account of his death undertaken pag. 65. the second when he came in mans nature to suffer that death It is to your purpose that you should mean the first But that cannot be meant because it is said If I had not come and spoken and If I had not come and done the works that none ever did of his second coming therefore it must be meant Now let me ask Had Christs capital enemies no sins to be charged upon them before Christ came or unless he had come You have had some dealing with the people called the Quakers Did ever any of them take a text of Scripture more crudely than you do this Was there no guilt of sin laid to the Nation upon killing of the Prophets or messengers sent beforehand till the Son himself came Doubtless there was a stock of sin charged upon them before though now it came to be compleated and filled up in measure It is wonder you would not compare this with other places which might soon have shewed you how soul your errour was Or why would you not view the context or that which went before v. 20. If they have persecuted me and v. 24. You have both seen and hated me It was the kinde of sin Persecution and hatred and it was the degree of the sin it was hatred without a cause it was malice against cause to the contrary against so many good deeds convincing and obliging That was the sin which they had not been guilty of if Christ had not come You bring another text Sect. the last out of Rom. 5.14 where you say the Apostle implies a distinction answerable to what you make Some sins are after the similitude of Adams transgression namely against light knowledge and engagement or with free unnecessitated consent Other sins are not so Now man being fallen and restored again sinneth as Adam did upon a new engagement by Christs death against Gods goodness and some libertie brought into their wills Answ Adams sin was against a positive and express law others till Moses came sinned against the law of nature written in their hearts The Apostle speaks nothing of light nor of libertie nor engagement and dare you set on soot such a pestiferous opinion as you do because the Apostle implies something answerable which yet he doth not Where doth he so much as obscurely or implicitely teach that all men from the beginning were brought to a new engagement new light and new libertie in their wills Or where doth he say that some sins are forgiven of due debt and some not but upon Repentance Your discourse in the other Sections is so frivolous that I must not bestow much time upon it I will consider that place which you bring in your 10. Section the which as it seemeth you esteem alone sufficient to uphold the Universalists cause and to prove the necessitie of teaching their doctrine as without which there is no hope of any good to be done upon any man in the world by preaching of the Gospel The words are 2 Cor. 5.14 15. The love of Christ constraineth us because we thus judge that if one died for all then were all dead and that he died for all that they which live should not live unto themselves but unto him But I suppose you would not have spent so great a part of the fourth chapter of your Essayes in your boisterous and uncharitable deductions from that place if you had bestowed a little time rightly to understand it Be pleased therefore calmly to take notice First that the Redemption there spoken of is not that universal Redemption which you so much insist upon but that which is efficacious and actually applied so that a Christian thereby is regenerated justifyed and sanctifyed and Those for whom Christ is said to have died had been dead and were now alive and ought therefore in all good reason not to live to themselves but to him that died for them The like exhortation and upon the same ground we finde Rom. 14.9 Christ died that he might be the Lord of the living and that they might live to him and 1 Pet. 4.1 2. forasmuch as Christ hath suffered for us let us cease from sin and live the rest of our time to the will of God And if it be such a Redemption as is actually salutiferous and bringeth with it a new life and if it be such a Redemption of which Sanctification is a consequent as clearly it is by the Apostles discourse and by parallel places then it cannot be that which is called Universal This is further confirmed because Secondly The love of Christ there spoken of is not in probabilitie to be taken actively for that love wherewithall Christ loveth us but passively for that whereby we love Christ To this sense the scope of his words there do best sute as even they seem to acknowledge who interpret it otherwise He would not have them to imagine that what he spake of the Dignitie of his Ministerie tended to his own commendation or that such carnal end or designe had any place in him If we be besides our selves as you may think we are it is for Gods sake whom we seek and serve The love we bear to him compelleth us to do what we do whom alone we desire to know and no man else and nothing else And if it be the love active that is there spoken of for I will not much contend with you about it then we are to know there is a twofold love that God beareth to man as well as a twofold Redemption A general love spoken of Joh. 6. So God loved the world and a particular or special love most commonly understood where his love is spoken of Rom. 5.8 9. Love to the justified and those that shall be saved 1. Joh. 4.19 Love that causeth us to love him again we loved him because he first loved us such must that love be that constraineth and that causeth extasie that setteth us as it were besides our selves and is not likely to be that which is born towards all mankinde whatsoever in right reason it ought to be And thirdly whereas you say that the Apostles were carried out to all their service for Christ because of the love he bare to all men as if they would not have been half so zealous in preaching the Gospel to all men if they had not thought all men had been alike chosen without difference and no man had been denied the gift of Faith it is a very weak phansie of yours What they did was principally done for the elect people of God for his Bodies sake which is the Church Col. 2.24 for the Elects sake 2 Tim. 2.10 As for the rest they knew and testified and held themselves contented that they were unto God a sweet savour even of death unto death in them that perish The love they bare to Christ did carrie them on to do the work appointed them leaving unto God the success of their work
said When the more worthy is to be baptized then he that is less worthy if he be called to it and in place for it may and ought to baptize him this is right and just decent and orderly It may so fall out that an auditour or person of private capacitie is of so good endowments industrie and learning as that his Teacher publickly authorized may well be taught many things by him even such things as belong to his own profession and may say I have need to be taught by you yet the private person must not usurp the publick place because he is the more able and the better fitted of the two Remember the Apostles rule Let all things be done decently and in order CHAP. VIII The Law Sect. 2. VVAs there ever such a Non-sensicall thing found he faults those answers as denying that which he proves out of them You are not the first that hath spoken contradictions nor shall I be the last that confuteth an Adversarie out of his own words You assigned five uses of the Law To be a Rule of life was none of the five yet I proved it to be a rule by consequence from your first use To shew what is sin You taught it not directly and everie one could no gather so much from your words But they who held the Law to be neither ruling nor binding might nevertheless continue in that minde still But I have gained thus much and like wise so may others that you have spoken out and confessed the truth and I am glad to hear it I pray you keep your self to it for the time to come Sect. 3 I know no reason for your loud challenge of wrong and dishonestie you faulted Ministers for being Teachers of the Law to such as were not well principled for duties If there be some men so unqualified that we must not preach the law to them then it is no rule to the unconverted which was all I said and I might well say it from you According to your Divinitie so far as I can perceive the principles are not many There is one To beleeve that God loves us and he that beleevs this is in a manner converted But as I think we may talk of duties to those that have not principles not any principle to perform them that so they may know what need they have of a principle which might enable them to perform them and that in the mean time they may do ea quasunt Legis what the Law commandeth for the substance of it though not as they ought for the manner In your Sect. 4. I shall not need to take notice of any thing saving how you justifie your answer to your Question 290. If I say in making Latine according to Tullyes or Quintilians style a man observs all the rules of Grammar and Rhetorick is it all one as to say that gives a supersedeas to all Grammar and Rhetorick and teaches them to have no use or need of them Who ever had to deal with an unhappier Reviser But first when you asked the childe the question Oughtest thou not to walk in the observation of the ten Commandments why did you not teach him to answer plainly and positively Yes whereas the Answer that you framed for him amounts to a Negative In acting forth Faith and Love I do observe also those Commandments which is as much as if you had told him that he shall not need to observe the ten Commandments otherwise than by acting forth Faith and Love And secondly for your similitude from Grammar-learning I answer He that hath attained Tullyes or Quintilians style may well lay aside and neglect all Grammar-rules and rules of Rhetorick and needeth them no more than an ordinary countrey-man that hath by custome learned to speak true English doth stand in need of an English Grammar which he never yet looked into it may be never heard of As he that can swim well throws away his bladders and the lame man that hath recovered his legs at the Bath leavs his crutches there that helped him thither And will you say or dare any man say that he who hath attained the highest degree of Faith and Love that is attained in this world may neglect forget or not give heed to the ten Commandments Where is our obedience to Gods Law if our eye be not upon his Law or what is obedience but as it is in Psal 119.6 To have respect to all Gods Commandments So you have mended the matter well with your similitude you teach children even children at their first to observe the ten Commandments as Cicero observed the rules of Rhetorick who was himself a rule to Rhetorick The fifth Section is full of heavy complaints and charges I shewed how you as well as some others did mistake the Apostles words of The Law being a Schoolmaster to christ because he speaketh not comparatively of a beleever with an unbeleever but of the state of the Gospel with the state of the Old Testament Here you say That I have merely slandered you and you have been for many years of my minde for all these things Answ 1. It being an ordinary mistake of others who recede from the Antinomians more then you do I had no reason to leave you out 2. If you were indeed of that minde then and so had been for many years you did not hold so long for after not many leavs turned over I finde you of another minde pag. 83. The Apostles did not bring men under servitude as Moses formerly but to Sonship You make an opposition betwixt Servitude and Sonship whereas it should be betwixt manhood and minoritie of age or the like if you had continued in that minde you were of Our Reader must now do his part to judge who is wronged and how far And as for the satisfaction you would have of me it is in your power to clear and set right with others your own reputation And so long as you charge your pretended Orthodox with seeking Gods promises by the works of the Law and with establishing their own righteousness and while you say that Teachers of the Law do they know not what you will be thought to be an Antinomian whether you be one or no. He adds some pretty stories of what manner of Schoolmasters some had That proverbial form Velut Epicitharisma post fabulam Rhenanus explaineth by the custome of the preachers in his time which was after some deep discourse of dark points in Divinitie to tell some fine and pleasant storie of some Saint or other our of the legend to keep the people from falling sleep If the Reader thought so well of my stories as you do they might somewhat serve to refresh him being possibly though it were but early grown dull and heavie with reading But I rather think that you grew dull betimes for the instances that I alledged were not to shew what school-masters some had but to shew that a Pedagogue which is S. Pauls
blessings a sure foundation to them that beleeve in him he abideth firm as a rock though we and all men that now cleave to him come to suffer shipwrack one after another Therefore that is no way likely to be the scope of the place Next is to be considered whether our Saviour Jesus Christ be chosen to salvation In the funeral sermon upon which you wrote your exercitations called them Essays when you met with that saying That there should be any one chosen was the infinite free mercy of God in Christ you would scarce admit it to pass under your approbation unless with this your interpretation It was Gods infinite mercie to choose and save one man even the man Christ Jesus which proposition of yours howsoever you may please your self therein hath little salt or savour in it For then is God mercifull when he helpeth his creatures out of miserie To save and mercie in saving these terms in all reason suppose a lost estate It was infinite mercie in God to send a Saviour but to save a Saviour comes too near the scoff of the Jews If thou be the king of Israel save thy self There is little hope of him being a Saviour that standeth in need himself to be saved What they said had thus much of truth in it He who needed a Saviour was not likely to save others Howbeit that Death from which they would have him save himself was the means to save us Was not Christ chosen to life and salvation as man could any part of the seed of David or Abraham have escaped death or been glorified in life had it not been chosen of God thereto and that by Christs dying Here you implie and teach plainly enough that Christ by his own dying escaped death and attained the life of glory and that he came to save himself as well as others And this were not so ill as it is if want of sense were the worst For death being the stipend of sin if Jesus Christ had need by reason of the common law and manner of men to save himself from Death then how could he be our high Priest holy and undefiled and separate from sinners and a spotless sacrifice offered on our behalf There is no Christian that hath learned his Creed and been well instructed in those words of the third Article conceived by the holy Ghost but must needs take check at what you have here written That which is born of the flesh is flesh The imputation and the pollution of Adams sin are conveyed to all his posteritie by natural or carnal generation But Jesus Christ as man was conceived supernaturally and that stream or flux of original sin which universally and uninterruptedly descended upon mankinde from the first Adam was cut off and stopped by the miraculous work of the holy Ghost so that Christs humane nature was not defiled thereby but was preserved free from all taint and touch of the flesh or sinfull corruption And because as he was man he had no father therefore is he said to be FACTUS Rom. 1.3 and Gal 4.4 not Genitus not begotten but made made of a woman or of the substance of his mother and because he was so and that by the holy Ghost Ideo quod nascetur sanctum Luke 1.35 Therefore that which was born of her was holy perfectly exempted from sin and the guilt of sin otherwise than as the took upon him the sin and guilt of others You quote two places for your purpose Zach. 9.9 Thy king cometh having salvation or saving himself you choose to take it passively with the Jews who take occasion hence to calumniate rather than actively with the most and best interpreters Christ was called Jesus because he saved his people not because he was saved or if it be said that he saved himself it was that he might not be swallowed up of Death after his passion The other text is Hebr. 5.7 He offered prayers to him that was able to save him from Death and was heard this is spoken of bodily Death which our Saviour did in some sort for a time shrink from praying that the cup might pass from him and he was saved from Death so as that he triumphed over Death or if you understand it of his prayer upon the cross what is that to salvation from Death eternal and the wrath of God in the world to come which salvation we stood in need of but he needed not Lastly We are to consider whether onely Christ and none else be personally chosen Now although this be your Doctrine plainly yet you will not allow me to gather it out of the Answer in your Catechism which in effect and in brief was this Election is that whereby God did choose Jesus Christ to be united to the Godhead and all that beleeve in him to blessing Here I observed thus All in general none in particular not any determinately Hereunto you make answer I thought the general had included the particulars not excluded them I am sure in stead of having new Doctrines he hath new Logick All in general therefore none in particular I answer first A General doth include every particular but All in general doth not include any one in particular And secondly the Generals where-ever they are include the particulars but where the generals are onely upon supposition it is possible the particulars may have no positive being Whosoever doth perfectly keep the law of God shall be saved This proposition is true in the general yet in particular no one person in the world shall be saved by keeping the law of God So when it is said whosoever beleeveth shall be saved this being the Election which you teach there may in the event be some particular person saved but as to the choice no one particular person is chosen before another because they are all without any difference beforehand Neither said I All in general Therefore none in particular It should be supplied thus nevertheless none in particular and I have told you who of your own partie held that though salvation be intended to all yet possibly to none particular it may befall And let me tell you now what you heard not yet from me that the second part of the Definition that you give of Election is a mock-answer as well as the first For as the first part is of the union of the two natures in one person that is the Incarnation So the second is concerning the Gospel but not at all concerning Election For what is the Gospel He that beleeveth shall be saved Mark 16.16 The preaching of Christ crucified to save them that beleeve 1 Cor. 1.21 And this is that very thing which you in words metaphorical others of your partie in words more proper do call Election both removing the old terms bounds and words faulting modern systemes to make way for new-coined opinions The Gospel proffers life upon condition of beleeving As the Law did upon condition of working Gods
to punish sin and the one is the contents of the Gospel as much as the other of the Law If by mercie you mean goodness and forbearance and patience these are evidently seen in the works of God But what is all this to pardon and redemption where in the mean time is purchase and satisfaction And yet actions if meer actions are subject to various interpretation and therefore to misinterpretation witness the two Service-books that were left upon the Altar over night and in the morning scattered in pieces all over the Church When Julius Cesar at a time made a speech to his souldiers the greater part of them being at a distance could not well understand what he said but they perceived by his gesture that he spake of the ring upon his finger and thought that he had promised to them all the honour and revenue of Knighthood whereas he onely told them thus much that rather than not satisfie their utmost arrears he would part with all that he had even to the ring of his finger Ceremonies which are actions appointed to teach and instruct are usually accompanied with a word of instruction When Esay walked barefoot and Jeremy wore a yoke about his neck when Agabus bound himself with Pauls girdle and the Gourd withered that shadowed Jona's head if something had not been spoken as well as done there would as little knowledge have been gathered as David would have gathered from the arrows that Jonathan shot if they had not afore been agreed upon the token The eternal Power and Godhead and Wisdome are seen in the world but can you tell us one place in all the Scriptures one word of Institution whence it may appear that God ever intended to give notice of mans Redemption through Jesus Christ by the works of Creation and Providence If you cannot it is put to your choice whether you will hold your peace or speak to no purpose as you do in that which follows here How else lead they to Repentance if they witness not mercie to the penitent Rom. 2.4 5. In answer to which place I have thus much to say First That reproof of the Apostle is bent against the Jews or if it be to the Gentiles it is after they were made partakers of the Gospel or the publication of it And Secondly To whomsoever he speaks he is in that place even to the middle of the third chapter whetting the Law and brightning the face of Moses not preaching the Gospel Repentance belongeth to the Law which enjoyneth and commandeth it The Rule that directs me to walk in the way directs me also to return into it when I am out of it Before the Fall Gods bountie led to Obedience and due service After the Fall Gods bountie leadeth to Repentance as a part of our Obedience and as necessarily prerequired to all future obedience in such a case It is true that God pardoneth all that do repent but this is by vertue of the Gospel and is a Priviledge of beleevers His long-suffering to us-ward is that none should perish but sooner or later come to the knowledge of the Truth 2 Pet. 3.9 But this is the question whether every inducement to repent even among heathens and infidels doth include and contain in it a promise of mercie and pardon this I denie upon this reason because then the Gospel should be contained in the Law and the promise of forgiveness in a dutie of obedience But the Law the Gospel being two several things ought in our consideration to be kept apart He that invites to Repentance sheweth plainly he would not have the offender or delinquent to go on in doing wrong but would have him prevent heaping up wrath vers 5. and increasing his condemnation but he doth not always shew that he is readie to pardon what is past that this is so appeareth by this similitude A Landlord commenceth sute against one of his Tenants in order to his ejectment for not paying his Rent in the mean time this Tenant maketh strep and waste still wronging and by divers abuses provoking his Lord who nevertheless is kinde to him as to his other Tenants in countenance invitations and other courtesies A servant of the Lord thus speaks to the Tenant My Masters fair and civil carriage towards you may invite you to be sorrie for what you have done and make you ashamed to demean your self so undutifully and injuriously In this case he is invited to repent but he is not put in hope that the suit shall be let fall and he be still continued in possession Pag. 105. They preach God mercifull to sinners and that is the contents of the Gospel Whence else do poor heathen in distress cry to him for mercie and help as in Psal 107. and Jon. 1. or offer sacrifice in all ages if they had not instruction into the propitiousness of God as well as into his being Forasmuch as sacrifices do ow their original to Divine institution and the will of God made known by his word to the Patriarchs It is consequent that the heathen who did also offer them did not gather that dutie of their Religion from the contemplation of this visible world but that it must be reckoned among those Remains of broken knowledge which from Gods people were diffused among the nations but much and many ways vitiated and corrupted Now you have taught in these words two great errours yea if I may call them as they seem to me unchristian and heathenish 1. That all worship done to any God is done to the true God 2. That all kindness that God sheweth to sinners is the manifestation of his Gospel And thus have you broken down the hedge of the vineyard or enclosure and laid it open in waste and in common to all the world of Pagans and Infidels for never was there nation so barbarous but did homage to a God one or other You have brought not Greeks into the Temple but Idolaters continuing in their Idolatries into the Christian Church and yielded to them the knowledge of the onely true God and of him whom he hath sent Jesus Christ Or rather as some have taken away all Idolatrie against the second Commandment by making the first and second all one So have you taken away all Idolatrie against the first Commandment when you thus make all one the true God with Idols or false Gods or a confused conception of a Deitie at large The 107 Psalm saith that sea-faring men crie unto the Lord in their distress if you read the Psalm from the beginning you will finde Gods own people the Hebrews to be spoken of or what if it be extended to others that in their distress they crie unto God The young Ravens call unto him for their meat And the eyes of all things are said to look up to him The earth and clouds crie unto him in a drought You may read in another Psalm this prayer which you may reconcile as well as
abuses of Popery were to be reformed not onely the wel-minded laid to their hands but persons also worldly godless and enemies to Religion joyned with the rest in the destructive part but intended to promote Atheisme when they set themselves against Superstition Hereticks also whose opinions lay on that side were zealous in their manner but their zeal was more like Wild-fire which they threw in to have marred all if it might have been For after that Antiquity came to be a badge ot Popery then 1 whatsoever was found to have been practised by the Papists in Church-orders was for that reason rejected Not a stone must be taken from Babylon for a foundation or a corner If the least matter of all were yielded it was as a pepper-corn in acknowledgement of the Antichristian Government And 2 even the most sacred Articles of our Christian Faith have been denyed as having come from Rome and thither were to be returned So the name of Antichrist the Beast and the Dragon served the turne for many heresies for all profaneness A Discourse came forth entituled The storming of Antichrist a right proper and well chosen word of which they know the meaning who had experience of the Wars and laying siege to Towns and strong places and assaulting them storms of winde tempests of hail and of Lightning do spare nothing that is in their way having no regard shewing no mercy making no difference for being meer naturall Agents they always act according to their utmost power and might So describes the Poet his hardy Souldiers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not likening them to Wolves and Lions which have been known to relent and their mouths have been as it were stopped but they fought as it were a flame fell on like a tempest noting saith the great Scholiast 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they were irrationally impetuous violent without sense or reason without mean or measure And much like these stormers were some of those that went among our Reformers both first and last You seem to extend Beast-worship very far even to those matters in question betwixt us But you give no instance nor shall I insist upon any I know you can if you will distinguish betwixt Poperie and the Christian Religion and if you do not consider apart what belongs to one and what belongs to the other what to Errour and what to Truth you may soon do that which tendeth to the weakening and undermining of the whole building Divers of the Papists have twitted us with the Jews laying to our charge Judaisme for refusing some Apocryphal books and for condemning Image worship as the Jews do now and for saying that a man cannot forgive sins as they also said and for insisting upon the Law of Moses and the precedents of the old Testament to prove that unto Christian Kings belongeth the supremacy in ordering matters of Religion in a Nation he that argueth thus say they is more like a Jew than a Christian The Anabaptists had learned this Lesson too for when they were bent upon such a confusion as should take away the difference betwixt Clergie and Laitie they were wont upon occasion to revile the Priests and Levites as blinde and ignorant 〈◊〉 demanding of John the Baptist by what authority he did what he did as if observation of order in the Church and pretence of Authoritie in Gods worship and service were points of Judaical blindness and infidelity Against all these and such like let us remember that the Jews were once the onely true Church of God and our Christianity came to us from them and through their hands we are all but proselytes to their Church So that as they had once all the Substantials of the true Religion both for belief and practice we cannot suppose but that they do retain many of them still In like manner the Christian Religion came to us through the Church of Rome not from the Church of Rome and our profession is but to remove the additions and superstructures of the Papists by which the right belief and worship have been corrupted and to throw out the earth with which the Philistims had filled the well and stopped the springs Antichrists are many there is false worship on both hands Anarchie is beastly doing as well as Tyrannie and Confusion as much as Usurpation I cannot but think some prejudice a-against my person I know not wherefore being so meer a stranger to him hath clouded his reason By this Clause he that will may judge of all your book as of the sack by a handfull for it is like the rest full of confidence but void of reason as if your Doctrine were so blameless that nothing could be spoken against it Perhaps against your person some may harbour prejudice but against what you teach and write no man unless his reason be overclouded can justly except You should have been well assured first that there was any such prejudice born against you before you took such thought and put your self to a loss in seeking what might be the cause of it For my part I am as much to seek what should be any the very least ground of such a vain surmise Some little while after the comming forth of this your Piece a friend of mine and of yours too who doth nor much give his mind to read Controversies nor was at that time much inclined out of his good nature to pitie my condition did ask me thus Who bade you begin And because this question is very consonant to your sense I will now give you the Answer to it And first if my charge which is that I began be in reference to those multitudes of right-believing Christians who have a long time been offended at your Doctrine My Defence is this that if any other whosoever had before endeavoured to hinder the spreading of your errours then as I could not have begun so I would not have followed There arose indeed some contest between the Reverend Doctor and your self about Vniversity-learning but for other Heterodoxies of yours no man so far as I know gave notice or publick warning I began therefore because none other would though very many much better might But I suppose the meaning of the question was not why I rather than another but why I would begin with you when as you gave me no provocation But I pray consider well they are the Schismaticks who though they abide give just occasion unto others for to depart He that denies the debt begins the sute and he that invades my right sends for the process Will you not give others leave to defend their own against you and and to continue in the things that they have learned and contend for the Faith once delivered to them which you with your Innovations and inventions have corrupted you began when you taught and promoted so many opinions contrary to what we have received when you wrought upon the people to draw them after you when at