to be so fixt in our unkindness that where we hate once we will always hate whatever reason there may be to alter our affections for by this means we may hate undeserving Objects which is the greatest degeneracy of hatred c. In short your meaning is that God hates me for this reason because I am bad but he would love me if I were good and I should then as well deserve his love as I do now his hatred Sherlock I see you have not your name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 knowing for nought you have wit enough if you will but make a good use of it Satan I am beholding to you Sir for your good word And I promise you I will not be wanting to my own interest The notion you have last given me does me a great kindness For I have been hitherto so simple though you are pleased to commend my wit as to think that Love and Hatred when ascribed to God in the Calvinists notion which you decry did import an eternal Decree or Will of God to shew or deny mercy to his Creatures and so were immutable but now I understand that they signifie variable affections as in the Creatures which as the Weather-cock shifts its corner with the wnd alter with the persons upon whom they are placed And I am now rid of a fear which the mention of Elect-Angels in the Scripture did often put me into I see nothing to the contrary but I may in good time be one of that denomination If I can but bring down my stout stomach to ask God forgiveness and repent of so long continued disloyalty and take a new Oath of Allegiance I understand I need not doubt the issue God will love me as much as now he hates me Sherlock 'T is a great mater to be freed from prejudice or prepossession of judgment You have often heard Calvinists preach and been dabling in their writings and have found them confident enough in their assertions and as I gather from your words been mislead into a conceit which they put into your head that because it could not be known how just and severe God is but by punishing sin nor how good and gracious God is but by pardoning it therefore God decrees that men shall sin that he may make some of them vessels of his wrath and others the vessels of his mercy Satan I must confess The sound and clink of words and phrases which you say is all the Calvinists understand by keeping a form of sound words p. 102. did so fill my ears that I could hear nothing else And because they were Scripture-words and phrases they kept me in some awe that I durst not absolutely conclude them a sound without sense Sherlock I but nature would teach us that so good a God had much rather be glorious in the happiness and perfection and obedience of his creatures than in their sin and misery p. 51 52. For vindictive justice and pardoning mercy are but secondary Attributes of the Divine Nature and therefore God cannot primarily design the glorifying of them for that cannot be without primarily designing the sin and misery of his creatures which would be inconsistent with the goodness and holiness of his nature p. 52 53. Satan I know your meaning very well that there is in God an Antecedent will whereby he willeth some things in the first place and directly and a Consequent will whereby he willeth other things in the second place or by consequence thus whatsoever is good in it self as the repentance and salvation of a sinner God wills by his Antecedent will but whatsoever in it self is not evil but evil to the reasonable Creature which must suffer it as death damnation God willeth only by his Consequent Will The Objections of the Calvinists shall not give me any trouble That God wills that which never comes to pass and which he knows will not when he wills it by that Antecedent Will. This is enough for my comfort that my repentance and salvation being things good in themselves God wills them in the first place and directly my damnation he wills but in the second place and by consequence God is so good that he had much rather be glorious in my happiness who am one of his Creatures though I have lost it through my own default than in my misery And though Saint Paul seems to be of another mind yet I will remember that These men fetch all their mysterious Divinity out of some obscure passages of St. Pauls Epistles notwithstanding what St. Peter told us of St. Pauls Epistles 2 Pet. 3.16 and make them the foundation of their faith p. 242. Sir I have given you a great trouble I have but two or three Objections more If God loves all his Creatures alike because he is their common Creator then there is no need of a Saviour the want of which was alway my greatest discouragement I have often heard that the Son of God took not upon him the nature of Angels but the seed of Abraham and that neglect of our nature made my case desperate in my own apprehension Sherlock To this I answer two things 1. That the only knowledg necessary to the purposes of Religion is such a knowledg of Gods nature and will as is sufficient to direct our actions and encourage our obedience p. 33. Various ways God attempted for the recovery of mankind but with little success at last God sent his own Son our Lord Jesus Christ into the world to be the great Shepherd and Bishop of souls to seek and to save that which was lost p. 89. God hath now committed unto Christ all the secret purposes of his Counsel concerning the salvation of mankind which were concealed from ages p. 30. Satan I perceive you speak cautiously to prevent scandal but I undrstand you not unless you mean that the knowledg of a Saviour was concealed from the world till Christ came in the flesh which was not till the World was about four thousand years old and the reason of that concealment was because the knowledg of God in Christ was not absolutely necessary to the purposes of Religion whereof eternal Salvation is not the least considerable And if the knowledg of a Saviour be not absolutely necessary then not a Saviour himself for he gives salvation by giving the knowledg of Salvation and it is Eternal life to know Jesus Christ if Christ himself or his Prophets deserve any credit And now we are under the Rose I will tell you truly that I believe all your talk of a Saviour is but a Copy of your Countenance For if the World was saved for so long time without a Saviour why may it not for the remainder of its duration be it more or less And this I confess is no small Cordial to my dying hopes But let me ask you one Question If a Saviour be of no greater moment in the purposes of Religion why does the Scripture call the contrivement of
to when left in the dark There is nothing in Gods nature can give me cause of fear at least if I do but return to God but there is enough in it to give me cause of hope And though I have no acquaintance with Christ my acquaintance with God will serve my turn For Christ discovers nothing more of Gods gracious nature to sinners than we knew before by the light of nature as I well remember you instructed me awhile since In short it seems there is a naturalness of mercy in God but not of justice Sherlock No no of the naturalness of Gods Justice that he could not pardon sin without satisfaction I make this the import That he is so just that he hath not one dram of goodness in him till his rage and vengeance be satisfied which is a glorious kind of Justice I confess p. 59. Satan I perceive you are a merry Gentleman and so are all of your Club. And I hope hereafter I shall be merry too and be fit to make one of you I am sure I had almost pored out my eyes with seeking for these Gospel mysteries in the Gospel and could never find them p. 40. To borrow your significant words with your good leave but now I understand that I looked for them where they were not I should have learned to argue from the nature of God and his works of Providence and the nature of mankind and Angels though the Eanaticks call such arguings carnal reason p. 79. There is nothing now remains besides thanks for your pains but to sum up the heads of Argument upon which my hopes of salvation as well as mans are built And if I should misrepresent any of them you will please to correct my mistakes 1. That God is so good that he designs and desires the happiness of all his Creatures according to the capacity of their natures and therefore mine 2. That Gods will in that design is not arbitrary having no reason but it self For such a will would destroy all the perfections of Gods nature 3. That holiness in the Creature is the reason of the determination of his love to any particular person 4. That this holiness is not an effect of an Omnipotent Power but of powerful motives and arguments and so by the use of my free-will I may be holy if I will 5. That though this holiness be not perfect yet God will accept it if sincere 6. This acceptance of my sincere holiness I have reason to believe and hope for though I have no promise For 7. Gods gracious nature obliges him to reward all sincerely though imperfectly good actions God is merciful to all whose Creator he is and affords them all possible means of Salvation without a Saviour or any knowledg of one And accordingly 8. De facto Abel and Enoch and Abraham were saved without a Faith in Christ And needs they must because no man could believe in Christ till he came And 9. Though God hates me now yet he may love me hereafter For Gods love and hatred are not immutable nor does the immutability of them consist in loving or hating alway the same person but for the same reason because they are either good or bad And which may confirm me 10. God never designed the glory of mercy and justice in saving some and not others in the permission of his Creatures sins 11. Though a Saviour was brought into the world after it was about Four thousand years old yet he was not of absolute necessity for the only knowledg absolutely necessary to the purposes of Religion whereof Salvation is not the least is such a knowledg of Gods nature and will as is sufficient to direct our actions and incourage our obedience And hence 12. The wisdom of God was not discovered in sending a Saviour if there were no other way of redeeming the World For wisdom consists in the choice of the best and fittest means to attain an end when there are more ways than one of doing it 13. This Saviour being the Eternal Son of God we may reasonably conclude he came upon no less design than of universal goodness for he can have no temptation to partiality as being equally concerned in the happiness of all men and we cannot imagine why he should lay a narrower design of love in the redemption than in the Creation of mankind c. all which fits my case the Eternal Son of God being my Creator hath no temptation to partiality being equally concerned in my happiness and mans as we are his rational Creatures 14. That a Saviour is of no great use now he is come For he comes neither to fulfil the Law for sinners nor to die in their stead but only to confirm Gods promise of saving them that repent and forsake their sins which promise was needless Gods nature obliging him to save sinners upon those terms before any promise and the light of nature discovering that obligation nor was the confirming of it needful For the light of nature would teach us that God will not break his promise And so if it should happen that the Saviour was not intended for me yet I might be saved as Abel and Enoch were without one And I gather from hence that you make the blood of Christ no more satisfactory than the blood of Bulls and Goats were under the Law but that God was pleased with both upon the same reason because the shedding of his and their blood was an act of obedience to his will not a satisfaction to his Justice And so you have subverted the Gospel which stood in the way of my hopes of Salvation for which I con you hearty thanks And hence I collect 15. That whoever was or shall be justified were and shall be justified without any righteousness at all For righteousness importing a relation resulting from the conformity of dispositions and actions to their Rule sincerity is no righteousness at all supposing the righteousness of Christ not so far imputed as to take away its defects unless the Law as a Rule requires no more conformity to it self than the Gospel as a Covenant accepts which cannot be because then no deviations from the Law are sinful where there is sincerity 16. A Saviour is the less needful because Gods Justice is not natural though his mercy is And the fears of sinful men and so of Angels of Gods Justice are but the workings of heated fancy and religious distraction 17. If a Saviour be of use the way to come by an interest in him is not a fiducial reliance or recumbence on Christ For that Abraham had not and so nor his children but a believing his Revelations which the Church of England somewhere in her Homilies acknowledges I do and the chief of them The Articles of Faith and governing our lives by them which I hope to do hereafter So that Abrahams Faith and a Believers now are of a different kind but your faith and mine are of one kind we
told me so at first then and then you might have escaped an hard censure I will go on Your great Objection was That the Gentiles who were without promise were eo nomine in that very respect without hope To that I answer When God chose the posterity of Abraham to be his peculiar people he did not design to exclude the rest of the world from his care and providence and all possible means of salvation as the Apostle argues in Rom. 3.29 Is he the God of the Jews only is he not also of the Gentiles yes of the Gentiles also Which argument if it have any force in it must prove Gods respect to the Gentiles before the preaching of the Gospel as well as since because it is founded on that natural relation God owns to all mankind as their merciful Creator and Governour which gives the Gentiles as well as the Jews an interest in his care and providence This plainly evinces that all these particular favours which God bestowed on Israel were not owing to any partial fondness and respect to that people but the design of all was to encourage the whole world to worship the God of Israel who gave so many demonstrations of his Power and Providence p. 27. Satan If I understand you aright your meaning is that the Gentiles before the preaching of the Gospel as well as since had all possible means of Salvation and as much ground for hope of it as the Jews because God was their common merciful Creator and Governour And therefore loved them all alike And hence you would direct me to conclude as well I may if the premises be true that God being the common merciful Creator and Governour of Angels and Men therefore I have all possble means of Salvation and sufficient ground to hope for it as well as men If this be not the force of your Argument I will forgive your hard censure and think I begin to dote indeed But methinks the premises are liable to exception I might ask you Sir where were any Jews and Gentiles before the preaching of the Gospel for I always apprehended that the Gospel was preached to Adam and Eve before they did operam dare ad liberos procreandos before they had any conjugall Society you see as old as I am I have not forgotten all my Latin in those words I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed it shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel Sherlock I have obviated this Objection in my reply to a like instance of the promise made to Abraham In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed To which my answer is Christ was indeed the material object of Abrahams Faith that is he believed that promise which God made of sending Christ into the World But Abrahams Faith was not a Faith in Christ no Man could believe in Christ till he came that is could not believe any thing upon his Authority which is the true notion of believing in him p. 247. Satan The application I find easie That the promise made to Adam was of Christ that should be a Saviour Four thousand years after not that should be a Saviour to himself and Wife and their immediate Seed They were to be saved by a belief not in Christ but of the Principles of the Natural Religion founded upon Natural Demonstration or moral Arguments as that God is and that he is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek him which was the faith of Abel and Enoch whereby they pleased God as you told me before Sherlock You have represented my Opinion in my own words and I like that very well Satan I thought I would please you if I could and put you in a good humour against I make some more objections And but that you start so many Hares at once that I am afraid by running after all to lose all I could please you better by putting you in mind that as to these Words of God to Eve a very good Friend of yours Valentinus Smalcius whom a Learned Calvinist calls insignis illefidei Socinianae hyperaspistes the Champion of socinianism does boldly affirm Christum minime respexisse nec aliquid in se promissionis Evangelicae continuisse They had no respect to Christ nor did they contain in them any Gospel promise Refut Thes Frantzii p. 94. But I will go on The Calvinists will object against your Logick in the Text now cited Rom. 3.29 and tell you that not the Relation which God as a Creator stands in to Jews and Gentiles but as a Covenanter with Abraham on the behalf of both is given as the Reason why both should be justified by Faith and not one only Sherlock This Objection Satan Hold Sir never give your self the trouble of answering it It was a disparagement to Domitian to employ himself in catching and killing Flies And in my mind you did discreetly in not answering E. P. H. H. and that Pert Man that called you Dirty-Fellow in the Title of his Book for so Anti-sozzo signifies whether you know it or no And it had not been amiss if you had let J. O. and R. F. alone too for none of them all were your match The most that can be said of them is never was any Brazen Serpent half so subtil p. 113. Sherlock I am not of your opinion That I had better have let all my Antagonists alone for then they would have said that I did not answer them because I could not Satan You have little to do sure to mind what they say To end this Chat pray ease me of this Objection against Gods loving all his Creatures alike That I find God hates me and therefore will never love me for his hatred is like himself immutable Sherlock To the Fanaticks fancy that when God once loves them he will never hate them because his love is like himself immutable I have answer'd Herein the immutability and unchangeableness of Gods love consists not that he always loves the same person but that he always loves for the same reason for it is no perfection to be so sixt in our kindness that where we love once we will always love whatever reason there may be to alter our affection for by this means we may love undeserving objects which is the greatest degeneracy of love but the perfection of love consists in loving deserving objects and in loving upon honourable reasons and the immutability of love consists in loving always for the same reason which is the only foundation of vertuous immutability pag. 404 405. Thou art not so dull but thou canst apply all this to thy satisfaction Satan I apprehend your meaning well enough that there is par ratio as your School-term is of Gods love and hatred And therefore therein the immutability of Gods hatred consists not that he always hates the same person but that he always hates for the same reason For it is no perfection
imputed to sinners yet I presume there is need of one to die as a surety in their stead and place Sherlock When Christ died for us he died not as a surely p. 290. The Socinians have no reason to be afraid of such Adversaries who have no better way to defend the satisfaction of Christ than by the notion of suretiship p. 291. Satan 'T is well J. O. that parlous man is not within hearing What will you acknowledg the Socinians stand on the vantage ground when Christians defend the satisfaction of Christ by the notion of suretiship I am apt to think they cannot defend it by any other notion the sum whereof is as I warrant you J. O. T. J. and all the letters of the Alphabet will tell you that Christ put himself into the stead of sinners to suffer what they should have suffer'd upon which God makes over Christs satisfaction to them And they will take for their warrant that place where Christ is call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The suerty of the Covenant Sherlock I confess I do not like to be call'd a Socinian because that name does male audire some ill in the Church of England And I reckon my self therefore much beholden to my two Brethren whereof one tacitly by an Imprimatur and the other by express words vindicated me from the imputation of Heresie and particularly of being tainted with Cracovian Divinity But let J. O. T. J. and who will besides please themselves with their own notion of suertiship I say To be a surety of the Covenant signifies no more than to confirm and ratifie this Covenant and to undertake for the performance of it that all the promises of the Covenant shall be made good upon such terms and conditions as are annexed to them p. 289. Satan Then it seems Christ is but Gods surety to man that he will be as gsood as his word but I should think that notion of suretiship were out of doors by the grounds you laid down a while since For if the light of nature assures sinners that God is so good that he hath a natural love for all good men and will not fail to reward them though he never made them a promise p. 42 43. Methinks it may assure them too that God is so faithful that he will not break his promise when he hath made it And it may seem that as to the confirmation of the Covenant of God with man whatever your sentiments are of Christs God-head Christ needed not to have been God for whatever assurance can be gathered from the undertakers being God is afforded us in the promisers being so And in fine Christ is no surety at all and so we need not dispute about our interest in him for as far as I can perceive by your principles that sinners might have been saved if he had never died for them and they may be damned though he hath And now I am prevented in my enquiry how the benefit of what Christ hath done and suffered might redound to me I had thought to have asked what Faith is requisite to the participation of the benefits of Christs righteousness and what Vnion results from that Faith whereby his righteousness and its effects become a sinners Sherlock You mistake the matter you may enquire and I will satisfy you about the nature of Faith and the Union thence resulting For as hasty as you are in your censure of my making Christ useless which I should take very hainously but that I think you do but personate the Fan's I will tell you The death of Christ upon the cross assures us what the merit is and what the portion of sin shall be that all sinners deserve to die and shall certainly have their deserts without a sincere repentance and reformation of their lives for to expiate sin by death can signifie no less than this that death is the proper recompence of sin p. 92. Satan A goodly end of Christs death would J. O. say were he within hearing which hath been and may be otherwise obtained The light of nature or natural notions of Gods justice and works of Providence God 's judgments upon the wicked would assure men of the merit of sin and what the portion of sin should be without sincere repentance and reformation and with it too as well as assure them which you have often told me of Gods readiness to pardon upon repentance and reformation Again J. O. would say that the death of Christ would not assure us that death is the recompence of sin unless Christs death was the punishment of sin which if it was it must be of mans sin for he had none of his own and then Christ died as a surety in the sinners stead a notion which J. O. embraces and W. S. rejects and so you have brought your hogs to a fair market indeed Sherlock In verbo sacerdotis on the word of a Priest I think you are turned Fanatick Satan You have granted one use of Christs death which will serve my turn as for the other I presume it was Lapsus linguae a slip of your tongue but the hopes you give me with one hand you take away with the other when you tell me The Sacrifice of his death extends no farther than the example of his life he was made manifest to destroy sin and in him was no sin p. 93. It seems then that Christ died only for those in whom was no sin at all And then I am too sure Christ died not for me but one comfort then is that neither died he for any body else Sherlock I explain my meaning well enough when I say that Considering how holy our Priest and Sacrifice was we cannot reasonably conceive that he died or that he interceded for incorrigible sinners p. 93 Satan All that I can gather from thence for explication is that we cannot reasonably conceive that he died for any sinners unless he were a sinner himself though not incorrigible for otherwise the Sacrifice of his death would extend farther then the example of his life He that was no sinner would die for them that were sinners To leave this to further consideration pray tell me what use you assign to Christs active obedience Sherlock Though the pardon of our sins and our justification be attributed to the blood of Christ yet I could never perswade my self that this wholly excludes the perfect obedience and righteousness of his life p. 330. Satan Very good now J. O. and you are very good friends for he could never perswade himself so neither Sherlock 'T is not good manners to interrupt me J.O. and I are far enough from being good friends For the Aqostle tell us That we are accepted in the Beloved Eph. 1.6 Satan That very plaee J. O. brings for his own justification in being always of your perswasion in this point Sherlock You are very unmannerly methinks Satan Excuse me Sir I am afraid you should forget your self and say as J. O.
says unawares Sherlock Never fear that but hear me out And I think no man will deny that God was very highly pleased with the perfect obedience of our Saviours life p. 330 331. Satan No I dare say not Socinus himself Enough enough I see what you would be at Christ by his obedience satisfecit voluntati divinae non justitiae i. e. satisfied Gods will not his justice I am past doubt now that J.O. and W.S. are not like to be very good friends in haste Sherlock Verbum sat sapienti A word is enough to the wise Now to answer your Queries which too hastily you concluded you were prevented in I will tell you what Faith is not requisite to the participation of the benefits of Christs Righteousness There is not a plainer Argument how apt men are to pervert the Scriptures to reconcile them to their own prejudices and preconceived Opinions than to observe what work they make with Abrahams Faith as if that Faith which was imputed to him for righteousness were a fiducial reliance and recumbency on Christ for salvation upon which the righteousness of Christ apprehended by Faith was imputed to him p. 247. Satan If Abrahams Faith was not a fiducial reliance and recumbency on Christ for Salvation then to be sure nor any of his Childrens For they walk in his steps and imitate his Example But pray what Faith is requisite to make Christ our Saviour seeing a Saviour you will have him to be I care not if I hear you out Sherlock Our Faith in Christ must signifie such a stedfast belief of all those revelations which Christ both made to the World as governs our lives and actions p. 255. Satan Then I perceive I am one half of a Believer already for I stedfastly believe all those Revelations which Christ hath made to the World and I am not without hopes of being the other half in good time of having my life and actions governed by my Belief Sherlock You have no cause of despair for besides what I have told you already that God produces not what he loves by an Omnipotent Power but does good to his Creatures in such a way as is suitable to their natures Righteousness is called a gift because it is not owing solely to humane endeavours but is wrought in us by supernatural means by those powerful arguments and motives and divine assistances which God in infinite love and goodness has afforded the world by Jesus Christ p. 335. Satan I understand you right well That Righteousness or the good government of life and actions is called Gods gift because he gives one half but hardly the better half would a Fanatick say the arguments and motives which are very powerful in genere morali to induce the world to make it self-righteous and them you call divine assistances because God assists the World by them that is by those Arguments and Motives perswades men to use the power they have for to give them any power they wanted were for God to produce what he loves by an Omnipotent Power in genere Physico Sherlock There 's no need of any Omnipotent Power in the Fanatick sense For that righteousness which Goâ—â—equires under the Gospel must be an inward principle of love and obedience which changes our natures and transforms us into the Image of God as much as if we were born again and made new creatures p. 265. Satan You mean Sir that a stedfast Belief of Gods revelations does excite that love and obedience which changes our natures c. and so makes a new Birth needless but Mr. Sherlock some cavelling Fanatick would bâ— so perverse I dare say were you discoursing with him as to tell you that our natures are changed before they can put forth a Belief stedfast enough to excite love and obedience And as they will be fooling with Scripture-metaphors though you have corrected them for it p. 281. they would tell you that the Childs motion does not give it life but its life gives it motion Sherlock And as for that union that you mentioned between Christ and Believers the Fanaticks commonly explain it by first a Legal union such as is between the surety and debtor p. 281. some insist most upon the notion of a Surety others of a Mediator which come much to one but yet have some peculiar absurdities belonging to each of them p. 287. As first for the notion of a Surety Satan You need not tire your self with the repetition of them I can easily guess at them the imparity between Christs being a Surety and sureties among men As to that you know the Rule Similitudo non currit quatuor pedibus Similitudes do not hold in every thing It will be thought enough that they agree in the main that as the Debtor and Surety are so far one person in the eye of humane law that the payment of the Surety is the Debtors discharge so Christ and a Believer are so far one person in the eye of the Divine Law that Christs undergoing the punishment of the Law discharges the Believer from it and Christs active obedience to the Law disobliges the Believer from obeying it to that end for which it was originally intended and for which Christ obeyed it viz. that it might be the material and meritorious cause of our justification Sherlock Let us now try whether the notion of a Mediator can do any better service than the notion of a Surety p. 296. The notion of a Mediator includes no such thing as the fulfilling of all righteousness for them whom one is Mediator to p. 296 297. Satan Sir Your Antagonists answer will be the same in effect that though a Mediator is one who interposes between two differing parties and his Office is not to perform the conditions himself as you well observe p. 297 yet the difference between God and man could not be accommodated you will be told by this Mediator but by performing the conditions himself For the reason why God would not enter into a Covenant with sinners without the intervention of a sacrifice p. 297 was because his Law being broken till the penalty due to that breach was undergone and his honour thereby vindicated he could not right his Mercy without wronging his Justice Sherlock I have done with the Legal Vnion There is secondly a Mystical Vnion by vertue of which they imagine that we receive Grace from Christs person just as we do water out of a Conduit p. 197 204. Whereas a Mediator as Mediator ought not to be considered as the Fountain but as the Minister of Grace p. 209. Satan I have always understood that they mean no more by their Mystical Vnion than an union Analogical to natural union such as that of Vine and Branches Head and Members by vertue of which they suppose they are passive in receiving grace from Christ as the Branches in receiving sap from the Root and the Members spirits from the Head But this I perceive is an imagination
without ground in your opinion And your reason against it confirms me more in my suspicion that you do but verba dare deceive when you say The Vnion of the Divine and Humane Nature in Christ did excellently qualifie him for the office of a Mediator p. 205 206. For if Christ as a Mediator be not the fountain of Grace secundum naturam divinam i. e. as God he may pass from a Mediator though he were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a meer man then he might perswade men to be gracious by powerful motives though he could not bestow grace upon them which is all you intend by Christs being a minister of Grace The Fanaticks indeed silly souls as they are think that Christs Obedience was the meritorious cause of Grace and his Spirit the efficient or fountain of it but you instruct them better that Christ by his blood purchased only a Covenant of Salvation to them that have grace come by it as they can But pray Sir what Vnion do you allow of any or none Sherlock The Union between Christ and the Christian Church is but a Political Union that is such an Union as is between a King and his Subjects p. 156. Satan Then am I united already which is more than ever I knew before for Christ is Head of Principalities and Powers and they are his subjects de jure I am sure Sherlock Hold there our union to Christ consists in our belief of his Revelations Ib. Satan Then still my claim is good for I believe all his Revelations and were I sure none but friends were within hearing I would say that 's more than you do Sherlock You are a jeering Companion and a little too hasty our union to Christ consists also in our obedience to his Laws and subjection to his Authority p. 156. Satan Now I am half gone But yet I live in hopes that the powerful motives you have talked so much of may be powerful enough to move me to that obedience and subjection I owe to Christs Laws and Authority seeing I already believe all his Revelations I will not give you much longer trouble I have but one scruple more I perceive by your last discourse That God requir'd not such a sacrifice as the death of Christ for the expiation of our sins because he could not do otherwise p. 46. This I would have made plain For it sticks much with me that I am a debtor to Divine Justice and therefore I do not understand how God can be good to me till that debt be paid and Justice satisfied For if he should it seems to me that God should raise one of his Attributes upon the ruin of another and so do himself a prejudice to do me a kindness Your charity I believe is such that you wish me well as you do all mankind Answer but this one Objection and I am satisfied Sherlock That God is so just and righteous that he cannot pardon sin without satisfaction to his justice is indeed such a notion of justice as is perfectly new which neither Scripture nor nature acquaints us with for all mankind have accounted it an act of goodness without the least suspition of injustice in it to remit injuries and offences without exacting any punishment and that he is so far from being just that he is cruel and savage who will remit no offence till he hath satisfied his revenge That part of justice which consists in punishing of offenders was always looked on as an iustrument of Government and therefore the exacting or remitting punishment was referred to the wisdom of Governours who might spare or punish as they saw reason for it without being unjust in either p. 45 46. And this is so rational that thou canst not but subscribe to the judgment of all mankind And but that I think you propose this scruple only to try what answer I can make I should wonder one of so pregnant wit should talk so like a fool Satan I doubt Sir you have not consulted all mankind I have heard other doctrine constantly taught in the Assemblies of Christians who sure are part of mankind where I have been a constant and attentive hearer and I cannot but believe and tremble Sherlock I doubt Sir Satan your ears have not been matches It may be you have heard such doctrine in Conventicles There is one John Owen that hath given us a faste of the gift he exercises in such Assembles in a late Book Entituled Communion with God the Father c. that tells us what ever discoveries were made of the patience and lenity of God to us yet if it were not withal revealed that the other Properties of God as his Justice and Revenge for Sin had their actings assigned them to the full there could be little consolation gathered from the former p. 95. But what say I to this That is J. O. would not believe God himself though he should make never so many promises of being good and gracious to sinners unless he were sure that he had first satisfied his reveng The sume of which is That God is all love and patience when he has taken his fill of revenge as others use to say That the Devil is good when he is pleased p. 47. Excuse me that I make use of your name Satan I willingly excuse your making use of my name for seeing I have failed in my ambition of being like God I am well enough content you should make God like me Sherlock Elsewhere the same J.O. says That in Christ the very nature of God is discovered to be love and kindness But I think I pay him off Hearken and you shall have my Comment with his Text to a tittle An happy change this from all Justice to all Love but how comes this to pass why the account of that is very plain because the Justice of God hath glutted it self with revenge on sin in the death of Christ and so henceforward we may be sure he will be very kind as a revengeful man is when his passion is over p. 46. Satan But what 's the matter then that sinners which I know by woful experience my self are haunted with continual fears of Gods Justice Those fears seem to be the effects of the natural notions of God's Justice which we carry about with us Sherlock The workings of the Law the amazing terrors of Gods wrath the raging despair of damned spirits are the working of an heated fancy and Religious distraction p. 95. These must needs be the effect of ignorance not of an acquaintance with Christ which suggests so many encouraging-considerations to return to God as to a merciful and compassionate Father and not to tremble at his presence as a severe and inexorable Judg. Ib. Satan O bene factum O well done my white Boy O Lepidum caput now your work is done you have obliged me for ever For now I undeastand that my fears are but melancholy and hypochondraical such as timerous persons are subject