which I fear without a serious Reflection upon himself and his Works such as may through Grace lead him to Repentance for it he will find to be his Portion in the end to his smart and sorrow Non obstante as I have said already I dislike not his Zeal in awakening the World out of that sluggish Lethargy to which all as he saith are more or less inclined Let the Thunder and Lightning of Sinai be ratled in the Ears and darted into the Eyes of secure impenitent sinners let the Terrors of the Law be as Magor-missabib formido circumquaque dreadful to them round about let the Judgment to come be displayed before them with all the terrifying Appearances of it This indeed being according to the form of found words which the Spirit of God in Scripture hath set us in our Preaching may do some good as it hath done to many desperate sinners in opening their Eyes and turning them from Darkness to Light and from the Power of Satan to God But it is a false Allarm that this man soundeth to that purpose when he tells the World that not above one in a hundred thousand nay probably not above one in a Million shall be saved This is not to be as a Schoolmaster to drive us to Christ but rather as a Devil to scare us from him This is the Eccho rather of the Bottomless Pit the Reverberation that ariseth from the deep Caverns of Hell enough to make men run headlong into Desparation or into Athiesm or at least into Epicurism and greater Dissoluteness in their Lives Neither indeed can any other be expected when the mercies of God which have always been proclaimed to be infinite are so straitned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Pet. 1.19 and the precious honourable Blood of the Lamb sufficient to save all the World is made of so little reckoning A good Doctrine would this be where that Antichristian Tenet is received as an Evangelical Truth viz. that men shall be justified by their own Righteousness and saved by their own Works for then well may it be said not one in a Million nay not one in all the World from Adam down to the last man that shall spring from that sinful Root shall ever be saved well may the Church of Rome now sing their Jo Paean and well may the Quakers that frantick Sect joyn in it For this man hath done all their work for them But to go on with his Dedication He is it seems by his words at the end of his Stage even as I am I confess at the end of mine and it will concern us both therefore to be very wary how we get off from it No necessity though was there for him before his Exit to gaze about for a Plaudite by proclaiming publickly that it is the common Entertainment he allows himself to meditate upon his Leaving the Stage Let him on Gods name employ his Wisdom if he have any in considering his latter end and his Appearance before the great God and God Almighty grant that I also may do the like Nevertheless when I look upon his Boldness in reflecting upon Gods Arcana Imperii I am afraid he is not so wise as he should be in that matter of his Departure but that either the thought of his latter end was then the latter end of his thought or if his thoughts did run to the end of his Stage his precipitant Phansie did so out-run them that he could hardly reach with Comfort to the end of his Race And as for others better surely were it for us who are ready to be unclothed as the Apostle's word is to reflect upon our selves by a serious Examination of our Hearts Lives and Opinions then to be Astonished with the Stupidity and profound Security of others which I confess is much to be lamented too wheresoever it is But for him to boast thus of himself and at the same time to condemn the gross of Mankind as he impudently calls it for their Negligence in that matter wherein he would have us believe he himself excelleth what is this but Pharisaism in a high degree All their thoughts and bustle he saith amount only to this to pursue the Lusts of the Flesh the Lusts of the Eye and the Pride of Life and to advance their carnal Interests in the World as if there were nothing more to hope for or to fear c. which he applies not only to Heathens but to those that are born in a Christian World that are Educated and Bred up in the Truths of the Gospel in whom he saith this Insensibleness is inexcuseable See I beseech good Readers what a Censor morum this doughty Doctor is and how Arrogant in that he will dare to usurp a divine Power thus by entring into the Hearts of men and to know all their Thoughts What knoweth he but that a great multitude of those whom he accounts insensible may have as great a sense of sin at some time or other in their Souls and sorrow for it as he himself hath Yea and though they make not so great a bustle in the World about it as he doth yet may their sorrow be more after a godly sort For him when I hear what carefulness there is in him to amend his Errors what Apology he can make for himself about them what Indignation he hath against his own Heart for conceiving them when I hear of these and the other effects of godly sorrow to be in him I will rejoyce and praise God for the Grace that is given him but till then I must say he hath exceedingly sinned against God and let him be sure his sin will find him out In the mean while when he saith all their thoughts and bustle amount only to this to pursue the Lusts of the Flesh c. and to advance their carnal Interests in this World as if there were nothing more to hope for or to fear On the other side the Gulph which all must shoot I would know of him what he means thereby would he have men to neglect their Callings whereto God hath called them and wherein by the Apostles Rule they are to abide with God otherwise not to eat Men that are wise would say the more Noise and Bustle men make in the World by their Diligence and Industry in their Callings the more are they to be commended provided that they keep themselves within due Bounds especially that they neglect not the Vnum necessarium the one thing needful For whereas God commands us to serve him he alloweth us also to serve our selves nay more by serving our selves in a holy conscientious Use of Gods Blessings and by following our Callings in Obedience to his Commands God accounts himself to be served too Col. 3.24 Servants saith St. Pauly in serving their Masters diligently serve the Lord Christ they wrought for me saith the Lord Ezek. 29.20 when it was their own Interests and Advantages they aimed at in
speak so doubtfully in this weighty Matter with a may be As much as to say the Efficacy of Redemption may be excellent or it may not be so and whatsoever it is 't is only for those whom God hath a mind to save q. d. Let Christ suffer what he will let him give a full satisfaction by his Death to Divine Justice for the sin of the world yet God hath no mind to save any but a very few in some parts of the world This is your Sense But had you said 't is only for those whom you your self have a mind shall be saved this indeed had been Answerable to that height you have Skrewed your poor Phansie up unto viz. To judg the world as you please But you are pleased here to refer it to Gods mind methinks however you might have found out some sitter Word for this purpose that had been more for the Honour and Majesty of the most high God than to talk so boldly of the mind of God in this Case But possible it is thus with you because you pretend to know the Mind of God and to be his Privy Counsellor being that as I have said already which hath made you to cast up your Accounts so exactly and judicially of your Thousands hundred Thousands and Millions that shall be damned Had you said here as it hath been wont to be said by all Christians that are wise and honest the work of Redemption is only for those that are in Covenant with God and that believe the Gospel this had been according to the mind of God but these terms you were willing to wave because you know that Faith is the gift of God and he gives it to whomsoever he pleaseth which would have made your Reflection retort upon you whereupon it is that you talk of the Mind of God at large But hath this indeed been the Mind of God to lay such Restraints upon the sufferings of his Beloved Son that the Efficacy of them shall reach but to a sew And consequently hath this been the Mind of God by an Eternal Decree to damn all his poor Creatures who are the Masterpiece of his Creation for ever excepting one in a Million Gen. 1. O that ever any that beareth the face of a Man should dare to speak so wickedly of God What is this but to make the Father of Mercies and the God of all Consolations more cruel than all the Tyrants that ever were in the World yea than all the Devils that are in Hell For they are but Gods Executioners it is God himself that hath passed this doom neither can the Merits of his only begotten Son our dear Redeemer be of force to reverse it Away therefore with this cursed Opinion most abominable in the hearing of all Mankind The very Heathen will certainly abhor it yea and hate that Religion which maintains it Nay they will be ready to Defie and Blaspheme that God who shall harbour so cruel a Mind and say as one of them said in the like Case Qualis malum Deus isbe est what a kind of God with a Mischief is this whose mind is set to damn and destroy so infinite a number of People whom he had made as they say after his own Image and Likeness Upon these and the like Considerations that shall follow I hope Mounsiour you will retract these your Reflections and be sorry that you have given so great offence by them both to God and his Church Reflector When Jesus Christ Prayed for those that Crucified him he did particularly mark out those in Act 2.36 37. who would Repent at the Preaching of St. Peter Answer Christ's Prayer upon the Cross for those that Crucifyed him was this viz. Father forgive them and the Reason why he so Prayed was not as you seem to imagine For they will Repent That is far short of his meaning neither is it suitable to that Philanthropy that was in him towards them nor to the Elevation of his Mind unto his Father which was fixed no doubt upon his Fathers purpose to save the World by him of which they were ignorant for saith he they know not what they do From whence it may be gathered that they who ignorantly transgress as the greatest part of the World do may be more capable of mercy than they who sin presumptuously as the Apostle St. Paul saith of himself 1 Tim. 1.13 I obtained Mercy because I did it ignorantly in Vbelief We read indeed Joh. 17.20 21. that Christ Prayed also for them who should believe on him through the word of his Apostles that they all might be one in him that so the world may believe that the Father had sent him which otherwise might have been brought into Question after his departure by the Divisions and Dissentions that might arise among his Disciples But that when he Prayed for those that Crucified him he did particularly as you say mark them out Act 2.36 37. who would Repent at the Preaching of St. Peter this is your particular Phansie groundless and unwarrantable And will you still thus shuffle with the holy Scripture to make it serve your turn for it is very obvious to all that read you why you force these Scriptures together that are so incoherent You would like a wary Fencer ward off a Thrust which you foresaw might have touch'd you to the Quick But fear it not poor man for it will be easily granted you that none but those who are born again shall ever be saved But you likewise must grant that both Faith and Repentance are the gift of God and that Gods Mercy in the free bestowing his gifts is not to be limited to time or Means for the Conversion of those that are chosen to Life Eternal as you may find it clearly proved in my Antidote but that this Mercy may be secretly and suddenly dispensed to millions of millions in the World by the gracious Work of the good Spirit of God in and upon the Hearts of men before they die and that sometimes in the very instant of their departure out of this Life This being so your Accounts will fail you of your hundred Thousands and Millions that shall perish in Hell for ever in comparison of one that shall be saved Reslector And though there should be but one saved for a hundred Thousand that should perish and be lost yet Grace would sub-abound in this one Person saved where sin had abounded as in the Example of the Thief Luk. 23.40 41. Answer The words of the Apostle that you harp upon are these Where sin abounded Rom. 5.20.21 Grace did much more abound That as Sin bath Reigned unto Death even so Grace might Raign through Righteousness unto Eternal Life by Jesus Christ our Lord. A most comfortable place of Scripture this is written on purpose to magnifie the glorious Grace of God now under the Gospel towards poor Sinners that Repent And will you thus limit it to one particular Person
whom you have fancied to be culled out of your Thousands and Millions when it is clear the good Spirit of God speaks it expressy of Adam and his Ofspring as they generally Issue from him in their several Generations Are you then and your Complices sit to meddle with the Holy Scripture when you understand it no better Better surely were it for you if it were as a sealed Book unto you rather than be permitted to wrest it so perniciously to your own destruction There is a Truth I confess in what you here say But seeing you cannot but know that these words of the Apostle from whence you gather this your abundant Favor for one probably of your own gang are of so large an extent as hath been said and that to take them in his sense were utterly to overthrow your damnable Doctrine which rather than you would do you would pervert them to your own private shallow Interpretation since it is so may it not well be said without any offence either before God or Man you are fitter to be a Hewer of wood c. as the Gibeonites were than to divide the Word of Truth to Gods People Had the Apostle here written where Sin abounded Wrath did much more abound this it seems would have gone down easily with you as according to your Palate But blessed be the good Spirit of God whose word it is and blessed be the Hand that first wrote it it is a word of Mercy a word of strong Consolation to the whole Church of God The Magnitude and Redundancy of Divine Grace being infallibly by the abundance of sin made the more conspicuous as the more desperate a bodily Disease is the more is the Virtue and Excellency of the Medicine that Cures it made the more famous and to be extolled Let therefore that word stand firm and stedfast against you which you in your eleventh Paragraph of objections have made light account of viz. that the Grace of God is exalted far above his Judgments and Severities that there where sin has abounded Grace has much more abounded for the solution hereof is not so easie as of many more though you have pretended so of it to your Reader Reflector As to the Salvation of the Children of Heathen Parents or others that is a sealed Book which God doth not permit us to open Answer It is well that you have that Charity for Children yea for the Children of Heathen Parents as well as of others so as not to reckon them among your Thousands and Millions whom you have marked to Destruction for your only Design you say Pag. 27. in this whole Discourse is to speak of men deceased above an Age ago still you shuffle and after they had the exercise and use of Reason It is well I say But you here add the Salvation of such Children is a sealed Book which God doth not permit us to open I will not much argue with you about this though I might nor inquire by what Authority you call the Salvation of Children more than of others who have had the exercise and use of Reason a sealed Book which God doth not permit you to open Possibly you may dream of the Limbus Infantum where Children are kept from the Pains of Hell not having the Pain of Sense but only the Pain of Loss Which Limbus no man could ever open no not the Pope himself for though it is said he hath the Key of Purgatory yet the Key of this place appointed for Children is not it seems committed to his Custody But is the Salvation of Children as you say a sealed Book and is not the Book of Gods Universal Judgment and the Lambs Book of Life sealed Books likewise Yet you dare it seems without Gods Permission yea contrary to Gods express command in Scripture to open these Books and give your Judgment forsooth of them as you please And what is this but to anticipate the Judgment of the great Day The Apostle Reasoned with Faelix of Judgment to come Act. 24.25 and adviseth yea warneth us 1 Cor. 4.5 To judge nothing before the time until the Lord come who is to be the Judge of Quick and Dead Much less should we judge so rashly as to determine of the Number of Gods Elect and that with so peremptory a Sentence as to exclude the major part of Mankind from all hope of Salvation which is the deadly Venome that runs through your whole Discourse It had been good indeed if this your Book had been so sealed that it might have been bound up in everlasting silence never to come forth rather than to do that mischief which it is like to do among poor and weak Christians who have always been apt to despond and not only them but among such as are Prophane to strengthen some in their Atheism which groweth over-Rampant in this Generation and others in their Epicurism and Debaucheries who will be ready to say Seeing there is little or no hope of Mercy for us when we die let us take our Pleasure while we may Eat Drink and be Merry Reflector It is sufficient for us Mortals to know that none is or can be saved but by Jesus Christ But we must not go about to determine whether none are saved but who have known Jesus Christ Answer For us Mortals a word that you use once and again here in your Discourse because you would like your good friends the Quakers take up a form of speech differing from that which is common Otherwise you might have said it is sufficient for us poor Creatures which would have pass'd for current better than your word Mortals For the time will come when this Mortal shall put on Immortality wherein the same Truth shall be known by us then which we now know And do not they that are now Immortal know this that Jesus Christ is the only Saviour of the World as well and better than we But I must tell you it is not sufficient for us Mortals as you call us to know this for God hath been graciously pleased to Illighten us poor Mortals and those that are Immortal too to know that none can be saved by Jesus Christ but those that are in Covenant with God Why then do you by affirming so gross an Untruth lessen that knowledge which the Spirit of God in Scripture hath given us saying It is sufficient c. Why indeed but because you was loth to extend the work of Salvation so far as to reach to those Thousands and Millions which you will have to be damned for they also may for ought you know be in Covenant with God as well as your self Men may guess at your meaning Don Doctor though you speak it not out as you ought to speak it You say further we must not go about to determine whether none be saved but who have known Jesus Christ Was there ever such a Don known before that will take upon him so imperiously to judge the
which he and his followers would prove by certain Parabolical Allusions and Semblances that are not Argumentative I shall let it pass as unworthy of any Regard Those Arguments of the first sort viz. Caelius c. that are most pertinent to the matter in hand though this Reflector takes no notice of them or but very little I shall briefly recollect and render an Account of them First The Law in its greatest Rigor says that God punisheth but to the third and fourth Generation but he sheweth Mercy to a thousand Generations Thus they And will not you Mr. Reflector say so too If you will not you must fall under the Curse threatned by the Holy Ghost Rev. 22. viz. God will take your Part out of the Book of Life i.e. Cast you out of his Church so that you shall be uncapable of any of the Blessings belonging to it If you will say thus the Thousands to whom God will shew Mercy would have sounded better under your Pen than that which you have writ of the number of those that shall be Damned And here I cannot but insert what a learned and good Divine hath writ to me when he saw my Antidote against your Book we saith he seldom or never in sacred Pages meet with the terrifying number of the Damned particularly summed up but of the Happy we find Rev. 7. such precise numbers mentioned And some thousands of years before that it is written God had Mercy in store for thousands of them that loved him and kept his Commandments This in truth is the Spirit that hath prevailed among us here in this our Church it being well known that the Genius if I may so call it of our Nation hath always more inclined to Mercy than to Rigor and hath been apt to interpret the Law of God as well as the Law of our Land rather for the Comfort and Benefit of Mankind where such a Construction may upon good terms be allowed then for their Ruine and Destruction I know not Mounsieur what hath been predominant with you in other parts of the World But it is you and such as you are that have joyned with the Roman Faction against us to create Disturbances among us and to lead captive silly People into many absurd Errors which have brought a Cloud over all our Excellency and have eclipsed that glory of Truth and Peace which but for you would long ere this time have dwelt in our Land You go on to tell us what they say viz. Caelius c. That the Mercies of God are of a large Extent that God is slow to Anger ready to Pardon and shew Mercy that he forgives sins of the deepest Dye and that Calvin remarking upon the words which God speaks Ex. 34. of his forgiving Iniquity Transgression and Sin that God thereby wonderfully advances the greatness of his own Mercies and that he would have us to know he Pardon 's not only little Sins but also the most Enormous and that God would not command us to say Forgive us our sins if he had not an intention to forgive them for he did not make that Command to send us away from him as you impiously say like Fools as we came Yet is your Sarcasme an Argument against you All which that they say of this matter and much more that you add is true and which all good People who believe there is a God will say How dare you then to contradict it by saying not above one in a Million shall ever by these Infinite Mercies come to Heaven Would any man but you having all these Comfortable Promises of Mercy and Overtures of Grace under your Eye conclude expresly for the Execution of Gods Wrath to the uttermost upon his poor Creatures that have sinned against him But that you after say the Arguments for your Opinion are incomparably more strong and nervous how strong they are we shall see hereafter In the mean time I must tell you these Premises though you slight them as being not Syncategorical with your Position yet are they certainly against you and make for the Truth You say further that they mightily Press As all good Christians will the Infinite Price and Value of the Merit Death and Satisfaction and Redemption of Jesus Christ which is not only efficacious to Pardon you should rather have said to obtain Pardon for an Infinity that 's your word of sins both for their number and their Enormity but also for an Infinity of men That it is extreamly to lessen the ends for which Jesus Christ came into the World to admit that he came only to Redeem one man of a Million That it is not to be believed that Jesus Christ at the right hand of his Father does intercede but for one of a hundred thousand of all mankind What you say to all this we shall see hereafter They do likewise say you mightily urge this Consideration that since none are in a State of Damnation but who are under a perpetual weeping wailing and gnashing of Teeth and an eternal Horror of Conscience for their past Offences it cannot rationally be affirmed of so many millions of Heathen Children that dyed before they came to the use and exercise of Reason And if God be merciful to these as who can determine the contrary it would be ridiculous such is your word as if you had a mind to laugh at God that God has reserved their Parents alive who have the use of Reason to damn them to all eternity what you will say to all this also would be considered for none of all these things move you Moreover who will believe say they that God so loved the World or that he sent his Son into the World not to condemn it but that it might be saved by him That Christ is the Lamb of God that takes away the Sin of the World and that he being the Bread of Life gave himself to the World to give Life to it c. who will believe that by the World we must understand but one or two Persons among I know not how many thousands or millions in the World And where is that love towards the World to let it walk that is to say perish in its own ways All this and much more is alledged by that Orthodox Evangelical Party against your destructive Opinion as for that other which makes the number equal between the Elect and Reprobate as I have said I meddle not with it And you Mr. Reflector had done better if you had made no mention of it at all For to what purpose do you recite it and their Arguments for it when you may know it is not at this time of any Account scarce a word spoken of it among any unless it be with Contempt But you were willing to muster up your Enemies and drive them before you altogether promiscuously like a brave man at Arms or rather like that Pugnacissimum Animal as it is said of the Gander Armata