continue unholy to the Death Qu. But tell me Doth this Election and Redemption suppose Holiness in us or is it without any regard to it An. Neither the one nor the other It 's Fallacia plurium Interrogationum They neither presuppose Holiness in us nor are they without all regard to Holiness it is a necessary Effect but not a Cause of Election and Redemption Qu. Dost thou stand chopping Logick with thy Betters If we be Elected and Redeemed without regard
of the Mediation of a third Person and that he is so well satisfied with what he hath done in order to it that he appoints it to be published to all the world to assure the Offender that if the Breach continues the fault lyes wholly upon himself The Second is when the Offender doth accept the Terms of the Agreement offer'd And these two we assert must necessarily be distinguished in the Reconciliation between God and us For upon the Death and Sufferings of Christ God declares to the World that he is so well satisfied with what Christ hath done and suffer'd in order to the Reconciliation between himself and us that now be publishes Remission of sins to the World upon those Terms which the Mediator hath declared by his own Doctrine but because Remission of sins doth not immediately follow upon the Death of Christ without supposition of any act on our part therefore the state of Favour doth commence from the performance of those Conditions that are required of us c. And now let the Authority of the Church of England interpose Art 31. Of the one Oblation of Christ finished upon the Cross The Offering of Christ once made is that perfect Redemption Propitiation and Satisfaction for the sins of the whole World both Original and Actual and there is none other Satisfaction for sin but that alone But we shall be soundly pelted with the Fathers and therefore he cites a great many more from Chrysostom and from all concludes That according to the sence of this Holy man particular Christians are united to Christ by Means of their Union to the Christian Church otherwise I cannot understand how our Union to Christ can be an Argument to Union and Concord among our selves But if that be the worst on 't that he cannot understand it Charity commands me to relieve his labouring understanding It 's a good Argument that Children should entirely love one another because they are Children of the same Father and yet for all that they become not Children to their Father by means of their Union one to another as Brethren but they are therefore Brethren because they are Children of the same Father It 's an Argument that Subjects should study and follow the things that make for Peace among themselves because they are all Subjects to the same Prince aud his honour the strength and security of his Kingdom lyes much in it and yet their Union among themselves is not the Means whereby they become related to their Prince but because they are all Subjects to him they become fellow-subjects each with other And now methinks a very ordinary pair of Brains might have understood how our Union to Christ is an Argument to Christians to unite amongst themselves though by their union amongst themselves they had not been united to Christ And thus he might as well have quoted the Ancient Father Mercurius Gallo-Belgicus as either Ambrose or Chrysostom but that we are all mightily concerned to know that he reads the Fathers to very little purpose But from hence he will give us a very seasonable word of Exhortation That they would seriously consider it who boast of their Union to Christ and yet rend his Church into a thousand little Factions I am glad however that they are not great Factions And I would have them seriously consider it also who broach such Doctrines so contrary to the main design of the Gospel that if owned by any Church must necessitate an absolute and total separation if we will be true to Christ. There have been many sad Controversies amongst us but they have been about Mint Anise and Cummin in comparison of the great and weighty things of the Gospel but the Question now must be Whether Christ be a true and proper High-priest whether 〈◊〉 death upon the Cross be a proper Sacrifice offer'd unto God to reconcile him to sinners The Question is now Whether we must hold Communion with God in Prayer or no Whether Faith and Repentance will unite us to Christ Nay whether there be any such thing as an Union with Christs Person or no Nay upon the Matter whether there be a Person of Christ or no or that all must not be interpreted into Doctrine Church Office and I cannot tell what Some I perceive are hugely afraid least differences should be accommodated they dread The tombe of Controversies almost as much as their Own they are more solicitous how Quarrels may live than about their own Deaths and therefore fearing those smaller Bones of Contention would not set the World together by the ears long they have thrown more considerable ones before us to entail Contentions upon Posterity and propagate Divisions to Eternity It 's the Interest of some men to make loud clamours against Divisions variety of Opinions difference in Judgements and yet to take special care that there shall never want matter for them to complain of the Fire and yet pour in Oyl to quench it and if they may but warm their own hands can sing over the flames which they have kindled and do still foment It has been the Policy of Rome to build partition-walls of Separation and then to rail at all that cannot leap over them to thresh the Wheat out of the Floor and then rage at it for Dividing from the Chaffe to beat their Servants out of doors and then send Huy-and-cry after them with all the Marks and Descriptions of Run-awayes Thus far our Author has led us out of the way and it will be high time to return The Fathers may now go to bed and sleep our Author will give them no further trouble Authority is but an inartificial Argument and now have at us with down-right Demonstration and Club-law Those Sacraments our Saviour hath instituted are a plain demonstration that our Union with Christ consists in our union with the Christian Church 1. For Baptism Baptisme is the Sacrament of our Admission into the Visible Church but in Baptisme we make a publick Profession of our Faith in Christ Therefore the Union of particular Christians to Christ is by Means of their Union with the Church This is that plain Demonstration we are threatned with and in a while if our Author does but eat a dish of Beans and Bacon it will be a plain Demonstration In Baptism we make a visible Profession of our Faith in Christ and if this Profession be true such a one as the Church of England requires as prerequisite to Baptism we are thereby United to Christ antecedently to our Baptism If Baptism finds us not in Christ it puts us not into Christ If it finds us not qualified for a Church state it makes us not so it is a Symbol but it supposes the thing signified and conferrs it not It is a Seal but presupposes a Covenant But that we are admitted into the visible Church by it he will prove and indeed he is excellent at proving what none deny and very untoward at proving the thing
Father of the faithful if Abraham's Faith and theirs differ toto Genere Those things that differ in their special Nature may yet agree in their common Nature but those things that are of divers kinds wherein shall they agree But all this is but a scandal thrown upon the Apostle who proves from Abraham's way of being justified the way of Christians being justified Rom. 4. As Abraham was justified without Works so are we Vers. 2. As Abraham had a Righteâ—…sness imputed to him even so have we Vers. 11. That Righteousness might be imputed to them also As Abraham's Righteousness was a Righteousness of Faith even so is ours Vers. 11. A Seal of the Righteousness of Faith As Abraham was justified by free Grace so are we V. 5. To him that worketh not but believeth in him that justifieth the ungodly Thus was his Righteousness the patern of ours his Faith the patern of ours And is it not a strange Copy that differs in kind from its Idaea That 's a huge way off from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As if you should propound a House for your patern and draw a Horse to sample it Once more look into Gal. 3. 8. The Scripture fore-seeing that God would justifie the Heathen through Faith preach'd before the Gospel to Abraham Now if Abraham had not our Faith what needed he to have our Gospel The end of preaching the Gospel is to beget Faith and it was an equivocal Generation if it begat a Faith of one kind in Abraham another in Christians What needed this circumspect Caution of Providence that Abraham should have the glad tidings of the Gospel preach'd to him which made him rejoyce and be glad if a Faith of a lower size would serve his turn for Justification Again vers 13. That the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles through Iesus Christ. If we have his blessing surely he had our Faith Or could Abraham get the blessing without Christ but Christians no other way but in Christ But thus has our Author vindicated the Apostles Reasonings as if he had secretly design'd as he openly professes of the Wriings of others to expose them to contempt It may be now seasonable to examine his Definition of a Gospel-Faith viz. Such a stedfast belief of all those Revelations which Christ hath made to the World as governs our lives and actions If this be to define put but a company of Letters in a bag shuffle them well together then shake them out and they will tumble into as good a Definition as this comes to But thus did Atoms by dancing in Infinite and Eternal Spaces justle one another so long till at last they produced this beautiful Fabrick of Heaven and Earth I except against it 1. Because the whole Priestly Office of Christ is excluded by it Propitiation Atonement Expiation of sin are shut quite out of all consideration and the Death and Sufferings of Christ of no regard unless perhaps they may come in by way of Motive to believe his Doctrine as a Prophet And if this be his Faith I must profess I would not venture my Salvation in his Church for the hopes of all the good or fear of all the evil this World can either flatter or affright me with however I beg Grace from God that I may not He that has but half a Christ had as good have no Christ and he that takes him not wholly into the Definition of his Faith may as safely leave him wholly out As half a heart in God's account is no heart so half a Saviour in Faith's esteem is no Saviour 2. I except against it because it may be found in Hypocrites They may so far believe the Revelations of Christ as to govern their lives and actions and yet their hearts never be purified by that Faith 3. It pretends to define Faith and yet gives us no Genus of it Faith is such a Belief as governs our lives and actions that is Faith is Faith that governs our lives and actions But the Question is What is that Faith that will so govern our lives and actions For it describes not any direct influence of Faith upon our Iustification but our obedience And whereas he pretends to assign some differences that may distinguish it from all other Faith true or false yet in plain terms they do nothing less 1. It 's a belief of those Revelations Christ has made to the World Now unless he can prove that those Revelations which Christ has made to the World are essentially distinct from those which God before made to the World their being revealed by Christ makes no essential difference For Christ came in his Fathers name under the New-Testament and the Spirit came in Christs name under the Old-Testament All Christ's Revelations in order to the governing our lives and actions may be reduced either to Precepts or Promises Now though some have been tampering at it I cannot find that Christ revealed either a new Moral Law or added any thing to the old Self-denial Taking up the Cross Praying for our Persecutors c. were Old-Testament duties though not met with in New-Testament phrase As a Rule of obedience Christ medled not with it all he did was to vindicate it from the corrupt Glosses the Scribes and Pharisees had put upon it As to Promises Christ has revealed no other Heaven no other Glory no other Salvation only he has cleared up these given us more light into them poured out more Grace that we might live more in fellowship with God and hopes of Glory But this and much more will make no essential difference in the Revelation 2. It 's such a Belief as governs our lives and actions But such a Belief was Enoch's Abel's Noah's Abraham s their 's govern'd their lives and actions too and somewhat more their Hearts and Consciences This therefore will make no essential difference 4. I except against it that it mentions not God as the proper Object of Faith For though Christ who is God be in the Definition yet not as God there 's nothing supposes him to be so no employment that necessarily requires it should be so assigned to him only he is allowed Revelation-work which a meer man instructed with God's Commission might have done And now once again he will reassume his Argument If by the Righteousness of Faith you understand the Righteousness of Christ apprehended by Faith and imputed to us you utterly destroy the Apostle's Argument for our Iustification by Faith for Abraham and all the good men of old were not justified by such a Faith as this is They never heard of Christ's Righteousness imputed to us c. Now how does it follow that because Abraham was justified by such noble and generous Acts of Faith therefore we shall be justified by Christ's Righteousness imputed But whoever overthrows the Apostle's Argument I have some things that will overthrow and utterly overthrow our Author's 1. That he begs and most shamefully begs the
purchase two bad ones at our Author's Hands for his pains Now Mr. Brookes you must know had said thinking no man no harm I dare say That Christ is generally rich rich in Houses Lands in Gold Silver in all Temporals as well as Spirituals with many more friendly expressions of the Fulness and Preciousness of the Grace that is in Christ To which our Author returns a solid though short Confutation That the Son of Man bad not a place whereon to lay his head And is not Mr. Brooks a rash and unadvised Man think you to rant it so high in extolling his Riches and to ascribe to him such vast revenues and possessions But let us be Charitable and put a favourable construction upon these dangerous words perhaps they are not so rank poyson as they seem to be 1. What if Mr. Brooks speaks not of what Christ was when he appeared in the form of a Servant but what he now is since he has reassumed his original Glory and as Mediator has all power in Heaven and Earth put into his hands and methinks it is no such flagitious Crime to assert that Christ has the disposal of all outward things for the good of his Church But I correct my self when I remember my Author has told us p. 162. That Christ has left the visible and external Conduct and Government of the Church to Bishops and Pastors and therefore it may be presumed also he has left the visible Revenues and Temporalties to their disposal also for it 's equitable that the Maintenance should go along with the work and therefore those Houses and Lands the Palaces the Tithes the Glebe the Gold the Silver which Mr. B. fancies are in Christ's hands are entrusted where they shall be converted to better uses 2. What if Christ for a season that he might feel our Infirmities and accommodate himself to that dispensation under which his wonderful Condescension had put him did wave the use of many things he had a Right to Yet 1. He had 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Title when he forbore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Use of those things 2. He used his Right too for others when he would not assert it for himself He was Rich even then when he for our sakes he became poor 2. Cor. 8 9. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let him not be reproached for his Love pardon him that wrong 3. That Christ had not where to lay his head signifies no more than that he had no fixed habitation at all times but generally went up and down doing good healing all manner of Diseases Preaching the everlasting Gospel for he had a House to hide his head in Ioh. 1. 39. They came and saw where he dwelt and a Pillow too to lay his head on Mark 4. 38. and could sleep securely in the midst of the Storm he wanted not conveniences for his life but was so swallowed up of his Fathers work that he accounted it his Meat and Drink to do his will and therefore I hope Mr. B. will out-live this assault and battery many a fair day And now all that I can instruct my self or my Reader in from this Discourse is That if Mr. Brooks or any of his Brethren shall assert the plainest Truth that ever the Sun shone upon our Author by the Laws of his Society is bound to oppose it SECT 3. Concerning the Nature of our Union to Christ Whereby we are entituled to all his fulness Righteousness c. WHen the Arm is in danger of being lost by a Gangraen it were unseasonable Diligence to attend the Cure of a Cut-finger When that Vessel in which all our common Concerns are embarqued is ready to sink it would be unpardonable folly in the the Passengers to study the security of their particular Cabbins like those whom the great Orator laughs at for presuming their Gardens Orchards and private Walks would be indemnified in the general Ruine of the City In this Section our Author lays his Axe to the Root of the Christian Religion leaving therefore particular persons to shift for themselves The Righteousness of Christs Life and the Sacrifice of his Death with that influence that they have upon our acceptance with God call for defence Many have been infamous for horrid Murders Cain is upon Record for a Fraâ—…ricide Saul for a Suicide Herod's Ambition was to have been a Deicide but this last Age seems to have out-done all in an Attempt to Murder the Death of Christ it self As if because Christ by his Death had destroyed him that had the power of Death these Men would avenge the Devils Quarrel and become his second hoping they may one day triumph over it and sing O Death we will be thy Death In Pag. 320. Our Author propounds this great Question What Influence the Sacrifice of Christ's Death and the Righteousness of his Life have upon our acceptance with God And he gives us both a Reason why he moves the Question and an Answer to it 1. The Reason why he moves this Question upon it Lest any should suspect that his Design is to lessen the Grace of God or to disparage the Merits and Righteousness of Christ. Now I would make a question upon it Whether his Answer to the Question will probably heal us of our suspicions or rather beget Iealousies where there were none and heighten those already conceived into violent presumptions if not plain demonstrations that such is his Design 2. His Answer to the Question is this All that I can find in Scripture about this is That to this we owe the Covenant of Grace That God being well pleased with the Obedience of Christ's Life and the Sacrifice of his Death for his sake entred into a New-Covenant with Mankind wherein he promises Pardon of sin and Eternal Life to those who believe and obey the Gospel This Answer contains three things 1. A Description of the Covenant of Grace 2. An Assertion that this Covenant is owing to the Sacrifice of Christ's Death and the Righteousness of his Life 3. a Supposition that the Righteousness and Sacrifice of Christ has no other Influence upon our Acceptance with God but that for his sake he entred into such a Covenant as he has here described with Man-kind 1. His Description of the Covenant is this A promise of the Pardon of sin and Eternal Life to those who believe and obey the Gospel A Description so liable to exceptions that it describes neither the whole of the Covenant nor a New-Covenant nor upon the matter any Covenant at all § 1. This Description gives us little very little of the true Covenant of Grace for 1. though he thinks to put us off with a promise of Pardon and Life to those who believe and obey the true Covenant of Grace has given us a Promise of that Faith whereby we may believe and of that New-heart whereby we are enabled to obey the Gospel And first we have a Promise of the right Faith made
to us in the true Covenant Ioh. 6. 37. All that the Father giveth me shall come to me and him that cometh to me I will in no-wise cast out Eph. 2. 8. By Grace ye are saved through Faith and that not of your selves it is the gift of God And lest it should be Answered that Faith is indeed God's gift as all other things are wherein the Common Providence of God concurs with Humane industry The Apostle as if aware of such a petty Answer has laid in a Reply ready ch 1. v. 19. That they who believe do so by the exceeding greatness of God's power even according to the working of his Mighty power which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead Secondly we have a direct and express Promise too of that New-heart from which we give to God New-obedience nay of that New-obedience it self which proceeds from the New-heart or renewed Nature Ezek. 36. A new heart also will I give you and a new Spirit will I put within you and I will take away the heart of Stone out of your Flesh and will give you a heart of Flesh there 's the new Heart and v. 27. I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my Statutes and ye shall keep my Iudgments and do them there is new obedience thus also Heb. 8. 10. This is the Covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days saith the Lord I will put my Laws into their minds and write them in their hearts c. wherein it 's easy to observe 1. That this New-Covenant was founded upon God's free Grace v. 9. They continued not in my Covenant the old Covenant and I regarded them not saith the Lord They were a Covenant-breaking people deserved utter rejection yet God will make another a better a New-Covenant with them 2 That the promises of this Covenant were purely Spiritual writing his Laws in their minds and hearts 3. The parties Covenanting God and his Israel not all and every individual Son of Adam But 2. This Description gives us very little of the true Covenant of Grace here 's a Promise of Pardon and Life to them who believe and obey but perseverance in Faith and Obedience is left to the desultory and lubricous power of free-will whereas in the true Covenant of Grace there 's an undertaking that the Covenant shall be immutable both on God's part and the Believers Jer. 32. 38 40. They shall be my people and I will be their God and I will make an everlasting Covenant with them that I will not turn away from them to do them good but I will put my fear in their hearts that they shall not depart from me There are but two things that we can possibly Imagine should make the Covenant fall short of perpetuity either God's turning away from his people or which is only to be suspected their turning away from their God Against both of these God has made sufficient Provision 1. God has promised that he will not turn away from them to do them good 2. He has promised that they shall not depart from him and to fix and determine their backsliding Natures he has promised to put his fear into their hearts which is the great preservative against Apostacy § 2. As it describes not the whole of the Covenant so it describes not the Nature of a New-Covenant The Gospel-Covenant may be called a New Covenant either in opposition to the Old Covenant of Works or the old Administration of the Covenant of Grace Now 1. This Covenant which he has here described is no new Covenant in opposition to the Old-Covenant of works The Covenant which God made with Adam promised Life upon condition of Obedience Now the Commands which God gave to Adam were as easy as those which are now given to all Mankind and much easier too if we consider first That he had more natural strength to obey and keep them and as for supernatural strength our Author will allow us none unless by a desperate Catachresis we will call Moral Arguments so which to a Creature dead in trespasses and sins signify just nothing without special power from on high to render them efficacious which neither will be allowed us And Secondly we are told that Christ has added to the Moral Law which is to lay more Load on those who were before overcharged so that as he makes Covenants Adam's was much the better Covenant of the two But he has wisely shuffled in a Promise of the Pardon of Sin which may seem to give his Covenant a preheminence above that of Adam But that will not mend the matter both because it 's better to have no sin in our Natures than such a Remedy better to have no Wound than such a Plaister and also because the Promise of Pardon is suspended upon the condition of Faith and Obedience which without supernaturally real influx of immediate Divine Power reduces the promise to an impossibility of performance 2. This Covenant which he has here described is no New-Covenant in opposition to the old Administration of the Covenant of Grace There were the same promises then that we have now the same moral precepts to observe that we have now and though the word Gospel comes in for a blind yet the Apostle assures us Gal. 3. 8. That Abraham had the Gospel Preached to him § 3. Upon the matter it 's no Covenant of Grace at all For 1. A Promise of Pardon and Life upon Condition of Believing and Obeying is neither better nor worse than a threatning of Condemnation and Death to them who Believe not and Obey not It may with equal right be called a threatning of Death as a Promise of Life It 's no more a Covenant of Grace than a Covenant of Wrath and therefore 2. if it be lawful to consider Man as the Word of God describes him as dead in Sins and Trespasses as one that of himself cannot think a good thought that can do nothing at all without Christ It 's no Covenant at all to him under his present circumstances for what is the nice difference between a Promise of Life to him that obeys when it 's certain before-hand he cannot obey and no Promise at all 3. This Covenant which he calls New and well he may for it 's of his own making or however of his own new-vamping assigns the same conditions of Pardon and Eternal Life but the Scripture requires other qualifications for Eternal Life than for the Pardon of Sin A Believer may be justified without a sinless perfection but without such a sinless perfection none shall enter into Glory He may be actually justified that has not persevered in Holy Obedience to the Death but without such perseverance he can never be made partaker of Eternal Life 4. This Covenant of his is supposed to be made with all Mankind and yet all Mankind never heard of it Now is it not very
Death if those expressions applyed to the Death of Christ signify no more than a Confirmation of the Gospel 2. The Scripture assigns greater ends to the Death of Christ than confirmation of Promises 1. His Death as a Sacrifice atoned God 2. His Death as a Price paid to God redeemed us 3. His Death as a Punishment exacted of God satisfied his Iustice. For the first Isa. 53. 10. his Soul was made an Offering for sin and therefore as on a Sacrifice of Atonement God laid on him the Iniquities of us all V. 6. For the second 1 Tim. 2. 6. He gave himself a Ransom or Price of Redemption for all For the third Rom. 3. 25 26. The Blood of Christ is said to be a Declaration of God's Righteousness that he might be just in justifying the Believer which Testimonies will call for clearing and vindication in due time And these indeed are such ends of the Death of Christ as will undeniably prove that his Death had an Influence upon our Acceptance with God 3. The Scripture owns Christ as a proper Priest and therefore his Work must be somewhat more than confirming a Doctrine A Prophet will abundantly answer that design But our Author prudently having cut out Christ some work to do has fitted him with an Office too which is proportionable to it for to what purpose should Christ be a Priest that has nothing to do with his Sacrifice but to confirm his Doctrine The direct and immediate Object of Christ's Sacerdotal Office was God Heb. 9. 14 15. How much more shall the Blood of Christ who through the Eternal Spirit offered himself to God purge your Consciences I know these Men will say that Christ offered up himself to God in Heâ—…ven but not upon the Cross whereas the Blood of Christ is here compared with though preferred to the Blood of Bulls and Goats and the Ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean some of which were never carried into the Holy Place and the Blood of those which were was first shed at the Altar before it could be sprinkled at the Mercy-Seat And the word here used 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a sacred and religious Word applied to the Sacrifices which were brought to and â—…ffered at the Altar Again Heb. 5. 1. Christ iâ—… ordained a Priest in things pertaining to God His Priestly Employment lay mainly with him to confirm promises that relate to us men but a Priest offers not Sacrifice to the People though for the People Christ's Business as our High-Priest was with God and in his Undertaking with him lyes the true Reason of the Acceptation of our Persons Services with God 4. The Scripture every-where expresses Christ's Innocency nay his perfect Holineâ—… the cheerfulness self-denyal constancy universality of his Obedience to his Fathers Will especially the Law of the Mediator He always did the Things that pleased his Father Joh. 8. 29. He fulfilled all Righteousness Mat. 3. 15. His Meat and Drink was to do the Will of him that sent him and to finish his Work Joh. 4. 34. He came not to do his own Will but the Will of him that sent him Joh. 6. 38. And the Father has witnessed it most solemnly by a Voice from Heaven That he was well-pleased with his beloved Son Mat 17. 5. and yet notwithstanding all this and much more that might be said It pleased the Father to bruise him and make his Soul an Offering for Sin Isa. 53. 10. He loved him and yet shewed all imaginable tokens of displeasure he was amazed sore troubled in Soul and as to the apprehension of his Soul in respect of comfort forsaken of God so that he cried out of it most bâ—…tterly My God my God why hast thou forsaken me And in the view of his approaching Sufferings was in such an Agony and conflict of Soul that it exprest Clods of Blood from his labouring Body Upon consideration of which unexpressible inconceivable Torments of the Lord Jesus the Ancient Church did use to pray 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 By thy unknown Torments Lord deliver us In imitation whereof perhaps the Liturgy of the present Church of England uses the like By thy Agony and Bloody Sweat by thy Cross and Passion c. Now I would have it resolved to satisfaction without such pittyful dry evasions and paltry answers as we meet with from some kind of men 1. How God could at the same time be well-pleased with Christ and be so well-pleased to bruise him 2. How it could consist with the Iustice of God to punish a Person so Innocent so Holy so compleatly Righteous over whom the condemning Part of the Law had no power seeing he had never violated it in its preceptive Part unless he stood in the stâ—…ad of Sinners bore their Iniquities and was charged with their Guilt They will tell us that God used his Prerogative and Soveraignty over Jesus Christ and yet in other causes will not allow him an absolute and irrespective Soveraignty over the poorest Wâ—…etch in the World They will tell us too That all this was not proper penalty or punishment but here was the matter of punishment to purpose and still the difficulty remains Why an Innocent Person should suffer the same things materially which were only formally to be inflicted upon those who had deserved them Let none say If Christ bore the Punishment due to sin he must suffer Eternal Death seeing no less was due to our Transgressions For 1. The Eternity of punishment is only due to sin by accident as it is found in a finite Person who being not able to bear at once or in the longest time that Wrath which his Sins have demerited Divine Justice exacts of him an Eternity of suffering 2. Whereas sin is only infinite or of infinite demerit objectivè as committed against an infinite God The Sufferings of Christ are infinite also subjectivè being the Sufferings of that Person who is God though not as God and therefore Christ in a finite time was able to give infinite Satisfaction 3. Christ was such an High-Priest as being God and Man was able to give an infinite Value to his Sacrifice of himself as Man nor let any say that if Christ suffered in a way of Satisfaction to Divine Justice and bore what the Sinner should have born or that which was equivalent to it that then the Sinner ought immediately to be delivered from the Curse due to his sin for seeing that the Satisfaction was not made in the Person of the Offender but his Substitute it was necessary that the benefit of another's Satisfaction should be communicated in such a way as might best please that God whose Grace was the only Motive to his Acceptation of a Substitute It 's the undoubted priviledg of the Giver to dispose of his own Gift in his own Way and it was absolutely and indispensibly necessary that the Sinner should be duly qualified to receive so transcendent Favours purchased at so dear rates and
fitted to return the Glory due to a Redeemer which an unhumbled unbelieving unconverted unsanctified Sinner could not possibly be 2 The Death of Christ devested of those its proper respects of a Sacrifice offered to God to atone and reconcile him a price paid to ransom and redeem us and a Punishment born to satisfie Divine Iustice was no infallible proof of the Doctrine which he preached For 1. Many have laid down their lives to Abett and endured extremity of Tortures rather than renege the Doctrine they have openly preached their Confidence the mean while supported either by a mistaken Conscience or perhaps some sinister respects All that it can prove in the largest judgment of Charity is That they suppose their Doctrine to be true or else would hardly lose their All rather than lose a Principle but not that therefore the Doctrine is true because the Preacher dies for it That which is false in it self will not become true by laying down our life for it In the Memory of the last Age there were some who sacrificed their lives to the Flames in defence of Contradictory Doctrines So that to say that the Death of Christ has no other use but To confirm the Truth of that Doctrine which he preacht is but a more modest civil and gentle way of saying it has no use at all 2. To whom should the Death of Christ confirm the Truth of his Doctrine to his Enemies or his Friends For his Enemies Many of his Sufferings the very greatest and sorest of his Sufferings were out of their notice either privately in the Garden or more privately in his Soul such as whereof they could take no cognizance and for these which were visible they looked on them as the just rewards of his violation of the Law As for his Friends his Death considered singly in it self without respect to its proper Ends was so far from confirming of their Faith or Belief of his Doctrine that it was that which shook their hopes and dasht their expectations out of countenance their Hearts died in his Death and those two expressed the Sense of more than their own diffidence Luk. 24. We trusted that it had been he that should have redeemed Israel But whether to Friends or Enemies the Death of Christ considered without his antecedent Miracles and subsequent Resurrection and concomitant Sacrifice was so improper a means to confirm that it had proved the clearest Confutation of his Doctrine that malice could have desired 3. The Death of Christ was so far from confirming this Doctrine That God would pardon Sinners that separate this one Consideration of it as satisfactory to Divine Iustice from his Death and it quite overthrows the credibility of the Doctrine and runs all the World down into utter despair For our Author must have a happy dexterity if he can conclude that because God dealt so severely with an innocent holy Person that therefore he will not fail to pardon repenting Sinners We must despair that ever repentance should make us personally equal with Christ If then God did these things in the green Tree what will be done in the Dry If Iudgment begun at God's own House where shall the Ungodly and Sinner appear He that spared not his own Son how much less will he spare the Sinner It could not be expected that any should believe Christ telling them God would pitty and pardon others who found him so severe to himself But that indeed the true Reason why God deals so graciously with the repenâ—…ing Sinner is because he had dealt so justly with his own Son voluntarily becoming his Surety and Substitute 4. There were proper proofs designed by God for the Confirmation of the Doctrine of Christ and no need at all to take sanctuary in that which nakedly considered was not so Those frequent clear stupendious Miracles wrought by Christ were fully adequate and commensurate to that End Reason will teach us to believe that God will not alter the course of Nature nor reverse its standing Laws to confirm a Lye to bear witness to a grand Imposture And surely they who would not believe Christ to be sent of God upon his Testimony to him in those Extraordinary Works would never believe it for his Death which was no wonder at all otherwise than as the fruit of his ineffable Love offering himself to God as a Sacrifice for Sin and so indeed it was the greatest Wonder of them all The Enemies of Christ triumpht in his Death that they had nailed his Cause with his Person to the Cross and that which they feared was his Resurrection A Miracle so far beyond all exception to confirm that he was sent of God and therefore his Doctrine must needs be true that their greatest care was to have prevented it by sealing the Stone and setting a Watch. 5. But supposing that the Death of Christ had confirmed his Doctrine and particularly this That God would pardon and save the Believing and Obedient Sinner Yet still what influence has this upon our Acceptance with God Will God accept our Obedience the more because we have greater helps to obey May our duty expect a greater Reward because we come easier by it But when all is said that our Author can say it 's our Obedience that hath the Influence upon our Acceptance with God and Christ's Death has only an Influence upon our Obedience The same Obedience given to the Commands of the Gospel without the motive of his Death had found equal if not greater Acceptance from him than when drawn from us by so cogent an Argument But if the Death of Christ may be said to have any influence upon our Acceptance with God because he thereby confirmed his Doctrine then the Death of the Martyrs also may be said to have an Influence upon our Acceptance with him for they by their Death 's confirmed the Truth which they preacht which Truth was the true Covenant of Grace And whereas many of them laid down their Lives with that Heroical Magnanimity with that gallantry of Spirit with more than that boasted Stoical valour kissing the Stake embracing the Flames triumphantly singing in the midst of their Torments professing they felt no more pain than in a Bed of Roses as if they were to ascend Heaven in that fiery Chariot to the Confutation of their Enemies the encouraging of their Friends and the credit of that Gospel they died for evidently assuring all that they were immediately supported from above to bear with patience nay with exultation those extremities which to Flesh and Blood were intolerable We see our Blessed Saviour on the contrary in his Sufferings strangely dejected amazed troubled in Soul earnestly begging that if it were possible that Cup might pass from him and crying out in the bitterness of his Soul That he was forsaken of God which consideration is enough to satisfy an impartial Enquirer That the Sufferings of Christ were fitted for some higher design than the confirming of
his Death His Death confirmed his Doctrine His Doctrine was he that believes and obeys shall be justified and saved Hereupon we believe it to be true and in process of time come to obey it our obedience justifies us and therefore the Blood of Christ may be said to justifie us And whereas Iudas his Covetousness the Jews Herod's Cruelty Pilates Flattery had a direct tendency to the Death of Christ why we may not be properly said to be justified by them also at this rate I profess I cannot apprehend Religion is fallen into most cruel and unmerciful hands in this latter Age who to give a â—…aint colour to any little sorry fancies of their own care not to interpret Scripture in such ways as shall certainly open a dore to elude the plainest Truths God is said to have made the World Now if any has a mind to eternize his Name which without some rare discovery cannot be let him take our Author's Course and he is secure of a Monument That is indeed a Scripture phrase but if you examine it throughly it signifies no more than that God made a company of Atoms and put them in Motion and then let them alone they will dance you so long in infinite spaces till they jostle themselves into that form wherein you see things at this day And thus here 's a fair Account how God may be said to have made the World because he made that which made the World and the Cause of the Cause you know may be said to be a Grand-Father-Cause of the thing Caused But this is infinitely beyond what our Author will allow the Blood of Christ of Causality in our justification for it 's only a Confirming Cause of the Promise and that in Commission with other things and they have a greater stroke in the business than it self then when we come to believe that Promise and that belief proves strong enough to perswade us into Obedience then we are justified for the sake of that Obedience But 5. The Consideration of the Text it self Rom. 5. 9. is enough to discredit this idle conceit for ever for Christ is said to dye for us and in order to our justification in the same sence that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of old 〈◊〉 who laid down Life for Life Blood for Blood Body for Body v. 6. Christ dyed for the â—…ngodly v. 7. For scarcely for a righteous Man will one dye yet peradventure for a good Man some one would even dare to dye v. 8. But God commendeth his love to us that while we were yet sinners Christ dyed for us v. 9. Much more then being now justified by his Blood c. 2. Christ says he is called a Propitiation through Faith in his Blood that is by a belief of the Gospel Covenant Rom. 3. 25. But how short this comes of the Apostle's design is obvious from the place Christ is set forth by God to be a propitiation through faith in his Blood to declare his Righteousness that he might be just and the justifier of him that believes in Iesus But is God ever the more declared to be a just God demonstrated to be a Righteous God because Christ has confirmed his Doctrine and we believe and obey it The obedience of most men is so imperfect that when they have done all they will need mercy and that will declare one of God's attributes But what provision is here made that God may be declared Righteous and Iust All that he has assigned to the Blood of Christ turns not away the least of God's displeasure against sin or the sinner Christ dyed to confirm the Doctriâ—…e Well but still God is displeased with sinners for what Reason is there why God should be less displeased with them because Christ dyed to confirm his Doctrine Well but hereupon Man believes this Doctrine to be true but yet God's Anger is never the more turned away from the sinner because he believes what God says is true For what Reason is there why God should be less displeased with him who believes the Truth and yet will not obey his Commands So that neither the Blood of Christ nor Faith neither do reconcile God to us or propitiate him for us well at last Man gives obedience to the Commands and then God is propitiated and reconciled So that the true Scripture should have been had our Author had the pâ—…nning of it God hath set forth Man to be his own propitiation through his own obedience And why might it not have been said that God set forth the Martyrs to be a propitiation through Faith in their Blood For they willingly and chearfully shed their dearest Blood to confirm the Truth of the Gospel and upon their Confirmation of it some have believed it and upon their believing it have obeyed it and then by that obedience are reconciled to God And thus may Paul be said to have dyed for our sins and Peter to have been Crucified for us and both of them to have been set forth by God to be a propitiation through Faith in their Blood Nor let any say that the Death of the Martyrs was not so strong a confirmation of the Gospel as the Death of Christ For if we believe the Truth and obey it upon more infirm Evidence yet if that evidence produce a strong Faith and that a vigorous obedience such an obedience will not find less acceptance with God because it was begotten by weaker Motives 3 The Scripture says he uses these Phrases promiscuously to be justified by Faith and to be justified by the Faith of Christ and to be justified by Christ and to be justified through Faith in his Blood and to be justified and saved by Grace Nay by believing that Christ is the Son of God John 20. 31. And that God raised him up from the dead When our Author has a design upon any great Truth of the Gospel then the clearest expressions the wisdom of God's Spirit shall use are Phrases allusive figurative metaphorical tropical forms of Speech But the Scripture uses not these expressions promiscuously only our Author confounds them craftily Each of them have indeed something in common with the rest and no wonder all the Offices the Active and Passive Obedience of Christ the whole work of the Spirit the actings of Faith and every saving-Grace meet in this one great Project the glorifying of God the Electing love of the Father the Redeeming Love of the Son and the Sanctifying love of the Holy Spirit in the Iustification and Salvation of a Believer But yet each of these expressions carries in it something peculiar to it self for the Scripture abhors to speak at his dull and cloudy rate who by diversifying one and the same thing in twenty several shapes can vend it for so many several things when 't is but the same notion disguised in a new-fashioned expression One denotes the interest of Faith another speaks the concern of him who is Iehovah
is I will be nothing to thee do nothing for thee of what thou mainly wantest but for all my Promise to be thy God I will suffer thee to lye under the guilt of Sin at present and to fall under eternal Condemnation here-after though thou walkest before me and art perfect If then there was such an Implicite and Virtual Promise in God's Nature revealed by the works of Creation and Providence to Reason and an Explicite one too in the particular Revelation that God would bestow Pardon of Sin and Eternal Life to those who walkt before God inuprightness The Question is How did Christ procure such an Engagement from God when it was procured before But supposing that there was never any such Promise made by God till Christ by his Death procured it then how did the Death of Christ prevail with God to make such a Promise which otherwise he had never made 4. But I suspect more than ever that we are merely gulled for he tells us That the Blessings of the Gospel are the proper Effects of the Covenant but not of that Blood of Christ so that we are justified by the Blood of Christ is properly false but improperly true that we are Redeemed by the Blood of Christ in an improper Sense may be said to be true but in a proper Sense is utterly false and then if the Apostles had penn'd their Epistles clean backward they would have been properly true whereas now they are properly false And now who can tell but when he says The Blood of Christ procured this Covenant he may not mean in some improper odd Sense that is not worth a Button But yet our Author seems to go higher than all this p. 330. Our Righteousness and acceptation with God it wholly owing to the Covenant which he hath purchased sealed with his Blood To Purchase is a very good word when applied to the Blood of Christ therefore because we meet with so few I shall make as much of it as I can It denotes procurement in a special way by a valuable price paid The Covenant of Grace then Christ has purchased that Covenant is a Promise of Pardon and Life to those who believe and obey the Gospel In this Covenant there are three things First the Material part the pardon of sin and eternal Life Secondly the conditional part Faith and Obedience Thirdly The form of the Covenant A Promise of the Material part upon performance of the Conditional part Now when he owns the Blood of Christ to have purchased this Covenant the question is whether the whole or some part of it only If not the whole then what part is the purchase of his Blood 1. For the Conditional part Faith and Obedience I may secure my self our Author will not put them into the particular of the purchase for then it would be scarce worth the while to mingle Heaven and Earth with Tragedies what the conditions of the Covenant should be if Christ had purchased the conditions themselves and therefore as to these let every man trust to himself 2. As for the Material part Pardon and Life I doubt our Author will not yield us neither that Christ has purchased them because he denies that the Blessings of the Gospel are the proper effects of Christ's Blood whereas had he purchased them with his Blood they would have been the proper effects of it 3. Then it remains that Christ has purchased a Promise of bestowing the Material part upon our performance of the Conditional part And thus we are just where we were two miles ago and these great words of purchasing and procuring are shrivel'd up to Confirmation of a Promise but if he will say that the Blood of Christ his Death and dreadful sufferings were a proper price paid to God to procure or purchase a word from God that he would do that which was natural and essential to him then we shall thank him that he has such honourable thoughts of it as to judg it worth a good word The Scripture every-where ascribes the Blessings of the Gospel to the purchase and procurement of the Blood of Christ but if this be all that he has got a word from God it supposes the the Scripture to swell with Scenical Language and high Tragical Phrase which seems to carry sublime matters in it but when it comes to be stript of Metaphor and Allegory is a mere Anatomy From this precarious Hypothesis that the Apostles always write like himself that is improperly and impertinently and attribute such things to the Blood of Christ which are the proper and immediate effects of the Gospel-Covenant he will unriddle to us many Mysteries which are vulgarly reputed matters of weight and worth but if we can spare him a little Patience he will so uncase them that we shall confess they contain nothing that may deserve or need the Blood of Christ or any great matter to be made about them 1. Concerning Reconciliation The Apostle had said 2 Cor. 5. 18 19. All things are of God who hath reconciled us to himself by Iesus Christ and hath committed to us the Ministry of reconciliation to wit that God was in Christ reconciling the World unto himself not imputing their Trespasses and hath committed to us the word of reconciliation v. 21. For he hath made him to be sin for us what the import of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 reconciliation and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to reconcile is will not create us any great trouble because our Author allowing a reconciliation to be made between Iew and Gentile secretly confesses that Reconciliation implies the taking away of an enmity and bringing the differing parties into a state of Peace and Friendship But the Apostle in this place instructs us further 1. That the proper effect of this Reconciliation is not-imputing Trespasses God is by Nature a Holy God as he is Governour of the World he is a Righteous Iudg sin is both Contrary to his holy Nature and his Holy Law And therefore as a Holy God he cannot but hate sin as a Righteous Iudg he cannot but punish sin And because this sin is inherent in and committed by Man God hates the sinner upon the Account of his sin his Person and his best services are an abomination to the Lord. From hence it follows that sin being a transgression of the Law in its preceptive part renders the sinner Guilty that is obnoxious and lyable to the Law in its Sanction to the punishment Now this Righteous Iudg will certainly charge the guilty sinner with the penalty due to his sin but there is a way found out that he may be reconciled and not impute to sinners their Trespasses and this clearly shews that the Reconciliation here spoken of is a reconciliation of God to the Sinner such a one as makes provision that God shall not impute iniquity 2. The Apostle instructs us further in the way whereby Christ made this Reconciliation of God v. 21. He was
both be reconciled to God and what did the removal of Ceremonies contribute to that end But says he This New-Covenant belongs to all Mankind to Gentiles as well as Iews there 's now no distinction of Persons no Man is ever the more or less accepâ—…able to God because he is a Iew or a Greek very true I wonder when ever it was otherwise Our Author could have Answered himself from p. 27. Those particular favours that God bestowed on Israel were not owing to any partial fondness and respect to that People but the design of all was to encourage the whole World to Worship the God of Israel And that the Jews were not accepted for their Ceremonial Services we may easily believe if we can but believe what he tells us Pag. 269. The Law of Moses 〈◊〉 them up in a ritual and external Religion taught them to Worship God in the Letter by Circumcision Sacrifices and an external Conformity to the Letter of the Law but the Gospel aloue teaches us to worship God with the Spirit to offer a reasonable Service to him And if he can but assure me that the Gentiles were never the less accepted of God because they were Gentiles I dare give him my Warrant that the Iews were never the more accepted of God for their Judaism according to those Measures which our Author has given of their Religion which it seems was mere Pageantry 2. Concerning Redemption he acquaints us what it signifies both to Iews and Gentiles 1. As to the Iews They says he are said to be redeemed from the Curse of the Law by the accursed Death of Christ upon the Cross Gal. 3. 13. Because the Death of Christ put an end to that legal Dispensation and sealed a New and better Covenant between God and Man It 's well he could find any thing small enough to be the proper and immediate effect of the Death of Christ but who shall reconcile the Apostle and our Author The Apostle says Christ redeemed them by being made a Curse for them Our Author says No he only put an end to that Legal Dispensation The Apostle says they were redeemed by a price paid 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He brought them out with a price which he expresses in words at length 1 Cor. 6. 20. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ye are bought with a price No says he Christ's Death put an end to that legal Dispensation The Apostle says they were redeemed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from under the Curse No says he 't was only a freedom from the legal Dispensation Two suppositions he makes use of to give a Colour to his matters 1. Sect. That the Iews were under no other Curse but that of the Ceremonial Law Now 1. He should have been sure that the Ceremonial Law was a Curse It 's a wonder to me what grievous sins the Iews above all the World should commit that God should put them under such a Curse as should need the Death of Christ to redeem them from it especially what great Crimes had Abraham been guilty of that God should thus Curse and plague him with Circumcision which yet the Scripture calls the Seal of the Righteous Faith Rom. 4. 11. 2. It would be considered whether ever God gave a Law to any People in the World besides them that in its own Nature was a Curse Our Author once told us p. 196. That it pleased God to Institute a great many Ceremonies in the Iewish Worship to awe their Childish minds into a greater Veneration of the Divine Majesty And truly better so than worse better be frighted into Obedience than not at all Obedient But that ever God designed it for a Curse is past my apprehension 3. The Ceremonial Law in it's constitution end and design was a great Blessing there they had Pardon of sin Atonement Reconciliation exhibited and sealed to them Lev. 17 11. 2 Chron. 29. And all this could be no curse but to those who loved their sins better than the pardon of them and to such every Blessing of God would eventually prove a Curse 4. It will appear they were under a greater curse than what arose from the burden someness or their violation of the Ceremonial Law viz. That Condemnation which came upon all Men by the Fall of Adam Rom. 5. 12 13 14. 17 18 19. Such a Curse as was Common not only â—…o Iew and Gentile but to every individual under both capacities Rom. 3. 9. We have proved both Iews and Gentiles that they are all under sin ver 19. That every mouth may be stopped and all the World become guilty before God ver 23. For all have sinned and come short of the Glory of God And therefore all had need of free justification by Grace through the Redemption that is in Iesus Christ ver 24. 5. The Jews were under a curse upon the Account of their violation of the Moral Law and their not duly attending to the true ends of the Ceremonial Law but if the violation of a Law would make it become a curse then the Moral Law was become a curse too and then they had need of a Redeemer from the one as well as the other though both were blessings in themselves The Ceremonial Law in particular had this great blessing in it That as it discovered to them the demerit and Wages of sin in the slaying of the Sacrifices so it discovered a remedy two in the Sacrifices slain for them which directed them to look through them beyond them and above them to him who was the Lamb of God slain from the Foundation of the World All this was no curse 2. Sect. He supposes that the Text Gal. 3. 13. Christ hath Redeemed us from the curse of the Law being made a curse for us relates onely to the Iews Whereas the Apostle adds to obviate that Cavil That the Blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles Christ is made a curse for them upon whom the Blessing of Abraham came by his Death but the Blessing of Abraham came upon the Gentiles by his Death therefore Christ is made a Curse for the Gentiles And that the Law from the curse whereof both Jews and Gentiles were Redeemed by Christs being made a Curse for them is the Moral Law I have endeavoured to evince in the last Section but whether to our Authors content or no I know not One thing more he supposes that Christs Sealing a New Covenant is Redemption But there must go more than the sealing of such a Covenant as he has described There must be the payment of a Price to Iustice or there can be no Redemption To Redeem is properly to buy back again that which was forfeited and such were Sinners Their Persons forfeited to Iustice their Mercies escheated into the hands of the Law Now comes a Redeemer and gives himself to God as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Counter-price a valuable Consideration to Answer the demands of Justice and the claims of the Law and
Blood was carried in to the Holiest place ver 12. Neither by the blood of Bulls and Goats but by his own Blood he entred into the most Holy place having obtained eternal Redemption Thus Christ had obtained eternal Redemption and perfected the whole work of it as far as the paying of a price to God goes in the Matter before his Ascention and that which remained was the application of the benefit of what he had procured with God to us by his prevailing Intercession And as to the blood of the Sacrifices mentioned Exod. 24. 6. which the Apostle refers to ver 19. which our Author thinks had no other use but the confirming of the Mosaical Covenant it was never carried into the most Holy place at all nor the blood of any Propitiatory Sacrifice but onely that upon the Feast of Expiation once a year 2. The Apostle in this Chapter does not onely refer to the sprinkling of the Blood of the Sacrifice Exod. 24. but to the sprinkling of the blood of the Red Heifer Numb 19. 4. Eleazer shall take of her blood the red Heifer without blemish and without spot ver 2. and shall sprinkle it directly before the Tabernacle of the Congregation To which the Apostle expresly refers ibid. v. 12. If the blood of Bulls and Goats and the ashes of a Heifer sprinkling the unclean Sanctifieth to the purifying of the Flesh how much more shall the blood of Christ who through the eternal Spirit Offered himself to God purge your Consciences from Dead works And this blood was neither carried into the Holy place nor the Ministration of the Service performed by the High-Priest but by Eleazar which proves 1. That the blood of Christ had all its atoning vertue on this side his entrance into Heaven and 2. That Christ was Typified by the inferior Priests and not by the High-Priest alone For here not Aaron but Eleazar performed the Service of the Day 3. The Apostle clearly Disputes against this Figment of Christs presenting his blood to God in Heaven which the Men of this leaven will needs have to be all the Sacrifice that Christ Offered to God ver 25 26. Nor yet that he should Offer himself often for then he must often have Suffered No Offering without Suffering But Christ Suffered but once therefore he Offered but once Nay says the Apostle Now once in the end of the World hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself That which Christ did once he does not do always but if Christs appearing before God in Heaven be the offering of himself in sacrifice he does it always to the end of his Mediatory Kingdom 2 But what was it under the Law to which the Intercession of Christ answers To this he returns thus As the Death c. so his continual Intercession for us in virtue of his Blood once shed and once offer'd to God answers those frequent Expiations by Sacrifice under the Law especially to that General Sacrifice on the great Day of Expiation when the High-priest enter'd into the Holy of Holies with the blood of Beasts As the Death of Christ his Ascension and presenting his Blood to God answers that one so his Intercession answers the other Yes indeed just so with so much Truth and Regularity of Proportion that is with just none at all What parallel he can fancy between Expiation and Intercession I cannot divine This I know 1. The Expiations by Sacrifice under the Law were by Blood-shedding It was the Blood upon the Altar as the Life of the Sacrifice that made Expiation Lev. 17. 11. but in Christs Intercession there is no shedding of Blood 2. The Expiations by Sacrifice under the Law were by the Death of the Sacrifice and so was the Expiation of Christ And so says our Author too p. 327. He hath made a perfect Expiation for our sins by dying once p. 328. He procures the Pardon of our sins by his Death But in Heaven there is no Death and yet he says The Intercession of Christ answers the Expiations by Sacrifice under the Law that is just as much as Life answers Death But how to make our Author friends with the Apostle will be difficult who is so hard to be reconciled to himself 3. The Expiations which were made by the frequent Sacrifices were all without the Holyest but the Intercession of Christ is in the most Holy place And is not this a famous correspondency But how clear is all this if we could be reconciled to the Scriptures Where the Death of Christ upon the Cross answers all the Expiatory Sacrifices under the Law and the Intercession of Christ at the right Hand of God or his appearing continually in Heaven before his Father for us answers the High-priests entering into the Holy of Holies with that Blood which had been before shed at the Altar But whereas such was the imperfection such the poverty of the Types that no one was able to Answer all the Concerns of a Sinner no one could express all the various respects that a guilty Person had to God and his Law and therefore it was necessary that various Sacrifices should be instituted that they might represent those things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which it was impossible they should perform 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our Lord Jesus Christ by one Offering hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified Heb. 10. 14. For where Remission is there is no more Offering for sin v. 18. When therefore our Author affirms so secure of Contradiction That Christs continual Intercession answers those frequent Expiations under the Law especially that on the great day of Expiation he has said enough to determine this Matter For if there were frequent Expiations under the Law besides that of the Feast of Expiation and that there be any thing in Christs Sacrifice answering to them it follows that Christs Expiatory work was finish'd before his entrance into Heaven for the Blood of those other Sacrifices never came within the Holy of Holies which answers to the true Holy Place where Christ makes continual Intercession for us All this while the Reader ought charitably to believe that our Author is discoursing what influence the death of Christ hath upon our Acceptation with God To which he has answered that it Confirms a Covenant it procures a Covenant though how it procures a Covenant he has not yet informed us Justification Reconciliation Redemption are not the proper and immediate effects of his death nor indeed is any thing so but the abolishing ceremonies and conforming such a Covenant as he has obtruded upon us and for confirming that which he calls the Covenant there was the least need and I think no need at all but he closes up the whole with a parcel of good words Christ says he procures the pardon of our sins by his death and dispenses this pardon to us by his Intercession Is not this very Canonical and Orthodox yes sure but now mark his
interpretation of himself He sealed the Covenant of Grace by his blood and intercedes for us in the virtue of his blood So that he wheels about again and Procuration is turned into Confirmation Christs procuring the pardon of sin is no more than that he has scaled this Doctrine that whosoever believes and obeyes shall be pardoned Expiation that 's owing to Christs intercession in heaven and reconciliation is nothing but making the Iews and Gentiles friends and preaching the Gospel to reclaim men from their debaucheries Notwithstanding all this our Author will not be beaten out of it but that he and his principles are better friends to the blood of Christ than those men that pretend to magnifie it for they attribute no more to it than the non-imputation of sin that Christ by his death bearing and undergoing the punishment that was due to us paying the ransom that was due for us delivered us from this condition the wrath and curse of God and his whole displeasure c. But now our Author ascribes much more than all this comes to For says he the Scripture gives us a different account of it we are said to be justified and redeemed by the blood of Christ nay we have boldness to enter into the Holiest by the Blood of Iesus we have admission into Heaven it self but the Doctor Owen says that the Blood of Christ makes us innocent but cannot give us a right to the Kingdom of Heaven And now what comparison is there between these two The summe of the business is this Our Author attributes perhaps more to the Blood of Christ in wordy complement but what the Doctor ascribes to the Death of Christ he does in reality Our Author will confess that we are redeemed by the Blood of Christ but when you come as all that are not Children will come to examine what he means by it then it shrinks into this Christ by his Death confirmed the Promise of Pardon and Life to them that Believe and Obey and this Promise he has appointed to be declared to the world and when men believe it and obey the Gospel themselves they are then Redeemed Christs death is no immediate no proper Cause of Redemption no price pay'd to God accepted by him for poor Captive Sinners Nay our Author will not stick to say We are justified by the Blood of Christ too but when you come to sift his Notion it 's all bran he confirmed the Promise which when we believe and obey the Gospel Commands we are justified so that in my weak Judgement it had beeen commendable in our Author to have been very sure that he attributes any thing at all to the Death of Christ as the proper Cause of that Mercy before he enter'd into Degrees of Comparison with others something I do perceive indeed he would attribute to Christs Death Viz. The confirming of a certain Covenant but so feebly asserted so weakly proved that it needs the Candour of the Reader But now what doe these other men attribute to the blood of Christ Why Nothing but Non-Imputation of Sin bearing and undergoing the Punishment that was due to us paying the Price that was due for us delivering us from this Condition The Wrath Curse and whole displeasure of God and that by the Death of Christ all Cause of Quarrel and Rejection is taken away And if this be Nothing in our Authors Arithmetick we desire he will ascribe more to it if he can justifie it when he has done But the truth is our Author is most grievously gulled in this business He reads their Writings who are too crafty for him and smile to see how little he understands of them Though these men attribute no more to the blood of Christ as shed on the Cross yet they are willing to let him know that they attribute more to the Blood of Christ than as it was shed on the Cross The Blood of Christ and the Death of Christ are not Expressions of equal latitude All the Concerns of Christs Blood are not comprehended in his Death for they consider it as that in the virtue whereof he intercedes for them upon the Throne of Grace as that which gives them a holy and humble boldness to draw nigh to God the Quarrel being removed by his Death And that our Author may see his own delusion herein I shall give him a short Collation from that person whom he contends with Exercit. on Heb. Vol. 2. p. 99. There are Two general Ends of Christs Interposition 1. Averruncatio Mali the turning away of all Evil hurt dammage or punishment on the Account of our sins and Apostacy from God 2. Acquisitio Boni or the procuring and obtaining for us every thing that is good with respect to our Reconciliation to him Peace with him and Enjoyment of him and these are intended in the general parts of his Office For 1. His Oblation principally respects the making Atonement for sins and the turning away Gods wrath which is due to Sinners wherein he was Jesus the Deliverer who saves us from wrath to come And this is all that is included in the Nature of Oblation as absolutely considered but it had a farther Prospect for with respect to that Obedience which he yielded to God therein according to the Terms of that Covenant betwixt the Father and Christ it was not onely Satisfactory but Meritorious that is by the Sacrifice of himself he not onely turned away the wrath of God that was due to us but also obtained for us Eternal Redemption with all the Grace and Glory thereto belonging And now if our Author will but ascribe any of all these things to the blood of Christ as its proper and immediate Cause he may hope to perswade the world that he is willing to ascribe something to the Blood of Christ I know well he will say That the Blood of Christ is said to Redeem us is said to Iustifie us these are Scripture Phrases indeed the sound of words carries it thus but when he comes to open the Meaning of things the Blood of Christ does neither redeem nor justifie us but after multitudes of Deductions and great windings of Inferences and Conclusions one upon the Neck of another it does that which does another thing which procures a third which leads to a fourth which brings us to believe that Belief may possibly bring us to Obedience and when all is done it 's our Obedience that justifies us And we owe our Acceptation with God to our own Obedience and he is more inclined to think that nothing can justifie us rather than to own it due to the Righteousness of Christ imputed as he expresses himself p. 272. And now at length he once more casts up his Reckonings Our Righteousness and Acceptance with God is wholly owing to the Covenant which he has purchased and sealed with his own blood What a rare sound does that word purchase carry with it But 1. He has purchased no more than that we
shall be Pardoned and Saved if we Believe and Obey without any Ability purchased to Believe and Obey 2. Christ did not purchase any one single spiritual Benefit for us as the Cause of it immediate and proper 3. He purchased Nothing but that he may lose the whole Benefit of his Purchase 4. Obedience will as soon save us without the Blood of Christ as with it Lesser Obedience with that Blood is not more acceptable to God than Greater without it But this he will call an Influence upon our Acceptation with God I confess he is a Free-man for ought I know and may call or miscall Things as he has done Persons at his pleasure but surely no man whose understanding is his own would ever call this an Influence upon our Acceptation with God A contingent uncertain Influence it may have upon our Obedience but none at all upon the Acceptation of our Obedience An act of Love to God is as welcome and acceptable to God at this rate without Christ as with Him But this is the Misery of it when Men must say something and yet cannot tell well what to say but either on the one hand they must flie in the Face of the Scripture which they hardly dare do or else on the other hand renounce their beloved Errors which they are resolved never to do then must the Scriptures be wrested to their crooked Sentiments instead of Rectifying their crooked Notions by the straight Rule of the written Word 2 Having now Informed us what Influence the Death of Christ has upon our acceptance with God it remains that he Instruct us with equal Ingenuity what Influence the Righteousness of his Life has upon God for the same end But here he will be to seek for having assigned in words so much to the Death of Christ there is nothing left for his Life No matter upon which it may work but seeing all the former was in pretence there is Employment enough for it left still Though the pardon of sin and our justification be attributed says he to the blood of Christ yet I could never persuade my self that this wholly excludes the perfect obedience and righteousness of his life He cannot persuade himself very strange what had he attempted to satisfie his judgement about the exclusion of Christs righteousness and yet could he not be persuaded yes persuaded he was to exclude it but not wholly to exclude it there were some rubs and little scruples in the way that he could not get over but had he improved his own principles and built upon his own foundation I could have shewn him a way how he might wholly have excluded it for p. 243. he gives it us as a Note worth our observing that in the whole New Testament there is no such expeession as the Righteousness of Christ And p. 78. he lays it down as an infallible maxime That we cannot draw any one conclusion from the person of Christ which his Gospel hath not expresly taught seeing then we cannot safely draw any such conclusion from Christs Person and the Scripture has not expresly taught it what should hinder him from a plerophory in this point wholly to exclude that from his Creed which is not expresly taught in the Scripture and therefore may not be drawn from the consideration of his Person by consequence And if his scruples had been but as strong against the righteousness of Christ or he had been in the scrupling mood as against the justification of Abraham by the righteousness of Christ this matter had been put out of doubt with him wholly long before this In the mean time The righteousness of Christ is mightily beholden to his good Nature that when by his principles he might yet out of civility he would not and therefore could not wholly exclude it Some Place some Room it shall have some Remote and Improper causality as the Death of Christ had in our Acceptation with God But what may be the Reason why he could not altogether as well as almost exclude it O he tells us that the Apostle tells him Ephes. 1. 6. That we are accepted in the Beloved And is this the great difficulty Alas one of his Wedges would make this little Knot flie at the first stroke May there not possibly be given another meaning of it Must it needs be Interpreted of Acceptation through the active Obedience of Christ This would have done the work Or thus Our acceptation is ascribed to the Obedience of Christs Life because that has a great Influence upon us to make us Obedient which is that Righteousness for which we are accepted of God The Example of Christ has given us a Pattern of Obedience which when we Imitate we are accepted of God but what now if he had played one of his Omnipotent Machines against the Text he might have Batter'd down the Conclusion with ease By the Beloved is meant Christ by Christ is meant the Gospel by the Gospel is meant Obedience and then the sence is no more but this We are accepted in the Beloved that is We are accepted for our selves And I must needs say this had been a far more Rational Course than that he has taken with the Death of Christ Ay but says he whatever rendred Christ beloved of God did contribute something to our Obedience Something That 's a huge Kindness indeed There 's a vast distance between something and nothing and yet it may be such a something as is next to nothing Well we are glad of a little till we can get more For because he was beloved of God we are accepted for his sake That 's high and surprizing But still What kind of Cause was Christs Obedience of our acceptance One of the Poorest Lowest causes in the World is one that they Nick-name a Causa sine quâ non which yet is properly no cause at all And yet our Author when time was could tell us pag. 43. That had Christ never appeared in the World yet we have reason to believe God is thus Wise Good and Merciful to forgive us our sins when we return to our Duty Such a Cause was the Death of Christ of our acceptance Pag. 46. Gods requiring such a Sacrifice as the Death of Christ for the Expiation of our sins was not because he could not do otherwise If now we might have been accepted without his Incarnation I presume we might have been so without his Obedience and then it is not so much as that little nothing of a Causa sine quâ non But this is pure Trifling For the Question was What Influence Christs Righteousness has upon our acceptance with God He answers That because Christ was beloved we are beloved for his sake That is Christs Obedience has an Influence upon our acceptance but what that Influence is remains a Secret Suppose the Question had been Why are we accepted for Christs sake The answer might have been His Obedience has an Influence upon our acceptation Those
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 obedience in it's common Nature without determining it's signification either to active or passive obedience but do they argue from the Nature and purport of the Word that because Christs obedience is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 therefore it must needs be active obedience No such matter but they argue from another hard word Yeleped Antithesis from the opposition that is there made between Adams disobedience and Christs obedience Thus the Dr. argued if our Author durst have read him Com. p. 185. It 's opposed to the disobedience of Adam which was Active The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is opposed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Righteousness to the Fault The Fault was an active transgression of the Law and the obedience opposed to it must be an active accomplishment of it If the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Adam was active then the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Christ must be active But our Author will have the other bout with him Christs offering himself in Sacrifice is called doing the will of God Heb. 10. 9 10. And whether this be properly said or not I will leave the Dr. to dispute it with the Apostle But I do not perceive the Doctor has any contraversie with though he has maintained many for the Apostle They are very well agreed for ought I perceive nor shall they Quarrel if I can help it The Doctor will not contend that Christs assuming a body in order to the offering a Sacrifice to God was not doing his will no he pleads for it to the cost of somebody But this is that which he disputes that in Rom. 5. 18 19. The Opposition between Adams Disobedience and Christs Obedience will prove them both of the same kind It 's acknowledged that Christ did actively obey in suffering his sufferings were Activo passiva But yet the Obedience mentioned in the place before us was an Active Obedience because Adams Disobedience was so One blow more and then our Author will yield us the Cause There is no express mention says he made in this Chapter of any other Act of Obedience whereby we are reconciled to God but onely his dying for us which makes it more than probable that by his Righteousness and Obedience the Apostle understands his Death and Sufferings I assure you I like it well when Men argue from the Context provided they do not destroy the Text and had our Author Religiously observed this Rule he had not turned his Readers stomacks so often with nauseous Interpretations but yet I have a few things to offer to him 1. That though there be no other act of Obedience mentioned whereby we are reconciled yet there may be another act of Obedience mentioned whereby we may be compleatly justified 2. Though there be no other act of Obedience mentioned in the fore-going verses yet there may be one in this No Laws of Cohaerence or Contexture ever obliged an Author that he might not pass to new matter and so has the Apostle done in this place and Case as the Opposition most undeniably proves 3. All that he says makes it but more than probable Now had there been any colour for Truth of his Conceit his confidence does not use to dwindle away into probabilities but he had fetcht the Great Commander and knock'd us all dead with irrefragable Demonstration for do you understand the Mystery of this more than probable when you hear him confess that Matters seem to be against him and but probably or a little more than probably for him You need not lay your Ear to listen in what quarter the wind â—…its But then 4. Nay hold Our Author yields Good Nature begins to work But yet says he these Expressions his Righteousness and Obedience seem to take in the whole compass of his Obedience in doing and Suffering the will of God All is well then and Dr. Owen is a very honest Man again And we will not vex our selves how to reconcile more than probable Con with seeming Pro. I have made some attempts formerly and once more whilst our Author is in the tractable vein I le try whether the Doctor and he may not be made good Friends for since our Author is coming towards a willingness to take in Active Obedience it 's but attempting however to prevail with the Doctor not to exclude the Passive Well look once more Com. p. 185. That the Passive Obedience of Christ is here Onely intended is false so that all that the Doctor contends for is that the Passive Obedience is not solely intended to the exclusion of the Active We are all agreed then in the meaning of the simple Terms and it 's well if we do not fall out again about the Propositions that result from them Let us now hear his Comment upon the words The meaning of the words says he is this That as God was so highly displeased with Adams sin that he entail'd a great many evils and miseries and death it self upon his Posterity for his sake So God was so well pleased with the Righteousness and Obedience of Christs Life and Death that he bestows the Rewards of Righteousness on those who according to the strictness and rigour of the Law are not Righteous that for Christs sake he he hath made a New Covenant of Grace which pardons our past sins and follies and rewards a sincere though imperfect Obedience There are two Questions which he here undertakes to Answer First What Influence Adams sin hath upon his Posterity and Secondly it is to be hoped that from thence we may at last know What Influence Christs Righteousness and Obedience have upon our acceptance with God 1 Quest. What Influence hath Adams sin upon his Posterity To this he returns God was so highly displeased with Adams sin that he entailed a great many evils and miseries and death it self upon his Posterity for his sake Now all this is true very true but whether it be the whole Truth that which will satisfie the design of the Text I shall examine by and by At present I shall onely make some short Notes upon it 1. God says he was so highly displeased with Adams sin that for his sake he entailed a great many evils Now had it not been fair to have shewn the Iustice as well as the Highness of Gods Displeasure in such a proceeding with his Posterity That God was justly as well as highly displeased with Adams Sin never created a Doubt to any man but that he should be so highly displeased with the Sin of one single Man to entail Evils upon Millions upon all his Posterity this would invite us to examine the Righteousness of the Entail The Posterity of Adam knew nothing of Adams Sin were not conscious nor consenting to it and yet God involves them in the Consequences of Adams Sin 2. God says he entail'd those Evils upon his Posterity for Adams sake Now here 's the old Blind again For to say that God did it for
they had of their own for which God might justly have dealt thus with them yet God Declares that this was the Impulsive cause of their Punishment even the sin of David with whom the People having a Political Union as our Author phrases it they made but one Body in the sight of Vengeance And when others say That this was but a temporal Punishment and therefore it will not hold that God should punish the Posterity of Adam spiritually for his Transgression they say they know not what For God will not be Unrighteous and Unjust in Punishing the Sons of Men for that sin which is none of their own in the smallest thing from a Thread to a Shooe-latchet and the Rule of Justice in this Case is the Law for if the Law was back'd by a Sanction of Spiritual and Eternal threatnings then 't is Just with the Law-giver to Inflict the Punishment upon all that are under the Law our Union with Adam was another a stricter Union than the Israelites had with David it was Spiritual the other Civil External only And therefore according to the Law of Union and Relation though the Israelites could only suffer for Davids sin temporally yet the Posterity of Adam may by Righteous Judgment of God for Adams sin suffer Eternally And now let us briefly see whether our Author comes up to any thing of the Apostle or no God says he was so highly displeased with Adams sin that for his sake he Entailed a great many Evils Miseries nay Death it self upon his Posterity Nay but says the Apostle they were constituted sinners Iudgment and Condemnation came upon them though they had not sinned after the Similitude of Adams transgression the same Iudgment which in the Sanction of the Law was threatned against Adams sin and now to Fob and Flam off this with Evils Miseries and never tell us what they were not how it could be Just with God to Entail the least Evil upon them or touch a Hair of their Heads for the sin of another with whom they had no privity of Interest is to Reduce the sin of Adam as near to Nothing as he has Reduced Christs Righteousness 2. May we enquire also VVhether that Influence which he allows to Christs Obedience reach the Mind of the Apostle The Apostle affirms that By the Obedience of one many were made Righteous and that by the Righteousness of one the Free-gift came upon all to Iustification of Life v. 18 19. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Many or the many of whom he Treats shall be constituted Righteous For as all that were in the first Adam all his Natural Seed were by vertue of a Legal Constitution Ordinance and Appointment of God made sinners in the Transgression of their common Head and Representative so all the Spiritual Seed and Posterity of Christ which the Father had promised to give him as the Reward of his Death and Sufferings are by vertue of a New a better Law-constitution made Righteous by the Righteousness of their spiritual Head and Representative And therefore the Apostle v. 14. tells us expresly That Adam was the Figure of Christ He did exactly represent the Headship of Christ towards all his spiritual Posterity in that Headship which he bore towards his own Posterity But the Apostle has said enough in this Chapter to stomack the Pride and Restifness of humane Wisdom nothing more grating upon the Spirit of a Gallant than that he should be made a sinner by the sin or owe his Righteousness to the Righteousness of another This is the summe of the Apostles Discourse As the Posterity of Adam were made sinners constituted such by a Law and dealt with as such by God so are the Posterity of Christ made Righteous by such another way of Justification But then I assume The Posterity of Adam could not be made sinners by the sin of Adam otherwise than by the Imputation of Adams sin therefore the Posterity of Christ could not be made Righteous otherwise in the sight of God than by the Imputation of Christs Righteousness The Posterity of Adam could not possibly be made sinners by Adams first sin any other way than by charging it upon them according to the Terms of that Law under which he and they stood nor are the Seed of Christ capable of being made Righteous in Gods sight by the Obedience of Christ otherwise than by Imputing it to them according to that New Covenant-constitution called the Law of Faith and Righteousness under which Christ and Believers do now stand But if the word Imputation do Disgust our Authors delicate Ears let him call it what he pleases provided the Apostles Argument be satisfied and his main Design secured let us now see how our Author comes up to the Apostle God says he was so well pleased with the Obedience and Righteousness of Christs Life and Death that for his sake he bestows the rewards of Righteousness on those who according to the Rigour of the Law are not Righteous Wherein our Author and our Apostle come not near one another by many Leagues 1. Our Author says God bestows the reward of Righteousness on them that are not Righteous But our Apostle says we are made Righteous by the Obedience of Christ before we can be accounted Righteous by God The Holy God will not account half Righteousness for a whole one sinners may mock themselves but they cannot mock God That which the Law requires must be had the Apostle tells us 't is to be had in Christ By his Obedience through the Intervention of the Law-constitution of Faith and Righteousness Believers are made Righteous 2. Whatever is Lurking under the darkness of these Expressions The Rewards of Righteousness the Rigour of the Law yet this we may be sure of that all come to this in the Up shot That God for Christs sake has made a New Covenant of Grace which Pardons our past Sins and Follies and rewards a Sincere though Imperfect Obedience I can compare our Authors Copia Verborum his Variegated Equipollent Phrases and Expressions to nothing so well as that of the Chymists when they endeavour to bind Hermes or in plain English their fixing of Quicksilver they can Model it into many accidental Forms and Shapes and yet the Cunning versute Creature will be Mercury again do what they can unless some will compare it to the Young-mans Mistress in the Fable that Brided it for a day or so but yet upon the sight of her old Game put off her Personated self and reassumed her real self again Such Feats of Activity have we shown us ever and anon by our Author he can turn his words into more Shapes than Proteus tell us of this and that but when he comes to himself All the Influence that Christs Obedience has upon our acceptance with God is that we owe such a Covenant to it as he has described to us and Contrived for us Tells us That God for Christs sake has entered into a
God might have held us close and tyed us up to the Terms of the Old Covenant and righteously have exacted of us a Personal compleat Obedience to every jot and tittle of the Law as the Condition of Justification but though he has not abated of his Law yet he has admitted a Surety called therefore the Surety of the Covenant not only because he has undertaken for God but for us also for a Mediator is not of one Gal. 3. 19. And our receiving this abundance of Grace is not the Receiving of inherent Grace into us but our accepting by Faith this New Gospel-Law or Constitution of God with the whole Man closing with this gracious way of Justifying a Believer by Christ. But here our Author unhappily crosses me the way with one of his id est's That is says he Those who by the Gospel of Christ which is called Grace the abundant Grace of God are made Holy and Righteous To which I say as I have sometimes said That the Gospel as he describes it is not the Grace of God but a real Doctrine of Justification by Works blanch'd a little to make it vendible 2. The Gospel as it is a Revelation of Grace is not the whole of the Grace of God the Gospel reveals more Grace to be in God in Christ in the Holy Spirit for us than the Revelation of it There is an Operation of Grace upon us a Constitution of Grace with us as well as a Revelation of Grace to us but this he will grant us That Righteousness is called a Gift so far good But is it really a gift or onely called so as Christs is called a Redeemer called a High-Priest called a Sacrifice I doubt this will prove nothing but Phraseology at last He answers 1. Negatively It 's called a gift because it is not owing solely to Humane Endeavours Not solely But then it may be almost and very near altogether owing to Humane Endeavours The Grace of God may come in for a share though a poor pitiful share as he would not exclude the Righteousness of Christ wholly totally from having any concernment in our Iustification so out of his generosity he will not shut out Grace wholly from interposing in our Sanctification Haerebit in aliquâ saltem parte Well commend me to the memory of honest I. G. who though a high trotting Arminian would allow Free-grace ninety nine parts in the Conversion of a sinner provided always and upon Condition nevertheless that Free-will might have one in a hundred But what a Company of Rigid Bigots are these Calvinists that will not abate one ace not forgo a single Unite in a Hundred but they pretend they have no Commission to compound between Free-grace and Free-will and that God will not put his Right to arbitration and indeed it were hazardous for what sad terms had our Author made for the Rich effectual Grace of God had the determination been put into his hands Righteousness is not owing solely to Humane endeavours Natural strength free-will humane ability shall have ninety nine parts in the Dividend and Grace that deserves all must be content with one single lot and perhaps a smaller pittance And now what if this will not denominate it a gift just so much as you add to these Humane Endeavours you substract from free-grace and whether that little that very little concern that grace has in this work shall denominate it a Gift or that much that very much which Humane Endeavours have in it No gift must stand to the Courtesie of the Criticks and great Masters of Language 2. Affirmatively It is wrought in us says he by supernatural means by those powerful arguments and motives and Divine assistances which God in infinite Love hath afforded the World by Iesus Christ. I cannot express the transport of my mind at the first sound of these words supernatural means powerful arguments Divine assistances I began to suspect our Author was turn'd Calvinist as he suspected Dr. Owen was turned Arminian and with equal Reason for I presently found my Errour The word Grace has a Considerable Name and carries a good repute in the Scriptures and therefore our Author will behave himself as decently towards it as he can afford But what is the meaning of these supernatural means Why to speak liquidly Means of Supernatural Revelation at best but of no supernatural Operation Some arguments suggested which the light of Nature could not discover and some institutions which depend meerly on the will and pleasure of God for his powerful arguments and Divine assistances they are such Motives as being given by God externally are left to the self-determining power of that great Idol Free will For when all is done 't is the man who Converts himself but this and a great deal more will not satisfie the claim of effectual Grace in the Conversion of a Soul to God Who by the same power whereby Christ was raised from the dead works Faith in the Soul Eph. 1. 19 20. Who works in us both to will and to do of his own good pleasure Phil. 2. 13. Who gives us the new Heart and causes us to walk in his Statutes Ezek. 36. 26. Who takes away the resistibility of the Soul the stony heart and Circumcises the Hearts of his People to Love the Lord their God with all their heart Deut. 30. 6. But with such Cantings did Pelagius cover his abominations talking of ineffable grace wonderful grace when all was but Revelation or Grace the Name suborned to destroy Free and effectual Grace the thing it self After all these windings and turnings our Author will give us a fair account How we may be said to bâ—… made Righteous by the Righteousness of Christ I hope it shall be an honest account as well as a fair one and then it 's welcome but whose hopes could have been so vain as to flatter him he should live to see an account and a fair account too given by our Author of such a Paradox But we attend Not that his Actual Obedience is reckoned as done by us which is impossible There 's the Negative And this seems to go a great way in the Account How we may be said to be made Righteous by anothers Righteousness Because it 's impossible we should be righteous by anothers righteousness But why is this so impossible There 's no more impossibility in it than that Adams Disobedience should be reckoned as mine which if it be not let men shift and evade with all their cunning they shall never be able to justifie Gods procedure with his Posterity in entailing evils many evils and Death it self upon them for Adams sake if they be not guilty of the Crime Suppose we had been in Adams place had committed his sin eaten the forbidden Fruit in his stead in our own Persons what had the penalty been in our Authors Judgment but evils a great many evils Death it self And what in the Apostles account but Iudgment unto Condemnation