I desist to prosecute further only I observe this by the way That your Tribe and Fraternity having sinned most against the Covenant of God's Grace in Christ in founding your selves upon Popish Pelagian and Arminian Principles he hath hardened your hearts and left you to more Horrible Errours than others Your thirteenth Article is double tongued runs with the Hare and holds with the Hound for Communion Prayers and use of Sacraments are the duty of Believers but not the immediate duty of damnable Hereticks For first repent and believe the Gospel if you can according to its primitive Institution then those follow in order To your fourteenth Article I answer that you have neither the true Form or Power and if you had the Form and not the Power it 's enough for us to depart your Tents because they are Tents of Darkness You have not the true Faith ergo not the true Spirit ergo not the true Love ergo not the true Power And for your Form it is not Apostolical or truly Scriptural Antichrist's Foundation ever since the false Apostles seduced the Galatians is that you are built on Your fifteenth Article is a Beggar too and presupposes that which we cannot grant you That you are the true Church and Ministers of Christ 'T is true the true Ministers of Christ are to be free and Hospitable not like your ltnierants who trade it in the World and prate of what you know not and have not observed the Apostles Rule 2 Tim. 2.4 and 15.16 vers for you do not Orthotomounta rightly cut down in twain the Law and the Gospel preaching one to the proud self-conceited Hypocrites and the other the humbled Sinners and as for Hospitality when God shall give us Gosel-wages 1 Cor. 9.12 13 14. 2 Cor. 11.7 8. I trust we shall by his help do our duty in that You preach not the true Jesus nor the true Gospel as Paul did 1 Cor. 15.3.17 2 Cor. 11.4 The sixteenth Article opposes his Fellow afore-going and gives him the Lye to his face where Ministers are to be hospitable But here you take the means of hospitality from them and tell them they must preach freely You forbid Tythes that sticks in your throats though Christs Covenant dashed in pieces you can swallow down like the Pharisees Camel ex ungue Leonem But pray where are Tythes forbid jure Humano as a Gospel Maintenance if not jure Divina I would Gospel Ministers had the Tythes by the godly Magistrates Anthority it would be no sin against Christ I ask you a Question Did Constantine sin or not sin in giving the Tythes to the Clergy which thing was done by him 1. Before the Roman Antichrist arose 2. In love to Christ notwithstanding that Voice that is said to tell him that he had by so doing ruined the Church If you say it was a sin then prove against what Law he sinned for where there is no Law there is no Transgression Is it not lawful for Gospel Magistrates to provide for Gospel Ministers if they may not by what Law may they not if they may by what Law may they not give them the Tenths 1. You 'l say perhaps because the Tenths are the Husbandmans own it may be when Christ hath taken the Kingdoms in his own Power he will give it up to them but till then 't is in the power of Kings to dispose it as they will and your duty to be subject to them Rom. 13. And it is a custom è memoria hominum and therefore not ours but the Princes and may not he give it to whom he will 2. You 'l say 't was an Antichristian Maintenance brought in by the Pope This Reason is of most prevalency could you prove it For first 't is apparent that Tythes were given to the Pastors of Churches before the Roman Antichrist rose up So you make Baptism of Infants Antichristian as brought in by the Pope which was practised from the Apostles days and never questioned till about the fifth Cent. and then by the Insurrection of Catabaptists See Calv. Instit 4. lib. 15 16. Chapters But to close all pray why do you bring in and establish the capital Errours of Antichrist and Papists as Free Will General Redemption falling from Grace c. which were established by Huberus Phygius Hemingius Bellarmine and many other Papists Yet wipe your mouths like the Whore in the Proverbs Come let 's take our fill of love I have offered Burnt-offerings and Peace-offerings to day So you Come let 's build on their Foundation for we are baptized with Believers Baptism and have gathered Churches and separated from the Church of England Don't you know that Separation is not a mark of the Spirit sufficient to carry you out Jude Ep. 19. No nor giving your goods or bodies to the fire neither 1 Cor. 13 no nor the multitude of your Party 1 Kings 18.22 and Chap. 23.20.21 23 24. For your pretended holiness prayers and zeal Mat. 6.5 7 8. Phil. 3.6 Now seeing you build upon the Foundation of Antichrist the very Doctrines of the Whore and cloath your selves with his Scarlet Coverings hating all that are not of your Sect especially of the Element of Water and with her Whores Righteousness viz. that of Works for Faith and Repentance are our Works for Justification and yet rail so egregiously against others for holding some of her Ceremonies and Figures which at worst can't be so bad as her Doctrine is therefore sweep your own doors and pluck the Beam out of your own eyes ye Hypocrites Luke 6.42 The seventeenth Article cuts its own Throat for none are more notorious Hereticks than you Pelagians Arminians that have drunk down the Poyson of Antichrist in these damnable Principles which never no true Protestant held since the Reformation till Arminius and Grotius in Germany and the Socinians in Muscovia till King James his days who gave a breathing time to the Promulgators of it and permitted it liberty to the rooting it self in the Brittish Soyls All the Martyrs died professed Enemies against it and charged it upon the Papists who ever owned it as the Foundation of all their Doctrine See Foxes Martyrol O! monstrum horrendum ingens Augustine opposed it in the fifth Cent. wherein Pelagius first broached it in the Western World and being banished from Rome brought it into Britain Not a word of it in the first four hundred years after Christ though the Arrians Nestorians Eutychians and Manechees swarmed with damnable Heresies yet not a word of this new Gospel though I believe the Basis of it was laid by Cerinthus and Cerbion in Primitive times and by the false Apostles before the Apostles death as the Apostle demonstrates in his Epistles to the Galatians Romans and Hebrews Therefore we must leave to do with you after the first and second Admonition and reject you as the poyson of the Church and the greatest Enemies to Christ his imputed Righteousness and our precious Souls The eighteenth
And so thought the unbelieving Jews under the Law so do you under the Gospel and with the same Irony as the Prophet did them I answer you Go to then make you a clean heart and purge away all your sins clean out of God's sight get you a sinless Faith and Repentance and fulfill the whole Law in your persons perfectly and then God will perhaps receive you But secondly I answer Who art thou that replyest against God Object 4. The Scriptures bids all repent and believe Answer It speaks especially to all the Elect of Jew and Gentile Or ministerially to all universally but spiritually and effectually to the Sheep the Elect. Object 5. God don't desire a Sinner's death but that he repent Answer He dont desire the death of Elect Sinners nor never did for he hath loved them with an Everlasting love a parte ante post Jer. 31.3 Object 6. Then is God a respecter of persons Answer So he is 1. by way of decree for he respected Abel and rejected Cain because he had elected the one and rejected the other and so the person of Jacob and hated the person of Esau before they did good or evil Secondly Officially he respects mens persons for Ministers shall shine as the Stars and I have said ye are Gods to Magistrates and not to all and the Man is the Image and Glory of God according to the place and Authority of an Husband So is not the Wife as a Wife and a Woman See 1 Cor. 11. therefore they that contend and despise and rule over their Husbands are meritricious Gentlewomen and Amazon's terrible Monsters generated out of corruption and the worser part of Evah but the works done by his redeemed and justifyed Children he respects not their persons for their works but for Christs Righteousness imputed he respects both them and their works and will reward them Neither doth he respect the Beauty Riches or Wisdom of any man so as to respect the person for those things though good in themselves Object 7. He gave himself a ransom for all Answer for all his Elect definitively which shall be testify'd in their proper times Kainois idiois that is when he by his Spirit calls and doth convert them Object 8. It is not our works but Christ that works in us Free-will Faith Repentance and new Obedience Answer Though he does it is but filthy Rags Isay 64.6 Phil. 3. but Dross Dung and loss as to our justification Nothing can justifie in any Covenant but a perfect Righteousness performed in a perfect and righteous person that never sinned Rom. 8.2 3. Hab. 1.13 Rom. 7. Object 9. This Doctrine of Election and Reprobation will dishearten people from using the means Answer It will not Gods Elect but rather hearten them Secondly All are commanded ministerially to use the means and have Abilities to do it yea the blind may hear Rom. 10.10 11 12 13. but spiritually the Spirit blows where it listeth John 3. the Spirit is but given to the Sons alone Gal. 4.6 Mat. 13. John 12.40 Object 10. Disobedience to the Law brought and incurred but temporal punishments but to the Gospel Eternal punishments Heb. 12.2 Ans Disobedience to every or to one Tittle of the Law incurs now and ever did Eternal Condemnation for the wages of Sin is Eternal death and Sin is but a transgression of the Law Ergo the transgression of the Law deserves Eternal Death But the Jews as they were under the Law given at Sinai had a Temporal Conditional Covenant to restrain their exhorbitant Spirits and allure them by Temporal Blessings 1 Tim. 1.5 9. There were three ends of the giving the Law at Sinai 1. To shew the dreadfulness of the fall and breach of that Law in Paradise and that at the last Day God shall in Thunder and Flame judge the Bodies and Souls of all that fell and are not reconciled by Christ or covered with his Righteousness Rom. 4.6 7 8. Psal 32. or for whom he hath not fulfilled it in his most sinless and excellent person and so it is a demonstrative Covenant of works Rom. 3.19 shewing Sin and breaking in pieces the self-conceited carnal hearts of Gods Elect that they may receive the Grace of God in Christ by Faith Gal. 3.24 Isay 42.18 19 20. And this was then Externally and Internally and Spiritually and internally now in them that are called the use of the Law to bring them in the hand of Christ to nothing but despiration in and because of sin and self-impotency within and without that so they may in emptiness and poverty receive by Faith a full and able rich Christ Which when it hath done by Faith the Law vanishes out of the Conscience like a baffled Giant and retires into the Flesh to curb that to its duty and is then a Commandment and Law of Love upon the new Covenant heart of a Believer to freely move him according to the External Rule and Matter of the means to glorifie Christ in the World 2 Cor. 3. and 2 Cor. 5. the love of Christ constrains us Secondly a second end of the Law at Sinai was to be a rule to the Elect Believers then to walk with God whose Heart and Will the Law represents And so it was put in the Ark A Type of Christ in whom now the Law is for a Believers Rule Thirdly It was given as a Temporal Conditional Covenant to frighten the stubborn Jews from Rebellion and to engage them to Righteousness a thing God did and does delight in And so the breaches were as in this respect punished but with a Temporal Death and Punishment and the Performers with Temporal Life and Blessings and as such a Covenant its Epoca began at Sinai and did end when Christ came in the Flesh The ignorance of this distinction is the root of all Errours and Heresies And so it was to the Jews under that Testament of Grace as it is now to us under the new and last Testament of Grace sealed and confirmed not with the Blood of Creatures and Beasts but with the Blood of Christ the Son of God to the everlasting Comfort of the Elect Believers Object 11. This Doctrine General Redemption sets all on work to use the means and to endeavour Answer Have ye never read or heard of Penelope that famous Wife that when her Husband was gone to the Trojan-war and thought to have been slain by his long tarrying and she having many Woers perplexing her not delighting her as they do the Ladies of these times was spinning for Ladies in those more ancient times were good House-wifes though now they are many of them Sluts and she put back the sharp importunities of her Rivals with this defence That when she had spun off her Web she would answer them Now to prove her self Loyal to her Husband and deceptious to her Rivals she unspun in the Night what she had spun in the day Hence we call all labour in vain The spinning of Penelope
ANIMADVERSIONS AND CONSIDERATIONS UPON A Sheet Printed for Francis Smith CONTAINING A Confession of the Faith of several Catapaedobaptists whose Names are thereunto subscribed As also the Absurdities of the Doctrine of Arminianism Free-will and General Redemption and that it is a Popish Doctrine and their Objections briefly answered By J. H. Tolle Lege Judica LONDON Printed for W. Marshal at the Bible in Newgate-street 1679. THE PREFACE TO all true Protestant and Christian Readers into whose hands this little piece may come I desire to let the World know that it is not for the sake of any Interest I have in the World or in any Sect or Party of People this day in the present Age that engages me to this present Affair No let the World know that I knew long since upon whom I have cast the infinite weight of both my Soul and Body viz. upon Jesus that is upon him as fulfilling and having fulfilled in his mediatory person the whole Law of Works and for justification of Faith and Love for me and for all his Elect that were given to him by the Father before the world was The Truths once delivered to the Saints declared in the Scriptures of truth witnessed by the Fathers and Sons of the true Protestant Church since the Apostles days before the Supremacy of the Pope of Rome to the five or six Centuaries though then opposed by the Arrians Nestorians Sabellians Manichees and others and since by the Papists the Head of Antichrist and by the Kenites and pretending Reconcilers of Protestants and Papists I mean the Bridge-makers for a passable way for Papists o're to us or we o're to them viz. the Grotians Armenians and all that hang that way since those unhappy names as well as persons received their Being in the World are the alone and only Motive that carries me into this Affair at this juncture of time And particularly by providence hearing this man for whom this Sheet was printed by name Mr. Francis Smith a Stationer in London preaching up at the Field Town in the County of Oxford this Novel Papistical Doctrine of Arminianism Free-will and General Redemption and Conditional Election in time under the notion of an Anabaptist or Catapaedobaptist if you rather please and having then opposed him as to his Doctrine and finding him and his Adherents stubborn and Heretical and withal scattering the Poison of their Doctrine in this Sheet under the notion of a Confession of their Faith to the subversion of the unsetled and ignorant people I as a Servant to the royal truths of my Soveraign Lord Christ and for the better information of his Elect have according to my poor abillity cast in this Mite into the Corban as my Testimony to him and his truth in this lowring yet Evening Tide of Antichrist The Apostle Paul is my President Gal. 2.5 6. who would not give place for an hour to the Enemies of the Gospel neither did he respect any mans person though they seemed by their external deportment and manners to be some body in the peoples Eyes My Judge is Christ my Soveraign my Jury the twelve Apostles at that great and approaching Sessions when he shall again descend the pregnant clouds to judge the World Acts 1. Heb. 9. ult and crown his Saints and witnesses If any shall think my Language too harsh or Vnchristian let them know 't is not the Sword of the Flesh but that of the Spirit I fight with The Prophet Isay call'd them in his days dumb Dogs the Apostle of the Gentiles Hereticks and I call but all such as come forth in any of the VVhores Trinckets but barking Dogs who are far worse than those dumb Dogs and Hereticks were because they are stubborn Promoters of the Papal Doctrines though not of Popish Ceremonies according to that ancient definition of Heresic by that ancient witness of truth Bishop Grosthead once of Lincoln Heresis est sententia contraria sacrae scripturae palam docta pertinaciter defensa And as it was said by the Protestant Divines of Germany concerning Grotius Quod Hugo Grotius papizat so say I of all these who promote the same Doctrines as he did who instead of flying out of Babylon as the Holy Ghost exhorts Rev. 18.4 5 6. they hover under her inchanting skirts to whose charge if they repent not all the Blood of the Martyrs will be laid as well as to the direct Papists when the Lords time shall be accomplished And till they have answer'd Jewel White Willet against the Papists in the very same points they say nothing against me or my Animadversions though they attempt a Reply And so Reader Farewel Thine in what I may as to these truths herein defended while I am Joh. Humphrys ANIMADVERSIONS and CONSIDERATIONS upon an Heretical Catabaptistical Pelagian Arminian Papistical Sheet lately published entituled A Confession or Declaration of Faith lately presented to King Charles the Second Printed for one Francis Smith which because the Doctrine therein contain'd is partly Papistical and partly mixed with the Ingredients of of Quakerism as Free-will General Redemption and falling away from Christ and such like Trash against the Doctrine of the Gospel primarily taught by Christ and his Apostles and secondarily witnessed to by the Protestant Christian Divines of all Ages and by the Martyrs in the past times of Popery I think fit to declare to the World for the sake of Gods Elect chosen in Christ by the good will and pleasure of God alone from before the foundation of the World to Eternal Salvation by the Transaction of their sins by the Father on Jesus and the free imputation of the Righteousness of the Law fulfilled in him to them which they do in his time when he gives them Faith receive it by Faith alone LET me tell you you Arminian Pelagian Papistical Baptists are not built on the Foundation of the Prophets and Apostles Ephes 3. but upon the Foundation of the Papists and Antichrist for the Papists are true in nothing but in the Doctrine of the Trinity as said Mr. Philpot Martyr and dying men especially Martyrs should be believ'd You peep your Heads out to shew your Antichristian Horns because you are in hope that some lately honoured at the Sturn may countenance your Sect as being inclinable to the same Opinions as being newly whasted by Divine Providence from the Transmarine Territories of Papistry upon the Christian Protestant Shores who yet it is yet to be doubted hath too much of the Pelagian dust of S. Omers cleaving to his feet or shooes But this will fail you in the day of the Lord when the true Jesus Son of God and Son of Mary High-Priest Prophet and King in one Person will plead his own Truths that you and such as you have most abominably abused and belied Your first Article professes Faith in one God and the Father of whom are all things which the Turk and Mahometans do acknowledge as much as you or more See the Alchoran
became ungodly men because they were afore ordained to destruction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 before decreed or afore written for destruction and therefore became ungodly The tenth lies like the father the second Article For Adam's fall brought in Eternal deaths as well as Temporal I said afore and if all are under that Condemation Rom. 5.16 17 18 19. Ex. 16. Rom. 6.21 then Infants for Infants are part of all Beside all that are fallen into Condemation which all are cannot be saved till they are born again of Water and the Spirit or baptized with Fire and the Holy Ghost Mat. 4. Jo. 3.3 5. 1 Jo. 5. Heb. 10. Ez. 36. Water in all which places is not your Baptism but the cleansing of Christ's Blood applied by the Spirit to the Elect in their Conversion and Regeneration of which Baptism is but a meer figure to Abraham and his believing Seed as Circumcision was before the actual payment of the Debts of the Elect by Christ on the Cross at Jerusalem Heb. 13.11 12 13. Heb. 9.26 Heb. 1.3 Heb. 10.54.10 14. see 18 Q. of the Assemblies Catechism and Answer Four things issue to all Adam's posterity by his fall First The guilt of Adam's first sin Secondly The privation of Original Righteousness Thirdly A depravation of the whole nature of Body and Soul by Hereditary descent And fourthly All actual Sins flowing from it Ro. 5.12 19. and 10. Ephes 1.1 2 3. James 1.14 15. Mark 15.29 Ro. 7. See Doctor Willet's 81 Gen. Controversie against Papists the Elect have their Sins transacted on Christ and his imputed Righteousness covering them and the Spirit of Christ in his time converting them to it and the rest great and small are blinded and damned Ro. 11. The whole Law broken by Adam and his Posterity in him comprehends both Faith and perfect and sinless obedience which Covenant being broke he brought both himself and posterity under Condemnation Rom. 5.18 19. temporal and Eternal for such is the Wages of Sin Ro. 6.21 and lying under the breach of the whole Law of God are eternally condemn'd except they be elected called justified and sanctified freely by his Grace Rom. 8.29 30 31. Christ did not come into the World to save men if they would Ephes 2.1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8. for then none would be saved but he came positively and absolutely to save them that were eternally given to him to save Jo. 17. and Jo. 10.26 to 29. Christ's death and passions were not Temporal and Bodily only Mat. 27.46 and Chap. 26.36 37 38 42. Mark 14.3 4. Luke 22.42 44. Joh. 18.11 but Spiritual and Infernal passions Acts 2.31 Ps 16.10 Lament 1.12 And if Christ's Sufferings were such then Adaw's fall must procure such But this Hellish Doctrine denyeth both By this Doctrine the Covenant of Grace was made since the fall of Adam and not from Eternity as the Scripture inculcates Titus 1.1 2 3. Ps 89. and Zach. 6.13 2 Sam. 23.5 and then the Covenant of Grace is but a new Covenant of Works viz. Faith and Obedience as if Faith was not included in the Covenant of Innocency and fulfilling the conditions of the pardon of Sin in the Gospel upon pain of Eternal Damnation so that by this Doctrine the new Covenant of Grace is a thousand times more bondaged servile and legal than the Covenant of Innocency For the forfeitures of that say they was but bodily and temporal and so was Christ's death that satisfied for it But the forfeitures of this new Covenant of Grace according to their Doctrine is Spiritual and Eternal Damnation and no help or satisfaction neither in the Covenant of Innocency Christ made up the breaches but the breaches of this Covenant of Grace we our selves must make up by our Free-will Faith Repentance and Obedience or else perish eternally And from the Pelagion Arminian Papistical new Covenant of Grace wherein Christ is only or chiefly an example only by his Kingly and Prophetical Offices in Heaven he prays for me my Faith Victory and Repentance but if I do it not or cannot his Prayer is in vain And as for his Priestly Office as Dr. Hammand saith it dyed with him For it was only to remove the Covenant of Works which was by a temporal death easily removed its forfeitures being but a temporal death from such a New Covenant Lord deliver me and his Elect and from the Promulgators of it Another Juggle they have is that Election is not in the Covenant of Works or from Eternity but in Christ since that is they that do believe the Doctrine they preach believe repent obey and be baptized are Elected and this God foresaw and knew and willed And to uphold this Babel and Whores Doctrine of Babylon they turn upside-down the very Heart and Entrails of the whole Scriptures to the last of the tenth Article I say the Jews were under a Covenant of Grace and by the sign thereof Gen. 17. brought by Divine Command their Children into the visible Church We are under the same Covenant of Grace and the matter and manner of the sign was changed under the New Testament or Administration of Grace but not the Subjects for then it had been necessary that Christ should have forbidden Infants Baptism or John Baptist his Messenger for Christ knew it was once commanded as the New Covenant sign but he never repealed the Subject nor his Messenger that came before him or the Ministers that followed after him Ergo what is not repealed by Divine Institution abides stedfast as a Nail fastened by the Masters of the Assembly given by one Shepherd Christ Jesus Therefore till the Catabaptists prove by Scripture that Christ or his Predecessor John Bapt. or his Successors the Apostles forbid the Subjects in Gen. 17. licensed till then you do all of you shamefully beg the Question and you shall be with your Antichristian Spirit famished for me before you shall have a Morsel from me to feed your Heresie wherefore leave that unlawful Trade of Begging and work for your livings that is prove out of the New Testament by Gods Word that Infants are commanded not to be Baptized or that Circumcision was not a Sign and Seal of the Righteousness of Faith Or that Baptism did not come in the room of Circumcision do one of these or be silent before the Lord for ever For because you have rent the Seal of his Covenant God will rend you and your Sect into a thousand pieces This will be the end of you to perish in your own Dung Phil. 3. Except the Elect among you and true Converts they only shall be preserved and in due time come out of your Babylon as well as Rome's or England's Babylon The Eleventh Article builds up your Idol Baptism and sets it on your sandy Foundation for there is not one word of Teach before Baptise but contrary after Baptism to Teach Mat. 28. latter end For the first word rendered to Teach is in the Greek Matheteusate that
Errour and Heresie and therefore your Righteousness shall not profit you in the day of Christ because you are not wholly freed by Christ but Sons of the Bond-woman There were never but two Covenants for Matter and Form that of Works and that of Grace directly opposite one to the other The Covenant of Works was never by Divine Institution established to men since Adam's fall but immediately taken up by Christ the Elects Surety and laid on his Shoulders Isay 9. Being freely wrought in and by him for them is a Covenant of Grace to them but of Works to Christ who obtained all by his Works for them This Covenant of Grace hath two Administrations one under the Old Testament before the Law at Horeb and after the Law to Christ's time in the Flesh Then began the New Testament and Administration of Grace to the Elect more glorious by far than the other for Administration though in respect of the very Substance of the Covenants the Stipulator and Mediator Christ who undertook it for them the Father gave him from Eternity Titus 1.1 2. 2 Tim. 1.9 10. Rom. 8.29 30 31. Ps 89. Isay 53.6 Zac. 9.11 and 6.14 In that of Works in Paradise there was Faith and perfect Obedience but no Repentance Confession or Sorrow of Sin or new Obedience was admitted in that but in that of Grace there is Faith but different from that Faith in the Covenant of Works and new Obedience and Repentance Confession and Sorrow for sin admitted of none of these but to formally justifie only Faith in Christ receives justification and Repentance and New Obedience follows as fruits of Faith and of the pardon of sin which sundamentally hangs on Christ's bearing sin away and satisfying for it once for all Neither doth our Faith or Repentance or new Obedience make us Righteous but Christ's Righteousness fulfilling the Covenant of Works in his own person and imputed to us and received by Faith as given of God for that purpose Ephes 2.5 6 7. Neither is our Repentance or Confession or New Obedience or sorrow for sins committed any part of our Righteousness before God but as to man being wrought by the Spirit of Christ in us follow the pardon of our sins and our being made Righteous and follow Faith also in this administration of Grace publickly Gal. 3. and are not the Grounds or Causes of pardon or Receivers but the absolute Fruits and Effects in the Elect believing Besides The Law at Horeb was to the Jews a conditional Covenant for Temporal Blessings and being broke incurred Temporal Cursings which as such a Covenant expired when Christ came and the Paedagogy of the Jews ceased only the Law as in the Spiritual Power of it as a demonstrative Law in the hand of Christ and the Spirit to humble the Elect and make them sensible of their condition and misery by the fall from the Covenant of Works in innocency as in Adam the only Hole at which all Curse Wrath and Misery Spiritual and Temporal entred Rom. 5. That they may fall on Christ and at his Feet for all Redemption and Help out of themselves thus the Law continues still and for want of this Spiritual Ax Mal. 4. to cut down and humble you that you may appear as nothing but Firebrands for Hell it is that you and all your proud Generations have perverted Christ's Gospel and established a new one Gal. 1.8 9. the which makes your case worse you are insensible of it but glory and triumph in your cursed Bondage Gal. 4. Your justification is full of sin and you make Christ to purchase a sinful justification Gal. 2. and so the Minister of sin you make him while you prate that he removed the Covenant of Works and satisfyed that and procured a Lex remediens a milder Law that is that by Faith Repentance and Obedience we may be justified and so you make sin to justifie for all our Faith and Repentance and Obedience is but filthy Rags Isay 64.6 Phil. 3. and full of sin And Christ faith That when they have done all that 's their duty that is to believe to repent and obey Luke 17. then are they unprofitable Servants Ergo you make sin to justifie when you make Faith actually to justifie 2ly you make Christ the upholder of sin when you with the Papists your Brethren make Christs Blood to purchase a sinfull justification that is that our Faith and Repentance shall justifie Do you see the Pelagian Arminian Papistical Crew upon what Rocks and sholes you split your selves and all to bring in a new and another Gospel to damn you and to exclude Christ's everlasting Righteousness or the Law of works perfectly fulsilled in his person to be imputed to poor sinful undone ruined Worms for their free and real justification Now all these Imperfections are covered to true Believers with the same Righteousness that covers their persons Tit. 1.15 And so both they and all their Performances and Righteousness though in it self faulty is accepted and sanctified and all the sinfulness of it and them covered Ps 32. Rom. 4.5 6 7. This is a benefit peculiar to the Elect who truly believe and receive the imputation of Christ's Righteousness and not to you that cannot cry 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whose Ruine Damnation lingers not except in infinite Mercy he give you humility and poverty of Spirit Faith in that truth of the true Jesus and everlasting Covenant and Repentance for your Blasphemies and Errours as a Fruit of the pardon of your sins by their transaction on him and the Evidence of your Faith in receiving his Righteousness c. So unless you are freed by Jesus from all sin and misery in esse or posse coming on you in Gods sight from Adam's fall or by your own actual and daily Transgressions and from all the sin and spottedness of all your most holy Duties your Faith Prayers Repentance and new Obedience though wrought puerly in you by Christ's Spirit as true Believers and freed from allsin past present and to come by the transaction of them on Christ by the Father Isa 53.6 and the imputation of his pure Righteousness to your persons received by Faith alone you are not free indeed by the Son Jo. 8.31 32. but in Bondage under the Law and Curse thereof Deut. 27. ult with your Children Your twelfth Article is swollen big with an absolute Errour drawn from the practice of the Apostles laying on of hands not ministerially as a sign of the approbation of Elders but as an Apostolical practice which did with them cease as being fruitless and uneffectual beyond their time and unpractised in the ordinary Churches nor at all upon any Record of Command more than James anointing with Oyl which Papists make a Sacrament or Christ's washing his Disciples Feet But because it is sufficiently confuted by Colonel Danvers a Brother of yours in the water but I hope in the Spirit built on better Principles
Christ the Lord. And lastly the old Whores Purgatory is better than your mortality for a live Dog is better than a dead Lyon Eccles 9.4 The one and twentieth Article acknowledgeth a general Judgment but tacitly denieth the particular Judgment because the Authors of the Article deny the Immortality of the Soul from the time of the death of the Body to the general Resurrection as I said before It is saith Paul appointed once for every man to die and after that death to Judgment that is every particular man for the Premises is particular therefore the Assumption must be particular the death he speaks of is a particular death Ergo the Judgment that follows is a particular Judgment which I say these good Gentlemen tacitly deny It is absurd that the Soul should not live a moment for if the Soul be immortal à parte post that is from the instant of its infusion into the Body it may not desist from life a moment for then it would lose its Immortality If we grant you Mortality of the Soul for a time they may as well beg its Mortality for ever for to unreasonable persons that have not the true Faith of Christ grant an Inch and they will crave an Ell. But I pass to the two and twentieth Article which is like a Jewel in a Swines Snout What the Kingdom of Christ set upon the Foundation of the Whore of Babylon and Antichrist it loaths my Soul to see it The Reign of Christ in the Kingdoms of the World in his Saints in a restorative Apostolical manner before the final dissolution of the World is and ever was the Judgment and Faith of Saints and not only so but at the general Judgment when Christ shall again the second time appear Acts 1. in that glorified body of his and descend from the Throne in that flesh he did ascend with the innumerable Societies of Saints and Angels the then living Saints being changed 1 Thes 4. ult Phil. 3. ult to meet the Lord in the Clouds of Heaven and together with him to return to take the Kingdoms of the World into his possession Dan. 7. Rev. 11. and so to judge the Earth and give his beheaded and suffering Sons Rev. 20. quiet and peaceable enjoyment of the new Heavens and new Earth Isai 63. and 2 Pet. 3. till the second and last Trumpet 1 Cor. 15. whether numerically for a thousand years or less or more may be disputable by some but for the sum and substance hath been owned from the very Apostles days by the Fathers as Papias Justin Martyr and Irenaeus and almost if not all except August and Jerom who yet spake very favourably fo the Chyleasts or fifth Monarchical Judgment Licet non sequamur tamen damnare non possumus quia mult◠Ecclesiasticorum virorum ista dixerunt Jer. 23. Ep. de regnand secundo Christi But to set up this glorious Truth and Kingdom of Jesus Christ upon a rotten Papistical Pelagian Arminian Heretical Antichristian Foundation you will receive the reward of the Pharisees Mat. 7. Lord we have prophesied in thy Name and cast out Devils but saith Christ depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for unbelievers The three and twentieth Article pleads for the holy Scriptures to be the Rule of Faith and Life it is one thing to take the Letter of the Scripture with the Doctrine and sense of the Holy Ghost included and another thing to accept for our Rule the humane glosses of mens natural or deluded spirits the latter of which is equal with their Errour that deny the regular Authority of the Scriptures The Letter of the Scriptures and the Spirit of Jesus are both in Commission from Christ our Prophet to teach his people they that exclude the Spirit and pretend the Letter are as unfortunate as Arminians Socinians Pelagians and other Carnal Hereticks but they that reject the Letter and pretend the Spirit are swallowed up of Enthusiastical Delusions as Quakers and such like For whom God hath joyned together we must not dare to separate asunder without incurring the Curse of adding or diminishing The twenty fourth Article pleads for Liberty of Conscience in spiritual matters It is not to be doubtted but that the Saints of God ought to have their liberty to worship God and to hinder them is the greatest sin next to the sin against the Holy Ghost but the question is who are the Saints 2. Whether false worshippers may have liberty from godly Magistrates 1. Saints are either called to the Faith of Christ and so to the profession of it and such are visible though they may differ among themselves in some circumstances 2. Saints that are Elect but uncalled may be among them that are false worshippers till called the first only worship God truly because none can worship God truly but such as truly believe in the Son of God according to the Declaration of God and that Record he hath given in the Word of his Son viz. that Christ was made Sin and a Curse that he laid their sins on Christ and so freed them and their Curse and so that Righteousness of the Law fulfilled in his Person as God-man is imputed to them for their whole Righteousness which they by Faith alone receiving are visible Saints and do worship God truly they that have not this Faith though Angels in appearance are but false worshippers because the Law of Faith in Christ is the fulfilling of the whole Law directly the first Table towards God Exod. 20. containing first four Commandments that is fulfilled compleatly in a true Believer and forasmuch as Love flows from Faith so is the second Table fulfilled in a true believer but this fulfilling the Law by Faith in a Believer is not his Justification or Righteousness before God for that is Christs fulfilling it in his Person Rom. 8.2 3 4. and Gods imputing it to the sinner Rom. 4.5 6 7. and Faith as an Instrument receives it and applies it to its self So then the Act of Faith in us doth not justifie for then our Works and the Law would justifie but it is still Christ alone that justifies Rom. 8. To the second question the Magistrate may restrain false worshippers See Rev. 2.20 and 2 Cor. 10.5 the Instruments of the Church for this purpose are spiritual 1 Cor. 5. delivering the proud and contemptible to Satan and the godly Magistrate is but a Ruling Elder whether in a Congregation or Nation Let the Tares grow with the Wheat some say is meant of secret Hypocrites but I suppose that blood-shed consiscation or any corporal persecution in this day is not to be in any wise inflicted on deluded Consciences The twenty fifth and last Article seems to contradict his Predecessor for he allows the Magistrate to punish evil doers and incourage the good but his Predecessor flatly denies the Magistrate to have any thing to do with matters of Divine Worship Now among the Pretenders to Spiritual Worship three