for him To make good which denyall he sayes 1 That no man is bound to believe that that 's false but that he dyed for every man is false and he hath proved it so before This is Petitio Principii and contrary to the Scripture He is no competent Judge in his own cause and any that reads my Answers may see his proofs have all failed 2. Then he says men should be bound to believe immediately that that is not revealed though Divine Revelation be the Object of all Faith I deny this consequence from the Minor either as laid down by me or stated by him in the second way And whereas he says That the Scriptures do not hold out any where that Christ died for this or that particular as such but indefinitely as sinners specified of times antecedently by Gods purpose and consequently by their owne purchased obedience To the first of these passages I say that the Scriptures holding out an Universall proposition of truth are though not immediately yet mediately the Object of Divine Faith to any one particular for himself that 's included in the generall As when it s said All have sinned To believe thence that I have sinned is a Faith closing with and springing from that that is revealed though not immediately in the expression yet by undeniable intimation and consequence And so in the case of the Resurrection and Judgement in closing with this divine Revelation that all shall rise and be judged I necessarily upon the same divine Revelation believe that I shal rise and be judged also Yea unlesse I believe for my self I do not believe the Divine Revelation as concerning All. So is the case here God having revealed that Christ dyed for every one and all men c. In believing that Divine Truth I believe that he hath done so for me for that Divine Revelation includeth me as a man and one of the world And if it be not so I deny that any particular mans Faith in that particular can be proved to be grounded on the the word of God or that he hath any right to believe on the Mediator or that there is a Mediator for him To the latter passage about the Scriptures holding it forth only for sinners indefinitely often so and so specified I answer 1. That 's untrue It s held out also for the world universally 1 Ioh. 2.2 and for men generally 1 Tim. 2.4 6. Heb. 2.9 Again 2 He contradicts himself for if Scriptures specifie those Sinners for whom Christ dyed to be such or such then it holds not out his Death for sinners indefinitely Scripture holds forth nothing in any place but as it agrees with the truth of other places and indefinitely and boundedly are contradictions when spoken of the same subject Sinners unlimitedly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and limitedly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are incompetible expressions 3. I deny that the Objectum totale the full Object of the Death of Christ is any where specified either by the purpose of God to save them eternally or the consequent obedience found in them which denyall we have managed throughout this discourse 3. He saith The purpose of God and his intention is not propounded as the Object of the Faith of any but only his commands promises and threatnings the latter clause of which is not full enough for neither are his commands properly the Object of Faith but of Obedience nor are those things mentioned the onely object of Faith sure his Declarations may have a share therein too 2. His purpose and intention that he should die for this or that man is necessarily involved in the object of Faith propounding that he died for All men But his purpose or intention of bringing this or that man absolutely to eternal life is not revealed as the object of Faith to any not united to Christ by Faith and the inhabitation of the Spirit But that 's beyond our question not intended at all in the Argument as either way produced and so it s impertinently here mentioned by Mr. Owen In this also is answered his fourth Exception viz. That no command in Scripture to believe is to be measured by Gods purpose and intention His fifth onely answering to the Minor as disowned by me I have nothing to say to it But then he says That the not owning the Argument as in the first way propounded makes it useless as to the cause defended To which I answer That for Christs dying for every man in the world we have more divine proofs then that can come to but as altered into the second form it proves that Tenent untrue that Christ died onely for Gods Elect and them that shall for ever be saved against which I own it Besides this being granted it will follow That the Gospel being proposeable to All the world and that obedience of Faith also requireable thereupon of All there is the same truth in the matter of the Gospel concerning Christs Death for them all also it being otherwise not proposeable nor the obedience of Faith requirable of them His answer to this That it s no safe disputing of what should or would be if things were not as God hath appointed them satisfies not For as 1. We need not such disputings were men contented to be so far fools as to believe Doctrines as God propounds them And 2 As such suppositive Conclusions may be as strong and undeniable upon such supposed principles as positive conclusions 〈◊〉 positive premises yea and may illustrate positive truths too at lest they are as lawful for us to use as for them that oppose us So 3. This is not onely suppositive but positive that the Gospel is predicable to All and therefore the commission runs to preach it to All and I say it s in this positive truth implied that the truth therein declared as true before mens faith is true for All for otherwise there would not be in it a predicability unto All and ground for requiring Belief and Obedience of All we have opportunity and that we might preach it unto upon such preaching it But he excepts That if the Gospel were preached to All the world and All in the world yet this is all the will of God that could in general be signified by it to them viz. That he that believes shall be saved and he that believes not shall be damned and so that God hath concatinated these two together Faith and Salvation Which that its untrue we have shewed before in Chap. 1. The Gospel declares good will to All That God would have all men saved and come to know the truth c. ut supra It argues mens wisdom have too much blinded them from seeing into or understanding the Gospel when they finde nothing in it for sinners and men in general but that they that believe shall be saved and can shew them no good reason that any of them have to believe in God more then the Law can shew that says he
foreknowledge and owning to be made like his Son whom in order of nature he had fore-ordained as their pattern to dye rise and be glorified in all which he ordained his foreknown ones even them that believe in him should be conformed to him and unto which he called them and in that conformity in sufferings justifies and maintains them and as he hath done so yet he doth bring them to glory with him Yea in his calling men we deny not his liberty of pulling in more powerfully preserving from general Apostacies actuall chusing and ordaining in his Son glorified to their hearts whom he pleases and as he pleases but that either any company of men as in themselves as of the world uncaled are ever called or signified by the word Elect much lese that any were chosen to be the object of Christs death and the others left out Election being ever coupled with or respecting mens calling to Christ and right to his priviledges not Christs dying I can no where finde in Scripture Besides that which is more secret and mysterious in his decree or dealings we neither confound with what he hath done in the death of Christ for us and declares in the Gospel to us as the object of our faith or motive to believe and that in which he so calls puls in and saveth according to his good pleasure Nor dare we make them to run cross to the Scriptures that more plainly declare his good will and love to men acknowledging rather our want of capacity to comprehend those more abstruse things then daring to call in question the extent of the truth of his other expressions that are more fitted to our understanding and speak to the more intelligible principles of Christian Religion Nor finde we warrant for making our narrow conceptions of those more abstruse things of God which are ever delivered in Scripture without any opposition to or limitation of the things we treat of to be the measure of and to give limits to them they that so do both contradicting the Scripture expressions in the things we speak to and swarving also from them and their method in propounding and speaking of those things of Election and Reprobation by which they measure them 2. For the Heathens that have not had the Gospel opened to them they put us needlesly upon that to stumble men about the truth of our doctrine for we could content our selves with the Scripture expressions of all and every one and the whole world unlimitedly without running into any nice speculations but when men propound that to us I know not upon what ground we should say Christ died not for them except the Scripture did in some place exclude them from being of that all for which he dyed if any man can finde an exception as to them I shall listen to it but for my part I have not yet met with it And to make exceptions without warrant in the word of God about the matters of the Gospels doctrine I judg very dangerous I know there are many cavils of reason which have some specious colour for it but they all amount to no more then those admirations of its ignorance and enmity in other cases 2 Cor. 10.4 How can this thing be they are but high imaginations and thoughts exalting themselves against obedience to the faith of Jesus Math. 16.24 which are to be captivated to faith not faith to them Reason being a part of that self of ours which he that will be Christs Disciple must deny in what it would stop us from receiving the doctrines he propounds to us So that this is but a trick of Satan to stir up men to cast such stumbling considerations in their own and others way that they might not believe and have the benefit of the truth declared to them to whom its best to say Get thee behinde me Satan to leave disputing and inquiring into things more secret and say either produce me some Scripture that saith he dyed not for them or else be silent It s good in such cases to take what Christ said to Peter curiously inquisitive after John for a satisfactory answer How God deals with them further then the Scripture says what is that to thee they shall be found excuseless when Christ shall Judg them and therefore follow thou Christ in the receit of his word and let not any seeming absurdities to thy reason prevaile to impede thee And so we might say to Mr. Owens Cui bono quaeso about them that perish what good doth the death of Christ to them which reasonings are but of the spawn of the Serpents wisdom pretending to teach our reason the knowledg of good and evil from the beginning Such a question might have been as well made by many Israelites in the wilderness might not reason thus have led them to argue either God absolutely willed to possess us all of Canaan or only some few of us if the first how come so many of us to perish short of it if the latter then I pray Cui bono to what end or what good was in the deliverance of the rest from Egypt seeing they had as good have dyed there as have been consumed in the Wilderness Nay if our corrupt and blinde reason shall be umpire then what Satan and unbelief suggests is righter then what God himself saith for did not the Israelites perish in the Wilderness many of them as their reason and unbelief suggested and did they attain to Canaan though that was the promise set before them but as we said before Let God be true and every man in his best wisdom but a blinde fool and liar We durst not believe our carnal reasonings against Gods word nor exclude inlarge or limit his word by our own hearts dictates but as we see God in other places instruct us to it Not but that we can give reasonable answers to their reasons against Christs dying for the Heathen they being all faln in Adam and the sentence being executable upon them and all men in him in the day that he sinned so that what life and mercies of life with goodness leading to seek after God and to repent they do injoy may well and necessarily be conceived to spring from Christs interposing himself as mediator and ransome But yet if any can shew that Christ died but for all in these latter times or that the Gospel is preached to and shew it by Scripture proofs we will be willing so to interpret those general expressions till when we cannot admit of that interpretation O Object but we must not believe Scriptures as they lye in their litteral expressions for that is dangerous and will introduce transubstantiation and to believe Christ to be a door a vine c. there are in the Scriptures many figurative expressions To which I answer Answ that this is another stumbling block cast in our way much what like to what the Papists used to object against the Scriptures
and refused to go where they went for the alms So that that 's impertinent That in Acts 13.48 seems to have the greatest force for proof that Faith is in some the fruit of Election The words are And they believed so many as were ordained to life eternal The word that we Translate Ordained is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is properly to rank and order and often in the Writings of the Apostles is used to signifie an actual appointing or ordering to a thing as Rom. 13.1 The Powers or Authorities that are are ordained 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ordered or ranked of or under God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Some expound it by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from Acts 22.10.14 as if it were foreappoined or ordained But the word is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 foreappointed as if it spake of an act of Gods purpose and counsel in himself only But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Besides that word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies too an actual setting apart or separating in time unto a thing a transient act of God upon a creature as is plain Acts 26.16 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. I have appeared to thee to ordain or foreappoint thee a Minister and Witness of those things that thou hast seen Where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to foreordain is a thing not precedent but consequent to Gods appearing to him for he appeared to him he saith not because I had fore-appointed thee but to fore-appoint thee which was an actual ordering him into such a place or office before he should or could act in it and so * Châ—â—s in locaâ— Chrysostom interprets 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 separated to God and the Syriack interpreter by Positi put into such an order The sense then is So many as in the call of God and by the coming of his Word unto them were separated from the world unto and disposed ordered or set for eternal life believed And then it s further to be considered That the word Believed signifies here as sometimes else a continuing or abiding in believing as in Joh. 2.11 His Disciples believed on him They were Disciples and had faith before but now they believed that is went on believing in him they were furthered in their faith confirmed in it and so in verse 22. They believed the Scripture after the Resurrection They did so in part before but They believed there is all one with they were fastened or confirmed in believing them they believed them stronglier So Joh. 17.8 They have known and believed in opposition to those that believed for a time and then fell away these continued believing And so in Acts 17.34 Some clave to Paul and believed that is abid constant in the Doctrine and went on in it Such I conceive may be the meaning of it here too The Gentiles glorified God they were generally affected and taken with it Many were called And they believed so many as was ordered or ordained to life eternal that is they abode constant in the Doctrine they were not for a flash onely as the others were others thought the Word true and rejoyced in it and glorified it but none abid in it but them that God more especially pull'd in to himself These things we have noted on the Minor though the faultiness of the Major is sufficient to overthrow the Argument in the thing that should have been concluded viz. That Faith is the immediate fruit and effect of Christs death which God is obliged by it to give to All that Christ died for All the fruits of the New Covenant are procured and purchased by him Argu. 3 but Faith is one of them But neither doth this conclude And we have shewed before cap. 1. lib. 3. that he neither hath proved Faith to be a fruit of the New Covenant but a thing presupposed Nor that that Covenant is made with all them that Christ died for That without which its impossible that we should be saved Argu. 4 must be procured by him by whom we are fully and effectually saved This may be granted in the sense we have taken the word Procuring And yet it concludes not neither except he could infer But all that Christ died for are fully and effectually saved which he doth not nor can any where prove Besides his proofs prove neither the Major nor the Minor Matth. 1.21 His people Heb. 7.25 All that come to God by him And intimately Heb. 5.9 He is the Author of eternal salvation But to whom saith the Apostle To all that obey him None of which Scriptures takes in Faith as one of those things which he is the Author Procurer or Confirmer of For the very Suppositum in them all is Believers his people men called and of no people made a people of God as 1 Pet. 2.10 They have faith Them that come to him and obey him they have faith So that Christ may be affirmed to be the Author of their eternal and perfect salvation there mentioned and yet not the procurer of their faith As David was a protector of all that fled to him and stood by them to the utmost and yet it follows not that he purchased it of any to make them come to him So that this also is impertinent The last Argument is that of Phil. 1.29 Argu. 5 Its given to you to believe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He leaves out the Article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which may be read thus It s given to you as pertaining to Christ not onely to believe on him but also to suffer for his sake This is given of grace As if he should say I speak not now of all sufferings and faith but of what pertains to Christ and what is in his Cause As pertaining to Christ its given by Grace 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not onely to believe c. Or thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. To you that which pertains to Christ was given freely not onely to believe on him but also to suffer for him But let the words be read as they are though I conceive not so rightly because of the Article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 omitted yet it follows not either that it was given them as his purchase I may give a man a thing for my childs sake because I love him and would have him esteemed and loved which yet is not by him bought of me for that man Or if so yet it follows not that Christ did so for all that he died for Christ might procure that God should absolutely make some believe in him and yet leave him to glorifie his Mercy or Justice on others as he pleases leave them to such grace as whereby they might have been brought to believe in walking out in the means according to power given yea leave it wholly to the meer VVill of God whom to cause to believe both as to persons and their number So that no wayes doth this Argument conclude Nor doth Ephes 1.3 another
All and dispenses of his goodness to All quite contrary to the Demerit of All in that sin And further he hath done for All so sufficiently in his Death that He is a meet object for All to believe on and hope in and especially where the Gospel-proclamation comes its great unrighteousness and iniquity in men not to depend on him live to and serve him even as great or greater then it was for the Israelites brought wonderously out of Egypt not to believe Gods word for bringing them to Canaan He hath done so much for All and every man that he is worthy they should look up to him and able in so doing to save them without renewing his sufferings or making a new bargain about them for them His inferences from that first premise I shall view also they are 1. That he conceives Infer 1. That the Assertors of Vniversall Redemption do much undervalue the infinite value and worth of the Death of Christ which I deny and challenge him to make it good against us which he assays By telling us that we Affirm that a door of grace was opened by it for sinners but deny that any were effectually carryed in at the door by it Which 1. Is a false imposition for we affirm that the sight and discovery of this hath such vertue in it that it effectually pulls in many at the door reconciles washes begets to hope c. Yea this is the proper or ordinary way of Gods bringing in men effectually to glorify his Son in these his sufferings and sacrifice to them 2. Suppose we should say he obliged not God by his Death to bring in any at All yet it will not thence follow that we extenuate the value and worth of the sacrifice of Christ If Mr. Owens principle be true it salves that for he says It s being a price for this or that man sure then by consequence too for this or that thing ariseth not from its inward worth but is meerly externall to that arising solely from the Intention of the offerer and accepter that is from the mutual part or Covenant agreed upon between them Therefore if it was not agreed upon by Christ and God that God should bring in this or that man or any at all to believe in him it would be no diminishing the vertue of it that being not hereby to be measured No should we say any of or All those things that he imputeth to the Arminians viz. That God might if he would and upon what condition he would save those for whom Christ dyed and Christ procured not a right of salvation for any so that God might have dealt with man according to a legall condition again or that all and every man might have been damned and yet the Death of Christ have had its full effect c. That Christ purchased no more for any then that they might go to hell with yet supposing that such had been the Covenant between God and Christ as doubtless they do suppose so that so express themselves by Mr. Owens own principle before laid down we should be acquitted of dishonoring or undervaluing the Death of Christ therein that not being the Measure of its worth what he purchased by it but what the dignity of his person and greatness of his sufferings The things purchased being only according to the agreement between God and Christ not the sufficiency of his Death to have purchased by it Such expressions may not rightly declare the agreement between God and Christ about the end of his sufferings but no way deny the inward worth of them by his principles from which this is wondrously inconsequently inferred 2. His second is Infer 2. That the innate vertue and sufficiency it hath is a foundation to the generall preaching of the Gospel to All Nations and of the right that it hath to be preached to every creature because the way to salvation it declares is wide enough for all to walke in How that should be a foundation for that I see not more then the paying for ten prisoners in a thousand ten times as much to ransome them as might have sufficed to have ransomed them all but yet excluding in the bargain All but ten is a good foundation to go tell all those thousand that there is very good news for them All ther 's as much paid for ten of them as would have ransomed them All ten times over but 990. of them were excluded the bargain yet good ground to bid every one of them look for freedom by it Sure it s not the wideness of the way that is ground enough to tell All that there is good news for them but the liberty that they may have to walk in it The Truth is that Doctrine not only makes the Gospel needless to be preached to All but needless also to be preached at All seeing none for whom Christ dyed can possibly miss of life by their doctrine All their sins past present and to come being satisfied for and of due to be discharged should they hear nothing at all But he infers further 3. That Infer 3. That inward sufficiency in it self made insufficient to the most by that exclusive intention is a good ground to call all men every where to Repent and to believe I wonder what ground that can be for that Sure as much as the telling a thousand prisoners That one had paid as much for the ransome of ten of them as would have sufficed for the ransoming ten times so many as they all are is a good ground to call upon them All to have good thoughts of him that gave the ransome for them some to be sorry for their faults against him and to be broken at the hearsay of his love to them and expect every one of them to be set at liberty by vertue of that Ransome I pray what greater ground should a thousand men have All to look for deliverance because of the payment of so much for so few more then if they should hear that he had paid only so much as would suffice to ransome them few How can we exhort All to admire and be affected with Gods love to them mourn for their follies against such a lover of them love him for his love and hope that he by vertue of Christs Death will fully save them if we cannot say by the word of God which is only meet to beget divine faith that Christ hath dyed for half nay for any of them for such may be the case for ought any of them know of their whole Congregation Is our humane conjectures and peradventures that such and such a one may be of that Number ground enough to bid men affect and love and hope in God as one that hath loved them Or do we speak of Faith and Repentance neither springing from Love believed nor accompanied with love to God in our hearts Sure such Faith and Repentance are not those the Scriptures call for
the Appellation of God put upon them His Conclusion then that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is nothing but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is groundless By that rule 1 Joh. 5.19 and Rom. 3.19 which he forgot should signifie the whole Catholike Church lies in wickedness and is guilty before God c. 2. He says All Flesh All Nations All Men c. are as large as the whole world I Answer In themselves they are but they may be otherwise used This is to fly from the terms not to explain them to tell us what other words signifie not that that 's spoken to and yet in his Instances of the use of those words in the Prophesies there is this disparity which he considers not viz. That the whole world is spoken of as a distinct party from and a party reaching beyond those that are clearly spoken of as believers beyond the we that walk in the light confess our sins that have an Advocate c. But in those Instances That All flesh shall see the salvation of God All the ends of the earth shall remember and to turn to God He will pour out his Spirit upon All flesh c. There is in none of them places such a distinction as speaking of a party at present existing beyond those that are believers To say nothing that those are Prophesies not affirmed of people in all times but onely fully to be fulfilled in the last times in which all flesh good and bad then living shall see God saving his people and every eye shall see Christ the salvation of God coming in the clouds of heaven and all in the last dayes shall remember and turn to the Lord so that the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters shall cover the sea and the Lord shall be one and his name one in all the earth Though I believe all of them shall not be through with Christ and his people for after a thousand years Satan shall deceive many multitudes of them Rev. 20.8 9. Yea then also shall the Spirit be poured upon all flesh the power and breath of God shall in abundance be upon it to abase and confound it not to make all flesh grow and be admired or prophesie and do wonders but then shall the sons and daughters of Sion prophesie It shall be a spirit of Prophesie upon them but he says not so to all flesh upon whom it s poured So that those may be taken in the fullest latitude of those times and of those ages pointed at chiefly without any error I conceive The Spirit of the Lord shall breathe upon all flesh and make it wither as in Isai 40.6 7. And in the children of Sion it shall be a spirit of Prophesie Now whereas it s said that that was fulfilled in the day of Pentecost Acts 2. I answer Prophesies of that nature have a twofold fulfilling 1. In a first-fruits so it was then and since in its measure in the Churches 2. Fully in the full accomplishment of them and then it shall have its latitude and extent Again 2. When it s said This is that spoken of by such a Prophet it s not always meant this is the full accomplishment of that or the thing primely pointed at there but this is of the nature of that as in Matth. 2.17 The weeping of the Bethlemitish mothers for their children kill'd by Herod was as that spoken of by Jeremy Chap. 31. There was then such a weeping as was there spoken of But yet to any Reader its evident that the Prophet Jeremy aimed not primely at that but at the carrying away of the Ephramites descended of Joseph and so of Rachel Thence that promise in the next verse They shall come again from the land of the Enemy So that in Acts 2. was a pouring out of the Spirit to abase the flesh and a giving them to Prophesie as was spoken of in Joel though Joels eye pierced further then that very pouring it out upon those persons in that manner and those present insuing effects That All the Nations shall be believers I grant and then the whole world ye all that believe shall have little difference and so much those places and that of Isai 2.2 will hold forth But that the whole world now or in Johns time were so or that the words whole world distinguished from believers who have Christ a propitiation signifies onely believers I deny the former as evidently false and the latter as a groundless conceit 3. He reasons thus The words whole world signifies sometimes the worser part of the world and why may it not then the better To which I answer that the word world hath reason when distinguished from men called out of the world and opposed to them to signifie the worser part because distinguished from the better But why when distinguished from the better it should signifie the better I know none I ask him why in that case it must not signifie the worse too Now here it s manifestly extended beyond the better part Us that have an Advocate and not for us onely but for the whole world If he could finde me any place where it s distinguished from a bad party as bad as any can be there we might allow it happily so to signifie rather then here After these considerations and from them he mentions some small reasons which are all spoken to in what is said already except the first viz. That he speaks not of Impetration but of Application but none ever said that the Application of the death of Christ is universal To which I answer That what ever it speaks of its Vniversal we must not square the Scripture to our speakings but our speakings to the Scriptures 2. It s not spoken here of the application of Christs Death by Faith but of what Christs death doth with God for All men or rather what Christ is with God for them by vertue of it not what Christ doth in men nor the fruits that follow upon this Propitiation believed in by men as Rom. 3.25 doth This Scripture 1 Joh. 2.2 tells us what Christ is with God for All the world that in Rom. 3.25 tells us how God propounds him to men in the Gospel and what he is to become to them by Faith and what benefit they shall receive There is the mercy Seat here the atoning Sacrifice as here considered he keeps off many a blow from All as there propounded and received by Faith he brings to us remission of all c. His other Reasons and Reasonings being fore-spoken to I pass He is out again about 2 Cor. 5.19 when he tells us That the world that God was reconciling ver 19. was the Us that he reconciled and put the word of Reconciliation into the hearts of ver 18. that is indeed the Apostles and Preachers of the Gospel onely which is so evidently false that it needs no other answer then the noting of it For why doth the Apostle
do fall we have but discovered a hypocrite and parted with him and discern that Christ never died for him Is this to expound the Scripture or to pervert and elude it But why did he but seem to be a brother Surely hypocrites use-rather to boast themselves of strength and seem to be strong then to appear weak they use not to dissimble and counterfeit the lowest places or least strength as we may see in Jehu But we are brethren onely by Faith That 's untrue In a Church-Fellowship Faith and Confession make brethren with professed agreement in joynt worshiping And such also as have true illuminations and some measure of saith in believing the truth and seeking God therein may and do turn aside as the Scriptures witness As the Galathians did run well not hypocritically but well and yet some of them Paul greatly scared for they were turned away from him that called them And others put away a good conscience making shipwrack of faith 1 Tim. 1.20 Sure a counterfeit profession never makes a good conscience Weak believers not yet setled and rooted nor so far prevailed with as to be brought to commit their souls to Christ nor made one with Christ and his chosen ones in spirit throughness of heart are in danger of falling off by corrupt doctrines and temptations if they take not diligent heed to Christ and his doctrine Thence the Apostles were especially earnest in watching over admonishing such And yet that faith truth confession goodness of way and walking they had might truly denominate theÌ„ brethren And such the Apostle speaks of here as had had some illuminations and their hearts closing with the truth yea the truth so powerful in them as to pull them out of the worlds way and fellowships and made them attend amongst the Church for further knowledg and divine teachings yet being not established and so throughly united to them in Spirit they might be shaken and turned away again by offensive carriages But that the Apostle should mean him thou countest a brother and Christ to have died for or wish him onely to avoid endeavouring his perishing is a meer perverting of the Apostles saying The Apostle uses not to speak things contrary to truth to suit with seeming appearances to men as we noted above As for his making us draw an universal Conclusion from this or the other Scripture viz. That therefore he died for all Reprobates it s none of ours but this Therefore the after perishing of men proves not that Christ died not for them as they use to argue nor did he dye for the Elect onely as they say 3. The third place is 2 Pet. 2.1 Denying the Lord that bought them and bring upon themselves swift destruction In which he questions every thing As 1. Whether by Lord be meant Christ as Mediator 2. Whether by buying be meant an eternal Redemption by the blood of Christ 3. Whether it be spoken according to Reality or appearance To the first he says It rather signifies God the Father because the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is every where given to him To which I answer 1. Christ calls himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is all one with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Matt. 10.25 alibi 2. Jude in his Epistle which is almost word for word the same with this Chapter tells us speaking of these men that they deny 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the onely Master God and Lord Jesus Christ where a Vnicus articulas omnibus istis epithetis communis omnino declarat Christum esse Herum illum unicum Vid. Bez. in locum Beza strongly contends that all those Epithites are given to Christ there being no pause between them and but one Article prefixed before them All blaming Erasmus much for otherwise rendring it Nay He tells us That one ancient Greek Copy Codex Complutensis reads it thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And sure if that b Vide etiam Zâ—nch in Jud 4. Qui Deitatem Christi inde arguens haec habet Petrus verò à quo Judas desumpsitsua docet Jesum Christum esse hunc 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quem falsi doctores negant Etiam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inquit Petrus qui illos mercatus est abnegantes quis mercatus nos est nisi Christus suo sanguine c. Et Paulò post Confirmat Judas Christum esse hunc 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nostrum Deum Illà enim omnia praedicata de uno subjecto Jesu Christo praedicantur cum unus tantùm sit articulus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 communis omnibus ille praedicatis Zanch. de trib Elohim par 1. lib. 6. 5. place that answers this so exactly ascribe that title to him it s not to be denied that this doth it too But he says It s not a proper word for our Saviour in that work of Redemption because its such a Lord and Master as refers to servants and subjection but the end of Christs purchase is always exprest in words of more indearment But this is frivolous for in 2 Cor. 5.15 He died for all that they might live to him expresses subjection and to be as his servants as the end of his death So in 1 Cor. 7.22 23. upon this ground that Christ bought us with a price it s said He that is called being free is the Lords servant and so in Rom. 147 8 9. Thence the Apostles through redeemed by Christ I trow stile themselves the servants of Christ To say nothing that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used to denote as much reference to subjection as this can and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 used over all in the house Elect and others See Matth. 15. â—7 27 and 18.25.32 Joh. 15.15 Matth. 20.1.16 2. Was not such a word as argued their duty of a subjection fittest to aggravate their sin of denying subjection Whereas he says God only in the following verses is named and not Christ That 's not so for in ver 20. where he speaks again to this Apostacy of theirs they are said to have escaped the pollutions of the world through the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ But 3. Suppose it be meant of God Is not Christ as Mediator God too And is not God said to purchase his Church with his blood Acts 20.28 Doth he buy any into his Church but by the Death and bloodshed of Jesus Christ He says Yes and that 's the second thing to be spoken to in which he says 2. its uncertain whether this buying was made with the ransom of his blood or by the goodness of God delivering them by the knowledg of the truth from Idolatry To which I answer By both The goodness of God is not extended to faln man but by Christs death The Declaration of which as so testified is the truth that God makes forcible for drawing men to himself from their Idolatry Tit. 3.4 5. 1 Cor. 15.2 3. That there must be a price is evident and
's common to good and bad doth good to many being the power of God to salvation to them that believe The Death of Christ yea and the patience of God that 's common to all is effectuall for good to salvation to many and shall be to any that are led to repentance by it * The grace of God that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to all men saving teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live godlily righteously and soberly c. 1 it 2.11 12. He askes further If they be not the two properties of the grace of God that it be Discriminating and effectuall He should have proved rather then have moved questions only We say it is both effectuall in all that receive it rightly and Discriminates them both in priviledge and disposition from all those that reject it and so doth this that 's extended in Christ to All men Besides the grace of God in the Death of Christ discriminates men from fallen Angels its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If he say all they for whom it is and to whom it is extended in any degree are made to receive it effectually to life eternall we waite for his proof for it but surely Paul intimates otherwise 2 Cor. 6.1 These that follow are slanders viz. That we make the bestowing of Faith no part of free grace or at least leave room to free-will to have the best share in the work of salvation even of believing it self which is as untrue or more then that Naaman had the best share in the work of his healing because he washed in the river Jordan or the blind man Joh 9. in his receiving his eye-sight because he went at Christs bidding to the pool of Siloam and washed there would that be good Doctrine that Because upon the doing those triviall things God gave them healing therefore not God and Christ but themselves were to have the greatest share in the glory of it Apage has impietates calumniosissimas of which nature is that too that follows That this Assertion brings Roprobates to be the object of free grace and denies the free grace of God to the Elect makes it Vniversall to all but ineffectuall to the Elect all to have a share in it and none to be saved by it which are all as gross untruths against us as he could have invented But then he askes In what point their Doctrine makes it not free grace I answer in that ye debar the greatest numbers of any liberty and possibility of coming to partake of it ye make it not free to or for all but bound it up to some few We know in some regard ye make it free that is in point of any merit of it in them to whom yee say it is but not free for any to come to and hope in as pertaining to them nay for none so without much fored one by them to evidence that it belongeth to them but he says He cals not that grace that goes to hell No sure nor we neither nor is that goodness or patience that goes to hell or Gospell that goes to hell but I hope we may say they that having free grace extended and held forth to them not receiving it or receiving it in vain or turning it into wantonness may go to Hell as well as they that abuse Gods goodness patience Gospell and yet none of these things abused go to hell So Psal 139 8. Jonas 2.3 except in a sense to the disordered dismall conditions of men to bring them from the nethermost hell in that sense as David sometime speaketh Psal 86.13 6.3 I can but wonder that wise men should be so infatuated as to think there is any weight in such their sorry expressions but for not inlarging it to all he says Is it in their power to enlarge it No Sir not further then it is but it s in your power surely to let it alone to have its own bounds that God hath given it and so to speak largelyer of it then you do We know he will have mercy on whom he will have mercy in point of more abundant striving with men and compelling them and in receiving whom he pleases even the worst of sinners coming to him and hardens and gives over whom he will and we know too by the same authority that he is good to all and free for all to look to would have all to be saved and come to know the truth delights not in the Death of the wicked but rather that he should turn and live and that Christ hath given himself a ransome for all Le ts not have the Faith of our Lord Jesus Christ neither with respect of persons nor of places of Scripture either let us believe all or reject all He says further Should he throw the childrens bread to Dogs Nor Sir nor yet be wiser and holier then God to shun his words out of pretense of service to him nor call that common that God hath cleansed esteem any as Dogs but such as turn again and bite against the favours shewed them and are scorners of the mercies tendred them or deceitfull workers that bark against Gods truths and are ready to bite too if power be given them otherwise take heed that you deny not free grace to ungodly and sinners under opinion that they are Dogs to whom mercy is not to be tendred He saith further that they believe that the grace of God works faith in all to whom its extended Yes I believe that they are readier to believe their own conceptions for which they have no Scripture proof yea against diverse intimations of Scripture then the plain Scripture-expressions For the New Covenant here again mentioned by him I have before expressed my self about it I believe righter then that he can disprove it What follows are generally revilings of the truth of God despising the grace extended to All as not worthy mens thanking God for it a grace that doth no good a sigment of our own making c. only he tels us he will pray for us that we may have infinitely more of his love then is contained in effectual Vniversal Grace and indeavor to keep people from being seduced by us For the first We tell him it s his unbelief of it makes it seeme ineffectual to him Tit. 2.11 12. 3.4 5. but to such as believe it we we find it effectual both towards God and others and prove it an open doore and way for our approaching to him for those more especiall things that all through unbelief receive not For the second I pray God shew him and his companions in doctrine how much they stand in peoples light to hinder them from seeing that goodness by which they should be saved But what need he indeavor to keep me from being seduced Seeing he thinks it impossible for any that Christ dyed for to be seduced and all the rest must perish to to what end
Soveraignty towards all in a most equal dispensation in which he justifies himself to all that plead with him to be good and holy And yet this doctrine leaves him at liberty too to do to any one more or less to make one more exemplary and singular in mercy and another in severity as he pleases But now the doctrine opposed by us derogates from God in these things for it speakes of him in respect of most as an Abaddon not a Saviour an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not a friend and lover of men but a hater and destroyer of them for what else I pray you speakes that language that they preach as a truth concerning the greatest part of men that God hates them from eternity and so in hatred made them and necessitated their sinning and perishing Is this to represent God lovely and gracious or dreadful and one that delights in mans misery and ruine I know they say his love is but velle bonum creaturis to will that that is good to creatures and so that he may be said to love them in that he gives them outward good things in which I conceive they either give too scant a definition of his love or call that good in it that upon second thoughts if made their own portion they would scarcely deem so I conceive his love is rather to be thus defined A velle bonum creaturis quo iis benè esse possit a willing good things to creatures for their good for otherwise the willing of a good thing is not good if it have in it a destructive intention as for a man to will another a massy Wedge of Gold that he might cast him into the Sea and drown him with it and yet such is their doctrine of Gods willing good things to most for they make his first or eternal thoughts of them as to themselves to be their misery and so all the bounty patience and whatsoever they have from him to be to that end that they might by them arrive at it as some have said Gods dealings with some men are as if one should hang a man in a Goldchain or tie a wedg of Gold about his neck to sink him Quis talia fando temperet à lachrymis Now while they thus deny the extent of his mercy and goodness and give such direful representations of him they also by consequence obscure his justice for whereas his justice is illustrated by mercy they that obscure this must needs obscure the other also Justice is then seen in acts Retributive when voluntary unnecessitated transgressions are severely punished and by how much the more have been the advantages incouragements and liberty afforded for doing what is required so much the cleerer is the equity of punishing the fault committed How do they then cleer or magnifie Gods justice that make him to punish only necessitated wickedness Yea that make the Decree of eternal vengeance upon such and such persons to be in order of nature Antecedaneous to any consideration of sin deserving it for these to be some of their conceptions and the sum of their expressions too they well know that are acquainted with any thing in this controversie Now I propound to any rational understanding whether of these two most declare and glorifie justice for a master to punish his servant for not doing something that he could not do or doing what he could not but do yea what he himself necessitates him to do or for a master to punish his servant for that he gave him command and ability yea also incouragement and promised assistance for doing and he voluntarily and slothfully neglected or refused to do it Sure any man that hath his wits about him will say this latter But now against this particular I know what they object and its Mr. Owens in his preface They say the earth-worms of the world must not prescribe to God what way to glorifie himself in it s rather for us to ascribe that glory to him that he makes his own then devise ways for his glory by our inventions and speak lies in his behalf which things are in themselves rightly spoken onely they therein intimate that those things which we have said of God are of our devising and ascribing to him which he neither ascribes to himself nor owneth at our hands to take off which we shall come to another particular viz. That 2. The perswasion I have defended is a truth of Gods own revealing and not of our devising but on the contrary theirs a falshood not revealed by him but devised by them in which they as well give God the lye as deny him to be love What I here defend is grounded on the Scripture-expressions in maintaining which I indeavor to keep close to them and subject reason to faith theirs have no Scripture expression to maintain it but leans upon reason exalting it self against faith They are the plain Scripture expressions that God is love hath loved the world is good to all the Saviour of all men especially of them that believe that he delights in mercy but delights not that the wicked should die but rather turn and live that he is not willing that any should perish but that all come to Repentance that his goodness forbearance and long-suffering is not to be despised it leading to repentance even such as not repenting treasure up wrath to themselves against the day of wrath c. So also that Christ dyed for all and every one that he gave himself a ransome for all and is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world if any hear him and believe not he doth not judg him because he came not to judg the world but to save the world That those whom he shall judg to death he will so judge for their not believing in the light he gave them for not hearing his voice not receiving the truth but imprisoning it in unrighteousness c. these and many such like are the revelations and expressions of the Holy Ghost in the Scriptures upon which we ground our perswasion desiring simply to believe and hold them for true yea though all things therein held forth we knew not how by reason to comprehend judging him true and his word pure and perfect but our reasons and wisdom against it and where it Judges it absurd to be folly and bruitishness We believe and receive also all those places that they produce to us as that he came to save his people gave himself for his Church Sheep c. that the Saints and faithful were elected in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the world that God said to Rebecca concerning Jacob and Esau before they were born or had done good or evil that the elder of them with his posterity should serve the younger with his and that God said by Malachy that he loved the one and hated the other and that God chuses not either according to birth or works in us
which is the thing the Apostle brings it to prove but that he hated either of them from Eternity and before they had done either good or evil or that he so hated the greater part of mankinde that God loved only his elect and chosen that he is only their Saviour that Christ died only for them and gave himself a ransom only for his sheep and Church and did not die for the greatest part of men nor hath any fitness or sufficiency as a mediator for them to save them that God did make the greatest part of men with intention to destroy them and never bare any good will to them that they perish for ever for the sin of Adam and that their condemnation is aggravated by their after sins for their neglecting that that was never for them and for not repenting and believing on him though there was neither object meet for them to believe on nor any power vouchsafed to them from God by which in attending to God in the meanes propounded they might have been brought to repent and believe that all that Christ died for shall be saved eternally and none of them shall perish these and the like positions maintained by them we finde no Scripture asserting and so have no divine ground of believing but to maintain them they rely on their reasons adding to and detracting from the Scripture-expressions as they please yea plainly contradicting them making particular affirmative propositions in Scripture equipollent to universal affirmatives as We or the Church are sanctified by his Death ergo All that he died for and particular Affirmatives to be repugnant and contradictory to universal Affirmatives as He gave himself for us ergo Not for all gave his life as a shepherd for his sheep ergo he gave not himself a ransome for all men and many such inept and unscholarlike inferences their wisdomes make to maintain and strengthen their devised Assertions drawing conclusions by them openly contradictory to the Scripture-expressions as ergo He died not for all and every one God would not that all men should be saved c. I would Master Owen and the rest of his minde would be content that God should be true and reason be judged absurd and vain where it opposes him that he may have but that glory of his mercy goodness truth and Justice that he in the Scriptures asserts to himself we should willingly hold us to that bargain with them But alas how injurious they are to the truth of God too and how unbelieving of and contradictory to the Scriptures thou mayst see by this litle tast here given and more fully I hope by the treatise itself here presented to thee as an answer to him but yet I have not set before thee all the good and usefulness of the truth here defended nor all the evil of theirs opposed For 3. This truth is profitable too for men both in respect of themselves and others in both which regards too their counter-positions are injurious First In respect of mens selves to whom its propounded who are to believe and receive it its profitable for them to hear and receive it because it presents to them an object for their faith a motive to repent believe serve and love God and matter of comfort to them that lye in sadness and distress for want of seeing ground to hope in him for this presents God as loving and gracious to them and what can be a greater motive to a man to listen to God then that his Doctrine comes in love and good will and brings good to him or what so powerful as love to break a man off from evils against him a loving carriage in David toward Saul melts him into tears and brings him from seeking to harm him to confess his evil and give good language to him how much more shall the love of God preached to men and believed by them work upon them Rom. 2.4 5. Psal 36.7 8. or else they shall be left the more excuseless and God shall be the more glorified in their destruction It is not commands to repent but love and goodness in him that is offended that indeed leads and brings in the heart to true repentance So what will so effectually draw a soul to trust in God as when it hears and believes the goodness of God Mansheart is so conscious of its own evil that neither commands or promises especially being so uncertain whether they appertain to us or no will draw us in to betrust our selves with God 1 John 4.19 except we perceive some real Testimonies of his love first towards us And what so strong a cord to love and service of him as to see his love preventing us Love seen and believed in him Tit. 3.4 5. begets love and service in us to him We love him because he loved us first Such our contrariety to God in our selves and such our apprehensions of his contrariety to us that till our hearts be purged from both by the demonstrations of his love and goodness we will not love and serve him not serve him in love without which our service is not acceptable and delightful to him so that from this love of God preached and believed springs true obedience and the hearty keeping of Gods Comandmments Yea herein it is that men see their sins most exactly odious and are abased in the sight of them True the Law saies what is good and evil righteous and sinful but the Gospel shews most lively the hainousness of that sin while it presents it not otherwise to be expiated then by the bloud of Gods own Son and shews otherway no remission yea this love and goodness at once both humbles for sin against God and leads to hope in and expect good from God yea and while it speaks not of an absolute certainty of life and happiness for all for whom Christ died but these things to be certainly obtained in submission to him believing on him and yielding up to his Spirit it leads the soul to serve the Lord with an holy fear and to rejoyce in him with trembling through which holy fear the heart is preserved from departing from him So that this doctrine from the very word and Oracle of God discovers to thee or any man while yet not sinning that great sin to death an object meet to look upon and admire God meet to be turned to sought after hoped in and served yea is a motive to and a ground foundation and spring of true comfort and godliness of all which the contrary position deprives a man No man by that beeing able as from the word of God to see good and right ground of loving hoping in and serving God till he see that he do love hope in and serve him there being nothing that bears witness of God to any particular soul in their doctrine that he loves and hath good will towards it untill it see the discriminating and distinguishing electing love of God towards
neglect the power and liberty therein given them may meet yea are in the way to meet with further operations of the truth to convert and heal them to give life yea divine principles of life hope in God and faith in God to them he having said that such as turn at his reproofs shall have the Spirit poured upon them and his words made known to them and they that listen to him though dead shall live c. and that meerly out of his grace and good will toward them not out of either merits of Congruity or Condignity found in them Though that God passes by many rebellions in such cases and out of more abundant love where he pleases draws more prevailingly even those that have more rebelled many times passes by those that have less may be easily proved And wherein this or any thing in this either contradicteth or jarreth with the Scriptures I as yet see not That men may exercise or use their inatural faculties in the things in which God useth to shine in light to men as well as in others as to hear the word as well as to hear other discourses I see no ground of denying though they cannot hear with such pleasure and delight as they do other things till something there heard doth take them yet hear they may and mens negligence in such things is called slothfulness which stands not in a man 's not doing what he cannot but in not assaying to do according to liberty and might and rebellion when joyned with wilfulness Now whereas it s said that should men do to the utmost what they can by that light and power given yet that their doing would not save them To that I answer that it s not material for first as to the business in hand it s enough that they have power and liberty from God to do more then they do 2. It s granted that no act that God gives any man power to do can save him by its self It s not of him that willeth or of him that runneth Rom. 9.6 but of God that sheweth mercy but is not he that bids them listen to him and gives them light to see and discern such truths and motion to own and follow them able to save them or doth he any where give any intimation that upon their acting forth in these his workings in and with them according to the power and liberty he gives he will refuse to do any thing more for them by which they should be brought nearer to him so as they might be saved If they have then indeed they may well be slothful and say I had as good stay where I am and stifle what I see for yeelding up to it will not save me nor will God do any thing to that purpose further for me and so their slothfulness and rebellion may finde some excuse If not then it appertaines to them to hear his voice and as Caleb said in another case only not to rebel nor be slothful and let God alone with what pertains further to their eternal welfare which if they refuse to do they have no excuse in as much as for ought they know and that God hath said to the contrary nay rather by what he says he would have done for others had they harkened to his voice they might hopefully conceive that he would have revealed greater things to them Psal â—1 14 15. Isa 48.17 18. and put forth greater acts of power about them and so have saved them So that they cannot excuse themselves with pleading as the evil slothful servant and as many teach men to plead that God is a hard Master gathering where he strawed not and reaping where he sowed not they cannot say he refused to give them faith and further grace or knowledg of himself requisite to save them seeing they were unfaithful in that talent he gave them which had they improved as he willed and inabled them they might have had more for ought they or any know given them That such are Gods dealings with men as are above declared many Scriptures intimate as that he manifests his truth in them and they say to him Depart from us c. His goodness leads men to repentance they shut their eyes and close their ears least they should see hear understand and be converted and so God should heal them for which things God also many times in just judgment blindes deafs and hardens them too and seals them up to their destruction but he first strives with men and reproves them bids them turn at his reproofs and he will pour out his spirit upon them and tells them when he gives them up it was because they would none of him would not hear him would not chuse his fear liked not to have the knowledg of him and sayes had they hearkened to him their peace had been as the Rivers and their righteousness as the waves of the sea and he would have done thus and thus for them with many such like expressions but that any Scripture says that as men are naturally dead in sins and trespasses so he manifests no truth to them or gives no power with that truth manifested by which they might grope after him would not did they walk out in what he gives them give any more knowledg of Himself or Son unto them and would not bring them to believe c. We are yet to learn or that ever any did so and were there left by him notwithstanding and were condemned by him These things I say we neither finde plainly expressed in Scripture nor darklier intimated And that this derogates at all from Gods glory or liberty to shew more mercy as and where he pleases I would fain have any man to demonstrate to me Yea I appeale to any equal Judg whether this clears not the equity of Gods way far more and suits not better with the Scripture expressions then to say he gives them no such power or liberty and yet condemns them for not doing what they no waies might have done and doing what was no waies to be avoided by them requiring of men to act out all that strength that in Adam was given and punishing them as they fail in that Surely by the rule Jew and Gentile should both alike be punished they both equally by nature being destitute of that righteousnes and strength and not one more then another according to more or less now vouchsafed to them So that this Objection about free will is a meer rub cast in thy way too no such conclusion being provable by Scripture as that God gives to many men no power or liberty to do any thing that he requiers of them or that did they constantly act forth according to what he gives them yet he would do nothing more to them that would lead them to salvation or that Christ dyed only for such as he gives liberty to so as to bring them in actually and effectually to believe on him and
down their weapons upon which they should be received into his favour and that for assurance thereof and incouragement to the submission required he grants them pardon and an act of oblivion for all past they should come with an after-pretended proclamation and declaration pretending that they are of the Kings privy Councel and know his minde better then in that proclamation to which he had set his hand and seal was declared and telling those Rebels that they know his meaning in those general expressions to be that only here and there a man of them are included in the Princes satisfaction and toward them only the King bears good will the greatest part of them he so hates that he excluded them the satisfaction and act of oblivion for that that 's past by which meanes they should strengthen them in their rebellion it being evident to none of them who are of the one or of the other and so who hath cause to rely upon the satisfaction given and act of oblivion granted Now for the honour of God and of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ I here defend the Apostical against their counter Commission accusing their innovation of it as false and fained and of evil consequence and all the pretenders in it to be therein guilty of high Treason against the Crown Royalty love goodness and soveraignty of the Son of God in altering changing and contradicting his proclamation putting in another in stead thereof of their own devising to the great obscuring and dishonouring of his name and prejudice to the sons of men as is before hinted And whereas one Master Owen amongst the rest hath lately put out a Treatise impleading the true Commission and proclamation of the Gospel and pleading for this other of mans devising my intention is here in this insuing Treatise to defend and bear witness to the old Apostolical Gospel against him and to that end to examine and bring to Tryall all his arguments that he pretends against it and for his opinion according to the good hand of God with me refelling and laying open the vanity and falshood of them and their ground lesness from those Scriptures that he abuseth to countenance them Now the God and Father of lights and fountain of spirits be pleased to shew forth his strength in my weakness vindicate his truth denyed and darkened guiding me so to examine and answer his Arguments and Assertions as glory may be brought to his holy name and nothing but his truth may be maintained by me In His name and strength go I forth in this busines beginning orderly with his First book and Chapter On Master Owens first Book CHAP. I. A view of and answer to his first Chapter with part of the third Chapter of his second Book MAster Owen in his first Chapter propoundeth a consideration of the end of the Death of Christ though in his prosecution of it he takes in the whole business of his coming as well in ministration as in meditation as the Scriptures quoted by him if duly considered make it to appear in which he looks upon it generally both as Intended by the Father and Christ and also as that which was effectually fulfilled and accomplished by it As intended by God and Christ so he shews out of the Scriptures that it was to save that which was lost to save sinners c. in which he speaketh the truth though not the whole truth that Scripture in other places also taken in speaks about this matter as after we shall see But to proceed upon inquiry who these sinners are he tells us from Math. 20.28 that they are many he came to give his life a ransom for which in other places he tells us are Called Vs Believers distinguished from the world Gal. 1.4 His Church Eph. 5.25.26 c. But herein Master Owen dealeth not fairly in that he tells us not at least by Scripture proveth not that those Many for whom he gave himself a ransome be bounded up in those other expressions of Vs Believers the Church so as that Many comprehends no more then in those other expressions are included Sure I am the Apostles no where tell us that those their expressions are interpretations of the full latitude of that Many spoken of by our Saviour nor have they any where put a restrictive to those expressions as Vs only I finde the contrary not for ours only 1 John 2.2 or for Believers only for I finde also that he died for the unjust and ungodly and bought the false Teachers Rom. 5.6 1 Pet. 3.18 and 2 Pet. 2.1 or for his Church only but also for all men 1 Tim. 2.5.6 therefore Master Owen hath not delt candidly in that he hath not given us a full expression of those sinners for whom Christ is said to give himself or to come to save I think Christ himself intimates that he came to save the World both of believers and not believers else I see not the clear reason of that in John 12.47 If any man hear my words and believe not I Judg him not for I came not to Judg the world but to save the world How his coming not to Judg the world but save it if by World he mean only believers should be given as the reason of his not Judging him that believes not passes my reason to conceive therefore sure that word World there must be of a larger capacity He hath not then given a full answer to his query in that he limits the Many spoken of to narrower bounds then the Scripture ever limits it to If he doth not interpret that many by those expressions of Vs and Believers exclusively as to others he saith nothing But it s evident he doth both by his expression Distinguished from the World and yet Christ saith He came to save the World not a part distinct from it only as also by what he saith to this word Many in lib. 2. cap. 3. p. 77. where he tells us that though the Word Many is not in it self sufficient to restrain the Object of Christs Death unto some because it s placed absolutely for All Rom. 5.19 yet those Many being described in other places to be such as its certain All are not so it s a full and evident restriction of it But good Sir where are those places that so describe the Many that Christ gave himself a ransome for and dyed for I hope you think not the words unjust ungodly sinners c. are such restrictive words and yet these are the most usual descriptions of those for whom he dyed No but he sayes those Many are the sheep of Christ the Children of God scattered abroad the children that God gave him the sheep whereof he was shepherd his Elect his People his Church those with whom he made a Covenant c. but as I said before Doth any Scripture say that this is the full and adaequate description of those Many or doth Scripture restrain it unto such I
gives a good answer by his resurrection that is by it as not only acted in Christ but as discovered to us in the word and as its that medium by which we behold Gods goodness toward us Rom. 3.25 and 5.1 And so the bloud of Christ Justifies us by faith in it as by vertue of the satisfaction made by it Christ presents us righteous being brought into him through the faith of it and so for sanctification it 's by his bloud sprinkled on us and through the power of the spirit working powerfully in us That place in Heb. 9.14 quoted by him p. 64. to prove sanctification to be an immediate product of his death is horribly mistake for it speaks not of his Death simply assuffered or his blood as presented by him to God but as sprinkled upon the conscience and therefore it s brought to answer the type of the red heifer Numb 19. which not by its death and oblation immediately sanctified the people but the ashes of it being reserved and after mixed with clean water and sprinkled on the unclean then Sanctified to the purifying of the flesh and not otherwise so also he hath misapplyed 2 Cor. 5.19 in his first chapter p. 2. bringing it to prove Reconciliation accomplished in the Death of Christ When the Apostle speaks but of it in fieri not in facto its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Reconciling to the accomplishment of which in them he exhorts them in ver 20. Be ye reconciled unto God so in pag. 3. he hath to wrong purpose quoted Heb. 9.12 and 1 Pet. 2.24 as speaking of redemption or justification as accomplished upon men when they so far as he quotes them speak but of Christs finding or obtaining it of the father in himself or into his hand nor is it there expressed for whom or for how many he obtained it the words for us being not in the Text. Again he there misquotes Rom. 3.25 rendring it We have all sinned and are justified as if it were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereas it is indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All have sinned being justifyed c. But I pass from these things His drift in all this he afterward in pag. 4. and more plainly chap. 3. lib. 2. discovers to us It s to beat down a spreading perswasion as he calls it of Christs giving himself aransome for all and every one a perswasion which the Teacher of the Gentiles in truth and verity broached in those very expressions 1. Tim. 2.5 6 7. Heb. 2.9 a sad time when men of parts study to oppose his doctrine totidem verbis in the very tearms that he delivered it in But Hic labor hoc opus est To this purpose the aforesaid considerations were laid down to be the foundation and Basis of an argument or two as to that purpose he hath inlarged them also lib. 2 cap. 3. producing more scriptures tending to the same thing to which those above mentioned were produced as That he shall save his people from their sins shall see his seed and carry on the pleasure of the Lord Sanctified himself that they may be Sanctified through the truth gave himself for us that he might deliver us from this present evil world was made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him most or all of which we shall after meet with and speak more particularly to from all which he draws this argument That which the Father and Son intend to accomplish in and towards all those for whom Christ died by his death that is most certainly effected But the Father and Son intended by the Death of Christ to redeem purge sanctifie purifie deliver from Death Satan the curse of the Law to quit of all sin to make righteousness in Christ all those for whom he dyed Therefore He dyed for all and only those in and towards whom all those things recounted are effected and so not for All. This is a main pillar of his edifice let us by Gods assistance assay to shake and evert it And first not to speak to the form how the conclusion should have been inferred for the major if taken in this sense What the Father and Son did intend purpose and wholly take upon themselves absolutely to do by his death that was and shall be thereby effected His determinate purpose shall not fail so it s granted But if by intended we understand what he propoundeth as an end intended in which there may be something suspended in the proposition upon some condition in that way I say what ever is propounded as his intent may not be fulfilled and accomplished in All for whom he dyed But I know he intends it in the former sense and therefore 2. I shall deny the Minor and desire his proof for it namely that the Father and Son intended that is absolutely purposed and wholly took upon themselves without condition to redeem purge sanctify c. all for whom Christ died For 1. This is beside the scripture that saith He dyed for all but never that he so intended to purge sanctifie set free and save All. 2. It s against that intimation in Rom. 14.15 and 2 Cor. 8.11 that one for whom Christ dyed may possibly perish and makes a meer scare-Crow of the Apostles reasoning as if he would deter them from evils by propounding impossible consequences of it and suppositions quite contrary to the faith to say nothing that it thwarteth that too in 2 Pet. 2.1 3. None of all the Places quoted prove what is affirmed for either they say not that the object named is all that Christ died for but some specially distinguished from others by the intervention of faith either in the eye of God or in real existence in them as his people 1 Pet. 2.10 them that believe on him the Church that is a people called out of the world Vs who were then actually believers them that were given him out of the World had received his words believed were sent into the world by him to preach the Gospel to say nothing of his begging the question that by sanctifying himself he meanes his dying or setting himself apart to dye in Joh. 17.19 so that that Minor is peccant in that it wants proof none of those Scriptures saying that those things he aymed at in all he dyed for To illustrate the business the proof is like this It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe and he called you by the Gospel to the obtaining of the Glory of the Lord Jesus Ergo All to whom it pleased God that the Gospel should be preached shall be saved and obtain eternal Glory To propound as a truth that God intended to redeem purge and save All for whom Christ dyed and then to prove it by telling us he intended to do so to Vs that believe to his Church and people is as lame a proof as if I should propound for truth that God intended to
Whether the salvation of Abraham and Isaac c. was not in the Covenant made between God and Christ if not then some more are saved then were included in that Covenant If yes then I demand what passage in that Prayer requests that they might believe and be sanctified if none then he asked less in that Prayer then God had ingaged himself to him for To the second I desire him to shew in what passage he prayes for the faith of the Elect in all that Prayer not from the sixth to the twentieth for he tells his Father they had it already and I suppose he will not be able to prove that he prayed to his Father there to give them that which they had before that prayer at least in that degree in which they had it nor in ver 20. for them he supposeth as future believers as he makes them the suppositum of his prayer his prayer is not that they might believe but that believing which he supposeth they should they might be one viz in body priviledg and injoyment of the grace of God in Christ except he will say Faith is prayed for in ver 21. and 23. when he saith that the world might believe but first that 's for the world not for the Elect secondly that he himself denies to be the faith of the Elect and so the fruit of that love here said to appertain to the Elect but only a conviction not for any good of the world but onely for the vindication of his people cha 7. pag. 47. therefore I desire him to shew me in what place of that prayer that Faith he here speaks of as a fruit of Gods electing love is prayed for In pag. 19. He tels us That it seems strange to him that Christ should undergo the pains of hell in their stead who lay in the pains of hell before he underwent those pains and shall continue in them to eternity To which I need not say with many of the Antients that he emptied hell by his death Bishop Vsher in his Answer to the Irish Jesuit upon Limbus Patrum c. and descent into those pains as Bishop Vsher relates nor will I put him to prove that any were as then or yet are undergoing those pains before the judgment of the great Day when they shall be sentenced thither which will be somewhat hard for him to do except he take that in Luke 16. to be a Narration or History of things really done and think that the rich man see Lazarus in Abrahams bosome and could call from hell to heaven to him but I say it will not follow from our saying That Christ gave himself a ransom for All that he must undergo those torments for All which were properly inflicted upon men for their abuse of that liberty which he virtually gave them to injoy by his after-death His enduring the sentence of the death he found them under as in Adam was enough to pay for that dispensation of life liberty grace mercy to them which they in their several times injoyed upon the ingagement of his future dying See more to this in cha 3. li. 3. without induring those torments for them to which they stood by the word adjudged for their not receiving him who was the Author of such liberty and mercy to them in those hints of truth and reproofs and counsels in his Spirits strivings despised by them Hence we may fall into an Answer of a Dilemma there propounded to us and again repeated chap. 3. lib. 3. viz. That God imposed his wrath due unto and Christ underwent the pains of hell for either all the sins of all men or all the sins of some men or some sins of all men If the last then all have some sins to answer for and so no man shall be saved if the second then that is it he affirms if the first then all should be saved or why not This may seem at the first view such a three-headed Monster as that there is no conquering it but through Gods assistance we shall grapple with it About his suffering the pains of hell I shall not question with him it s an ambiguous word and variously used And as no Scripture uses his expressions perhaps in his intention so as the Scripture uses the word hell I have no ground from Scripture to deny the expression therefore to the thing it self I may say that in severall respects all those three branches of the Dilemma are true and yet his consequences will not follow As 1. He underwent the wrath of God for some fins of all men 1 Tim. 2.6 Rom. 5.18 else he could not give himself a ransom for them all nor his righteousness come to All men to justification of life nor any favor of God be extended to them except he interposed between God and that sin that in its desert and by Gods sentence of death stopt the passage of all good flowing upon them unless hindred by mediation But then he says All have some sins to answer for Nego consequentiam that follows not for he that bears some sins of all may yet bear also all of some those two are not inconsistent had he said But some sins of any that had excluded All of any but some of All doth not those that may be but some of one mans sins may be All of another as suppose he bare all sins in genere but the sin against the Holy Ghost he then bare all some mens sins Heb. 10.26 for some men are not guilty of that but are kept from it but yet in respect of their sins that run into that he bare but some of their sins not all as so considered 2. He underwent the wrath of God for all the sins of some that is gave such satisfaction to his justice that no sin they have shall be their condemnation namely of those that believe and walk in the light with him as it is 1 John 1.7 Rom. 8.1 otherwise the phrase as he expresses it the Scripture hath not But then that 's it he faith No sure for he says he bare only All the sins of some men and dyed for none else but those some but so neither the Scriptures nor we say He might bear the punishment of all the sins of some men and yet not them only 3. He underwent the wrath of God for all the sins of All men in some sense considered That is as they were sinners in his first stepping in to undertake for men as sin was upon them through the fall of Adam and bound them to curse and death and so they needed a mediator or else they must presently be cut off and perish and so in a consideration and view of them as previous to his steping in to mediate And his bearing all of them was enough to ransome them all from that first condemning sentence and yet neither follows it so that all must then be eternally saved because there are other
his Intercession as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Advocate in this assertion so I believe he will not prove it by Scripture And yet no need of saying he refused to do it for them it will be difficult I suppose for him to prove that the wisdom of God did see it meet to impose that upon him so to intercede for all that he dyed for And if it was not propounded to him though he do it not yet may he not be said either to refuse or omit it It becomes us to believe what God hath declared not to deliver for truths or impositions of God what our fancies conceive he must have imposed where he hath declared no such imposition he hath said Christ dyed for all but where he saith he makes intercession for all or for all he dyed for I leave to Mr. Owen to finde and I would he would remember his own language in the Preface To honor God and Christ in his own language or else be for ever silent and that our inventions be they never so splendid and I add rational too in our eyes yet to him they are abomination God doth not act alwayes according to our rules do the lesser where he hath done the greater but may suspend the lesser upon condition if it so please him as he doth not alway supply with bread and keep from perishing by famine him that he hath given life to though the life be more then food and a man that believes and walks in Gods ways may reason affirmatively as our Saviour instructs us Math. 6.25 but let us view his pretended proofes of it from Scripture The first is Psal 2.8 Ask of me and I will give thee the Heathen for thine inheritance and the utmost parts of the earth for thy possession c. But doth that say That Christ should make intercession for all he died for no such matter nor is there a word about inerceding for any but that they should be given him as his inheritance and possession and if that be his intercession there then it s extended to all elect and others the Nations and the utmost parts of the earth not an elect people onely but even those that he should rule with an iron rod and break in pieces as a Potters vessel I hope Mr. Owen thinks not at least will not prove that God rules his Church Tam duro imperio so as to break them in pieces as a Potters vessel make them unprofitable or that he rules them onely so nor I suppose upon second thoughts will he say that the next place that he quotes viz. Joh. 14.2 I go to prepare a place for you is either a good exposition of that in Psal 2.8 as if his going to prepare a place for his Disciples was asking them for his inheritance to rule them with an iron rod or proves that he went to entercede for all he died for nor doth Heb. 9.7 say any thing to that purpose but that the high Priest went into the second Tabernacle once a year with the blood that he offered for the ignorances of the people nor sayes ver 24. That Christ appears in the presence of God to intercede for All that he died for much less as an Advocate and as the Apostles speak of his intercession with reference to believers The 1 Joh. 2.1 2. which he nextly quotes extends his Propitiation beyond his Advocation and doth not speak of the one as largely as the other Minde the words We have an advocate and he is the propitiation for our sins I hope the Our there is as large as the We of whom he had said We have an advocate that Our being a repetition of and so the same with the former We but now see his Propitiation expresly extended further And not for our sins onely but also for the whole worlds so that that makes more against his Assertion then for it It s true that his Advocation as he saies is founded upon his propitiation and may be found in exercise for the same persons as there is proved We have an Advocate who is the propitiation for our sins but that the Advocation must therefore extend to all the same persons that the propitiation reaches to is a fond inference like this A Prince by his favor with a King and by his own great cost and charge mediating for twenty men condemned forfelony gets a pardon for them all therefore when afterwards ten of them love and honor him yet have their failings and the other ten openly rebell against him still and reject his love he must keep them all still in the Kings special favor if he keep any of them therein The roof of the house and every particular Chamber of it is built upon and upheld by the foundation therefore every Chamber must be every way as large as it so that hitherto this Assertion wants proof of Scripture That of John 17.9 proves it not neither for that saies I pray not for the world but the Scripture saies God was in him reconciling the world and that he came to save the world and indeed good reason for his not praying as there for the world whether the Elect in purpose and fore-knowledg or not for his requests there are onely for things consequent to faith as Union Preservation in Faith Sanctification and Glorification and therefore meet to be put up for none but men called out or viewed as called out of the state and fellowship of the world that in ver 20. though its for persons as then of the world yet as such they are not there the object of his prayer but as supposed in an after-believing state even as when a King grants to the Mayor of a Corporation the honor of having a Sword or the like born before him and saies neither give I this honor to thee onely but to all succeeding Mayors of this Corporation also and to none else the subject of that Grant is a Mayor as a Mayor of that Corporation though in saying such as shall be Mayors its plain the Grant reaches to persons as are then that not so perhaps then not born and yet the expression is true that it s given to none but the Mayor of that Corporation for they that after shall be Mayors and now are not are not the subject of that Grant as now unborn or unfree but as after they come to be made Mayors so here they that are of the world now may come to be such persons as there are prayed for and yet the world as and while the world wholly excluded from being the subject to whom those postulataes are desired to be given And to Mr. Owens saying that the world there is opposite to the Elect except by Elect he mean men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is gathered out of the world as the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifie is yet to prove and his Assertion too looses by the bargaine Though yet
to shew Whether the condition of believing be procured by him for All or for any I leave to its place and in the mean time desire him to prove by Scripture his perswasion that to whom Christ is in any sense a Saviour in the work of Redemption them he saves to the uttermost from all their sins of infidelity and disobedience with the saving of grace here and glory hereafter and in particular that he so saved those to whom in the knowledg of himself as a Saviour he gave an escape from the pollutions in the world who afterward backslid from him 2 Pet. 2.20 21. Whereas answer was further made to his Objection T. M. that he in some sort intercedes for transgressors the sons of men yet in and of the world that they through Gods blessings on their ministration may be convinced and be brought to acknowledg that Jesus is the Lord c. but more especially for the called believers c. Here Mr. Owen first mistakes his Answer M. O. as if he had said he prayed for them that they might be brought to faith in God through Christ effectually saving to life eternal and then opposes him in that conception Whereas he only said to believe the report of the Gospel according to that in Joh. 17.21 23. and to come to some perceptions of light therein whereto attending they might be brought further or which refusing they may be hardned for it Then he askes 1. In what sort Christ intercedes for that for such John 17 I answer for him in that sort as Christ expresses himself in John 17.21 23. obliquely as we pray for the good of a Kingdom when we pray for a spirit of wisdom and government on Kings and men in authority It s true believers are the direct Object of his intercession for those things conducing to this convincement and to this knowledge and faith even as Kings and Magistrates are in those prayers instanced 1 Tim. 2.2 though in other instances they may be the direct object as the Fig-tree of that Intercession Luk. 13.7 and the persecutors of that in Luk. 23.34 But then he askes whether it be intended to be accomplished I suppose it is and shall be in due time according to the tenor of our Saviours praying for it but to me he seemes to wrangle with our Saviour himself about his expressions because he gives no fuller account of his petitions It s likely he would the same query about our Saviours praying for believers unity and say Did Christ absolutely intend it or no and if so then why is it not better effected but that there are so many divisions even amongst them Christs prayers have I conceive in part their Answer here but not fully till the perfect day when all the world shall see and say This is Sion the City of the Lord and this is the truth of God c. 2. He demands if it be by vertue of his blood shed for them I answer I conceive it is had he not offered up himself a ransom and removed their death and condemnation he had had no ground to ask any further favor for them had he not come with blood for sin that cryed for vengeance no hearing I conceive of any supplication for them But then he saith it follows that by his death he procured faith for all But that 's a mistake For first Neither is this asserted for All though for others then the Elect only Nor secondly Follows it that his death if he mean simply and per se procured it nay rather the contrary for then what need of any further Mediation or petition for it frustra fit per plura c. A man may with boldness go to request a new lone of another for a man that plaid the bankrupt had run far into his debt bringing pay with him for the former debt that perhaps might have had no admittance for his suit in that kinde without that payment made and yet that payment meerly procured not the second lone That may be causa partialis sine quâ non of a thing that is not causa propriè plenè effectiva of it It s not the payment of the old debt that either obliges him that pays to borrow anew or him that lends to lend anew but grace in both from the * Orgiver lender to the borrower and from both to him for whom he borrows it Christ hath such grace in his Fathers eyes that he having paid our old score may ask a new stock and obtain it though his meer payment without that asking did not oblige the Father to it 3. He askes if he interceded for them with an intention and desire that they should believe or not I answer Yes sure for I suppose else he would not so have prayed and so they do and shall though not so far as his question here supposes That which he desires to be granted conducing to that end shal be granted but the end that he would have men attain to by those means afforded may by them not be so far obtained as he desires them to press to He would have them being convinced of the truth cleave to it follow after it acknowledg it c. but many do not grant him his desires even as he would have gathered Jerusalems children and yet they would not and as he rather pleases that men would turn and live and yet many do not Matth. 23.27 Ezek. 33.11 Yet that that he asks of his Father to that purpose as conducing to that end viz. a blessing with his means afforded so far as that they have light drawn to them to attend on that they have and shall acknowledg when their mouths shall be stopt for abusing it And in this is answered his two following Queries As first Whether it be for all and every man in the world That neither was affirmed nor in that place Joh. 17.21 held forth but men of the world others then the Church Secondly Whether absolutely or conditionally so that absolutely that his Disciples might be made fit means for such an end but for the worlds further believing and making good use of what they have that 's left to them upon the means and those convincements whether to chuse the good and refuse the evil or persist in evil and not â—huse the good and yet not without divers exhortations motions end counsels to chuse that that 's good and therefore for not chusing ahe fear of the Lord they are after charged Pro. 1.29 Whereas he t' demands Whether Christ prayes that they may use well the means ' of grace or not I Answer I finde no such prayer and yet it follows not but that he prayed that they may believe those things there mentioned or rather that the Believers may walk so well as that the world did they not wilfully shut their eyes might see and believe those truths viz. both that that Doctrine concerning Christ is the truth and
God might deal in a way of mercy with them And he eyed further the Testament of promises made to his called ones that God would bring in to believe in him layd down his life for confirmation of their faith in those promises and also for confirmation and ratification of the truth of his doctrine to those to whom he preached it Now in the first consideration he says he took in All men though not all but his called ones and such as he should have for his seed In the second against which Mr. Owen saith nothing worth the Answer but faults the things that he seems not well to understand and quarrels with want of smoothness in the expressions and unaptness of quotations not rightly taking them to the Authors meaning as I conceive For I suppose Heb. 9.9 26. He only quoted to shew that as a Priest he offered sacrifice Joh. 1.29 1 Joh. 2.2 to shew that he was as a propitiation and that extended to All Heb. 9.14 15. Matt. 26.26 he quotes to prove his Death to be for Ratification of his Testament and so the Apostle made use of it in Rom. 5.10 8.32 none of them expressing his utmost end that being known sufficiently and granted on every hand Now whereas Mr. Owen saith that his proofes for the sealing the Testament hold out but the first end of the death of Christ he speaks not rightly for neither of those places viz. Mat. 26.26 Heb. 9.15 speaks only of procuring of remission of sins or power and prerogative of forgiving but of sealing the Testament also which bequeaths not to all he dyed for but to all that heartily believe in him and such the Apostles were the receit and injoyment of forgiveness and of the inheritance it self which remission the believers indeed confess that they experimentally receive from him in his blood believed on by them Rom. 3.25 as in Eph. 1.7 Col. 1.14 which Scriptures speak not of procuring Redemption though that must needs be supposed as a thing fore-done but of the receit and injoyment of it that they being brought out of darkness into Christs Government met with and partook of as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 declares too Whereas he cals his distinction of these ends mentioned his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that 's only his want of discerning and so till he see better may be forgiven him as all the rest of that following froth he hath not worth repeating or answering for whereas he saith that he may this way answer any thing by saying its otherwise in his opinion it seemes strange to me that he cannot see the places above recited cleerly proving what was affirmed by him Doth not his being a Lamb to take away the sin of the world and the propitiation for the sins of the whole world shew that the work of his Priest-hood had something in it extending beyond the bounds and limits of the Church and chosen except he can first shew that the world the whole world is the Church of God and all of them the chosen of God and so confound the distinction so cleerly held forth in Scripture between the Church and the world John 14.17 22. 15.18 19. 16.20 17.9 1 Cor. 6.2 11.32 c. And doth not Heb. 9.15 with Mat. 26.26 plainly say that Christ also intended to confirm the faith of his called ones in expectation of the eternal inheritance and to make that sure to them Is there not a plain difference between these two the breaking in peices the bond of Death man was faln into and so delivering him out of that and the making a Covenant of promises with some of them so ransomed Is it all one for a Prince to ransom a thousand men out of prison in which they were to perish and save them from hanging when the rope was about their necks And his entring into a bond and Covenant to prefer so many of them being ransomed as will submit to and serve him Did not Christ undertake for both in his death both to ransom man faln and to confirm his Church in faith But who can give eyes or who shall perswade wise men to be willing to be fools in themselves that God may give them eyes I shall leave the Reader to God intreating sobriety from him and that he will not wink with his eye willfully when light is propounded to him And so having through Gods assistance finished my answer to his first book In expectation and confidence of the same assistance I shall follow him to the second The Second Book CHAP. I. A further view of his consideration of the ends of the death of Christ as further handled in his first and second Chapters of his second book COnsidering further the end of the Death of Christ He tels us it was either 1. Ultimate and supream viz. the glory of God the Father Or 2. Subservient to that viz. The bringing men to God and in that both 1. That men might have means of coming to God And 2. The end it self coming to God or Salvation Which I suppose not as so indefinitely propounded though I think the ends of it may be more fully and cleerly assigned thus viz. 1. Gods Glory Phil. 2.11 2. Nextly the glory of the Son of God that he might have the preheminence and God be glorified in him John 17.1 4. Phil. 2.9 10. Rom. 14.9 To this end he both dyed and rose and revived that he might be Lord of quick and dead So John 5.22 The Father hath given to the Son to have life in himself which I understand of the life communicable to men for that is said to be in him 1 John 5.11 and so life in him through his death for men that all men should honor the Son even as they honor the Father for that 's the life indeed for which he is so worthy to be honored of all men in their looking to him and believing on him as on the Father and that 's the honoring him as the Father to give him all the honor of believing and staying on him resting and glorying in him acknowledging his Lordship c as to the Father 3. To these purposes that all might be set free and ransomed from the sentence of death under which they were fallen that so God and Christ might be glorified in them all and an object of hope and faith be provided for them to look to and believe in for salvation and for God to glorifie the riches of his mercy in drawing men to according to his good pleasure Matth. 20.28 1 Tim. 2.6 2 Cor. 5.14 15. 4. That those that believe in him might have eternal life So in Iohn 3.16 be brought to God 1 Pet. 3.18 and to glory Heb. 2.10 having Christ for a witness and Covenant ratifying and sealing an everlasting Covenant with them and being an example and pattern yea a Captain and leader to them Isa 49.6 55.4 Heb. 9.15 Matth.
was the object of that love of God that moved him to send Christ We believe he denies it but how doth he disprove it why thus He made some for the day of wrath Prov. 16.4 but he should have told us whom The Scripture saith The wicked such as persist in wickedness if by evil day we mean a day of destruction to themselves for otherwise in turning they shall live and God swears he had rather they should turn and live then go on in sin and die Ez. k 33.11 which rather argues a Mediator for them to turn to God by and such as refuse to turn to God by him God works them as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies to an evil day Omnia operatur Deus sibi vel in causam suam etiam improbum in Diem mali Drus like that in Rom. 2.4 5. If Mr. Owen think that them that are now wicked God made them at first for the day of destruction and therefore left them to be wicked for I hope he thinks not that God made any wicked then he must say his creating work was to most an act of hatred and that God hated men while innocent and righteous and while his own meer workmanship for in that instant he intimates that he made them unto wrath which suits not with the Nature of God which is Love nor with the Truth of God that saith That God loves the righteous as all were when God created them The truth is the word Made signifies also to order and frame providentially and so the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 more properly signifies being never that I finde applied to his creating things and so his disposing Israel to Mercy or Judgment in his providential government of them is compared to a Potter making a Vessel Jer. 18.4 5 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or making it another Vessel when marred Jer. 18.4 5 6. The meaning of the sentence then is this That the Lord wrought as all things for himself or for its cause as Drusius notes so the wicked those that are so and persist to be so against the goodness and grace of God leading them to Repentance them he works or by an Ellipsis they are for the evil day That is to be his rods to afflict and exercise men withall to make a day of affliction and tryall which in Scripture is called a Eph. 6.13 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Sam. 24.13 Isa 10.5 an evil day as the word is here* As it s said Wickedness proceeds from the wicked and Ashur the rod of my wrath And so it s said That ungodly men turners of the grace of God into wantonness were b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fore-written to this condemnation or judgment viz. to be exercises to the Saints of God and put them to trial about their faith Jude 4. another place quoted by him but surely they had that grace vouchsafed to them which they abused or else how did they abuse it c Compare 2 Pet. 2. with this Epistle of Jude These are the same men with those in 2 Pet. 2.1 that are said to be bought by the Lord and that buying them and his goodness toward them being bought was the grace they turned into wantonness And surely he that says that God fore-ordained that those that being bought by him and having grace and favor extended to them through Christ leading them to Repentance should deny the Lord and turn his grace into wantonness and so persist in wickedness should be for exercises and rods to the Church for so the words to this judgment or condemnation seem to import or if ye will that they should be condemned He say that so saith doth intimately say that God ordained them first to be bought by Christ and to have such grace extended to them and I think grace is love and favor and then he saies nothing to deny that even those also though not looked upon as such persisting in ungodliness and wickedness but in an Antecedent condition as we noted before were also the objects of Gods love in sending his Son no more then he that saies that God intended to throw faln Adam out of Paradise and deny him communion with himself denies that God made Adam righteous and shewed him much favor in Paradise But he saith again That some were hated before they were born pointing to Rom. 9.12 But there is no such passage there Onely that before the children were born or had done good or evil it was said to Rebeccah The elder shall serve the younger And that we shal finde indeed spoken before they were born Gen. 25.22 23. but the other Esau have I hated was spoken in Malachies time long after they were dead and was spoken inclusively of Esaus posterity too as the other part of the speech of Jacobs and it s produced by the Apostle to shew the standing of Gods purpose for exalting the younger above the elder for this proves Gods purpose to stand that Esau not submitting to serve Jacob according to the Oracle in which he might have met with blessing God hated rejected and cast him out and destroyed his mountains You may as well say that God laid his mountains wast before he was born too and so before he had any as that he hated him before he was born For they are put together Mal. 1.2 yet I hated Esau and made his mountains wast But again From Rom. 9.22 He tells us that some were fitted for destruction but that 's impertinent For it s not He that is God fitted them to destruction much less in his first creating them But they being fitted for destruction yet he says God to shew his power and wrath to make known his Name for the good of others spares them As when Pharoah to whom he seems there to allude was fitted and ripened for destruction and might have been justly cut off Yet that he might make him more exemplary he treated with him a long time before he destroyed him and what doth this hinder but that he might send his Son to dye for such as considered in a precedent condition A man for whom Christ died by stumbling and turning from Christ may be fitted for destruction So the Apostle intimates 1 Cor. 8.11 2 Pet. 2.1 Except a man may perish and not be fit for it which I think none shall He produces also 2 Pet. 2.12 like bruit beasts made to be taken c. which being spoken of such as deny the Lord that bought them vers 1. it cannot be in reason conceived that Christ dyed not for them except he bought them by some other price then his death which I finde not affirmed Beside Mr. Owen may abuse his reader making him believe that the Apostle says that those men were made to be taken and destroyed when indeed the words are these Like bruit beasts made to be taken and destroyed the words Made to be taken and destroyed agree with the word Beasts
whomsoever Christ obtained good to them it must be applyed To which I oppose this That Christ procured good things into himself in the humane nature for those that refusing him go without them He received gifts for the rebellious as Psal 68.18 there are favors held forth by God to them and in a sort given them as Christ tels the unbelieving Jews that his Father gave them the true bread but that all they for whom such gifts are received by Christ must also necessarily receive them is as void of proof as that all the unbelieving murmuring Jews received Christ as the bread of life and fed upon him sure the Holy Ghost says Joh. 6.32 Jon. 2.8 Psa 81.13 14. Luk. 19.4 42 c. Isa 55.2 3 Prov. 1.21.22 23 24. That some deprive themselves of their own mercies miss what in oheying they should have had know not and so miss of the things pertaining to their peace Nor is it rational to think or Christian so say that God cals people to Christ that hath received nothing into himself for them and so hath nothing to dispense to them that will do them good is so earnest to draw them to that that cannot satisfie them and condemns them for refusing that that had nothing for them in it as he hath not any thing of what he cals them to as communicable to men but by his sufferings Whereas he saith That the blood of Christ in the vertue of it cannot be looked upon as a Medicine in a Box laid up for all that shall come to have any of it and so applied now to one and then to another That speech so far is false as to the good things pertaining to eternal life and the vertue of that blood for the injoyment of them for it is resembled to the ashes of an heifer laid up in a clean place and from thence to be sprinkled upon men Num. 19.9 Heb. 9.13 14. and so his name is compared to ointment poured forth Cant. 1.3 what 's his name but his love grace vertues and excellencies declared and made known the pouring forth of which intimates that they were all first included in him as ointment in a Box. Now though the declaration of these be as oyntment poured forth yet the things themselves Remission Sanctification Spirit of Joy Glory c. are all contained in him and passe not from him to any soul till it be first brought in to him yea the whole tenor of Scriptures speak of these things as laid up in him for men one and other thence those phrases The salvation that is in Jesus Christ 2 Tim. 2.10 Neither is there Salvation in any other Act. 4.11 12. All fulness in him Col. 1.19 All the fulness of God dwels in him bodily and in him we are compleat Col. 2.9 10. In him we have Redemption Col. 1.14 the life that is given us in the Son 1 John 5.11 12. in him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledg Col. 2.3 Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus 1 Tim. 2.1 yea this grace is compared to a feast made in a house whitherto men are to come c. Matth. 22.2 3 c. 1 Cor. 1.90 Act. 10.43 Rom 5 1◠Joh. 1.12 Yea thence Christ himself is said to be made to the believer wisdom righteousness c. and we are said in believing to receive remission to receive the atonement c. because in believing we go to and receive him yea we are said to come to the blood of sprinkling Heb. 12.24 Now that this also is laid up in him for all that shall come to have any of it and so applyed now to one and then to another as they come or rather laid up for All that upon his call they might come to him for it is also the tenor of Scripture Doctrine thence Look to me and be ye saved all ye ends of the earth Isa 45.22 Whoever will let him come and take of the water of life freely He says not the Elect or any shall have it given out from him without coming or they only have right to come for it it s only for them but whoever will may thence it is a feast made for all people Isa 25 6. and all are inivted in the Gospel even whomsoever we meet with we may call Matt. 22.8 9. though all obey not the call to come yea and the blood is sprinkled upon and the grace applyed now to one then to another as they come Thence some obtain mercy and grace before others as an example and incouragement to others 1 Tim. 1.15 16. some are in Christ before others as Andronicus and Junia were in Christ before Paul Rom. 16.7 and so have fellowship with God and Christ before them yea before others be called to it or born And this also is given to All comers without difference as is clear in Scriptures to Jew and Gentile bond and free for there is no difference Rom. 3.23 24. Gal. 3.27 28. its open to All and intended no more for one comer then another as to the essentials of it though more to those that come then others that come not Yea though Christ hath purchased All good things into his humane nature and they free for all and prohibited to none till they be wickedly put away yet it s uncertain to any before coming whether it shall be theirs or no and as to Scripture Revelation for them its left indifferent the Scripture expressing them no more then others nor others yet unbelievers more then them His arguments to the contrary touch not to any purpose what hath been said they are these 1. It s against common sense that such a thing should be obtained for one and yet that not be his To which we have given some answer before besides which we say further that it s here inconcludent for it should have been That a thing should be obtained for one and yet he never injoy it not that it should not be his The application answers not to right and title but to injoyment of right Men may have right to that in Christ which they refusing to accept or look after have not the injoyment of so Jon. 2.8 they that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercies its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their own mercy and yet they deprive themselves of it So Esau had a birthright the first portion was his by right and yet he never had it applyed to him he lost it or sold it willingly and so went without it and there are too many prophane as Esau Corn may be treasured up with Joseph for All Egypt yet with this Proviso that men must go to Joseph before they can have it Heb. 12.15 so that any Egyptian hath right to go to him and receive it yea good ground to go to him too and yet if any man refused to go to him and to take it at his hand he might perish for want but as
I have propounded that distinction Christ is not wanting to apply what is impetrated according to the will of God for application or compact made in Impetration and therefore his second Argument is vain too viz. That 2. It s contrary to reason that the Death of Christ in Gods intention should be applyed to any one that shall have no share in the merits of that Death None of all his adversaries produced by him say any such thing they rather deny the application of it to many then say that some to whom it s to be applyed have no share in his merits Whereas he says many know not of it we have shewed before that a man may have a fruit of love from another that he knows not Cyrus was girded and strengthned by God though he knew him not So men have a release from the dealing of God with them according to the merit of Adams sin which should else unavoidably have come upon them and this by Christ though many know not him And all receive some fruits of Adams sin though many knew not that there was such a one or what his sin was Whereas he saith it s against reason that a ransom should be paid for captives upon compact of deliverance and yet upon payment those captives not be made free and set at liberty that Christ should be a ransom upon compact of deliverance of captives and yet the greatest number of them never be released That is falsly bottomed for God released All from that deadly destroying sentence which hath God taken the forfeit of Adams sin in that very day had ruined Adam and his whole posterity Justification of life is to all so that they All have life here and shall however be released and brought out of the death that is ordered to them by occasion of Adams sin in the resurrection so far are all acquitted that if any perish it s not in that but in a second Death Yea all are released also in this regard that whereas all were cast out of Gods presence and might not approach to him now through Christ all have free leave to approach to him all are commanded to repent and turn to him to look to him and be saved whoever will may come and welcome yea God is so far from keeping them away that he faults men for not coming to him John 5.40 Now if a ransom be paid for captives and the prison doors opened and means afforded for leading them out and prisoners willingly and stubbornly refuse but will stay in prison still as in this later respect many do shall that be imputed as a defect of justice in him to whom the ransom was paid for them Surely no except it could be proved that that was the compact that he should in that regard compel and forcibly cause to come out of prison all that the ransom was paid for which I am sure Mr. Owen will not be able to prove in this matter Christ no where says to any God would not have you come to him you are not included in the ransom nor that all that he dyed for shall be brought in to him but he often tels us God would have them seek him and come to him and faults them that they will not For that after-shift as he cals it of conditional and absolute obtaining of things it fals not upon me I affirm that liberty from that first sentence's execution upon us was absolutely obtained Justification of life to All. And that liberty is opened in the Gospel to All and men exhorted to enter and for not striving to enter now the door comes to be shut upon many that which they have shall be taken from them because they liked to have it and then they cannot enter Also that all life remission and fulness are absolutely put into Christs hands only I say the will of God for his dispensation and so to his proposition of the things to be dispensed not his obtaining them into his dispose nor the freeness and openness of them for men to look after and come to him for them hath a condition annexed God wils Christ to dispense them to men upon coming to him and Christ holds them forth upon that condition to any Whoever will let him come c. we deny that Christ is bound to make known to all for whom he dyed the fulness that is in him like evidently or himself or the way of salvation to all alike expresly or expresly at all That all are bound to minde and imbrace what he revealeth to them is clear but that he is bound to make known this or that to all he dyed for I deny that Mr. Owen can any where prove He may bring infants to himself and dispense his salvation to them and yet never give them capacity to hear the condition of salvation and yet we believe what the Scripture saith John 1.9 that he is the true light that inlightens every man coming into the world He is not bound to give every man ten talents alike open and plain declation of himself and Father no not for saving them but every man is bound to improve and submit to God in what he gives them be it more or less and if they do so he is able and ready to give more being liberal and free and can tell how to save them if not he is just to take away what they have and not bound to save them He being Lord of them Nor yet say we that men have power of themselves to improve what is given them but he who gives them the talents gives them the power too in which he requires them to improve them and it s not inability but slothfulness and obstinacy for which they are faulted and condemned by him because they rather chuse to live idly in themselves and dy then stir abroad to seek God John 8.31 32 34 36. or yeeld to what he brings home to them and live Christ as he is the Truth of God is the great Physitian of souls and by revelations of truth both cals to himself for healing and by further revelations of it to those that come to him doth heal John 14.6 The truth shall make you free and this because He hath given himself a ransom for them in the first place without which neither ground of calling nor fitness to heal them Now this Great Truth of God doth send abroad his beams of divine light and so some sparklings of himself as the Word of God and God by vertue of his relation to the humane nature first virtually and then actually united to him to men in generall John 1 4 5 9 though not so clearly nor so many beams at all times as in some nor to All men as to some Yet to the generality some Beams of truth Rom. 1.18 19 21.28 Acts 17 27 28.27 Job 21.14 those beams have their force in their leading them to know something of God so to
seek him groping after him if happily they may finde him yea such power as that men are fain to suppress and keep them under and bid them be gone and shut their eyes against them lest they work too much upon them Now though they see not what a one or who he it whence these beams come and those operations in their hearts yet they knowing in their consciences that they ought to obey them and that it would be better for them so to do though what that betterness is they comprehend not and contrary to that knowledg they have willfully rebelling they cannot plead ignorance total ignorance of this great physitian but for not obeying what they know shall be excuse less before him So that Mr. Owens comparison of Christ to a physitian tendring cure he wholly unknown Rom. 1.20.28 is a mistake also nor shall men be able to make good that plea when he comes to judge them though many shall say in respect of his person and fuller appearances when saw we thee thus and thus as if they would plead ignorance of him yet he shall take away that plea from them making it appear that in such and such mediums as his poor people Matth. 25.42 43 44 55. he was evidencing himself to them and presenting himself before them and there they would not know him Nor is he as one tendring a thousand pound to a blinde man on condition he will see and yet giving no ability to see but he in tendring gives forth such light that men see some glimmerings and bids them look though but with their blinde holes that they may see which did they the light would make them see and see more clearly yea it would turn them Isa 42.18 and he would heal them Act. 28.27 but many wilfully loving their own ease and wils will not see lest they should be turned and be healed by him they see they should listen to him yea many see that in looking to him they might have healing and yet refuse to look to him they desire not his healing Whereas he saith the condition of faith is procured for us by the death of Christ or not I shall here say but this viz. 1. That Christ is become an object fit for us to believe on and hope in through his death which else he had not been for us sinners 2. That God in Christ hath done so much for All men and doth so much for them through him that he deserves highly at their hands to be trusted in by them I know this agrees not with Mr. Owens principles yet I shall stand to it against him that all men have good cause and ground to believe in him or to betrust themselves to him and so much we are in preaching Gospel to demonstrate to them not having sinned to death or blasphemed against the Holy Ghost It s but a righteous thing for any man to believe in God and in Christ and its unrighteousness and hainous sin not to believe in him being declared to them that is not to commit souls and bodies to him as to one ready to save them 3. All the ways and means with all the power that comes in and with them to inable men to believe are vouchsafed to men through the Death of Christ none of them had been afforded to us had not Christ dyed for us 4. It s the promise of God to Christ so to exalt and glorifie him that some should be brought in to him and be given him to believe and be his seed 5. Yea it s by the discovery of Gods good-will in the death and resurrection of Christ that God useth to overcome men to believe and so his blood and death as so discovered and set home redeems men out of their bondage to Sathan and world and corruption Rev. 5.9 10 14.4 But that Christ obliged the Father to make all those men that he dyed for to walk out in the exercise of such power and liberty of acting as he should in his gracious dispensations afford them for attendance to means receit of light given looking up to him in that light yea to believe in him and rely on him for salvation this I desire him to prove It s not proveable by Scripture so far as I can finde nay I may use this argument against it bottomed upon Mr. Owens own maxime viz. Whatever Christ procured or merited by his oblation that he intercedes to have collated or bestowed on men But Scripture no where shews that Christ intercedes for faith saving faith to be given to one or other Ergo Scripture no where proves that he procured that by his oblation The major is Mr. Owens own in cap. 4.6 7. lib. 1. The minor is easily proved by Induction no one place speaking of Christs Intercession mentions his interceding for saving faith not that platform as some say of his Intercession in John 17. as we shewed lib. 1. chap. 2. if not there no where else for in Rom. 8.33 he mentions his interceding for Vs men in Christ believers but says not for what much less for faith that they had already In Heb. 7.25 It s for those that come unto God by him that some might come to God by him I leave it for him to finde any one place in which Christ prays that God would make any to believe Nor will this diminish at all the honor and love due to him for as Mr. Owen says We are not to invent ways of honoring him but give him that that in the Scripture God gives to him He produces Tit. 3.5 6 2 Cor. 5.21 but neither of them say that Christ procured faith for us as obliging God to give it us the former shews but how God wrought it in discovering his love and the latter that Christ became sin for us that we might in him that is in believing in him be made the righteousness of God and so that he opened the way for our believing and making righteous not that he obliged God to make us or all that he dyed for righteously to believe no more then in vers 15. where He says he dyed for all that they that live might not henceforth live to themselves he shews that therefore he obliged God to make all cease from thenceforth to live to themselves and God performs not his obligation to him in that so many even after believing live so much to themselves and minde their own things as Paul complaineth That he shall bring in a seed to him I grant but that he is obliged to bring in this or that Individual to be of that seed muchless all that he dyed for I no where finde That in Eph. 1.3 Phil. 1.29 We shall meet with afterward and with the point it self also more fully urged viz. in lib. 3. cap. 4. where we shall speak to them only this I shall say to them here that neither of them say that Christ by his death obliged the Father to
give to this or that muchless to all he dyed for effectually to believe in him and to be saved not a word to that purpose So that that piece of doctrine viz. That for whom Christ dyed them he procured faith for is none of those Scripture-truths that will scatter the supposed clouds and mists Nor yet follows it that the whole impetration of Redemption is made unprofitable For 1. God hath ingaged himself so to glorifie his Son that some shall be brought in though he no were say All he dyed for nor that I know of any particular persons so as that this or that individuall must or else he should be unjust 2. He shall have much glory from his good bounteous and merciful dispensations to men through the Death of Christ that yet he compels not to believe on Christ Matt. 22.2 3 4 5. with Rom. 11.36 yea in the just and righteous condemnation of those that sin'd against that mercy and refused to submit to him For that condition upon which he supposes we will say Christ is to bestow salvation viz. so they do not refuse or resist the means of grace It s a mistake we know no such imposition put upon him for men may receive the means and yet rebel against the grace it self that comes in them have a form and deny the power of godliness and for that perish Though that all Pagans and infidels are left destitute of all means leading them to seek after God or that any that have no outward means from Christ nor ever resist Gods workings in them shall be condemned as Mr. Owen would perswade us I leave for him to prove Christ says to the Jews that if he had not come and spoken to them they had not had sin and for ought I know If Christ neither come in Word Joh. 15.22 nor in any spiritual way as he preached to the old world by his Spirit if any such he can finde they may not have sin charged on them to condemnation and destruction Yet if Mr. Owen can shew me otherwise I will believe it For making Christ but a half Mediator its frivolous yet we shall speak to it lib. 3. c. 3. where it occurs again That Christ did not dye for any on condition of their believing I believe nor that he dyed only for the Elect of God that they should believe nor finde I any Scripture calling any man while yet in and of the world an Elect person He dyed for All that being Lord of them and presenting his light to them according to the good pleasure of the Father whosoever believes might not perish but have eternal life And here ends this Second Book and my Answers to it The Third Book His third Book contains Arguments grounded for the most part upon his former premises against the universality of the Death of Christ we shall Favente Deo orderly view them CHAP. I. An answer to his two first Arguments contained in his first Chapter of this Book The first Chapter contains two Arguments Argu. 1 As FRom the nature of the Covenant of Grace established ratified and confirmed in and by the Death of Christ His Argument runs thus The effects of the death of Christ cannot be extended beyond the compass of the new Covenant or Christ died only for those that are within the New Covenant But this Covenant was not made universally with all but particularly onely with some Therefore those alone were intended in the benefits of the death of Christ A very vitious Argument whereof the Conclusion contains a quartus terminus for in stead of any effects the tearm propounded in the Major He says the benefits therein as is clear by what follows in him comprehending the choice benefits of the death of Christ applied The Major also is ambiguous and uncertain For either it is universal as No effect of the death of Christ c. or else particular as Some do not c. If the latter its impertinent and concludes not against the death of Christ for All but onely its having some effects in All which is besides the thing in question if the former as I suppose he intends it then I deny it I deny I say that Christ died for none or that none have any effect of his death extended to them but onely such as with whom the New Testament is made He brings no other proof for it which he perhaps therefore lisped in because he saw himself weak in the proof of it but onely from that title given to his blood that it s called The blood of the New Testament So that his Argument to prove that runs thus It s called the blood of the New Testament Therefore shed onely for them that are heirs of the New Testament Which is like this The Spirit is called the Spirit of Comfort and the Comforter Therefore whoever it works upon it comforts them and so when it convinces the world of sin it s their comforter too and when it kindles the fire of Tophet Isai 30.33 it comforts them that are tormented with it A wilde Argument and yet such is his The truth is As its an office of the Spirit to comfort and he is a Comforter to all that obey him so is it an office of the blood of Christ or rather one end of its shedding to ratifie the new Covenant which it also doth to all that believe in it But as that is not all the work or business of the Spirit to comfort so neither was that all the work or end of the blood of Christ to establish the new Covenant but first of all to ransom from the death that was passed upon men and then to confirm a Covenant to the house of Israel and Judah This blood where ever it s tendered the Covenant is tendred with it Hear and your souls shall live and I will make an everlasting Covenant with you the sure mercies of David and he that obeys this is entred into Covenant by it but not All for whom it was shed are in Covenant by its shedding no more then all for whom the water of Purification was made were therefore purified because it was made for them and called the water of Purification Numb 19 9.20 Mr. Owen also mistakes the parties with whom the Covenant is made For he understands them to be a certain number of persons yet lying in the world and that its one clause of the Covenant to give them faith or make them to believe whereas indeed especially as pertaining to the Gentiles the proper object with whom the Covenant is made is the called of God believers in Christ Jesus into those mens hearts God will put his fear not to bring them to him but to keep them from departing from him which argues their being brought to him before these shall have the Law written in their hearts an allusion to the old Testament written in Tables of Stone not before they were brought out of Egypt but after they
part of this distinction as The ungodly Rom. 5.6 8. The unjust 1 Pet. 3.18 The world 2 Cor. 5 19. 1 Joh. 2.2 False teachers that bring upon themselves swift destruction 2 Pet. 2.1 So that his Minor is evidently false If it be Objected That its never said He died for the Reprobate I answer No more have we this expression He died for the Elect. If that its never said For the vessels of Wrath so it is never said For the vessels of Mercy c. I say these expressions are not in the Scriptures And indeed there is good reason it should not be said for Reprobates Goats vessels of Wrath c. because God gave not Christ for them as such no more then it s said He created Reprobates Devils ungodly Men because they were not such as created by him but they after declined from him and were rejected by him So we say Christ dyed not for men as Reprobates Goats appointed to wrath for they were the objects of these Decrees as viewed in an after-condition as neglecting refusing and rejecting the goodness of God and grace afforded through Christs mediation for that he says in answer to our exception that it s no where us only sheep only c. we have taken it off before Creation and preservation and resurrection and judgment are also spoken of and applyed to Israel and believers when they are spoken of with some distinction from opposition to others and yet in none of them are those expressions sufficient to prove that they are applicable to them only One instance for Creation we gave in Isa 43.14 15. there is another like it in Isa 64.8 We are the clay thou art the potter and yet the whole precedent part of the Chap. with the latter end of the former speaks in a distinguishing way between the people of God their adversaries So for preservation The Lord preserveth the faithful Psal 31.23 and the Lord preserveth all them that love him and yet there are oppositions between them and others so for judgement Deut. 32.36 The Lord shall judg his people and they distinguished from their enemies So for Resurrection Rom. 8.9 11. there is an opposition of them that have not the Spirit of Christ in them and them that have and it s said If the Spirit of Christ dwell in you he shall quicken your mortal bodies Whether from those and the like expressions its safe to say God created and preserveth none but his people Israel the righteous c. will quicken the bodies of and judg none but his people and such as have Christs spirit dwelling in them I leave to any rational man to judg And whereas he says By the same reason in other places when it s said Christ is the the way the life the resurrection It pleased God that in him should all fulness dwell We might except too and say it s not said It s he only and in him only I answer the case is unlike For if the Scriptures say so in other places or extend it not in any other place to others its boldness to extend it but if the Scripture in other places affirms it of others we may then well speak against the putting in an only to limit other Scriptures The first is the case of those places the latter of this in controversie so that this exception is very answerable as for his confidence that It may be further urged when and where it is so I hope I shall further answer it In the mean time I have said enough to shew the vanity of this Argument 5. His fifth Argument is Argu. 5 That the Scripture no where says Christ dyed for all men which is vain and evidently false as was shewed lib. 2. chap. 3. The expression is plain the righteousness of one which I think all must grant to be his obedience to the Death to All men to justification of life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So he is the propitiation for the whole Worlds sins Joh. 2.2 So the expression in 1 Tim. 2.6 Heb. 2.9 2 Cor. 5.14 15. are equivalent to an expresse mention of All men as hath been shewed And it s against reason to say as Mr. Owen intimates that the Apostle there means all his Elect his Church children seeing in those places where those expressions are there is no mention of Election or Elect Church or Believers to which the words may rationally be joyned and it s against reason to think that the Apostle in his writing should more respect other writings other Books or Chapters to refer his Adjectives to some words in them or to some following verses in the same Chapters then to such substantives as he in the scope drift of those Scriptures in which those Adjectives are and in the preceding verses of it was manifestly speaking about which in those places its manifest are Men. Besides we might retort and let Mr. Owen minde it that no Scripture says in terminis Christ dyed for his Church Children Elect no one such expression that in John 11.52 which he points to is not He dyed for the children of God but that he might gather into one the children of God In Eph. 5.26 27. his other proof its He gave himself for his Church which might be in exchange thus He gave himself to her to be hers that she might be his holy to him So Acts 20.28 He purchased the Church by his blood that is by the preaching and presentation of his blood foreshed with the benefits thereby ratified to all that believe and so gathered in or acquired and obtained as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies properly them to be his Church So that we might as colourably deny those sayings as he That Christ dyed for All men to be the Scriptures expressions But enough hath been said to this fore-answered vain and false Argument CHAP. III. An Answer to his third Chapter containing two other Arguments HIs sixth Argument is That for whom Christ dyed he dyed as a Sponsor in their stead But he dyed not so for all c. How much he puts into the word Sponsor I know not well but in their stead he dyed I grant though his proofs might be questioned whether they will evince it A man may dy for another that is for his sake to do him good when the other man perhaps should not have dyed had not he dyed and so not in a way of commutation and if he might in any way dye for all and not so for all then his major is invalid but yet I say I will grant that and deny his minor but then he saith it will follow That 1. He freed them all from the anger and wrath of God and guilt of death which he underwent for them To which I say that will not follow It will follow then that he freed them from the death they should have dyed but not from all the anger or displeasure that occasioned him to
to free Grace but leaves it still as free to some as if the Death of Christ obliged him to bestow such grace upon them Grace bestowed without an obligation to it is as free as grace bestowed upon obligation Nor set we up the power of Free will to the sleighting or undervaluing of Free-grace For we say that its grace that gives men that freedom to good they have and its mens abusing the freedom given by grace and turning grace into wantonness and not improving it but receiving it in vain that brings destruction upon many Therefore we exhort men so to magnifie grace as to believe and receive it and that not in vain and fault men because they will abuse the liberty that God gives them of his goodness and grace chusing their own ways and not his refusing to come to Christ c. And I think in such language the Scripture speaketh Nor do we 4. Contradict the received doctrine of our natural depravedness and inability to good We say that what power men have to good they have it in and by Gods striving with them light manifested in them and grace preventing them and that otherwise they are wholly unable to any thing that is good Nor say we 5. That a natural faculty is able to produce of it self without some spiritual elevation an act purely spiritual no more then the blinde mans natural act of washing was able to produce a supernatural gift of sight to him and so neither are we guilty of contradicting right reason Nor 2. Must we resolve almost the sole cause of our salvation ultimately into our selves as being able to make all that God and Christ do to that end effectuall or ineffectuall This we have before disproved And here say again That we leave it in the Power and Will of God to use what means he pleases to any man and how long and compell whom he will to come in and believe And yet it follows not that either Christ obliged God to do it to this and that man or much less to All for whom he died the thing he should have proved which he further endeavors after these premises by the following Arguments viz. Argu. 1 The death of Jesus Christ purchased holiness and sanctification for us as was proved at large Argument 8. But faith is a part of our sanctification and holiness Ergo he procured faith for us If this Argument should be wholly granted yet his Assertion goes unproved viz. That he hath purchased faith for All for whom he died The word Vs being applicative may be diversly expounded as Vs that are of this Nation Vs that are of this minde Vs that believe c. and so its ambiguous But if by Vs he means All for whom he died then the Major with the eight Argument brought to uphold it is already disproved Beside the Minor is questionable whether Faith be a part of our sanctification VVe are sanctified by Faith its true that 's the instrument that receives it but that no more proves it a part thereof then that the Israelites were healed by looking to the brazen Serpent proves their looking to it a part of their healing The Church Ephes 5.26.27 as a Church are a people called and believing and them he is to sanctifie and will sanctifie but that rather proves Sanctification a consequent of Faith then Faith a part of that sanctification All the fruits of Election are purchased by Christ Argu. 2 But Faith is a fruit of Election c. The Major is proof-less and deficient too for it should have been general as to the object of his Death thus All the fruits of Election were purchased by Christ for All he died for or it concludes not if he mean it so then I deny it as he takes the word purchase and desire his proof for it Nor yet is the Minor without exception Luke 8.17 For faith is scarce a fruit of Election in all that believe except such as believe for a time were elected for a time too His proofs as they reach not that so neither are they all pertinent to what he brings them In Eph. 1.4 the Vs is the Saints and faithful ver 1. if not of a narrower signification as distinct from the persons spoken to as the 12 13. verses seem to import as first speaking of their own experiences and priviledges and then of theirs At furthest the Text extends it but to Saints and faithful in Christ blest with all spiritual blessings in heavenly things in him And so it shews that it was according to the eternal purpose and counsel of God that men in Christ should be holy in him and that in chusing Christ before the world was they also were by consequent chosen He chose not either in Adam or in the Law or in mens selves but in * See further about this place in the Epistle to the Reader Christ a holy people for himself which holiness is a consequent of mens faith and being in Christ as was said before and as is proved 1. Cor. 1.30 I question too whether Rom. 8.29 says that unbelievers as so eyed was the object of predestination and not men fore-known as future believers to which in time they are called So that though that Scripture in a manner couples them yet it says not Faith at least in all that believe is the fruit of Predestination or Election Much more is that in 1 Cor. 4.7 impertinent to that it s brought for for as Beza also expounds it and as any man that seriously mindes the Apostles duft in the three foregoing Chapters and in the verse before may see the Apostle is not speaking of men differenced from the world by believing in comparison with the world but of believers differing from one another in gifts and crying up one above another according to that difference or lifting up themselves for that one above another Nor is the difference he speaks of in the act of believing as if one had believed and another not as if he had said Who made thee to receive but in the matter of their receits who had all received something What hast thou that thou hast not received The meaning is Believers are not to lift up themselves or one another one above another for their gifts in that one hath more or better gifts then another and so not to fault and disown them that have less and dote on them that have more But they may fault and disown them that believe not and commend them that do and they have good warrant so to do which they might not if the want of Faith in men was because there was none for them A company of poor beggers receiving alms some six pence some a shilling have no cause to brag one over another and fault one another when the gift was free to each and not out of desert to any more then other yet they may fault other beggers and glory over them that were slothful
CHAP. V. An Answer to his fifth Chapter In which is considered How Christ gave himself a ransom for All. HAving done with those Arguments we follow him now to Arguments taken from words used in this matter which he saith Disagree in their genuine signification from the Opinion that extends to all the matter spoken of in them Arg. 10 And first He lays down his Argument generally thus That Doctrine that will not by any means suit which and be conformable to the thing signified by it but contradicts the expressions literal and deductive whereby in Scripture it s held out to us cannot possibly be sound and sincere But such is the perswasion of Vniversal Redemption or General Ransom Ergo It s unsound And this strange Argument that grants the Doctrine held forth in Scripture expressions Instance 1. and yet contradicts those Scriptures he labors to prove by Induction and first from the word A 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dransom or price of Redemption He argues thus That the thing signified in it agrees not to all therefore the word is not to be so applied Which is in substance Paul spake unadvisedly when he made so general an expression this is not to believe the Scripture but to judge and deny it to be right VVell let us see what the word signifies It signifies a price for Redemption Now saith Mr. Owen If Christ pay a price for Redemption his aim is their deliverance for whom it s paid to that end he satisfies the Judge and conquers the Jaylor but this agrees not to All All are not ransomed Shall we believe Mr. Owen or the Apostle here who also tells us in Rom. 5.18 That by one mans Righteousness to all men to Justification of life And again in 1 Cor. 15 22. As in Adam All die so in Christ all shall be made alive But Mr. Owen says Why are not all saved then I might say Nay but O man who art thou that repliest against God But I have answered before From the first death they are from the second they are not because many are disobedient against their Saviour As all Israel were saved out of Egypt Jude 5. Its the Apostle Judes expression But why then not all preserved into Canaan He tells us He afterwards destroyed them that believed not So here he afterward in a second death destroyes all those that know like or approve not God and all that disobey the Gospel of Christ 2 Thes 1.7 8. All were in thrall to the sentence of death and so to the execution of vengeance from God upon them all in Adam in an utter ruine and again for slighting and sinning against Light and Goodness afforded deserve destruction to come suddenly upon them in plagues famines c. The bond that held them in the former was their sin in Adam and to the latter many sins against Gods goodness now exposes them VVhat price pays Christ Himself to bear that blow for them and be the propitiation for their sin Now in that the sentence passed not or rather lyes not upon men Men are not debarred reaccess to God for that folly the sentence of banishment is reversed and the banished called home again here is a Redemption made from that thraldom And whereas many times they are liable to destruction again in their persons Christ Mediating and Interposing himself as the Propitiation preserves them And on this ground we are to pray for All and make Intercession with thanksgiving for All as in 2 Tim. 1.2 6. But I suppose he thinks All not ransomed because many remain thralled in their corruption To which I might say but as Prosper Ad capit Gallor Sanguis Christi est totius mundi pretium pro omnium redemptione verè persolutum and that 's as much as 1 Tim. 2.6 says sed illi homines ab eo pretio extranei sunt qui aut captivitate delectati redimi noluerunt aut post redemptionem ad eandem servitutem sunt reversi and again Omnes rectè dicantur redempti sed non ownes a captivitate eruti But to clear it I shall propound these following considerations 1. That men in sinning fell under a double bondage 1. To death to be inflicted from God according to his sentence In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt die the death and death came on all in that all sinned 2. To corruption or sinfulness of Nature in themselves and the delusions of Satan Ephe. 2.1 Dead in sins and trespasses conceived in sin and born in iniquity 2. The latter of these thraldoms was not the curse or death inflicted as the punishment of the fall but the proper consequence of it That it was not its punishment nor any essential part of it appears in this that every essential part of the punishment of it Christ was to bear by way of satisfaction and so he bare anguish in body and soul death of body and separation from Gods presence but he bare not the inherency of sin for us nor inability for serving his Father nor was he subject to the deceits of Satan as if it had been an essential part of that punishment he must have done for it appertains to and spreads over the whole nature But the first was the punishment to which we were subjected and which had we abid never so pure in our natures must have been executed for the fault committed because the word was not If thou becomest so polluted but In the day thou eatest thou shalt die and therefore Christ also suffered that becoming a ransom for us though innocent 3. In the latter the Justice of God did not detain us but as man being debarred from any new grace without that could not do what he should but we ought that notwithstanding to do our best to serve him we had his permission to it if such a thing might be supposed that we might have lived under that sentence unsuffered for us He neither put sin into us nor kept it in us But the former came directly from God upon us and his Justice detained us in our Mediator in it till his sentence was satisfied 4. That first was the death of which Satan had power and the fear of which though but now a carkass detains men in their spirits in bondage Heb. 2.14 Men fear not but love the other their corruptions now Christ conquered Satan when he brake his snare and got victory over that death that should else have swallowed us up for ever So that Satan could not as else he would have done play the Executioner upon us 5. God neither putting men into corruption nor corruption into them nor his Justice standing against our doing better he would that they should come out of it if they could the price was not given to God properly as the price of Redemption from that but onely as the ransoming them from the death inflicted makes a passage for means also to be afforded to them for their recovery and setting free from
that bondage too Were it not for this Ransom he would not afford him any means to help him out of this but his Justice required not any positive influence upon him to hold him in and hinder him from getting out of it till he was satisfied in the other Thence Christ given himself to bear the blow and deliver men from that proper punishment inflicted by God and men being thereby delivered out of that sentence they may be said properly to be ransomed though still they are not brought out of the bondage to their corruption especially the prison door being opened with help afforded for their coming out of that too To clear it by a Simile A King makes a Law That he that shall eat such a fruit suppose as in the eating of it hath a property to make men leprous should for so doing be forthwith adjudged to death and executed A certain company of men notwithstanding being overcome by some evil inticement transgress the Law and immediately become leprous The Executioners seize upon them and are drawing them to punishment in the interim one gives a sum of money for their ransom The intention of it is to ransom them from the sentence to the execution of which they are going the ingagement or performance of the paiment being accepted he that gave the price receives power to rescue them from the Tormentors and doth it still they remain leprous and lye exposed to the subtilty of former inticers shal we say now these men are not ransomed or that he that payed the price ransomed them not because they remain leprous Nay we will go further suppose the Ransomer obtaining by the same price the best Surgeons and skilful Physitians for their healing too and by all loving Arguments intreating them to be healed and no longer to hearken to the contrary suggestions of their inticers some of them trust him and are healed others peremptorily listening to their inticers like their leprous condition better because they like not the Ransomers society and think they shall not be troubled with it so long as they are leprous having great suspition also perhaps that the things he prescribes for them will poyson them and so refuse to be healed and abide lepers all their dayes yea perhaps also for disobedience to their Ransomer and the King again come to be again condemned and executed shall we say now that this man did not give a price of Redemption for them all because they through their folly were never freed and redeemed as it were from the power of their leprosie Such is the case in hand I need not to apply it the case is so clear If it be objected That Similitudes prove nothing I Answer There is no need of proving a Scripture saying that 's to be believed and Similitudes may be apt to illustrate how we may conceive the thing expressed sutably to the expression in Scripture used Let me this say further that the word Redemption is sometime applied to the effect of the believing application of the blood of Christ for healing men in regard of their corruptions and setting their mindes free to serve God as in 1 Pet. 1.18 Rev. 5.9 and 14.3 4. being the same in substance with Heb 9.14 As also sometimes for a powerful freeing the body from mortality weakness and death Rom. 8.23 In which further significations it is not to be confounded with the use of it here but distinguishing from it CHAP. VI. Concerning Reconciliation in answer to his sixth Chapter HIs next Instance and Argument from thence is about Reconciliation Instan 2. Which he rightly makes to be in the mutuall joynt turning of affections to each other and coming into amity accord and friendship His Argument from that runs thus All are reconciled to God for whom Christ died But all are not so c. We are to minde that he speaks here of reconciliation of men in their own persons For otherwise the definition and the thing defined would disagree and he should prevaricate in his arguing Now reconciliation so considered I deny his Major viz. That all for whom Christ died are reconciled to God His proof for it is this That Reconciliation is the immediate effect and product of the death of Christ which though he is confident none can deny I have before disproved Lib. 1. ca. 1. Yea that mens affections are not turned unto God immediately upon Christs death for them as before the Call of God hath overcome them I appeal to Mr. Owens own Doctrine against the Socinians Chap. 8. But he thinks to help it by distinguishing Reconciliation into meritorious and accomplished and so through all are not yet actually reconciled to God yet he says That Christ hath merited that they shall be and so they all shall and must be Which distinction so applied I deny Indeed that God hath done so much for all in dying for them and God in giving him to die for them that he hath highly deserved at their hands that they should all love and live to him I freely grant yea and if we take Reconciliation for a making their peace so with God for them as to * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are of the Greek words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to change change their condition into a far better then what it was before so as that whereas they were by sin debarred the Presence and Kingdom of God now God is ready to receive them hath opened the way for them yea calls and commands them to come back again to him in such a sense I will grant his Assertion but that Christ hath obliged or made it due debt to himself from the Father to make all for whom he died affect and live to him I deny nor can he prove it He indeavors it from sundry Scriptures which I shall view and discover his mistakes in His first is 2 Cor 5.19 God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself c. Which we may understand in the sense even now yielded or else also taking the word World for the Gentiles it holds forth that God in Christ brake down the partition wall and slew the enmity the Law of Commandments in Ordinances that kept them at a distance from fellowship with the Jews and so made way for their coming in to him to be at one with him not imputing their trespasses or contrary walkings to his Ordinances to them but so remitting them as no longer to count them or any of them common or unclean in that respect but all or any of them may be welcome to his Church or Kingdom notwithstanding their uncircumcision according to that Acts 10.22 God hath shewed me that I should call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no one man common or unclean But whether we take it onely in the former or this sense also as I think it comprehends both yet it comes far short of Mr. Owens Assertion viz. That God was obliged by the
of Faith as rightly as the Apostles No no Our charge yet stands faster against them then that the strongest hand of them All can move it They cannot preach or represent God Doctrinally in that their way as an object that the people they speak to hath good ground to rest in for safety and satisfaction for they know not confessedly whether he hath appointed Christ as a medium of access for them and as a Sacrifice and Ransom for their souls They can tell men he is able to save them that believe provided they be the Elect otherwise not but cannot assure that he is a meet object for them to believe through because they cannot assure them he hath done any thing for them And thus we have viewed his previous Considerations Come we now to view his following Answers to our Arguments CHAP. II. An Answer to his evasions from those Scriptures that declare Christ sent for the world and the whole world BEfore he comes to the Arguments that he would Answer he dips his Pen in Gall and slings durt upon the faces of them that will not forsake the sure Word of God to take heed to his contradictory Conclusions made against it Pretending his Opinion to be undeniably confirmed by the Word of God by many Demonstrations and innumerable Testimonies of Scripture though not one place hath been brought to the purpose for it Yea I will make Mr. Owen this offer That if he can produce any one Testimony of Scripture that denied Christ to have died for any one man of the world or that limits his Ransom and Propitiation to fewer then All I say That limits it and I will yield him the Cause and say that I have been egregiously deceived But to let that pass Our first general Argument he frames weakly and then makes us by reasoning as weakly to defend it that so he might have the more advantage against it I would make this and the second from general expressions of Scripture into one thus That Matter or Article of Faith Argum. that is frequently delivered in the largest and most general expressions of Scripture without other Scripture in any place excluding any or limiting as but to some is to be received according to the latitude of those large expressions But such is this business of the Death of Christ as the Ransom it s delivered in the largest and most general expressions and no other Scripture any where limits it but to some or excludes any particular Therefore according to the latitude of those expressions its to be received The Major of this is founded upon this Rule Every Word of God is pure nothing to be added to it nothing to be taken from it But to limit where it no where limits or to exclude where it excludes not is to take from it of our own heads and therefore is not to be attempted Besides it may be seen by induction No other Truth that is so frequently laid down in such general terms is taken limitedly to fewer if no other Scripture limit or restrain it or the very Circumstances of the places where it is as might be instanced in Creation Sinfulness Preservation Resurrection Judgment The Minor hath been cleared throughout this Discourse that though there be places that speak not of all its object as also there are many about Creation Sin Resurrection Judgment yet there is no limitation of it in any of those places as a Ransom or Propitiation to a less object then the general places will reach to And that the largest expressions are used about it is clear as All men Rom. 5.18 1 Tim. 2 6. Every one Heb 2.9 The whole world 1 Joh. 2.2 That those phrases are in themselves extendible to All and Every man in the world is plain and confest by Mr. Owen That sometimes in the Scriptures they are so used and that very usually too and most properly as is easie to shew And therefore may so signifie there His Argumentations from the word World I disclaim nor doth he finde any so to use them as he propounds them We argue not the extent simply from the word World but from the words All and Every and whole World and we understand the word World extendible as far as them not from the word World simply but from these other places reaching it to the whole World and All men As when it s said God created man upon the earth the force of the word Man proves it not that he created every Man in the world but yet we believe it extendible so far because other Scriptures say it of All Nations of men and that he made them of one blood The Argument from the word World we use against their conceit of For the Elect onely In that we never finde any Scripture calling the world Elect or the Elect the World but distinguishing them from the world they being in election separated from the world They that would have us restrain general words but to some particulars must shew us some ground for it that the Scripture somewhere in the same business so restraineth them for the restraining of a word usually and Properly of a large extent in other things is no sufficient ground for our straitning it in this or another thing where the Scripture doth not plainly declare that it ought to be so straitned And this is our defence against them in straitning this Word to the Elect. But Mr. Owen endeavors to shew that the general words in such places ought to be straitned from the consideration of the places themselves Beginning with that in Joh 3 16. In which the great Saviour of the world assisting us we will follow him He thereupon first gives us our construction of the place and that with as much weakness as he can I shall give my Paraphrase my self thus God beholding man faln even the men of the world pitied him in that condition and out of pity to him sent him for a Saviour his own onely Son to this end and with this intention that he dying for him and rising again and being perfected for saving man all those of mankinde whosoever that upon declaration of him do believe on him should not perish but have eternal life In which observe 1. That the motive of Gods sending his Son was that love or good will that he bore to lost man and readiness to shew forth his mercy to them in providing a fit medium and way to salvation 2. The object of this love was Mankinde faln as here expressed indefinitely but as other Scriptures explain this indefinite All men the whole world 3. His act of giving was both to death for men and in the Gospel preaching Him to men as an object to be believed on 4. The end That whosoever believes should not perish In which we have 1. The Way to the participation of the choise benefits of him viz. believing on him 2. The Extent of that choise benefit whosoever believes In which is also
the freedom for all or any to look after that benefit and through Faith to obtain it Now in this Mr. Owen differs from us That he notes the world to signifie lost men of all sorts both Jews Gentiles peculiarly loved and that love to be an unchangeable act or purpose of Will concerning their salvation intending absolutely the salvation of all this world to whom he gave him that whosoever believeth not to be a distributive of that general the world but the very self-same with the word World Before he confirm his own he labors to evert the other and 1. Against that pity or propensity to be affirmed to be in God to the good of the creature he says thus If there be no natural affection in God whereby he is necessarily carried to any thing without himself then no such pity or affection to their good as is here intended I deny the Consequence for though there be no such thing as necessarily is so carried yet there is that 's voluntarily and freely carried so Gods Will that is in him to do this or that is not necessarily carried to do this or that but freely but being freely carried to this or that it s necessarily carried in a way suteable to his holy good Nature Now that there is that in God that carries him to desire or approve freely the good of man appears in that he is said to be Love 1 Joh. 4.8 Now Love freely seeks the good of things So again he swears that he delights not in the death of the wicked but rather that they should turn live Yea and saith of him that dieth That he hath no pleasure in his death Eze. 33.11 18. ult And bewails those that had miscarried through their folly and deprived themselves of his mercy Psal 81.11.14 Isai 48.17 18. And so our Saviour the express Image of God wept over and pitied the folly and misery of Jerusalem Luke 19.41 But then he says This intimates imperfection in God But he is not imperfect I answer no the imperfection is in our conception this in him is highest perfection As Moses saith He is perfect though he says He took the Isaelites out of Egypt to bring them into Canaan and many came not in that might seem an imperfection in God and that he failed of his expressed purpose but the imperfection is in our apprehension So he said of Elies house He would establish it but afterwards said otherwise But we are to believe what he says though it seem to us who want ability to comprehend him to argue imperfection The rest of his Reasonings are meer carnal he brings no patch of Scripture to prove that God hath not such good will to man but vainly pries and inquires Why doth not God ingage his power to accomplish it and how comes it hindered Which are brutish reasonings against Gods Assertions When he says Hadst thou done thus I would have done so and so And O that thou hadst done so And I delight rather he should live Then to say why doth not God effect it then Nay rather Who is vain brutish man dust and ashes to dispute against God and reject his Words upon his shallow Reason Will man propound to God what shall be Wisdom to him Doth not he indeed say That his Wisdom is foolishness to men And doth not Mr. Owen here make it good and say It s brutish wisdom amongst men But know O vain Earth-worm That the Wisdom of God is indeed foolishness to men and they cannot comprehend it and the wisdom of men is foolishness to God 1 Cor. 1.19.22.23 24. It s wisdom O vain man to give credit to the Word and Oath of God and say Amen to it That he delights not in the death of the wicked but rather that they shall turn and live how ever foolish it seems to man and whatever absurdities his wisdom findes in it For the foolishness of God is wiser then the wisdom of man and that weakness and imperfection that appears in Gods wayes is stronger then the strength of men His ways are unsearchable his judgments past finding out Not to be measured by the shallow models our Reason but his Words are all Words of Truth and he that will understand his Wayes must believe them and be willing to deny the wisdom of the flesh which is enmity to God and which God will destroy and become a fool that he may be wise The Scriptures we see in Psal 81.14 Isai 48.17 18. Ezek. 33.11 and 18.32 1 Tim. 2.4 hold forth what I speak of The Nature of God which is Love acting forth it self in expressions of good Will to men yea men in general and such as miscarry His other exception with its confirmations being onely against his acting necessarily are all vain and invalid For conformation of his own Exposition That by Love is meant an unchangeable purpose or act of his Will to save them He gives this Reason Because its the most eminent and transcendent love that ever God bare or shewed towards any miserable creature Well Let us first reade it according to his Exposition and see what it will help him It will run thus God so Loved that is unchangeably purposed the salvation of the world That he gave his onely begotten Son that whosever believeth in him should not perish c. Which is in effect that he so unchangeably purposed the salvation of lost mankinde as that he provided the most eminent transcendent medium for it to be saved by upon condition of believing And so it will be an unchangeable conditional purpose to the world and an unchangeable absolute purpose to believers that have that condition And may it not consist or rather spring from his pity and compassion to faln man so to will and purpose Yea and may not the word Love rather signifie that pity in which he so purposed then that purpose that sprung therefrom seeing its the more prime moving cause of his sending Christ that is here spoken of Or will this Exposition content him No though this is as much as the words will bear with the following expressions in the Text yet this is not it he aims at but this That his Love signifies an absolute unchangeable purpose of saving every one for whom he gave Christ and so of giving and causing them all effectually to receive whatsoever is needful to their salvation But the Text speaks not up to this conception for then it should rather have been thus God so loved the world that he gave his onely begotten Son and will make it believe in him so that it shall never perish c. But neither such not to that purpose is our Saviours expression Such an expression indeed would have represented God as propounding the salvation of the world as an end undertaken by himself to accomplish and bring about with all the mediums conducing thereunto without condition on our part whereas our Saviour speaks of it as an
end propounded to and attainable by the world on condition of believing as healing was to the wounded Israelites by looking upon the brazen Serpent unto which Christ is resembled ver 14 15. Christ so sets Gods good will before the world there as may let it see and move it to believing as its duty But as M. Owen would have it understood we may say VVhat He would fasten upon us Solvite mortales curas c. Let every man take his own course and swim down the stream of a fatal necessity If there be any salvation to be had for him he must have it God will bring him to it though he look not after it and if it be otherwise it s in vain to think of it it s not so much his fault as Gods Wil that he believs not as a late Resolver hath too badly insinuated While he determins that there is no other cause why some believe not the Gospel preached to them but only the Wil of God himself As for his Reason viz. because this is the most eminent and transcendent love of God c. That would be considered how far its true and whether it will insorce his conception quite beside the tenor of our Saviours expressions Love may be considered either according to the things it acts forth as tending to the good of the party loved or according to the inward strength of affection as affording us means of good or possessing us of that good In regard of the first this wasa most glorious eminent and transcendent act of Love God afforded many means of good to the world but none of them in themselves so worthy and so glorious as his Son nor is there any thing in which either so much of Gods heart or good will to the world is to be seen that he delights not in their death but rather in their conversion and living or so much good to be met with as in him In nothing hath God condescended more to man or provided so much good for him As to its act then and provision of means to our good this is the most eminent act of his Love to us But yet this act of giving Christ is but the provision of good for us and of the best mean and way to it It s not the possessing us of the good in him with reference to that some that were loved so as to have Christ given as a way to life for them may not be the objects of so intense affection as others for whom he also gave Christ nor come to experiment that love of Delight or Fellowship in which his Love in giving Christ perfects it self in them that believe on him This act then I say of love to the world in which God gave forth Christ though it be the most eminent and transcendent in regard of his provision of a mean to its good and though it be that through which the most choise delightful acts of his Love are met with by those that believe on him yet as its comprehensive of the world is not an absolute purpose of all their salvation The same most eminent expression of Love may be acted toward many and out of exceeding great good will to them All too and yet may not be with the like intensness and eminency of affection and purpose for endevouring to make it beneficial to All as we noted above in the instance of David lib. 3. cap. 9. In a word Gods greatest love to the world was not an unchangeable absolute purpose of saving every one of them and therefore the giving Christ out of love to the world was not a giving him out of such a purpose to save every one of them The phrase So God loved will not evince it For though that word So intimates so exeeedingly so really and heartily to such a remarkable astonishable heighth yet it proves not either that he loved it equally to his Son or so as to purpose absolutely the eternal salvation of all of them For our Saviour expressing that So tells us that it was so as to give his Son That every one that believes in him should not perish c. but not so as to give all things to it as he says of his Son v. 35. which yet is the same love in which he loves his chosen his called and believing ones Joh. 17.24 Nor says he so as to cause them to believe in him and have eternal life So that that word So will not prove that his conception It s true as he also minds us That the Scripture says God commended his Love to us in this That Christ died for us though that 's not all the commendation of it but that he did that for us while we were sinners and ungodly And I think its a marvellous commendation of his Love that he died for All while sinners and they are the more to blame that withhold this so great commendation from multitudes by which they should be induced to believe in him love and serve him But will that prove that that Love was not his compassion and pity towards men that is therein commended or that it was an unchangeable purpose of making all those he so loved to answer his love with love again and so to attain to eternal salvation Cannot Love be commendable exceeding commendable except it be so received by all it acts towards as to make them grateful and so to attain the effects that it produces to the grateful Was not Gods Love to Israel in bringing them out of Egypt by a mighty hand and outstretched arm and taking them out of the midst of another Nation by signs and wonders to be a people for himself and speaking to them out of the midst of the fire from heaven an exceeding commendable love a love flowing from and most eminently of any other acts tending to the accomplishment of his Covenant made with Abraham Deut. 4.31 32 33 c. and yet all they to and upon whom all those most glorious acts of his love were acted were not therefore possessed of that end The land promised to Abraham to which they tended nor was his love therein then a purpose absolutely to possess them of that end except as Mr. Owen here argues he failed of his end The greater commendation it is of Gods Love that he gave Christ the greater ingagement it is to the world to believe on him love and serve him and the greater its sin that it not so answer such a love to them and the greater will his terror be in judging them that Christ died for All and yet many that had their lives through his Death lived not to him 2 Cor. 5.10 11.15 for God is a jealous God and may be provoked to jealousie by men and what is jealousie but love inraged or the fury that springs up from love abused as when he that loves hath his love slighted and others prefer'd before him Sure the Apostle uses this very love and its greatness
in him shall not abide in darkness But Mr. Owen says By the World are meant the Elect scattered abroad in the World opposed to the Nation of the Jews that this last clause is untrue appears by this that he was speaking this to a Jew to draw him to believe and therefore the Word World must not be opposed to them as excluding them but let us see how he refutes ours and confirms his own opinion Against our latter observation from the reading of the Words He so loved the Elect that all of them that believe should not perish viz. that it would seem by that as if some of them might not believe he replies why Because he sent his Son that they might not perish To that I answer No but because the phrase is Distributive not that it believing as supposing that all that VVorld that Christ was given for shall believe but that whosoever or every one that believes as supposing that though there is ground for all the VVorld to believe yet all would not So that the place holds not forth that Christ must and will keep from perishing All for whom he was given as Mr. Owen suggests but all whosoever and whatsoever that believe in him But he answers again That God designs the salvation of all them in express words for whom he sent his Son To that I reply that by designing c. meaning his purposing to bring them All to eternal salvation its openly untrue for he says no such thing there that he loved the world and gave his Son that every one of it should be made to believe and be saved as I appeal to the Text it self but if he mean as he doth not that salvation might be propounded to it and it have a way by which it might in believing come to be saved then I deny it not but so it s said of unbelievers John 5.34 40. VVhereas we say that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is divisive and partitive as to that Totum the word world going before to this he says that If it be so then it restrains Gods love to some and not to others I answer No but it it shews by whom and by what way the utmost end of this love or most choise blessing of it is to be injoyed Gods love in providing a Medium through which men might look for and meet with salvation respects the world in generall nor doth that saying that whosoever believes put a bar against any of the world as if they might not in looking up to Christ be saved but it implies that the world as simply such or as in that state of sin and blindness in which God out of pity sent his Son for it is not the object of Gods absolute intention to give eternall life but those of it that believe and the word Whosoever is both an incouragement for all or any to believe and carries in it a supposition that the whole VVorld likely might not believe As the setting up the brazen Serpent to whom Christ is compared ver 14. was an act of love to all the strange Israelites though the benefit of healing was to be obtained in their looking up to it and by none of them that refused to look up so was the gift of Christ to the world though the unbeliever not receiving him is not saved But then 2. He denies that that phrase is restrictive but only declarative of his end how it s not restrictive I have even now said but that its Distinctive not taking in the whole world as the certain Object or subject of eternall life is shewed also and is very evident I conceive to all that have but common judgment and so that it s not only Declarative of his end but declarative of it in such a way or expression as implies that the Object that injoyes that end may at least be fewer then the object of giving him to such an end It s not that all the world shall not perish but that whosoever believeth perish not c. Besides no other Scripture says that the whole world for whom Christ was given did or shall believe on him but expresly to the contrary that some to whom God gave Him as the true bread saw and believed not Iohn 6.32 36. and that many to whom he came received him not He came to his own things amongst which his own Nation was and his own Nation or people received him not So that for his exposition we have nothing but his bare saying and that offering violence to the Text too as if it had been said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it should believe and be saved c. indeed he after adds some reasons we shall weigh them also 1. His first is From what he said before about that love wherewith he loved it which was such a love as cannot be extended to All which being refuted before needs no further Answer See before Li. 3. Ca. 9. The world of mankinde share in this great act of Gods love the sending forth of Christ and yet not all attaine the utmost intention of it 2. His second is from vers 17. Giving a reason of this that he says it was an act of his love to the world whereof he gives a double proofe one Negative he sent him not to condemne the world the other affirmative but that the world through him might be saved he says the word World there must needs signifie believers and Elect because it s said that the World through him might be saved which if it be understood of any but believers God must needs fail of his end This is answered before in the first Chapter of the first Book where he have shewed 1. That the word saved is sometimes used in a lower sense then the having eternal life as the deliverance out of that condemnation fore-come upon us and so the world may be said to be saved and the grace of God saving to All men Tit. 2.11 Rom. 5.18 1 Tim. 2.6 2. That such speeches do not always declare the intention of God which he will bring about but an end propounded to men which they in attending to the means set before them ought to press after and might attain to and that its his good will they should look after it and in looking after it attain to it See the Instances thereof Acts 17.26 27. Joh. 1.7 Psal 105.44 45. Like to which is this He sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved that is That he being filled with authority power and sufficiency to save them they might have him as a Saviour or way to salvation to look and listen to and in walking in his Light and Truth might attain salvation Which end set before them they many of them miss by despising him who is the way to it Therefore our Saviour distributing the world in two parts in the next verse tells us not who might have been saved
exhort others still to be reconciled and stile themselves the Ambassadors of God for that if the World that God was Reconciling was only the Ambassadors of Reconciliation His confounding hath reconciled us by Christ and was reconciling the World in Christ deserves not looking on the rest we have spoken to Onely where he saith That God was in Christ reconciling holdeth out an actual work of Reconciliation and must be either Conditional or Absolute I answer What God hath done already is absolute but the Reconciliation to be accomplished on mens part and in men is conditional and the actual reconciling on Gods part and tendring the accomplishment of it in men on condition are competible enough as Gods actual leading Israel towards Canaan and the tendring to bring them into Canaan conditionally to many individuals were But then he asks What is that condition I answer That they listen to and cordially receive the grace of God But then he says The words must signifie either that God was reconciling a believing world or an unbelieving world I answer Neither properly for the world could be looked upon as neither if he mean of believing in or unbelief of Christ as God was laying its sins on Christ and punishing him for it and preparing means to reveal his goodness to them for till there be an object of Faith vertually or actually fitted for our faith to lean on and till that be discovered the world is not chargeable with unbelief in it nor can believe on it It was a world at enmity with God and not believing yea without any known ground of believing in him till the revelation of Gods goodness to them come unto them His Dilemma was answered long before He affirms that all that God was in Christ reconciling shall be reconciled but I desire his proof for it for the Apostle intimates that some might possibly receive that grace in vain and so not be reconciled Whereas in answer to T. More He asks if all the Elect are not men I answer that that was not questioned but whether the Apostle saying that he perswaded men meant that he perswaded the Elect only or others Whereas T. More saith That 2 Cor. 5.18 saith that some of those men were reconciled to God for whom Christ died Mr. Owen saith its most false But sure he knows not what he says if he say that 2 Cor. 5.18 says That all that Christ died for were reconciled or that the Apostle in that verse speaks not but of some namely themselves that were employed to preach to others as also if he affirm that all them that the Apostle perswaded were in their first perswading reconciled He tells us Joh. 1.9 may be read thus The true light is that that coming into the world inlightneth every man But that 's not much material for it must needs come before it inlighten The matter is that it inlightens every man Now to say that this is every man that is inlightned a Mr. Owen saith is to leave the matter spoken of wholly uncertain for that may be All or None or the Most or the Fewest Upon this his note he might have put that observation viz. That some corrupt the Scriptures better then where he put it What follows in that Chapter in its substance all answered already Onely I must note that he abuses Luk 2.34 Telling us that it says Christ was set for the fall of many stopping too soon and leaving out a main word of the Text for it s thus For the fall and rising again of many And yet a Decree to condemn some for not listening to and believing in Christ sent for them to be their Saviour may well stand with yea necessarily presupposeth a Decree to send Christ to be their Saviour first or as looked upon in a condition preceding that their not believing on him but rejecting him And so we have scaled the walls of hiâ— Defence against that part of our first Argument CHAP. IIII. An Answer to his fourth Chapter about the words All and Every used in divers Scriptures that speak of this business HE next sets himself to oppose our perswasion or faith as it leans upon those Scriptures that expresly say He dyed for All. And that he needs to do or else he should acknowledg himself to be exceedingly blame-worthy for that in express tearms point blank contradictory to the express tearms of the Apostles he hath very frequently in this Treatise denyed him to have dyed for All. If he will make his saying to be Gospel he must pull down the sayings of the Apostle and the Gospel he preached and make that no Gospel and those expressions to be dangerous and erroneous which because he durst not do in direct opposition to him as he is bold to do against us therefore he indeavors subtly to undermine the Apostles expressions telling us That no strength of Argument can be taken from the words themselves that so generally express the matter because the word All is often taken for fewer then every man in the World Now that the word All is sometimes so taken I grant that is in places where reference is had in it to particular Nations Countries Families societies c. in which the foregoing passages manifest that the writer speaks not of all the world or of men indefinitely as also in certain Historical narrations of mens sayings many times when the things spoken of are the actions councels passages of men In which places yet it signifies the Generality or Universality of men in those places parts societies c. or so far as the actions speeches and carriages of men may reach Of this nature are All shall know that ye are my Disciples Provide things honest in the sight of all men Ye are our Epistle read and known of all men All took John to be a Prophet All Judea went out to John to be Baptized c. But that ever the Scripture speaking of God and his actions thoughts will knowledg toward men uses the expression All men without some particular reference to some particular place Country or Kingdom only spoken of or to and therein means fewer then all Generally or Universally much less that he thereby signifies the Elect or Believers or the like I do deny till I can see something brought to convince me otherwise especially in Doctrinal and fundamental truths such as the Creation Redemption Resurrection and Judgment are And I conceive in such cases it s not ground sufficient to straighten and limit our faith about a truth so expressed no other Scripture denying it of any or restraining it only to some that these general expressions in places not Dogmatical or not speaking of the actions thoughts c. of God toward men but of mens sayings actions c. whose abilities are of lesser circumference signify less then All Universally I think by Mr. Owens Rules the Apostle to the Hebrews argued very fallaciously when from the word All the very word
one of the rest of men of whom he had been speaking by Death attained to this to have glory and honor though not as yet to have all things put under him The one part of that prophecy is fulfilled though the other be not The next verse of bringing many sons to glory is not spoken of as of his work but as Gods He made Christ perfect through sufferings that he should be their cheif Leader or Captaine in the way to Salvation in which he speaks of Christ under another Notion then in this Verse For there are two considerations here of the Death and sufferings of Christ one as he is the propitiation and gave himselfe a ransome suffering in stead of Sinners and that 's in the 9. verse for every man 2. As having the promise of a seed or as God having a purpose to make some sons in him by Faith to which he must first be viewed as a propitiation for man that he might be an Object of their Faith and a medium of their sonship he was to be their patterne and Leader their Captaine and Example in the way to whom he would conforme them and whom they might have as an example for direction and incouragement in their believing and this end of his sufferings respecteth onely those that being brought in to believe on him should need his example to encourage and guide them in such trials and sufferings especially for God as thereby they are exposed to So he speaks of his dying and sufferings ver 10.14.18 Chap. 4.17 18. 1 Pet. 2.21 Christ suffered for you leaving you an example that ye should follow his steps So also Heb. 12.2 3 4. Now M. Owen confounds these two together into one and makes his sufferings as a Captaine and Leader in the way to life to be but of equall latitude with his suffering by way of propitiation And so he would cut off all propitiation from the old Fathers and Believers who had him not as their example to look at in their sufferings and 2. from all Infants that cannot have him as their example to walke by and 3. from all till believes and in the way of Salvation for neither of conversion or any such thing as is of that nature was he an example he never being out of Gods way And this indeed is the very issue of that argument against the latitude of that Scripture in its signification according to its expression 4. Another Scripture that he seeks to elude is 2 Cor. 5.14 15. where rendring a reason of his earnestness in perswading men one and other because of the terror of the Lord in the day of Judgement to which they must all come he tels them The love of Christ constrained them so to doe upon this ground that Christ dyed for All for from that he was led to infer these two principles 1. That then All dyed or were dead all were dead in point of Sentence is proved in this that Christ dyed for All which he would not surely if any of them had not been so dead or thus in that one dyed for all then all dyed in him in his dying it was as if all had dyed for themselves and so there is mercy for them a way to life opened in and by Christ and so ground of Preaching to them exhorting and perswading any or every one of them as Colos 1.28 to repent be reconciled to God seek his face c. as one that was not far from them but to be found of them 2. That he having done that he would have them live to him in the life he gives them otherwise as in ver 10 11. it would be terrible with them at the day of Judgement when he cals them to an account how they have spent their lives that they had by him Against this he denies that all are bound to live to Christ but only they to whom he is revealed nay indeed only they that live by him and have Spirituall life in and with him I am glad when error speaks out so farre that men may discerne it for by this the false Teachers are well helped with a plea they may say they were not obliged to live to him and therefore ought not to be punished the more for that that they denyed him to be their Lord and to serve him And so all those in Math. 25.41 42 43. they may say to him what had they to doe to live to him in his people to feed and cloath him c. what had they to doe with him they were not bound to be his servants and to seek his ends they never see him c. but if they had no obligation to live to him even they that say they never knew or saw him to be lived to and served how comes he to plead against them and judge them for it Where there is no Law sure there is no transgression if there was no obligation upon them to live to him then it was no chargeable fault upon them that they did not so live but sure all the world shall one day see that they had something of his Law though they heard not of his Death But by M.Ow. rule they should not be obliged to seek after God for many of them perhaps riever heard distinctly that God created them and made all things for them It s the light and truth that he conveyes to every man that is the rule of their living to him and according to their failing in that he will condemne them Ioh. 1.9 Ro. 1.18 19. Roâ— 2.12 Mat. 25.31 35 36 41 42 43 c. their being under previous obligations hinders not this according to what knowledg or means of knowledg they had of him though but as God for he is that God manifested in flesh that made governes all things Whereas he says the All wee v. 10. are All believers especially the Preachers of the Gospell that 's true but except he mean they onely its impertinent If he meane so yet as he cannot prove it so it followes not were it proved that the All here that Christ dyed for which more manifestly is to be referred to the men he perswaded this being but another reason rendred of that at which his enemies the false Apostles stumbled means only all believers nor can it probably be so that they were the men only in danger of Gods terror for how then did Christ purchase all good things to them sure to be out of the danger of that is one good thing also But to passe that let us view his after strange Assertion viz. That by All is meant only the Elect of God All believers which to me is strange for that there is not any mention of those words in the Chapter much less amongst those preceding verses of which this is rendred as the reason but let us view his arguments for it viz. 1. That here the Resurrection of Christ is conjoyned with his Death He died for them and Rose
of it as from Gods bounty to all to press believers in case of want of wisdom to ask of God Jam. 1 5 6. and so from the doctrine of the general Judgment asserted to infer the account-giving of believers and to draw useful deductions to them in special Rom. 14.11 12 13. So his arguing here also is unsatisfactory 6. The last place spoken to in this Argument is that in Rom. 5.18 as by the offence of one or one offence to all men to condemnation so by one righteousness to all men to justification of life To which not having read it right for he translates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon all men when indeedt signifies but unto all men neither the condemnation nor justification in their full signification coming upon all Christ holding the first off and the wilful folly of men in rejecting Christ holding the other off from coming upon many He thus replies That by the words All men can none be understood but those upon whom the free gift actually comes to the justification of life meaning to eternal life Which I deny for that by the like reason Adams sin should bring the sentence of condemnation to or towards none but them that actually are condemned and perish But how proves he it Why after the old fashion by taking those expressions which he pleases in the former verses and making them expositions of this and so he tells us They are they that are said to receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness to raign in life by Christ to be made righteous by his obedience c. Just as if I should expound that in Rom. 14.11 Every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall confess to God by taking the former expressions viz. None of us lives to himself and none of us dies to himself c. Whether we live or die we are the Lords Why dost thou judg thy brother c. and so gather thence this Conclusion That by every knee and every tongue is only meant of all that live to Christ and are Christs that are brethren c. These are his kind of reasonings which how palpably gross they are and unbeseeming a man of learning I leave to all to judg He tells us further That the resemblance between Christ and Adam stands but in this that the one brought the guilt of condemnation upon all those in whose room he stood a publike person which indeed were all men and the others obedience and righteousness brought justification and salvation upon all them that he stood in the room of as a publick person that 's the sum of his discourse upon it which though if by justification and salvation he means but an acquitting them from that charge or judgement that should have forthwith destroyed All in Adam upon his sin and so a giving them an escape from that or a justifying and putting salvation into Christ as the publick person for all it may be granted yet it both changes the Apostles phrase as before was noted reading upon for to and leaves it undetermined whose room he stood in and if he speak of justification from all sins past and present with acceptation into favour and communication of eternall life is to be denyed and I desire his proof for it In the meane time whereas he speaks of Christs All and Adams All there are no such words in the Text but in both branches expresly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he would have it But against T. M. he sayes that it seems a monstrous doctrine that Christ should stand in the room of reprobate persons hated of him from eternity such as he knew not hid the mysteries of salvation from and refused to pray for who were damned already in Hell and irrecoverably past the limits of redemption To all we have before spoken and shewed how he mistakes in all these particulars he stood not in their roomes as reprobates or as damned in hell nor say's the Scripture he hated any from eternity or refused to pray for any except in a speciall Prayer made for speciall Priviledges for actuall believers only and men as so considered in the future But men were reprobated and damned for rejecting the beams of light and truth that came from him who first virtually and after actually bare that blow that should at the first otherwise have destroyed them and All men He might as well have said that its a horrible thing to conceive as the Apostle intimates that its possible any should be destroyed for whom Christ died and bring upon themselves swift destruction whom he bought c. as is intimated Rom. 14.15 1 Cor. 8.11 2 Pet. 2.1 And indeed many truths seems monstrons and absurd to reason if it be made umpire in our believing As for Christs being Advocate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to them T. M. never affirmed that he being Priest Prophet and King over and for them may destroy those that refuse to be sprinkled by his bloud count the bloud of his sacrifice a common thing refuse to hear his voice as a Prophet and to have him rule over them as a King is no strange thing to them that believe Scripture expression as Numb 19.20 21. Heb. 2.3 10.25.26 29. Act. 2.22 23. Luk. 19.14 27. Whereas he says T.M. brings 7 Arguments to confirme that Christ stood in the room of all he exceedingly wrongs him in making him to bring for arguments some things that are without all colour of being intended as Arguments by him as that Adam lost not Election which he onely put in by way of Parenthesis not as a proof of that Assertion and those that he notes as his 5th and 6th Arguments being onely branches of the declaration of his judgement To say nothing that he abuses his Reader in other passages as whereas T. M. saith that God glorified his Son in making him a publick Person by death to restore all men lost by the first Adam Heb. 2.9 and that he wrought redemption and righteousness with God for men in the behalf of all men being indeed the publick Person in this his publick place not betrusted with fewer then the first Adam in which passages he declares his judgment grounding it upon certain Scriptures as Heb. 29.1 Cor. 15.45 47. 1 Tim. 2.5 Rom. 5. M.O. reports him as if he said these are the expressions of the Scripture But the fuller sight of his wrong dealing with him I leave to the rational comparison of their Books by them that are not blinded with prejudice with either of them or of the matters undertaken by them And as for his answers to those devised Arguments I shall not spend time and paper about them Onely whereas he saith that Christ is no where compared to Adam in respect of the extent of the Object of his Death but only of the essicacie of his obedience That that is false the Scriptures
some are justified that are after reprobated and were never chosen or else that he made but an inconsequent inference Besides He imputes a meer falshood to him when he informs his Reader as T. Moores Assertion That the righteousness of God comes upon all Vnbelievers quite contrary to his Assertions as any man may see that reads his Book yea quite contrary to that for which Mr. Owen faulted him as stopping at that phrase unto All Whether Mr. Moore now hath corrupted the Word of God or Mr. Owen mistaken and corrupted Mr. Moore let the Reader judg But before he leaves this Place and Chapter He gives us some Arguments to prove That Christ in his Obedience Satisfaction c. was not a publike person for every man in the world Elect and Reprobate Believers and Vnbelievers A thing that we affirm not as he expresses it viz. We say not that he sustained the person of any either as Elect or Reprobate in giving himself a ransom from the death come upon all for their sin in Adam but of men as faln not as Reprobated for rejecting his Truth nor as elected through obedience of the Truth and therefore his first Argument being against his sustaining the persons of men under the notion of Reprobates and the seed of the Serpent c. needs no further answering Otherwise we say that for them that by denying the Lord that bought them come to be rejected and to be of the feed of the Serpent Christ sustained the place of a publike person as onely faln and condemned in Adam his other arguments follow viz. 2. Christ as a publike person represented only them for whose sakes be set himself apart for that office and imployment wherein he was such a representative but upon his own testimony which we have Joh. 17.19 he set himself apart to that service and imployment for the sakes onely of some and not for all and every one Therefore he was not a publike person in the room of All. To which I answer 1. By denying the Minor for neither doth Christ say for their sakes only I sanctifie my self nor were they there spoken of all the believers so that had he limited it to those only he had by this argument represented onely them that were sent into the world as he was sent to preach the Gospel for to them that speech is there applied and so excluded all that should believe through their words Read Joh. 17.18 19 20. 2. Nor doth he tells us that that that he sanctified himself to there was all that in which he was a publike person and representative in giving himself a ransom and if that be not proved he says nothing 3. Christ as a surety was a publike person but all are not in that Covenant of which he was a surety Therefore not a publike person for All. This Argument is fallacious leaning upon this foundation If Christ was not a publike person for all in every respect Then for all in none which we deny His being a surety relates to his undertaking in heaven to see the Covenant which he hath already sealed performed to the parties to whom it appertaineth It s like this The Parliament as a publike body have ingaged their publike faith for seeing all them paid that have lent them any thing but all the Commons in the Kingdom have not lent to them and so they are not ingaged to all of them in that way Ergo they are not the Representative of all the Commons in the Kingdom The business of Christs Suretiship he quite mistakes as if the Apostle there affirmed him to be a Surety for all for whom he died which that place says not 4. His Argument from Christs Satisfaction and Rom. 8.33 34. alledged to prove it I have answered before in l. 3 c. 7. l. 1. c. 3. 5. The fifth says That Christ never did any thing in vain in respect of any for whom he was a publike person But many things which he did as a publike person were altogether in vain and fruitless in regard of the greatest part of the sons of men c. To which If by fruitless he mean totally both in respect of His and his Fathers Glory and their good then the Major is confessed and the Minor denied For he was glorified and all they in their day had mercy and goodness by his Death even they that then at the time of the accomplishment of his Sufferings were dead But if he means in regard of mens receipt of that utmost benefit that they might have received by it Then I deny the Major For Christ as a Prophet and Teacher speaks to many men in vain in that respect See Isai 49.4 And I said I laboured in vain speaking in the person of Christ as the 5. and 6. verses make it plain So Matth. 23.37 and so the Apostle intimates that some that departed from the Faith and turned aside to seek righteousness in their works abrogated Christ to themselves and made his Death as a vain thing crucifying him again to themselves Gal. 2.21 and 5.2 4 5. Heb. 6.5 6. And that some receive his Grace in vain 2 Cor. 6.1 2. 6. His next is That if God was welpleased with his Son in what he did as a publike person in representing others then must he be wel-pleased with all those whom he did represent either Absolutely or Conditionally But so is he not either way with all c. As pertaining to an absolute welpleasedness I deny the Major David might be welpleased that Joab mediated for Absolom and yet not welpleased with Absolom As for a conditional welpleasedness we deny the Minor That God would not be welpleased with all men upon condition Did all submit to him seek him c. they should all finde him pleased with them Through Christs Mediation he would 〈…〉 wel pleased with Cain upon this condition that he had believed and done well as Abel did Gen. 4.7 So with Pharaoh had he loved his people and learned the knowledge of God by them Matth. 25.35 36 41 42 43 c. 7. His last Argument is onely a quotation of many Scriptures that say He prayed not for the world when he requested peculiar favors for believers That he gave himself a ransome for many Gave himself for his sheep his Church is our forerunner shall save his people c. to which we have before answered CHAP. V. A Vindication of our use of those Scriptures which we say intimate a possibility of such to perish for whom Christ dyed WHereas we have often made use of such Scriptures as intimate the perishing of such as Christ dyed for M. Owen in the next place seeks to wrest them from us intimating that we therein do injury to the consolation of poor souls and make vile the precious bloud of Christ and esteem it as a common thing Against which our defence is what he himself supplies us with in his Preface That we must not lye to comfort
souls and dâ—wb them up with morter not duly tempered To tell them that either Christ dyed for them or not If he did they are sure to be safe they cannot out-sin the efficacy of his bloud upon them nor fail of the inheritance sure our way to comfort souls is not by such words as the Scripture warrants not But while we comfort souls by minding them what God hath done for them in Christ and what he is ready to do further we are also to let them know that its in his way in attending to his word looking to his son abiding in him c. that they shall meet with all the efficacy of Christs bloud to eternall salvation so it will cleanse them from all their sins and present them righteous and obtain the dispensation of Spirit to them to abide in them for ever But if they neglect and slight him they cannot escape his chastisements which negligences too upon confession of them and turning from them it is ordered to wash away but abidden in they shall for them be cut off from him and I think this is according to the Apostles manner of preaching See Rom. 8.1.13 1 Ioh 1.7 8 9. Joh. 15.2 4 5 6 7 10. c. 14 15 16 17. But other wayes of comforting from it we know none And if to speak of it as the Holy Ghost speaks of it be to vilifie and count it a common thing I know not wherein truly to magnifie it we must stick to his speaking however any censure us for so doing And yet we account the bloud of Christ truly precious as being the bloud of God the bloud of the Covenant and as such not common to All much lesse prophane and of little vertue We judge it of infinite esteem with God so that it obtains what ever according to the agreement between Christ and him it requireth and being obeyed and the sprinkling of it received it speaks peace purges the conscience cleanses from sin keeps off punishment yea abid in it leads up the soul that 's sanctified by it to all perfection yea so vertuous we judge it and of such value with God that he most severely revenges mens slighting and contemning it not believing on it or not abiding in it yea to utter destruction according to the intimations of these Scriptures that we come to speak to That which he makes an Argument of our slighting it that we make an Argument of our prizing it and counting it precious in the sight of God even that he so severely punishes and destroyes them that having it shed for them propounded to them would not trust it but rebelled against him that shed it I think it springs from the preciousness excellency of Christ Psa 2.10 11. Ioh. 3 36. both in himself with God that God so severely punishes those that believe not on him that refuse to Kiss him It nothing hindred the preciousness of the Feast Mat. 21.4 6 7. that they that were bidden were so severely destroyed for refusing it Rom. 2.4 5. Iude 4.13 nor is it an undervaluing of Gods goodness that men for hardning their hearts against it treasure up wrath against themselves or of the grace of God that some turning it into wantonnesse procure to themselves the blackness of darkness The better a thing is that God propounds to us and cals us to the greater is his displeasure against its rejectors Heb. 2.3 c. 10.29 they shall lesse escape and be more punished that neglect the salvation preached by Christ then they that neglected what was preached by Moses Gods speaking in a way of grace to people and calling to the bloud of the Covenant as they are greater encouragements to hear him and hope in him then when he spake from Mount Sinai in terror So shal the slighting such a way as affords such encouragements be more severely punished Heb. 12.18 22 24 25. We esteem not a Plaister lesse precious because men that will not apply it or not let it lye on are not healed by it but if it cure every wound to which its applyed and on which its permitted to lye we highly esteem it M. Owen should remember that himself granted that the innate worth and vertue of a thing and its efficacie as to persons are very different and that not to be measured by this therefore these are but Sophistical flourishes to scare souls from receiving the truth or leading to a negligence in attending to it while they carry in them this intimation that if a man can but find an act of Faith in him at any time though perhaps that 's but his conceit too the bloud of Christ belongs to him and he is suâ—e enough from falling no matter for abiding in Gods wayes and taking heed to his Word he may hear any Doctrine do any thing the vertue of Christs bloud will preserve him from finall miscarrying and to say it will not is to dishonour it Truth will fling off many such foolish flourishes as these which yet I meet with taken up and used sometimes with great confidence in Pulpits but I confesse I pity them that so do The Word of the Lord is a reproach to them and they cannot bear it they will not give that honour to Christs bloud that God gives it in the Scripture but yet will plead for an honour of their own framing like the old Pharisees that honoured the Sepulchers of the Prophets and in the mean time believed not their witness and killed their successors I shall shut up this point with M. Owens own words in his Preface If we maintain the vertue of Christs bloud let us do it in his own language or be for ever silent that is preciousnesse in it that God ascribes to it our inventions though never so splendid in our own eyes are unto him an abomination The places oppugned by him in their native intimations and significations are Rom. 14.15 1 Cor. 8.11 2 Pet. 2.1 Heb. 10.29 which we do not bring to prove as he suggests that Christ dyed for All and every man in the world but to prove that he dyed for more then the Elect and so use not so directly for the proof of the extent of it to its fulnesse as to disprove their limitation of it to the Elect and Believers Let us view what he sayes to them 1. The First is Rom. 14.15 Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ dyed We say thence that the Apostle intimates that one may perish for whom Christ dyed else his admonition was altogether groundlesse as empty and superfluous as if he had bidden them not to make Christs bloud by his Father to be abhorred or not to pull the stars out of the Firmament c. To this M. Owen ut nodum quem solvere nequit gladio dissecet denies that there is any such intimation he might as well have said these words are not written onely sayes he others are commanded not to do that that
world by the knowledge of him do keep themselves such unspotted Virgins and walk constantly after Christ nor that they shal All be saved Not a syllable to that purpose It says those 144000. did keep themselves Virgins pure and chaste to him and that they overcame and triumphed according to the promises set before the Churches in general But these false Teachers did not so but returned back again to their pollutions and therefore though bought yea the rather for that they should be destroyed I wonder that men have no more fear of God before them then to say the Scripture expresses such things as are not expressed in it and in the mean time tell us they are but appearances like seeming dreams that are expressed 3. How this is a peculiar aggravation of their sin may be seen by what is said above viz. in that it hath more in it then meerly a dying for them yea more then is common to every one especially in the degree of their being bought As also further in that all do not so disserve him that bought them no not all of them that perish as these that by false doctrine should deny him and lead many others into the transgression with themselves 4. The last place is Heb. 10.29 of how much sorer punishment shall he be thought worthy who counts the blood of the Covenanted a common thing c. He should have done well to have taken in ver 26. also If we sin willingly after the knowledg of the Truth received there remains no more sacrifice for sin c. And told us whether such a one as so sins had any sacrifice before his so sinning or not and so whether they deprived themselves of any benefit they might have otherwise had by Christs Sacrifice I have asked one or two that question from whom I could never yet get answer to it But let us view what he says to that other verse He tells us It s an argument to perswade to continuance in the Gospel-Doctrine taken ab incommodo and that 1. He speaks here onely of professors of the Gospel and so it cannot be applied to All that 's granted nor do we so apply it but to prove that mens perishing for whom Christ died is a thing that the Apostles supposed and so that Doctrine that confines Christs Death to them onely that shall be eternally saved is erroneous 2. That the Apostle asserts not what is or may be but onely adds a commination upon a supposition to deter from a thing impossible he should have said but if the Apostles speech doth not imply a possibility for one that is sanctified by the blood of Christ to count it a common thing and so to fall into condemnation yea if this doth not sometime fall out how is it that men generally make use of this place to describe the sin against the holy Ghost that is unpardonable Is there not such a sin as that or do they take incompatible and impossible expressions to describe it Certainly if the description be of impossibilities and things that never fall out then the thing defined is of that nature too Again will any say that its never found that any man tramples Christ under his feet that is despises and scorns him or that none ever despite the Spirit of Grace I suppose all will agree that these things sometimes at least are committed And why then shall we think that the expressions of either side are suppositions of things that may be and sometimes are and onely think otherwise of this that lies between them and is as much supposed as either of them Either let us say they are none of them possible or else say they are all so or shew some weighty ground to the contrary He tells us Paul supposed that if the Marriners left the Ship Acts 27. they could not be saved and yet it was not possible that they should not be drowned because God had told him he had given him all that were in the ship with him But first that concludes not this supposition to be of a thing impossible at least no more then it doth the other too that before it and that after it or then it doth any other supposition in Scripture it being to another business Secondly That saying of God might not hold forth to Paul that it was impossible they should any of them be drowned For Paul was not unacquainted that God oftentimes in such speeches intimates a condition As when he told David that Saul would come to Keilah and the men of Keilah deliver him up 1 Sam. 25.11 12. and yet neither of them came to pass because there was intimately ver 13. this condition in his Answers viz. if David staid there So he told Ely that his house and the house of his Father should walk before him for ever yet he after tells him it should not be so because he had not hearkned to him 1 Sam. 2.30 so he said by Jonas Yet forty days and Niniveh shall be destroyed and yet there being a condition implyed in it they were not destroyed Jonah 3. and 4. So Paul knew how to interpret Gods Sayings that they held forth a certainty of the event upon submission to him by them to whom they were spoken in the use of such means as he sets before men but yet include a possibility of missing upon tempting him or rebelling against him and so he might well say Except these men abide in the ship ye cannot have Gods Promise accomplished ye cannot be saved God doth not so promise us an end that 's that to be attained though we tempt him and reject the means as clearly appears by multitudes of the rebellious Israelites failing of the promised Canaan Yea the words I have given to thee all that are in the ship with thee might signifie a giving their lives into his hand so that he using the means propounded of God to him they should be preserved but his neglect of them might have been a willing throwing away or letting go what God had given him Again thirdly the case is different in this That there Paul had a promise of all their lives but I know no one word that says none of them that Christ died for or that are sanctified in any degree by his blood can or shall perish That they that believe in him hear his voyce and follow him shall not it s confest but in those speeches there is intimated an abiding and perseverance for else it s an evident case they would not But that all that do at any time in any measure or degree believe or that at any time hear his voyce shall alwayes do so or that they that in any degree are sanctified shall persevere therein to the end and cannot neglect Gods Salvation and by willing neglects fall away I finde no Scripture that affirms it but much to the contrary That he hath for ever perfected by his Sacrifice those that are sanctified is true if either
we look upon perfection as provided in himself for them viz. that thereby they are so compleatly furnished with all things needful for them that they need not to turn any whither else for any perfection he being a fountain of living waters for them or if we understand it of his former dealings in all times propounded as an encouragement for our abiding in him he hath for ever perfected his sanctified ones by that one Sacrifice and therefore we may comfortably attend to him in and by that for perfecting us also nothing being able to keep us from that perfection to be had in and by it but our renouncing that that is appointed for our perfection That many do believe for a time and turn away again is affirmed in Scripture as also that that faith was operative in them to make them rejoyce and spring up as the green corn on the stony ground yea to purge them from their former sins to give them to escape the pollutions of the world through lust to make them devote themselves to God c. which I think is that the Apostle calls their sanctification So that except Mr. Owen can produce a Scripture that says That All that are ever sanctified by the bloud of the Covenant shall not nor can perish but shall be eternally saved his instance is not parallel with this in hand That admonitions and warnings of things that in regard of Gods purpose shall never come to pass are not in vain and fruitless we grant it being supposed that such a purpose hath appointed to keep off such an issue by such admonitions those admonitions and warnings being taken and submitted to by them to they are given But that ever God so purposed concerning all that at any time or in any degree are sanctified and that none such ever do or can reject such warnings and fall away is the thing in question and to be proved First before we can grant that so it is here and that that strengthens our conception to the contrary beside what is said above is what the Apostle says ver 25. where he tels us some were in those waies that lead to this back-sliding with reference to whom he admonishes them the more earnestly and backs this warning with these threatnings 3. He tels us that these made profession of all these things and that an open renouncing these deserved such a commination though the Apostates never had any such true interest in the bloud of Christ c But I answer that their professing such things as they had not is both a devise of which the Text speaketh nothing and it comes not up to the case by the Apostle propounded nor suites with the type to which he alludes for he alludes to the people in the wilderness that were really delivered from the Egyptian bondage and had the bloud of the Old Covenant sprinkled upon them as really as others though they made not so good an use of it nor were perswaded to such stedfastnesse in the Covenant by it he speaks of such despising the Law as the Law it self declares Now to match with this such as onely boasted of those things but Christ never did any of them to them and so that had no such reall ingagement to Christ as they had to Moses is unparallel Beside the case propounded is thus what such a one is worthy of that being so sanctified should despise that bloud that sanctified him not what he is worthy of that never having such an engagement to that bloud but onely boasting himself of it should despise it so that that 's impertinent too 4. He saith It was the manner of the Saints and Apostles to speak of all baptized persons as sanctified and so mentions back-sliders as they were esteemed so to be To which I answer as before that that is to make the Apostles not to write in things Dogmaticall and Doctrinall after an infallible Spirit but after a fallible judgement of their own and other mens Besides the Scriptures say not they so judged of any in their writings that were not so But suppose they did so yet after what rule walked they in so doing He says in Chap 1. the rule of charity to which I answer that that might perhaps be ground for so speaking of men while they walked in the Doctrine and Profession of the Church but no ground for so speaking of Apostates as such That 's not charity to suppose that a man that doth so trample under foot the Son of God sin wilfully after the knowledge of the truth c. to have ever been sanctified by the bloud of Christ if they that so do never were or could be so or if those that ever were so could never do as is here supposed 5. He says if the Text be interpreted positively and according to the truth of the thing then these two things follow 1 Faith and Sanctifition are not the fruits of Election Ans That follows not but onely this That then All Faith and Sanctification are not the fruits of such an Election as he speaks of And that 's true enough For I suppose he will say the faith in them that fell away compared to the springing up of seed on stony ground was not the fruit of Election nor yet that goodness of conscience that some put away nor that escaping of pollutions that others fell from all which I look upon as equivalent to this sanctification and indeed to be the very thing here spoken of 2. That believers may fall finally away which I do believe they may such as we have spoken of and I think Christ himself implies it too and all that Mr. Owen can say cannot disprove it 6. He says Nothing in the Text inforces that these persons spoken of must needs be truly justified and regenerated believers much lesse that Christ dyed for them but onely by strained consequences The first part of which is not to our purpose how far they were believers or how regenerated but for the latter of them that Christ dyed for them will inevitably follow both from that it s said There remains no more sacrifice for sin upon such sinning which to me implies that there was one for them till then and also in that such are said to have been sanctified by the bloud of the Covenant except he can shew that ever the bloud of a sacrifice sanctified any for whom and whose sanctification it was never shed Whereas he says The ancients called Baptisme 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in which by a solemn aspersion of the symbole of the bloud of Christ they were externally sanctified set apart c. intimating that the Apostle might mean but that too it s too weak He should tell us how the Apostles use to call things not how other Ancients and particularly that the Apostles ever call the outward Baptisme or the Water in it the bloud of Christ and their Baptisme the being sanctified by that bloud though it was
the Kingdom of God extends to them only to whom he speaketh Ver. 25. So because it s said Hear now O house of Israel therefore the extent of the Proposition ver 11. is but this He delights not in the death of the house of Israel as Mr. Owen makes it as if the wicked and the house of Israel were convertible tearms and equipollent and of equal latitude Is not this fallacious arguing The medium brought to prove a Conclusion is not of greater extent then the Conclusion or the Minor Proposition must be the measure of the Majors quantity as if because going to prove a lye to be avoided the Minor is but this A lye is a sin therefore the Major viz. that sin is to be avoided extends no further then to the sin of lying Who knows not that its usuall with the Prophets and Apostles from indefinite and universal propositions of truth to infer particular instructions and reprehensions c. As from this God gives liberally to All to infer If any of you want wisdom ask it of God Jam. 1.5 The man is blessed that trusts in God therefore taste ye and see how good he is Psal 34.8 And such is the Prophets way here The people despair because of Gods judgments threatned or repine at his chastisements God indefinitely by his Prophet lays open his good-will towards men and thence exhorts them to take heart to seek and turn to him Thus God delights not in the death of the wicked but that they rather turn and live therefore not in your death therefore turn and live that that is Gods way in general may make for your instruction and incouragement in particular Now 2. Whereas he asks what will that is that God wills not the death of the wicked in I answer as before his Will of welpleasedness as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies It s not desirable or approveable that wicked men go on in sinful ways and dye but rather turn and live And this may be true even of those that have not such express commands and Revelations of his minde as others God would not have them smother what truth they have but glorifie him according to what they know of him and be thankful seek him as Rom. 1.18 19.21 Act. 17.26 27. 3. He tells us We miserably mistake the meaning of the Prophet because he speaks but about temporal judgements upon their land c. I answer That he speaks about them is true but that he speaks but about them and that the word death holds forth there no more but temporal death and the word live but a natural earthy life and prosperity as if he might have pleasure in their eternal death though not in their temporal and as if he delighted not to give them eternal life upon their repentance or as if the Proposition is but true of the outward because applied to comfort them in that also these things I say are untrue and I deny them Did the putting away their evils and turning to God and making them new hearts respect only their avoiding temporal judgements and living in outward happiness when the Scripture often tels us That it pleases God many times to confer outward happiness upon and keep off temporal judgments from those that never think of turning but live in all wickedness See Psal 73.1 3 4 5 6. Jer. 12.1 Job 20.7 8.9 13. Surely from Gods not delighting in the death of sinners any way may be argued that he desires not their destruction from this life as from Gods wrath coming upon the children of disobedience that then the believers disobeying should be sorely chastened and yet sore chastisements here not be all that 's contained in the word wrath as affirmed to come on the children of disobedience these are frothy arguments and not beseeming Mr. Owen It s more frothy to limit an indefinite Proposition to some few particulars where nothing inforces it as to draw from thence a Conclusion general Nay indefinite propositions are most usually of general signification as might easily be shewed in the Scriptures but I leave that to the observation of the Readers Only minding them that this is by the Apostles Paul Peter affirmed in the general as in 1 Tim. 2.4 2 Pet. 3 9. So that Mr. Owen here hath said nothing to purpose He says p. 283. That the ends of the earth Isa 45.22 are they that look up to God A strange Collection he might as well say from Isai 55.7 8. Let the wicked forsake his ways That the wicked are they that forsake their ways and turn to God If the persons exhorted are always the performers of what they are exhorted to that would be wonderfull And yet he says that his glosse is beyond denyall and again That onely Elect and Believers are there and in Isai 49.6 clearly intimated I marvell by what Argument he can demonstrate it that we may not deny it Sure his ipse Dico is not enough for it and yet that 's all he brings to prove it He tels us p. 287. That its most certain that the Lord Jesus sends not his servants with a lye to offer that to all that belongs but to some and asks what is thence concluded I answer That M. O. is in an error then in saying The Death of Christ is onely for the Elect For if the Lord Christ sent not his Servants to offer that to All that belongs only to a few and yet he sent the Gospel with the Contents thereof to be offered to All then it follows that that that is therein offered pertains not onely to some few For otherwise he grants they that so offer it are sent with a lye That its offered to All he grants partly here and partly in Chap. 1. where he said The Gospel is to be preached to All Nations and hath a right to be preached to every creature Therefore unlesse they that are to Preach it should preach a lye the Contents of it pertain not onely to some but to All. Quod erat probandum Whereas he says We are to prove that Christ dyed for All aswell them that never heard the Gospel as for them that do I Answer That pertains not to us but to believe what Christ by his servants hath delivered to us that he dyed for All and every one and is the Propitiation for the sins of the whole world which is proof and ground enough for our believing that he dyed for them also the phrases being sufficiently comprehensive If any will bring in that limitation to the Apostles expression they must shew us just warrant for so doing It s enough to us to believe the generality and Universality of it that the Scripture never excludeth any from it but in generall Universall phrases affirmeth it In pag. 288. he speaks as if T. M. affirmed that we are bound to pray for every singular man that he may be saved and supposed that there is nothing else that we are to
in him and cast themselves upon God for further saving So the Apostles were led Rom. 5.10 and not from believing on him to argue that Christ died for them So that this notwithstanding that Mr. Owen hath said I yet stand to my former Argument and shall not need to put it into the following frame in his Book into which he puts it By this that is already said Concl. 1. his following Conclusions appear clearly to be some of them untrue some impertinent viz. 1. That all called by the Word in what state or condition soever they continue are not bound to believe that Christ died for them by name but such as are so and so qualified Answ To which I oppose and have shewed That All called by the Word in that state in which they are when called and as it s required of them to believe the Gospel and to believe in Christ for salvation are therein also necessarily required to believe that God appointed Christ to be a Mediator for them and that he hath died for them and so is a fit medium for them to come unto God and to believe in him by 2. That the Precept of believing with fiduciary confidence that Christ dyed for him Concl. 2. is not proposed nor is not obligatory to all that is called nor the not performance of it any otherwise a sin but as it is in the root and habit of unbelief and not turning unto God for mercy To that I answer Answ That the Precept of believing with fiduciary confidence is proposed to all that are called by the word according to the Gospel yea this M.O. granted before inasmuch as it is justifying Faith and so its obligatory to them all And to that end as it thereto necessarily conduceth to believe that Christ dyed for them the not believing which is a giving God the lye it being contained in the record given of his Son which contrary to his fift and sixt Conclusions is too that there is one Mediator between God and men who gave himself a ransom for all men and not onely that he that hath him hath life but also first that God hath given us eternall life and that life is in his Son See that expresly affirmed to be part of the Record of God which the unbeliever makes God a lyer in not believing 1 Joh. 5.10 11 12. And whether Mr. Owen hath dealt faithfully or fraudulently with the Word of God in leaving out the first part of that Record as once before he left out God hath given us eternal life running into that fault which more groundlesly he called the trick of the old Serpent in T. M. and put the name of an Impostor upon him for I leave it to the Reader to judge As for his 3. That no Reprobate for whom Christ died not Concl. 3 shall be condemned for not believing that Christ died for him It shall be granted him when he hath proved what he here begs viz. That there is any such Reprobate for whom as faln in Adam Christ never died His 4. That the command of believing in Christ given to All Concl. 4 is not in that particular obligatory unto any but upon the fulfilling the condition thereto required is sufficiently spoken to It with all conditions or necessary conducements thereto are required of all those to whom the Word is preached Amongst which necessaries the believing Christs Death to be for them we have shewed to be one Therefore I shall say no more here to it but view what he says to a second Argument viz. That Doctrine that fils the mind of men with fears and scruples whether they ought to believe or no Argu. 2 when God cals them to it cannot be agreeable to the Gospell But such is the Doctrine of the Particularity of Redemption c. To which he tels us 1. That doubts and scruples may either rise from a doctrine it self in its own nature giving cause thereto to those who perform their duty rightly or from corruption and unbelief setting up it self against the truth of Christ I answer It 's corruption and unbelief setting up it self against the truth of Christ in the Gospell that makes men hold forth the Particularity of Christs Death as being undergone only for the Elect and the Doctrine it self gives occasions and causes of scruple to men in this that men seeing their sinfulness and looking upon God but according to what this doctrine presents of him to them they are wholly uncertain whether the Mediator was sent for them or not and so whether God be an object of faith fit for them 2. He tels us that obiection supposeth That a man is bound to believe that Jesus Christ dyed by the appointment of God for him in particular before he believe in Christ Jesus and that men that are of that perswasion of the restraint of the Death of Christ to the Elect may scruple whether they ought to believe or not which he says is to involve our selves into a plain contradiction for according to Scripture for a man to be perswaded that Christ dyed for him in particular is the highest improvement of faith including a sense of the spirituall love of God shed abroad into our hearts the top of the Apostles consolation Rom. 8.34 and the bottome of his joyfull assurance Gal. 2.20 so that we require that a man do believe before he do believe and suppose that he cannot believe and shall exceedingly fear whether he ought to do so except he believe before he believe To this I answer That for a man to be perswaded that Christ dyed for him is no where made the highest improvement of faith but only that faith by the belief of this hath been improved and so may be to highest pitches the soul that perceives see and mindes the love of God therethrough commended so as to be drawn to God thereby abiding therein may grow up to great assurance therein and find matter of exceeding great nourishment unto eternall life But it follows not that because from that believers have sprung up to such assurance of eternall life as in the greatest tryals and temptations to trust in him for it and make their boast of God which is the highest improvement of faith That the bare believing that Christ dyed for them is the faith of full assurance Some of the Israelites from beholding the great power and goodness of God to them in delivering them out of Egypt and bringing them over the red Sea c. were led to follow God with a full heart and to be silled with a full perswasion that they should be brought into Canaan and possess it but it followed not thence that the belief or knowledge that God so delivered them was the faith of full assurance of entering into Canaan by all that knew that they were thence delivered So Paul was lead with confidence to trust in God for future deliverance by this that he had delivered him and yet it s
not ever true that he that believes that God delivered him from one danger is confident he will from another much less That that belief in all that so believe yea or in any is the confidence that he will deliver from another 2. Whereas he askes if it include not a sense of the spirituall love of Christ I answer That where the Death and Resurrection of Christ are opened to the heart by the Holy Ghost there the love of God is shed abroad into the heart also but not wherever this proposition is believed viz. Christ dyed for me many a man believes that and yet seeth not into the glory of it nor the depth of goodness held forth in it and so hath not the love of God therethrough shed into his heart yet the minding God in this is the way to meet with the holy Ghosts displaying that love Many Israelites believed that God brought them out of Egypt 2 Pet. 1.9 that had not such a view of his power and love therein or at least like them that forget that they were purged from their old sins forgat what they had seen as to be lead to confidence in God for the future by it 3. Whereas he says By this a man must believe before he believe What strange thing is that with reference to diverse acts of believing did not he himself say that we must have a faith of reliance and recumbence in Christ and before that too believe many truths of the Gospell before we can believe that Christ dyed for us so that there is believing before believing and believing before believing again and yet he counts that absurd in us when we say only we must believe the word of God to be true before we can by it be led to believe in God we must believe Gods goodwill to us-ward and a medium provided for us by whom to go to God before we can be perswaded to go to him by faith whom otherwise we look upon as angry and dreadfull ready to consume us We cannot put our confidence in his blood and there through rise up to assurance of eternall life except we first be perswaded that he shed his blood for us So long as we doubt whether he be a Mediator for us or no and whether he hath given himself to ransome us from death we shall doubt whether God will accept us or no or whether he hare us from eternity or not and whether we have any thing to do to take incouragement from the blood of Christ to approach him because we know not we have any right unto it Nor can Master Owen nor all the world beside to help him make it appear to be otherwise but that the soul will question whether it may expect salvation from God or betrust it self with God so long as it knows not but he hates it and Christ hath never done any thing with him for it 3. He denies That a perswasion that it was Gods will that Christ should dy for him in particular neither is nor can be necessary that a sinner be drawn to believe because other grounds will do it without The consequence of this is that many things were spoken unnecessarily by the Apostles Act. 3.26 as when Peter says Christ was sent to turn every one of them from their iniquities And Paul that the grace of God reconciling the world 2 Cor. 5.19 20. 6.1 was to them Corinthians to perswade them to be reconciled That he preached to the Corinths in the first place that Christ dyed for our sins 1 Cor. 15.2 3. And so all those generall phrases that include mens particulars But let us see what other grounds he gives viz. That it is the duty of sinners as such to believe Math. 11.28 Isa 55.1 To believe in what in the blood of Christ as Rom. 3.25 Then it supposes it shed for them all and so it s a truth according to the Gospell-declaration but denying the extent of his Death how can he make it out that sinners as such * A quatenus ad omne valet consequentia which reaches to All sinners ought to believe in Christ What have sinners if not Elect to do with Christ besides he had said before they must be sinners so and so convinced and qualified before they are to be called upon to believe in Christ And I fear he will upon second thoughts say that those Scriptures hold forth that sinners not as such but as so qualified with thirsting after Christ and being weary c. are there required to believe but many a soul is hereby put upon doubting whether it be Elected or so convinced and thirsty c. as is required and so whether God be not an enemy to it from eternity and so whether it hath cause of trusting in him 2. The command of God John 3.23 That shews it to be its duty if it could be proved to extend to it for that says That we believe in his name and a soul may more justly doubt whether that We reach to it seeing they that deny the extent of Christs Death and teach it to doubt of it use such applicatives as We to oppose an Universality and to signify but the Elect and Church c. This therefore yet leaves the soul to doubt whether it may hope in him for salvation especially being told that these things God sends to men indefinitely that the Elect onely might be brought to him he hath no goodwill to any other and that its Elect it knows not commands to believe while men are taught to doubt whether the object to be believed in as such pertains to them can give no more security from doubting then the building with one hand and pulling down with another secures the building from falling 3. The threats against unbelief That indeed doth as much as the threat for not keeping the Law fils the soul with terror on every side while it hears that God commands more to believe then have cause so to do and threatens them for not believing and yet gives them nothing to induce them to it no evidence of his goodwill to them to draw them to believe this may fill them with hard thoughts of God representing him to them like one that bids another eat or else he will kill him but yet gives him no meat to feed on no evidence of his goodness that may induce him to hope and trust in him 4. The alsufficiency of the blood of Christ to save all believers This may make the soul say O how happy are they that do believe and that have his blood to drink for its able to save them but as for me I know not whether it belong to me or not or whether one drop of it was shed for me and so how I can lean upon it I hear it s not sufficient to save any that it was not shed for not for want of inward worth in it but because it s not for them and I may
be one of them for ought I know 4.5 The promise of life upon believing and the assured salvation of all believers without exception These two are of the same nature with the former only the soul hath this to except It s not every believer for many fall away in time of temptation having no root in them as my faith cannot have if I know not that Christ dyed for me and so grow not upon Gods love therein evidenced to me The soul cannot so believe as to love God and so but with a dead faith unless it believe his love first It may see all its endeavors to believe and to rest on God to be but fleshly strivings out of self principles and at the best it argues Gods love but from its own believing which it may justly question the heart being deceitfull and he a fool that trusts for it for evidencing his condition This is but a promise and an assurance of thriving to all that eat duely of a meat which it knows not whether it may or can duely eat or not for to eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ and so to believe on them is when the soul beholding the love of God and Christ in his Death and sacrifice commended to it doth gather boldness and incouragement to love and cast it self upon God and so grows up into the full assurance of peculiar love to him even to eternall life without the knowledge of love to the soul first it can but at highest come to this It may be I am one that God loves and perhaps not well I will leave thinking about it and tyring my self with thoughts if I can and let it alone I must submit when all is done to be disposed to Heaven or Hell by him which indeed is a condition most sit and needfull for the Gospell to be preached to but is far from faith in God which works by Love and is justifying These things The call to believe the command threatning promise c. are good evidences that the ransome is given and accepted for All and there is good provision in Christ for them God never using to call men to any ordinance that he appointed not for them and coming with this they may incourage thee to believe on and love him that gave his Son for thee to believe on And this implyed by them is that declaration that good tidings to sinners that indeed draws them into believe through the spirits working in them or else if they turn their backs upon it renders them throughly guilty when they shall say in their hearts O what did God for me and what cause had I to believe and to have stayed upon him but I refused it As the Israelites in Egypt were indeed sinners for not believing when God had done so much for them to ingage them to it His conclusion then under this head is false viz. That those are enough to remove all doubts and fears much less which I would rather urge against it are they sufficient to incourage and imbolden the heart and frame it to believe but more especially is that false that follows in him viz. That those are All that the Scripture holds out to that purpose It holds out others as we have noted from Acts 3.26 13 37. 1 Tim. 2.4 5 6. but of this he can take no notice they are nothing for his purpose I could give him back here some of his own expressions as that in pag. 283. That if pride and error had not taken too much possession of mens minds they could not so far deny what they reade in plain texts of Scripture as if they had never seen them to maintain their corrupt and false opinions But he answers further 4. That that perswasion which asserts the certainty of the Death of Christ to All believers and 2. That affirms the command of God and call of Christ to be infallibly declarative of that duty which is required of the person commanded and called which if it be performed will be assuredly acceptable to God 3. That holds out purchased free grace to all distressed burthened consciences whatsoever and 4. Discovers a fountain of blood alsufficient to purge all the sin of every man in the World that will use the appointed means for coming unto it that doctrine cannot possibly be the canse of any doubt or scruple in the hearts of convinced burthened sinners whether they ought to believe or no. I answer that this is in a manner the same with the former and there answered I will adde this touching the second particular that its ambiguous whether by the person called he mean by man in the preaching of the Gospell or by God effectually for many are of that mind that God cals not nor holds forth Gospell to all that the Ministers declare it to but only to the Elect if he be of that mind too it s not so undoubtedly true to the hearer as he would make it that God requires what the Minister doth because they may be divided the command and call may be intended only to some that the hearer knows not whether he be one of or not though the Preacher out of ignorance direct it to all and this may beget much doubting in the hearer whether its Gods voice to or him no. Again he supposeth more in this Doctrine he pleads for in two last particulars then is in it as that it holds forth purchased free grace to all distressed burthened consciences there are many among the Heathen have their consciences accusing them yea sometimes like furies burthening them there are many that profess Christ conscious of heinous sins and are ready to despaire and make away themselves for them there are many burthened that they can no more walk up to the righteousness and labor to stablish righteousness to themselves and cannot be setled Will Master Owen say that their doctrine holds forth purchased free grace to all these that I deny for it says he purchased free grace only for the Elect and that all such are Elected I suppose he will be put to it to prove seeing many such go on in their sins notwithstanding their burthens and many seek to put them off and sometimes do stifle them by worldly imployments and vanities and many actually despair and make away themselves If he say he means not such the matter is where it was the distressed conscience may yet doubt and is apt so to do whether it may not be one of those in the issue As for that in the fourth that there is an alsufficiency in the blood of Christ for all that will use the appointed means c. I will not stand to tell him though I might that his speech here is like one of them that in us he uses to tax with-holding Free-will which seeing he declaims against I hope he will be so charitable as to allow us the like liberty of speaking without fastening upon us that Odium But I say
of old and yet is too common a fashion Philosophical Speculations and the Elders Traditions are used as pillars in Gods building and many lean more upon them then on the pillars of Gods own erecting setting up their posts and pillars by his and slighting his for them which we approve not Lastly Whereas he sayes The common faith is the faith of Gods Elect. I easily grant it and say That the Apostle in Tit. 1.1 4. in both places means The faith delivered to the Saints the Doctrine of Faith as it s no unusual thing for him to do which is the faith of Gods Elect because its that which they believe and hold forth to others even to the world and it s the common faith because as it s believed by them All so its common to the world in point of right to be preached to them and imbraced by them It s that that contains good news for and matter to be believed by All. But I have done with these his prevarications with which he Answers T. Moors twentieth Chapter I have passed over many of them the whole being a heap of mistakes and disdainful jerks anwhat seems to be of any weight is already fully answered CHAP. VII A view of and Reply to Mr. Owens Answers to some other pretended Sophisms as he calls them against his Doctrine IN his last Chapter he pretends to Answer some usual Sophisms and captious Arguments of the Arminians which he stiles empty Flourishes yet remaining As first this Argument That which every one is bound to believe is true Argum. But every one is bound to believe that Christ died for him Therefore that Christ died for every one is true An Argument which for my part I own not in this form as to All and every man in the world it being not preached to every one that Christ died and is risen And I conceive that God requires not an explicit faith of propositions that they have no Revelations of giving them ground to believe But thus I own it against their restrictive doctrine of tying Christs Death to the Elect onely viz. That which of every one to whom the Gospel is preached is required as necessarily to be believed that he might come to believe on Christ for salvation that is for every such man true in it self But that Christ died for him in particular is required to be believed of every one to whom the Gospel is preached as necessary for his believing in Christ for salvation Therefore for every one to whom the Gospel is preached That is true The Major leans upon this truth That he that is required to do or believe any thing is therein required to do or believe all those things that are necessary thereto so as that without his doing or believing of them he cannot do or believe those other things required of him The Minor we shall speak to by and when I have examined some things that he saith to the Minor of the Argument as mentioned by him As 1. He saith The believing that Christ dyed for a man is the saving application of Christ to the soul as held out in the promise In which he mistakes for its onely a believing Christ to have so satissied for his sin by his death and to have such fulness of Redemption in him for him that he may hopefully go to him for remission and salvation there is good ground for him so to do and it s his sin if he having opened such a way for him to God and to salvation he should neglect it But for the promises they belong only to those that through this belief of the grace of God Gal. 3.22 are drawn actually to trust in Christ and love him whence they are called the things prepared for them that love God and that trust in him before the sons of men and for the confirmation of these men in the expectation of those promises the belief of Christs death for them is further usefull The Death of Christ was for sinners enemies the ungodly All men but the promises of God in Christ and so the Kingdome are not the portion of any such but men are made heires of them through believing Ioh. 1.12 Gal. 3 26.29 Tit. 3.6 7. so that here is a very foundamentall mistake as to the question in hand in this very saying 2. He says To believe that Christ dyed for any must be with reference to the purpose of God the Father and intention of Jesus Christ himself and that that is it which with regard to any Vniversality is opposed by him Which words I well apprehend not his meaning in If he mean by Reference to Gods purpose and Christs intention according as God purposed and Christ intended for them or that God purposed and Christ intended that he should dye for them so we indeed mean by that phrase But if by it he means that God and Christ purposed in so doing eternally to save him we so mean not that every man is bound to believe of Christs death for him But that such was Gods purpose and intention in Christs dying for him that if he believe in him and in God through him he shall undoubtedly be saved Ioh. 3.16 And yet we put no If unto Gods purpose which as secret concerns not our Faith for as Luther well says De Deo abscondito nulla est fides cognitio c. But we put that If into the way of mens participation of that salvation as God hath revealed it Besides to tell us how he opposes the Universality of Christs death when he hath almost done opposing it was not done no though he had exprest himself more clearly in it very learnedly He says The term Every one must relate to All men in the like condition which we grant it may And that like condition in my stating it here is not only as sinners unregenerate c. but also as the Gospell coming to them and reporting good news to them in Christ requires obedience of Faith of them that they may be puld out of that sinfull estate Something he sayes to the Major too viz. That that every one is bound to beleive is neither in it self true nor false but good which to me is a Paradox good being not the Object of Faith but of appetite desire and love Truth is the Object of Faith chiefly of that that is divine and required by God for men may believe and in some cases ought to believe that that in it self holds forth evill to them as men are bound to believe that they are sinners though its good that they should believe so yet it s not a good thing that they are bound to believe therein their being sinners is not a good thing But now to the Minor not only as in the first place mentioned by himself but also in a manner as owned by me He denies that every one that 's called to by the Gospel Preached is bound to believe in particular that Christ dyed