no part of the Ceremonial Law Indeed in the Levitical Law the Jew was commanded to blow with Trumpets on the Sabbath and New Moons But you never read Moses commanded to sing Praises with Strings and Pipe Again the Ceremonies were shadows of things to come and most of them referred unto Christ but this kind of service is no ways typical of the Messiah and therefore not Ceremonial Neither is it sinful for it was first taught us by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost see 2 Chron. 29.25 Hezekiah set the Levites in the House of the Lord with Cymbals Psalteries and Harps according to the commandment of David and Gad the Kings Seer and Nathan the Prophet for so was the Commandment of the Lord by his Prophets So that to praise God with Instruments of Musick in his House is so far from being sinful that it was instituted first of all at the command of God himself by his Prophets If it be farther objected although it was appointed of God yet it was appointed under the Old Law before Christ came therefore ought now to vanish My answer is so were the Ten Commandments yet they ought always to stand in force we must not look so much to the time when a Command is given as to the intrinsick nature of a Command if we would know whether it be always to stand in force or no For if the Law have in it a Moral equity though given under the Law it may oblige us under the Gospel Now that the great and glorious God should be praised with Psalms and Hymns and spiritual Songs sung after the best and skilfullest manner to make his Service more solemn must needs be most equal and having in it a moral equity cannot be displeasing to Almighty God still to be kept up by us Instruments of Musick have great influence into the Affections of men we use the Trumpet to stir up the courage of men in War Why should we not use these to stir up our Affections to Gods Service to make us sing lustily and with a good courage If it be said it will hinder our devotion by carrying away the mind to the Musick I answer this is not essential to it but only accidental So may a pleasant Voice but we must not take away the use of a thing because it may be abused Watch therefore more narrowly thine own Heart and think these Wings were added to thy soul to make her fly the swifter up to Heaven and not to flutter here below God loves no lukewarm drouzie service that therefore that will heighten our zeal and take away our drouziness will be a help and not an hindrance to our devotion To this end David prepared two hundred fourscore and eight skilful Singers to praise God being instructed in the Songs of the Lord as we read in 1 Chron. 25.7 And he made four thousand Instruments to praise God withal 1 Chron. 23.5 Thus he took order that with Trumpets and Shawmes they should shew themselves joyful before the Lord their King The infirmities of our nature and the weaknesses of flesh and bloud are much relieved by Musick We read of a strange effect that Musick had upon Saul 1 Sam. 16.14 Saul had forsaken God and now Gods Spirit forsakes him and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him and it came to pass when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul that David took a Harp and played with his hand so Saul was refreshed and well and the evil spirit departed from him If it had been the Spirit of God that had been expell'd by Musick no question but this place would have been brought by some against us But seeing it was the evil spirit that was constantly chased away by it why should it not make for us For whether it were a deep melancholy only or a Devil possessing him and stirring and carrying that melancholy passion further than naturally it would have gone Expositors do doubt But be it which it will you see Saul was miserably out of tune with it till Davids Harp composed his affections and made him sedate and quiet and fit for the Society of men again If Musick be known to heighten our joy at a feast Why may it not heighten our joy in the Lord whilst we make a chearful noise unto the God of Jacob If we are commanded when merry to sing Psalms Surely to make the tune more melodious with Harp or Organ can be no offence If to hear a Psalm sung out of tune hinders our devotion and is apt to move scorn and laughter then by the rule of contraries to be brought to good time and tune by an Organ must needs make the Service of God more solemn more devout and more acceptable both to God and man Vulgar Errors CONCERNING The WILL Removed ALthough Faith and Hope be Gods gifts and called Gods Armour yet we must put this Armour on We must cooperate with the grace of God or else his grace will be offered us in vain The Greek Proverb says A man must defend his Weapons if he would have his Weapons defend him And St. Augustine says truly He that made thee without thee will not save thee without thee But how far and after what manner the Will of man concurs with the grace of God in things pertaining to Salvation is much controverted by the Learned which that you may the better understand I shall first explain the terms unto you 1. Telling you what the Will is 2. What the grace of God is and then shall consider of their manner of concurrence in all gracious acts 1. The Will is the rational appetite or a free power of choosing or refusing of a thing or of preferring one thing before another when divers things conduce to the same end 2. Grace is strength and assistance from God to do something above nature Without me says Christ ye can do nothing we are not able of our selves so much as to think a good thought 'T is said Pelagius taught that the Will of man needed nothing of grace but only to be enlightened by the Word of God to know his Will and the danger of not doing it and the reward of performing it and then it was able by its own natural powers to perform it grounding his opinion on such Texts as these If I had not come and spoken unto them they had not had sin but now they have no cloak for their sin Now ye say we see therefore your sin remaineth Some on the other side think the Will is subject to the special motion of God in the act of Conversion or any other gracious act so that the grace of God is irresistably powerful and what mixture men bring from the vertue of the Will to grace is only the corruption of it they ground their opinion on such Texts as these You hath he quickned who were dead in trespasses and sins And again We are created in Christ Jesus unto good works from whence
laboured more than they all yet not I but the grace of God with me The Scripture calls us Workers in Gods Vineyard not Tools and Instruments Call the Labourers and give them their hire And again We shall all receive a reward according to our works Mark 16.20 They went forth and preached every where the Lord working with them 2 Cor. 6.1 We then as workers together with him beseech you that ye receive not the grace of God in vain But in vain they would receive it if they would not cooperate with it If St. Paul whom St. Chrysostome calls the best child of grace thought it no disparagement to the grace of God to say he was a worker together with God towards their Conversion how can it be a disparagement to the grace of God to say we together with God work out our own Salvation It were in vain to persuade us to do what God alone solely and wholly doth in us Now how many persuasions in Scripture do we meet withal To make you a new heart to put off the old man and to put on the new These plainly prove a liberty of Will and that we must work out our own Salvation or else safety it self will not save us How pathetically doth God wish the Conversion of sinners Jer. 13.27 O Jerusalem wilt thou not be made clean when shall it once be Oh that my people would have hearkned unto me for if Israel had walked in my ways c. Who reading such Texts can imagine that God did not expect mens co-operation or that the cause of their ruine was only because Grace was so slenderly offered by God that it proved ineffectual unto them when God says Jer. 51.9 We would have healed Babylon but she is not healed forsake her The judgment inflicted plainly shews God was not wanting to her but she was wanting to her self All Comminations and threatnings were in vain if the Will did not or could not cooperate with the grace of God How could men fall from grace if God leave us not to the mutability of the Will It would be in vain to exhort such to do their first works and threaten them if they did not if they were meerly passive in every act of saving grace nay certainly if God withdraw his grace it is meerly because we walk unworthy of it for to him that hath shall be given and he shall have more abundance but from him that hath not that is hath not well improved it shall be taken away even that which he hath Some men think they can never exalt the grace of God enough unless they debase the powers and light of Nature far more than Adam debased them by his Fall But the Law of Nature written in the heart is no less the Law of God than those Laws of God which are written in the Scripture else Murther and Adultery in the Heathen should not be sins for where there is no Law there is no Transgression Rom. 2.14 The Gentiles which have not the Law and do by nature the things contained in the Law shall judge the Circumcised which transgress the Law which place doth plainly shew unto us that the light of Nature is good as being the Candle of the Lord and that it is not wholly extinguished in us but only darkened by Adams Transgression I come now to answer those Arguments which are brought against this truth And first it is objected that Christ is said to fill all in all Ephes 1. ult My answer is These words are not to be so taken as if we were to do nothing at all towards our own Salvation for they are spoken figuratively where by a Synecdoche the chief part is put for the whole As suppose a man should say Towards a mans maintenance Money is all in all not but that Food and Rayment do maintain him more immediately but because these cannot usually be procured without Money that answering all things the saying is usual and none except against it Their second Argument is taken from verse 19. of that Chapter where the Apostle says We believe according to the working of his mighty power which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead Whence they infer the grace of Faith is wrought by an infinite power in the heart but we can contribute nothing to an infinite power therefore nothing towards our own Faith My answer is St. Pauls Faith and so of the Primitive Christians was not wrought only by means as ours now adays is but also by Miracles The Apostles preached and the Lord confirmed the Word with signs following Mark 16.20 which signs and wonders when the people saw they believed according to the working of this mighty power But our Faith now is not so wrought but only by hearing without seeing such an Almighty power to confirm the Doctrine yet are we never the less blessed but rather the more Thomas because thou hast seen thou hast believed blessed are they which have not seen and yet have believed Thirdly it is objected If the Will of man have power to assent or not assent to grace offered man shall do more towards his own Conversion than God for the act is more perfect than a meer power to act I answer although in a Metaphysical sense the act is more perfect than a meer power to act as the end of a thing is preferred before the means tending to it yet in a Moral sense it is not always so neither doth man by accepting do more than God by offering his grace God gives us power to get Wealth say we get it are we more beholden now to our selves therefore than to God for our riches I trow not The case is the same in the point of grace when we have accepted of his goodness we ought to say Not unto us Lord not unto us but to thy name give the praise If a Benefactor give an indigent person a considerable sum of money and he accept it is he more beholden to himself for his acceptance than to the Donor for his kindness If so then their Argument is of force but not else Fourthly it is objected If the Will of man hath power to assent to grace offered and he do assent another hath the same grace offered and he doth not assent all the difference must needs come from mans Will and so he that believes and assents makes himself to differ from him that assents not contrary to that of the Apostle 1 Cor. 4.7 I confess this Argument hath stumbled many learned men as if the Apostle had spoken these words concerning the act of Conversion or of receiving sanctifying grace but it is spoken only concerning receiving Ministerial Offices in the Church See the first verse else Let a man so account of us as of the Ministers of Christ and Stewards of the Mysteries of God 〈◊〉 he taxes as St. Ambrose well observes the pride and arrogancy of some Teachers who did insinuate into the people that
Baptism from their hands was more effectual or any other Ordinance from their hands was better than from the hands of another Minister and so the People thought more highly of one than of another and were puffed up for one Minister against another as appears at verse 6. whereupon at verse 7. he subjoyns Who maketh thee to differ At verse 8. he taxes them for boasting even over himself Ye have reigned as Kings without us c. to whom he thus speaks You O boasting Teachers that do so magnifie your selves above me or suffer the people to do so what have you ye have not received by my Ministry For I was your first spiritual Father and if you did receive it why do ye so boast over me as if ye had not received it from me Who sees not that the Context stands wholly affected to this Interpretation To tax the pride of the seduced Party both Pastors and People amongst them And therefore to urge these words Who made thee to differ as if the Apostle meant them concerning the act of Conversion is to wrest the Scripture to a sense which will nothing comport with the matter in hand nor fall in with the subject of that Chapter If a Prisoner at the Bar should find fault with the Judge on the Bench as acting contrary to Gods Word because it is written Judge not that ye be not judged and again Why dost thou judge thy brother Ought not the Context to clear the scruple Yes surely Even so it ought in this point for he that will not mind what goes before and what follows after a saying in Scripture may easily pervert the sense of the Holy Ghost From what hath been said I hope it is apparent that the Apostle doth not tax any man of pride in this place that shall accept of Gods grace and say he made himself to differ from him that refuseth the like grace in all respects as is contended for If when Eve was fallen Adam had stood in innocency who had made the difference between their two estates Had not Adams Will You will say he might have boasted then I answer nay for he had but done what was his duty to do for to this end God gave him a righteous Will to stand If said God is not bound to give us such a Will since the Fall I grant he is bound to nothing but what his good pleasure binds him to but St. Peter doth assure us he hath given us all things which appertain to life and godliness 2 Pet. 1.3 and therefore must needs give us the principal thing without which no man is godly namely Grace sufficient to heal the Will God makes the Sun to shine and the rain to fall on the field of the slothful man which is overgrown with bryars and thorns as well as on the diligent which stands so thick with corn that it laughs and sings Is it any boasting against God for the good husband to say my industry was the cause why God blessed me more than the sluggard I trow not No more is it arrogance to say I have not forsaken my God as the wicked doth and therefore he hath not forsaken me for he hath revealed himself after this manner 1 Sam. 2.30 I said indeed that thy house and the house of thy father should walk before me for ever but now saith the Lord be it far from me for them that honour me I will honour c. Thus ye see the Lord will be no longer for us than we are for him and therefore David thus cautioneth his Son Solomon not to bear himself high upon any privilege of being Abrahams Seed or Davids Son but says thus unto him And thou Solomon my Son fear thou the Lord God of thy Fathers and serve him with a willing mind if thou seek him he will be found of thee but if thou forsake him he will cast thee off for ever 1 Chron. 28.9 If these words of David have any force in them either as an Exhortation or Commination it must needs be granted that he thought Solomon had power either to cooperate with the grace of God offered or to refuse it as he pleased Fifthly it is objected if grace put us only in the equipoize and man upon deliberation turn the Scale to Virtue and not to Vice all the difference between a virtuous and vicious man should come from Nature and not from Grace To that I answer If Nature alone could turn the Scale without being put gold-weight by Grace it were true but seeing it could not raise the Scale to this equipoize without the assistance of Grace it is false Secondly Gods Grace did cooperate with mans Will in turning the Scale and had the chiefest stroak in it Thirdly mans nature at first was endowed with a power from God to do good and if he had done so instead of doing evil it had not a whit derogated from the glory of God but it had rather been to his praise although his obedience had come from the strength of Nature even so if God by adventitious Grace cure the Moral impotency of Nature that it be able to refuse the evil and chuse the good the praise of that obedience is chiefly due to that auxiliary grace without which it could have done but little good but being thus relieved although this new Nature put forth the act of obedience for Nature is not destroyed by Grace yet it nothing derogates from the Grace of God but rather shews forth Gods glory in the cure of such a corrupted nature But if it be said seeing God is a most merciful Creator had it not been a more merciful act to have created man determined to happiness from which he could not have fallen rather than to leave him thus in the equipoize to the mutability or determination of his own Will My answer is This had been to have unmann'd him to have brought him down to the level of inseriour Creatures which cannot alter or suspend their actions but are by Nature determined to one constant course Now God hath set us a sphere above them in giving us reason for a Moderatrix without which no actions could be virtuous and consequently not capable of that reward which he hath laid up in heaven for us The noblest way of being happy is to have it for being holy As God is not mocked so neither is he a mocker of men which their opinion under debate would make him to offer a blind man Money on condition he will look on it and tell you whose Image and Superscription it bears is certainly to mock him but if a man should proceed so far as to rail upon him for refusing an Alms upon such easie terms instead of relieving his misery he might justly be thought to intend only to add to his affliction So if God offer Grace to those whose Wills can concur to the reception of it only subjectively but nothing causally and then not only chide them for refusing
it but also lay it to their charge that it was not efficacious as it might have been if they had actively concurred and cooperated with it he should not only be a mocker of men but also under colour of kindness make a way to his wrath and indignation which is far from the candor and nature of God who is always merciful and serious in his offers of Grace If it be said he doth not mock us but justly challenge from us that lost power which he once gave us as a Creditor may justly challenge from a Prodigal that money he hath spent and hath not now to pay Some are of opinion that it is not the Prodigals fault now that he doth not pay if he be willing to pay and hath it not but his fault was only this that he brought himself into that condition And so it is not a fault that he which cannot receive grace doth not receive it but a sad consequence only of his former sin which brought this impotency upon him for which he ought to be pitied not upbraided if he desire to receive it Others answer it befits the goodness of God in the New Covenant of Grace made with mankind to allow sufficient strength of grace to perform the conditions of that Covenant in such a measure as he for Christs sake would accept Or else 1. The Covenant of Works would be more gracious than the Covenant of Grace for under that mankind had strength allowed him Adam did not fall for want of power to stand Or else 2. The New Covenant should leave a man in a worse condition than it found him for the abounding of grace would make his sin abound being sure to be always refused But Christ is the Mediator of a better Covenant every way considered a more gracious than that of Works and Gods primary intent in giving it was not to make sin but to make grace abound I only ask a question if Zeleucus put out both the eyes of an Adulterer for Adultery and then offer him his Book to read and hang him because he cannot read was the offer of the Psalm of mercy a mercy to him or a mockery So if God first justly blind our understanding and harden our hearts as a punishment of our sin in Adam and then make us a tender of grace in Christ but never open our understandings to see it nor soften our hearts so far that if we will we may embrace it but all his offers are upon impossible terms to be accepted whether the case be not alike and Parallel 6. Lastly it is objected that it is God that worketh in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure Phil. 2.13 Where you see say they St. Paul attributes both the will and the deed to the grace of God I answer the meaning of the Apostle is that God gives us a power to will and still assists us with his grace till we bring that power into Act and so a man works out his own Salvation and he ought to do it with fear and trembling that is he ought with reverence and godly fear stand in aw lest when God inables him to work he be wanting to himself and to the grace of God lest he grieve and quench the Spirit and cause him to depart But if a man concur only subjectively and passively to pious works as they would have it then it must be said or may truly be said at least that God in us believes repents of sin and doth all other gracious Acts which how absurd and blasphomous it would be I leave the world to judge It is said our Saviour marvelled at their unbelief but if it be as they say I marvel why he should marvel for he knew before-hand they could do nothing and he was resolved not to do all things alone to bring them to the Faith But certainly he had good cause to marvel that when he afforded them such a measure of Grace as would have converted Tyre and Sidon and would have made Niniveh repent in Sackcloath and ashes they should be so wilful and obdurate that it made no kindly impression upon them If any thing had been wanting on his part to have brought them to the Faith he would not have upbraided them with their unbelief or have shamed them by the very Heathen nor have denounced a more intolerable measure of damnation against them if there had not been offered them superabundant advantages of Grace I conclude therefore with the Father Sola voluntas ardet in gehennâ which I will English thus Wilful men will want no woe Vulgar Errors CONCERNING REDEMPTION Removed SAint Paul comparing the First and Second Adam together shews us the hurt we received by the disobedience of the First and the benefits we receive by the obedience of the Second For Adam and Christ are to be considered as two roots as we proceed from the one we are of the wild Olive but as we are engraffed into the other we contrary to our natures partake of the good Olive Now look what loss Mankind did receive by the one it was the good pleasure of our good God that the same benefit Mankind should recover by the other When the Apostle says many dead by Adam he says many made alive by Christ When men condemned by Adam he says all justified by Christ now what he thus makes equal for men to dis-equalize to such a degree as not one of many to be redeemed though all in Adam were lost is not to make a much more on Christs side but a much less Contrary to the Apostle who all along puts the redundancy on Christs part that where sin abounded grace superabounded that as sin reigned unto death so grace did reign unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Now sin did reign over all men without exception unto death therefore grace must have a proportionable reign unto life Christ must fulfil on his part what appertained to the procuring the Salvation of all or else the Salve is not so broad as the Sore which yet the Apostle hath been proving at large in the fifth Chapter to the Romans Our Church rightly grounding her Faith upon the Scriptures teaches most truly that Christ died for all men in her Catechism she teaches the Child to answer I believe in God the Son who redeemed me and all mankind and in her Collect for Good Friday prays for all Jews Turks and Insidels that God would bring them home to his Flock that there may be one Fold under one Shepherd Suppose God to hear the Prayers of his Church and to bring these to the knowledge of Christ I demand Hath Christ any salvation in him for these men or no If he hath sure I am he purchased it with his bloud and so died for them If not our Church is mistaken in praying such may be brought to Christ for salvation who hath no salvation in him for such or ever laid down his life a
ransom for them But certainly he is able to save to the uttermost all that come to God by him For as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation So by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men to justification of life If Christ did not redeem all it was either because he was not able or because he was not willing to do it If you say he was not able you blaspheme the power and vertue of his death for St. John tells us If any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous and he is the Propitiation not only for ours but for the sins of the whole world If you say not willing you blaspheme his goodness who would have all men sav'd and is not willing that any should perish 2 Pet. 3.9 If any part of Mankind left unredeemed Christ must needs be willing that part of mankind should perish else he would have redeemed them without which he saw they must perish Nothing could hinder but his Will for he might have redeemed all at the same rate but he was not willing any should perish therefore it roundly follows he left none unredeemed When we urge those Scriptures which assert universal Redemption their answers are so weak that it would make a man pity the strength of a wrong byassed education that will not let them see that their answers are mere frivolous evasions When we urge that of the Apostle 2 Pet. 2.1 Some deny the Lord that bought them they answer he bought them for Slaves and not for Children Now I would fain know what slavish work Christ hath to do for his redeemed ones whose service is perfect freedom When we urge that place Heb. 2.9 That by the grace of God Christ should taste death for every man They answer Voluntate signi non beneplaciti that is he signifies so but he means not so If he means not so when he says so how shall we then know at any time by his words what he means When we urge God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son into the world that whosoever believes in him might not perish They answer by the world is meant only the Elect chosen out of the world That by the world in Scripture is often meant that Party of men in the world which is contrary to the Saints many places may be brought as the whole world stands in wickedness these are not of the world even as I am not of the world c. but that in this place God so loved the world by the world should be meant only the Elect I have not saith enough to believe and I am still to seek for that place of Scripture where the Holy Ghost by the world meaneth only the Elect. In a word what Scriptures soever we bring to prove that Christ paid a price for all mankind they reply to us that Christ paid a price for all sufficiently but not intentionally Now I appeal to the universal reason of all Mankind whether if Titius and Sempronius be in slavery he that paid nothing for Titius can be said to pay for him what was sufficient to bring him out of Captivity because he paid more for Sempronius ransom than would have bought it and which Sum if he had designed it so might have redeemed Titius also That such weak answers as they bring should satisfie any rational men must be imputed meerly to the strength of prejudice and prepossession If Christ died for all says St. Paul then were all dead 2 Cor. 5.14 By all say they were meant only all the Elect Then say I by vertue of the Antithesis only the Elect were dead but in Adam Elect and Reprobate are alike dead therefore the Apostles meaning cannot be that Christ died only for the Elect for all were dead both Elect and Non-elect and he died for all that were dead Christ in no wise took upon him the nature of Angels but the Seed of Abraham to shew that he came not to redeem the lost Angels but Mankind that was lost Now if any of Mankind were left out of this Redemption Christ should tender their Salvation no more than the Salvation of the Devil and his Angels but he doth not leave the most of men in as hopeless and helpless a condition as he left the Devil and his Angels whose nature he never took upon him It shall never be laid to the charge of a wicked Angel that he did not believe in Christ but it shall be laid to the charge of a wicked man that he did not believe in Christ which plainly shews he did more to redeem a wicked man than a wicked Angel It should not be a sin in a wicked man to refuse Christ as his Saviour if he be not his Saviour unless he thought him so to be and yet refused him but it must necessarily be always a sin to refuse Christ whether a wicked refuser of him think him a Saviour or no because in deed and truth he is the Redeemer of all mankind He came to seek and to save that which was lost but all mankind was lost therefore he came to seek and to save all Mankind Mar. 16.15 Christ bids his Disciples preach the Gospel to every Creature that is offer life and salvation to all in case Christ should offer it to all when he hath purchased it but for a few there would be matter of disparagement in it For what makes us despise Mountebanks as one says well but that they promise more than they are able to perform Therefore seeing he bids us preach the Gospel to every Creature the glad tidings of the Gospel belongs to every Creature and we are to exhort every man to believe in Christ and promise him life and salvation if he do which thing we could not truly do if he laid down his life but for a few and paid no ransom for the most of mankind This Doctrine of our Church that Christ redeemed all mankind hath no malignant influence in it at all which makes me admire why men are so bitter against it If it were not true yet methinks even for humanity sake we should wish it were true and not to be so narrow hearted as to desire salvation only for our selves That must needs be the best good which is most diffusive and wherein most may partake If Moses was so affectionate to the Souls of a provoking poople as to pray after this manner for them O Lord forgive their sin and if not blot me out of the book which thou hast written as if his own happiness could not please him unless it might be accompanied with the happiness of his people how can we chuse but be enlarged with love and gratitude unto God that he hath reconciled the world unto himself and how chearfully should we publish that glad tidings If St. Paul was so diffusive of his charity as to wish himself accursed from