communion of the Spirit according to the election of God which is ever accompanied with perseverance Doctor Featly in his Pelagius redivivus hath these words which being so pertinent I shall transcribe Second parallel p. 38. To the place alledged Rom. 11. 19 20. We Answer saith he First that it is not meant of particular Beleevers and their danger of falling away from justifying Faith but of the people of the Gentiles in general and their danger of being cut off from the true Olive into which they were ingraffed that is from the outward profession of Faith and communion of the Catholick Church into whith they were admitted upon the rejection of the Jewes The Gentiles therefore ought not to be high-minded against the Jewes but fear lest God who spared not the natural branches should not spare them but cut them off also as he did the natural branches if they should grow proud and presumptuously secure Now there is no question but that a visible Church which at this time professeth the truth and is a Member of the Catholick Church may fall away from the outward and publick profession of faith and cease to be a part of the Catholick visible Church as the most famous and sometimes flourishing Church in Greece and Asia planted by the Apostles themselves now over-runne with Mahometanisme Idolatry and Heresie prove by their lamentable Apostasie deplorable if not desperate estate But Bertius and the Appealer should have their eyes upon the mark and point in question which is not in the doctrine of Faith but of the habit of faith not de fide quam credimus but de fide quâ credimus not of the publick profession of a Church but of a particular affiance of every true beleever in Christ A Member of the visible Church may be cut off but no Member of the invisible for Christ cannot have damnâ—ta membra any Members who shall not be saved as the approver of the Appealers book rightly gathereth out of Saint Austine in his reply to Fisher A Church or Kingdome generally may depart from the Christian Faith or renounce the pure profession thereof in publick and yet no true Beleever either totally or finally lose his Faith but either secretly in that state or Kingdome or else-where openly he may retaine both Faith it self and the profession thereof So Peter Martyr Loc. Com. pag. 491. speaking to those words Be not high-minded but fear Neither saith he is there here speech concerning particular men but of the whole company and body of beleevers deservedly therefore the Apostle doth warne them Be not high minded but fear For as the Church of the Jews hath ceased to be and also Africa Grâ—cia and Asia have lost many Churches so it is to be feared lest the same may now happen to Churches which seeme to stand let them not therefore lift up themselves 〈◊〉 â—n the words Thou standest by faith saith He speaks of the generality of Jewes and Gentiles and upon these words Be not high-minded but fear saith He speaks to the Gentiles in general from many of whom as is to be bewailed the Kingdom of God is taken away as at first from the Jews as Persians Arabians Syrians Egyptians Asians and many others so that this Authour hath lost not only this Argument but this whole Text For if Reconciliation World Riches be thus understood and cutting off in like manner then he sees this Chapter in the whole against him and in no part for him And if any Writer against Arminians understand by the World Rom. 11. 15. onely the Elect unlesse they mean an Election into a Church-state they do but give advantage to them there is not meant universally the whole world that is too large not yet they that shall be eternally saved out of the world that is too strict but the men whom God perswades of Japhet to dwell in the Tents of Shem all Nations dispersed through the world at the last Annotations on verse 12. Argument 3. Thirdly The ingraffing must be meant of that act whereby the branch stands in the tree as a branch this will none deny it being the very terminus of ingraffing as heat the terminus of calefaction but that is by giving Faith Ergo. The minor is proved from verse 20. where it is said By unbelief they were broken off but thou standest by faith whence I argue That act whereby the branch stands in the tree as a branch must be the giving that means whereby the branch thus stands But that is Faith v. 20. Ergo the act of ingraffing is by giving Faith Answ Here I shall willingly grant the conclusion and do affirm that it is by Faith that grown persons whether Jews or Gentiles do stand in a visible Church-fellowship such a faith upon which all called ones among which few are Elect are admitted Such a faith that gave Simon Magus title that Hymeneus had of which he made shipwrack 1 Tim. 1. 19. Doctor Featley in the words above mentioned shewing Bertius and the Appealer their fallacy shews this objector his The Apostle speaks of the Doctrine of Faith this objector of the habit The Apostle speaks de fide quam credimus this objector speaks de fide qua credimus The Apostle speaks of the publick profession of a Church He of a particular affiance of every Beleever in Christ He addes This conceit I conceived and still think is so farre from the Apostles expressions that there seemes to be no shew of such a sense in the words giving in his reason For there is not a word of taking into the Olive but by Faith verse 19 20. There is indeed here no shew of reason unlesse it can be affirmed that there is no faith but the Faith of the Elect and that which is justifying therefore if it please the Authour I shall enter the lists with him in these three Positions 1. That Faith is taken in more acceptions then one in Scripture All Faith doth not entitle to the Church invisible and therefore there is scarce shew of sense in his reason disputing from the Genus to the Species affirmativè or from the Analogum to the Analogatum 2. That the Faith here spoken to is as Doctor Featly asserts the doctrine of Faith not the habit Faith of Profession and not a particular affiance fides quam and not fides qua credimus and so the fallacy is clear and it will no more follow that the ingraffing is into the Church invisible because it is by faith then it will follow that because bruits have souls that therefore they have reasonable souls 3. That there is no such thing in all Scripture as ingraffing into the Church inuisible by Faith All ingraffing is into the body visible and therefore by a faith of profession 1. All ingraffing is into that subject which immediately receives what is ingraffed as the stock receives the syens but it is Christ and not the Church invisible that receives the Elect Beleever Christ
case he pleased but will not neither is he bound Sinne no otherwise follows upon reprobation not as a cause efficient but deficient not whereby any thing is removed that is present but that is not supplied which is wanting And Master Ball in his larger Catechism p. 57. Sin is the effect of mans free will and condemnation is an effect of justice inflicted upon man for sin and disobedience But the decree of God which is good is the cause of neither The signes of Reprobation may appear in those that are thus dischurched according to that which is quoted out of Ames but not as an effect of it The severity which God sheweth in not sparing but breaking off these natural Branches is explicitely no more then that which Jesus Christ did threaten against them Mat. 21. 43. That the Kingdome of Heaven should be taken from them and given to a Nation bringing forth the fruits thereof the same which he threatens against Ephesus Rev. 2. 5. in taking away their Candlestick which is the effect of their own sin and not of Gods decree Argument 1. Sixthly If re-ingraffing of the Jewes produceth salvation is by turning them from iniquity taking away their sins according to Gods Covenant then it is into the invisible Church by giving faith But the former is true v. 25. Ergo the latter Answ This Argument well husbanded might haue made three To the first â— say that priviledges enjoyed in a Church-state in Scripture-phrase are the salvation John 4. 22. Seeing Church-members are partakers of sauing Ordinances And the fruition of Ordinances under Gospel-dispensations is a great salvation Heb. 2. 3. And so that Text Rom. 11. 26. all Israel shall be saved must be understood as the last Annotation speaks The body of this people in general shall be brought againe into a way of salvation and re-istablisht into the Church of the whole Israel of God consisting of Jewes and Gentiles And so Diodate That is the body in general shall be put again into a way of salvation and re-established into the Communion of the Church And such men brought into a Church-state are turned from iniquity partially from their former way of iniquity their contradicting and blaspheming having escaped the pollution of the world 2 Pet. 2. 16. of the world that remaines out of the Church of God Their sinne is pardoned quoad hoc and when Moses prayed for the pardon of the sinne of Israel Exod. 32. and God proâ—miseth it 2 Chron. 7. 14. it is so to be understood of a National dardon Argument 7. Seventhly If the re-ingraffing be by vertue of Gods Election and love his gifts of calling then it is into the invisible Church by Election and giving Faith But the former is true v. 28 29. Ergo the latter Answ His Election love and gifts of calling did at the first put them into a visible Church-state and condition Deut. 7. 7 8. The Lord did not set his love upon you nor chuse you because you were moe in number then any people for ye were the fewest of all people But because the Lord loved you and because he would keep the Oath which he had sworne unto your Fathers c. And the same love election and gifts of calling now they are broken off doth re-ingraffte them If this Argument hold it was an invisible Church that was brought out of the land of Egypt Here our Authour sayes with much confidence that he questions not but all Anti-Arminians that understand the controversie will disclaime Master Geree in this answer and acknowledge that the election love gifts and calling meant Rom. 11. 28 29. are by faith into salvation But he is much deceived Those before mentioned understood somewhate and Diodate in his Annotations hath these words God never recals his grace which by absolute decree he wil communicate to some person or Nation to call them to him and to have right to his Covenant Now the election of this people hath been such above all others in the world who being once called have and may fall totally and irreparably which this people cannot without repentance that is to say irrevocable of which God never repents Calvin on the words saith This is to be held that private Election is not here handled but the common adoption of the Nation which in outward appearance seemed for the time to be lost but not cut off from the root And presently after The Apostle argues that the counsel of God whereby he once chose to himself that Nation in peculiar remaineth firme And Paraeus in dubio decimo nono on this chapter understands it of the constancy of the love of God towards his own Nation And most fully in dubio vicesimo where urging Stapletons objection That it seems from this irrevocablenesse of the gifts and calling of God the assurance of grace and salvation cannot follow 1. Because as Stapleton objects and Calvin and Martyr confesse the speech of the Apostle is not to be understood of the election of each particular person but of the common adoption of the whole Nation and this common grace of adoption of the whole Nation was mutual for they fell from this gift To which Paraeus sayes Stapleton's corrupt glosse is easily answered 1. Saith he It is not denied that the Apostle spake this of the Common that is the federal dignity of the Nation of the Jewes and that the irrevocablenesse in God is to be understood yet it is denied saith he that from hence the assurance of particular persons is not concluded yea from the lesse to the greater it is firmly concluded For if the Apostle from common grace do rightly conclude this irrevocablenesse in God much more may it be determined from that grace which is proper Ravanellus in verbum Electio understands Election in v. 28. of common Election as he do also in 1. Pet. 2. 9. Amesius is urged as an adversary yet appears otherwise The Remonstrants giving two answers to this Scripture The second is the self-same in 〈◊〉 with Stapletons To which Amesius replies Coron page 233 234. This is their custome to take one part of a truth and to abuse it for the overthrow or removal of another So that it appears according to him that they spake truth in the denial of this to be meant of the unchangable decree of eternal Election but they abuse this truth in about to avoid the argument drawn from it for perseverance As Jesuites and Arminians do object it so their adversaries freely confesse it I have indeed sometimes in my thoughts doubted how fitly this Text was brought against Arminians for proof of perseverance and estament of assurance yet satisfied my selfe according to what hath been said but since I had any understanding never questioned but it was here applied according to the minde of these Authours to the National priviledge of the Jews the full scope of these Chapters being to dispute the rejection of Israel after
opposition to Judaisme Heathenisme it needs not to be doubted and that implies a covenant What farther is desired must be lest to the blessing of God by providence on Ordinances The want of piety in the Parent is supplied by the piety of the Church into which the infant is received Seventhly saith he If the Predecessour may by this promise give right to Baptisme without the immediate Parent then I pray you tell us how farre we may go for this Predecessour how many generations Where hath Gods Word limited Ministers you may go to this Predecessour and no farther 1. I know few that say the Predecessour gives right without the immediate Parent but all concurre in a joynt way to communicate a covenant-interest but his question may have an easie answer 2. I demand in titles of Honour and inheritance of Lands which men claime by descent from their Ancestors where it is that they stay It will be soon answered that they stay when they can rise no higher to finde any other Predecessours vested in such honours or such inheritance Some can make no claim at all from Parents they are the first of their house of honour or inheritance This was the case of Abraham he had no interest from Terah such was the case of the Primitive Converts and such is the case of the Indians that now by a gracious providence are converted by the English Some can go no farther then their immediate Parents they were the first in honour or that gained an inheritance to their house This was the case of Isaac and of those children called by the Apostle holy 1 Cor. 7. 14. and will be the case of the children of the Indian Converts Others can rise to the third or fourth generation others can go as high as the Conquest some can claime beyond the Conquest by deeds beyond date so it is with some Christians all may go as high as Ancestours have been in Christianity Eightly If by vertue of that promise Predecessours may without the immediate parent give right to Baptisme then the children of an immediate parent apostatized from the Faith and excommunicated from the Church may be baptized I have spoke already to the children of Apostates and as to the children of excommunicate persons I readily yield his conclusion that I may baptize them against which he thus farther reasons If I may baptize the children of an excommunicate parent then I may baptize the children of one who is no Member of a Church for so is the excommunicate person so consequently the children of a Turk or Indian for they are no members of a Church and the excommunicated person is no other in respect of his communion in Church-priviledges I answer if excommunication be onely out of a particular visible congregation as some say then the reply is easie being thus excommunicate his right in the Church universal visible still remaines and into this it is that we admit Members by Baptisme 1 Cor. 12. 13. otherwise a Christian were a Christian respective onely to one congregation and that congregation falling his Christianity must fall with it and being taken into a new one he must be also admitted-anew by Baptisme But I farther answer A Church-Member may be considered either quoad jus ad rem or quoad jus in re either respective to a fundamental proper right or a present personal actual fruition of his interest An excommunicate man in the former sense is a Church-Member not in the later This excommunication is a sequestration not a confiscation He himself is suspended from present benefit not cut off from all title as several wayes may be made to appear 1. The Text saith Let him be as an Heathen or a Publican in respect of society with him or familiarity saith Master Cawdrey Diatribe pag. 218. not an Heathen and Publicane That Text 2 Thes 3. 14. is ordinarily understood of Excommunication yet there the caution is added Count him not as an enemy but admonish him as a brother vers 15. A brother is a Church-member an excommunicate person is a brother That which is for cure not only of the body but of the member in particular is not a total dismembring But this sentence is for cure of the particular member For the destruction of the flesh that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord 1 Cor. 5. 5. Excommunication is not like poyson that is given to an enemy for death but a medicine that is given to a brother for life saith Gomarus in 2 Thes 3. 15. Certainly Gods casting out of his Kingdome Matth. 8. 12. taking away his Kingdome Mat. 21. 3. removal of his Candlestick Rev. 2. 5. the breaking off from the Olive Rom. 11. 17. is a sentence farre above Excommunication To let passe Authours of this minde Zanchy and Perkins quoted by Master Firmin The National Synod of France 1583. The Divines of Geneva Calvine Dr. Ames Danaeus Brochman quoted by Master Cawdrey Diatribe page 216. and examine it by reason Either the excommunicate persons sin divests the childe or else the Churches censure But neither the sin nor the censure Ergo. 1. Not the sin as may appear 1. By an Argument ad hominem Our Dissenting Brethren as we heard allow the Baptisme notwithstanding sin before the sentence of Excommunication It is not then the sin in their judgement that doth divest them 2. By an Argument ad rem No sin but that of nature descends to posterity man transmits not his personal vices neither fault nor guilt no more than his graces And for the sentence that cannot reach the childe I never read that Church-censures were like that plague laid upon Gehazi to cleave to him and to his seed In any legal proceeding the childe is not to be punished for the fathers fault there was a Law against it Deut. 24. 16. The fathers shall not be put to death for the children neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers every man shall be put to death for his own sin and Amaziah King of Judah is commended for observation of it and in his acts of justice proceeding according to it 2 Chron. 25. 34. and we read not that any Ecclesiastical censure should transcend it The child of a thief is not committed with him to prison I see no reason that he should be committed with him to Satan I say then there is right to Baptism in the child of an excommunicate person I wish our Brethren would stick here not refuse those children whose parents are under no Excommunication As to the third our Authour 1. Premises a question Whether is this bare profession of Faith in Christ though Parents be grossely ignorant scandalous and refuse to subject to Church-discipline sufficient to make a man and continue him a Member of the Church visible And then proceeds to arguments as to his question I wonder how he can imagine that it makes any thing to his question and in case it were wholly yielded him whether thence he could draw his conclusion that Ministers in England should not baptize the infants of all that professe the Faith in Christ Jesus He confesseth in this question he hath disadvantage For if a man be looked upon saith he as a visible Saint and reputed a Member of a true Church
208 Circumcision that painfull signe was the leading initiating seale of it p. 209 Nine positions tending to clear the Old Covenant under Old Testament-dispensations p. 210 211 212 c. See Moses It was not made up of carnal promises p. 219 c. The charge of the Old Covenant to be meerely carnal serves divers interests 1. To bring down all honour and esteem of Old Testament-Scriptures p. 220 2. To take Infants out of Covenant p. 221 3. To keep Infants from Baptisme p. 222 Testimonies evincing the spirituality of Old Covenant-Promises ibid. This Old Covenant was a pure Gospel-Covenant and not mixt p. 224 New Covenant It is held forth by Christ the Mediatour p. 205 It takes in all Nations ibid. 206 It must remain till the end of time ibid. The dedication of it is in the blood of Christ p. 207 Christ already come in the flesh is set forth in it ibid. Truth without type or-shadow held forth in it p. 207 208 Light abounds and knowledge is clear in it p. 208 Baptisme is the initiating seal of it p. 209 It is not limited to the Elect Regenerate p. 231 The meaning of some Orthodox Divines that in some expression seem to deny it p. 233 Severall New Testament-Scriptures evincing it p. 235 c. Arguments asserting it p. 205 Absurdities following upon the restraint of the Covenant to the Elect regenerate p. 252 Objections answered p. 257 It comprizes professed Beleevers and their issue p. 246 The question stated as to the issue of Abraham in severall particulars p. 296 297 c. Arguments from Old Testament-Scriptures evincing the natural issue of Abraham to be in Covenant p. 301. From New Testament-Scriptures p. 304. The grand Objection Rom. 9. 6 7 8. answered p. 309 A second Objection that it is not in that latitude in New Testament-times answered p. 316 1. By Quaeries put p. 317 New Testament-authorities Acts 2. 38 39. Rom. 11. 16. 1 Cor. 7. 14. Gal. 4. 29. Matth. 19. 14. p. 318 3. Arguments evincing it p. 401 c. D. Death WHat in Scripture it implies p. 100 p. 101 The same in the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace ibid. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The proper and most received signification denotes a Testament and not a Covenant p. 38 39 Disciple Vnregenerate persons have the name and outward priviledges of Disciples p. 251 Whole Nations in capacity to be Discipled p. 236 Infants are Disciples p. 413 Discipline God in the Covenant of Grace keeps up his Sovereignty in exercise of Discipline p. 77 78 c. See Separation E. Election INto a Church-state p. 340 The Covenant of Grace not commensurate with Election p. 98 Election leads to salvation without any merit of workes p. 341 See Reprobation Engraffing There is no engraffing into the Church invisible p. 336 Engraffing by Faith according to Election is into Christ. ibid. Engraffing into the true Olive Rom. 11. is into the Church as visible Asserted by Arguments p. 327 c. Errors Have their estimate more or lesse according as they are against Christ p. 280 Some render Christ in an incapacity to be Mediatour ibid. Some are in whole or in part inconsistent with his Mediatorship ibid. Errours either in the foundation or in the superstructure p. 278 In the foundation more neere or more remote p. 279 Epample The Argument that there is no example for infant-baptisme answered p. 414 Extreames In the worship of God dangerous p. 439 F Faith IN Christ commanded in the Moral Law p. 96 c. Is a Condition of the Covenant of Grace p. 118 c. Proposâ—tions tending to clear it p. 122 Reasons to confirme it p. 119 Objections answered p. 130 c. As accepting Christ as a Lord it doth not justifie p. 125 It justifies as an instrument p. 126 Truth explained p. 127 Objections answered ibid. See instrument Faith of profession entitles to Baptisme p. 289 Arguments proving it p. 290 Faith and Repentance our conditions not Gods p. 144 Faith of profession Entitles to the Church visible p. 334 May be lost p. 333. 334 Flesh Birth after the flesh gives a visible title to Church interest p. 370 c. Children of the flesh those who in course of nature come from Abraham ibid. G. Gentiles SInners of the Gentiles Gal. 2. 15. what it implies p. 305. 306 Engraffing of the Jewes and the Gentiles Rom. 11. is into the Church visible p. 327 See Engraffing Church of Jewes and Gentiles one p. 328. Gomarus His answer to the Anabaptists Argument draw from Rom. 9. 6 7. p. 313 c. Gospel Where it is tendered and recieved there is a Covenant p. 161 Where it is tendered and refused there is no Covenant ibid. Grace Is the Fountaine and rise of every Covâ—â—nant of God with man p. 9 The necessity of the concurrence of Grace in mans conversion p. 111 Arguments evincing it p. 104 c. Objections answered p. 113 c. Sufficiency of Gospel-grace in the Old Covenant to convince men of sin for not beleeving p. 215 H. Holy Holinesse HOlinesse of relation of infusion p. 326 One and the same holinesse in every branch of the Olive Rom. 11. ibid. Holinesse not legitimation p. 357 Not regenerate with the Apostle 1 Cor. 7. 14. ibid. See places Holinesse of relation of persons p. 440 Of unreasonable creatures ibid. Persons holy in some peculiar way of service p. 444 In a more general way as separate from Idols to God p. 447 Heaven See Kingdome I. Jew A Jew by nature is one in Covenant by birth p. 306 Infant Those little ones that Christ recieved and blessed were infants p. 394 They were infants of Parents in Covenant p. 394 395 They were themselves in Covenant ibid. They were admitted upon a common right and no special priviledge above other infants in Israel ibid. They were admitted to a Church-priviledge p. 397 The Disciples excluded them upon their minority and Christ will have that to be no bar for their admittance p. 399 Infant-Baptisme By Arguments asserted p. 410 c. Objections answered p. 411 c. Infants of all Christian Parents have right to Baptisme p. 448 Infants of wicked Parents p. 448 Of misbelieving Parents p. 449 Of ignorant Parents ibid. Of illegitimate birth p. 450 Of excommunicate persons p. 468 Right of infants of Apostates discussed p. 453 Infants have right to Baptisme as from immediate so from mediate Parents p. 465 Infants within the verge of Baptism-institution p. 411 412 Infants of Christian Parents entitled to the Lords Supper by jus ad rem not jus in re p. 436 Instrument The Word the outward Faith the inward instrument in justification p. 129 Faith more aptly said to be an instrument in justification than the word ibid. Relative actions have not their instruments fitly and properly so called as those that are absolute p. 127 Faith is the instrument of man in the work of justification and because of man in a work of this nature it
in the same latitude as Beleever and is the most common appellation in the New Testament for all that are separate for God and dedicated to him The distinguishing name for professing Christians as the title of People of God Circumcision was for the people of Israel some do not hear of the word Saint but presently they understand a Saint in glory and will not endure that any man should be a Saint upon earth Others will have none Saints but those that are really such and shall be for heaven They will have no denomination of a Saint from a holy profession But if we look into the Scriptures and may be suffered to speak in that language we shall finde Saint for the most part taken for men upon the earth The psalmist professedly names Saints upon earth Psal 16. 3. And those Saints not often taken for other than a Saint by profession He is a Saint that makes a Christian profession We read of Collections for the Saints 1 Cor. 16. 1. Administration to the Saints Heb. 6. 10. which can reach no higher than visible Professours and can by no means be limited to Elect Regenerate ones When Paul shut up many of the Saints in prison and did much evil against them Acts 26. 10. he knew no other way of distiction then an outward profession and so he explaines himself those of that way Act. 9. 2. We read of Churches of the Saints 1 Cor. 14. 33. and they were taken in to be Church-members assoon as they made profession that is assoon as they ceased to be Jews or Pagans and took them to the way of Christianity As we see in those three thousand Acts 2. The Samaritans The Eunuch Simon Magus assoon as they were taken off from Heathenisme Judaisme for Christianity they had that name of Saints The Epistles wrote to particular visible Churchs are inscribed to Saints among which what some are read both the Epistles to the Corinthians yea what almost all are in some Churches read the Epistle to the Church of Sardis Amesius judged by some to be of the opposite party hath these words It is most probable that there is no particular Church in which the profession of the true faith flourisheth but in the same we may finde some truly Beleevers Medul lib. 1. cap. 32. sect 8. The Apostle tells us of the Faith once delivered to the Saints Jude 3. the Doctrine of Faith as is agreed on all hands is there understood All that professe that Doctrine are Saints no other Comment can be put upon it than upon the Apostles words Rom. 3. 1. To the Jews were committed the Oracles of God Saint then is a name of distinction to set out those that take the way not of Jews or Heathens but the way of Christians and Saints are men in covenant For the terme Disciple enough hath been spoken before This argues an interest in the covenant as well as the former of Saints and Beleevers and whole Nations are in capacity to be Disciples Matth. 28. 19. that is to be put into a way of salvation as sometimes the Nation of the Jews was in the fruition of saving Ordinances And the Kingdomes of the earth being made the Kingdoms of the Lord and his Christs by a visible profession are Discipled Judas is called a Disciple Matth. 10. 1 4. as well as Simon Magus is called a Beleever Saul breathed out threatnings against the Disciples of the Lord Acts 9. 1. In case you will know who the holy Ghost there means see verse 2. all that Saul could finde of that way He made it not his work to enquire after their Regeneration or inward work of Sanctification we may well think he understood as little of that as Nicodemus It was enough to him that they made such a profession Complaint is made Acts 15. 10. that those that urged the necessity of circumcision put a yoke on the necks of the Disciples which neither they nor their fathers were able to bear and they urged it upon all in visible profession and not upon regenerate ones alone Let that one Text speak for all in what latitude the word Disciple is taken and in how large comprehension it is used John 6. 66. From that time many of his Disciples went back and walked no more with him For the last of these termes Christians it stands in the same latitude as the other where we first heare of it we finde it the same with Disciples Acts 11. 26. The Disciples were first called Christians in Antioch And in what acception through all ages it hath past is also manifest All of these imply an interest in the covenant and these are given to unregenerate persons Here that of our Saviour is objected Object Luke 14. 27 33. If any man come to me and hate not his father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters yea and his own life also he cannot be my Disciple These qualifications are signes of Regeneration and these only that are thus qualified are Disciples of Christ Regenerate men then onely have that honour of Disciples I answer They only do the duty of Disciples they onely are worthy of that title as Christ explaines himself Mat. 10. 37. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me Yet others have the name as we have heard and the outward priviledges in order to bring them to the duty of true Disciples There are Disciples as to the fruition of visible priviledges and those are they that make visible professions There are Disciples for glory and life and those onely are Regenerate ones John 3. 3. Except a man be borne again he cannot see the Kingdome of God Ordinances are granted in a greater latitude than Regeneration All that enjoy the priviledges of Ordinances are Disciples and therefore it is no honour proper to Regenerate persons Secondly as these titles argue a covenant-interest when the parties are yet short of Regeneration so the manifold absurdities that will follow upon this restraint of the covenant alone to Regenerate plainly evince that it is to be taken in a larger extent and that it takes in unregenerate Professours 1. This restriction of the covenant to out shut all non-Regenerate makes an utter confusion between the covenant it selfe and the conditions of it or if that expression do not please the covenant it self and the duties required in it between our entrance into covenant and our observation of it or walking up in faithfulnesse to it All know that a bargaine for a summe of money and the payment of that summe the covenant with a servant for labour and the labour according to this covenant are different things Faithful men that make a bargaine keep it enter covenant and stand to it But the making and keeping the entring and observing are not the same many enter and transgresse covenant for much and performe nothing So it is in the covenants of men and so
Tribes from Hosea 1. 10. Hos 2. 23. is there applied to the call of the Gentiles into a Church-state and condition Neither is that of force against it that is objected from verse 23. where the Apostle saith That he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy which he had afore prepared unto glory God sets up visible Ordinances and calls to a Church-state as is there prophecied that he may there work to himselfe a people of invisible relation that thereby he may make them vessels of mercy having afore prepared them unto glory So likewise Rev. 18. 4. Come out of her my people that ye be not partakers of her sinnes and that ye receive not of her plagues All Professours of faith and worshippers of the true God are there included in that exhortation to quit Babylon so all Ministers of Christ are to urge and presse it Men therefore of visible Profession have this title in compellation from GOD of my people It is yet objected Jeremiah 31. 31 32 33. Behold the dayes come saith the LORD that I will make a new Covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah not according to the Covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt which my Covenant they brake although I was an husband to them saith the Lord. But this shall be my Covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those dayes saith the Lord I will put my Law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts and will be their God and they shall be my people Here is a third purpose or interest for which this Text is produced to serve The first was to assert an unconditionate Covenant in the dayes of the Gospel which we examined chapter 25. when the Gospel expressely holds out Covenant-conditions more expressely than the Covenant of Works which is confest to be conditional The second to overthrow a publick Ministery and all private mutual exhortation which we spake to chapter 26 when the New Testament doth establish both And to set up this Prophecie in a third particular against all New Testament-light none must be of the called of God into Covenant for fruition of Church-priviledges but those that are regenerate Men in Old Testament-Covenant broke Covenant as is there exprest Men in the New Covenant shall keep covenant and these are only the Elect and Regenerate To this I might have many things to say No such sense must be put upon this one single Text as to restrain the covenant only to those that are stedfast in it and carefully observe it when other New-Testament-Scriptures clearly and unanimously hold it out in that latitude to comprehend those that are transgressours of it no more than it must be brought though there be like colour for both to overthrow Gospel-Ordinances private and publick exhortations when in the New Testament there is a clear and full establishment of them There are those that are in the faith so farre as to enter Covenant that make shipwrack of the faith 1 Tim 1. 19. Disciples of Christ that go back and walk no more with him Joh. 6. Men sanctified by the blood of the Covenant that tread under foot the blood of the Son of God and do despight to the Spirit of grace Heb. 10. 29. There are that escape the pollution of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and are again entangled and overcome Those that have known the way of righteousnesse that turne from the holy Commandment To whom it happens according to the true Proverb The dogge is turned to his own vomit again and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire 2 Pet. 2 22. It is farre easier to returne answer to this Scripture held out by way of Prophecie what shall be than to give answer to all these Scriptures and far more than these setting out what is in New Testament-times 2. That we may interpret and not commit Scriptures finde out the sense of all and not create differences in any we may observe that though it be granted that those that have the Law written in their hearts and put into their inward parts do enter covenant and not break it yet it is not said none shall enter covenant and transgresse it There may still be an outward covenant according to Interpreters that may be broken as well as an inward covenant that shall be observed If it be said that these are two distinct covenants one succeeding the other one abolished when the other takes place according to that of the Apostle Heb. 8. 13. In that he saith a New Covenant he hath made the first Old now that which decayeth and waxeth Old is ready to vanish away then it will follow this being the characteristical difference that as none in New Testament-times enter covenant but they keep covenant so none in Old Testament-times were in covenant but they did transgresse it at least that the covenant that then was was wholly transgresseable and the covenant that now is is not in any possibility to be transgrest But the contrary is evident there were those that kept covenant in Old Testament-times Psal 44. 17. All this is come upon us yet have we not forgotton thee neither have we dealt falsely in the covenant Psal 103. 17. And also there are those that break covenant in New Testament-times 1 Tim. 5. 12. Having damnation because they have cast off their first faith The Law was written in mens hearts and put into their inward parts in the dayes of the Old Testament and some were as it is called in an inward Covenant Deut. 30. 6. The Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart and the heart of thy seed to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soule that thou mayest live Psal 37. 31. The Law of his God is in his heart none of his steps shall slide Psal 119. 11. Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sinne against thee Encline your eare and come unto me hear and your soule shall live and I will make an everlasting Covenant with you even the sure mercies of Dâ—â—id Isa 55. 3. And so by consequence it fairly holds notwithstanding this Text that there is as hath been proved an outward covenant in the dayes of the Gospel The oldnesse to be abolished is only in circumstances wherewith one and the same covenant that now is was then clothed 3. The covenant then spoken to by Jeremy in the place quoted is not a covenant properly so called or at least as Master Baxter observes not the whole of the covenant So there must be two distinct covenants one in being when the Prophet wrote and another to have its being in the time of which he prophesied one covenant made with the Jewes and another covenant distinct from it made
faith that they must receive them giving this reason for God hath received them Rom. 14. 1 3. we may apply to those that make profession of the faith being able to make application of his reason God takes them into communion unto visible fellowship we are not then to reject them Is the necessary qualification of a member of the visible Church universal one thing and the necessary of a member of this or that particular congregation another and may one be fit to be a member of the universal visible Church and yet not qualified to be a member of a particular congregation saith Master Wood Append. p. 169 170. If I should enlarge this to heathens brought to a profession of the faith and argue their right to baptisme upon profession and by baptisme their right to Church-fellowship in any visible Church-society I should finde the Scriptures abundantly to favour it Of so many thousands myriads of thousands of converts Acts 21. 20. which were added to the Church and received by baptisme baptized the same day for a great part sometimes as appears the very houre of their conversion there is not one that we reade refused but all received yea not a scruple raised save of one only as I remember which was Saul when he offered himself into Church-fellowship and that not upon this account that we are now upon but good Ananias fearing that he came not to joyne with them but to seise upon them knowing that at that time he had authority from the chief Priests to binde all that call on Christs name Acts 9. 14. If the competentes as they were stiled in the primitive times viz. men that offered themselves for Church-fellowship had then entred at so strait a door as now in some places they are put to passe where a glib tongue is in a farre fairer way to take than an upright heart we should have heard of no small bustle about it When we finde murmurings of Grecians against the Hebrews because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration Acts 6. 1. we should sure have heard of it had they been neglected in Church-fellowship and communion But when no such thing can be found in the practice of the Church after the Holy Ghost was given which is called by way of eminence the Kingdom of Christ or the Kingdom of Heaven yet they think they finde exceptions taken and some refused by the forerunner of Christ John Baptist One laying down this Proposition That men seeking admission into the Church are not to be received without farther satisfaction gives instance in no other but John Baptist and saith The Baptist did not admit all that sought it unto baptism and proves it from no Text either of Matthew or Luke which give us the narrative but by the authority of Pareus The Pharisees saith he did seek baptisme but John did not admit them being unworthy to whom he adds Aretius who sayes They sought baptisme but he seems to think saith our Authour that they were not by any means baptized But how eminent soever their authorities are their reasons are very weak The Baptist reproved them called them to repentance and therefore did not baptize them when the text seems to speak the contrary For as soon as his reproof with his exhortation is ended there follows I indeed baptize you with water verse 11. And it seems by Saint Luke that those Pharisees and Lawyers that were not baptized of John were not refused but did refuse Luke 7. 30. But the Lawyers and Pharisees rejected the Councel of God against themselves being not baptized of him When the same learned Authour cannot instance any precedent or produce any Scripture-Ordinance for it he endeavours by arguments drawn from the forme of a particular Church the way of reformation of Churches the relation of inferiority and superiority among those that are free and such like reasons to evince it To which but that I will not here make it my businesse an easie answer might be given it is more than strange that when the Apostles had by Commission from Christ planted Churches and were to leave them to be propagated in future Ages and knowing a covenant to be essential to the constitution as now by some is asserted would yet wholly be silent in it especially when no such thing was known in Old Testament-Scriptures that we might gather it by analogy and through all Ages till this last Age had lien hid and never discovered and leave us by our reason to discover it In which we are in danger to set our threshold by Gods threshold of which he so sadly complains Ezek. 43. 8. or rather justle out his threshold with ours denying baptisme to be any door for admission at which the primitive Saints entred and setting up a covenant of which Scripture speaks nothing and Master John Goodwin was sometimes as confident as confidence could make him that it had no ground in the holy Scriptures But to leave heathens haply called by Gospel Ordinances to speak a word or two to our own case who are a discipled Nation a Kingdom subjugated to the yoke of Christ Jesus enjoying saving Ordinances and therefore have a Church of Christ fixt among us Here we might lay down divers positions for the regulating of our judgements First where nothing is wanting to the being of a Church God having a people owning him in covenant yet much more may be required for the well ordering and regulating of it where a people accept of a King and receive his Lawes there he hath a Kingdom and is a Monarch yet much more is required for the ordering of such a Monarchy for the publick weale and safety so it is where there is a Church of God accepting the Lawes of heaven there the Lord Christ reigns as a Monarch yet farther care must be used for the right regulating of it according to his Will and the Lawes tendred by him and received by them Secondly a people in a vicinity or neighbourhood dwelling together ought to associate themselves and joyne with those of that neighbourhood according to their best convenience for the participation of Ordinances As it is against all dictates of reason that a people scattered at a great distance should combine themselves in a Church-way for Ordinances in which God rules so it is as clear against the Scriptures You read of a Church of God at Ephesus at Corinth at Philippi at Thessalonica at Laodicea But you reade not of any one Church made up of members residing at all those places or in any places at like distance That cohabitation or dwelling together makes not up a Church congregational will be easily granted Infidels Turks Pagans may cohabit they may make an idol-church but not a Church of God but co-habitation or dwelling together is one ingredient Saints cohabiting that is in New Testament-language men separate for God not Jewes nor Infidels but Christians and joyning in Ordinances as in
duty they ought are a congregational Church A Pastour ought to watch over his people and a people ought to attend to their Pastour which how it can be when the Pastour makes his residence at Ephesus the people some at Ephesus some at Corinth some at Philippi and so scattered it cannot be imagined We finde seven several Epistles written from heaven to seven several Churches all which had their abode at the place whence the Church bore its name these are Scripture-Churches Now if any one Church be made up of Christians some inhabiting at one of those places some at another a third at a third place scarce three of one Town no more than of one minde here is not Scripture-order which is of God but an Apocryphal confusion Exceptions may be taken at the over-large extent and disordered situation of divers Parochial Congregations which calls for Reformation coming too near the inconvenience before mentioned but Parochial Assemblies not the name but the thing viz. a people inhabiting at convenient distance and joyning together under Officers according to Scripture is the way that comes up both to the light of reason and the Presidents of primitive times Our dissenting Brethren will have the limit of a particular Church to be within that number of persons that may congregate in one place for Ordinances if this be yielded as it must be for Churches meerly Congregational then it will easily be proved that Parish-congregations that is congregations of men dwelling in a vicinity are of divine institution Saints that made up a Church were still Saints in cohabitation such convenient numbers as are fit to make up a Church did not live divided in place and scattered some here some there but were as in faith so in habitation joyned together Thirdly all professing Christians in such cohabitation especially the civil power authorizing are to be esteemed and judged members and not to be refused when they offer themselves as members where there is a holinesse of separation for God and a professed engagement to real holinesse there is no Scripture-warrant for repulse Those that offer themselves to learn are taken into the School and not those only that have made a good progresse in knowledge and fit for the uppermost forme Me thinks this should be a Proposition agreed upon between us and our dissenting brethren seeing reverend Master Cotton laying down certain Propositions consented to on both sides in his Treatise of the holinesse of Church-members page 1. saith That such as are borne of Christian Parents and baptized in their Infancy into the fellowship of the Church are initiated members of the same Church though desâ—itute of spiritual grace until they justly deprive themselves of the priviledge of that fellowship For even of such is the Kingdome of God as Mar. 10. 14. This was the case as we conceive of those that have gone from us into those parts of America Here they were in infancy baptized here they have joyned in Communion at the Lords Table If they say they were not baptized here into such Church-fellowship then they must say that here is no Church of God amongst us which as we abhorre to speak or think of them so we must not yield concerning our selves and farther conclude their baptism here a meer nullity and no more than an application of a little common water They whose baptisme is valid are baptized into one body 1 Cor. 12. 13. and therefore in a baptized estate cannot be out of fellowship with that body The late Confession of Faith agreed upon by the Assembly of Divines not excepted against in that particular by our brethren that I know define baptisme to be a Sacrament of the New Testament ordained by Jesus Christ not only for the admission of the party baptized into the visible Church but c. Admission into Church-membership they then lay down as a thing never doubted which reverend Master Cotton seems to affirm likewise and I know no Orthodox Writer that questions Assoon as any were discipled through the Acts of the Apostles according to Christs commission Mat. 28. 19. they were thus received I have often marvelled what men mean when they speak of admission of members into Churches when the parties of whom they speak have already equal right with themselves to membership Have they any other or better right than title to the covenant and admission by the seal of baptism if they have let them produce it and then submit it to Scripture-trial I know none other that will abide the teste If they confesse baptism to be an admission then their title is as good that were thus before admitted as theirs that give them admission Their plea in both is one viz. birth of Christian parents and baptism For those that they passe by either forbearing to give them admittance desiring or that through scruple cannot joyne themselves not seeing warrant for such a way varying from the way of all the Churches of the Saints heretofore what do they judge of them Do they look upon them as men without and unworthy of their Communion Then they leave them without hope without God in the world Eph. 2. 12. yea they put them into an incapacity according to Gods ordinary way of salvation Acts 2. 47. All were not saved that were added nor saved in the judgement of charity that is a comment as strange as new but all were added and none refused that would enter themselves into salvation-way which they might do out of affection of novelty at that time possest with amazement by reason of the miracles under great present convictions through Peters powerful Scripture-applications and upon twenty other accounts which might be but fits flashings or present workings yet all that were to be saved were added All the maids that were brought to Ahashuerus and offered for purification Esther 2. 3 4. Were not made Queens but none was made Queen that was not thus offered and purified If it be said they are within as many passages from several hands would seem to imply as well concerning such that are refused as those that do refuse the modesty of many is such that they are loth to unchurch all but themselves then they are heires of the same promise with themselves and all the essentials of a Church of God are with those that in this way of Communion are none of theirs and consequently their covenant or separate way is not of necessity to Church-constitution whether it be at all according to Scripture-pattern rests farther to be enquired and debated Fourthly men by Providence seated among those that are thus in Covenant by a visible Profession and joyning in Ordinances as before must much rather make it their businesse to reform and redresse abuses that are found in the respective Societies on which they are cast than by any means withdraw and separate from them We finde frequent advice in Scripture of considering one another provoking to love and to good works Hebrews 10.
in the same Church of Christ and not any of them did set up new Churches 3. The old Church-way of administration among the Jewes was then to fall that present administration to be taken down by Gods appointment and a new one to be set up according to his prescript 4. John set up a new Sacrament in a new way which after his days was the alone Church-way If any can shew as our seekers look after that Jesus Christ shall now put an end to this way and that they have a Commission for a new Sacrament of initiation then they speak somewhat for setting up new Churches in like manner CHAP. XLIII A dogmatical Faith entitles to Baptisme 3. IT farther follows by way of consectary that a dogmaticall Faith ordinarily called by the name of Faith historical such that assents to Gospel-truths though not affecting the heart to a full choice of Christ and therefore was short of Faith which is justifying and saving gives title to baptisme The Covenant is the ground on which baptisme is bottomed otherwise Church-Membership would evince no title either in Infants or in men of years to Baptisme But the Covenant as we have proved is entred with men of Faith not saving and therefore to them Baptisme is to be administred How the consequent can be denyed by those that grant the Antecedent Baptisme denied in foro Dei to men short of saving faith when they are in covenant I cannot imagine yet some that have confessed their interest in the covenant now deny their title to Baptisme and affirme If men be once taught that it is a faith that is short of justifying and saving Faith which admitteth men to Baptisme it will make foule work in the Church 1. All that hath been said for the latitude of the covenant may fitly be applyed in opposition to this tenent for the like latitude of Baptisme 2 All the absurdities following the restraint of the covenant to the Elect to men of Faith saving and justifying follow upon this restraint of interest in Baptisme 3. To make the visible seale of Baptisme which is the priviledge of the Church visible to be of equal latitude with the seale of the Spirit which is peculiar to invisible members is a Paradox 4. The great condition to which Baptisme engages is not a prerequisite in baptisme This is plaine to man is bound to make good his covenant conditions before his engagements to conditions no servant is tyed to do his work to gaine admission into service no souldier to fight in order to get himself listed under command But Faith that is justifying is the condition to which baptisme engages and no condition necessarily required to vest him in it 5. That Faith upon which Simon Magus in Primitive times was baptized is that which admitteth to baptisme Simon himself beleeved and was baptized Act. 8. 13. But Simons faith fell short of saving and justifying 6. In case only justifying faith give admission to baptisme then none is able to baptize seeing this by none is discerned and to leave it to our charity affirming that we may admit upon presumption of a title when God denies I have spoken somewhat chap. 38. and I refer to Master Hudson in his Vindication whom learned Master Baxter so highly commends to shew the unreasonablenesse of it Here it is objected First Objections answered When Christ saith make me Disciples of all Nations baptizing them he means sincere Disciples though we cannot ever know them to be sincere Object I answer Answ In case I make this first objection brought against me my seventh and last argument for me it will fully discover the weaknesse of it and thus I forme it All that are Disciples unto Christ and made disciples for Christ are to be baptized but some are made Disciples to Christ that are short of faith saving and justifying as hath been proved at large This Discipleship that Christ there mentions is such of which whole Nations are in capacity as is plaine in the Commission to which this Nation with others hath happily attained according to the manifold prophecies before cited of these the whole universal visible Church consists as is irrefragably proved by Mr. Hudson in his Treatise of that subject and his Vindication and most amply spoken to by Mr. Baxter in his plaine Scripture-proof of Infants Church-membership and baptisme page 279 280. Sir if you were my father I would tell you that when you say Christ makes no one City Countrey Tribe his Disciples you speak most malignantly and wickedly against the Kingdome and dignity of my Lord Jesus Hath he not commanded to disciple Nations Hath not the Father promised to give him the Heathen or Nations for his inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession Psalme 2. And that Nations shall serve him And that the Kingdomes of the world shall be become the Kingdomes of the Lord and his Christ and do you not see it fulfilled before your eyes Are not Bewâ—ly Keder Minsters c. and England till of late as full Christs disciples and so Church-members as the Jewes were in covenant with God and so Church-members We are not all sincere True no more were they for with many of them God was not well pleased but shut out all that Nation of covenanters from his rest save Caleb and Joshuah We may have Pagans and infidels lurk amongst us unknown but they had many amongst them known In the mean time we as generally professe Christianity as they did to serve the true God And are you sure there is never a City or Town that are all sincere I think you be not or at least is there never a godly family as Abrahams was you cannot be ignorant that the terme Disciples in Scripture is given to more to the sincerely-godly And if whole Nations yea the whole Universal visible Church consisting of discipled Nations were all beleevers it were a happinesse then election would be as large as Vocation when Christ saith many are called but few chosen Secondly Object When he saith he that beleeveth and is baptized shall be saved here faith goes before baptism and that not a common but a saving faith for here is but one faith spoken of and that is before baptism 1. This is the weakest of all arguments to reason for a precedency of one before another Answ from the order in which they are placed in Scripture So we may say John baptized before he preached the baptisme of Repentance for his baptizing is put before his preaching of baptisme Mark 1. 4. and that those that he baptized did confesse their sinnes after their baptisme seeing it is mentioned after that it is said that they were baptized Mat. 3. 6. and both of these with a farre greater probability of reason seeing in both there is a narrative of the thing by the Evangelists and in the place in hand there is neither commission given for the work of baptizing nor yet any
concerning grace and works verse 6. to the 11. 2. He speaks to the Gentiles and to take down their insultation over the Jewes he shewes that this rejection of theirs is not final And this as the former is 1. Asserted verse 11. I say then have they stumbled that they should fall viz. irrecoverably fall God forbid 2. Proved by giving account of a twofold end of this rejection of the Jewes 1. The call of the Gentile verse 12. But rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles for to provoke them to jealousie 2. A more glorious returne of the Jews in emulation of the Gentiles verse 12. Now if thâ— fall of them be the riches of the world and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles how much more their fulnesse Hereupon he falls upon a large discourse of his zeal toward them and their re-ingraffing vers 13. 14 15. adding the words of the Text If the first fruits be holy the lump also is holy and if the root be holy so are the branches This Paraâ—us makes a farther Argument for proof that the Jews shall again be called Gomarus makes it an encouragement to the Apostle to endeavour their call howsoever here is a double similitude One drawn from the Ceremonial Law If the first fruits be holy the lump is also holy The other from Nature If the root be holy so are the branches The first is only mentioned the second is largely commented upon In both we see 1. A supposition 2. An affirmation The supposition is of the holinesse of the first fruits the holinesse of the root The affirmation is the whole lump is holy the branches are holy This last is grounded on a principle in nature universally true As is the root so is the branch they are both of one and the same nature As is the one so is the other Which he applies to the state of the Church of God first to the Church of the Jewes and that 1. In their ancient estate when they were a people of God in Covenant-relation holy so stiled of him frequently in Scripture 2. In their present state for a great part broken off and so made no people 3. In their future condition when they should be called of God and as it were risen from the dead Secondly he applies it also to the Gentiles 1. In their ancient estate as no people 2. In their present estate made a people of God in the place of the Jewes 3. In their possible estate and condition to be rejected and cast off On which we may ground several undeniable Positions some concerning the subject root and branch some concerning the predicate holy First concerning the subject root and branch in this place as by way of Metaphor set out the estate of parent and childe ancestor and issue 2. The whole body of the Church is compared to a tree to an Olive tree 3. The root of this tree viz. the first supreme universal root is Abraham Isaac and Jacob. Not Abraham alone so Ishmaelites would be of the body Nor Abraham with Isaac alone so the Edomites from Esau would have been taken in But the Apostle in this chapter from Old Testament-authority excludes both of them Abraham Isaac and Jacob are therefore joyntly the root 4. The branches of this tree are of two sorts â—ome natural issuing from the root by descent others ingraffed put in by way of insition The â—ewes were natural branches descending from the loynes of Abraham Isaac and Jacob. The Gentiles are branches by insition put into the stock the natural branches being broken off 5. The fatnesse of this tree is the glory of Ordinances of which the whole Church partakes or as some say Christ is the fatnesse but that is onely as he is tendered in Ordinances for he walks in the middest of the Golden Candlesticks In which sense onely we may yeeld that Christ is that fatnesse Secondly concerning the predicate Holy There is one and the same holinesse goes through the whole tree all the branches natural and engraffed through the whole Church and all the children of it Jews and Gentiles The whole of this holinesse is from one Original root and therefore one and the same 2. This holinesse is such as is communicable from parent to childe and necessarily communicated as a root communicates sap to the branches This is so plaine that if it be denied all the Apostles dispute falls 3. It is no holinesse of inhesion but relation not qualitative but federal The holinesse of the Jewes who were a holy Nation was such The holinesse of the Gentiles can be no other Holinesse of inhesion is not communicable but only holinesse of relation In holinesse of inhesion the proposition holds not as is the father so is the child who knowes not that holy fathers have unholy children regenerate parents have issue unregenerate These things considered it is evident that as the father is in regard of Church-state Covenant-holinesse so is the childe both in the Church of the Jews and Gentiles The father being without the childe is without the father being within the childe is within eo nomine because a branch of such a root a childe of such a father which is a full confirmation of the point in hand that the childe is in Covenant with the father and the person that actually enters Covenant is not solely vested in it One stands upon the contrary part and puts it to this issue for trial Whether this ingraffing be into the visible Church by profession of Faith or into the invisible by Election and Faith and concludes that it is meant of the Church invisible which if he can make good I shall confesse all Arguments drawn from hence as to this point are lost I would to avoid impertinent cavils and quarrels each Text were brought to such issue I shall in the first place bring arguments to evince that the breaking off and engraffing is respective to the Church as visible and then proceed to answer arguments from a late hand against it 1. That ingraffing which is into Abraham Isaâ—â— and Jacob as a root is not an invisible graffing by saving Faith and Election This is plaine we live not by power received from Abraham Abraham cannot say he bears us up in saving graces and that without sap from him we can do nothing But the ingraffing is into Abraham Isaac and Jacob as a root This argument as is said by one were of force if Abraham were made a root by communication and for prevention he is put to it to tell us of a root communicating nothing but an exemplary root or an exemplary cause of beleeving only what an exemplary non-communicating root is or meanes let the Reader Consider Secondly that ingraffing which caused disputation and contention in some emulation in others upon the sight and report of it was not by saving faith only into the invisible body but open visible and apparant into the
visible body But this ingraffing of the Gentiles into the Church of God caused disputation and contention in some Acts 11. 2 3. emulation in others Deut. 32 21. Rom 10. 19. Rom. 11. 14. this therefore was into the Church visible Thirdly That priviledge which is not restrained to some few invisible Churches but is the priviledge of all that are contained in it and members of it is not an invisible work upon the heart to a saving change but only an interest in visible priviledges This is evident the invisible work is not in all Matth. 2â— 14. But this here mentioned is the priviledge of the whole body as is cleare in the Text and adversaries are constrained to acknowledge Therefore the ingraffing is only into the visible body That priviledge wherein the Jewes while they were a people of God did transcend the Gentiles when they were no people is the priviledge which these Gentiles have by their ingraffing this is plain verse 17 But it is the priviledge of Ordinances in being visibly related thus to God wherein Jews did then exceed Gentiles as hath been largely shewn Fourthly that Faith from which the Jews actually fell and the Gentiles stood in danger to fall from is not a saving justifying Faith entituling to invisible priviledges but a Faith of profession onely giving a visible title This is plaine unlesse we will maintaine Bertius his Hymenem desertur and assert the Apostasie of the Saints But this Faith whereby the Gentiles are ingraffed is a Faith from which the Jews fell and from which they were in danger to fall v. 20. Fifthly that reconciliation or ingraffing which is opposite to casting out of a visible Church-state is an ingraffing into the Church visible But this reconciliation or ingraffing is opposite to the casting out of a Church state This is plain Matth. 21. 43. It is a casting out of them that bore not fruit and not a casting off invisible branches Sixthly If the state of the Jewes continued from the Apostles time to this day be an exclusion from a visible Church-state so that they are no people of God in name then a visible Church-state is that which they lost and the Gentiles gained This is plaine The state in which they stand being rejected is their state of rejection But their condition since that time is an exclusion out of a visible Church state This needs no proof Therefore a visible Church state is that which the Jews lost and these gained I wish that these arguments to which many more might be added may be taken into consideration and for a close of all seeing it is peremptorily asserted that it is manifestly false that the Christian Gentiles were graffed into the same visible Church with the Jews for then they should have been Circumcised contrary to the determination Acts 15. and that God hath quite taken away the visible Church of the Jews or to that purpose This Error begetting many others I wish that it may be a little better thought upon whether it be the language of the Scriptures I have learnt that as we and they have one and the same God one and the same Faith that is the doctrine of Faith one and the same Covenant eat of one and the same spiritual meat and drink of the same spiritual drink one and the same expected heaven so we are one and the same Church Let us to that end further observe the manifold Metaphors by which the Church ours and theirs is set forth all of them holding forth this Onenesse First That of a Tent which is the habitation of sojourners Gen. 9. 27. God shall enlarge Japhet and he shall dwell in the Tents of Shem and Canaan shall be his servant Shems Tents must be possest by Japhet and not others built for their habitation The Tents of Shem that is his posterity by Abraham which Japhet that is the Gentiles by a special blessing did possesse is the Church visible as needs no proof Shems Tents and Japhets Tents are one and the same Japhet comes to Shems not Shem to Japhets Secondly That of a Sheep-fold John 10. 16. Other sheep I have which are not of this fold them also I must bring and they shall hear my voice and there shall be one fold and one shepherd The Sheep that in present were in the fold viz. Jews and those not yet taken in viz. Gentiles all make up one and the same fold which though some may limit to the Church invisible because Christ gives notes of those that are indeed his sheep but that is no argument at all Christ speaks to those that were disciples only according to profession and gives notes of disciples indeed and it is against all reason that Christ should in discourse point out the invisible Church with the demonstrative This and that to those that were malignant enough in the Church visible namely the Pharisees as appears in the close of the former Chapter And the mention of thieves creeping into it hirelings employed in it doth contradict it The visible Church of the Jews and Gen tiles in which Christ hath true sheep for whom he dies and others that theeues and hirelings do deceive makes up one sheepfold Thirdly By a natural body 1 Cor. 12. 13. Mans body most aptly to this purpose that one new man Eph. 2. 15. is the visibly body compact of both Jew and Gentile Fourthly to adde no more that of a Kingdome Mat. 8. 11. Many shall come from the East and West and shall sit down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven The same Kingdome that Jews leave Gentiles enter Matth. 21. 41 43. The Kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to a Nation bringing forth the fruits thereof That can be no more then the presence of God in Gospel-Ordinances which is without fruit among Jewes all invisible Members bring forth fruit and upon that accout is given to the Gentiles Neither is it of force that which is said against it Then we must be circumcised As though we may not be in the same Kingdom and yet under a new way of Administration Law-givers on earth are sometimes pleased to change their Lawes and so doth the Law-giver of Heaven or if he will limit his instance to Circumcision taking in no other Lawes the same house may have a new doore or porch let our opposites then know that they are in the same visible Kingdom as Abraham Isaac and Jacob and their posterity after the flesh in Israel were and I wish that they may take heed of making divisions in it or separations from it CHAP. L. Arguments from a late hand for ingraffing into the Church invisible and breaking off from it answered Argument 1. FIrst That ingraffing which is Gods act by his sole power is into the invisible Church by Election and giving Faith For graffing into the visible Church is admission into visible Membership which if it be by an outward Ordinance is the easie act
of the Administrator if by profession of Faith the easie act of the Professor But the ingraffing meant â—om 11. is Gods act from his sole power as is proved from verse 23. where the reason is rendred why the Jewes should be again graffed in is because God is able to graffe them in again Ergo the graffing here is into the visible Church Answ This ingraffing is by a power of God working the heart to a professed subjection to the way of God in Ordinances tendered and assent of heart unto all that is there promised that power that brought Japhet into the tents of Shem Gen. 9 27. That hand of the Lord that was with those that preached the word Act. 11. 21. so that a great number beleeved and turned to to the Lord must bring the Jews back into their former Church-condition How easie soever you take this work to be to bring a people who are strangers to God into a Church-state yet our Brethren in New England have not found it awork so easie to bring the Natives there into a Church-condition nor is it so easie a businesse to bring in the Jewes to this posture of a visible Church-state Have so many prayers been laid out for this work and it is yet not done when it is a matter of such â—ase with man and no need of the power of God for the doing of it We understand a discipling of Gentile-Nations and acknowledge it a work above the power of man and confesse it solely to be in the hand of God We do not speak of the bare admission of men that stand entitled but the working of them to such a title and if an outward profession â—e in the power of mans will yet to bring men or Nations to such a profession cordially to imbrace the Gospel so far as to assent to the truth of it iâ— above man and a work of no such â—ase Argument 2. Secondly That ingraffing which is called reconciliation opposite to casting away that is by Election and giving Faith for 〈…〉 acts can reconcile But the ingraffing here is called reconciliation opposite to casting away verse 15. as may appear in that verse 16. is a reason of the clause about the reception of the Jews vers 15. and the 17. verse is an admonition from the suspition verse 15. that the Jews were cast away which is called breaking off v. 17. Now if breaking off verse 17. â—e the same with casting away verse 15. then ingraffing is the same with reconciliation Ergo ingraffing is by Election and giving of Faith Answ Reconciliation is either graduâ—l or total Either to take in or hold a people in visible communion or else to receive them with an everâ—asting delight in them The former of these Moses obtained for the people of Israel when the Lord upon the sinne of the golden Calfe said Let me alone that my wrath may wax hot against them Exod 32. 10 11 12 13 14. This being premised if any were at fault for a full answer he might easily finde it in the objection it selfe Reconciliation is opposite to casting away The Jewes then by reconcilation are brought into that state out of which they were once cast But they were not cast out of the Church invisible not out of Election and justification but out of a visible Church-state and fellowship Breaking off is rightly said to be the same as casting away and reconciliation the same as ingraffing Their reconciliation or ingraffing is then into that condition from which they were broken out of which they were cast Now they were cast out of the Church visible not out of the Church invisible Their reconciliation brings them into the same Church state which is a reconciliation gradual not total It is here said When any shall shew either a Scripture wherein by reconciliation to God is meant bare vouchsafing a visible Church-state and by casting away and breaking off a lâ—sse of visible priviledges or any approved Writer in the Churches of the Protestants so expounding it I shall begin to suspect that I am mistaken but till then I shall remaine confident I am in the right and shall wonder that any that loveâ— not to wrangle but feares to pervert the Scripture and the truth of God should dare so to interpret it Here I may have many things to say 1. When this Authour pleases he can heap up phrases which are onely once used in a select sense in Scripture and that to uphold this interpretation of holy and unclean 2 Cor. 7. 14. when the context clearly evinces the contrary 2. When he pleases he dare undertake the defence of an opinion held unanimously by all Papists and as unanimously opposed by Protestants as in that of Covenant-holinesse 3. Gomarus Tom. 1. p. 111. observes that World is taken in that sense in Rom. 11. 12 15. as in no other Scripture 4. If reconciliation in no other place be so used yet little is gained seeing as we have seen there are parallel phrases that hold out the same thing to us 5. I shall gratifie him with an Authour an approved Writer in the Protestant Church that so interprets this text in hand that by reconciliation to God is meant no more then vouchsafing a visible Church-state It is Ravanellus who having in his laborious work Thesaurus Scripturae distinguished of a twofold reconciliation 1. Of man with God 2. Of man with his neighbour And defining reconciliation according to our Authours sense of it he goes on and saith Where we are to consider First the name which saith he is taken either properly in the sense already spoken to or lesse properly Rom. 11. 15. Where by reconciliation of the world to God is understood the conversion of the Gentiles to the faith of Christ or they are call to the participation of the favour of God which also is called the salvation of the Gentiles verse 11. and the riches of the world verse 12. Here he may see Faith taken for a bare dogmatical Faith reaching a visible Church-state and not justifying Reconciliation to God taken for the grace and favour of Church-priviledges And the salvation of the Gentiles and riches of the world interpreted to signifie the same thing These phrases are Synonima and they signifie a reconciliation not properly so called but such a one that is opposed to the Reconciliation for which he contends And for the other phrase that by casting away and breaking off is meant a losse of visible priviledges let him consult the last Annotations to those words verse 22. Otherwise thou also shalt be cut off which they enterpret as an unfruitful branch adding this caution as though they had foreseene this Glosse But here it is to be noted that this passage ought to be understood of the outward incorporation into the Church by profession whereof many hypocrites do partake and not of the inward and efficacious ingraffing into the mystical body of Christ by a lively Faith and the
dwells in us by Faith so we in Christ Ephes 3. 17. 2. All ingraffing is into that which gives sap and juice to the ingraffed as the stock from the root to the syens Now Christ gives sap to the Elect beleeving not the Church and therefore it is not into the Church but into Christ 3. If saving faith ingraffe the branch into the Church invisible then the Church invisible is the proper object of such Faith but the Church is no such object of Faith but Christ 4. That supposed ingraffing into the invisible Church is either known to the body invisible or unwitting if know then it is no invisible They have no light to discerne an invisible work if unknown then there could not be such a dispute about the new ingraffing of Gentiles nor complaint of breaking off of the Jewes all being done by an invisible translation and so the subject of the question is taken away To dispute whether ingraffing into the Church be into the Church-visible or invisible is to dispute whether the Mount of Olives be a Mountaine of Earth or Aire I shall assoon finde a Mountaine of Aire in Geography as this ingraffing into the invisible Church in Divinity And here I tie not any up to the word which I conceive in reference to any Ecclesiastical or Spiritual station is not elsewhere used in Scripture but to the thing All that accesse to the Church from Gentile Nations which is so large fore-prophesied in the Old Testament and Historically related in the Acts of the Apostles was an ingraffing into the Church visible and this ingraffing here mentioned The visible Church did immediately receive these new branches and so the whole body of Jews and Gentiles professedly beleeving Ephes 2. 15. became one new man The visible Church communicates sap and juice which is the fatnesse of the Olive in Ordinances This is known by the Church visible they were sensible of and full of praises for the new addition to this number Argument 4. Fourthly That ingraffing is meant verse 17. whereby the wilde Olive is co-partaker of the root and fatnesse of the Olive-tree as is asserted there But such is only Election and giving of Faith Ergo. The minor I prove by considering who the root is and what the fatness of the Olive-tree is 1. Negatively the root is not every beleeving parent Answ I suppose I may answer for my self that I never said that every beleeving parent is the root I willingly yeeld that every beleeving parent is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the root but I affirm that every beleeving parent is a root I cannot reach this mystery that Abraham can be a root of all the branches in Israel reaching down to the Apostles times no intermediate rootes intervening no more then Adam can be a natural root of mankinde to this time without intermediate fathers of our flesh deriving us from him as Jacob with Rachel and Leah was a root from whom Israel sprang as branches of an Olive so Judah and Tamar Boaz and Ruth were roots likewise They built up the house of Israel Ruth 4. 11 12. The house of Israel was this Olive-tree these several Metaphors expressing the same thing the building of the house and bringing out the branches are one and the same All builders are roots these are builders therefore roots Abraham may be called the builder laying the first foundation so the root from whence every branch was derived yet every particular Beleever that had issue a builder a root Those Israelites that had no holinesse of inhesion but only of relation that were members of the Church visible not invisible were fathers by way of communication of this holinesse 1 Cor. 10. 1. All our fathers were under the cloud and all passed through the sea It is as necessary to have intermediate fathers between us and Abraham as to have intermediate mothers between us and Eue. Eve may as well be the mother of all living and no other mother between us and her as Abraham can be the father of the Faithful and no intermediate father to derive from him and communicate to us But his proof is very well worth the hearing that every beleeving parent is not the root For then all the branches should be natural the childe of every beleeving Parent is a natural branch from his father But here Apostle makes the Gentiles branches and a wild Olive graffed in besides nature and the Jews only natural branches growing from the root verse 21 24. The Apostle makes them wilde onely at their first ingraffing and so was all Terahs race wilde likewise till that change of Faith wrought in Abrahams call and the covenant of God entered with him We now are natural as they were and cannot be called wilde but in our first Original Positively he sayes the root is no other then Abraham that Abraham onely is a holy root or at most Abraham Isaac and Jacob. If this have any face of Argument it runnes thus If Abraham be the root and not every beleeving Parent then the ingraffing is by Election and Faith that justifies The truth is the sequel is undeniable on the contrary If Abraham be the root then the ingraffing is not into the invisible Church which he strangely calls by Election but onely into the visible This Master Blakwood saw and faine would have maintained that Christ is the root for ingraffing into Christ and not into Abraham makes a member of the Church invisible If the ingraffing be by a saving Faith only to derive saving Graces personally inherent as a fruit of Election from Abraham then it must needs be that we are Elect in Abraham Abraham may say Without me ye can do nothing and he that beleeveth in me out of his belly shall flow forth rivers of living water and we may say The life that we live in the flesh we live by faith in the sonne of Terah This must necessarily follow if Abraham be the root not only respective to a conditional Covenant but to the grace under condition covenanted It had been more safe for our Authour with Master Blackwood though in contradiction to himself to have made Christ the root when these consequences must follow To which he answers If I made Abraham a root as communicating Faith by infusion or impetration mediatory as Christ this would follow But I make Abraham a root as he is called the father of all them that beleeve Rom. 4. 11. Not by begetting Faith in them but as an exemplâ—ry cause of beleeving as I gather from the expression verse 12. That he is a father to them that walk in the steps of our father Abraham which he had yet being uncircumcised A root not by communication but example an ingraffing not to have any thing communicated from the root but to imitate it is such a Catacresis as may well make all Rhetorick ashamed of it and if the Sun ever saw a more notable piece of nonâ—sense I am to seek what sense is A
of the Church of the Jewes so Hereticks are of the Church in Gospel-times 2 Pet. 2. 1. The Apostle tells the Elders of Ephesus Acts 20. 30. Of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things to draw away Disciples after them For Witches though there were a Law in Israel not to suffer a Witch to live Exod. 22. 18. Yet Israel had Witches as is seen in those that Saul put out of the Land and her that in his distresse he sought unto 1 Sam. 28. Paul had never reckoned up witchcraft among those sinnes that shut out of the Kingdome of heaven and certified the Churches of Galatia of it had there been an impossibility that any such should be found of their number that made claime to it This the Reverend Authour doth as much as acknowledge in the words that follow I deny not saith he but that in some sense any such notorious offendor may have the essence and being of a member of the Church as visible to wit in this sense a corrupt and rotten member fit to be cut off A member of the visible Church though formerly an inoffensive professor of the faith may afterwards fall away into any of these notorious scandals and yet for a while still retain the essence and being of a member of the Church as visible Master Rutherford that is there opposed I suppose will affirme no more Respective to the power of godlinesse there is in them no soundnesse nor yet in those that are better than these Some say that one that is such in any known foule sinne to them is no better than a Heathen as bad as a Turke or Pagan and nothing at all better for the name Christian And I say that to me they are as bad as to them and perhaps worse in the eyes of God This priviledge in which they stand thus interessed is an aggravation of their sinne and a farther provocation of God against them When the Lord saw it he abhorred them because of the provoking of his sonnes and of his daughters Deut. 32. 19. yet such is Gods long-suffering and forbearance of them that he is pleased to vouchsafe them farther and more large evidences of his favour Nehem. 9. 30. Hierusalem was corrupted more than Sodom and Samaria in all her wayes Ezek. 16. 47. Sodom and her daughters had not done as Hierusalem and her daughters ver 48. Samaria had not committed halfe her sinnes ver 51. In her abominations she had justified both of them yet Hierusalem enjoyed those priviledges that Samaria and Sodom enjoyed not Hierusalem was in covenant ver 16. when Sodom and Samaria were no covenant-people but worshipped they knew not what John 4. ver 22. Corazin and Bethsaida Cities of Israel were no better in the eye of God than Tyre and Sidon yea their sinnes deserved an heavier weight of judgement Matth. 11. 22. It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sydon at the day of judgement than for you saith our Saviour and so it was with Capernaum compared to Sodom ver 23. yet Chorazin Bethsaida Capernaum enjoyed those priviledges from God that Tyre Sydon and Sodom wanted As the Apostles zeal against the Samaritanes sinnes Luke 9. 54 did out-strip our Saviours when they would have fire from heaven to consume them so our zeale out-goes Gods when we would have such men root and branch parent and child struck out of covenant before God hath sued out any Bill of divorce against them or removed his Candlestick and taken all covenant-priviledges from them For the baptism of children of Apostates there is a greater difficulty Some of reverend worth say They see not how justly a Parents Apostasy should deprive the childe of Baptisme and some Texts of Scripture seem strongly to favour that opinion Ezek. 16. 20 21. Moreover thou hast taken thy sonnes and thy daughters whom thou hast borne unto me and these hast thou sacrificed unto them to be devoured Is this of thy whoredomes a small matter that thou hast slain my children and delivered them to cause them to passe through the fire for them There could not be an higher evidence of Apostacy than to give their children in sacrifice to a false god It was one of the highest acts of obedience that Abraham could testifie to the Lord and yet these yield it to Idol-gods They bring forth children to God and give them to Moloch Psal 106. 35 36 37 38 39. They were mingled among the heathen and learned their works and they served their Idols which were a snare unto them yea they sacrificed their sons and daughters unto devils And shod innocent blood even the blood of their sonnes and of their daughters whom they sacrificed unto the Idols of Canaan and the land was polluted with blood Thus were they defiled with their own works and went a whoring with their own inventions These in this apostatized from God in covenant yet God lookes upon them as a covenant people ver 45. And he remembred for them his covenant c. But this seemes to be but a partial Apostasy taking in the worship of Idols they did not totally cast off the worship of God A line of profession was still it seemes held up God was not wholly cast off in Judah They seem to be of those that swore by the Lord and Malcham Zeph. 1. 5. keeping up the worship of the true God and yet take in the worship of a false god with him As for those in whom Master Firmin instanceth our Englishmen now in Turkey apostatized from the Faith to that Religion concerning whom quaeres are often put it may seem equal that as a man comes into covenant and his posterity with him So totally rejecting the covenant denying God as well in profession as in his works that he and his posterity should be out of covenant Being before an holy root to transmit holinesse to his seed now he becomes unholy and put out of such capacity and is disabled from making over any such priviledge to them But here we need not to trouble our selves with the Baptisme of such having renounced Christ they baptize not their infants in his name A Minister shall have none of these rendered to him and to baptize them into this body when he well knowes they must be never suffered to be of it were an high taking of Gods name in vaine and a mockery of so sacred an Ordinance Now in case a grandfather shall take one of these children and offer it unto Baptisme and being a Progenitor shall undertake the education in the Christian Faith and not in the Turkish abomination whether in this case there be right to Baptisme is the question Now these may be looked upon either as meer Heathens in the same condition as if they never had an Ancestor in the Faith or else as issuing out of the loynes of mediate Ancestors believing and so coming from a root that hath been holy If considered in the former way they may have a title to
if that Member be very scandalous and the Church let him alone and not deale with him that person may challenge any Ordinance in the Church both Baptisme and Lords Supper But I conceive such a person is not sufficiently qualified to make a Member of a Church nor ought to be continued a Member of the Church but the Church ought to seek to reforme him or if not to cast him out so that if the Church will let such a person alone and give him these Ordinances there will be guilt charged upon that Church Here is his acknowledgement that they are continued Church-Members though they should not be continued and see what he hath further It is true the wicked Jewes being members of that National Church so long as their Membership held they might challenge circumcision so for wicked persons so long as they continue members and the Church lets them alone they may challenge Baptism and so upon his own grounds they may of right challenge it and Ministers then must needes do wrong in case they deny it and so in all mens judgements the question is concluded in the Affirmative yea should the Church passe to the highest of her censures through all that is allowed to the highest top yet still the person under censure continues in a fundamental right of Membership though debarred of present fruition and so their infants entituled as we have seen to Baptisme His Arguments are worthy of examination in which he concludes such a one is not fit to be a Member First Members of Churches according to the Gospel are Saints visible But such a person as the question mentions is not a visible Saint Ergo. The Minor he proves Such as will say that such a person as the Question mentions is a visible Saint I thinke his eyes are not good He that tells me the Saints which Paul mentions in those places were no other than such a person as is in the Question he must pardon me though I beleeve him not Answ Visible Saint is taken either in regard of Separation for and dedication to God or for real qualifications according to the power of godlinesse in the first sense such are real Saints that he mentions and rejects in which sense we have shewn Saint to be frequently taken and such were most of the Members of the Church of Sardis there being few that had not defiled their garments and many such in the Church of Corinth In the second sense and I know not a third his eyes are better than mine that can determine concerning them Inward graces onely make a real Saint and these to me are invisible if he meanes so far as mens judgements can upon any fair ground conclude that they are such then the Apostles will be involved in our guilt who hand over head admitted members the same day they were converted being in foul sins and never staying time to make judgement of the hopeful truth of their graces Paul calls all those that he persecuted Saints Acts 26. 10. So doth Ananias Acts 9. 13. all those for whom after conversion he ordered and made Collections 1 Cor. 16. 1. And these were some of them as bad as any that in his Epistles he reproves Secondly If a bare profession in Christ be sufficient to make a member of a Church then no person can justly be excommunicated out of a Church for the vilest sins or heresies provided he doth but hold this profession of his faith the consequence is cleare the person is the same which he was when you took him into the Church The consequence is clearely erroneous for he made a profession of his faith and not of sin as we see in Simon Magus Thirdly He that manifestly opposeth Christ in his visible Kingdome is not fit to be a member of a Church But such a person as the question mentions doth manifestly oppose Christ in his visible kingdome Ergo Not fit to passe without censure should have been added but whiles he acts rebellion he professeth subjection and in the Apostles language is a professor Tit. 1. 2. Having thus made way he propounds several Arguments that Ministers by the Gospel are not to baptize the children of such Parents We come now to our Authours arguments First Such persons as de jure ought and de facto are excluded by godly Ministers from the Lords Supper ought also to be excluded from their childrens Baptisme But such persons as the Question mentions de jure ought and de facto are excluded from the Lords Supper Ergo. The Major is proved If Baptisme doth seale to the same covenant which the Lords Supper doth and doth signifie and seale as great blessings and priviledges as the Lords Supper doth then those who are excluded from the Lords Supper ought also to be excluded from theâ—r childrens Baptisme But the Antecedent is true Ergo. The Consequent This is Master Blackwoods argument to keep infants from Baptisme because they are kept from the Supper And if it be of any validity to serve our Authors turn it is of as great force for Master Blackwood Give me leave in Master Blackwoods behalfe to urge it in this manner with the least change of words that is possible If Baptisme doth seal to the same covenant which the Lords Supper doth and doth signifie and seale as great blessings and priviledges as the Lords Supper doth then those that are excluded from the Lords Supper ought also to be excluded from Baptisme But all infants are excluded from the Lords Supper eo nomine because they are infants and therefore they are to be excluded from Baptisme When Master Firmin hath given a faire and full answer to this Syllogisme he may easily fit it to his own to give like satisfaction An infant in covenant may be admitted by that signe and scale in the use of which he is meerely passive and yet be kept back on the account of his infancy from that sign and seale which the Participants must actually improve for their spiritual benefit and consequently a Parent may put a present bar to his actual admission by reason of present guilt to the one when his innocent infant can put no barre to his admission to the other The Parent stands de jure entituled when for the present he may be for his spiritual benefit de facto suspended Another reverend Authour hath made use of this argument from the uniformity of the service of God in general and in particular from the uniformity in the Sacraments to another purpose not to exclude any infants at all who descend from Christian Parents from Baptisme but for admission of
into 2. Grounds Examined Enervated II. Putting too great a restraint on the New Covenant 1. Limitting it alone to the Regenerate 1. To which something is spoke 1. By way of concession that sundry Divines seeme to speak to that purpose 2. By way of Avoidance from their owne words 2. Contrary asserted 1. In Old Testament-times 1. By confession of the advesarie 2. By Scripture-testimony 36 2. In New Testament times 1. by New Testament Scriptures Mat. 28. 19 Mat. 22. 24 Heb. 10. 29 1 Pet. 2. 9 37 2. By Arguments of sundry sorts ch 38 3. Objections answered ch 39 4. Corollaries drawn 1. Professed Beleevers are under a Covenant of Grace and not a Covenant of Works chap. 40 2. Interest in a Church-state is of equall atiude with the Covenāt c. 41 3. Such Covenant-interest is sufficient to give accesse to and interest in particular visible Churches chap. 42 4. Dogmatical Faith entitles to Baptisme chap. 43 5. Impenitence and unbelief in professed Christians is a breach of Covenant chap. 44 Five Positions concerning particular Churches 1. Where nothing is wanting to the being of a Church yet much may be wanting for the wel-ordering 2. A people in a vicinity ought to associate themselves 3. Professing Christians upon tender ought to be received 4. Reformation of abuses is the work of Christians rather than separation 7. Rules concerning separation 5. Together Churches out of Churches unwarrantable 2. Terminating it onely in the person actually entring excluding the issue in which 1. Question stated as to Abrahams natural issue Chap. 45 2. Arguments concluding the natural issue of Abraham to be in Covenant Chap. 46 3. New-Testament Testimonies evincing it Ibid. 4. Objections from Rom. 9. 6 7 8. answered Chap. 47 5. The extent of it to the issue of Beleevers in New-Testament times 1. Asserted Chap 48 2 Proved 1. By Scripture testimonies Rom. 11. 16. Chap. 49. 50 1 Cor. 7. 14. Chap. 51 Galat. 4. 29 Chap. 52. Matth. 19. 14. Marke 10 14 Luke 18. 16. Chap. 53 2. By several arguments Chap. 54. 6. Corollary for Infant-Eaptisme Chap. 55 1. By Arguments asserted objections answered 2. The reality of connexion between the Covenant and the Seal vindicated Chap 56 3. Sin of Sacriledge upon the repulse charged Ch. 57 4. The title of all infants of professing parents asserted Chap. 58 7. Practical uses concerning parent and issue inserred Ch 60 1. All possible engagements to holinesse of life Ibid. 2. Parents must see that their childrens breeding answer their birth 3. There is great danger in opposing Gods Covenant-people 4. Consolation from this Birth-priviledge 1. In reference to Nations 2. In reference to single persons 1. Themselves 2. Their posterity The Analytical Table being chiefly intended for and suited to learned capacities the vulgar Reader may here see the whole of the following Treatise as it is digested into Chapters and these easily found by the pages opposite to them Chap. 1. AN Introduction into the whole page 1 Chap. 2. The Covenant of God entred with mankinde distinguished page 8 Chap. 3. A Covenant between God and fallen man in the proper nature of it asserted page 10 Chap. 4. The Covenant of grace is between God and man and not between God and Christ page 13 Chap. 5. The Outward and not the Inward Covenant is a Covenant properly so called page 19 Chap. 6. Six positions tending to clear the thing in question page 24 Chap. 7. The Covenant of Grace calls for conditions from man page 33 Chap. 8. A grand Objection against this Doctrine answered page 36 Chap. 9. Further Objectious against the former Doctrine answered page 48 Chap. 10. God in the dayes of the Gospel keeps up the power and authority of his Law The obligation of it is still inforce to bind the consciences of Beleevers page 53 Chap. 11. The Moral Law is a perfect rule of righteousnesse page 62 Chap. 12. The Moral Law bindes as it was delivered by the hand of Moses page 73 Chap. 13. God entring a Covenant of Grace with his people keeps up his Soveraignty in exercise of Discipline in the correction and chastisement of his people for sinne page 77 Chap. 14. 〈…〉 between the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace page 86 Chap. 15. Differences between the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace page 87 Chap. 16. A further difference between the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace page 91 Chap. 17. Works incumbent upon the Mediatour of the Covenant of Grace page 93 Chap. 18. Further differences between the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace page 99 Chap. 19. Objections against the former Doctrine answered page 113 Chap. 20. Further differences in the conditions in the Covenant of Works and the conditions in the Covenant of Grace page 115 Chap. 21. Faith is a condition of the Covenant of Grace page 118 Chap. 22. Objections against the conditionality of Faith answered page 130 Chap. 23. Repentance is a condition of the Covenant of Grace page 136 Chap. 24. Objections against the conditionality of repentance answered page 144 Chap. 25. What degree of obedience the Covenant of Grace calls for from Christians page 148 Chap. 26. The necessity of a Ministry to bring men into Covenant with God and to bring them up to the termes of it page 160 Chap. 27. Schooles and Nurseries of learning in order to a gifted Ministry necessary page 173 Chap. 28. An orderly way of admission of men into the Ministerial function necessary page 180 Chap. 29. Ministers of Christ must bring their people up to the termes of the Covenant pressing the necessity of faith and repentance page 188 Chap. 30. A people in Covenant must come up to the termes of the Covenant being engaged to God they must answer their engagements page 190 Chap. 31. The distribution of the Covenant of Grace into the Old and New Covenant with the harmony and agreement that is found between them page 202 Chap. 32. Differences assigned between the Old and New Covenant page 205 Chap. 33. Positions tending to clear the first Covenant under Old Testament-dispensations page 210 Chap. 34. The Old Covenant was not made up of meer carnal promises but contained New Govenant-promises that were spiritual and saving page 219 Chap. 35. The Old Covenant was a pure Gospel Covenant and not mixt page 224 Chap. 36. The Covenant of Grace admits Christians in Gospel-times in a state of unregeneration and is not limited in the bounds of it to the elect regenerate page 231 Chap. 37. New Testament-Scriptures asserting the latitude of the Covenant of Grace in Gospel times page 235 Chap. 38. Arguments evincing the Covenant of Grace in Gospel-times in that latitude as before is asserted page 248 Chap. 39. Objections against this latitude of the Covenant answered page 257 Chap. 40. Professed beleevers are under a Covenant of Grace and not a Covenant of Works page 262 Chap. 41. Interest in a Church-state is of equal latitude
with the Covenant page 267 Chap. 42. A man in Covenant with God and recieved into the universal Church visible needs no more to give him accesse to and interest in particular visible Churches page 270 Chap. 43. A dogmatical faith entitles to Baptisme page 289 Chap. 44. Impenitence and unbelief in professed Christians is a breach of Covenant page 294 Chap. 45. The question stated concerning the birth-priviledge of the issue of beleevers page 295 Chap. 46. Arguments concluding the natural issue of Abraham Isaac and Jacob to be taken into Covenant page 301 Chap. 47. Rom. Chap. 9. Verse 6 7 8 vindicated page 309 Chap. 48. The Covenant in New Testament times takes in parents with their children page 316 Chap. 49. Rom. 11. 16. vindicated page 323 Chap. 50. Arguments from a late hand for ingraffing into the Church invisible and breaking off from it answered page 330 Chap. 51. 1 Corinth 7. 14. vindicated page 349 Chap. 52. Galat. 4. 29. vindicated page 366 Chap. 53. Mat. 19. 14 Mark 10. 14. Luke 18. 16. vindicated page 393 Chap. 54. Reasons evincing the birth-priviledge and covenant-holinesse of Believers and their issue page 401 Chap. 55. A Corollary for Infant-Baptisme Infant-baptisme by arguments asserted page 410 Chap. 56. The reality of connexion between the Cavenant and initial seal asserted page 422 Chap. 57. The with-holding Infants of Christian parents from baptisme is the sin of Sacriledge page 437 Chap. 58. The children of all that are Christians in profession are by vertue of Covenant-interest to be recieved into the Church by baptisme page 448 Chap. 59. A defence of the former Doctrine respective to the latitude of Infant-Baptisme 468 page 458 Chap. 60. The application of the whole in several inferences page 478 A TREATISE OF THE Covenant OF WORKS AND OF THE Covenant OF GRACE CHAP. I. An Introduction into the whole I Shall not make it my businesse for an Introduction into this Work to enquire after the derivation of the word Etymologies are known to be no definitions The denomination being usually given from some adjuncts variable according to times places and not from any thing that is of the essence of that which is enquired after in which those are highest in Criticismes in giving their judgements of them can yet ordinarily go no higher then conjecture The common acception of the word in Scripture is that which will give the greatest light in finding out the nature of Scripture covenants which as most other words is variously used Sometimes is used Properly implying a covenant in deed and truth strictly so called and containing all the requisites of a Covenant in it Sometimes Tropically for that which contains some parts and adjuncts of a covenant and so carries some resemblance to and stands in some affinity with it This Tropical figurative and the native proper sense must be carefully distinguished and may by no meanes be confounded by those that will understand the true nature of a covenant and avoid those manifold mistakes into which some upon this a lone account have been carried The figurative acceptions of the word are diverse sometimes the homage required or duty covenanted for is called a covenant by way of Synechdoche seeing a covenant between a Superiour and Inferiour doth comprize it so Jerem. 34. 13. I made a Covenant with your fathers in the day that I brought them out of the Land of Egypt which Covenant is no other then the Law that he gave them Exod. 21. 2. Sometimes the promise annext is called by the name of a covenant by a like Synechdoche Gen. 17. 7. I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant to be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee Gen. 9. 11. Sometimes the Seal is called by the name of a Covenant by way of Metonymy of the adjunct serving to ratifie and confirme a covenant Gen. 17. 10. This is my covenant which ye shall keep between me and you and thy seed after thee every man-childe among you shall be circumcised Sometimes Christ the Mediatour of the covenant is called by a like figure the covenant Isa 42. 6 7. I will give thee for a covenant of the people and light unto the Gentiles Sometimes the Lord Christs undertaking to work the graces covenanted for in the hearts of his people in the way of his power exerted in the conversion of sinners is called by the name of a covenant Jerem. 31. 33. This is the covenant that I will make with the whole house of Israel after those dayes saith the Lord I will put my law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts of which more in its own place Sometimes a covenant is taken for that peace which usually followes upon covenants Job 5. 23. Thou shalt be in league with the stones of the field and the beasts of the field shall be at peace with thee Hos 2. 18. In that day I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field and with the fowles of heaven and with the creeping things of the ground and I will break the bowe and the sword and the battel out of the earth and will make them to lie down safely When yet neither a Law nor a Promise nor Seal annext nor yet the Mediatour or any undertaking of his can be a covenant properly so called A Law from God with a Promise annext assented to by man is a covenant and when a Seal is added there is a condescension to our weaknesse for the more abundant ratification and confirmation of Gods stability in his Promises In our enquiry after such covenants which God in his gracious condescension is pleased to enter with man the general nature of a covenant must be held every species must partake of its Genus We must not make Gods covenant with man so farre to differ from covenants between man and man as to make it no covenant at all we must also observe that which differences it from covenants meerly humane that covenants divine and humane be not confounded together In order to which we must know that in every covenant properly so called these requisites must concur First it must not be of one alone but at least of two parties one can make no bargain or agreement Secondly there must be a mutual consent of these parties When Nahash the Ammonite offered to make a Covenant with Israel on condition that he might thrust out all their right eyes 1 Sam. 11. 2. the Israelites refusing and running the hazard of a fight rather then undergo it here was no covenant Thirdly each party must engage themselves one to another for performance of somewhat covenanted for whether debt duty or promise When Abraham agreed with the Hittites for a burial place for foure hundred Shekels Gen. 23. 15 16. There was a covenant properly so called having apparently in it all requisites of a covenant So also in
cast him nor doth it make him worse than sin hath made him Answ and the Word of God doth discover him and that is dead till grace quicken and raise him His heart is of stone till grace take it from him and in enmity against God till grace circumcise and work that change to love the Lord with all the heart c. Secondly This is not an absolute death in which man is through sin and therefore the similitude holds not that equals a stock stone or dead carcasse with him It is only a death respective as to spiritual obedience he is dead There is in him a life natural able for all actions and motions of the life of man as man There is in him also a moral life able to improve naturals to a civilized conversation That to which feare or hope can work a man thither he may raise himself by the freedome of will this puts no new life into him nor works any chang of nature in him He is also able for those works which God sanctifies as his instrument for the work of a spiritual life He 〈◊〉 read and hear the Word hath power to know much in it and retain it Thirdly he is a subject susceptible slands in a capacity of a life of grace of spiritual actions and motions having an understanding will affections wanting not any faculties in their substance The new man attaines not a new soul but only renewed qualifications which yet are of more glory than the faculties themselves carrying such a glorious resemblance of God Better know nothing than not know God to desire nothing than not to desire good The want of this turned Angels into Devils and so man stands in a vast difference from stocks stones and those to whom he is thus injuriously compared This doctrine is not injurious to man as it is traduced Object 3 Thirdly some say This will render preaching vaine all mans-paines for Conversion of soules will then prove uselesse and to no purpose we may let men alone till God work and when he hath begun his work they will set on working This indeed speaks hard to a sort of men in our times that deny any previous working in the soul for regeneration or any preparatory work to conversion So that all uncoverted stand equally distant from the grace of it in so much that it can be said of no one rather than another which Christ said to the Scribe Thou art not far from the Kingdome of God Mar. 12. 34. I see not how these can make the preaching of the word of any use Our Brethren that went into America and offer the Gospel to savage Indians there may as well finde Christ there as bring him thither The dark places of the earth may be equally happy with those where light is in most glory if light contribute nothing to the work of change and the happy frame of Christ in us But those that have learnt that infused habits are wrought in the soul in the same manner as those that are acquired may easily return a satisfying answer That opinion that the soul is by an immediate creation infused how generally soever it is received yet never was thought of force to render the way of marriage uselesse for procreation God infuses not a soul by creation into any but an organized body an Embryo fitted to receive it Neither can this opinion of the power of grace in the work of Conversion render in vain the labours of those that are spiritual Parents Conviction is in order before Conversion and men must see themselves necessitated to do what they do before ever they enter upon it The soule knoweth what it doth when it first beleeves and sees a necessity to accept Christ before it receives him which is the work of the Word in the soules of those that are brought to Christ Jesus It is not in vaine for God to send his Ministers to shew the mysteries of the Kingdome of heaven to those that are blinde when this is the way of God to open their eyes and give them sight It is not in vain that he sends them to those that are without strength when this is his way to enable them with power It is not in vain that Paul plants and Apollos waters when yet it is God that gives the increase when God will use Paul and Apollos for the increase that he gives Ministers should perswade and people improve endeavours as though they were Pelagians and no help of grace afforded They should pray and beleeve and rest on grace as though they were Antinomians nothing of endeavour to be looked after So the injury that the Pelagian doth to grace and the Antinomian to our endeavours will be on both hands avoided CHAP. XX. Farther differences in the conditions in the Covenant of Works and the conditions in the Covenant of Grace 2ly THe conditions on mans part in the Covenant of Works kept man within him self for righteousnesse That righteousnesse in which he was to stand in Gods sight was inherent wrought by himself co-natural to him flowing from the principles of his creation in conformity to God And therefore properly his own as now a mans reason will and affections are properly his He needed no other nor no more righteousnesse than that in which he stood Though he had that faith which now serves to justifie yet it needed not nor could be improved to take in any other righteousnesse without himself for justification Man stood then on his own bottome His dependance was on God for being but that being which God pleased to communicate was in that integrity and purity that he needed not any farther But the conditions of the Covenant of Grace carry man out of himself He must be righteous with a righteousness extrinsecal or else he will never be able to stand in judgment Paul was as high as he that was highest in that righteousnesse which he could lay claime to as his own wrought by himself as well before conversion as after Before conversion he was as high as a Pharisee or a Jew according to the letter could reach either in priviledges or duties as we may see in that gradation of his Phil. 3. Circumcised and therefore of the body of the people of God and no alien from the Common-wealth of Israel Circumcised the eighth day and therefore born of Parents in the same Church-communion Of the stock of Israel and so the seed of Abraham and not descended of ancestors that had been Proselytes Of the Tribe of Benjamin of that part of Israel that held the truth of worship of whom was salvation and not of the Apostated tribes An Hebrew of the Hebrews and therefore had not forgotten the language of Canaan As touching the Law a Pharisee a man of no vulgar account but of the most exquisite Sect Concerning zeal persecuting the Church therefore not luke-warme or cold in the faith As touching the righteousnesse that is of the
work a work of God towards man not without the actual concurrence of man such in which neither God nor man are sole efficients nor any act of God or man can be sole instruments but there must be a mutual concurrence of both This must needs be granted unlesse we will bring in Doctor Crispes passive recipiency of Christ Christs abode in man without man in spight of man and suppose him to be justified in unbelief And hereupon faith is disabled from this office in justification by this argument If Faith be an instrument it is the instrument of God or man 1. Not of man for man is not the principal efficient he doth not justifie himself 2. Not of God For 1 It is not God that beleeveth though it is true God is the first cause of all actions 2. Man is the causa secunda between God and the action and so still man should be said to justifie himself 3. For as Aquinas the action of the principal cause and of the instrument is one action and who dare say that faith is so Gods instrument 4. The instrument must have an influx to the producing of the effect of the principal cause by a proper causality who dare say that faith hath such an influx into our justification I answer It is the instrument of man and though man do not justifie himself yet he concurres as a willing ready agent with God in it God is a justifier of those that beleeve in Jesus Rom. 3. 26. God hath set Christ forth a propitiation through faith Rom. 3. 25. It is one God which shall justifie the circumcision by faith and the uncircumcision through faith Rom. 3. 30. And because it is the instrument of man in a work of this nature it is also an instrument of God As some have observed a communication of Titles between Christ and his Church the Church being called by his Name so there is a communication of actions in these relative works Christ dwells in our hearts by faith Eph. 3. 17. We believe and not Christ and yet faith there is Christs instrument whereby he takes up his abode God purifies the hearts of the Gentiles by faith Acts 15. 17. They beleeved and not God yet faith is Gods instrument in the work of their purification so on the other side the Spirit is Gods work yet we by the Spirit do mortifie the deeds of the flesh Rom. 8. 13. Man neither justifies nor sanctifies himself yet by faith he is raised to close with God in both and so Faith as an instrument receives righteousness to justification and therefore is called the righteousness of faith which is our justification and works sanctification provided you understand not the first work which is properly regeneration and precedent to faith but the farther progresse and increase of it The Spirit working faith faith takes in a larger measure of the Spirit John 7. 37. He that beleeveth on me as the Scripture saith out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water but this he spake of the Spirit which they that beleeve on him should receive The Spirit will do nothing without our faith and our faith can do nothing without the Spirit Man cannot justifie himselfe by beleeving without God and God will not justifie an unbeleeving man Faith then is the act of man man beleeves yet the instrument of God that justifies onely beleevers so that what is here spoken by way of exception against faith as an instrument holds of efficients and instruments sole and absolute in their work and causality But where there is a concurrence of agents and one makes use of the act of another to produce the effect that in such causality is wrought it will not hold The promise or grant of the new Covenant in the Gospel is insted of faith made the instrument in the work of justification This is indeed Gods and not mans It is the covenant of God the Promise of God the Gospel of God but of it self unable to raise man up to justification It is often tendred and justification not always wrought so disabled from the office of an instrument by Keâ—ker in his Com upon his first Canon concerning an instrument Assoon as the instrument servs not the principal agent so soon it loses the nature of an instrument He instanceth in an horse that obeys not the reins of his rider but grows refractory then he ceaseth to be an instrument for travel A sword is not an instrument of slaughter where it slays not nor an axe an instrument to hew where it cuts not neither is the Gospel an instrument of justification where it justifies not without our faith it never justifies Where the Minister is a Minister of condemnation the savour of death to death there the Gospel becomes an instrument of condemnation and of death The efficacy that is in the Gospel for justification it receives by their faith to whom it is tendred Heb. 4. 2. Vnto us was the Gospel preached as well as unto them but the Word preached did not profit them not being mixed with faith in them that heard it 1 Thes 2. 2 13. You received not the Word of God which you heard of us as the word of men but as it is in truth the Word of God which effectually worketh also in you that beleeve So that the Gospel in it self considered is wanting in that honour assigned to an instrument to have influx to the producing of the effect of the principal cause by a proper causality If none dare say faith hath such an influx they may much lesse say that the Word hath such an influx The Gospel is an outward instrument saith Ravanellus Faith an inward They both making up one instrument full and compleat yet Faith is more aptly and fitly called an instrument Seeing that faith gives efficacy as an instrument to the Word the Word may be without Faith and so no instrument at all but Faith always presupposeth the Word of Promise is not without its object Therefore to wind up this whole dispute in which I have studied to be brief though I fear some will think I have been too tedious Seeing that those that make Faith the instrument in justification make the Gospel an instrument likewise and dare not go about to strip it of its honour I hope that they that make the Gospel an instrument will acknowledge Faith to be an instrument in like manner being in their efficacy as instruments so inseparably joyned and so all the controversie may be fairely ended and concluded CHAP. XXII Objections against the conditionality of Faith answered AGAINST this which hath been said it is objected by one that Vnbelief is not a barre hindring one Objections from having part in Christ God bestowes Christ without any regard to our belief or unbelief Which words how high soever against the Gospel yet he undertakes to salve with a distinction There is a twofold receiving of Christ saith
conclude our Assurance of happinesse but the determination of that being thus put is easie No man in true grace shall go to hell or misse of heaven God doth not adorne man with that glory to reject him The Apostle exhorts to love not in word nor in tongue but in deed and in truth and for a motive adds Hereby we know that we are of the truth and shall assure our hearts before him 1 Joh. 3. 18 19. But the minimum quod sic when it is that grace may be accounted true is not so easie to determine It is not every faintish desire that is the work on which all this glory rests It must be a work of farther power and efficacy on the soul for satisfaction of which I shall referre the Reader to the learned labours of my much honoured neighbour Master Anthony Burgesse in his spiritual refining CHAP. XXXI The distribution of the Covenant of Grace into the Old and New Covenant with the harmony and agreement that is found between them BY Gods assistance we have been thus farre carried on in the work in hand to finde out the nature of a covenant and Gods way of entring covenant with man And for the more clear discovery of both we have held forth the agreement which is found between the covenant of Works which God entred with man in his state of integrity and the covenant of Grace entred of God with man in his fallen condition as also their respective differences So that all that is essential in this covenant and necessarily required to the attainment of the priviledges and mercies promised in it hath been made known and a compleat definition given with such corolaries and inferences that have been judged necessary Now this covenant thus entred with man in his lapsed estate and hitherto cleared admits of distinction and is distinguished in Scripture by the names of the Old and New Covenant Heb. 8. 13. The first and second covenant Heb. 8. 7. The first some call and not unfitly a covenant of Promise under that covenant Christ was known in promises only and not manifested in the flesh Others call it a subservient covenant being to lead in the second in its full lustre and glory which alone they call a covenant of Grace and make it a third covenant But I shall content my self with the Scripture-termes calling the first Old not because it was first in being but because it is to be abolished and another to succeed the later New because it is never to be antiquated as the Apostle Heb. 8. 13. explains himself Now it must needs contribute much to the clear understanding of the covenant as well of the termes of it as the mercies in it and be a great advantage for the better understanding of sundry both Old and New Testament-Scripture in case the agreement between this Old and New covenant together with their true differences be rightly assigned and those imaginary differences assigned by some erroneous on either hand to the great prejudice of either of the covenants be throughly examined A work of difficulty but were it well followed of singular profit On this by the help of Gods grace I shall adventure and in the first place lay down their agreement afterwards their respective true and real differences and then proceed to examination of such differences which some have assigned which I reserve to the last place seeing in the two first I shall be brief The last will be found a businesse full of tedious difficulty and trouble In several things there is a full agreement between these covenants 1. In the Authour propounding God is the Authour of them both God is the God not of the Jews only who were in the first covenant but of the Gentiles also taken through grace into the second covenant Rom. 3. 29. 2. In the party accepting as specifically considered they are both entred with man Neither Angels nor any other creature articles or is articled with in it and hitherto there is an agreement of both with the covenant of works 3. In the motive or impulsive cause Both of these are of singular grace entred with fallen man in his lost condition there was no hint of this grace before the fall nor any need or use of it being not for mans preservation but his restitution 4. In the Mediatour Christ Jesus who was one and the same in both For though Moses have the name of Mediatour Gal. 3 19. Receiving the lively oracles and giving them to the people Acts 17. 38. as the Judges in Israel had the name of Saviours Nehem. 9. 27. and thereupon Camero makes this difference between the Old and the New covenant That Moses was Mediatour in one Christ in the other Thes 68. yet he confesses that that mediation by the benefit whereof men are truly and effectually united to God belongs only unto Christ De trip foedere Thes Moses work was only to deliver the way of the worship of God in those times and that not in his own name but as a servant Heb. 3. 5. He that Moses did serve of whom he wrote Joh. 5. 46. that Prophet like unto Moses whom God promised to raise Deut. 18. 15. in all ages was Mediatour 5. They agree in the conditions annext Both these covenants have one and the same conditions on Gods part Remission of sins and everlasting happinesse as after shall be shewed more fully They are the same on mans part Faith and Repentance The just then did live by faith Heb. 2. 4. And without faith it was then impossible to please God Heb. 11. 6. Acts 10. 43. To him give all the Prophets witnesse that through his name whosoever beleeveth in him shall receive remission of sins God then called for returne to himself and sincerity in our returnes accepting those that were sincere Ezek. 18. 31. The eyes of the Lord run to and fro through the whole earth to shew himself strong in the behalf of those whose hearts are perfect before him 2 Chron 26. 9. 6. They agree in the unity of Church-felloship constituting one and the same Church of Christ The Church in those dayes in which the Fathers lived is one and the same Church with this in Gospel-times In Gospel-times men come from the East and West and sit down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdome of heaven Matth. 8. 11. One and the same Kingdome receives both Their Faith was terminated upon Christ as well as ours Abraham saw his day and rejoyced John 8. 56. Moses bore his reproach and esteemed it greater then the treasures in Egypt Heb. 11. 26. They did eat the same spiritual meat and did drink the same spiritual drink they drank of the Rock that followed them and the Rock was Christ 1 Cor. 10. 3. The same not among themselves but the same with us They are saved by the same free grace and mercy as we Jews by nature are justified by the same faith in Jesus as
they so much glean yet far enough to sit down with Anabaptists to cast Infants as they hope out of the covenant and Church-membership and so exclude them from Baptisme Here I shall undertake to make good these foure particulars 1. That this expression of theirs is very untoward and such that will bear no fair sense without the utter overthrow even of that difference between the Covenants which they would build on this distinction 2. That the proof that they bring of this mixture of the first covenant is very weak and not at all cogent 3. That they are not constant to themselves but give and take and know not what to determine 4. In case all were granted yet they know not how to bring any thing home of all that they say to serve their own interests Their expressions I say are untoward in denying purity of Gospel in the first Covenant and affirming a mixture That which is not pure but mixt is a compound of pure and impure such that hath some ingredients such as they ought and others such that make all adulterate As silver mingled with dresse or wine with water Isa 1. 22. The false teachers Saint Pauls adversaries preach such a mixt Gospel when they urged with such vehemency a mixture of works which caused the Apostle to stand in such feare of the Corinthians lest they should be drawn away from the simplicity that is in Christ 2 Cor. 11. 2. They do not beleeve that the Gospel which Paul tells us was preached to Abraham Gal. 3. 8. was any such impure Gospel this sure is not their meaning they dare not say that Abraham was under any such delusion What then can be the meaning but that he had promises not only of blisse and in reference to eternal salvation but also promises of earthly concernment as that of the land of Canaan and his plantation there The Covenant takes its denomination from the Promises saith one of them but the Promises are mixt some Evangelical belonging to those to whom the Gospel belongeth some are domestick or civil Promises specially respecting the house of Abraham and the policie of Israel To this I readily agree and then the distinction falls to nothing Seeing in Gospel times in New Testament-dayes this will denominate a not pure but mixt Gospel as well as in those times we our selves are under such a Gospel as well as the Jewes I know not how we could pray in faith Give us this day our daily bread in case we were without a promise of these things or how man could live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God in case we had no word from God The Apostle tells us Godlinesse hath the promise of this life and that which is to come 1 Tim. 4. 8. It would trouble many a perplexed man in case he could not make good that those words Verily thou shalt be fed Psal 37. 3. did not at all belong to him There is no believing man in any relation but he hath Gospel-Promises in concernment to that relation as appears in that speech of Pauls encouragement of servants Epes 6. 8. Knowing whatsoever for good thing any man doth the same shall he receive of the Lord whether he be bond or free It It were ill with all sorts had not they their domestick relation-promises which these speak of as making a mixture 2. As their expressions are untoward so taking them at the best their proof is weak That the Covenant takes its denomination from the Promises but the Promises are mixt say these men The most eminent Promises which contain the marrow of all give the denomination and not such that are annext as Appendants to them The Promise of the land of Canaan is an appendant to the great covenant made of God with Abraham as Chamier with good warrant from the text Gen. 17. 7 8. calls it lib. de baptis cap. sec The Covenant being made of God to be the God of Abraham and his seed which might have been made good wheresoever they had inhabited or sojourned the promise of Canaan is over and above added to it The reason given in by one for his dislike of Chamiers expression calling it an Appendix to the covenant is little to purpose Psal 105. 10 11. The gift of the land of Canaan is called a Covenant saith he and therefore is not an appendant to it By the same reason Circumcision must be the Covenant and not a Seal appendant to it seeing Circumcision is called a Covenant Gen. 17. 10. they are not ignorant of these Scripture-metonymies 3. As the proof is weak to make the Covenant not a pure Gospel-covenant but mixt so they are not constant to themselves pointing that out which makes pure Gospel Gen. 17. 5. Gen. 15. 5. Gen. 12. 3. Gen. 18. 18. illustrated by some New Testament-Scriptures Rom. 4. 17 18. Gal. 3. 8 9 16. Acts 3. 25. one observes it is to be noted that those Promises which were Evangelical according to the more inward sense of the Holy Ghost do point at the priviledges of Abrahams house in the outward face of the words and thereupon raises a doubt whether any covenant made with Abraham be simply Evangelical And so he findes out Evangelical-Promises in the inwards of that covenant which is non-Evangelical in the outward face So Bellarmine with whom he so much to speak in his own language symbolizeth finds out spiritual Evangelical Promises in that which he concludes to be of another nature denying that the Promise made to Abraham in the letter was any Promise of forgivenesse of sins but of special protection and government and earthly happinesse yet confesseth that in a mystical sense they were spiritual Promises both of pardon of sin and life eternal and that they belong to us Bellar. de Sacr. Bapt. lib. 1. cap. 4. whereupon Chamier observes That which is promised mystically God in covenant doth promise but heaven is here promised mystically therefore in this covenant here is a Promise of heaven so the inward and outward face will be all Evangelical Lastly they yet know not how to bring any thing home were all granted to serve their interest they seem to contend that the Evangelical Promises are vested in the persons of true Belevers The other which are civil or domestick serving to make up the mixture were priviledges descendable and traducible to posterity and upon this account circumcision of the natural seed of Abraham came in for confirmation and seale of that which alone was civil domestical and non-Evangelical and being not considered as a leading Sacrament of the whole Church as Baptisme is now but only of the Jewish Church as such proper to Abraham and his posterity and much differing from Baptisme it is no argument that we in Gospel-times transmit any such priviledge to posterity or that our seed before actual faith have any title to the covenant This seems to be their meaning to which we have
in publick Ordinances of Christ when Church-Officers receive in for members of the Church those that are most scandalous and wicked and not such Saints as Paul writeth to at Rome Corinth Ephesus Colosse and defending them against Mr. Rutherford he saith But if private members be perswaded in conscience from the word of God that themselves have due right and interest as well in the admission of members as in excommunication of offenders or in election of officers how shall they keep themselves from partaking in the sinnes of their Officers if they suffer them to go on in such a manifest breach of rule without due proceeding against them for their reformation and after some caution given he concludes It is essential to Community to have power to admit unto communion and to withdraw from communion To which I say 1. We have not a full account of the Saints in those Churches respective to scandals it seems by divers passages that many in Colosse were none of the soundest in faith as appears by the Apostles reproof chap. 2 20. I am sure that if any Church have such as were to be found in Corinth for ignorance Idolatry faction oppression adultery lasciviousness prophanation of the Lords Table they will be judged sufficiently scandalous 2. If such a perswasion in conscience would warrant a separation it would be worth enquiry to know what separation is not warrantable The error that Mr. Brightman brands as wicked and blasphemous is here abundantly justified Church-guides at least in some places were then so far at least guilty in their admissions 3. What warranty is there for any mans withdrawing himself from publick Communion in the Ordinances of Jesus Christ when he may with freedome enjoy that glorious priviledge upon that account that he cannot enjoy the whole of those priviledges or actual exercise of them in which he takes himself to have any interest Sure I am Ministers of Christ in many reformed Churches in the world have judged themselves to be overmuch coopt up in several particulars when yet they judged the very thought of separation in this case to be the greatest pâ—aculum 4 This right or interest in every particular member to vote in this way for admission or ejection may well be questioned If there had been this freedome in primitive times claimed and exercise there had not been so much in so short a space dispatched as was done in Jerusalem and Samaria Acts 2. Acts 8. If all must vote in businesse of so high concernment as in proceeding against officers and to give definitive sentence concerning their proceedings either many a meet member will be kept without or else many an incompetent judge must be taken in many a poor soul weak in the faith is fit for the Lords Table who is not yet fit to judge of the abilities of his Pastour All that I know that is produced with any colour is that direction of Paul to the Church of Corinth 1 Cor. 5. 4 5. When ye are gathered together with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ to deliver such a one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh that the Spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus But if it be considered that Corinth had more then one Congregation as several Dissenting brethren have yeelded and as to other Churches may easily be proved then it must follow that this meeting was only of officers and not of all Members And how this power is essential to a community I cannot conceive The English Nation have judged themselves a community and yet there is many a free-borne Subject that never had a thought of interessing himself by way of vote to naturalize strangers or to make them free Denizons nor yet to expulse them in case of intrusion The â—orporations of England are communities yet every Member hath not his interest for vote to receive into their body When the chief Captaine bought his Freedome in Rome Acts 22 28 I scarce think every Freeman of that society was consulted in it neither did Paul when he heard of it enter his exception because his interest was infringed The several companies in London are so many several communities yet every one of the members of those Companies doth not claime an interest in receiving in men as free of their respective mysteries an opinion of such a Liberty will soon bring Church Members under an heavy yoke taking themselves to be so farre interessed in every publick act of their Officers that they may not without open opposition which is seldome borne or actual separation keep themselves from guilt in their aberrations Fifthly to gather Churches out of Churches to make up one congregation of Members appertaining to and locally seated in many is most anti-Scriptural It were easie to bring abundant arguments against this practice The disorderly confusion which of necessity it doth occasion The weakening of the work of God in the place where providence hath seated them and conferred many mercies upon them The robbing of Pastours of their flock spiritual Parents of their children who they confesse are of use to fit men for such a new congregated way that is to beget them by the Gospel to Christ Jesus but unfit to instruct or build them The animosity of Spirit that is wrought in these separating ones judging them whom they leave as no Ministers of Christ nor their congregations any Churches of Christ withdrawing from thence where Christ is pleased to keep residence But letting these passe I shall onely urge this that it is without all Scripture-president or example to gather up one Church as these pretend out of the cream and quintescence of many Churches There was much amisse in several of the Churches of Asia Philadelphia it appears was the soundest yet Saints they left not but held communion with the several Churches where by providence they were placed and did not pick up one out of all as a Church in eminence of purity and glory neither there or elsewhere hath there been found any such practice Object I know but one instance of this kinde that is pretended that is John Baptist who while the Church of the Jews stood a Church of God gathered a Church out of them as is objected and did embody them To this I might have much to answer 1. John Baptist set up no new Church distinct from the Church of the Jewes Christ and his Apostles submitting to that which John did introduce yet still held communion with the Church of the Jews They were not Members at once of two distinct Churches of the new because more refined and of the old tainted and corrupted 2. If John Baptist according to duty set up a new gathered Church in a Church of Christ then all the Prophets from Samuel to John the Baptist fell short of duty If they follow John in what he did we follow all the Prophets and Apostles in what they did All the Prophets till John did prophesie
all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession As for that of the Psalmist where he thinks the holy Ghost speaks otherwise the force of this Argument must needs be this That which is any where called a Covenant that is not an appendant to a covenant but the giving of the land of Canaan to the seed of Abraham is there called by the name of a Covenant He will not I think say that Circumcision is the Covenant between God and his people he will not deny but it is a signe and seale annext to the covenant and yet Gen. 17. 10. it is called a Covenant This is my Covenant which she shall keep between me and you and thy seed after thee every man-childe among you shall be circumcised Metonimies of the adjunct are well enough known and the common use of them in Scripture but that it is his wisdome for his advantage to conceale it My fifth and last argument is drawn from those several Texts in the New Testament which interpret this Covenant thus entred with Abraham in that latitude as extending to his natural issue and not with limit to his spiritual seed and that not barely in domestick or civil but in spiritual promises so that this one hath many in the bowels of it First Rom. 9. 1 2 3 4 5. verses The Apostle aggravating in the highest and saddest way that great heavinesse aud continual sorrow of heart that he had for Israel not respective to civil or domestick but higher concernments even for the whole body of Israel his brethren and kinsmen according to the flesh as he expresseth himself v. 3. For amplification of the real grounds of his trouble that such a people should be cast off he reckons up their priviledges the priviledges of all that according to the flesh were Israelites Priviledges formerly enjoyed but now lost nine in number Who are Israelites to whom appertaines the Adoption and the Glory and the Covenants and the giving of the Law and the service of God and the Promises Whose are the Fathers and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came who is over all God blessed for ever Amen Here sure is enough to conclude them of the seed thus in covenant to be of Gods adopted seed under the Promises Secondly Rom. 11. Throughout the whole body of the chapter the Apostle speaks of the casting off of Gods people Those that are cast off from being a people of God were once his people those that are put out of covenant were a people in Covenant but the natural issue of Abraham called natural branches verse 21. being by right of birth of that Olive are there broken off cast off therefore the natural issue was the seed in covenant Thirdly Mat. 8. 11 12. Upon occasion of the Faith of the Centurion which Christ so magnifies and preferres before the faith of any in Israel he prophecies of the call of the Gentiles and the rejection of the Jewes I say unto you that many shall come from the East and West and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdome of heaven But the children of the Kingdome shall be cast out into utter darknesse there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth Nations from all quarters of the world every point of the Heavens shall embrace the Faith and be received visible members of the Kingdom of God when the children of the Kingdome that are now in it and enjoy it shall be cast out of it children of the Kingdome that are to be cast out are in the Kingdome only upon an interest of birth for the fruition of the priviledges of Ordinances and not upon any spiritual title infallibly giving interest in Salvation But the children of the Kingdome were upon our Saviours sentence to be cast out therefore they were in the Kingdome only on an interest of Birth Fourthly Gal 2. 15. In that chapter among other things we have a narrative from the Apostle of his dealing by way of reproof with Peter at Antioch In which we may observe 1. The occasion given by Peter vers 12. Before that certain came from James he did eat with the Gentiles but when they were come he withdrew and separated himself 2. The issue which followed upon this carriage of his And the other Jewes dissembled likewise with him insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation 3. Arguments brought for conviction of Peter of this error which are two The first in the 14. vers If thou being a Jew livest after the manner of the Gentiles and not as do the Jewes why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jewes Thus the Argument runnes It is unreasonable to draw others into a practice that thou thy self purposely forbearest But thou thy self keepest not the Jewish Rites and Ordinances and therefore it is an unreasonable and blame-worthy practice by thy example to compel others to their observation yea thou being a Jew takest thy self to have freedome unreasonably then dost thou draw on others who were never under any such obligation The second Argument is in the 15. and 16. verses We who are Jewes by nature and not sinners of the Gentiles knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but by the faith of Jesus Christ even we have believed in Jesus Christ that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not by the works of the Law for by the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified which is thus enforced In that way wherein we who are Jews with all our birth-priviledges cannot attain to righteousness we may not teach the Gentiles to attain to it But we who are Jews by nature and not sinners of the Gentiles cannot this way attaine to righteousnesse We know that a man is justified by faith we are compelled to quit the Law and to cleave to Faith without works for justification These words which come up to our present purpose containe 1. The priviledge of Peter Paul Barnabas with the rest of the Jewes 2. The character of the Gentiles in opposition to the Jewes As to the full purpose for which these words are brought by the Apostle they have for the sense of them their dependance on the words that follow but so farre as they containe the priviledge of the Jewes in opposition to and above the Gentiles to which we are to speak so farre they are full of themselves shewing First Positively what himself and Peter were Jewes by nature Secondly Negatively what they were not sinners of the Gentiles Where nature is taken not in the proper but vulgar acceptation for birth or descent from Ancestours as usually in our common phrase of speech we say men are naturally Dutch French Spanish Irish when they are such borne and bred This Scripture therefore Camero cites for one in which the Apostle speaks after the vulgar manner We have a Scripture parallel with this Rom. 11. 24. wher
the flesh their former dignity and consequently their future recovery unto the state from whence they were fallen in which the Gentile-Nations by discipling do succed let us go no farther for determination of the question then the preceding verse As concerning the Gospel they are enemies for your sakes but as touching the Election they are beloved for the Fathers sake Here is to be enquired 1. Who were enemies concerning the Gospel 2. Who the Fathers are for whose sake they are beloved 3. What this election is and then we shall soone see who are beloved for the Fathers sake For the first It is not the spiritual seed that were as concerning the Gospel enemies that is the highest of contradictions but as Diodate sayes the Jewes who at present time were alienate from God by reason of rebellion against the Gospel which only can unite souls to him Enemies against the Gospel are enemies against God which cannot be understood of spiritual Israel The fathers for whose sake they are beloved are the ancient fathers from whom after the flesh they did proceed especially Abraham Isaac and Jacob. The word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 prepter patres for the fathers Then Election must needs be as Paraeus upon the words Diodate and Ravanellus in verbum Electio observe understood of an external grace of the Covenant whereby God chose this Nation to himself according to that of Moses Deut. 7. 6. For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God The Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself above all people that are upon the face of the earth unlesse we are elect in Abraham to salvation and not in Christ And Abraham Isaac and Jacob are our Mediatours reconciliation and when the Apostle saith We are accepted in the beloved Ephes 1. 6. it is to be understood of acceptation in Abraham and we are to conclude our prayers not in and through Christ but Abraham Isaac and Jacob we are not for their sakes beloved to salvation Paraeus indeed makes the grace of eternal Election to be secondarily here understood which God saith he deposited in that Nation for adopting them into Covenant he makes it evident saith he that he hath many of that Nation and ever shall have that are Elect unto salvation But this is not the Election here mentioned but only an adjunct of it and now of it self it will follow that these beloved for Abraham Isaac and Jacob are the children of their flesh Because saith Paraeus God loved the Fathers the love extends it self to the children for if among men friendship with parents be divolved to Children why should it not be so with God likewise I desire that it may be considered for whom Moses interceded when he prayed Remember Abraham Isaac and Israel thy servants to whom thou swarest by thy own selfe and saidest unto them I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed and they shall inherit it for ever Exod. 32. 13. Was it not the whole body of Israel And for whom is it that God promises to remember his Covenant with Jacob and also his Covenant with Isaac and also his Covenant with Abraham Levit. 26. 42. Was it not the whole Nation under suffering as there is exprest I will remember the land Either then Paul and Moses erre together with the list of Authours here mentioned or else the love election calling in this place is into a Church state and condition Argument 8. Eighthly If the ingraffing both of Jews and Gentiles be the fruit of Gods mercy the breaking off by shutting up in unbelief then the ingraffing is into the invisible Church by election and giving faith But the former is true verse 30 31 32. Ergo the latter Answ The priviledge of a Church-state which the Jewes once had and againe shall have is a mercy as may be seene Hosea 1. 6 9. Our Author addes What shall I say more It is so plain from the whole scope and tenour of the Apostles words that the ingraffing there spoken of is into the invisible Church by election and giving faith that from the first of the chapter to verse 13. there is scarce a verse but speaks of rejecting foreknowing election grace hardening giving a Spirit of slumber darkening the eyes stumbling falling or some equipollent terme to these and the Apostle doth plainly signifie his intention in all that discourse to be the shewing the mystery of Gods counsel in electing reprobating blinding conuerting one while the Jews another while the Gentiles so that I cannot but admire that Mr. Marshal should interpret the ingraffing of bare admission into visible Church-membership Answ 1. I would willingly learne what ingraffing by Election is I take Election to be an immanent act in God which is terminated in himself and not on the creature such expressions do not suit with so high pretendings to scholastical learning as every where may be seen in this Authour 2. I would have this Argument made up by taking in the assumption which can be no other then this But the Jewes in their fall from Church-fellowship cannot be said to be rejected hardened given to a spirit of slumber or that their eyes are darkened or that they have stumbled neither Election or Grace should have any hand in their Church-fellowship This must be the reasoning if there be any shew of reason in this heap of words and then all may well admire while he is in his admiration of others I say no more but that he is very weak both in Divinity and Logick that cannot presently upon the first sight discover the weaknesse and return a satisfying answer to this flourish of words Argument 9. Parallel places as is said must be understood of implanting into the invisible Church as Ephes 3. 6. 1 Cor. 12. 13. Gal. 3. 14 26 28 29. Answ Master Hudson page 132. hath not onely affirmed but proved that the Text 1 Cor. 12. 13. is meant of the Church as visible to whom I referre the Reader He places his greatest confidence in the first as he professes and thus enlarges upon it Now sure the Gentiles were made fellow-heires of the same body and co-partakers of the promise of God in the Gospel not by an outward Ordinance but by giving of faith according to Election Ergo the ingraffing Rom. 11. 17. parallel to it is not by an outward Ordinance but by giving Faith according to Election To this I onely say O that this were truth Then as the Apostle saith of Israel at their restauration all Israel shall be saved Rom. 11. 26. so we may say all England in statu quo shall be saved in the sense that he would understand salvation Whether we be by descent Britaines Saxons or Normans we are gentiles and consequently by his Divinity partakers of the Gospel by Fatih according to Election But it is too clear that
putting away their children with them did occasion this scruple in the thoughts of these Corinthians thus joyned with unbeleeving yoke-fellows But I say it is more then probable that it did either occasion or mightily strengthen it When they are men known in the Scriptures 1 Cor. 10. 15. and did question their own marriage upon the account of the unbelief of their yoke-fellow and finding a case thus determined both against mother and child for separation how can we imagine but they hit upon it and were affected with it 3. I do not say that the Israelites case and the Corinthians were wholly the same as it stood with Israel then and with the Corinthians now I know it was not for then either Ezra had been too harsh in ordering a separation or Paul too indulgent in determining the lawfulnesse of the continuance of their marriage-society and so I may say of their children But I say their cases were so like and so seemingly parallel that it might well occasion the Corinthians thus in conscience concerned to judge them the same Their cases somewhat did differ but the Corinthians had need of the Apostles help to see the difference The cases were the very same in themselves but different in regard of divers administrations under which they respectively lived He that would make their case the same saith One must not vary it in one particular All Casuists and Lawyers determine a Case to be varied when one material circumstance is varied The Jews being under the Law of Moses and professing it the Corinthians Christians not so and yet that doubt as if occasioned by that fact must arise from the doubted force of the Law of God This hits right upon the difference between them which yet argues them to be still in themselves the same had not times differenced them whereas he sayes the Jews were under Moses Law professing it but the Corinthian-Christians not so I hope he will not deny they were under the Moral Law the Apostle even in this Epistle pressing it upon them 1 Cor. 9. 9. 1 Cor. 14. 34. and it was not so easie for them to determine that the Command Deut. 7. was judicial purely respecting their relation to those Nations and so their case by this meanes better then those Israelites and being not able to determine their scruple remained and they sought to the Apostle for satisfaction in it Having enquired into these Corinthians scruples we are to look further into the meaning of the words and here we might reckon up variety of interpretations of this Text in Ancient and Moderne Writers most of which are generally exploded as to the words holy and unclean and therefore I think not fit to trouble the Reader at all with them Two there are which now appeare especially in competition with this here delivered which I shall hold forth in this place that the Reader may judge of either The first sets up parent and childe root and branch too high The second layes the issue too low The first is that the beleever here mentioned is an elect regenerate man not only a Professor of the faith but a man endowed with the grace of faith not onely of the Church visible but of the Church invisible likewise That the holinesse here mentioned is a real holinesse that is an holinesse of regeneration and the issue of one or both regenerate persons is also such regenerate The issue of the unregenerate is as they say unregenerate likewise An interpretation as far from the Apostles minde as that which is farthest and the doctrine fetched from it as untrue as that which is untruest The Beleever here is the man that is not an Infidel one that is taken off from Gentisme to the profession of Christianity Paulinus whom Hierome so much admired interprets it as Hierom relates his words Ep. 153. of a baptized person The Corinthians never questioned the marriage between one party in whom the power of godlinesse appears and another professingly of the same faith though not in that sincerity There was never such a scruple made but the marriage between a professor of Christian religion and a Pagan Neither is the issue of a regenerate man because his issue regenerate Habits neither infused nor acquired are thus communicated from parent to childe Neither will it help to say that this proposition is not universal but indefinite which holds ad plurimum but not alwayes The Apostles proposition universally holds now are they holy not in the opinion of charity but certainty where neither are holy the issue not only ad plurimum but certainly is unclean not as to the judgement of our fears but for his present state so infallibly That assertion to help this out that God draws regeneration through the loynes of the Elect at least for the most part few elect ones but their children are regenerate is such a paradox that I suppose very few will receive And thence to infer the lawfulnesse of the Baptisme of all of such birth because some are regenerate and as then surmise the most even in the womb and from the birth is a bottome that will not bear it One without any name hath published a Treatise of Baptism and in it impugnes with all his strength Infant-baptisme He takes notice of this and like positions of this nature as our ground of it and then endeavours the battery of it It hath passed some yeers without any answer that I know I could wish that those that maintaine it on these grounds would take upon them a refutation His reasons to me the doctrine so grounded are above answer I have often said if I be brought to these mens premisses I shall then conclude with the Antipaedobaptists It so much more concerns those in that the Author as I hear was one of their society and they see how frequently their members that are principled against Covenant-holinesse and borne in hand that the Gospel strips us of it do betake themselves from them into these mens tenents The second interpretation laies the issue too low and will have the holinesse mentioned to have no respect to their spiritual or Church-state but onely their legitimation They are not bastards but legitimate This Text saith One doth not speak of federal holinesse but of holinesse that I may so call it matrimonial so that the sense is your children are holy that is legitimate adding whether any in the ages before the age last past expounded it of federal holinesse as they call it I am not yet certaine His arguments against our interpretation of Covenant-holinesse and uncleannesse we shall examine being attended as he sayes with many absurdities in the mean space let me tell him that his interpretation understanding the Apostle as he doth The unbeleeving husband is sanctified in the wife c. that is his society with her is lawful not adulterous else your children were unclean that is bastards illegitimate but now they are holy that is of a
both those This is proved because our Saviour from their estate inferres a likenesse to them in others for the same estate Apolog p. 150. This Argument what colour soever it carries yet it is not conclusive It may be taken more largely in Christs argumentation and in a more restrained sense in his words of Instruction or Application as in a place much parallel I shall shew 1 Cor. 6. 1 2. There we have the Apostles reproof vers 1. and his reason vers 2. as in the Evangelists we have Christs assertion confirming his reproof ver 14. and his application ver 15. Now Saint in the Apostles reproof is taken more largly than it is taken in his reason A visible Saint is meant in the first place a real and glorified Saint in the second visible Saints may judge in small matters for real Saints in glory shall judge the world shall judge Angels and so it may be here infants have their present title to the visible Kingdome and men qualified as infants shall only enter the Kingdome of Glory His second reason that Christ directs his speech to the Disciples already in the visible Church and therefore speaks not of the Church visible I know not how to make up into a reason If I understood it I would either yield or answer it The third reason that the speech Mark 10. 15 Luke 18. 17. is like Mat. 18. 3 4. but there it is meant of the Kingdome of Glory Ergo so here is answered already If Mark 10. 15. Luke 18. 17. be like Matth. 18 3 4. yet Mark 10. 14. Luke 18. 16. which we have in question is unlike to Matth. 18. 3 4. Thirdly Were it granted him that the Kingdome of Glory must be understood both in Christs reason and application yet he is nothing holpen Infants have right to the Church visible militant because they are in a capacity of entrance into the Church triumphant Acts 2. 47. The Lord added to the Church daily such as should be saved Not necessarily saved but now having entered Covenant with God they were in a capacity and therefore added as visible Church-members Infants standing in this capacity ought to have admission likewise It is said that if this proposition were granted that they have right to the Church visible militant who shall be of the Church triumphant yet this right cannot be claimed but by those who are elect and therefore from these Scriptures so expounded it cannot be proved that any other than elect infants are to be baptized Answ If election or non-election must steere us in admission to Baptisme this were to purpose interposed but when there is nothing that can be objected against them as hindring their salvation it is sufficiently proved that it may not hinder their Baptisme That must not be pleaded against any as a barre to hinder their admission into the Church on earth that will not hinder their admission into the Church in heaven CHAP. LIV. Reasons evincing the Birth-priviledge and Covenant-holinesse of the issue of Beleevers HAving already so largely insisted upon by Scripture proofs that children are in covenant with parents and that priviledges of Ordinances which necessarily imply a covenant do descend to posterity I shall lay down certain grounds some of them making way towards and others necessarily inferring of themselves the conclusion First This is of the nature of those things which descend from Parent to childe from Ancestors to Posterity which is in their power to convey to their issue There are those things indeed which are personally inherent in men and proper to them so that they cannot convey them to their issue there is no deriving of them to others by succession As 1. Individual accidents of the body wounds scarres or comelinesse of feature these are so in the Parent that they are not conveyed to their children 2. Habits or proper gifts whether acquired by pains or infused The son of a learned man inherits not his fathers gifts The son of an Artificer is no such Artist The son of a Prophet hath not by vertue of birth the gift of prophecy nor is the son of a regenerate man endowed with saving grace for that reason There are on the contrary those things that passe from Parent to childe which the Parent by nature or special priviledge hath power to convey As 1. The essential or integral part of a Species with the natural properties that do accompany it so one brute beast brings forth another one brid brings for another and man brings forth one of mankind 2. The priviledges or burdens which in Family or Nation are hereditary they are conveyed from Parents to Posterity from Ancestors to their issue As is the Father so is the child as respecting these particulars This none have questioned and these things in hand being of the same nature it is a faire propable ground of it self if evidence to the contrary from Scripture be not cleare that they are thus still transmitted Secondly It is so in Kingdomes Common-wealths Cities in Corporations Families The son of a Noble man is Noble of a Free-man is Free Acts 22. 28. As the sonne of a bond-man where by the Law of Nations they are bond men is a bond-man likewise Exod. 21. 4. Now we know that in Scripture the Church of God is frequently stiled by these names By the most honourable of them Mat. 8. 11 12. Mat. 21. 43. Ephes 2. 19. Hebrewes 12. 22. Ephesians 3. 15. to let us understand that as Cities Kingdomes Families have their priviledges so the people of God in covenant have theirs â—ikewise But we are told Object You do very carnally imagine the Church of God to be like civil Corporations as if persons were admitted to it by birth whereas in this all is done by free Election of grace and according to Gods appointment nor is God tied or doth tie himself in the erecting and propagating his Church to any such carnal respects as descent from men Christianity is no mans birth-right Protestant Divines are taken up by the Jesuites in the self same way for this very thing A Lapide on 1 Cor. 7. 14. saith Hence Calvin and Beza have drawn their opinion of a birth-righteousnesse and say that the children of Beleevers are holy and saved without Baptisme because on this account that they are Beleevers children they are reputed to be born in the Church within that Divine covenant I will be thy God and the God of thy seed Gen. 17. 7. As children in the civil Law are accounted free whose parents are either of them free but saith he they are deceived and gives his reason The Church is not a civil Common-wealth but supernatural and there is no man born a Christian but spiritually new borne and is made holy not civilly but really by faith hope and charity infused into the soul So Stapleton on the same words in his Antidotum applying the Spiritual Antidote against Calvins Carnal Poyson saith
multiplying glasse we had holy places holy Altars in which some of our present opponents went too farre to the grief of the godly and farther than the times with their streames needed to have borne them had he been meerely prest and no voluntier in it I wish they would seriously consider how ordinary it is with men to carry on their wayes in extreames and out of superstition to runne upon Sacriledge It is well known how apt the people of Israel were for idolatrous wayes and ready to embrace every superstition after the way of the Heathen and in conformity to them yet after the Babylonish captivity they were quite taken off that course What wickednesse soever they were otherwise guilty of yet it is observed that they kept themselves from Idols That sinne had so consumed them that at last it had even wearied them And then as it appeares from the Apostle they runne upon this extreame to which we are here speaking Therefore when in other things they are charged with the same sinne that as men of knowledge they condemned in others Thou that preachest that another should not steale doest thou steale Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery doest thou commit adultery And the Series of the words leading to a charge of Idolatry the Apostle changes the phrase and saith Thou that abhorrest Idols doest thou commit Sacriledge Rom. 2. 22. This was now their sinne in the other extreame not on their own heads to put a supposition of holinesse to the Lord on any thing for worship but to convert to other uses that which was sanctified as holy I know some understand these words in a Metaphor that by Sacriledge is meant the robbing of God of his honour by sinne against him but that interpretation the next words contradict in distinct words forbidding that Sacriledge if they will so call it Origen will turne it into an Allegory and understand the spoyling of the sense of Scriptures and stealing Christ out of the Scriptures But the text is plaine that it is a reproof applied to their capacities and in the letter convincing as well as the former of stealing and adultery The plaine sense saith Peter Martyr is the meaning May not I now say that these things are out examples to the intent that we should not runne with them in these extreames from an abhorrency of the one to the other from an abhorrency of Idols to the guilt of Sacriledge which according to the Schoolmen is rei sacrae violaâ—io or rerum sacrarum furtum a deteigning from God that which for an holy use is separate for him which separation is either of persons or of inanimate or irrational creatures I know there are those that affirme that there is no such separation for God in Gospel times and consequently there can be no such thing as this sin of Sacriledge in our times for what is not cannot be thus violated or detained As to the separation of inanimate or unreasonable creatures it cannot be fully denied nor yet must it fully be yielded that no such things are now to be accounted as separate to the Lord we must therefore distinguish These may be said to be separate for God and consequently holy two wayes 1. By divine institution and appointment So the Temple and Utensils of the Temple were holy 2. By divine approbation when men let them apart for advancement of such an holy use as God approves The former we confesse was proper to the times of the Law but the latter yet remaines in Gospel-times and upon this account Ravanellus justly makes the sinne of Ananias and Sapphira in keeping back part of the price of their land that was set apart by them for the service of the Church to be the sinne of Sacriledge The land before sale was his own and the price after sale was his own but now it was to serve by their voluntary act onely to a purpose that was holy The detaining of it is the violation of that which is holy And in this way both the places of publick worship and the revenues for maintenance of those that attend upon this worship are separate for God It will be thought somewhat out of my way to speak to these things yet having so fair an occasion I shall take the liberty of a few words concerning the places of worship shall speak somewhat in the negative and by way of concession There is not any such holinesse in them as in the Tabernacle and Temple This is disavowed by Christ John 4. 23. These had the preheminence above our places of meeting in foure several particulars 1. They had their institution and immediate injunction from God Exod. 35. 10 11. 1 Kings 5. 5. 1 Chron. 22. 9 10. 2. Their direction and prescription Heb. 8. 5. 3. Their promise not alone respective to the worship but the place Exod. 29. 42 43. 4. Their sanction or penalty in regard of typical prophanation Num. 19. 20. In all of these particulars we must give the Temple and Tabernacle the preeminence besides that the Temple and Tabernacle were but one for all Israel we have many In the affirmative I shall lay down several positions First there is equal warrant and reason for the building of our places of meeting for the worship of God as there was for the Synagogues of the Jewes Though we put no such holinesse on these places to parallel them with the Temple yet they have equal warrant and are to have equal respect with the Synagogues which the Jewes had in every City Acts 15. 21. Not only in Judea but where they were dispersed Acts 13. 14 15. There is no word in all the Scripture for the erecting of these Synagogues no mention made of them but once where a sad complaint is made of the burning of them Psal 74. 8. But the people of God being by Gods command to be instructed in the Law they built them places for conveniency of meeting and in such places they met The Law was there preacht Christ and his Apostles did preach there our places of meeting then stand in equal honour with these Synagogues Those that can say any thing for these Synagogues which we cannot say for our publick places of meeting let them produce it 2. There is as much reason and equal warrant to call our places of meeting by the usual common Name of Churches as to call theirs by the common name of Synagogues Nothing can be said to condemne the use of the word Church for our place of meeting but the like may be said to condemne the use of the word Synagogue for their place of meeting The Scriptures therefore calling theirs Synagogues Luke 7. 5. Acts 18. 7. we may therefore fitly call ours Churches That which is objected against the word Church is that Church signifies not a house of wood or stone but a society or fellowship of men professing faith in Jesus Christ So also
separation for this publick work so there is also a separation more general from Idols to God upon which account Christians are called Saints Men holy by dedication to the Lord as the Temple of God which is holy 1 Cor. 3. 17. Our adversaries some of them at least baptize and by Baptisme consecrate men to God upon no other account than such a separation by a profession of Faith and holinesse as some of the most eminent of them expresse themselves To deny Baptisme to these in their own account can be no other than Sacriledge This profession gives them interest in God by way of visible communion and therefore they must be given to God Children are separated for God and stiled as we have heard holy if they yield them this interest they cannot deny them Baptisme and avoid this charge of Sacriledg They are servants of God and of his holy Family and they are to have admittance into the Family In case they deny it they must leave them without God and so without Hope so that of necessity one will follow that either they robbe God of them as belonging to him or denying their interest in him they doome them to destruction If they have no interest in God then they perish If they have their interest then they are Sacrilegiously with-held from him Many have observed how God hath followed the sinne of Sacriledge above other sinnes with his judgements but instances can be given of no piece of Sacriledge so sadly followed by the hand of heaven as this of deteining Infants from Baptisme They have heard not a few and it may well move pity in all Readers to take notice of their answers No consent of History nor authority of men of most eminent piety can work their belief of such a hand of God giving up so many of their party to such abominations I shall to that which they have heard from Master Marshal and Master Baxter adde only one testimony of Martine Bucer in his Dedicatory Epistle before his Comment on the Evangelists relating to the Doctrine of Antipaedo baptisme he saith Which opinion hath brought such an heap of Errors and Schismes that there is nothing so abhorrent from reason can be read of any of the Hereticks of former times which hath not been in foure yeares space revived and sonud followers that this alone may render that root suspected to all that follow after godlinesse from whence such unhappy branches have sprouted and out of which they have budded CHAP. LVIII The Children of all that are Christians in profession are by vertue of Covenant-Interest to be received into the Church by Baptisme THen it farther followes by way of necessary Corollary that according to the Parents Interest in the Covenant the childe hath Interest in the Sacrament of Baptism But all professing Parents separate from Idols and professing the worship of the true God though nothing more of a Christian be in them in the latitude as hath been shewn are in covenant the infants of all these then have interest in Baptisme The Major cannot be questioned by any that acknowledge a right in infants derived from their Parents for Baptism for it is interest in the covenant that gives the title to parent and infant The Minor I have abundantly proved The covenant must either be made to appeare to run in a more narrow channel which I suppose will hardly be done that a man in Ignorance or in Impenitency as he does not keep covenant so he never entred covenant or else this must necessarily follow To assert this by Arguments First Their children whom God owns as his peculiar people above others have right to Baptisme This cannot be denied either these have a just claim or else no children at all But God owns all in visible profession as his people Isa 1. 2. Isa 5. 13. Hos 4. 6. Jer. 2. 11 13 31 32. Jer. 4. 22. Jer. 5. 51. therefore the children of visible professors have right to Baptism Secondly Their children that are brought forth to God by their parents have right to Baptism This is as plain But visible professors bring forth children to God Ezek. 16. 20. therefore their children have right to Baptism Thirdly Those children whose Parents are children of the Kingdome of God have their title to Baptisme But those that are in sin and in a way to be cast out for sin are children of the Kingdome Mat. 8. 12. Mat. 21. 43. Ergo the children of Parents in sin have right to Baptism Fourthly The children of those who are themselves Disciples of Christ ought to be baptized But men in sin are Disciples of Christ Joh. 6. 66. whole Nations among whom are many wicked ones are Disciples Matth. 28. 19. The children then of those that are in sinne ought to be baptized Fifthly The children of those that are of the number of brethren in the faith of the Gospel have right to Baptism But men in sinne are brethren in the faith of the Gospel 1 Cor. 5. 11. If any that is called a brother be a fornicatour or covetous or an idolater or a railer or a drunkard or an extortioner c. This our dissenting brethren will not deny to be meant of Christians therefore their children are to be baptized Sixthly Those children that are holy by reason of birth from one or both beleeving parents are to be baptized But the children of those that are in sin may be holy by reason of birth of one or both beleeving parents 1 Cor. 7. 14. To clear this place which some weakly enough have urged for the contrary Let us enquire who the Apostle means by a Beleever and who he means by an unbeliever and this will soone be decided if we look to the case propounded by letter from the Corinthians which he there resolves and answers their scruples That is confest to be marriage between a Christian and a Heathen a professed Believer and an Infidel a man removed from an Infidel to take upon him the name of Christ is there a Beleever and many of these even in Corinth were men in sinne They that will have the Beleever there to set out only a justified and sanctified person they must by unbeleever mean all unsanctified persons and so the case propounded and satisfied is whether a regenerate person sanctified by the Spirit married to one that gives not full or at least hopeful evidences of sanctification may continue a marriage-society whether a man of Jobs integrity might have lived with such a wise to whom Job was joyned a thing that was never yet brought into question either by Jew or Christian and altogether unworthy of an Apostles determination The thing is plaine that as infants have right to Baptisme so all the infants of those parents that nomine tenus are Christians have right to Baptism See more Treatise of the Sacraments page 161. To amplifie this in some particulars and if it may be to make it more clear
terrenae foelicitatis Promissio terrâ—na erat annexa carnali Circumcissioni hac sola ad vetus Testamentum pertinebat contrarium asserere quod facit Calvinus nihil est aliud quam ex lege Evangelium facere omnia confundere Bellar lib. 2. de esâ—ec Sac. Cap. 17. The several interests for which the assignation of this difference serves 1. To decry all Old Testament-Scriptures 2. To take all Infants out of Covenant 3. To keep Infants from Baptisme Testimonies evincing the spirituality of Old Testâ—ment-promises Imperium Turcicum quantum quantum est mica est quam pater familias projicit canibus That expression of a mixt Covenant under which the Fathers are supposed to live untoward 〈…〉 quodam sensu fuisse eâ—iam 〈…〉 promissiones remissionis peecâ—â—m ac vita â—ternae ad nos pertinere Circumcision was a Seal of spiritual mercies of the same that Baptisme sealeth a Plurima sunt ejusdem testimonia exquibus constat persuasum olim fuisse Christianis non fuisse admodum diversan circumcisionis rationem Baptismi Cur bodie mutatum quidem in Papistarum gratiam â—â—idem ad arbitrium Jesunarum Sol. A third supposed difference between the Old and New Covenant All of Israel were in Covenant in Old Testament-times Some Divines seem to put too great a restraint upon the Covenant in New Testament â—im â— Distinctions holding forth the meaning of these Divines in these expressions Esse in foedere dicitur dupliciter vel quoad jus foederis vel quoad foederis beneficia Est in foedere vel qui obtinet beneficia foederis quae sunt remissio peccatorum adoptio regeneratio salus vel qui tantum habet jus vel symbolum foederis externum ut socius foederis non alienus censeatur New Testament-Scriptures holding out the Covenant of Grace in its full and just latitude Matth. 28. 19 The literal grammatical sense of the words vindicated Confirmed by the relation that this more enlarged Commission hath to that which was restrained to Israel onely By Old Testament-prophecies By the happy successe that in many Nation hath followed upon it 2. Mat. 22. 14. Mat. 20. 16 3. Those several Parables Mat. 13. 24 25 Mat. 13. 47. Mat. 3. 12. 2 Tim. 2. 20. 4. Heb. 10. 29 A threefold interpretation of the Text. * Erat sanctificatio apostatarum non interna sed externa professione fidei et participatione Sacramentorum externa consistens Erant sanctificati hoc est à Judais Paganus professione segregati pro veris Christianis habiti 5. 1 Pet. 2. 9. Arguments carrying this Text to the Church as visible 1. Titles given to men in covenant and in Scripture applied to unregenerate men prove it Unregenerate persons as to the name and outward priviledges are Beleevers Unregenerate persons as to the name and outward priviledges are Saints Unregenerate persons as to the name and outward priviledges are Disciples Unregenerate persons as to the name and outward priviledges are Christians Sol. The absurdities that follow upon the restriction of the Covenant to the Elect Regenerate do evince it First Corollary 2. Corollary Ubi foedus ibi ecclesia a Debuit Bellarminus probare in Ecclesia Caâ—holica quae est corpus Châ—isti esse tam malos quà m bonos tam reprobos quà m electos Hoc ut probaret affert hanc parabolam de area inqua triticum palea est At per aream hoc in loco non Catholica sed particularis quae que ecclesia intelligitur in qua nos fatemur tam malos quà m bonos esse plerunque plures malos quà m bonos b Sensus parabolae manifestus est sic in Ecclesia evenire solere cùm Evangelium praedicatur ut cùm verriculum in mare projicitur ad pisces capiendos Primò non omnes pisces qui sunt in mori capiuntur Secundò non omnes boni sunt qui capiuntur sed multi inutiles Tertiò non separantur mali pisces à bonis donec verriculum ad terram extractum fuerit Sic in Ecclesia cum Evangelium praedicatur non omnes homines accedunt non omnes qui accedunt sunt boni non separantur boni à malis ante finem mundi Falsum esse internas virtutes requiri à nobis ut aliquis sit in ecclesia quoad visibilem ejus statum 2. Coroll a Competentes non sunt admittendi in ecclesiam quia competunt sine ulteriore satisfactione b Phariseos baptismum petentes ad baptismum indignos nonadmisit inquit Paraeus c Baptismum petierunt inquit Aretius at baptizatos fuisse nullo modo videtur judicare Positions concerning particular visible Churches where nothing is wanting to the being of a Church yet much more may be required for the well ordering and regulating of it A people in a vicinity or neighbourhood ought to associate according to their best convenience for participation of Ordinances Professing Christians upon tender of themselves ought to be esteemed members in the places where they inhabit Reformation of abuses in Churches is much rather the work of Christians in Churches than separation from Churches A Church is pure where the pollutions and taints are not soule Foully polluted and defaced it is a Church reâ—ains a being though polluted and erroneous Purity or impurity in doctrine especially gives Churches dâ—nâ—mination Errours in doctrine are either in the foundatiâ—u or superstâ—uction Errours have their estimate accordingly as they rise up against Christ and obscure his glory Separation in some cases necessary Corruption in conversation hardly admit of separation Aut de fatuis virgiuibus es aut de orâ—dentibus si de â—atuis Conâ—regatio tibi necessaria est si de prudentibus tu congregationi Corruption in discipline hardly admits of separation a Scelestus igitur blasphemus eorum error est qui sic ab hac ecclesia desiciunt quasi Christus hinc proâ—sus exularet nec ulla spes salutis manentibus esse posset Cogitent hîc Christum convivantem cum suis An puâ—bit eos illic discuâ—â—bere ubi vident Christum non pudere An illo sanctores mundiores erâ—â—t Sed quare se non coâ—vincunt suo ipsorum usuâ— Non possunt iâ—ficiari quin pâ—iùt in Christum crediderint quâ—m fecerunt nobis divortium unde haec illi fides Annon expraedicatione in nostra ecclesia Nuâ—quid autem praedicare quis potest nisi mittatur Rom. 10. 13 Quid â—â—go verbum propter labem â—liquam externae vocationis tam pervesè râ—â—puunt cujus vim divinam in â—orâ—ibus senti 〈◊〉 Quamobrem redite ad unitatem ecclesiae quae vos genuit aluis si fugiatis hunc Christum quì cum electis in nostris coetibus coenat ac eos vicissim excipit profecto nusquam invenietis To gather Churches out of Churches to make up one Congregation out of many is unwarrantable Sol. 3. Corollary Arguments evincing the title of men professing faith to
viz. à duplici modo communionis externo interno Vindication page 4. One and the same Church hath members of a visible and invisible notion a more full explanation may there be seen This being premised I affirm that interest in Church-membership in a visible Church-state is theirs and may be claimed by all those that have interest in the covenant before named an external interest or an interest in the external covenant as usually it hath been called This is a sure rule Where the Covenant is there the Church is and in what latitude soever men are taken into covenant they are received into the Church Lawes tendred by a Prince and received by a people whether they be tendred immediately by himself or by his Heraulds or Embassadours make up the relation of King and people A marriage-covenant tendred by a man as by Abrahams servant in the name of Isaac to Rebecca Gen. 24. and accepted by a Virgin makes up the relation of husband and wife covenant-draughts between man and man for service as an apprentice his indentures make up the relation of Master and servant now the Gospel-covenant is all of these between God and a people where God tenders it and a people receive it there God hath his Spouse his Subjects his Servants These are his people and all of these are Church-members The Word preached and received hath ever been assigned by Orthodox Divines as the characteristical note of a Church of God a Church stands and falls with it where it is professedly received there is a Church-interest Let one man apart receive it as was the case of the Eunuch he forthwith becomes a Church-member and is to have as we see he had his present matriculation and to be admitted by baptism a member not of this or that Congregation but of the Church universal visible and upon this account wheresoever he comes is a Saint a Disciple a Christian a Beleever and so to be received and acknowledged This is abundantly confirmed in those parables of our Saviour Christ of the floore where there is both chaffe and wheat Mat. 3. 12. of the field where there is both wheat and tares of 〈◊〉 draught-net where are fishes good and bad Mat. 13. 24 47. As also in that of the Apostle 2 Tim. 2. 20. In a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver but also of wood and of earth and some to honour and some to dishonour The Church is this floore this field this draught-net this great house in which there is chaffe tares fish unfit for use and vessels of dishonour to which may be added the parables of the wedding feast in which there is a mixture of some without a wedding garment Mat. 22. of the sheepfold with kids and goats These parables are brought by Bellarmine for proof that the Church doth not consist only of the elect lib 3. de Eccl. Mil. cap. 7 to which Whitaker Controv secundâ quaest primà cap 7. answers by distinction Bellarmine saith he ought to prove that in the Catholick Church which is the body of Christ there are both good and bad reprobate as well as elect and for proof of this saith he he brings the parable of the floore in which there is wheat and chaffe but by the floore in this place is not meant saith he the Catholick Church but each particular Church in which we confesse there are bad as well as good and for the most part more bad than good And though he makes some exceptions against some of the Parables yet he applies the same answer to others Concerning that of the draw-net he saith The sense of the parable is manifest It happens in the Church when the Gospel is preached as in the sea when the draught-net is cast to take fish 1. All the fishes that are in the sea are not enclosed in the net 2. All are not good that are inclosed but some are unfit for use 3. The bad fish are not separate from the good till the net be drawn to land so when the Gospel is preached all men do not come in all are not good that come and the good and bad are not separate till the end of the world And Doctor Reynolds maintaining that position That the holy Catholick Church which we believe is the whole company of Gods elect and chosen saith The wicked must needs be a part of the Church if the name of Church did signifie the visible Church as we call it consisting of the good and bad Amesius who as we heard judges it very probable that there is no visible Church where the Word is truly preached in which there are not some that are godl◠and therefore is farre from concluding the godlinesse of all saith in his Bellar. Enervatus lib. 2. de Eccles cap. 1. It is false that inward graces are required of us to a mans being in the Church as to the visible state of it see Apollonius Syllog pag. 8. Professores Leyden disput 40. pag. 3. If any man judge it to be absurd that Christ should have wicked men who are limbs of Satan to be of his mystical body carnal wicked men to be members of such a gracious and glorious head Christ is the head of his Church say they if such be Church-members then Christ is their head I shall referre them to a full and satisfying answer to Master Hudsons Vindication page 6 7 8. And for those that deny any being of a Church universal visible as Master Blackwood in his Storme page 65. who saith the objector is overtaken in a grosse absurdity to think there is some universal Church visible begun in Abraham into which upon the rejection of the Jewes the believers among the Gentiles and their seed are to be received for besides the invisible Church the body of Christ mystical there are only particular Churches under the Gospel I would learn of them into what particular Church the Eunuch was received and by baptisme actually and solemnly admitted or whether he was still no Church-member but an alien and stranger to the Common-wealth of Israel not added to the Church To what particular Congregation the Apostles Prophets and Evangelists joyned themselves by covenant and to save farther labour leave them to Master Hudsons Vindication of the essence and unity of the Church Catholick visible which will receive a satisfactory answer when the Sun hath no more being in the Heavens CHAP. XLII A man in Covenant with God and received into the universal Church visible needs no more to give him accesse to and interest in particular visible Churches 2ly IT farther followes that a man by vertue of covenant being thus enrighted to membership in the Church universal visible and baptized into this body there needs no farther covenant to give him accesse to and interest in particular visible Churches What the Apostle gives in charge to the Church at Rome concerning those that are weak in the
24. of exhortation one of another Heb. 3. 13. of comforting of themselves together edifying one another 1 Thes 5. 11. of warning them that are unruly and comforting th feeble-minded supporting the weak 1 Thes 5. 14. of converting sinners from the errour of their wayes Jam 5. 20. which argues a well-ordered zeal for God and hatred of sin bowels of compassion towards a brother we finde their praise that have followed this councel 1 Thes 5. 11. we reade of separation from ways of sin and fleshly defilements 2 Cor. 6. 17. James 1. 27. but we reade not of any separation from Church-communion and fellowship in Ordinances thus given in charge nor in this way approved nor any presidents to go before us in it but we reade of an heavy brand laid upon it Jude 19. These be they who separated themselves sensual not having the Spirit yet seeing things may be so carried in societies that be aâ— the Name of Christ and Christian Professors brought to those straits that there is no abiding for such as would keep their garments unspotted it will be of use here to deliver certain rules for our help and guidance 1. A Church in covenant with God as before and keeping up communion in Ordinances is to be accounted pure where the pollutions or taints are not great nor many it is to be accounted a right beleeving Church notwithstanding some few lesser Errors We account a corne-field clean where some few tares and weeds are found a body healthful that is not without grudgings Christ from heaven gives commendations to those Churches which yet he taxes Rev. 2. 3. for failings There is that light in which Errors may be seen and shunned and rules for discerning things that differ If custom education conceit of Teachers or the like so dazle the judgement that the errour is swallowed howsoever that be a detriment a blemish as the Apostle shews of the wood hay and stubble built upon the foundation 1 Cor. 3. 12. yet it prejudices not salvation There is power of truth remaining to forme and frame Christ in the heart to direct the soul in a sanctified way to salvation 2. Where the Word is received and profest though polluted and defaced with additions and false glosses there is a Church though polluted and erroneous Where the essential parts of a man are in being there is a man though sick and diseased where corne is sowen and comes up there is a corn-field though over-run with tares and weeds The Churches of Galatia have the name of Churches though miserably defiled we deny not the Church of Rome the being of a Church having the Scriptures and several fundamental truths from thence as the Church in Christs time from the hand of the Scribes and Pharisees though the worst deserving the name of a Church of any people with whom the Word is continued No Church some have avouched But do her the most right and the being of a Church granted she is a hurch certainly miserably defaced monstrously polluted I will not rake in her sores it were easie to name many and loathsome ones I will only point at the causes Where food is scarce and that polluted and unclean there must needs be bodies diseased and distempered but so it fares with the Church of Rome when the Word should dwell in us in all plenteousnesse Col. 3. 16. they will have theirs dieted the Word kept in an unknown language as under lock and key that the children cannot come near it That on which they feed is not the sincere milk which only nourishes to growth 1 Pet. 2. 2. But they have their unwritten word to stand in equipage with the Scriptures mens Traditions made doctrines how many doctrines do we there finde by necessary consequence undermining those fundamental truths that are there profest where food is in no more plenty and no better it is no wonder to see diseases follow 3. That which especially denominates a Church pure or impure sound or tainted is the doctrine which they drink in the principles by which they are carried Where these are right this is an high praise where these are tainted this is the greatest blemish That which advances a Nation above all other Nations so that no Nation is so great as they that brings them nigh unto God is that which is their greatest honour and the pollution the greatest blemish where all is right in doctrine it can hardly be conceived but that there are at least a few names that defile not their garments though the more the greater glory This was the case of Sardis and therefore hath the honour to be one of the golden Candlesticks where Christ kept residence 4. Doctrines which are as the covenant-draughts between God and a people have their taints or crazes in the foundation or in the superstruction A breach in the foundation is the buildings speedy ruine while that stands somewhat of a building remains when that falls all falls and therefore Jerusalems enemies that thirsted after her total ruine say Raze it raze it even to the foundation thereof Psal 137. 7. These foundation-breaches in buildings may be either crazes threatning danger but repairable taken betimes may be holpen though a failing there is soonest helplesse or else it is a ruine or rottennesse that is irremediable irrepairable Truths doubted disputed questioned I call a craze in the foundation wonderfully dangerous not alwayes damnable the case of the Galatians of whom the Apostle stood in feare and was jealous over them through a godly jealousie even of their revolt from Christianity to Judaism from Christ to Moses from the Gospel to the Law These he calls Churches the members brethren though in a way to be no Churches entertaining those doctrines that cut off from Christ Gal. 5. 2. Here all those that are builders in Christs work that are pillars or any part of his house must be zealous as we see Saint Paul was in this Epistle quoted who will see the foundation of the house where he lives so undermined as every day to threaten ruine much lesse may we suffer the foundation in Christs house to be thus used This faith once delivered to the Saints is the common salvation for this we must earnestly contend Jude 3. for this we must strive together Phil. 1. 27. Truths denied abjured and resolved against as it was with Hymeneus and Philetus and the Apostle saw the Churches in Galatia in danger is a ruine and rottennesse that is irremediable and irreparable Besides breaches in fundamentals there are breaches in superstructions and these either more neer to the foundation or at a greater distance The nearer the foundation the more danger a breach is more sufferable near the top than at the bottome of a tower or castle There are errours of more affinity with those that overthrow bottom-truths and there are those that are not so nigh and therefore not so dangerous Such crept into the Latine Church
before Antichrist was raised to his height and strength in his delusions and Antichrist still holds them of all sorts and sizes Either of both of these mayâ—e Negative or Positive Negative are such where the doctrine of faith is not laid Positive where it is mis-laid where edifying doctrines are not preached and where they are mis-preacht both tend to the Churches danger a house never compleat or built up entire but defective in several parts little differs from that which is ruinous The Apostle who is worthily stiled a wise Master-builder 1 Cor. 3. 10. makes known the whole counsel of God Acts 20. 27. and builds not up defective Churches 5. All errors being against Christ who is the foundation to bear up and carrie on the whole work accordingly as they dash upon Christ and obscure his glory whether more or lesse the estimate of the danger is to be taken These are either such that render Christ in an uncapacity to be our Mediatour and Saviour or such that are inconsistent in whole or in part with his Mediatourship of the former kinde are those that are against his person 1. Those that impugne the Godhead of Christ such that though they give him the glory to be above Angels yet will make him no more than a creature a God in title and place as are Magistrates not in nature or power An opinion that involves the Apostolick Church and all Churches in succession in idolatry giving the honour of God the worship due to God unto him who by nature is no God A doctrine that will make Christ an impotent and not an omnipotent head too weak for his work to govern the world and bring under his enemies 2. Those that deny his manhood as having not taken our flesh and so no suitable head but a phantastick or seeming body Those that are against his Mediatourship are either such that obscure or some way eclipse it as every errour doth that is any way considerable or such that raze if not utterly overthrow it in some of the necessary parts of it his Kingdome Priesthood or Prophetical Office These are overthrown either directly in termes of full opposition or else by consequence and this such that is either immediate and evident the truth being confest these cannot be denied or else the consequence more remote and not so easily discerned These things being premised we must bring it home to our purpose 1. Where fundamental truths are not only questioned doubted and disputed but abjured and denyed errours directly or by immedate clear consequence introduced so that the truth cannot be known but the errour must be seen and this declared by publick confession and generally held Christians are to be gone here are not sufficient edifying truths nor yet antidotes to preserve from danger when they would have healed Babylon and she would not be healed then it is time to forsake If any man come unto you and bring not this doctrine receive him not into your house neither bid him God speed 2 John 10. saith John much lesse then may we hold such communion with them It is said of Mice that when the house through ruines is falling they will be gone shall nature teach them to provide for their safety and shall nothing teach Christians to see to their own salvation When Jerusalem was to be destroyed according to Christs prediction and not one stone to be left upon another a voice is said to be heard crying Get out to Pella Foundation-breaches seen and suffered are as this voice to be gone such a Jerusalems walls are falling There is a flight too soon when care might keep up the buildings when with the poore man we may save and deliver the City Eccles 9. 15. They that preached Christ in those Churches of Galatia and preached down Circumcision and other points of Judaisme pleased the Apostle better then they that without such endeavour should desert it so those that had preached the resurrection in Corinth had better pleased then those that had left the place for their sakes that denyed it A Church may not onely degenerate but apostatize may not onely languish but lose her vital spirits may not onely displease her Bridegroom but suffer a divorce perhaps keep the title of a wife and indeed be a strumpet and want all evidence of relation to the Bridegroome 2. In the case of pollutions of a more inferior alloy a Christian may be necessitated to leave 1. When the food of life knowledge in the word or means to compasse it cannot be had In such a case it must be sought They must resolve with the Lepers 2 King 7. 3. not to sit still and die When the Priests and Levites left their suburbs and pessessions under Jeroboams government being cast out of their employment and the lowest of the people men of self-consecration set up in their stead after them out of all the tribes of Israel such as set their hearts to seek the Lord God of Israel came to Jerusalem to sacrifice to the Lord God of their fathers 2. Châ—â—n 11. 16. Being without a teaching Priest they were as the Prophet tells Asa 2 Chron. 15. 3. without the Law and without God and there was no staying there 2. When a man by compulsion is necessitated to give approbation to such pollutions in any such way that speaks his compliance whether it be by the civil power through unsufferable fines â—ulcts imprisonments unavoidable or peril of life Or by the Ecclesiastical power in excommunications when men are driven out or necessitated for soul-subsistence to go out there is full liberty and warranty to leave But when Ordinances in a saving way may be enjoyed with liberty and safety no Laws being enacted for their so heavy persecution or through indulgence or connivence not put into execution there the Churches good calls for good mens stay not their secession or separation There was not a little leaven in the Churches doctrine in Christs time errour was advanced into Moses chaire yet Christ himself with many other that waited for redemption in Jerusalem held communion as Church-members All was not right in every Church of the Saints to whom Christ wrote Revel 2. 3. and to whom Paul sent Epistles yet as they retained still the honour of Churches and the happinesse of Christs presence so we hear nothing of separation enjâ—â—ned or practised The condition of Beleevers in the Synagogue of Rome was otherwise The key of knowledge is there taken away the people not allowed to read it in private or to heare it in publick but kept reserved in an unknown language neither could they without capital danger keep themselves from compliances in their sinne so that reformed Churches did not in any unwarrantable way of Schisme leave but rather were left They forsook not the Church but the botches and corruptions in it though we were never forbidden to partake of their truths yet we are forbidden to partake of their sins lest we partake