Rom. 11. 33. 38. He that desires to have his heart filled with such a measure of joyfull admiration as will seek a vent in these or the like unaffected serious exclamations must feed his thoughts with contemplation of divine attributes specially with those of infinite duration or eternitie of infinite wisdom of infinite goodnesse and love to man In all which I have adventured to tread a path for others to correct or follow upon triall being assured of this that without the knowledge of these generalities nothing can be said to any purpose in the particulars thus farre prosecuted or in the like to bee prosecuted more at large when God shall grant leasure and opportunitie 39. These present disquisitions though seeming curious as the resolution is truly difficult have a vulgar and immediate use yet not so vulgarly plain or common to all as profitable to every particular Christian not fully perswaded of the certainty of his salvation The speciall aime of my meditations in this argument is first to deterre my self and others from all evill wayes whatsoever but especially from those peculiar and more dangerous sinnes which make up the full measure of iniquitie with greatest speed Secondly to encourage mine owne soule and others with it to accomplish those courses unto which the immutabilitie or absolute certaintie of election it self which must in order of nature and time goe before our infallible apprehensions of it is inevitably predestinated by the eternal and irresistible decree These exhortations are more fit for popular sermons than such points as hitherto have been discussed whose discussion neverthelesse hath seemed unto me very expedient as well for warranting the particular uses which I purpose if God permit to make out of the chapters following as for giving such satisfaction to my best friends as God hath enabled me to give my self concerning the Apostles intent and meaning in this ninth chapter 40. If what I have said shall happen to fall into any mans hands which hath a logical head and beares a friendly heart to truth though otherwise no friend to me yet I presume he will not be so uncharitable towards me as to suspect that I have intended these premisses to inferre any such distastful conclusions as these That Election should be ex fide aut operibus praevisis for our faith or workes sakes That any man should be more than meerly passive in his first conversion That the working of saving grace might be resisted or lastly That in man before his conversion there should be any spark of free will remaining save only to do evill Whosoever will grant me these two Propositions That the unregenerate man hath a true freedom of will in doing evill and The eternal Creator a freedom of will in doing good I will engage my self to give him full satisfaction that no difference betwixt Reformed Churches concerning Praedestination or Reprobation is more then verbal or hath any other foundation besides the ambiguitie of unexplicated termes The errors on all sides grow only from pardonable mistakings not so much of truth it self as of her proper seat or place of residence C. Reader THis last Discourse was published without the Authors consent or knowledge as he says Book 9. Chap. 12. margin He that will compare shall find very considerable meliorations in This now printed after an exact Copy which also had a solemn Dedication prefixed I feared these late Revolutions might have made the ritual publishing it prejudicial to the H persons Therefore have I placed it here as in the Dark behind a Curtain where the Reader may have the same benefit Though the Authors Friends have not either the honour intended or the accidental prejudice To the Two Noble Gentlemen his much honoured Friends Mr. R. S. and Mr. E. S. sonnes to the R. H. L. S. The Blessings of this Life and of the Life to come be multiplied Noble Sirs THere is no Argument in Divinitie wherein every Soul that earnestly seeks Salvation or the avoidance of damnation ought in reason to be more desirous of satisfaction than in the point of of Eternal Election and Reprobation Nor are Scholastick disputes concerning these Points in themselves so dangerous as they are made by such as are more apt to abett Contentions sett on foot than able rightly to examine whence the quarrel first began upon what termes it stands or how it may fitly be composed In searching out the true sense and meaning of whatsoever it hath pleased God to reveal there can be no offence in the manner of the search we often offend Diligence and accurate pains are alwaies commendable as in every other Subject so in this wherein Curiositie is only dangerous Howbeit wheresoever Curiositie of search is dangerous peremptorie Resolutions whether negative or affirmative must needs be pernicious seeing suspension of Assent in difficult or controversed Cases is a propertie no less Essential to true Faith than firm adherence to divine truth known and acknowledged And if the blame were bestowed in that proportion it hath been deserved amongst the several Commentators upon the Scriptures prefixed to these discussions the heaviest burden would lye not upon such as make new Queries but upon such as have taken upon them to give absolute Determinations without accurate search of the Apostles meaning preposterously seeking to comprehend what they should admire and endeavouring to stirre up affected admiration of that which every Novice might fully comprehend were their Resolutions in this Argument as Orthodoxal as they are peremptorie The end of these present Queries is to find out a middle way how to maintain some principal Conclusions of Reformed Churches specially concerning the Servitude of mans Will the Nullitie of merits or of Works foreseen and the Irresistible efficacie of saving Grace without association of those Rigid Premisses which latter ages have invented for their maintenance as Astronomers of old did Epicycles and Copernicus of late the motion of the Earth for salving their Coelestial Phaenomena To pick quarrels with Antecedents of good use whereas the fault lies only in the Inference is a fault too common to Controversie-writers in every age And thus to spight an erroneous Conclusion the foundations of many useful truths are often overthrown and new false Principles brought in their place which will bring forth dangerous errors by faultlesse Consequences I have often been enforced to season my retired thoughts with sighs or tears whiles I beheld the factious oppositions of forraign Reformed Churches abetted animated and propagated by men whom God had placed as Bystanders or unpartial Vmpires and blessed with all opportunities of making peace amongst others so they themselves had been the sons of peace The parties here meant were English Divines men freed by Gods especial providence from all vicinitie of publique adversary or such politick provocations as their forraign brethren were often misled with Some or rather a great many of no mean note have held it as a matter of conscience and affected it as
Luk 14. ver 26. and many other places deny our selves and forsake all before we can be truely his Disciples And we must be truly his Disciples before we can be made Free by Him Indeed as is apparent from the words of our Saviour heretofore recited Ioh. 8. 36. Let us therefore beseech him which quencheth not smoaking Flax and crusheth not a bruised Reed to plant in us Good Intentions to grow by his Assisting Grace into Good Desires and good desires into firm and constant Resolutions of doing that which is good and acceptable in his sight and finally to Crown our best Endeavours wrought in us by his Grace with Everlasting Life and Glory through His Mercy in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen Amen The End of Chapt 36. and of the Fift Section Some Notes of the Publishers relating to severall Chapters preceding THough I hope the Strong and Learned will not boggle at those Terms Conversion Moral Mortification Moral in the 31. Chapter Yet my heart misgives me that They may be taken to Scandal by some Scrupulous but Wel-minded and Pious Reader And therefore though what follows of the Authors in that Chapt. c. might well quiet such Readers mind and ascertain him That there is no Snake nor other Brood of the old Serpent Latent under Those Herbs yet shall I out of my poor Talent Contribute a poorer Mite towards his Satisfaction though only by casting an handfull of dust into the Scale which may make some addition to the number none at all to the weight of what the Author himself hath already there spoken to that Point * Hor. Serm. L. 1. Sat. 8. 1. We see what power Art hath over Nature as to Materials Inanimate The Potter over foul Clay The Cutter over hard Stone The Carver or Carpenter over knotty Carkases of Trees which the Axe hath reduced to the Capacity of Stones the Finer and Founder over Oare and Metals first to work prepare and purifie them afterwards of them to make Olim truncus eram ficulnus inutile lignum Cum faber incertus scamnum facereine Priapum Masuit esse Deum Deus inde ego at pleasure vessels of honour or of Basest use to shape them into figures of Beasts or Men not to say of Gods though 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Aequivocal * God 's only and yet hath besotted man adventured upon that Contradiction also Isai 44. 10. c. Which Formes or new Qualities introduced rather educed E Potentia materiae sive Naturali sive Obedientiali or perhaps only discovered by the Artist who seems to adde nothing to what was in the matter before give us cause to think and say There is a strange Alteration Change Tantùm non Conversion wrought in those Subject Materials And now I have Lâ—d the Reader thus farre out if yet it be Out of his way let me carry him one Stones-Cast further and it is to shew him Socrates's Meditation partly mixt of Admiration Diog. Laert. Lib. 2. at the singular Care of Artists partly of Indignation at the strange negligence of Men that Those should be so scrupulously carefull to make their statues so like unto men and that These should be no more careful least by their own sloth they should become as Theocritus calls them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 like unto statues This Consideration the Satyrist has improved and fixt upon his Gilded Gallant whom having nothing good in him but his Parents-Bloud nor any thing like good about him but Clothes Wealth and Relations he thus taxes Juven Sat. 8. v. 53. Hic petit Euphraten armis industrius At Tu Nil nisi Cecropides Truncóque simillimus Hermae Nullo quippe alio vincis discrimine quà m quà d Illi marmoreum Caput est Tua vivit imago That Poor-man's vertuous Thus and So But you Are meer-sheer-Pedegree Hermes's Statue 'Twixt which and you there 's no'ther difference Save that It says nothing you speak Non-sense But though Mercuries statue according to this account had a little the Worse yet had Memnons Effigies something the Better of Him at least if that was true which Tacitus in 2. Book of Annals reports of it that Radiis icta solaribus vocalem sonum reddidit in Plain English I dare not say True It spoke and if it did we may not Count the words lesse then Apollo's Oracles * 2. A power equal to rather greater then the former hath Industrie and Culture over the next rank of Naturals Vegetables See the Lord Verulam's Nat. Historie Cent. 6. This is seen in such effects as spring from the Artificial modelling and qualifying of Plants farre otherwise then they by nature were or then if left to themselves and let alone they would have been Art hath made barren Trees fruitful sowre fruits sweet and Crooked Plants streight Art can form even These whose peculiar Tendencies till they be superseded incline more powerfully then the former quite another way into better Resemblances or Features then nature left to its course would have produced It can alter or better them so much from what they were or would have been as may give us reason enough to give the same Attributes of Change Alteration Conversion and that with more proper Verification to These then to Inanimates And surely he that carefully Reads the 11. Chapt. to the Romans and sees what use the Holy Ghost hath made of the Art of Ingraffing in Generall yet must it not though much to our present advantage be dissembled that the Metaphor is highly improved there and that the Antitype of Ingraffing is supernatural or Contrary to nature as that an Evil Ciens should be Inoculated into a Good Stock and by vertue thereof be changed into the Goodnesse of the Stock the Practise of Art being to graffe a Good Ciens upon an Evil Stock which shall meliorate overrule and change the ill juice of the Stock into the nature of the Impe will not grudge such Effects as are wrought by the Art of Ingraffing to be intitled so * 3. But what a Largenesse or Latitude of Power Humane Industry hath over the Memory the Imaginative and Loco-motive Faculties of Sensitives is most abundantly manifest 1. In the Training of Horses even to Admiration as hath been seen in our Time 2. * Of Oxen as those at Susae in Babylon which after they had gone so often or so many Turns for water could not with strkes be forced to stirre one foot more upon that Account 3. In the Tutoring of Elephants Plinie in his Nat. Hist 8. l. 3. c. tels it upon the report of a Creditable Roman that saw an Elephant write a sentence of 30. or 40. Letters Suetonius in Galba tels of a New Shew or Sight Elephas Funambulus one that danced upon the Rope Seneca Epist 85. says Domitores-feras docent pati jugum usque in Contubernium mitigant Leoni manum insertat Magister osculatur Tigrim custos Elephantem minimus Aethiops jubet ambulare per Funem 4. In the Discipling
observant Eye may see bear the Stamp and Form of a Conclusion or Collection containing matter for its Truth as unquestionable and of as large Extent for good Vse as any Maxime in this whole discourse This Illative being turned into a simple Assertive Non est volentis neque currentis c is as the Axis whereon the whole Doctrinal Part of this Epistle revolves But taking this Verse as it here lyes being both a Principle and a Conclusion the Lists of my Inquirie into it at this time by Gods assistance shall be but Two Vndè infertur Quò refertur 1. Two Inquiries From what Premisses it is gathered And 2. To what End it is referred Or To what Vse or purpose in the Apostles Intent it is specially applyable The Premisses whence it is gathered first well sounded will rectifie our aime or Level at the Scope whereto it is directed And the End or scope being known will easily impart the right Vse or Application Amongst many Vses whereto these words may serve it is not the least That their just Extent once rightly taken will serve as a just measure or scantling to notifie and unfold the contents of many 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in this Chapter which have been as much perverted as any places in all St. Pauls Epistles because they have been the common Themes of every illiterate vocalist or rural Scholar 2. It is I take it agreed upon by all at least it will be denyed by none that the principal End of this Epistle is to establish these Romanes whether Jews or Gentiles by Progenie in that Faith wherein they had been instructed And by the Line or Level which is directed to this End must the Argument of this present Chapter as of all the rest be squared The Materials here handled differ somewhat from the former but Modus considerandi their Reference or Aspect to the proposed End is the same What the Apostle in this place here inserts either concerning the hardening of Pharaoh the Reprobation of the Modern Iewes or free Election of their Fathers is purposely inserted for under-propping or fortifying his Former Assertion That Iustification or Salvation must be sought by Faith only without Works To perswade the truth of this our Assertion no particular Allegations of Authorities or reasons can so much avail with an ingenuous Auditor as his own di-diligent Perusal of the 10. and 11. Chapters in which The Resumption of his former Argument is to cleare-sighted men more evident then the Continuance of it is in this And with his former Doctrine in those two Chapters resumed he intermingles powerful admonitions to the Gentiles to make their Election Sure unto which purpose the Original and manner of the Iewes Rejection is in this Chapter premised And He that shall please in his more retired thoughts unpartially to survey the Connexion which the 10. and 11. Chapters with the last part of this 9 have with the former specially with the 4 5 6 7 and 8 The stream or Current of the Discourse will evidently bewray it selfe to be the same howsoever it may seeme a litle before and after This 16 Verse to run a close way or under ground yet so as the opening of it is apparent verse 30. What shall we say then That the Gentiles which followed not after righteousnesse have attained to righteousnesse But Israel hath not attained to righteousnesse because they sought it not by faith but as it were by the workes of the Law Verse 32. 3. The fairest Connexion of this 9. Chapter with the former in my opinion is This The Apostle having in the later end of the former Chapter confidently avouched the Infallible Assurance of their hopes which renouncing Workes seek Salvation only by Faith in Christ and his heart having been dilated with joy and exultation of spirit in contemplation of their happinesse is in the rebound more deeply touched with sorrow for the Iewes his countrey-men and kinsfolk according to the flesh The lamentable Issue of whose excellent Prerogatives and strange miscarriage of their extraordinary paines and zealous care in observing the Law might well have danted the late converted Gentiles to whom he writes and in mens esteem much impaired the strength of all former assurances which he had given them unlesse he had further manifested the true Original of the Fall or Rejection of Gods antient people This unfained sorrow for their miserie is so much the greater as every good mans in like case would be by how much their Meanes of well doeing had been the better their Approach to true happinesse nearer and their Interest in Gods promises more peculiar then other mens were It litle moves us to see a lazy unthrift come to be a begger But to see a man extraordinarily industrious in his Calling not to thrive or utterly to overthrow himself and his posterity by some one wilfull humour is grief to every other man that can take paines for his living This Original of our Apostles sorrow is expressely intimated by himself Chap. 10. Ver. 1 2. Brethren my hearts desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved for I bear them record that they have a zeal of God but not according to knowledge And in the 11. Chapter he tels us Gentiles what Moses before had told these Iewes That whensoever they should turn again to the God of their fathers they were to have Precedencie of all other people in the world in his Everlasting and unchangable Love I say then Have they stumbled that they should fall God forbid But rather through their Fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles for to provoke them to jealousie Now if the Fall of them be the riches of the world and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles how much more their fulness ver 11. 12. And again ver 28 29. Concerning the Gospel they are Enemies for your sake but as touching the Election they are beloved for the fathers sake for the gifts and calling of God are without repentance And would it not greive any zealous soul that loves the memorie of his fathers to see them so farre estranged from their God who is not altogether estranged from them but alwayes ready when these Prodigals shall returne unto him to embrace them as his dear Sons These are Points whose contemplation in our Apostle was deeper then our shallow witts can rightly sound and did cast him out of such an Ecstasie of joy into such a suddain Trance of sorrow that he had no leasure to expresse the Causes of it in the beginning of this ninth Chapter but is fain to reserve it to the beginning of the tenth The very depth of sorrow had swallowed up the very stream or current of his discourse and causeth him to begin thus abruptly I say the truth in Christ I lye not my conscience also hearing me witness in the Holy Ghost that I have great heavinesse and continual sorrow in my heart For I
reason then why the Body of Christ is not or ought not to be often offered is not because all our sinnes were actually remitted by the once offering of it or remitted before they were committed but because the substance or matter of the sacrifice is of the same force at this day to remit sinnes that it was of whilest it was offered For his humane nature was consecrated by death and by his bloody Passion to be a sacrifice of everlasting Vertue to be the continual propitiation for our sinnes 7 If either the actual sinnes of all men Christs Resurrection our baptism needless if sinnes be remitted before they be committed or the sinnes of the Elect in speciall had been so remitted by Christs death as some conceive they were that is absolutely pardoned before they were committed there had been no end or use of Christs Resurrection in respect of us no need of Baptism yet was Baptism from the hour of his resurrection necessarie unto all that did beleive in his death and resurrection The urgent and indispensable necessitie of Baptism especially in respect of actual beleivers is not any where more Emphatically intimated than in St. Peters Answer to the Jewes Whose hearts were pierc't with sorrow that they had been the causes of Christs death They in this stound or sting of Conscience demand Men and brethren what shall we do and Peter answered them Repent and be Baptized Every one of you In the Name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sinnes And they that gladly received the word were Baptized the same day Acts 2. 37 38 41. These men had been deeply tainted with sin not original onely but with sinnes actual of the worst kind guiltie they were in a high degree of the death of the Son of God yet had they as well their actual as their original sinnes remitted by Baptism It is then an unsound and imperfect Doctrin that sin original onely is taken away or remitted by Baptism for whatsoever sinnes are remitted or taken away by Christs death the same sins are in the same manner remitted and taken away by Baptism into his death actual sinnes are remitted in such as are guiltie of actual sinnes when they are baptized though onely sin Original be actually remitted in those which are not guiltie of actual sinnes as in Infants No mans sinnes are actually remitted before he be actually guilty of them 8. The Question is how either sin original is remitted or how any work of Satan is dissolved by Baptism And this Question in the General is righly resolved by saying They are remitted by faith But this general Resolytion sufficeth not unless we know the Object of our Faith in this particular Now the particular Object of our Faith of that faith by which sinnes whether by Baptism or otherwise are remitted is not our general Belief in Christ even our belief of Christ dying for us in particular will not suffice unlesse it include our Belief of the Everlasting Vertue of his bloudie Sacrifice and of his everlasting Priest-hood for purifying and cleansing our soules No sinnes be truly remitted unless they be remitted by the Office or exercise of his Priest-hood and whilest so remitted they are not remitted by any other Sacrifice then by the sole vertue of his body and bloud which he once offered for all for the sinnes of all It is not the Vertue or Efficacie of the consecrated water in which we were washed but the vertue of his Bloud which was once shed for us and which by Baptism is sprinkled upon us or communicated unto us which immediately cleanseth us from all our sinnes From this everlasting Vertue of this his bloudy Sacrifice Faith by the ministerie of baptism is immediatly gotten in such as had it not before And in such as have Faith before they be baptized the guilt of Actual sinns is remitted by the exercise or Act of Faith as it apprehends the everlasting Efficacy of this sacrifice and by the prayer of faith and supplication unto our High Priest Faith then is as the mouth or appetite by which were receive this food of Life and is a good sign of health but it is the food itself received which must continue health and strengthen spiritual life in us and the food of life is no other then Christs Body and Bloud and it is our High Priest himself which must give us this food Baptism saith St. Peter 1 Pet. 3. 20. doth save us what Baptism doth save us not the putting away the filth of the flesh yet this is the immediate effect of the water in baptism but the answer or stipulation of a good conscience towards God But how doth this kind of Baptism or this concomitant of Baptism save us The Apostle in the same place tells us by the resurrection of Jesus Christ The answer or stipulation of a good conscience includes an illumination of our spirits by the Spirit of God a qualification by which we are made sonnes of Light being before the sonnes of darkness But That by this qualification we become the sonnes of Light That this qualification is by baptism wrought in us That by this qualification however wrought in us we are saved from our sinnes All this is immediately from the vertue of Christs Resurrection That is as you have heard before he was consecrated by the sufferings of death to be an everlasting Priest and by his resurrection from death his body and bloud became an everlasting Propitiation for sinnes an inexhaustible Fountain of Grace by which we are purifyed from the dead works of sinne 9. It is true again that in the Sacrament of Christs Body and Bloud there is a propitiation for our sinnes because He is really present in it who is the propitiation for our sinnes But it no way hence followes that there is any propitiatorie sacrifice for sin in this Sacrament He becomes the propitiation for our sinnes he actually remits our sinnes not directly and immediately by the Elements of Bread and Wine nor by any other kind of Local Presence or Compresence with these Elements than is in Baptism The Orthodoxal Antients use the same Language for expressing his Presence in Baptism and in the Eucharist they stick not to say that Christ is present or Latent in the water as well as in the Elements of Bread and Wine Their meaning is that neither of these Elements or sensible substances can directly cleanse us from our sinnes by any vertue communicated unto them or inherent in them but only as they are pledges or assurances of Christs peculiar presence in them and of our true investiture in Christ by them We are not then to receive the Elements of bread and wine only in remembrance that Christ dyed for us but in remembrance or assurance likewise that his body which was once given for us doth by its everlasting Vertue preserve our bodies and souls unto everlasting Life and that his bloud which was but once shed for us doth