Selected quad for the lemma: love_n
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A48584
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A treatise of election and reprobation in vindication of the universal grace and love of God to mankind by B.L.
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Lindley, Benjamin, d. 1723.
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1700
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Wing L2312; ESTC R28788
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51,533
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Relation who careth for the Life of his Children nourisheth and provides all things necessary for them and if they be wicked and go from him Luke 15. and abuse his kindness and spend their substance upon Harlots as the Prodigal Son if they do but consider and return he seeing them afar off hath Compassion and runs to meet them and kisseth them and brings forth the best Robe and kills the fatted Calf and feeds and clothes them and rejoyceth over them c. Now if our natural Fathers know how to give good Gifts unto their Children how much more shall our Father which is in Heaven give good Gifts to them that ask him Mat. 7. A natural Father declining from this Rule comes under the Reproach of being Unnatural Careless Senceless c. But should he not only omit the Fatherly Love Care and Provision becoming him but also inhumanely Slay the most of his Children how odious a thing would this be amongst Men He would incur the Infliction of Death And yet the Tenents I 'm opposing lay even harder things than these at the door of the Almighty and most Merciful Father the Slaying his Children not only with Temporal but Eternal Death for the Praise of the Power of his Wrath. § 3. Jesus Christ is our High Priest and as such it is his Office to Bless us to offer up our Sacrifices to Attone and Intercede for and in our Behalf Heb. 5.1 2. Every High Priest taken from among Men is ordained for Men in things pertaining to God that he may offer both Gifts and Sacrifices for Sins who can have compassion on the igrant and on them that are out of the way c. And if Men had such great Benefit and Blessing by the High Priests after the order of Aaron how great Blessing and Benefit then have we by our High Priest after the order of Melchizedec who was before Aaron and is greater than Aaron c. Great was the Love of God unto us in giving his Son to be our High Priest to have the oversight and cure of our Souls and ineffable the Benefits Mankind receive by him who being exalted by the right Hand of God and having received from the Father the Promise of the Holy Ghost hath shed forth this in some measure upon all O how wonderfully did he when he took our Nature upon him shew how great was his Goodness to the Sons of Men So if under the Cure of such an High Priest we come to any miscarriage it must be through our selves But what for a Priest do the Priests of these times make him with their Reprobate Doctrine which renders him shutting the Gates of Heaven against the greatest part of the Flock committed to his Cure and instead of interceding to God for them delivering them over to Satan and to Eternal Ruine and this not because of their Wickedness and that they will not be Reclaimed but for the Pleasure of his Father's Will even because God hath Will'd and Decreed it as they say See here how injurious is this Doctrine of Reprobation unto God and Christ in those general Relations of King Father and Priest c. CHAP. III. Reassuming the Substance of those Scriptures and Inferences mention'd in the Introduction most usually Vrged in pleading for Personal Reprobation with particular Answers and Explications to each according to their true and genuine Sense in which is clearly Refuted those false Senses and Meanings which the Predestinarians commonly impose upon them The whole comprised in Ten Objections and their respective Answers HAving thus far gone upon General Reasons I shall now come to a Particular Examen of sundry Scriptures most used in pleading for Personal Reprobation which I shall put as Objections not that they are really so to the Argument I 'm Advancing but the Misunderstanding or that false Sense put upon them So what I put down under the Head of Answer is the Explication of their true genuine Sense and Refutation of those false and foreign Senses and Meanings impos'd on them Which having for avoiding of Cavils premised I proceed Object 1. Though God be Love Good Gracious Merciful c. yet is he Excellent in Power and in Judgment and in plenty of Justice and the Scripture tells us of the Fierceness of his Anger and of his Indignation and of his Wrath and Vengeance c. Deut. 9.7 22. and 13.17 Josh 7.26 Job 37.23 Jer. 50.7 Mic. 7.9 Rom. 12.19 Answ All such places in which God's Anger and Wrath c. are spoken of have respect to Provocation and Offence given and not otherwise for all his Attributes are resolvable into Goodness and Love Mercy and Truth meet together or are united in him and Justice and Peace kiss each other or agree in one in him so speaking of God simply as what he is in himself or what is Primary and Spontaneous in him and he is all Goodness and Love Deus est primario bonus atque ex indole Naturae secundario ex accidente severus idem est ex populi peccato God is primarily good out of the inclination of his Nature but secondarily and accidentally he is severe by reason of People's sins So Anger Wrath Fury and Vengeance the executive part of Justice are consequential from God and not primarily in his Being but stirred up by the Devil and wicked Men proceeding according to his Lusts and the Inclination of their depraved Nature it is the Fruit of their Doings but the Fruit of the Spirit is Love Gal. 5.22 and God is Love God is slow to Anger it is not kindled in him nor repays he Vengeance or Wrath without great Provocation and cause given on our part take away this and Justice is our Friend and Advocate and is as sweet as Mercy It 's Transgression puts the Rod into the Hand of Justice or she Chastizeth not She never smites the Innocent or wounds the Mind that is Guiltless if so it would cease to be it would be no more Justice but it 's the Wicked that are slain at her feet and Transgressors are wounded by her And as Anger Wrath c. are not primary or voluntary in God but as effects of Provocation and Offence so neither is he inclin'd or prone thereto which is an ill Character in a Man and denominates him crabbed peevish angry implacable c. which by no means may be spoken of God Thus the Race of Mankind could not offend their Maker before they were made neither could it be consistent with him to make such a number of Living Souls so Good so Honourable and Resembling Himself to an End so Miserable as the Torments of Hell Object 2. The Scripture mentions Vessels of Wrath fitted for Destruction and also Vessels of Mercy and it is plain some Men are intended by Vessels of Wrath and some Men by Vessels of Mercy Now there is a vast difference betwixt Wrath and Mercy and the Scripture speaking of Mankind under the terms
Potter to make it Now it is a received Axiom Nullum simile currit quatuor therefore as no Work of God was marred in his hand Mankind came forth from him according to his designation in his own Image a Vessel of Honour c. Object 5. The Children not being yet born neither having done any good or evil that the purpose of God according to Election might stand not of Works but of him that calleth it was said The Elder shall serve the Younger as is written Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated c. Answ The Scripture speaks sometimes of singular Persons or Individuals when it is to be understood 1. Of Nations or People descending from them or 2. Of certain Spiritual States and Conditions We have instance of the first in Canaan the youngest Son of Ham Gen. 9.25 whom his Grand-father Noah cursed and denounced him a Servant of Servants to Shem and Japheth And in Esau and Jacob of whom it was fore-told The Elder should serve the Younger Gen. 25.23 And in Ephraim and Manasseh of whom it was said Gen. 48.19 The Younger should be the greater None of all which things were fulfilled in their Persons but in their Posterities c. For instance of the second Abraham had his Son Ishmae by Hagar Sara's Hand-maid a Bond-woman of Egypt of the Posterity of Ham this is said to be born after the Flesh And he had his Son Isaac by Sarah the Free-woman and this is said to be by Promise And these things saith the Apostle are an Allegory for these are the two Covenants the one from Mount Sinai Gal. 4.26 which is Hagar answering to Jerusalem that now is the other answering to Jerusalem from above The like Instance we have in Isaac Abraham's Heir and the Heir of God's Promise he had by his Wife Rebekah two Sons Jacob and Esau under whose Types are typified the Spiritual and Carnal Mind and Birth the Degenerate and Regenerate the Earthly and Heavenly c. So they are a double Instance to us in treating of this Text which is to be Mystically and not Literally understood as appears from the Blessing of Esau with the Fatness of the Earth Gen. 27.39 and the Dew of Heaven from above which is the same in effect with Jacob's Blessing only he had rule given over him but 't was only for a time for in the said Blessing the time is prophesied in which Esau should break Jacob's Yoke from off his Neck Now if God had hated Esau then Isaac could not at all have Blessed him in the Faith for whatsoever is done in the Faith is done in concurrence and accord with God but if God hated Esau and Isaac blessed him they would be contrary and repugnant the one to the other for all Blessing is of Love and so Isaac's Blessing of Esau had not been in the Faith for in it only things pleasing and acceptable to God are done and no works of jar and disagreement or contrariety to him these are not of Faith but the Scripture is express in it Heb. 11.20 That by Faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come so it must needs be that these things are an Allegory and that God did not hate Esau's Person but spoke of what he hated under the Type or Figure of him Take this Scripture literally to relate unto Esau in a strict and proper Sense and it would be of absurd and blasphemous Consequence for if it represents God as at Variance with himself and in a great degree Unhappy working without Pleasure Grace or Goodness in the Production of wretched hated Beings to Eternal Misery even Nature shrinks and is in horror at any dissimulate and monstrous Birth much more it is contrary to the God of Nature and to suppose othewise of God is no Christian but an Heathenish Notion it is so remote from Divine it is not Humane that God should be imployed in the making so many Thousand of People for the Torments of Hell Fire Such Notions had the Heathens of old concerning their Moloch and other false Deities to appease whose imagined Fury they caused their Children to pass through the Fire and become Burnt Sacrifices Having shewed the Blasphemy and Error that attends a Literal Construction of this Text and that it should be Mystically understood I shall proceed to speak something of its Mystery before I pass from hence We read in Scripture of two Seeds Mystically the Seed of the Woman which Seed is Christ who is also the Seed of the true Church and of the Kingdom of God and the Serpent's Seed or Seed of Antichrist of which cometh the false Church and Kingdom of Darkness And as every Birth hath its beginning from some Seed so of the first of these proceedeth the Birth of the Spirit called in Scripture Regeneration the New Birth the New Man c. And without this be there is no Salvation and how pure and spiritual a Seed is this Seed of the Living God of which Souls and Spirits are born Of the other proceedeth the Birth of the Flesh called in Scripture The Old Man with his Deeds Degenerate or the Vncircumcision the Reprobate Birth c. And how filthy and polluted a Seed is this Seed of the Serpent whereby Men become as Dogs Swine Serpents Dung Filth c. Now as according to the first we are in Christ Branches of him and Christ is God's Elect in whom his Soul delighteth blessed above all for ever And according to the other we are of the Devil Children of him Sprouts out of his Stock and the Devil only is God's Enemy cursed above all Cattle and above every Beast of the Field So of the first of these Election is predicated and Reprobation of the latter We are in a State of Election or Reprobation as we are related to the one or other of these Births if we live according to the one we shall die or the other we shall live Note For the prevention of mistakes in the weakest Reader that this Birth called the Birth of the Flesh is not to be understood simply of the Natural Birth but as fallen into Carnal-mindedness And the Scripture teacheth That to be Carnally-minded Rom. 8.6 7. is Death but to be Spiritually-minded is Life and Peace that the Carnal Mind is Enmity against God it is not subject to the Law of God nor indeed can be so they that are in the Flesh cannot please God This Mind is Dead an Enemy a Rebel and can never be otherwise it 's not capable of being made better to please God or to be subject to him or live there is neither Life Salvation or Blessing belongs to it it is not Heir to or capable of any good it is none of God's Works but is of the Evil One This is the Reprobate's Description On the other hand That which is born of the Spirit is Spirit this Birth is willing to all good it is its