Wisdom as he has reveled those hidden Treasures of the Divine Wisdom which were conceled from former ages but we must not go immediately to the Person of Christ for this Wisdom but we must search for it in the Gospel where it is reveled and beg those divine Assistances which are necessary to enlighten our minds and to bless our Studies and Enquiries Thus we must receive all supernatural Aids and Assistances from Christ to renew and sanctifie our Natures and to make us holy as God is Christ hath by his Death purchast the Gift of the Holy Spirit for those who believe but we must not expect to receive these vital Influences from Christ by such a natural conveyance as water flows out of a fountain or as the animal Spirits are communicated to the Members of the natural Body but we must consider and meditate and affect our minds with all the Motives and Arguments of our Religion and derive strength and power from the consideration of Christs Death and Sufferings and Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven and Intercession for us at Gods right hand c. to mortifie our Lusts and to transform us into a Divine Nature We must read and pray and watch and fast and communicate at the Lords Table and by these means put our selves under the guidance and conduct of the Divine Spirit who will never fail to do his part when we are so diligent in doing ours But a bare trust and reliance on the Person of Christ will not entitle us to his Divine Aids no more than a presumptuous Dependence on the Providence of God will secure a slothful man from want and beggery Christ is the fountain of all spiritual life but we must not look on this as a personal Grace in Christ which must be immediately derived from his Person but as an act of Goodness and Power in the Administration of his spiritual Kingdom which is therefore dispensed in such regular ways that every one that pleases may certainly know how to obtain it and that no man must expect it any other way But now those Persons whom I oppose if we may judge of their meaning by their words send sinners immediately to Christ for Life and Righteousness for Wisdom and Power c. and make all these personal Graces which must be derived immediately from the Person of Christ when indeed they are no other than the effects of his Prophetical Priestly or Regal Offices in publishing the Will of God to us or in expiating our Sins or in governing his Church and dispensing his Grace in such ways and methods as he has prescribed in the Gospel And therefore as I observed in my former Discourse they have either found out a new Person for Christ distinct from his Godhead and Manhood or which comes to the same thing have drest up the Person of Christ with such personal Graces as do not belong to his Person as God-Man but are the effects of his Mediation And here the Doctor and Mr. Ferguson and the rest of my Opponents raise a great cry and tell the world that what I charge them with as a Fault that they have found out a Person for Christ distinct from his Godhead and Manhood they think not to have done it would have been as far from Wit as Truth because the Person of Christ is of a distinct consideration from his Godhead and Manhood And here they Philosophize at large concerning the Notion of Suppositum and Persona and Hypostasis and are glad with all their hearts to find an occasion to avoid the true Question Now I readily grant that this was not warily exprest to prevent the cavilling humor of those men who have no other way to escape but by taking Sanctuary in such Retreats though what I immediately add was sufficient to inform them what I meant by it had they any mind to understand it that they distinguish the Person of Christ as Mediator from his Person as God-Man and cloath this Person with such personal Graces as belong neither to his Divine nor Human Nature nor to the Union of both Thus they talk of the Fulness and Riches and Beauty and Loveliness and Righteousness and Wisdom and Power and Grace and Mercy of Christ as personal Graces inherent in him and derived immediately from his Person to us whereas I made it appear by a particular examination of those Scripture-phrases that all this is attributed to Christ either with respect to his Doctrin or Sacrifice or Mediation and Intercession for us that they are the effects of his several Offices not properly the Graces of his Person unless they will make his Mediatory Office a distinct Person And therefore we must expect to receive the Communications of his Fulness or Riches or Righteousness or Grace or Wisdom not from a bare Union to his Person but by believing and obeying his Gospel and in the conscientious use of such means as God hath appointed for the conveyance of Grace and the Communication of all Spiritual Blessings to us This I called dressing up the Person of the Mediator with all those Personal Graces and Excellencies which may make him a fit Saviour that those who are thus united to his Person need not fear missing of Salvation This the Doctor thinks prophane because the Preparation of the Person of Christ to be a fit and meet Saviour for Sinners which I prophanely compare to the dressing up of of what good Sir Speak out and let us know the worst is the greatest most glorious and admirable effect that ever infinite Wisdom Goodness Power and Love wrought and produced or will do so to eternity Very right God's fitting Christ to be a meet Saviour for Sinners was an admirable effect of Wisdom and Power but this new Dress they have put our Saviour into contains the greatest Mystery of Iniquity and Antinomianism that ever was invented and I hope it is no Prophaneness to reprove such an uncouth Metamorphosis of our Saviours Person And here once for all I shall desire my Readers to taken notice of their great Artifice in perverting my Words either into Prophaneness or Non-sense that whatever I speak against that odd and Phantastical Representation which they make of the Person of Christ they interpret as spoken against Christ himself God-Man which is just as if a man who argues against a false and absurd Notion of a Deity should be charged with Atheism or with Blasphemy against God And that no man may any longer think that this Religion of Christs Person as it is distinguisht from the Religion of his Gospel is a peculiar Conceit and Invention of my own as the Doctor would fain persuade his Readers it is I shall now make it appear that this Distinction between the Person and Gospel of our Saviour is so far from being imaginary that it is the very foundation of Antinomianism Thus the Antinomians lay the foundation of their Religion in winning and wooing People unto
and the free choise of the Divine Will and therefore though we may conclude from the Divine Nature that God will be gracious and compassionate to sinners yet we cannot certainly know in what measures and proportions God will exercise this Grace and Mercy without an express declaration of his Will and when God has declared his Will as he has now done in the Gospel it is then at best to no purpose to argue from his Nature unless we have a mind to encourage Sinners to expect more Grace from the Divine Nature than God hath promised in the Revelation of the Gospel So that though we should suppose that he did not consider this boundless Grace in Christ as Mediator but considered it as in him who is Mediator which by the way spoils all the comfort sinners might take from the boundless mercy of the Divine Nature in Christ if this be not in him as our Mediator unless we may expect more Grace from Christ upon his Personal account than from his Mediation that is more from the Person than from the Gospel of Christ which contains the terms of his Mediation which he so vehemently disowns yet I say this Argument were weak and fallacious because we cannot reason thus from the Divine Nature it self for though the Divine Nature be the Fountain of Grace and Mercy yet the Divine Will regulates the exercise of it and assigns its measures much less can we reason thus from the Divine Nature considered in Christ as our Mediator for a Mediator as Mediator though he be God-man is not the Fountain but Minister of Grace as Christ witnesses That he came not to do his own will but the will of him that sent him And thus he is considered in Scripture even where he is said to be the only begotten of the Father full of Grace and truth which seems not primarily to refer to the inherent glory and perfection of his Nature though that may be proved from it but to the glory of his Ministry which was the only glory the Apostles could then discover when his Essential Majesty was hid under a vail of flesh and therefore I think still the Doctor would do well to make God the Father the Fountain of Grace for though when we consider the three Persons in the Sacred Trinity in the Unity of the Divine Essence what is attributed to one is supposed to be attributed to the other yet when we consider them under different capacities and relations it is not so Christ as God essentially one with the Father and Holy Spirit is the Fountain of Grace as Mediator he is the Minister of it the Father sends and Christ is sent the Father prescribes his work and he finishes it And therefore to make Christ as Mediator the Fountain of Grace is a derogation from God the Father whom the Scripture makes the first mover and supreme Agent in the work of our Redemption I observed in the same place another instance of this way of reasoning from the Divine Nature in Christ to prove that Eternity Unchangeableness and Fruitfulness of his Love Now this I say is a way of proving the Eternity Unchangeableness and Fruitfulness of Christ's love which the Scripture no where teaches but is wholly owing to an acquaintance with Christ And I wonder that the Doctor should be at a loss to know what it is I except against whether it be that the love of Christ as he is God is Eternal Or that it is Unchangeable Or that it is Fruitful or Effective of good things unto the Persons Beloved It is neither of these in themselves considered for I own all as he very well knows but I except partly against his way of stating these things and partly against his way of proving them or rather against both together What he means by this Eternal Unchangeable and Fruitful Love he tells us himself The love which I intend and whereunto I ascribe those properties is the especial love of God in Christ unto the Elect. This is such a love as is Eternal without beginning and without end as does not change with the changes of the object as the love of men does and is so fruitful and effectual as to love Life Grace holiness into us to love us into Covenant to love us into heaven Now my business is not to dispute the case whether God have elected some particular Persons whom he will infallibly bring to glory which I never denied yet and I think never shall But the question is Whether the Eternity and Unchangeableness and fruitfulness of this Electing Love can be proved from the Eternity and Immutability c. of the Divine Nature The inconvenience I then urged it with was this If this love be so Eternal and Unchangeable c. because the Divine Nature is so then it was always so for God always was what he is and that which is Eternal could never be other than it is now and why could not this Eternal and Unchangeable and Fruitful love as well preserve us from falling into Sin and Misery and Death as love Life and Holiness into us all To this the Doctor answers That Gods love is in Scripture represented Unchangeable because he himself is so but it doth not hence follow that God loveth any one naturally or necessarily His love is a free act of his Will and therefore though it be like himself such as becomes his nature yet it is not necessarily determined on any object nor limited as to the Nature Degrees Effects of it which he proves from the different dispensations of the Grace and Mercy of God under the Law and Gospel and adds God is always the same that he was love in God is always the same that it was but the Objects Acts and Effects of this Love with the measures and degrees of them are the issues of the counsel or free purpose of his Will Now this Answer is what I would have and plainly discovers the Sophistry of this way of reasoning For if this electing Love be not the immediate and necessary effect of the Divine Nature but the free choise and purpose of his Will then we cannot learn either that it is or what it is from the bare contemplation of the Divine Nature but from the declarations of the Divine Will for we can prove nothing from the Divine Nature but what has a necessary and inseparable connexion with some attribute and perfection in God but where a free choice and counsel intervenes we must be contented to be ignorant or to learn from Revelation We may certainly conclude from the holiness and goodness of God that God will love good men and hate the wicked because holiness includes in the very notion of it a necessary love to goodness and hatred of evil and from the immutability of God we may conclude his unchangeable love to goodness and hatred of evil as the Psalmist expresseth it Psal. 103. 17 18. But the mercy
thing required on our part and in this sense though I deny not particular Election yet I disown our immediate Union to the Person of Christ. Christ is the Surety and Mediator of the Covenant who having with his own bloud made a general Atonement and Propitiation for the sins of the whole world purchased and sealed the Covenant of Grace wherein he promises pardon of sin and Eternal Life to all those who repent and believe the Gospel Such a faith in Christ as makes us members of his Body which is his Church alone entitles us to all the benefits of his Death and Passion and therefore he is said to redeem his Church with his own bloud for though his Sacrifice was general and universal yet none have an actual interest in it but his Church and the particular Members of it This unites us to Christ and applies his Universal grace and mercy particularly to our selves But to imagine that Christ was appointed by God to be a Surety only for particular Persons and to act in their name and stead necessarily precipitates men into the very dregs of Antinomianism which in this loose phantastical and degenerate Age is the only popular and taking frenzy It is time now to proceed to the vindication of my third and fourth Propositions in my Chapter of Union from the misrepresentations of Mr. Ferguson for this is all the skill he has shewn here to pervert my sense and to affix such Doctrines to me as I never dreamt of The third Proposition is this That the Union between Christ and Christians is not a Natural but Political Union that is such an Union as there is between a Prince and his Subjects The fourth is this That Fellowship and Communion with God according to the Scripture notion signifies what we call a Political Union that is that to be in Fellowship with God and Christ signifies to be of that Society which puts us into a peculiar relation to God that God is our Father and we his Children that Christ is our Head and Husband our Lord and Master we his Disciples and Followers his Spouse and his Body These two Propositions our Author tells us are according to the best understanding of enunciations he has coincident and equipollent which is a plain demonstration how little his understanding is in these matters when the third Proposition concerns the nature of our Union and the fourth the explication of a Scripture term which had been perverted to a very different if not contrary sense But to let pass this and a great many other things of this nature as any man must do who would not undertake such a trifling task as to prove that our Author neither understands Logick nor Philosophy nor any other part of good learning of which there are abundant evidences in this very Treatise where he makes a great shew and flourish with that little undigested knowledge he has his great Artifice in what follows is to conceal and misrepresent my notion of Political Union and then to scuffle learnedly and valiantly with his own shadow and dreams Sometimes he represents this Political Union to be only such an External Relation as is between a Prince and his Subjects and ever denies that I own any influences of Grace from Christ as an influential head as he is pleased to call him And therefore all his reasonings proceeding upon such an ignorant or wilful mistake all I have to do is to clear my own notion and to give an account of the reason why I stated it in this manner As for the first By a Political Union I understand such a Union between Christ and Christians as there is between a Prince and his Subjects which consists in our belief of his Revelations obedience to his Laws and subjection to his Authority and that this is the true notion of it I gave sufficient evidence in my former Discourse to which I must refer my Reader But then I observed that this Political Union between Christ and his Church may be either only external and visible and so hypocritical Professors may be said to be united to Christ by the Ligaments of an external Profession or true and real which imports the truth and sincerity of our obedience to our Lord and Master that we really are what we profess to be And herein consists a material difference between that External Union which is between a temporal Prince and his Subjects and the Union between Christ who is a spiritual Head and King and the true Church or true and sincere Christians who are spiritual Subjects For as the Authority of Earthly Princes can reach only the External man because they cannot know our thoughts any other ways than as they are expressed in our outward actions so the Union consists in an external Government and an external Subjection But Christ being a spiritual Prince governs hearts and thoughts too and therefore our subjection to Christ and consequently our Union to him must not be only external and visible but internal and spiritual which consists in the subjection of our hearts and minds of our thoughts and passions to his Government And this real and spiritual Union I explained in four particulars First as I have already observed it consists in the subjection of our minds and spirits to Christ as our spiritual King And secondly this is represented in Scripture by a participation of the same nature which is the necessary effect of the subjection of our minds to him Upon which account I observed that our Union to Christ is described by having the Spirit of Christ Rom. 89. If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his Which as it respects the cause whereby we are transformed into a Divine Nature so it signifies the Holy Spirits dwelling in us as it signifies the effect or that Divine Nature New Creature which Mr. Ferguson himself acknowledges to be the very bond of our cohesion to Christ so it is that same temper and disposition of mind which Christ had which as I expresly observed is called having the Spirit of Christ by an ordinary figure of the cause for the effect for all those vertues and graces wherein our conformity to Christ consists are called the fruits of the Spirit And in the Page before that it is called being born of the Spirit because all Christian Graces and Vertues are in Scripture attributed to the Spirit of God as the Author of them And now I dare trust any man of common ingenuity to judge whether I make our Union to Christ a meer external thing or leave out the consideration of the Spirit of God in our Union to Christ when I assert that that new nature all those Christian graces wherein our conformity and internal Union to Christ consists are owing to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit And whereas Mr. Ferguson is so critical that it will not satisfie him that the Spirit is present in the hearts of Believers in
Saviour with the necessity of obeying his Laws and being conformed to his Example that esteem and reverence we owe to the Person of Christ with a reverence for his Laws that no man might expect to be saved by Christ though he be infinitely gracious and compassionate and inherit all the boundless Perfections of the Deity without the practice of an universal Righteousness And therefore I showed that all those Considerations which did naturally result from the contemplation of the Person of Christ as he is the Eternal Son of God who was made Man and sent into the World to accomplish the work of our Redemption did necessarily engage us to obey his Laws but gave us no encouragement to expect any thing more from him upon his Personal account than what he hath promised in his Gospel This I observed was a plain demonstration of Gods love to Mankind that he sent so great and so dear a Person as his only begotten Son to save Sinners No man can doubt of Gods good will to Sinners who sees the Son of God cloathed with our flesh and dying as a Sacrifice for our sins and this gives relief to our guilty fears and encourages us to retrieve our past follies by new Obedience No man will return to his Duty without some hope of Pardon and Forgiveness for his past sins and the proper use of Gods love in sending Christ into the World is to conquer our Obstinacy and to encourage our Hopes Thus the greatness of Christs Person gives great Reverence and Authority to his Gospel and an inviolable Sanction to his Laws as the Apostle argues If the word spoken by Angels was stedfast and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of Reward how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation which at first began to be spoken by the Lord Heb. 1. 2 3. And this gives great Authority to his Example and lays forcible obligations on us to imitate him who was not only our Saviour but God incarnate And this assures us of the infinite value of his Sacrifice and of the power of his Intercession God cannot but be pleased when his own Son undertakes to be a Ransom and to make Atonement for sinners which is so great a vindication of Gods Dominion and Soveraignty of the authority of his Laws and the wisdom and justice of his Providence that he may securely pardon humble and penitent sinners without reproaching any of his Attributes and we can desire no greater security for the performance of this Gospel-Covenant than that it was sealed with the blood of the Son of God And this is a great encouragement to return to God when we have such a powerful Advocate and Mediator to intercede for us But then we must expect no more from Christ upon account of his personal Excellencies and Perfections than what he hath promised in his Gospel Christ is the object of our Faith and Hope only as he is our Saviour and he is our Saviour in no other sense than as he is our Mediator and he mediates for us as our Priest that is in vertue of that Covenant which he hath sealed with his blood and therefore we have no reason to expect any thing from the Person of Christ which is not contained in his Covenant much less which contradicts it for that would be in effect to renounce his Mediation and to trust to the goodness of his Nature Christ will in his own Person accomplish all those Promises he hath made whether they concern the present assistances of his Grace or his Providence and Protection in this world or the future rewards of the next but we must learn what Christ will do for us and upon what terms not from the boundless Perfections and Excellencies of his Person but from the Declarations of the Gospel though the consideration of his Person who he is and how he lived and what he taught may convince any man that he will be a Saviour to none but those who live in the practise of that Righteousness of which he was a Preacher and Example Now to silence the clamors of some men who upbraided those Preachers who spent their greatest zeal in expounding the Laws of Christ and in pressing men by all the Motives and Arguments of the Gospel the Sacrifice and Mediation of Christ the necessity of a good Life to make men happy hereafter and the many great advantages of Holiness here c. to the practise of an universal Righteousness I say to silence the clamors of those who upbraided such Preachers with not preaching Christ I considered in the next place what it is to know Christ and so consequently what it is to preach Him and the sum of it was this That to know Christ is to be acquainted with that Revelation which Christ hath made of Gods will to the world For as in former ages God made himself known by the light of Nature and the works of Creation and Providence and those partial and occasional Revelations of his Will which he made to good men now in these last days he hath sent his Son into the world to declare his Will to us And therefore the only useful knowledge is to understand those Revelations which Christ hath made of Gods Will the necessary consequence of which is that he who expounds the Laws and Doctrine of the Gospel does in the most proper sense preach Christ as Philip is said to preach Christ to the Samaritans Act. 8. 5. which in ver 12. is called Preaching the things concerning the Kingdom of God and the Name of Iesus Christ that is the whole Doctrine of the Gospel The whole Christian Religion is the Knowledge of Christ and the Laws of Righteousness and the Motives to Obedience as principal a part as any because this was the ultimate design of Christs coming into the world to reform mens lives and to prepare them for the happiness of the next world by transforming them into a Divine Nature All that Christ did and suffered was only in order to this end and then we understand all those mysteries of the Incarnation and Death and Intercession of Christ as much as is necessary to the purposes of Religion when we understand what obligations they lay on us to a holy Life and feel their power and vertue in renewing and sanctifying our minds In the next place I observed that the foundation of the greatest and most dangerous mistakes was laid in a wrong notion of our Union to Christ of which some men discourse in such uncouth and Cabbalistical terms as no Body can understand and therefore I endeavoured to state the true notion of our Union to Christ and Communion with him And the sum of it is this that those Metaphors which describe our union to Christ do primarily refer to the Christian Church not to every individual Christian as Christ is the Head and the Church or whole Society of Christians his Body a Husband and
hath made to the World which includes whatever he hath revealed to us concerning his own Person Natures Mediation and the whole Will of God concerning our Salvation which must be learnt from the express Declarations of the Gospel not from some fanciful and imaginary consequences which is a very unsafe way in matters of pure Revelation Doctor Owen hath advanced an Acquaintance with the Person of Christ as the only Medium of saving knowledge that is when we have from the Gospel learnt who Christ is what he hath done and suffered for us when we have learnt those things which concern his Person Offices and Work we may then give free scope to our fancies and draw such conclusions as are no where expresly contained in Scripture or could not possibly have been learnt from Scripture at least not clearly and savingly without such an Acquaintance with the Person of Christ that is without reasoning and drawing conclusions from what Christ hath done suffered These conclusions must be formed into artificial Theories and Schemes of Religion and then these are the great Gospel-Mysteries and the only saving knowledge of Christ and those men only preach Christ who fill peoples heads with such choice Speculations as they have learnt from this Acquaintance with Christ. I thought there was very great reason to oppose this Principle which gave such boundless scope to mens fancies and allowed every man to frame and mold a Religion according to his own humour and was the more confirmed in this when I observed what strange Mysteries the Doctor himself had learn'd from this Acquaintance with Christ which I am sure without this he could never have learnt either from Scripture or Reason I gave several instances of this nature out of his own Writings which shall be made good in due time at present I must observe what Doctrines I there reject and in what sence I rejected such a notion of Gods Justice as represents him as fierce and savage as the worst of beings such a notion of Justice as disparages the Satisfaction of Christ as if the whole design of it were to gratifie Revenge and to appease a furious and merciless Deity which notion at first frighted Socinus out of his Wits and made him rather chuse to deny the satisfaction of Christ than to believe any thing so unworthy of God though thanks be to God that we need do neither I reject such a notion of Justice as disparages the Wisdom of God in the contrivance of our Redemption by Jesus Christ for if it were absolutely necessary for God to punish sin and there were no other Person in the World fit or able to bear the punishment of sin and to make expiation for it but only Christ there was required no great Wisdom to make the choice I reject such a notion of the Mercy and Patience of God as represents it to be the effect only of the satisfaction of Revenge which is like the tameness of an angry man when his passion is over which is an unworthy conceit of the infinite Love and Goodness of the Divine Nature I reject such a notion of Mercy as represents God to be fond easie to Sinners while they continue so and I think such a notion of Justice and Mercy very unworthy of God which represents him more concerned to punish Sin than to reform it And is it not hard that a man must be scandalized with denying the satisfaction of Christ and blaspheming God meerly for rejecting such Doctrines as are injurious to the Satisfaction of Christ and when they are pursued to their just and natural consequences are down right blasphemy against God this is a certain way to prevent the confutation of such Doctrines for you cannot confute them without discovering their blasphemy and whoever does so shall himself be charged as a Blasphemer But to proceed I reject such a notion of our Union to the Person of Christ as is unintelligible such as the Great Patrons of it cannot explain nor any one else understand for since all our hopes of Salvation depends upon our Union to Christ I can by no means think that this is such a Mystery as surpasses humane knowledge for that on which the happiness of all men depends ought in reason to be so plain that it may be understood by all I reject such a notion of our Union to the Person of Christ as intitles us to all the Personal Excellencies Fulness Beauty and to the Personal Righteousness of Christ as much as Marriage intitles a Woman to her Husbands Estate that whatever Christ hath done and suffered is as much reckoned ours when we are united to him as if we had done and suffered the same things our selves and that upon this account we are justified only by the Righteousness of Christ without respect to any inherent Righteousness in our selves Now I reject this because no Union can thus intitle us to Christs personal Excellencies and Righteousness but such a natural Union as makes Christ and Believers One Person that they are Christed with Christ which is an absurd and dangerous Heresie but neither our Marriage to Christ nor his being our Surety or Mediator can effect this for whatever Union there may be between the Person of Christ and the Persons of Believers while their Persons remain distinct their Properties and Qualifications and Righteousness must be considered as distinct too and though we may receive great advantage by what Christ hath done and suffered yet it cannot be reckoned ours in that strict notion as if it had been done by us and there is a vast difference between these two notions for the first only makes the Righteousness of Christ the meritorious cause of our Pardon and Reward which makes it necessary to have a Righteousness of our own to entitle us to these Blessings but the second makes the Righteousness of Christ our Personal Righteousness which destroys the necessity of any inherent Righteousness in our selves but of this more hereafter I reject such a notion of our Union to Christ whereby bad men may be nay must be united to Christ while they continue in their sins for if it once be granted as it must be granted if we believe the Gospel that our Union to Christ gives us an actual interest in all his Promises such as Pardon of Sin and Eternal Life it is easie to observe how this overthrows the whole Design of the Gospel if a bad man while he continues so may be united to Christ for then he is a Son of God and an Heir of Everlasting Life and what becomes then of all those Gospel-Threatnings which denounce the wrath of God against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men When Christ tells us That he who breaks the least of his Commandments shall be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven that except our righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees we shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven and when St.
Paul tells us The works of the flesh are manifest which are these Adultery Fornication Uncleanness Lasciviousness Idolatry Witchcraft Hatred Variance Emulations Wrath Strife Seditions Heresies Envyings Murders Drunkenness Revellings and such-like of the which I tell you before as I have also told you in time past that they which do such things shall not inherit the Kingdom of God Gal. v. 19 20 21. I say must these and such-like places which so expresly denounce the wrath of God against all wickedness and impieties be expounded with this limitation that this shall be the portion of such men unless they be united to Christ and thereby sheltered from the wrath of God as a Wife under covert is secured from all Arrests at Law But as soon as any man hath got into Christ let him be what he will he is redeem'd from the curse of the Law and made an Heir of Eternal Life And does not this effectually evacuate all the Threatnings of the Gospel and set up the Person of Christ as a Refuge and Sanctuary for the Ungodly and make the Grace of Christs Person a Dispensation from his own Laws and Threatnings I am sure the Apostle understood not this limitation as is plain from what he adds vers 24. And they that are Christs have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts And in Rom. viii 1. There is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Iesus and that we might not mistake him he expresly tells us whom he means who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit This is essential to our Union to Christ and to entitle us to the Grace of the Gospel And it is not enough to say that Christ will save none but those who do live very holy lives because there is no reason for this saying for if men are united to Christ before they are holy their very Union to Christ gives them a title to eternal Life and this can never be reconciled with the antecedent necessity of Holiness which the Gospel inculcates not only to qualifie us for actual Salvation but to give us a right to it and therefore I had good reason to reject this notion of Union unless I would renounce the whole Gospel I reject such a notion of Union as makes it impossible for any man to â—â—ow either how to get into Christ or whether he be in Christ or not and I think every man who values the salvation of his soul or the peace and comfort of his own mind hath reason to reject this too I reject such a notion of Sanctification as makes it impossible to distinguish a sanctified from an unsanctified state I reject such a notion of Christs love to us as represents it too like a fond and foolish passion as respects the very Person without regard to any Qualifications in him whether he be a fit object of love or not which is so great an imperfection in humane love that I cannot imagine it to be the perfection of a Divine Love And I reject such a notion of the immutability of Christs love as sin it self cannot alter which is contrary to all the Declarations of his Gospel and inconsistent with the Holiness and Purity of his Nature I reject such a notion of our love to Christ as excludes all respect to the infinite love of Christ and those numerous Benefits we receive by him which the Scripture assigns as the true reason of our love to Christ. I reject such a notion of love to Christ as excludes all regard to our own Happiness and Salvation by him and must make us contented to be damned and eternally separated from him which is not only impossible to humane Nature but contrary to the Principles of Christianity I reject such a notion of our love to Christ as opposes our Love to Christ to our Duty and Obedience to him which is the most proper and natural expression of our love of him such a love as consists only in some flights of fancy and imagination in admiring and valuing the Person of Iesus Christ and in preferring him above all Legal Righteousness and blamelesness of Conversation and Duties upon Conviction and in using all Duties and Ordinances only to have us over to Christ for Righteousness and Salvation and whatever we need for this is no better than to set up the Person of Christ in opposition to his Laws and Religion This is a short and plain account of the whole Doctrine and Design of my late Discourse and the more I consider it the less reason I see to repent of my Undertaking The Doctrines I have professedly taught are the most necessary and useful Doctrines of Christianity and so plain and evident that a younger man than my self may defend them against the oldest Sophister And the Doctrines that I have opposed are as certainly false as the other are true That such Doctrines have been taught I have made it sufficiently evident already by the express Testimonies of some late Writers and because Doctor Owen is unwilling to own the Charge as far as he is concerned in it I must be forced to make it good in vindication of my own Honesty and that is all the trouble which he has given me Only I would desire the Reader to observe that since the Doctor disowns the Charge he renounces such Doctrines too and that was all I designed I have no personal quarrel with any man and should be glad to find them more Orthodox than their express words would ever suffer me yet to believe they are though I fear much that upon Examination it will appear that I understood them too well and that the Doctor is not willing to recant those Doctrines which he would seem to disown There is some reason to suspect this because he is not willing to declare his sense in plain words but endeavours to avoid the blow by jugling and sophistical Arts as will appear in what follows CHAP. II. Containing an ANSWER to some Popular Exceptions NExt to no Adversary the most desirable thing is to have a fair and ingenuous one but this must never be expected where men serve a Faction which makes them try all ways not to discover what is true but how they may palliate their mistakes and maintain their Authority and Reputation It is my unhappiness to fall into such mens hands who wanting better Weapons to defend their Cause return to their old childish tricks of flinging stones and dirt I am not so well skilled at this sport as to venture to engage with them nor shall I envy them such a Victory which will cost them some time and trouble to make themselves clean again There are several familiar Topicks of Reproach which such men use when they dare not directly engage in the Dispute They have a peculiar Gift of discerning thoughts and intentions and there never was any Book writ which they could not answer but it was writ with a very ill design Thus the Doctor would
effect the Salvation of Mankind But this troubles him too that I say they are the different administrations of this Mediatory Kingdom for says our Author Is an Office an Administration No by no means therefore I say they ought not to be look'd on as different Offices but as different Administrations of the same Supreme Office which comprehends them all But then he would fain know what kind of Totum a Mediatory Kingdom is to the Offices of Prophet Priest and King Why Sir just such a Totum as consists of three parts His mistake which occasions this wondering humour is that he thought a Mediatory Kingdom and the Office of a King to be of equal extent and therefore that the Office of a King could not be contained under a Mediatory Kingdom as a part is contained in the whole Whereas every Puny in Divinity knows that a Mediatory Kingdom is of a larger extent than the meer Office of a King and contains the Prophetical and Priestly Offices under it Which is like another of his mistakes that because as he observes from Doctor Iackson and Doctor Hammond Christ was consecrated to his Priestly Office by his Sufferings and Death therefore he was not consecrated to his Mediatory Office as I assert by being anointed with the Holy Ghost and with Power as if Christ might not have a general Consecration to his Mediatory Office and a particular Consecration to the particular parts of it though Doctor Hammond only says That the Death of Christ was his Consecration to his Melchisedechi an Priesthood but was it self an act of his Aaronical Priesthood But I see the most innocent expressions shall not escape the severest Censures when we have to deal with men who can understand nothing which is out of their common road of phrases Mr. Ferguson draws up a very severe Charge against me upon this score as if I confounded the Offices of Christ and denied his Priesthood and his Expiation and Sacrifice and yet would have the World believe that if he had not been in a very good humour he could have handled me after another rate Truly what his humour is I cannot tell but I am sure that either his Understanding or his Conscience is not very good He takes a great deal of laudable pains to prove that the Offices of Prophet Priest and King though they be not separated in their Subject the Person of Christ yet they are in their Natures Objects Acts and Effects distinguished one from the other But do I any where deny this Because I say that they are several Parts and different Administrations of his Mediatory Kingdom does it hence follow that they are not several Parts and different Administrations That they do not differ in their Natures Acts and Effects As for instance the Paternal Government consists of very different parts as the Education of Children providing Food and Raiment for them correcting them when they do amiss and incouraging their Vertues placing them with prudent Masters and Governours and providing for their future subsistence and the like Now will any man say that there is no difference between feeding Children and correcting them and sending them to School and putting them out to serve an apprentiship to a Trade whereby they may get their Livings because all these do equally belong to a Fathers care and are contained under the general notion of Paternal Government Thus when we say that Christ is a Saviour or which is the same thing a Mediatory King and that the Offices of Prophet Priest and King are but the several Parts and different Administrations of his Mediatory Kingdom that is they are all essential to the Office of a Saviour and included in the notion of it and necessary to the same end the Salvation of Mankind can any man hence reasonably infer that they do not differ in their particular Natures Acts Objects and Effects But Mr. Ferguson proves that I make no difference between Christs Priestly and Kingly Office because I say that Christs offering himself a Sacrifice for Sin was an Act of Kingship But I say no such thing My words are these When he offered himself a Sacrifice for Sin he acted like a King Now can our Author perceive no difference between these two expressions that Christs offering himself a Sacrifice for Sin was an Act of Kingship and When he offered himself a Sacrifice for Sin he acted like a King The first signifies that the nature of his Sacrifice and Oblation consists in the exercise of a Regal Power which indeed confounds his Priestly and Kingly Offices the other only signifies that at the very same time and in that very Act when he offered himself a Sacrifice for Sin he exercised the Power of a King too that is as I explained it that his Life was not taken from him by external force and power but his laying down his Life was an Act of Authority He had power to lay it down and he had power to take it again And I wonder Mr. Ferguson should think it any derogation from our Saviours Power and Authority that he adds This Command have I received from my Father for I would fain know of him what Authority and Power that is which Christ as Mediator has not received from his Father and does not exercise by his Command and in subordination to him A Mediatory Kingdom is a received and subordinate Power it is Obedience with respect to God and Authority and Power with respect to Men. And had this Author been so honest as to have considered what I immediately subjoyn he could not have suspected me of Socinianizing or of confounding the Priestly and Kingly Office viz. Herein Christ differs from other Kings that he laid the Foundation of his Kingdom in his own Blood that he purchas'd and redeem'd his Subjects with the Sacrifice of himself Such another mistake one may observe in our Author when he makes me to say That the Sacerdotal Office is only a part and different Administration of the Regal Whereas I never thought that the Sacerdotal Office was part of the Regal Office but that the Priestly and Kingly and Prophetical Offices were several Parts and different Administrations of the Mediatory Kingdom And when I affirm that they were several parts of the Mediatory Kingdom I had not so little wit in the same breath to affirm that they were parts of each other which is a down-right contradiction but I see our Author with all his Learning cannot distinguish between a Kingly Office and a Mediatory Kingdom In the like manner he arraigns me for a Socinian for asserting that Intercession signifies the Administration of Christs Mediatory Kingdom the Power of a Regal Priest to expiate and forgive sins Though either our Author is very ignorant or cannot but know that what I there assert has no affinity with the Socinian Notion for I expresly attribute the Virtue and Efficacy of his Intercession to the Expiation and Sacrifice of
by him I am charged with deriding all trust and dependence on Christ for the performance of his Promises or the influences of his Grace and because I reject their proof of this from St. Paul's trusting in God in the faithful discharge of his Apostolical Office notwithstanding all the Persecutions he suffered from Jews and Heathens 2 Tim. 1. 12. I am accused of involving the Scripture in the same condemnation and bringing St. Paul himself under the same imputation Certainly these men think themselves all Apostles and that they expound the Scriptures with as infallible a Spirit as first indited them for otherwise they would not be so impudent as to charge every man who laughs at their ridiculous applications of Scripture-phrases with deriding the Scriptures and the holy Spirit And yet this is the true Reason of all this noise and out-cry about burlesquing the Scripture for he directs his Readers to page 62 63 c. of my Book for an example of my sacrilegious abuse of the words of Scripture to make my Readers sport and to render my Adversaries ridiculous and whoever consults the place will only find a Scheme of their Divinity expressed in their own canting phrases without any Art to make it look ridiculously but only a true and naked representation of it and though I cannot deny that it is a famous Example of burlesquing the Scripture yet Mr. Ferguson ought to have laid the Saddle upon the right Horses back and then I doubt his own dear Friends must suffer under this Imputation There is nothing I more heartily designed than to rescue the Scripture from such Abuses as appears from what I immediately added That the whole Mystery of this and a great deal more stuff of this nature not of Fanaticism as he cites my words purposely to create the greater odium which is very familiar with him and agreeable enough to the purity of his Christian Morals consists in wresting metaphorical and allusive expressions to a proper sense When the Scripture describes the Profession of Christianity a sincere Belief and Obedience to the Gospel by having Christ and being in Christ and coming to him and receiving him these men expound these phrases to a proper and natural sense to signifie I know not what unintelligible Union and spiritual Progress and Closure of the Soul with him an Union of Persons instead of an Agreement in Faith and Manners If this be to burlesque Scripture to deliver it from the Freaks of an Enthusiastick Fancy and to expound it to a plain and easie sense such as is agreeable to the Understandings of men and worthy of the Spirit of God I acknowledge the Charge and am afraid my Adversaries will never be guilty of that Crime Thus when I shew how convincingly these men prove their darling Opinions from a fanciful Exposition of Scripture-Metaphors and Types and Figures and among the rest observe how many pretty Resemblances of Christ Mr. Watson has discover'd in the brazen Serpent wherein Mr. Ferguson himself acknowledges he has prevaricated I am charged with deriding the Type it self and making scornful Reflections upon the main scope and design of the comparison T. W. among other things tells us that as the Serpent was lifted up to be look'd upon by the stung Israelites which looking implied a secret hope they had of cure so if we do but look on Christ fiducially we shall be cured of our sins by which comparison he would prove that because the Israelites were miraculously cured only by looking upon the brazen Serpent that therefore there is nothing more required of us to be cured of our Sins but only looking fiducially on Christ that is confidently hoping to be saved by him this Mr. Ferguson says is parallel to the words of our Saviour and the true intendment and meaning of them Iohn iii. 15 16. And as Moses lifted up the Serpent in the Wilderness even so must the Son of man be lifted up that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life And now I will acknowledge that I have done very ill in ranking this comparison of T. W's among the rest of his Prevarications if Mr. Ferguson can prove that this believing signifies no more than this fiducial looking on Christ which I am sure he can never prove except it be in Mr. Watson's way What he adds about Mr. Tho. Vincent is sufficiently answered already and shall be considered in another place This is the sum of his Charge against me for burlesquing Scripture in which I cannot think he was serious but only said this because he must say something and had nothing wiser to say Or as it is with some scolding people who wanting wit to make proper and sudden Repartees chuse rather than to say nothing to say the same things which were said to them though the impropriety of the application and the dullness of it serve only to make mirth for the by-standers This I perceive is Mr. Ferguson's peculiar Talent and to give him his due he is very dexterous at it as will appear in two or three instances more of a like narure I charge some of the Nonconformists for I never thought them all guilty of it with perverting the Scripture by expounding allusive and metaphorical expressions to a proper sense Mr. Ferguson dares not deny this Charge for the matter of fact is too evident but he shews great Skill in retorting it and gives several instances how I pervert Scripture in the same manner Thus he tells his Readers That whereas other Expositors of Scripture have expounded Christs being called The Brightness of his Fathers Glory and the express Image of his Person Heb. i. 3. in a plain and proper sense and have accordingly argued from it for the Deity of Christ against the Socinians Mr. Sherlock by Christs being stiled the Brightness of his Fathers Glory c. understands no more but those Discoveries which Christ hath made of God being as true a Representation of the Divine Nature and Will as any Picture is of the Person it represents When he says I understand no more by it he expresly contradicts my own words which are these Upon which account too as well as with respect to his Divine Nature he is called the brightness of his Fathers glory c. So that I acknowledge that Christ is called the brightness of his Fathers glory as well with respect to his Divine Nature as to the glorious Revelations of his Will and for Mr. Ferguson to say I do not and upon that account to insinuate so foul a Charge as Socinianism others would have called a wilful and malicious lye But suppose the worst that I had expounded Christs being called the brightness of his Fathers Glory c. only with respect to those glorious Discoveries he hath made of God he might have said it had been a false and dangerous and Socinian Exposition or what he pleased but it is a very unhappy
instance of abusing the Scripture to a metaphorical sense where the words according to all Rules of Exposition will admit a proper one for I would desire Mr. Ferguson to tell me what is the proper sense of the Brightness of Gods glory and the express Image of his Person What is the proper brightness of a Spirit Nay the brightness of the Glory of God and the Image of an infinite Spirit which hath no shape I never met with any Expositor till now who thought these proper Expressions but every one hath reckon'd them metaphorical But besides this why does he imagine that Wisdom and Goodness and Power and Justice and such-like Perfections of the Divine Nature are but the metaphorical Glory of God And that those glorious Discoveries which God hath made of these Perfections in Christ are but a metaphorical Brightness of this Glory When we never read of any other Glory of God in Scripture except it were some glorious visible Appearance which is much more likely to be a metaphorical glory than the eternal and infinite Perfections of the Divine Nature And the same answer will serve for what he alledges about Christs being the Image of God But he tells us That Grotius and Hammond Persons to whom as he well guesses I pay a respect vouchsafe us a much better Paraphrase on Heb. i. 3. I shall be very glad to learn from these men and first let us consult Dr. Hammond and his Paraphrase upon those words The brightness of his glory and the express Image of his Person is this Who being the means of reflecting to us the sight of him who is otherwise invisible for the explication of which he refers us to Iohn i. 18. No man hath seen God at any time the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father he hath declared him and his Paraphrase on these words whereby we may know what the Doctor means by reflecting the sight of God to us is this God is invisible and not approachable by us and so his will and the knowledge of his Attributes cannot be conveyed to us but by some Intercessor and of this sort none can be comparable to Christ Iesus who is next unto the Father and most dearly beloved by him and knows most of his mind and his end of coming into the World was to declare this unto us So that Dr. Hammond gives no better Paraphrase but in part the very same which I do and must pass for a metaphorical Interpreter and Mr. Ferguson for a proper Slanderer And Grotius gives the very same account of the words He expounds the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the brightness of his glory by repercussus Divinae Majestatis qualis est Solis in Nube qui dicitur 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A reflection of the Divine Majesty such as we may sometimes observe of the Sun in a Cloud and adds That this Divine Glory and Majesty cum per se conspici nequeat cernitur in Christo sicut Sol quem directe oculi nostri tueri nequeant cernitur in Aqua Speculo Nube Since we cannot immediately see it as it is in it self is discovered in Christ as the Sun which we cannot directly view is seen in Water in a Glass or in a Cloud and for the understanding of this refers us to 2 Cor. iv 4. Who is the Image of the invisible God which he thus paraphraseth Nimirum sicut ex imagine hominis species cognoscitur ita ex iis quae egit locutus est Christus Dei Potentia Sapientia Sanctitas Bonitas As a Man is known by his Image and Picture so is the Power Wisdom Holiness Goodness of God known and discerned by those things which Christ did and spoke while he was on Earth And the very same account he gives of Col. i. 15. What excuse Mr. Ferguson can make for this I know not though I presume that he who so often needs Excuses is never without one But to requite him for his civility to Grotius and Hammond I will direct him to two other Persons to whom I suppose he will pay some respect who are as metaphorical men in this point as my self and they are no less men than Calvin and Beza Mr. Calvin though he acknowledges as I do that those Expressions The brightness of his Glory and the express Image of his Person refer to the Divine Nature in Christ yet he tells us that we must consider this Phrase according to the scope and design of the Apostle Neque enim hic tradere voluit quid simile intus habeat Pater cum Filio sed quemadmodum dixi fidem nostram adificare cum fructu voluit ut discamus non aliter Deum nobis patefieri quam in Christo. i. e. That the Apostle did not intend in this place to acquaint us what internal similitude or likeness there is between the Father and the Son but to teach us that which is for the edification of our faith that God cannot be known any other way but only in Christ. With more to the same purpose Beza exactly follows his Master and gives this interpretation of the brightness of his glory Is in quo resplendet gloria illa ac Majestas patris alioqui infiniti inconspicui five is in quo uno splendorem suum conspiciendum praebet Pater qui propterea Col. i. 15. dicitur imago Dei inconspicui 1 Cor. iv 4. idque in Evangelio That is He in whom the Glory and the Majesty of the Father who otherwise is infinite and invisible shines forth or he in whom alone God makes his own brightness and glory visible to us upon which account Col. i. 15. Christ is called The Image of the invisible God and 1 Cor. iv 4. with respect to those Discoveries he hath made of God in the Gospel And as he proceeds We cannot truly contemplate the Father but in the Son in the Son I say incarnate by whom the Father speaks to us And he alledges the Authority of Tertullian adversus Praxeam for this Exposition Vicarium se Patris Christus ostendit per quem Pater videretur in factis audiretur in verbis et cognosceretur in filio facta et verba patris administrante Christ shewed himself the true Vicar of his Father for the Father was seen in his Actions heard in his Words and made known by that whole Oeconomy which was administred by the Son By this we may see what credit Mr. Ferguson deserves when he talks so confidently of the sense of Ancient and Modern Expositors who either is acquainted with none of them or thinks his Readers are not who either knows not or cares not what he says In the next place he observes that I expound the Fulness of Christ Iohn i. 16. to signifie a perfect Declaration of the Divine Will concerning the Salvation of Mankind and he gives this as another instance of my turning plain Scripture Testimonies into Tropes and Figures Now
Human Nature was fitted for Glory might have exempted him from the Obligation of any outward Law whatever What he means by outward Laws I cannot tell for the Laws of Creation are intrinsick and essential to human Nature and if the Hypostatical Union do not destroy the Human Nature it cannot exempt it from those natural and necessary Obligations He might as well say that the Hypostatical Union exempts the Human Nature of Christ from the Laws of Reasoning as from the Rules of Life both which are equally the Glory and Perfection of a Reasonable Nature And though we should suppose the Human Nature in Christ in the very first instant of its Union to the Divine Nature to be fitted for Glory yet I cannot see how this exempts the Human Nature from the Obligation of those Laws which are essential to Human Nature unless he thinks that Human Nature in Glory is under no Obligations Had Christ been immediately translated to Heaven he had not been obliged to those particular instances of Obedience which are proper to an earthly state for glorified Saints themselves are not but while Christ is a perfect Man as well as God it will always become him in whatever state he be to live agreeably to Human Nature For though he be advanced to the Right Hand of God he is still as man inferiour to his Father and therefore can never as man be exempted from the necessary Laws of Human Nature But to proceed to the Ceremonial Law The Doctor proves that Christ as an innocent man under the Covenant of Works could not be obliged by this Law which came upon us by reason of Sin especially not to such institutions as signified the washing away of sin and repentance from sin as the Baptism of Iohn did and therefore he fulfilled this Righteousness for us To this I answered in my former Discourse That though it were granted that these Laws at first were commanded upon occasion of sin yet an innocent man may observe them to good and wise purposes as publick and solemn acts of Worship or external and visible expressions of Devotion as a publick Profession of Righteousness and a vertuous Life to which purposes among others the Sacrifices and Ceremonies of the Law and the Baptism of Iohn served c. To which the Doctor returns no answer but makes me say what I never thought and abuses his credulous Readers with an apprehension that I had talked like himself at such a rate of Nonsense as any one in his Wits must needs despise to borrow some of his own Elegancies For thus he reports my sense or words or both as he would perswade his Readers that I say that an Innocent Person such as Christ was absolutely may be obliged for his own sake to the observation of such Laws and Institutions as were introduced by the occasion of sin and respected all of them the personal sins of them that were obliged by them And now he desires to be left to his liberty nay to the necessity of his mind not to believe Contradictions I wish he had been under this necessity a little sooner or were yet under a necessity of not making contradictions for what he believes no man can tell I plainly acknowledged that Christ being an Innocent Person could not observe any of these Judaical Ceremonies with respect to personal sins but I say as they had other significations so he might observe them to other purposes Circumcision in its first Institution was a seal of that Covenant which God made with Abraham and therefore did very well become him who was not only of the Seed and Posterity of Abraham but that very Seed which was promised in the Covenant whereof Circumcision was the Seal The Baptism of Iohn was a publick Profession of a vertuous Life which becomes the most innocent man but it was a profession of Repentance and signified the washing away of sin only when the baptized Person had been a Sinner and yet the Baptism of our Saviour was designed for a nobler purpose as a Publick Inauguration of him to his Prophetical Office The Passover was an Eucharistical Sacrifice in commemoration of the Deliverance of their Fore-fathers out of Aegypt and therefore might be observed by the most innocent man but I challenge the Doctor or any of his Friends to prove that Christ offered any Sin or Trespass-Offering which respect only personal Offences or that he observed any Ceremony which could signifie nothing else but personal guilt and till he can prove this his Argument is worth nothing His second Argument to prove that what Christ did as Mediator that is the actual Obedience of his Life he did for us and in our stead I represented thus That there can be no other reason assigned of Christs Obedience to the Law but only this that he did it in our stead Here the Doctor according to his usual way charges me with mis-representing his Argument for his words are That the end of the active Obedience of Christ cannot be assigned to be that he might be fit for his Death and Oblation These I acknowledge to be his words but not his Argument for the force of his Argument consists in the dis-junction as I expresly observed that either Christ fulfilled all Righteousness to fit him for his Death and Oblation or he did it for us and in our stead because otherwise as he himself expresses it if the Obedience Christ performed be not reckoned to us and done upon our account there is no just cause to be assigned why he should live here in the World so long as he did in perfect Obedience to all the Laws of God and therefore in answer to this I made it appear that though the Righteousness of Christ were supposed not necessary to qualifie him for his Death which he can never prove yet there were other great and necessary Reasons why he should live so long in the World in a perfect Obedience to the Divine Will His third Argument to prove that Christ performed all Righteousness for us is the absolute necessity of it for this is the term of the Covenant Do this and live so that we being unable to yield that compleat perfect Obedience which the Law requires as the condition of Life and Happiness it is necessary that Christ our Mediator and Surety should fulfil the Law for us The sum of which Argument as I told him before is this That there never was nor ever can be a Covenant of Grace that God still exacts the rigorous perfection of the Law from us and that we must not appear before him without a compleat and perfect Righteousness of our own or of another Now this is the thing in question whether we must be made righteous with the perfect Righteousness of Christ imputed to us or whether God will for the sake of Christ dispense with the rigor of the Law and accept a sincere and Evangelical Obedience instead of a
the fruit of this We are thereby made the righteousness of God in him if we be righteousness where is our sinfulness to be charged upon us And he adds Many think there is such a kind of sinfulness that is a bar to them that though they would have Christ yet there is not a way open for them to take him Beloved there is no way of sinfulness to debar thee from coming to Christ if thou hast a heart to come to him and to venture thy self with joy against all objections into the bosome of Christ to discharge thee of all thy sinfulness And the Mystery of this he immediately explains The truth is men doat upon the establishing of their own righteousness to bring them to Christ and it is but presumptuous or licentious Doctrine That Christ may be their trust and they receive him and they considered simply ungodly as enemies Now one Egg is not more like another than this Doctrine is like what we find in M. Shephard Watson and D. Owen as evidently appears from those many passages cited from them in my former discourse Thus to proceed Dr. Crisp observes That Christ is a free way to all sorts of persons none excepted none prohibited for a Drunkard for a Whore-master for a Harlot an enemy to Christ. Or in Dr. Owens Phrase For the greatest the oldest the stubbornest transgressour And what Dr. Owen pleads for himself that he only represented such grace in Christ as should encourage all sorts of persons to come to him will serve Dr. Crisp as well as himself For he expresly adds Do not mistake me I do not say Christ is a free way to walk in him and yet to continue in such a condition but for entrance into him Christ is as free a way for the vilest sort of sinners as for any persons under heaven That is the worst man in the world may have as good an interest in Christ for Justification and Eternal life as the best but when Christ has got him he will make him good Of which more anon Thus Christ is a near way to the Father he brings the Father unto men and becomes such a way as that there is but one step from the lowest condition of sinfulness to the highest of being the Son of God That is he who receives Christ though at that instant of receiving him he be the greatest sinner in the world yet in the next moment is the Son of God and perfectly innocent and righteous with the righteousness of Christ and heir of eternal life And to take notice but of one passage more Christ is a spacious large elbow-room way When a man enters into Christ he enters into liberty and freedom But how is it said then Srait is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life Answer By the straitness of the way is not here meant strictness of conversation But it is strait and narrow in this regard that all a mans own righteousness must be cut out of the way it must be so narrow that there must be nothing in the way but Christ which is exactly parallel with Dr. Owen's chastity of our affections to Christ in not taking any thing as our own righteousness into our affections and esteem for those ends and purposes for which we have received Christ that is not to contribute any thing to our Justification or Salvation This is the effect of making the Person of Christ in contradistinction from his Laws and Religion the immediate way unto the Father It were easie to give numerous instances of this nature but these may suffice to satisfie any intelligent man that all those precious and charming discourses of the Beauty and Loveliness and Fulness and Riches and Righteousness of Christ and of wooing and winning Souls to Christ as they are managed by these men are as formal hypocrisies as Iudas his Salutation of his Master when he betrayed him for the plain design is to advance his Person to the prejudice of his Laws and Religion whoever sends sinners immediately and directly to the Person of Christ for Righteousness and Justification and Eternal life without first requiring Repentance and the Love of God and at least the sincere purposes of a new life to entitle them to Grace and Mercy are down-right Antinomians whoever place the Essence of a justifying Faith in a meer fiducial reliance on Christ and a fancifull application of Christs Righteousness to themselves place all their hopes immediately on the Person of Christ which is to make a new Religion of Christ's Person in opposition to his Gospel But fifthly I observe farther That the Church of England makes Repentance and the Love of God and the sincere purposes of a New life antecedently necessary to our Justification as appears from what I have discoursed above but these men absolutely deny that Repentance or the Love of God or any other internal Grace or Vertue are necessary to our Justification by the Righteousness of Christ but that we are justified before and without them at least in order of nature There are none of them indeed deny that those who are justified ought to live holily but yet they assert that God hath no regard to Repentance and Holiness in the Justification of a sinner but that all these follow our Justification as the effects and fruits of it God justifies the ungodly in a proper sense while they are ungodly but whom he justifies he sanctifies too and makes them holy Now if any man should enquire what great difference there is between these two since the necessity of Holiness is universally acknowledge I answer the difference is just as much as between the necessity of an Event and the necessity of Duty which I think is a very material difference in matters of Religion to place Holiness after Justification as a necessary effect and consequent of it acknowledges the necessity of Holiness as to the Event that those who are justified shall be sanctified but it destroys the necessity of Duty and undermines all the Arguments to a Holy life God may sanctifie us if he pleases by an irresistible and uncontroulable Power but there is no necessary Argument left to induce us as free Agents to purifie our selves and to co-operate with the Divine Grace which makes the whole Gospel and all the External Ministeries of Religion useless the great design of which is to furnish us with such cogent and perswasive Arguments as by the concurring assistance of the Divine Grace may effectually bow our Wills and govern our Affections and transform us into a Divine Nature If we are justified without Repentance and a New life if God accepts our Persons as Just and Righteous only for the Righteousness of Christ imputed to us and this gives us an actual Title to Life and Immortality what reason can there be assigned so cogent as to conquer our love to Sin when there is no Argument to work either upon our Hopes or
Man with the Mystery of the Love Grace and Truth of God therein as revealed and declared in the Scripture This comprehends all those Revelations which immediately concern the Person of Christ as his Nature Offices Mediation and all the benefits which flow from them the Mystery of the Love Grace and Truth of God therein And then he adds That without such a knowledge of the Person of Christ as this which contains all we can know and all that is revealed in the Gospel concerning Christ There is no true useful saving knowledge of any other Mysteries of the Gospel to be attained This indeed is very warily said and like a right Sophister set aside all the saving Mysteries of the Gospel which concern the Person and Offices and Mediation of Christ and then there are no other saving Mysteries to be discovered or at least no saving knowledge of any other Mysteries because he knew very well that no Christian could own any saving knowledge when he had laid aside the knowledge of Christ And yet in this saying he craftily insinuates too that there are some other saving Mysteries which are to be discovered when we are first acquainted with Christ and he should have done well to have told me what they are and how they may be discovered since my Living or my Christianity lay at stake and I am not very good at guessing but since he has here concealed this secret we must learn what it is from his former Writings and then whatever danger there be in it I must needs say that this acquaintance with the Person of Christ is a very ill way of expounding Scripture or of learning Gospel-Mysteries as being that which different men may use to different purposes as I shewed in my former Discourse and from whence some men draw such Conclusions as do quite evacuate the ends and design of the Gospel This is sufficient to vindicate my self from those imputations of Falshood and Calumny which occur almost in every Page of the Doctors Answer but I shall not dismiss this subject thus but shall first shew you that there is such a way of reasoning from the knowledge of Christ's Person now in great vogue among some late Writers and what Arguments I reject upon that score as weak or fallacious And secondly discourse something more particularly concerning this way of reasoning As for the first I have given instances enough of this nature in my former Discourse which were so plain and evident that I thought the bare mentioning of them was sufficient to convince any man from what Principles such Arguments and Conclusions were deduced But because I find that my Adversaries are willing to take no notice of the chief design for which those passages were alleadged but to fall into some collateral Disputes I must be forced more expresly to state the matter in debate and reduce it to another form and method The Question then between us is plainly this Whether any Persons pretend to learn or prove the great Principles of their Religion from an Acquaintance with the Nature Person Offices of Christ distinct from the Revelations of the Gospel In my former Discourse I asserted that they deduced such Doctrines from the knowledge of Christ as are no where expresly contained in Scripture and I doubt not but that will appear true upon a particular examination of such Doctrines as they have or shall fall in my way but let the Doctrines be true or false the present dispute is whether they make the knowledge of Christs Person a new medium of saving knowledge from whence we may learn the greater deeper and more saving Mysteries of Religion distinct from the Revelations of the Gospel And that they do so is plain from this that most of the Arguments from whence they deduce and by which they prove their most darling and mysterious Notions are wholly owing to an acquaintance with Christs Person and are no where exprest in Scripture I have already given two instances of this in his way of proving the naturalness of vindictive justice to God and the desert and demerit of sin and shall now add some more The Doctor proves from the Deity of Christ as I observed in my former Discourse the endless bottomless boundless grace and compassion that is in him mercy enough for the greatest the eldest the slubbornest transgressor the infiniteness of Grace with respect to the Spring or Fountain the Deity of Christ will answer all our Objections What is our finite guilt before it How comes this guilt to be finite now When we are so often told that the demerit of every sin is infinite as being committed against an infinite God and requiring an infinite satisfaction for its Atonement Shew me the Sinner that can spread his iniquity to the dimensions if I may so say of this Grace I am glad to hear the Doctor put so fair a sense on these words and to declare to the World that he designed no more in it than to invite all sorts of sinners though under the most discouraging qualifications to come unto Christ for Grace and Mercy by Faith and Repentance Though any man who reads that long Discourse about an endless bottomless boundless Grace and Compassion in Christ such an infinite Grace as makes nothing of our finite guilt as all the sins in the world cannot equal its dimensions without one word of Faith or Repentance or a new life to qualifie us for this mercy especially if withal he understood what a great Patron the Doctor is of the necessity of holiness and obedience to qualifie us for Gods mercy as appears from what I have already discoursed above would not easily have guessed this to have been his meaning And whoever writes a Book which cannot be understood without a Commentary ought not to complain that he is mistaken nor charge his Readers upon that account with ignorance falshood or calumny Though for my part I shall be very well contented he should write another Book consisting of little else than those mild and gentle imputations of falshood and calumny so he will but recant or at least handsomly palliate those doctrines which otherwise may encourage bad men continuing so to lay claim to such a boundless and bottomless mercy But my present business is to observe how the Doctor proves that there is such a boundless bottomless Grace in Christ and his Argument is taken from his Divine Nature which is infinite For when the Conduit of his humanity is inseparably united to the infinite inexhausted fonntain of the Deity who can look into the depths thereof if now there be Grace enough for sinners in an all sufficient God it is in Christ. This is a plain instance of this way of reasoning from an acquaintance with Christ with his Divine nature which the Scripture no where teaches and which is weak and fallacious For though the Divine Nature be infinite yet the exercise of mercy and compassion is regulated by wisdom
of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him and his righteousness unto Childrens Children to such as keep his Covenant and to those who remember his Commandments to do them And this is all that can be proved from the natural notion of an immutable love But we cannot hence conclude that God hath elected any particular persons as the objects of this unchangeable love whether this be so or no must be determined by Revelation which contains the declaration of the free purposes and counsels of the Divine Will It is impossible from the nature of God to determine whether God has from all Eternity decreed whatever shall come to pass in time because the Decrees of God are the free choice of his will and therefore he might either decree or not decree as he pleased Nor does the immutability of his Decrees depend immediately upon the immutability of his Nature but upon the immutability of his Counsel for God may if he please make temporary and conditional Decrees which shall last but for a certain time and be performed only upon certain conditions as well as those which are absolute and peremptory And therefore when the Apostle to the Hebrews would prove the immutability of the Gospel-Covenant he does not argue from the immutable Nature of God who cannot alter what he once decrees but from his immutable Counsel which he confirmed to Abraham by an Oath Heb. 6. 13 14 16 17 18. For when God made promise to Abraham because he could swear by no greater he swear by himself saying surely blessing I will bless thee and multiplying I will multiply thee for men verily swear by the greater and an Oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife wherein God willing more abundantly to shew unto the Heirs of Promise the immutability of his Counsel confirmed it by an Oath that by two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie we might have a strong consolation who have fled for refuge to the hope set before us So that the foundation of our hope rests upon the unchangeable counsel and purpose of God confirmed by an Oath which at most resolves it self not into an unchangeable love but into unchangeable truth and faithfulness that God will never alter that which he hath promised never to alter This is plainly expressed too in that Promise made to David concerning the perpetuity of his Kingdom wherein he was a Type of Christ and of the Eternal duration of his Kingdom Psalm 89. 33 34 c. Nevertheless my loving kindness will I not utterly take from him nor suffer my faithfulness to fail My Covenant will I not break nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips once have I swore in my holiness that I will not lie unto David his Seed shall endure for ever and his Throne as the Sun before me Thus to give but one instance more of this nature when God by the Prophet Isaiah makes such a gracious Promise of the restauration of the Gentiles and their incorporation into his Church he confirms it in the very same manner Isa. 54. 8 9 10. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee saith the Lord thy Redeemer for this is as the waters of Noah to me for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee nor rebuke thee for the Mountains shall depart and the Hills be removed but my kindness shall not depart from thee neither shall the Covenant of my peace be removed saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee And it is very observable that throughout the Scripture where it is said that God will not repent it refers not to the immutability of his Nature but of his Counsels Thus in 1 Sam. 15. 28 29. Samuel acquaints Saul with his immutable Decree to remove the Kingdom from him And Samuel said unto him the Lord hath rent the Kingdom of Israel from thee this day and hath given it to a neighbour of thine that is better than thou and to assure him of the Immutability of this Decree he adds And also the strength of Israel will not lie nor repent for he is not a man that he should repent The like we may see in Ier. 4. 28. where God denounces his severe Judgments against Ierusalem For this shall the Earth mourn and the heavens above be black because I have spoken it I have purposed and will not repent neither will I turn back from it Whereas in other cases notwithstanding the Immutability of the Divine Nature the Scripture frequently mentions Gods repenting both of the good and of the evil which he had thought to do when the change of the Object required such a change in his affections and in the administrations of his providence Nay in that very place where God assigns his own immutable Counsels as the reason why he had not destroyed the Posterity of Iacob when they had so grievously provoked him yet he thought it no blemish to his Immutability to assure them that he would alter the administrations of his Providence according to those changes and alterations which were in them for his immutable Promise to Abraham required that he should not utterly destroy them and his immutable love to holiness and goodness required the latter Mal. 3. 6 7. For I am the Lord I change not therefore ye Sons of Iacob are not consumed Return unto me and I will return unto you saith the Lord of Hosts And this is what I asserted that the only natural Notion of an immutable love which we can learn from the Contemplation of the Divine Nature is that God always loves for the same reason that he always loves those who are good and hates those who are wicked not that he always loves the same Person let him be good or wicked And as for what the Doctor objects against this that then either God indeed never loveth any man be he who he will or that he is changeable in his love upon outward external reasons as we are I think by his good leave I need chuse neither of them the first I by no means like that because God loves none but good men therefore he loves no man for though there are but a few good men in the world yet I hope there are some and I do as little like the other for though God alter his love to any person when he ceases to be good yet this is not to change upon outward External reasons but upon such reasons as are essential to his Nature for it is contrary to the holiness of the Divine Nature to love wickedness or a wicked man God's love to holiness and hatred of evil is immutable as his nature is and therefore when any Person ceases to be good God must cease to love which does
Sinner himself or some other in his stead the Sinner cannot suffer the just desert of sin without being Eternally miserable and none else could expiate our sins but only the Son of God incarnate who by being Man was capable of suffering and by being God gave an infinite value to his sufferings answerable to the infinite demerit of sin So that if God be as necessarily Good as he is Just his Goodness did as necessarily determine him to provide a ransom for sinners as his Justice did to punish sin and there being no other possible way of doing this but by the Incarnation and Sufferings of his own Son the Death of Christ is as necessary an effect of the Justice and Goodness of the Divine Nature as Light is of the Sun Thus though Christ died for our sins yet we cannot meerly from the Death of Christ certainly conclude that he died for all or only for some that he died for us absolutely or conditionally for the extent and efficacy of Christ's Death as well as his Death it self depends upon the Will and Counsel of God and therefore cannot be known without a Revelation Christ fulfilled all Righteousness but we cannot hence conclude that he fulfilled all Righteousness for us and that we are accounted righteous for the sake of his perfect Righteousness imputed to us for he might fulfil Righteousness for a great many other reasons and this is the most unlikely reason of all The same may be said of those choice Conclusions from Christ's being our Head and Husband our Surety and Mediator our Physician and Shepherd and Rock and Life c. Whatever Conclusions we draw from these which are not revealed in the Scripture are at best very uncertain and lubricous because all these Revelations and Offices of our Saviour with their extent and vertue and manner of their execution depend upon the free Counsel of God and therefore can be known only by Revelation Indeed those who argue and reason from an Acquaintance with the Person of Christ seem to be aware of this and therefore they endeavour to reduce the whole Mystery of our Redemption by Christ to necessary causes that God could not do otherwise and that Mankind could not be saved in any other way which is enough to prejudice all wise men against the whole Systeme of their Divinity and yet they can take no other course to uphold their cause for if it be once supposed that this may be otherwise all their Arguments will be found weak and unconcluding Thus for instance if we suppose that God may forgive true Penitents without exacting satisfaction this destroys their Notion of a natural Vindictive Justice and their wild conceit about the nature of Christ's satisfaction which is built on it as if it were only to gratifie an inexorable revenge If it be supposed that God may forgive our sins and accept and reward our sincere though imperfect services for the sake of Christ's Death and Sufferings and Righteousness without accounting us perfectly innocent and perfectly righteous with the Righteousness of Christ if God may for Christ's sake dispense with the rigour and severity of the Law and accept of sincerity instead of perfection than all their Arguments for the necessity of imputation in their notion of it fall to the ground If Christ may be our Surety and Mediator and yet not be obliged to fulfil all Righteousness in our stead if Christ may fulfil all Righteousness and yet this Righteousness not be imputed to us if the antecedent necessity of Repentance and a new Life may be reconciled with the Grace of God and the Merits of Christ than to be sure it is not necessary it should be otherwise and then all their Arguments are weak and fallacious for if they do not conclude necessarily then the contrary may be true And is it not strange presumption for any men to say that there is no other possible way for God to save Sinners than what they have described in their ill-digested Systemes and yet all their Arguments from an acquaintance with Christ's Person proceed upon this and can never be made good without it For if they be not necessarily true they may be false And if they may be false they are no good foundation for our Faith We have an excellent instance of this in Mr. Ferguson's way of proving the Mystery of the Trinity from its necessary connexion with the Doctrine of Original Sin For the Mystery of the Trinity hath a necessary Connexion with the Work of our Redemption by the Incarnation of the Son of God and the Work of our Redemption by the Incarnation of an infinite Person hath the like Connexion with the necessity of satisfying Divine Iustice in order to dispensing of Pardon to repenting Offenders and the necessity of satisfying Iustice for the end aforesaid hath a necessary Connexion with the Doctrine of the corruption of Mankind and the corruption of Humane Nature is both fully confessed and may be demonstrated by reason And thus the Mystery of the Trinity is at last demonstrated by reason that is from the wickedness and degeneracy of Mankind And thus they reason in other cases they prove the necessity of a Vindictive Justice and the necessity of Satisfaction and the necessity of the Incarnation and Sufferings of the Son of God and the necessity of his fulfilling Righteousness and the necessity of Imputation nay a necessity of the Divine Decrees themselves For the Arguments which they commonly alleadge in these cases if they have any force in them must prove all this to be necessary and without this can prove nothing else When we discourse of the free Counsels and Purposes of the Divine Will we must learn from Revelation what God has done and what he will do not argue what he must do Or we may confirm our Faith by considering how fit and becoming it is and how agreeable to the Divine Nature and Perfections or at most may argue probably from some collateral Circumstances to prove the thing likely and probable an instance of which I gave at large in my former discourse but we must pretend to know no more of matters of pure Revelation than what is revealed unless we can either comprehend the infinite Methods of the Divine Wisdom or discover a necessity of Nature in God that he could do no other than what we fancy or can pretend to a Spirit of Prophesie and Revelation to discover those hidden Mysteries to us which are either concealed or obscurely hinted in the External Revelation of the Letter And indeed sometimes they talk at this rate as if every particular man must have an immediate Revelation from Christ to enable him to expound the External Revelation which is but a dead Letter without it and I know no other secure refuge they have but to take Sanctuary in Enthusiasms and pretended Inspirations CHAP. V. Concerning the Union of Believers to Christ and the imputation of Pelagianism IT is time
this That I deny the supernatural assistances of Grace from Christ to make men holy and therefore that Holiness and Obedience which alone I make necessary to our Union to Christ is not true Gospel-holiness as not being owing to an infused Principle derived from Iesus by the effectual operation of the Holy Ghost And that it is impossible for any Persons though compleatly and perfectly united to Christ to attain true Holiness for the future because Christ is not considered as a quickning Head and a vital root of influences to us Now though I suppose Mr. Ferguson and I shall hardly agree about the manner of the Holy Spirits working in us which he affirms to be by a real and Physical operation yet I never denied but have expresly owned the Divine Influences of Grace from Christ as will appear plainly before I conclude this Chapter But suppose for once that I had denied this and had affirmed that men might be holy without it would it hence follow that I rejected the necessity of holiness or made it impossible to Mankind because though falsely I should assert that men are and may be holy without such supernatural strength and power Yes for this is not a Gospel-Holiness which is wholly owing to the Divine Grace But does the efficient cause then constitute the nature of things Suppose two men one immediately created by God another begotten in the ordinary course of nature but both perfectly alike as to all the Essentials of Humane Nature does this make such a difference between them that one must not be called a man as well as the other because one was created and the other begotten Thus in the same manner suppose one man immediately created by God perfectly righteous and holy as Adam was Another who is renewed and sanctified by infused Principles of Grace and by the Physical operation of the Spirit And a third who by diligence and industry by reason and discourse and the wise improvement of his natural faculties hath arrived to the same temper of mind to the same Principles and Habits of Action which were immediately created in the first and Physically infused into the second If there were such a man as this I would willingly understand why he should not be accounted as truly and properly holy as either of the former by the same reason that he is as true a man who is begotten by the strength of nature as Adam was who was immediately created or as Christ was who was formed in the Virgins Womb by the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost The original Holiness of God is the Pattern of all Holiness and the holiness of Creatures consists in a conformity to the Divine Image not in being produced by a Divine Power The sanctifying operation of the Holy Spirit is necessary to the Being not to the Nature of Holiness Could that which we call Holiness be produced by the strength of natural Reason and our natural Faculties it would be nevertheless Holiness for that And therefore unless Mr. Ferguson can prove that that Holiness which I make essential to our Union to Christ is defective in something which constitutes the nature of Holiness though he could prove that I attributed Holiness to the strength and power of Nature he will only make himself ridiculous by charging my Notion with destroying the necessity of Gospel-holiness But this whole charge was the effect only of a weak and contemptible revenge because I had charged them and made good my charge with placing our Union to Christ before holiness of life What defence can Mr. Ferguson make against this Truly none at all but according to his old way he denies it without attempting to answer any thing which I alleadged in the proof of it And yet which argues him to be a man of much greater courage than wit at the very same time he denies and owns it or which comes much to one professes that it is very indifferent to him whether it be so or not He tells us All that we plead for is this That as previously to our Union with Christ we are polluted and unholy so by that very act whereby he unites us to himself he infuses those Principles into us whereby our natures are cleansed and we come to be denominated holy and pure Here he expresly acknowledges that before our Union to Christ we are polluted and unholy and therefore we must be united to him while we are unholy for every minute before our Union is previous to it Well but then by the same act that he assumes us into Union with himself he transforms our natures Suppose that yet we are unholy till we are united for we are made holy by vertue of our Union and our Author tells us That it is a needless enquiry whether our Renovation in order of nature precede our Union with Christ or whether our Union go before our Renovation seeing in order of time they are not only inseparable but that which is the new Creature the Seed of God and Divine Nature in us is the very bond of our Cohaesion Say you so Sir Is this a needless enquiry Then it seems it is indifferent whether we be considered as united to Christ before or after we are holy and why then should he pretend so much to abhor the thoughts of our being united to Christ while we are unholy And yet how this agrees with making the New Creature the bond of Cohaesion I cannot understand since in order of nature we can have no notion of any Union before or without its bond But to consider this a little whether it be so indifferent to place our Union to Christ in order of nature before or after our Renovation For I never charged them with saying that those who are in Christ may continue unholy because they as well as the Antinomians do affirm That Holiness is a necessary and Physical effect of our Union to Christ though their Principles overthrow the necessary Obligations to it whoever is considered as united to Christ must be considered in a state of favour and acceptation with God as cloathed with the perfect Righteousness of Christ as pardoned through his Bloud and so an actual Heir to Eternal Life and Glory now if a man may be considered as pardoned and justified and an Heir of Glory in order of nature before he is holy before he repents of his sins or loves God or so much as resolves and purposes to obey him this I am sure overthrows the whole Christian Religion which denounces the wrath of God against every man who is wicked to the very last minute wherein he may be considered as wicked and promises Pardon and Eternal Life only to those who actually repent and love God If we may be considered in order of nature as united to Christ before we are holy then there is nothing in Sin contrary to the nature of our Union and then we may as well be united to Christ in order
respect of that New Creature Divine Nature and spiritual being which he hath wrought in them but immediately also I would fain learn of him what he means by this immediate presence of the Spirit for if the Holy Spirit be a divine and infinite being which is present every where how can he be more immediately present in one place or in one person than in another but only by a more peculiar manifestation of himself in his effects and operations As God who fills all places with his presence is said to dwell in Heaven because there he manifests his glory in a more peculiar manner But I cannot without some indignation observe how our Author has prophaned this holy Union between Christ and Believers by comparing it with the impure mixtures of a man with a Harlot and representing the Apostle to argue at this rate The Apostle tells us That he who is joyned to the Lord is one spirit 1 Cor. 6. 17. Which I thus explained That herein consists our Union to Christ that we have the same temper of mind which he had wrought in us by the same Holy Spirit which animates both the Head and the Body and every member of it as I acknowledged before for there can be no Union between Souls and Spirits without this that they are acted by the same principles and love and chuse the same things c. Mr. Ferguson disproves this from that opposition which the Apostle as he says makes between the Union of a man to a Harlot and our Union to Christ Know ye not that he which is joyned to a Harlot is one body but he that is joyned to the Lord is one spirit From whence he argues If the Union betwixt a man and a Harlot in the virtue of which they are one body import more than meerly a likeness of temper and moral disposition as surely it doth for asmuch as there may be a similitude in sensual propensions and inclinations where the becoming one flesh through carnal conjunction interposeth not much more doth a Believer's being one spirit with the Lord imply a higher kind of Union than an affinity of dispositions What fine work might a prophane Wit make of this And indeed I would not have defiled my Paper with it but only to have vindicated our Apostle and Christianity together from such sordid and impure abuses And any one who consults the place will easily perceive that this prophane comparison is owing wholly to our Author and that the Apostle has nothing to do with it For in the fifteenth verse he disswades them from Fornication by this Argument Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ shall I take then the members of Christ and make them members of an Harlot God forbid The undecency of this is very evident that the members of Christ should be made the members of an Harlot and therefore the Apostle distinctly proves these two Propositions that our bodies as we are Christians are the members of Christ and that that body which is joyned to the Harlot becomes one flesh and body with her This last he proves from the primitive institution of Marriage Two saith he shall be one flesh For an Harlot is an uxor usuraria who unlawfully supplies the place of Wife and he proves the latter that our bodies also are the members of Christ from that intimate Union of Souls and Spirits betwixt Christ and Believers He that is joyned to the Lord is one Spirit and therefore his body too is a member of Christ for that intimate Union between the body and the soul will not admit a separation Christ first takes possession of our souls and then challenges an interest and propriety in our bodies which must be preserved holy and pure as the Temples of God But then thirdly I observed That there is a closer Union still which results from this which consists in a mutual and reciprocal love when we are transformed into the Image of Christ he loves us as being like to him and we love him too as partaking of his nature He loves us as the price of his bloud as his own workmanship created unto good works and we love him as our Redeemer and Saviour for which I produced Ioh. 14. 20. At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father and you in me and I in you Where by day Mr. Ferguson very wisely understands the glorified state this Union being such a Mystery as cannot be understood in this world whereas the Circumstances of the place determine it to our Saviours Resurrection and the descent of the Holy Spirit and he himself explains the meaning of this Union Vers. 21. He that hath my Commandments and keepeth them he it is that loveth me and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father and I will love him and manifest my self to him To the same purpose Christ prays for his Disciples Ioh. 17. 21. That they may be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be one in us These Scriptures are alleadged by Mr. Ferguson too but to prove he knows not what He acknowledges That it is not an oneness of Essence betwixt Christ and Believers that is here to be understood nor yet is it meerly an oneness of will and affection between the Father and the Son but it is an Essential Unity here meant Well Is there an Essential Unity then here meant betwixt Christ and Believers No that he rejected before What then Why though we plead not for the same kind of oneness between Christ and Believers as is between the Father and the Son yet we affirm that something more sublime than barely a Political Relation is adumbrated and shadowed forth to us Something more than External-Political Union I believe is intended by them but what sublime thing is that which is adumbrated and shadowed forth to us in these words which expressions argue that our Author is not very clear in it that he tells us that by alluding to that incomprehensible Idendity which is between the persons of the blessed Trinity through a numericalness of nature he would instruct us that the Union between Christ and those that are born of God is intimate great and Mysterious as well as true and real But Mr. Ferguson else-where tells us that all Unions are Mysterious and there are several sorts of intimate and great and true and real Unions so that we are never the wiser for this account of our Union to Christ. But our Saviours plain and obvious meaning is this that as there is a perfect harmony of will and affections and design and a perfect agreement in Doctrine between the Father and himself founded on the unity of nature so he prays that his Disciples may be one also among themselves and with God from their agreement in the same belief and participation of the same nature and a unity and harmony of Affections But then I observed
fourthly that this Union is expressed in Scripture by resembling the Christian Church to Gods Temple wherein he dwells as formerly he did in the Temple at Ierusalem That God now dwells in the Christian Church by his Holy Spirit as he formerly did in the Jewish Temple by Types and Figures and that he does not dwell thus in the Christian Church only as a spiritual Society but in every particular Christian as I explained at large in my former Discourse which is a plain demonstration of our Authors honesty in charging me with rejecting the Inhabitation of the Holy Spirit and making a meer External-Political Union between Christ and Christians This is sufficient to vindicate my own notion from the false representations of this Author and I might honourably enough retreat and leave him to skirmish with his own shadow but to do all the right that may be to my cause and to satisfie all unprejudiced teachable minds I shall give some farther account of the reason why I stated the notion of our Union to Christ in this manner And first the true reason why I did not more particularly discourse of the influences of the Divine Spirit but was contented to give some plain and short intimations of it was because I principally designed to consider what was necessary on our part as matter of duty in order to our Union with Christ For here are the great and dangerous mistakes here it is that my Adversaries have confounded the plain Notions of Religion and lead men into intricate Labyrinths and Meanders What is necessary on Christ's part he will be sure to effect whether we do so clearly and perfectly understand it or not but unless we understand what is necessary on our part it is impossible we should do it unless it be by perfect chance and accident These new Divines cannot to this day direct men how to get into Christ or to be united to him They talk of a Legal and a Mystical Union but what we must do to be thus Legally and Mystically united to Christ they know not we must expect till God gives Christ to us or till Christ unite us to himself or rather till he give us a sense and knowledge that we are united And this is a very hard case that when our Eternal happiness depends on our Union to Christ we should be so perfectly ignorant how to attain to this Union Nay they had so ordered the matter that a very good man who heartily believes the Gospel of Christ and makes conscience of obeying it if he be so weak as to hearken to their preachments may be perplext with Eternal Scruples about his Union to Christ while a bad man who hath a warm and Enthusiastick fancy and can work his imagination into all the various Scenes of the New Birth shall live in the perpetual embraces of Christ and in the Raptures and Extasies of assurance and despise the low attainments of morality and a good life Now my principal design was to rectifie these dangerous mistakes to give men such a notion of our Union to Christ that they may certainly know by what means they may attain this Union and that good men may reap the comfort of it and bad men though never such Seraphical hypocrites may see all their hopes confuted and be forced either to let go all their pretences of Union to Christ or enter upon a new course of life And I could not better do this than by making it appear that to be united to Christ signifies to be his Disciples to be incorporated into his Church by a publick profession of Faith and obedience and to conform our hearts and lives to the Laws of the Gospel And therefore I chose all along to expound those expressions of being one Spirit with Christ of having the Spirit of Christ of Christ's dwelling in us and the like so as to explain what they signified on our part viz. to be transformed into the Image of Christ to be animated by the same love of vertue and goodness to have the same Spirit the same temper of mind which he had than to dispute concerning the manner of the Divine Spirits inhabitation and operation in us which possibly will never be determined as very few modes of things are and is not much material whether it be or not so long as we heartily believe and importunately beg and constantly rely on the assistances of the Divine Grace Secondly There is a further account to be given of this because the gift of the Spirit is consequent to our Union to Christ but does not constitute the formal nature of it That there are some antecedaneous operations of the Holy Spirit whereby we are disposed to believe the Gospel and to list our selves into the number of Christ's Disciples I do not deny but these are of a very different consideration from that gift of the Holy Spirit which is bestowed on those who are actually incorporated into the Christian Church and made the Members of Christ For Christ has promised his Holy Spirit only to those who are actually united to him and indeed in order of nature a member must first be united to the body before it can receive any influences from the Head The gift of the Holy Spirit is an act of Christs Kingly Power and Authority and concerns only his Church and the members of it Just as Temporal Princes can exercise no jurisdiction but over their own Subjects and therefore we must first be united to Christ as members of his Church before we can expect to partake of the benefits and advantages of which the gift of the Holy Spirit is none of the least of his Government God vouchsafes the assistances of the Holy Spirit to all men to whom the Gosspel is preached to work Faith in them but when men do actually believe and give themselves up to Christ in such regular ways as he has appointed then the Holy Spirit is a constant Principle in them upon Covenant and Promise upon which account he is said to dwell in them and to make his abode with them because he is always present as a Principle of a divine life and therefore according to the sense of Scripture of the ancient Church and of the Church of England the Baptism of the Spirit is annexed to our Baptism with water which is the Ceremony of our Initiation into the Christian Church which upon that account in the ancient Church was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or illumination because the Holy Spirit the Spirit of wisdom and knowledge was then bestowed on them And indeed Dr. Owen and all my Adversaries though they differ from me in their Notion of our Union to Christ yet do and according to their Principles must acknowledge that we are first united to Christ before the Holy Spirit is bestowed on us And Dr. Owen proves that Christ is first reckoned unto us before we believe and I can understand no difference between Christs being reckoned
and satisfaction he attributes to Christ Nay he is so far from attributing any merit and satisfaction to what Christ did that he affirms that the will of God is not moved thereby nor changed into any other respect towards those for whom Christ died than what it had before which I take to be complying with those who assert that God was not moved by the death of Christ to forgive sin and who those are I presume the Doctor knows since he has so often told me of them As for what he insinuates that I deny the necessity of satisfaction to be made unto divine Iustice I own the charge and have as good company in it as heart can wish for not to take notice of our modern Writers who whatever the Doctor may think of it have writ at a better rate against the Socinians than the necessity men Vossius gives us a particular account of the concurring judgment of the ancient Fathers in this point The Author of that Book de Cardinalibus Christi operibus Athanasius St. Austin Leo M. Gregorius M. together with several eminent Divines of the Reformed Churches and particularly a great man of our own the Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield who in his Letter to Grotius gives an account of the sense of this Church in this point of the necessity of satisfaction Nos in sententia Augustini acquiescimus non defuisse Deo pro sua omnipotentia sapientia alios modos possibiles sed hunc convenientissimum esse visum We rest satisfied in St. Austin ' s opinion that God who is infinitely wise and powerful did not want other possible ways for the Redemption of Mankind but judged this the most convenient of all And here I must once more take notice of that account the Doctor gives of the necessity of Satisfaction which he resolves into a natural vindictive Iustice which makes it impossible that Gods anger should be diverted from sinners without the interposing of a Propitiation Upon which account he tells us that whatever discoveries were made of the patience and lenity of God unto us yet if it were not withal revealed that the other Properties of God as his Iustice and Revenge for sin had their actings also assigned them to the full there could be little consolation gathered from the former This account as I then thought and think so still makes a very unworthy Representation of Almighty God as if he were so just that he is cruel and savage and irreconcilable till he has taken his fill of Revenge and represents the whole design of Christs Death to be only a satisfaction of Revenge without which God could not be appeased as if Divine Vengeance as I then expressed it out of a just indignation to such a horrid Doctrin did glut and satiate itself with the bloud of Christ instead of the bloud of the sinner This Dr. Owen makes very severe Reflexions on as blasphemous and prophane and I will not deny upon second thoughts but that it might have been more inoffensively expressed for there is an Euphemia due from us when we speak of sacred things and it is not fit always to represent such Doctrins in their true and proper colors But every one might easily perceive that I did not intend it as any disparagement to the satisfaction of our Saviour to which we owe all our present Mercies and future hopes but as the natural Interpretation and Language of the Doctors Argument I deny not that Anger and Fury and Vengeance are in Scripture attributed to God when it speaks after the manner of men to signifie the severity of those judgments which God will inflict upon obstinate sinners but to think that the Death of Christ who was his only and his beloved Son was a satisfaction of his natural and unappeasable Vengeance and Fury is such an account as the Scripture no where gives us of the Death of Christ as is incredible in it self and irreconcileable with the other Perfections of the Divine Nature But let us hear what the Doctor has to say for himself and he tells us That all he intended by that which he asserted is no more but this that such is the essential Holiness and Righteousness of the Nature of God that considering him as the supreme Governour and Ruler of Mankind it was inconsistent with the holiness and rectitude of his Rule and the glory of his Government to pass by Sin absolutely or to pardon it without Satisfaction Propitiation or Atonement That God being infinitely holy does perfectly hate all wickedness and that as he is the supreme Governour of the world he justly may and in some cases cannot consistently with his Holiness and Wisdom and the ends of his Government do any other than punish sin is denied by no body that I know But the Doctor proceeds farther that God as a holy and just Governour is under a necessity of Nature to punish every sin that is committed that though the sinner repent of his sins and humbly confess and bewail them and sincerely reform yet Justice must be satisfied either with the punishment of the sinner or some other in his stead Thus he states it in his Diatriba de Iustitiâ p. 2. Iustitiam peccati vindicatricem Deo esse naturalem contendo in exercitio necessariam i. e. I contend and earnestly assert that that Iustice which takes vengeance on sin is natural to God and necessary in the exercise of it Now this is a very different thing from the Justice of Government which allows the most just and righteous Judges to pardon Offences when the ends of Government may as well be attained by Indulgence as by Punishment And therefore the Doctor distinguishes between Ius Regiminis positivum naturale between a positive and natural Right of Government The Positive Right is such as Magistrates have over their Subjects and this he asserts they may recede from in some extraordinary cases when it is for the Publick Good and Benefit not to punish because the Safety of the People and the Publick Benefit is the supreme Law to such Governours But the Natural Right of Government is that which God has over his Creatures and this is immutable and therefore God cannot recede from it which as it is said without any reason for whether the Right be Positive or Natural it does not alter the Nature nor the prudent Rules and Methods of Government so it gives a plain account what the Doctor means by Gods Right of punishing as Governour which answers to what we call Revenge in private persons which immediately respects himself and not the publick ends of Government which is the true difference between private Revenge and publick Justice and though this be all the Doctor intends yet that all is enough in all reason and is the very all which I charged him with Well but I say as much as this comes to when I assert that God is an irreconcilable enemy to