Adams sake implies that Adams sin had an influence and it had this influence but how it could righteously or indeed possibly have that influence is still a Question and till that be resolved we shall never have the advantage from hence to know How the Righteousness of Christ could have an Influence upon God to shew us any kindness for Christs sake 3. God says he entail'd a great many Evils and miseries upon his Posterity for his sake Now seeing there are but a Many though a great many evils entailed upon them and not all Evils it 's very much our Interest to understand which are the Entailed evils and which our own Personal evils which are hereditary and which of our own procurement that so having found out which are entailed upon us we may search if there be not a way found to cut off the Entail by the Recovery wrought out by Christ. And the rather because the Text mentions not only Evils many Evils but seems to include all Evils As Life and Absolution comprehend all spiritual Mercies so Death and Condemnation comprehend all spiritual Curses And by these comprehensive words the Apostle expresses those Evils which God upon the Account of Adam's Sin has entailed upon Posterity I know how easily our Author presumes to dock the Entail by pleading that Death signifies onely Temporal Death but the Apostle has obviated that Cavil v. 11. As by one Man Sin entred into the world and Death by Sâ—…n and so Death passed upon all Men for that all have sinned By one man by Adam that Sin whose wages is Death and that Death which is the wages of Sin enter'd into the world even upon all his Posterity for that all have sinned And what that Death is which is the Wages of Sin he assures by opposing it to Eternal Life v. 21. As Sin reigned unto Death so might Grace reign through Righteousness unto Eternal Life by Iesus Christ our Lord. So again Chap. 6. v. 23. The Wages of Sin is Death but the Gift of God is Eternal Life 2 Qu. What Influence has Christs Righteousness and Obedience upon our Acceptation with God And had our Author answered the former question to purpose he had answered this in it and saved himself a great deal of needless pains in a New prosecution of it But he answers God was so well pleased with the Righteousness of Christ Life and Death that he bestowes the Rewards of Righteousness on those who according to the strictness and rigour of the Law are not righteous That for Christs sake he hath made a New Covenant of Grace which pardons our past sins and follies and rewards a sincere though imperfect Obedience A few notes also I shall make upon this and so dismiss it at present And First here is certainly a great Iuggle in these words God says he was so well pleased with the Righteousness and Obedience of Christs Life and Death that he bestows the rewards of Righteousness upon us Now these rewards of Righteousness be they what they will or can are either the proper and immediate effects of the Life and Death of Christ or not If they be then I am sure he was tardy p. 323. The Apostles attribute such things to the Blood of Christ as are the proper and immediate Effects of the Gospel Covenant And what that is in his Dialect I hope we are not to seek at this time of day But if they be not the proper and immediate Effects of the Life and Death of Christ then 1. He has juggled here with his Reader placing the rewards of Righteousness as bestow'd for Christs sake before any Consideration of the Covenant 2. If not then he has not drawn a fair Parallel between the Influence of Adams Sin and that of Christs Obedience For he tells us that God for Adams sake entailed a great many Evils Miseries nay Death it self upon his Posterity there are particular evils entailed upon Individuals for the sake of Another without any intervention of their own personal Transgressions Ay but there our Author will perhaps tell me That the truth is he means all this while by a secret reserve that Adams Posterity when they commit Adams sin or and other they then render themselves obnoxious to those miseries evils and death it self But then this is not to the purpose for then 't is not for Adams sake but for their own Not for that One Mans Offence but for every mans own Offence that judgement came upon them to condemnation Which is not to interpret the Apostle but dictate to him and indite his Epistles for him Miseries then and a great many miseries none knows how many are entail'd upon Adams Posterity for his sake without any intervention of their own sin But now here 's no Blessing not one single Blessing entailed upon such spiritual Posterity of Christ that they shall receive any one the least Favour without the Intervention of their own Obedience And so things are where they were at first Secondly I must note also That he says God bestows the rewards of Righteousness on those who according to the strictness and rigour of the Law are not righteous That is as he explains himself they shall be justified or treated like righteous Persons Now 1. If God can treat them like Righteous Persons who are not really so because he is so well pleased with Christs Obedience why may not God conceive me to have done that which I have not done as well as to be what I am not Why not to have obeyed in Christ to have suffer'd in Christs sufferings as to be a righteous Person in my self when there is no such matter Andthus our Author has laid a block in our way at which a well-meaning man though against our Authors meaning may stumble upon the Notion of the Imputation of Christs Righteousness It 's altogether unintelligible how God should punish me for Adams fault with Justice if Adams fault were not some wayes or other my own and fully as unaccouutable How God should deal with me as righteous who am not so for the sake of Christs Obedience if Christs Obedience some way or other become not mine I can easier satisfie my Reason how the Righteousness of the second Adam may make me righteous and accepted of God than how the unrighteousness of the first should make me a sinner and yet Faith believes both though it conclude stronglier for Christ Rom. 5. 17. For if by one mans Offence Death reigned by one much more they c. 2. God he says bestows the rewards of Righteousness on those who in strictness are not righteous Let some enquire at his house as they go by What he means by the Rewards of righteousness Is it Inherent Righteousness Then it 's Non sence or worse God gives them inherent righteousness who have not inherent Righteousness which in sensu composito is Non-sence and in sensu diviso not agreeable to our Authors Principles But if he mean the
they had of their own for which God might justly have dealt thus with them yet God Declares that this was the Impulsive cause of their Punishment even the sin of David with whom the People having a Political Union as our Author phrases it they made but one Body in the sight of Vengeance And when others say That this was but a temporal Punishment and therefore it will not hold that God should punish the Posterity of Adam spiritually for his Transgression they say they know not what For God will not be Unrighteous and Unjust in Punishing the Sons of Men for that sin which is none of their own in the smallest thing from a Thread to a Shooe-latchet and the Rule of Justice in this Case is the Law for if the Law was back'd by a Sanction of Spiritual and Eternal threatnings then 't is Just with the Law-giver to Inflict the Punishment upon all that are under the Law our Union with Adam was another a stricter Union than the Israelites had with David it was Spiritual the other Civil External only And therefore according to the Law of Union and Relation though the Israelites could only suffer for Davids sin temporally yet the Posterity of Adam may by Righteous Judgment of God for Adams sin suffer Eternally And now let us briefly see whether our Author comes up to any thing of the Apostle or no God says he was so highly displeased with Adams sin that for his sake he Entailed a great many Evils Miseries nay Death it self upon his Posterity Nay but says the Apostle they were constituted sinners Iudgment and Condemnation came upon them though they had not sinned after the Similitude of Adams transgression the same Iudgment which in the Sanction of the Law was threatned against Adams sin and now to Fob and Flam off this with Evils Miseries and never tell us what they were not how it could be Just with God to Entail the least Evil upon them or touch a Hair of their Heads for the sin of another with whom they had no privity of Interest is to Reduce the sin of Adam as near to Nothing as he has Reduced Christs Righteousness 2. May we enquire also VVhether that Influence which he allows to Christs Obedience reach the Mind of the Apostle The Apostle affirms that By the Obedience of one many were made Righteous and that by the Righteousness of one the Free-gift came upon all to Iustification of Life v. 18 19. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Many or the many of whom he Treats shall be constituted Righteous For as all that were in the first Adam all his Natural Seed were by vertue of a Legal Constitution Ordinance and Appointment of God made sinners in the Transgression of their common Head and Representative so all the Spiritual Seed and Posterity of Christ which the Father had promised to give him as the Reward of his Death and Sufferings are by vertue of a New a better Law-constitution made Righteous by the Righteousness of their spiritual Head and Representative And therefore the Apostle v. 14. tells us expresly That Adam was the Figure of Christ He did exactly represent the Headship of Christ towards all his spiritual Posterity in that Headship which he bore towards his own Posterity But the Apostle has said enough in this Chapter to stomack the Pride and Restifness of humane Wisdom nothing more grating upon the Spirit of a Gallant than that he should be made a sinner by the sin or owe his Righteousness to the Righteousness of another This is the summe of the Apostles Discourse As the Posterity of Adam were made sinners constituted such by a Law and dealt with as such by God so are the Posterity of Christ made Righteous by such another way of Justification But then I assume The Posterity of Adam could not be made sinners by the sin of Adam otherwise than by the Imputation of Adams sin therefore the Posterity of Christ could not be made Righteous otherwise in the sight of God than by the Imputation of Christs Righteousness The Posterity of Adam could not possibly be made sinners by Adams first sin any other way than by charging it upon them according to the Terms of that Law under which he and they stood nor are the Seed of Christ capable of being made Righteous in Gods sight by the Obedience of Christ otherwise than by Imputing it to them according to that New Covenant-constitution called the Law of Faith and Righteousness under which Christ and Believers do now stand But if the word Imputation do Disgust our Authors delicate Ears let him call it what he pleases provided the Apostles Argument be satisfied and his main Design secured let us now see how our Author comes up to the Apostle God says he was so well pleased with the Obedience and Righteousness of Christs Life and Death that for his sake he bestows the rewards of Righteousness on those who according to the Rigour of the Law are not Righteous Wherein our Author and our Apostle come not near one another by many Leagues 1. Our Author says God bestows the reward of Righteousness on them that are not Righteous But our Apostle says we are made Righteous by the Obedience of Christ before we can be accounted Righteous by God The Holy God will not account half Righteousness for a whole one sinners may mock themselves but they cannot mock God That which the Law requires must be had the Apostle tells us 't is to be had in Christ By his Obedience through the Intervention of the Law-constitution of Faith and Righteousness Believers are made Righteous 2. Whatever is Lurking under the darkness of these Expressions The Rewards of Righteousness the Rigour of the Law yet this we may be sure of that all come to this in the Up shot That God for Christs sake has made a New Covenant of Grace which Pardons our past Sins and Follies and rewards a Sincere though Imperfect Obedience I can compare our Authors Copia Verborum his Variegated Equipollent Phrases and Expressions to nothing so well as that of the Chymists when they endeavour to bind Hermes or in plain English their fixing of Quicksilver they can Model it into many accidental Forms and Shapes and yet the Cunning versute Creature will be Mercury again do what they can unless some will compare it to the Young-mans Mistress in the Fable that Brided it for a day or so but yet upon the sight of her old Game put off her Personated self and reassumed her real self again Such Feats of Activity have we shown us ever and anon by our Author he can turn his words into more Shapes than Proteus tell us of this and that but when he comes to himself All the Influence that Christs Obedience has upon our acceptance with God is that we owe such a Covenant to it as he has described to us and Contrived for us Tells us That God for Christs sake has entered into a
for his safety He wounded men that they might seek after healing and laid load upon their guilty minds that they might be content to take his Yoke upon them And that this is so 1. We have an Argument which is Instar omnium a Thousand Reasons by it self That is what our Author says That we must be affected with all the Arguments of Christs Incarnation c. so as to be sensible of the shame and folly of our sins Now how a man should be ashamed of sin till he sees its vileness and baseness and how he should see its vileness and filthiness till it s brought to the Test of Gods Holy Law which is the Rule of righteousness the Measure of Good and Evil is past my Conjecture Nay further that shame which fills a Soul does not merely arise from a sence of the Souls vileness but as compared with Gods Holiness who is a God so Pure so Holy c. that the Soul may well be ashamed and filled with Confusion of face to appear before him Now shame upon the account of the filthiness and dread upon the account of the guilt of sin are very near Neighbours Shame expresses the Souls sence of its own unworthiness to appear before God upon the score of its baseness and deformity and Fear expresses but the sence of Gods Authority which he hath Impressed and Stampt upon his Holy Law with the Souls reflection upon it self that it has violated that Law and thereby become liable to that Penalty which his own guilt has bound him over to And this was clear in Adams case He was Naked and therefore ashamed he was guilty and therefore feared to appear before this Holy God and Iust Iudge Now our Author will allow it lawful to fetch Arguments from Christs Incarnation Life Doctrine Death and what you please to make us ashamed of sin but by no means to be afraid of the Great God But the very truth is none say that it is the duty of Men to be Distracted and Unhinged in mind with slavish fears and Hellish apprehensions of Gods Justice But that this Dread may possibly run up some poor Creatures so high as to a literal distraction when the apprehensions of the Curse due to the Transgression of a righteous Law of a Holy and Jealous God shall overset a weak Judgement and dark Mind that sees its danger but no way to escape sees its Disease but not its Cure its sin with the demerits thereof but not a Saviour with his Merits and at once considers that Wrath of God which it concludes to be unavoidable and knows to be Intollerable 3. That our Saviour did use the Law and it's Terrors to awaken the Souls of men to a due apprehension of their sin and their danger thereupon the whole Tenour of the New Testament prove It was the Method of his Precurser Iohn the Baptist he laid this Ax to the Root of the Tree Mat. 3. 10. denouncing against them That every Tree that brought not forth good Fruit should be hewen down and cast into the fire And where-ever the Pharisees got it yet a warning they had got to flie from wrath to come The Apostle Paul both felt it and Preacht the use of the Law for Conviction of sin with all its Consequents and leading the sinner to Christ He felt it Rom. 7. 9. When the Commandment came sin revived and I died he saw himself a dead and lost man He Preacht also the Use of the Law Gal. 3. 24. to be a Schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. What use our Saviour in his own Person made of the Law may be seen from Matth. 5. and also chap. 23. where he thunders upon the dead and secure Consciences of Sinners with Arguments taken from the Law of God and the dreadfull Curse annex'd to the violation of it And though our Author will allow no more than an Awfull regard and reverence for God who is a holy and righteous Iudge and an irreconcileable Enemy to all Sin yet when a Sinner shall be throughly convinc'd that he is so and shall know that the wages of Sin is Death and that he that gave forth this Law and must sit in Iudgement upon him is both a Holy and a Righteous Iudge and an Irreconcileable Enemy to all Sin there will be more than an awfull regard and reverence for this God unless he have the faculty to tell a Sinner how he may stand guilty before his Judgement-Seat and not be filled with horror and unspeakable amazement But I see our Author can be both more severe than Christ where his severity is not due and more mercifull too at other times when his Clemency will destroy He will dawb over the chinks of their Consciences with untemper'd Mortar and skin over their wounds very smoothly he will not have men feel the workings of the Law nor any amazing terrours of Gods wrath Though it be hard to conceive how a Soul should see Sin and not see Gods wrath or seeing it not be terrified and amazed with it But such was not the Way and Method nor such the End and Design of Christs coming He never preach'd Peace when Destruction was nigh he accommodated not his Doctrine to the Lusts and Tempers of Sinners but Acted according to his Commission Isa. 61. 1 2. Preaching the Acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God But our Author has imposed it upon himself as his constant Method to discourse pro re natâ to fit the present purpose for pag. 3. of this excellent Piece he had told us That the Gospel of Christ is as severe a Dispensation as the Law which dooms men to Eternal misery that live not very vertuous and innocent Lives And they must be very vertuous and innocent ones indeed who escape that doom for just now he assures us That God is a righteous Iudge and an irreconcileable Enemy to all sin After all this storm there are yet a few drops behind which we may do well to shelter our selves from if we can He falls into some heat against our having Christ offer'd to us to be our Saviour against the Beseechings of Christ against Covenanting with Christ which is well express'd by Contract and Espousal And for this there is good warrant 2 Cor. 5. 20. As though God did beseech you by us we pray you in Christs stead be ye reconciled to God This was Scripture before he was born and will be so when he is gone and therefore he may speak his pleasure against Christ and his Gospel But he has a License and let him make the best on 't for our parts we hope we shall not be Scoffed out of the Concernments of our Souls and Salvation and if that must Anger him let him repeat over the Alphabet or which will do as well Turn the Knot of his Girdle behind him To conclude the Persons whom our Authors lot is fallen out to reproach Doe build their Faith
Death if those expressions applyed to the Death of Christ signify no more than a Confirmation of the Gospel 2. The Scripture assigns greater ends to the Death of Christ than confirmation of Promises 1. His Death as a Sacrifice atoned God 2. His Death as a Price paid to God redeemed us 3. His Death as a Punishment exacted of God satisfied his Iustice. For the first Isa. 53. 10. his Soul was made an Offering for sin and therefore as on a Sacrifice of Atonement God laid on him the Iniquities of us all V. 6. For the second 1 Tim. 2. 6. He gave himself a Ransom or Price of Redemption for all For the third Rom. 3. 25 26. The Blood of Christ is said to be a Declaration of God's Righteousness that he might be just in justifying the Believer which Testimonies will call for clearing and vindication in due time And these indeed are such ends of the Death of Christ as will undeniably prove that his Death had an Influence upon our Acceptance with God 3. The Scripture owns Christ as a proper Priest and therefore his Work must be somewhat more than confirming a Doctrine A Prophet will abundantly answer that design But our Author prudently having cut out Christ some work to do has fitted him with an Office too which is proportionable to it for to what purpose should Christ be a Priest that has nothing to do with his Sacrifice but to confirm his Doctrine The direct and immediate Object of Christ's Sacerdotal Office was God Heb. 9. 14 15. How much more shall the Blood of Christ who through the Eternal Spirit offered himself to God purge your Consciences I know these Men will say that Christ offered up himself to God in Heâ—…ven but not upon the Cross whereas the Blood of Christ is here compared with though preferred to the Blood of Bulls and Goats and the Ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean some of which were never carried into the Holy Place and the Blood of those which were was first shed at the Altar before it could be sprinkled at the Mercy-Seat And the word here used 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a sacred and religious Word applied to the Sacrifices which were brought to and â—…ffered at the Altar Again Heb. 5. 1. Christ iâ—… ordained a Priest in things pertaining to God His Priestly Employment lay mainly with him to confirm promises that relate to us men but a Priest offers not Sacrifice to the People though for the People Christ's Business as our High-Priest was with God and in his Undertaking with him lyes the true Reason of the Acceptation of our Persons Services with God 4. The Scripture every-where expresses Christ's Innocency nay his perfect Holineâ—… the cheerfulness self-denyal constancy universality of his Obedience to his Fathers Will especially the Law of the Mediator He always did the Things that pleased his Father Joh. 8. 29. He fulfilled all Righteousness Mat. 3. 15. His Meat and Drink was to do the Will of him that sent him and to finish his Work Joh. 4. 34. He came not to do his own Will but the Will of him that sent him Joh. 6. 38. And the Father has witnessed it most solemnly by a Voice from Heaven That he was well-pleased with his beloved Son Mat 17. 5. and yet notwithstanding all this and much more that might be said It pleased the Father to bruise him and make his Soul an Offering for Sin Isa. 53. 10. He loved him and yet shewed all imaginable tokens of displeasure he was amazed sore troubled in Soul and as to the apprehension of his Soul in respect of comfort forsaken of God so that he cried out of it most bâ—…tterly My God my God why hast thou forsaken me And in the view of his approaching Sufferings was in such an Agony and conflict of Soul that it exprest Clods of Blood from his labouring Body Upon consideration of which unexpressible inconceivable Torments of the Lord Jesus the Ancient Church did use to pray 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 By thy unknown Torments Lord deliver us In imitation whereof perhaps the Liturgy of the present Church of England uses the like By thy Agony and Bloody Sweat by thy Cross and Passion c. Now I would have it resolved to satisfaction without such pittyful dry evasions and paltry answers as we meet with from some kind of men 1. How God could at the same time be well-pleased with Christ and be so well-pleased to bruise him 2. How it could consist with the Iustice of God to punish a Person so Innocent so Holy so compleatly Righteous over whom the condemning Part of the Law had no power seeing he had never violated it in its preceptive Part unless he stood in the stâ—…ad of Sinners bore their Iniquities and was charged with their Guilt They will tell us that God used his Prerogative and Soveraignty over Jesus Christ and yet in other causes will not allow him an absolute and irrespective Soveraignty over the poorest Wâ—…etch in the World They will tell us too That all this was not proper penalty or punishment but here was the matter of punishment to purpose and still the difficulty remains Why an Innocent Person should suffer the same things materially which were only formally to be inflicted upon those who had deserved them Let none say If Christ bore the Punishment due to sin he must suffer Eternal Death seeing no less was due to our Transgressions For 1. The Eternity of punishment is only due to sin by accident as it is found in a finite Person who being not able to bear at once or in the longest time that Wrath which his Sins have demerited Divine Justice exacts of him an Eternity of suffering 2. Whereas sin is only infinite or of infinite demerit objectivè as committed against an infinite God The Sufferings of Christ are infinite also subjectivè being the Sufferings of that Person who is God though not as God and therefore Christ in a finite time was able to give infinite Satisfaction 3. Christ was such an High-Priest as being God and Man was able to give an infinite Value to his Sacrifice of himself as Man nor let any say that if Christ suffered in a way of Satisfaction to Divine Justice and bore what the Sinner should have born or that which was equivalent to it that then the Sinner ought immediately to be delivered from the Curse due to his sin for seeing that the Satisfaction was not made in the Person of the Offender but his Substitute it was necessary that the benefit of another's Satisfaction should be communicated in such a way as might best please that God whose Grace was the only Motive to his Acceptation of a Substitute It 's the undoubted priviledg of the Giver to dispose of his own Gift in his own Way and it was absolutely and indispensibly necessary that the Sinner should be duly qualified to receive so transcendent Favours purchased at so dear rates and
rewards of Acceptation as righteous when they are not righteous and this for Christs sake then either there will be some immediate proper effect found ouâ—… for the Obedience of Christs Life and Death or else all comes to no more than this That God will Accept us righteous or unrighteous that is right or wrong 3. I would observe also That he supposes God to have dispensed with the Moral Law Which is News to me and I confess I doe not believe it nor shall I till I hear it confirmed Some Errors though speculative are daâ—…ble and such may this prove For if we like Fools goggled in with the Rhetorical Divinity of this Age should Trust to Gods Abatements of his Law and at last it should prove that God loved Righteousness and hated Iniquity as such we were in a most wretched miserable and undone Condition merely by Trusting to Indulgence I demand therefore good Counter security of our Author That God will deal with me as righteous though I be not so in the Account of his Law unless I be considered as found in Christ not having my own righteousness which is of the Law but that which is by the Faith of Christ the righteousness of God by Faith The Moral Law is the Image of Gods Mind his Nature transcribed into his Law and one jot nor tittle of this Law shall ever pass away How much of this Law God will dispense with what part of it or what degrees of the violation of it is to me unknown and if with any whether he may not possibly dispense with the whole by the same Reason is more than our Authors Principles can inform me he that may dispense with one part of it may with another and so of the rest For where to stop or put bounds to such a Dispensation as comes from the Grace of God is very impossible to determine unless we knew the true bounds of Gods Grace And whereas our Author talks of the rigour of the Law there 's nothing of it rigorous in its own Nature and the least particle of it would be impossible to be observed according to its exact demands if it were made the Law of our Iustification He that breaks the Law in one point is guilty of all and the Curse is denounced against him that confirms not all that is written therein to doe it 4. The Difficulty remains to this day Why God should be so pleased with the Righteousness and Obedience of Christ that he should allow the Disobedience of Another And it will remain for ever a Difficulty both why God should inflict Evils upon the Posterity of Adam for his sake or deal with them as righteous who in the Account of his Holy Law are not righteous for Christs till we understand the true Nature of the Two Covenants the one made with Adam and all his Natural seed the other with Christ and all his spiritual seed both which Seeds were to stand or fall according as their respective Heads and Representatives should acquit themselves in point of Obedience and Disobedience towards God and his most holy and righteous Law The same liberty that he has taken I question not but he will give and I shall be very modest in a few Enquiries 1. May we enquire Whether what he allows of Influence to Adams Sin upon his Posterity will satisfie the Apostles Intendment The Apostle asserts v. 18. That by the offence of one judgement came upon all to Condemnation v. 19. That by one mans Offence many were made Sinners And there are these things considerable 1. That Adams Sin had this Influence upon Posterity that they were made Sinners also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Transgressors of a Law for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to deviate from a Rule to come short of a Mark that is set us to aim at as Suidas observes 2. That the Posterity of Adam were so made sinners that they were lyable to condemnation Iudgment came upon them to Condemnation This I Observe because some talk as if they were Sinners in jest but God lets the Sons of men know that they are obnoxious to Condemnation for the Offence of that one Man 3. The Apostle shews how they were made sinners and how they were liable to Condemnation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they were so by a Constitution God did not infuse sin into them and make them sinners Inherently but they were made so by a Law-constitution And it was needful that the Apostle should clear that Point because the Vindication of Gods Iustice called for it For how could God deal with them as sinners in respect of Condemnation who were not first sinners in respect of Guilt Guilt and Condemnation do Reciprocally prove each other To assert them to be sinners proves them liable to Condemnation and to assert them liable to Condemnation presupposes them to be sinners for what is Condemnation but the evil of Punishment inflicted for the evil of sin committed Nor can it consist with the Righteousness of the Iudge of the whole Earth to treat them as sinners as to Punishment who were not first so as to Guilt contracted To clear therefore the Righteousness of God that he may be Iust when he Condemns we must understand that the sin of Adam is one way or other made the sin of his Posterity Several ways there are Contrived to Salve this Difficulty some say as was noted before that Adams sin being Imitated by his Posterity they become sinners and so liable to Condemnation A dull Contrivance which our Author himself will not allow who asserts that God was so displeased with Adams Disobedience that for his sake he Entailed many Evils upon his Posterity but if there be nothing more but the Infection and Contagion of his Example then it 's not for Adams Sin Fault or Offence that they are made sinners but for their own In Defiance of the Apostle and his way of Reasoning the very truth is God made a Covenant with Adam and in him with all his Natural Posterity Adam was not only the Natural Parent but the Moral Head and Representative of all his Seed and therefore according to this Righteous Law of God his Offence was theirs what he forfeited they forfeited what he lost they lost he sinned they sinned he came under the Condemnation they came under it also And this does fully satisfie the Apostles Reasoning By one Mans offence many were made sinners by one Mans offence Iudgment came upon all to Condemnation And God has given us pregnant Instances of his Righteous procedure in Punishing the Members of Political Bodies for the Offences of their Political Heads 2 Sam. 24. Thus he Punisht Davids sin in Numbering the People upon the People who were Innocent in his Transgression personally and to say as some have ventured to say That the People had sins of their own for which God might Righteously punish them is to say a great Impertinent truth For whatever sins
God might have held us close and tyed us up to the Terms of the Old Covenant and righteously have exacted of us a Personal compleat Obedience to every jot and tittle of the Law as the Condition of Justification but though he has not abated of his Law yet he has admitted a Surety called therefore the Surety of the Covenant not only because he has undertaken for God but for us also for a Mediator is not of one Gal. 3. 19. And our receiving this abundance of Grace is not the Receiving of inherent Grace into us but our accepting by Faith this New Gospel-Law or Constitution of God with the whole Man closing with this gracious way of Justifying a Believer by Christ. But here our Author unhappily crosses me the way with one of his id est's That is says he Those who by the Gospel of Christ which is called Grace the abundant Grace of God are made Holy and Righteous To which I say as I have sometimes said That the Gospel as he describes it is not the Grace of God but a real Doctrine of Justification by Works blanch'd a little to make it vendible 2. The Gospel as it is a Revelation of Grace is not the whole of the Grace of God the Gospel reveals more Grace to be in God in Christ in the Holy Spirit for us than the Revelation of it There is an Operation of Grace upon us a Constitution of Grace with us as well as a Revelation of Grace to us but this he will grant us That Righteousness is called a Gift so far good But is it really a gift or onely called so as Christs is called a Redeemer called a High-Priest called a Sacrifice I doubt this will prove nothing but Phraseology at last He answers 1. Negatively It 's called a gift because it is not owing solely to Humane Endeavours Not solely But then it may be almost and very near altogether owing to Humane Endeavours The Grace of God may come in for a share though a poor pitiful share as he would not exclude the Righteousness of Christ wholly totally from having any concernment in our Iustification so out of his generosity he will not shut out Grace wholly from interposing in our Sanctification Haerebit in aliquâ saltem parte Well commend me to the memory of honest I. G. who though a high trotting Arminian would allow Free-grace ninety nine parts in the Conversion of a sinner provided always and upon Condition nevertheless that Free-will might have one in a hundred But what a Company of Rigid Bigots are these Calvinists that will not abate one ace not forgo a single Unite in a Hundred but they pretend they have no Commission to compound between Free-grace and Free-will and that God will not put his Right to arbitration and indeed it were hazardous for what sad terms had our Author made for the Rich effectual Grace of God had the determination been put into his hands Righteousness is not owing solely to Humane endeavours Natural strength free-will humane ability shall have ninety nine parts in the Dividend and Grace that deserves all must be content with one single lot and perhaps a smaller pittance And now what if this will not denominate it a gift just so much as you add to these Humane Endeavours you substract from free-grace and whether that little that very little concern that grace has in this work shall denominate it a Gift or that much that very much which Humane Endeavours have in it No gift must stand to the Courtesie of the Criticks and great Masters of Language 2. Affirmatively It is wrought in us says he by supernatural means by those powerful arguments and motives and Divine assistances which God in infinite Love hath afforded the World by Iesus Christ. I cannot express the transport of my mind at the first sound of these words supernatural means powerful arguments Divine assistances I began to suspect our Author was turn'd Calvinist as he suspected Dr. Owen was turned Arminian and with equal Reason for I presently found my Errour The word Grace has a Considerable Name and carries a good repute in the Scriptures and therefore our Author will behave himself as decently towards it as he can afford But what is the meaning of these supernatural means Why to speak liquidly Means of Supernatural Revelation at best but of no supernatural Operation Some arguments suggested which the light of Nature could not discover and some institutions which depend meerly on the will and pleasure of God for his powerful arguments and Divine assistances they are such Motives as being given by God externally are left to the self-determining power of that great Idol Free will For when all is done 't is the man who Converts himself but this and a great deal more will not satisfie the claim of effectual Grace in the Conversion of a Soul to God Who by the same power whereby Christ was raised from the dead works Faith in the Soul Eph. 1. 19 20. Who works in us both to will and to do of his own good pleasure Phil. 2. 13. Who gives us the new Heart and causes us to walk in his Statutes Ezek. 36. 26. Who takes away the resistibility of the Soul the stony heart and Circumcises the Hearts of his People to Love the Lord their God with all their heart Deut. 30. 6. But with such Cantings did Pelagius cover his abominations talking of ineffable grace wonderful grace when all was but Revelation or Grace the Name suborned to destroy Free and effectual Grace the thing it self After all these windings and turnings our Author will give us a fair account How we may be said to bâ—… made Righteous by the Righteousness of Christ I hope it shall be an honest account as well as a fair one and then it 's welcome but whose hopes could have been so vain as to flatter him he should live to see an account and a fair account too given by our Author of such a Paradox But we attend Not that his Actual Obedience is reckoned as done by us which is impossible There 's the Negative And this seems to go a great way in the Account How we may be said to be made Righteous by anothers Righteousness Because it 's impossible we should be righteous by anothers righteousness But why is this so impossible There 's no more impossibility in it than that Adams Disobedience should be reckoned as mine which if it be not let men shift and evade with all their cunning they shall never be able to justifie Gods procedure with his Posterity in entailing evils many evils and Death it self upon them for Adams sake if they be not guilty of the Crime Suppose we had been in Adams place had committed his sin eaten the forbidden Fruit in his stead in our own Persons what had the penalty been in our Authors Judgment but evils a great many evils Death it self And what in the Apostles account but Iudgment unto Condemnation
he afterwards throwes up his Nose so scornfully at Some other matters may have a Room in our Consideration As 1 That this Knowledge of God was Natural had need be a little better trimmed than ordinary Natural either imports what is constitutive of our Beings or flows immediately from the Principles of Nature or else what is congruous and agreeable to our Natures as designed for such an Employment as is proper to them If he take Natural in the first sence I softly deny that The Knowledge of God which made or would have made Adam happy was Natural to him And my Reason is that what does so constitute Nature or flow immediately from the Principles thereof cannot possibly be separated from that Being but withall the very Being is destroy'd but we see damned Souls and Devils retain all that knowledge of God which did constitute their Essences and yet have lost all that knowledge of God which is or may be a Means to their happiness they retain their Beings are not physically stript of them though they are Morally devested of all the Comfort of their Beings but then if by Natural Knowledge no more be intended but that upon supposition God would create man to serve love and enjoy him it was due to a Being so posited to be so qualified If man must serve his Maker and in that service enjoy him and in that enjoyment be Happy in him then indeed is it natural such a Knowledge such a Will such a Heart should be bestow'd upon him but I would have this Bush soundly beaten by a better Huntsman than my self and ten to one he may from under it start a Pelagian 2 It would be enquired whether this Natural Knowledge was a sufficient means for Adams Happiness Our Author seems clearly to assert it but I confess I cannot joyn with him as believing that much more was required of and indeed bestow'd upon him than a Natural Knowledge of God He was made in the Image and likeness of God Gen. 1. 26 27. A main part of that Image lay in Righteousness Eccles. 7. 29. God made man upright 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rectum there was a Rectitude of all the Powers and Faculties an exact conformity of them to one another and of all to the Revealed Will of God And this appears In that the Image of God restored by Grace assures us what that Image was which he once had but since has lost Eph. 4. 24. And that ye put on the New Man which after God is created in Righteousness and True Holiness And indeed the first man not being capable of a forreign Righteousness whereby he might be justifi'd that Covenant either not needing it supposing he had stood or not admitting it on supposition of a Fall he must necessarily have a Righteousness inherent one of his own to qualifie him to hold Communion or to speak warrantably with our Author converse with God 3 I question much that Expression of Innocence as not very Innocent it has been taken upon suspicion many a time and sometime could not give a good Account of it self Casta quidem sed non credita And it has been the more narrowly observed since a Generation of Men arose in the world who would perswade us That the Perfection of Man in his first Creation lay not in any positive Qualities of Holiness Righteousness and Truth but in a bare Freedom from sin That is they would fancy Man to have been created as pure white and Innocent as a sucking Lamb but not so much as the first preparative blue towards the tincture of any Vertues but whether this one word in our Author may be iuterpreted so high time must discover And hitherto of the State wherein God created Man 2. A second Period of Time into which our Author has Thrown the World is that from Adam to Abraham inclusively Upon which Interval he Philosophizes even to our wonderment In after-Ages as Mankind grew more corrupt and declined to Idolatry Here I want our Authors Accuracy or must complain of a Fallacy for methinks it 's a deadly long stride to step from Adam to after-Ages without the Bridge of some Neat Transition he might have made two steps of this just now we found Man in the state of Innocency and now we find him corrupt and declined to Idolatry and yet none can imagine how this evil of Sin and Misery invaded the world The Heathens were at their wits-ends about it the Manichees could not invent a way to assoyl it but by assigning a double Eternal Cause or Principle the one of Good the other of Evil And now when we expected great matters from this Gentleman to be left in the lurch and fobb'd off with a blind account that this was done in after-Ages In after-Ages as Mankind grew more corrupt Oh! it seems they were Corrupt before and enclined to Idolatry but in these villanous after-Ages they grew more Corrupt Religion pass'd through many hands and in long Tract of time gathered Moss and Furre Men sliding insensibly none ever knew how into this degeneracy and Trace it up as high as you can yet Nilus hides his Head beyond the Mountains of the Moon That Men are corrupt and stark naught we see but how they became so or when first turn'd out of the way that 's hid in darkness and perpetual Night But there is one St. Paul as obscure an Author as some would represent him that would have spoken a thousand times more to our satisfaction than this Gentleman Rom. 5. 12. By one man sin entred into the World and Death by Sin and so Death pass'd upon all men in that or in whom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all have sinned V. 17. By one Mans Offence Death reigned by one V. 18. By the Offence of one Iudgement came upon all to Condemnation That the evil that we experience in the world and that 's abundance may be reduced to two heads it 's either Malum Culpae or Malum Poenae Either the Evil of Sin or the Evil of Punishment for sin Now this Excellent Author tells us that both these Evils came from one root one spring and that was one Man and that one Man was Adam This seems to have a probable face of the Origine of Evil but he was a dark Writer There is therefore another Author that wrote a Book called The Catholick Doctrine believed and professed in the Church of England one with whom our Author has some Reason to be acquainted for a Reason or two that I know of now this Author tells us Art 9. Of Original or Birth-sin That Original sin standeth not in the following of Adam as the Pelagians vainly talk N. B. but it is the Fault and Corruption of the Nature of every Man that Naturally is ingendred of the Off-spring of Adam whereby Man is very far gone from Original Righteousness and is enclined to evil so that the Flesh lusteth against the Spirit and therefore in every person born
Brimstone upon their heads and it was goodness that he did it not in stead of those fruitfull seasons he might have sent Famine and Cleanness of Teeth and there was much Goodness in that yet whether they could from hence bless themselves with a well-grounded Hope that he would pardon their Iniquities I much question And 2. The Servant in the Parable Math. 18. 26. could understand the difference between forbearance and acquittance Have patience with me and I will pay thee all Time and Day were considerable Favours in his Judgement though his Master did not throw him in the Bond. 3. I am sure God himself understood the difference between a Reprieve and a Pardon between that Goodness which he shews in forbearing and that which he manifests in forgiving Rom. 9. 22. He endured with much long-suffering the Vessels of Wrath fitted to destruction A presumptuous Conclusion therefore had it been from Gods general Goodness and indulgent Patience to argue his Forgiveness and pardoning-Grace 4. Adam in the state of Integrity understood very well God to be good he could not look besides a Demonstration of it and yet no Notion of Gods Pardoning Grace was concreated with him whereof he could have no use in his worship of and walking with God A threatning against sin he had but not the least intimation that God would pardon it till it was revealed upon another Account We are not here enquiring what presumptuous and vain hopes secure sinners might form to themselves of Indempnity nor how their hearts might be fully set in them to do evil because judgement against an evil work was not speedily executed nor what flattering thoughts might tickle their breasts that God was such a one as themselves because he kept silence at their proceedings and spoke not his Fury in Thunder and Lightning nor do we enquire what Natural earnest desires they might express to obtain the Favour of God what projects plotts and contrivances they invented to relieve their guilty Consciences wounded with apprehensions of wrath how they skin'd over their Sores with some Services and lickt themselves whole with their Sacrifices and Oblations But the Enquiry is this What solid Ground they had from Gods common and general Goodness his Governing the World his Patience Forbearance and long-sufferance with his Bounty to Sinners to conclude from thence that he was a Sin-pardoning God When I seriously consider into what inextricable Labyrinths and Mazes those poor Heathens did run themselves how they were bewildred in their own Inventions how they tyred themselves off their Leggs in their own wayes and spent themselves to their skins with Sacrifices if by any means it might be possible to purchase the good will of a Deity I presently conclude they had no settled fixed Apprehension of any such thing in God For though they might hear a rumour that there were a people in the World towards whom God shew'd himself propitious and favourable and that the way of the peoples part to reconcile this God to them was by killing of Beasts and offering up them to him in Sacrifice and might therefore hence fall upon this practice of Sacrifices yet not understanding the true use of them what reference they had to a promised Mediator they must needs fluctuate and toss up and down in uncertainties about so weighty a Concern Hence was it that least they should not hit upon the True God in that Crowd and Throng of Deities wherewith they had overstockt the Commons they set up an Altar To the unknown God and least they should miss the right Sacrifice and most acceptable Offering sometimes they Sacrificed the worst sometimes the best of Men and sometimes to please their God the better they would let him choose by Lot which he would have They tryed Conclusions with almost all sorts of Creatures and all to answer the demands of an importunate Conscience which as Gods Officer was alwayes haling and dragging them before the Barr of Gods Justice to answer for their Delinquencies Either then they had no Notices of Sin-pardoning Mercy or what they had came not in from the Works of Creation and Providence but were some scattered Beams and broken Splinters of Traditional Knowledge derived Originally to them from the People of God who themselves had received it by pure Revelation in and through a Redeemer All this while our Author sits fretting himself like Gumm'd-Taffata that when he has been for two whole pages together preparing his Reader to swallow his Pills yet we should cunningly pass it over with a dry Foot and never bestow the least Consideration of it That he may not therefore think himself neglected we shall give him a full and a fair hearing The Light of Nature says he and the Works of Creation and Providence and those manifold Revelations God hath made of himself to the World especially that last and most perfect Revelation by Iesus Christ assure us that God is infinite in all his Perfections They do so let him make his best of that And therefore that he is Powerfull and can doe whatever he pleases Very good goe on So Wife that he knows how to order every thing for the best Better and better and yet p. 30. he tells us Long and sad Experience proved that all the Means he used to reform the World proved ineffectual So Good that he designs and desires the Happiness of all his Creatures according to the Capacity of their Natures Stick a Pin there So Holy that he hath a Natural Love to all good Men And so Gracious too that he made them Good else they never had been so but he hates all Sin and Wickedness It 's well Gods Hatred of Sin is as Natural to him as his Love of Good Men. And will as certainly punish all Obstinate and Incorrigible Sinners but yet that he is patient and long-suffering towards the worst of Men and uses various Methods to reclaim them and is as ready to pardon them when they return to their Duty as a kind Father is to receive an humble and penitent Prodigal Where there are some things that wound our Authors Cause to the Heart and nothing prejudicial to the Truth which he opposes For 1. He grants that Gods Love to good Men and his Hatred of Sin are both equally Natural and therefore I suppose Essential to him 2. That Gods punishing obstinate Sinners is equally Natural to him with his rewarding Good men But 3. The Fallacy of all is that lapsed Man stands related to God as a Father whereas he should have proved and not supposed that the Light of Nature of Scripture discovers any other Relation of a Revolted Sinner unto God than that of a Creature to his Creator and a Subject to his Governour before he be taken into that special Relation of a Son to a Father by Adoption in Christ. 4. A Supposition that God is ready to pardon Sinners when they return to their Duty is ambiguous vain and as he takes it false
them and the only thing that gives a right to the promises of Future glory is to obey the Laws and imitate the Example of our Saviour and to be transformed into the Nature and Likeness of God We must crave his leave to take his words in pieces that we may the better deal with them 1. The Gospel says he makes a different Representation of it tells us expresly that he is righteous that doth righteousness But say I This is no representation of our justification different from what the Doctor has assigned And let the words be Interpreted how he will they make nothing against the Doctors assertions 1. Let these words He is Righteous signifie He is Inherently righteous or holy and then the plain Sence is that he that doth righteousness that practises an Uniform and Universal conformity in his Life to the Gospel may charitably be judged by others and certainly known by his own Conscience to be such a one as a Tree is known by its fruits For so are we warranted by our Saviour to make a Judgment Mat. 7. 16. And the same warrant we have from the Church of England Art 12. Insomuch that by them good Works that necessarily spring of a true and lively faith a lively Faith may be as evidently known as a Tree discerned by the Fruit. 2. Let the words be interpreted of that Righteousness by which in which and for which we stand accepted as Righteous before God yet it meets in the same point he that from an honest and good heart brings forth holy Fruit most certainly justified in the sight of God and is accepted of him we may argue â—… hope without Offence from the Effect to the Cause and yet the Cause and the Effect are two things He that is sanctified is justified and yet Sanctification is not Justification we may safely conclude an imputed Righteousness from an imparted Righteousness and yet that Righteousness which we have in Christ may be another thing from that Righteousness which we have by influence from Christ as our Head 2. Sayes he The Gospel tells us that without Holiness no man shall see God It does so indeed but does it tell us that Holiness is inconsistent with our Iustification by the Righteousness of Christ Or does it tell us that upon the account of our own Holiness we shall be justified before God 3. The onely way to obtain the Pardon of Sins is to repent of them and forsake them That without Repentance there 's no possibility of obtaining Pardon of Sin we freely grant they must be Sinners that need a Pardon and they must be penitent Sinners that are qualified to receive one The Gospel has annex'd by express Promise the Pardon of Sin to Repentance 1 Ioh. 1. 9. If we confess our sins he is faithfull and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness But what an absurd way of procedure is this to jumble and confound things together which ought to have their several Apartments and distinct Interests allotted to them in one and the same Effect The Grace of God as the great Spring and Fountain of all Mercy must have a place in the Pardon of a Sinner and the blood of Iesus Christ as the Meritorious Cause justly challenges a great room therein Eph. 1. 7. In whom we have redemption through his blood even the remission of sins according to the riches of his grace and Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ will come in for a share too as it gives us an Interest in what he has suffered by way of Atonement to God and Expiation of our sins and godly sorrow for hatred of and turning from sin in Purpose and Resolution at least must have its proper Concern therein too But to assert that Repentance is the onely way of procuring Pardon excluding Faith and the Propitiation made in the Blood of Christ needs more grains of Allowance than he will afford to any he deals with to make it justifiable But the vanity of this Fallacy lyes in this That he opposes the Righteousness of Christ and the Means whereby it 's applyed to our Persons As if one would stiffly contend that we are justified by Faith alone and therefore not by the Righteousness of Christ whereas we are therefore justified by Faith because we are justified by Christ we are justified by the Righteousness of Christ alone as that which God onely considers in the Justification of a Sinner to answer his Law his Justice and we are justified by Faith alone as that which makes Christ ours Say the same here Repentance is a Means to qualifie us for the receiving the pardon of Sin God will never give forth a Pardon to that Sinner that is not brought upon his knees throughly humbled for his Transgressions yet still that which God respects in the pardon of a Sinner is the Blood of his Son without shedding of which there is not there cannot be any Remission Hebr. 9. 22. But no man shall perswade our Author to distinguish betwixt Christs procurement of so great a Mercy and the Way of the Gospel appointment for the Applying it to our selves 4. The onely thing that gives us a right to the Promises of future Glory is to obey the Laws and imitate the Example of our Saviour and to be transformed into the Nature and Likeness of God For my part I conceive far otherwise That though our Holiness give us a Meetness and Fitness to partake of the Inheritance of the Saints in light yet it was the Lord Jesus Christ that procured our right and title to it and the Promise of it The Church of England was of the same Opinion when it decreed Art 13. That works done before the Grace of Christ and the Inspiration of the Spirit are not pleasant to God neither do they make men meet to receive Grace c. And then we may presume will not make us meet to receive Glory much less give us a right and title to the Promises of it And Art 12. That the works which follow after Iustistification are those that are pleasing and acceptable to God and I think we may equally take it for granted that upon our justification with God we have a right to the Promises of future Glory But if this be true that the onely thing that gives us this right be Obedience to Imitation of Christ and Conformity to the Nature of God we may have a Right to when we have actual Possession of Glory for till then it will hardly be true that we have obeyed all Christs Laws But our Author had Wit in his Anger and was aware of an Objection that was coming against him and wisely layes in for it as well as he could It might be returned to all that he had said How can so imperfect an Obedience as ours is so every wayes lame and defective and short of the exact Law of God ever give us a right to the Promises of future Glory Yes
106. And was God ever denied the Liberty before t'other day to bring Good out of Evil 2. He lays it down as their Doctrine It pleased God that man should sin but when he hath sinned He is displeased with it This seems to be a piece of Wit designed to make the Devil Merry but all the Humour of it lies in the Ambiguity of one poor word It pleased God to permit sin and yet when man had sinned he was justly displeased with it Gods permission had no Influence upon mans Transgression But how would he have Insulted over that man that should openly Preach and Write That against the Holy Child Iesus whom God anointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate and the People of Israel were gathered together for to do whatsoever Gods Hand and Gods Counsel determined before to be done and yet when it was done according to the Determination of his own Hand and Counsel he was extreamly displeased with it And yet I could tell him of one that has so said who Scorns his most scornful Censure It may please God that a thing may be done and take no pleasure in the thing done nor in the Instruments that did it It pleased him to suffer his own People to be afflicted by the Heathen and yet he was sore displeased with the Heathen that helped forward the Affliction Zech. 1. 15. It pleased the Father to bruise his Son and yet he was displeased with the Instruments that bruised him God can do the same thing Righteously which Men and Devils do unrighteously Judas delivered up Christ out of Covetousness the Iews out of Envie Pilate out of Fear or to pick a Thank from Caesar but God Delivered him for our Offences 3. He charges them with this Doctrine That nothing can withstand the Decrees of God We have scarce another Instance wherein he has Candidly represented their Judgment and was not able to throw some Dirt upon it 4. He proceeds to play the Lucian and Scoff at Gods Justice It 's impossible says he for God to forgive the least sin without a compleat and perfect Satisfaction Let him but grant that God cannot forgive the greatest sin without compleat and perfect Satisfaction and they will undertake to prove from thence that none is so small but needs a Satisfaction 5. He proceeds This falls hard upon those miserable Wretches whose ill fortune it was to be left out of the Roll of Election without any fault of theirs To be left out of the Roâ—…l of Election by Fortune is a piece of prophane Nonsence which at once discovers the depth of his Intellectuals and the height of his Boldness What more Desultory than that which Heathens call Fortune What more stable and fixed than that which the Word of God calls Election The Old Church of England would have Taught him to have Spoken otherwise of that Tremendous Mysterie Art 17â—… Election to Life is the everlasting purpose of God whereby before the Foundation of the World was laid He hath constantly Decreed by his Counsel secret to us to deliver from Curse and Damnation those whom He hath chosen in Christ out of Mankind and to bring them by Christ to everlasting Salvation c. Now though he believes little of all this yet he might remember he had Subscribed the whole and considered also t is the Doctrine of that Church whereof he is a Member and therefore might have Covered their Nakedness and at least Perfum'd them with a few good Cheap words against their Burial It were tedious to pursue the particulars I only say If this Scheme of Religion as it stands here upon Record be the Subject of his Scorn and Reproach I hope we may read it backwards and then 't will be his own Creed some few Slanders indeed which were inserted as a Haut goust to giue it the better Grace we may Omit but for the rest no doubt he will own it to be the Standard of his Belief God from the Beginning never Designed to Glorifie either his Iustice or Mercy and because there would have been Occasion abundantly Administred both to Punish and Pardon too though man had never sinned therefore he never concern'd himself how things would go And indeed it had been to no purpose for God to Decree any thing since if he had all his Decrees and Appointments had been easiâ—…y withstood And therefore man sinned whether God would or no and full sore against his Will for if he could have prevented it we may be sure he would but when man had sinned God was not much displeased with it for you must know that his Justice is so Facile and Easie an Attribute and if it be one at all it 's but a Secondary one that he can easily forgive the greatest sin without Satisfaction made to it This is very good News if it be true to all the World especially seeing there 's no such thing as the Roll of Election and by Consequence no preterition neither but all men stand upon even Ground and every one upon his own Legs which they may the better do because they have many ways left if need were to pacifie Gods anger in case he should happen to be a little displeased with sin viz. By their own Temporal sufferings Repentance and Obedience which though they answer not Gods Law yet being sincere it s well enough By this it appears that God is not Essentially Just and Righteous seeing He can Pardon the greatest sin and serve his own Glory without any regard to the Death of Christ or Inflicting upon sinners Eternal Sufferings But now this is but one part of the Glory of God that He can pardon sin without Propitiation made by Christ the other is that he can reward the sinner too without the Righteousness of Christ And therefore there 's more ado than needs about a pretended Difficulty how to Reconcile Gods Iustice and Mercy For neither is Iustice so severe as to require Satisfaction and the Merit of our own Obedience is so Considerable that we need not much be beholden to Mercy And to speak in a word the Demerit of sin is short of Infinite and therefore the Creature may Expiate its own sins by enduring Finite that is Temporary Torments whereas then men Talk that to Unite these two Extreams and reconcile such Contradictions was a work of Infinite Wisdome as well as Goodness they Talk Idly for as I said before whatever there was of Goodness in it there could be no great Wisdom and therefore it 's vainly said that to Effect it God should send his Son into the World to satisfie all Righteousness in his Life and to make a full satisfaction for sin by his Death for neither could his Blood be of Infinite value though for Fashion sake we call it the Blood of the Son of God nor Expiate an Infinite guilt or make satisfaction to Gods Justice if so be he had stood upon 't And therefore to Instruct you aright in these Matters sin
of splitting upon that Rock They might have taken warning from the Churches Confession Isa. 64. 6. We are all as an unclean thing and all our Righteousnesses are as filthy rags All the warning in the World signifies nothing to them that are resolved to interpret Our own Righteousness by Ceremony and Hypocrisie Had Christ inculcated the danger even to Tautology all may be evaded by that happy Gloss which he keeps Leiger by him True indeed he warns us to beware of our own Righteousness but he intends no more hereby than the works of the Ceremonial and external acts of the Moral Law 3. Christ had indeed given them fair warning but if they will not take it the sin must lie at their own doors and the Condemnation upon their own heads Luke 18. 9. He spake a Parable to them that trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others c. Now it may seasonably be here remembred 1. What was the design of this Parable And that the Evangelist tells us was to meet with them that trusted in themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 men that presumed very highly upon their own Abilities to answer the Law of God and therefore despised others who made such a stir about their own Impotency to keep it and kept such a coyl about the shortness of their obedience to it like the poor Publican who being conscious to himself of both makes his retreat to and shelters himself in the free Grace and rich Mercy of God to miserable sinners 2. It will be seasonable to enquire What that Righteousness was upon which the Pharisee in the Parable so stiffly insisted as that in which he durst adventure to appear before God And that as our Saviour puts the case was a Righteousness made up of obedience to Gods Commands And those both Prohibitory he was no Extortioner no Adulterer no Unjust Person and Affirmatively he paid his Tythes exactly which will go a great way and fasted twice a-week 3. Let it be considered that however many of the Pharisees of those days were Hypocrites yet our Saviour frames his Parable of a Pharisee not according to what many of them were but what they seemed to be and were reputed for amongst men who admired their Sanctity and reverenced their Devotions and therefore he describes not a Person acting his part well upon the Stage but living up to very high Attainments of Nature For 1. The duties instanced in are only some particulars in the name of all the rest He instances in his praying to and praising of God which comprehend all the duties of the First Table His freedom from Adultery Extortion and in a word from Injustice which is the whole of the Second Table Again He instances in duties of the Iudicial Law paying Tythes and of the Ceremonial Fasting with a little touch perhaps of Supereragation Twice in the week 2. When Christ introduces a person saying he was no Adulterer we may reasonably suppose he taught him to speak in the proper sense of the word which Christ himself allows Now in Christ's Dialect to be no Adulterer is not to commit it with the heart Mat. 5. still abating for Humane Frailties And 3. This is evident because our Savióur describes not this Pharisee as praying in the corners of the streets or in the Synagogues to be seen of men but in obedience to God's Command Going up to the Temple to pray and there praying to God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in his own heart between God and his own Soul All which evidently prove that our Saviour puts not the case of a stinking Hypocrite but of one who went as far as Natures legs would carry him But 4. The miscarriage of this Pharisee lay not in this that he was what he pretended he was not or was not what he pretended he was but that he trusted to himself for a Righteousness to be compounded out of all these Ingredients wherein he would dare to stand before God and in despising others which is the natural Product of Self-Righteousness And yet upon our Author's Principles I see not why he might not trust to himself that he was Righteous if Righteousness be to be made out of Obedience and despise others too since his own free-will exerted and natural strength improved had made him differ from another even from that Publican But yet 4. There 's one Prejudice more remaining which perhaps may stick more with him than all the rest He is apt to admire our Saviour's Sermons in the first place before the Writings of the Apostles though inspired men I should be loth to weaken his Admiration of our Saviours Sermons But he may do well to examine Whether his Aptness to admire them before other Sermons given forth by the same Spirit may not proceed from great Ignorance or a worse Principle For though our Saviour's Person had more Authority than the Persons of the Apostles yet the Writings of the Apostles are of equal Authority with those of the Evangelists to command our Faith and Obedience The Epistles of S. Iohn are indited by the same Spirit by which hepenned the Gospel 'T is the Authority of Christ in both the Infallible Spirit speaking in both which are the Reason of our Belief of both All Scripture is given by Divine Inspiration 2 Tim. 3. 18. The same Spirit of Christ that spake in the Prophets of the Old-Testament and the Apostles in the New 1 Pet. 1. 11. And such Comparisons must needs be very odious where the Spirit of God has made none But the total sum of all these Prejudices we shall have in one Dilemma Did not our Saviour instruct his Hearers in all things necessary to Salvation or have the Evangelists given us an imperfect account of his Doctrine If the first then our Saviour was not faithful in the discharge of his Prophetical Office If the latter you overthrow the Credit of the Gospel Well! I hope we may out-live this horned-Argument for all the terrour of its looks 1. Christ was faithful in his Prophetical Office he instructed his Hearers in all things necessary to Salvation But then there are some great and weighty Doctrines which it was necessary to the Salvation of the Gentile World to know wherein the Iewish Church had been sufficiently instructed already The Doctrine of Atoning God making Reconciliation for sin expiating Transgressions was abundantly clear from their Sacrifices The Theory of God's justifying a sinner was evident from thence they knew what Imputation signified by the transferring of the guilt of the sinner upon the head of the Sacrifice And therefore when Christ came his main business with the Jews was to convince them that he was the Messiah promised of old and typified in their Sacrifices His Work they knew all the Question was Whether he was the Person Matth. 11. 3. Art thou he that should come or do we look for another Joh. 10. 24. If thou beest the Christ tell us plainly Christ's Sermons
justified in the sight of God and methinks it looks like a mere whimsey to fancy a Notion of Iustification in his sight that has neither pardon of sin included in it nor eternal life attending of it It 's strange to me to hear of Iustification before God against Temporal Evils And if Abraham had no other I think he was never perfectly justified 2. The Determination of the Church of England is no light matter with me Artic. 7. They are not to be heard that feign the Fathers looked only for Transitory Promises But it seems that in this one particular the Church was not infallible for they are to be heard and read and licensed and advanced too who dare fâ—…ign and write and preach That the Patriarchs either looked for none or at the best but Transitory Promises 3. When I read that Abraham was so earnest to see Christ's day by Faith and when he got a sight of it he was glad I begin to think with my self what should be the ground of so great a joy at so great a distance Spiritual Promise he is allowed none and was it worth the while to rejoyce in the foresight of some temporal Advantages that should come to the Jews when he should be turn'd to dust and nothing especially seeing the coming of Christ either brought spiritual Mercies 〈◊〉 the Seed of Abraham or none at all So that he had more cause to sit down and lament that he had no promise of Love from or Life with God either for his Person or Posterity Ay! but says he the Promise was not so clear but men might mistake iâ—… That may be I confess And so may the clearest that ever God gave to the sons of men If men will set their wits on work and serue and torture and vex and wrest every letter and syllable and in all this forsake the Conduct of God's Spirit and scorn the Catholick Judgment of the Church in all Ages to gratifie their Airy Crotchets I do not remember a Promise of God to secure them against mistaking his Promises Ay! but says he we know that the whole Iewish Church did so for many Ages If he knows it he knows more than I do but that is no great wonder and than any man alive besides his own Knowing self And yet they had more particular Promises concerning Christ than that was and yet expected only a temporal Prince I will deal openly with him I do not believe that the whole Iewish Church for any Age much less for many Ages no not for any one day in any Age did expect a Messiah to deliver them only from temporal evils That there was great degeneracy in that Church in some Ages I deny not there is so amongst Christians especially towards the latter times of their Church-state But that ever the whole Church so far degenerated as to lose the expectation of a Redeemer to deliver them from sin and its consequents and to endow them with spiritual Blessings I demand better proofs than Confidence before I subscribe And 1. For Abraham it 's evident he sought a heavenly Country and therefore I conclude That the believing Jews who had says our Author more particular Promises concerning Christ sought a heavenly one too or their more express Promises were ill bestowed on them Heb. 11. 9. By Faith he Abraham dwelt in the promised Land as in a strange Country The promised Land was a strange Country to him that sought a heavenly one whereof that was but the figure the rind and bark for that Promise had greater excellencies underneath to his discerning Faith ver 10. For he looked for a City that had foundations whose builder and maker is God Vers. 13. All these died in the Faith Confessing that they were Strangers and Pilgrims for they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a Country Vers. 16. But now they desire a better that it a heavenly Country therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God 2. It 's evident that the Messiah was promised Isa. 53. 4. To bear their sins and carry their sorrows Vers. 5. To be wounded for their transgressions and bruised for their iniquities Ver. 6. To have all their iniquities laid upon him Ver. 8. To be stricken for the transgression of God's people Ver. 10. To have his Soul made an Offering for sin And now to assert That the whole Iewish Church expected only a temporal Monarch is to throw such dirt in the face of God's people as is very scandalous 3. If any of them at any time expected temporal Deliverances temporal Honours Revenues c. from the Messiah it was not inconsistent utterly with an expectation of better things from him for the Disciples themselves had been hammering some such conceit in their heads Acts 1. 6. perhaps mistaking in the Chronology and Antedating that Mercy which in its season they might have reason to expect and yet by our Author 's good leave I will be so charitable as to presume they looked for pardon of sin and eternal life from Christ Nay I could name instances nearer home of those that expect from the Gospel large in-comes and yet we may reasonably believe have nobler things in their eye and would scorn his Atheistical spirit who would not forgo his part in Paris for his share in Paradise 2. He must know that Christ was to die for our sins without which according to our Doctor it 's impossible God should forgive sins considering the Naturalness of his Vindictive Iustice to him Now to untie this knot in the Bulrush 1. I question not that Abraham understood clearly That God was essentially holy and that his Rectoral or Governing Iustice was founded therein Gen. 18. 25. Shall not the Iudg of all the Earth do right That it should be with the righteous as with the wicked or with the wicked as with the righteous were far from God Which Consideration might stagger his Faith about the pardon of his own sin and his only relief could be from the Faith of the Messiah's undertaking with God In which he had this satisfaction that however he found difficulties in the way of believing yet still he gave credit to God and his Testimony concerning a Redeemer leaving the Modes and Circumstances of the Mediatory Office as a secret in God's bosom 2. I am confident our Author cannot prove that Abraham knew nothing of Christ's death This I know he had Sacrifices which might sufficiently instruct him in the demerit of sin and what the sinner had deserved and in the necessity of Compensation to be made to God's Justice for his violated Law and reproached Government And whether Abraham might not once open his mouth to God to be instructed in their noblest signification and design I cannot tell 3. I do not know of any absolute necessity that Abraham should understand the Circumstances that should lead towards the fulfilling of the Mediator's work or in what particular way God would justifie a sinner
to us in the true Covenant Ioh. 6. 37. All that the Father giveth me shall come to me and him that cometh to me I will in no-wise cast out Eph. 2. 8. By Grace ye are saved through Faith and that not of your selves it is the gift of God And lest it should be Answered that Faith is indeed God's gift as all other things are wherein the Common Providence of God concurs with Humane industry The Apostle as if aware of such a petty Answer has laid in a Reply ready ch 1. v. 19. That they who believe do so by the exceeding greatness of God's power even according to the working of his Mighty power which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead Secondly we have a direct and express Promise too of that New-heart from which we give to God New-obedience nay of that New-obedience it self which proceeds from the New-heart or renewed Nature Ezek. 36. A new heart also will I give you and a new Spirit will I put within you and I will take away the heart of Stone out of your Flesh and will give you a heart of Flesh there 's the new Heart and v. 27. I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my Statutes and ye shall keep my Iudgments and do them there is new obedience thus also Heb. 8. 10. This is the Covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days saith the Lord I will put my Laws into their minds and write them in their hearts c. wherein it 's easy to observe 1. That this New-Covenant was founded upon God's free Grace v. 9. They continued not in my Covenant the old Covenant and I regarded them not saith the Lord They were a Covenant-breaking people deserved utter rejection yet God will make another a better a New-Covenant with them 2 That the promises of this Covenant were purely Spiritual writing his Laws in their minds and hearts 3. The parties Covenanting God and his Israel not all and every individual Son of Adam But 2. This Description gives us very little of the true Covenant of Grace here 's a Promise of Pardon and Life to them who believe and obey but perseverance in Faith and Obedience is left to the desultory and lubricous power of free-will whereas in the true Covenant of Grace there 's an undertaking that the Covenant shall be immutable both on God's part and the Believers Jer. 32. 38 40. They shall be my people and I will be their God and I will make an everlasting Covenant with them that I will not turn away from them to do them good but I will put my fear in their hearts that they shall not depart from me There are but two things that we can possibly Imagine should make the Covenant fall short of perpetuity either God's turning away from his people or which is only to be suspected their turning away from their God Against both of these God has made sufficient Provision 1. God has promised that he will not turn away from them to do them good 2. He has promised that they shall not depart from him and to fix and determine their backsliding Natures he has promised to put his fear into their hearts which is the great preservative against Apostacy § 2. As it describes not the whole of the Covenant so it describes not the Nature of a New-Covenant The Gospel-Covenant may be called a New Covenant either in opposition to the Old Covenant of Works or the old Administration of the Covenant of Grace Now 1. This Covenant which he has here described is no new Covenant in opposition to the Old-Covenant of works The Covenant which God made with Adam promised Life upon condition of Obedience Now the Commands which God gave to Adam were as easy as those which are now given to all Mankind and much easier too if we consider first That he had more natural strength to obey and keep them and as for supernatural strength our Author will allow us none unless by a desperate Catachresis we will call Moral Arguments so which to a Creature dead in trespasses and sins signify just nothing without special power from on high to render them efficacious which neither will be allowed us And Secondly we are told that Christ has added to the Moral Law which is to lay more Load on those who were before overcharged so that as he makes Covenants Adam's was much the better Covenant of the two But he has wisely shuffled in a Promise of the Pardon of Sin which may seem to give his Covenant a preheminence above that of Adam But that will not mend the matter both because it 's better to have no sin in our Natures than such a Remedy better to have no Wound than such a Plaister and also because the Promise of Pardon is suspended upon the condition of Faith and Obedience which without supernaturally real influx of immediate Divine Power reduces the promise to an impossibility of performance 2. This Covenant which he has here described is no New-Covenant in opposition to the old Administration of the Covenant of Grace There were the same promises then that we have now the same moral precepts to observe that we have now and though the word Gospel comes in for a blind yet the Apostle assures us Gal. 3. 8. That Abraham had the Gospel Preached to him § 3. Upon the matter it 's no Covenant of Grace at all For 1. A Promise of Pardon and Life upon Condition of Believing and Obeying is neither better nor worse than a threatning of Condemnation and Death to them who Believe not and Obey not It may with equal right be called a threatning of Death as a Promise of Life It 's no more a Covenant of Grace than a Covenant of Wrath and therefore 2. if it be lawful to consider Man as the Word of God describes him as dead in Sins and Trespasses as one that of himself cannot think a good thought that can do nothing at all without Christ It 's no Covenant at all to him under his present circumstances for what is the nice difference between a Promise of Life to him that obeys when it 's certain before-hand he cannot obey and no Promise at all 3. This Covenant which he calls New and well he may for it 's of his own making or however of his own new-vamping assigns the same conditions of Pardon and Eternal Life but the Scripture requires other qualifications for Eternal Life than for the Pardon of Sin A Believer may be justified without a sinless perfection but without such a sinless perfection none shall enter into Glory He may be actually justified that has not persevered in Holy Obedience to the Death but without such perseverance he can never be made partaker of Eternal Life 4. This Covenant of his is supposed to be made with all Mankind and yet all Mankind never heard of it Now is it not very
is I will be nothing to thee do nothing for thee of what thou mainly wantest but for all my Promise to be thy God I will suffer thee to lye under the guilt of Sin at present and to fall under eternal Condemnation here-after though thou walkest before me and art perfect If then there was such an Implicite and Virtual Promise in God's Nature revealed by the works of Creation and Providence to Reason and an Explicite one too in the particular Revelation that God would bestow Pardon of Sin and Eternal Life to those who walkt before God inuprightness The Question is How did Christ procure such an Engagement from God when it was procured before But supposing that there was never any such Promise made by God till Christ by his Death procured it then how did the Death of Christ prevail with God to make such a Promise which otherwise he had never made 4. But I suspect more than ever that we are merely gulled for he tells us That the Blessings of the Gospel are the proper Effects of the Covenant but not of that Blood of Christ so that we are justified by the Blood of Christ is properly false but improperly true that we are Redeemed by the Blood of Christ in an improper Sense may be said to be true but in a proper Sense is utterly false and then if the Apostles had penn'd their Epistles clean backward they would have been properly true whereas now they are properly false And now who can tell but when he says The Blood of Christ procured this Covenant he may not mean in some improper odd Sense that is not worth a Button But yet our Author seems to go higher than all this p. 330. Our Righteousness and acceptation with God it wholly owing to the Covenant which he hath purchased sealed with his Blood To Purchase is a very good word when applied to the Blood of Christ therefore because we meet with so few I shall make as much of it as I can It denotes procurement in a special way by a valuable price paid The Covenant of Grace then Christ has purchased that Covenant is a Promise of Pardon and Life to those who believe and obey the Gospel In this Covenant there are three things First the Material part the pardon of sin and eternal Life Secondly the conditional part Faith and Obedience Thirdly The form of the Covenant A Promise of the Material part upon performance of the Conditional part Now when he owns the Blood of Christ to have purchased this Covenant the question is whether the whole or some part of it only If not the whole then what part is the purchase of his Blood 1. For the Conditional part Faith and Obedience I may secure my self our Author will not put them into the particular of the purchase for then it would be scarce worth the while to mingle Heaven and Earth with Tragedies what the conditions of the Covenant should be if Christ had purchased the conditions themselves and therefore as to these let every man trust to himself 2. As for the Material part Pardon and Life I doubt our Author will not yield us neither that Christ has purchased them because he denies that the Blessings of the Gospel are the proper effects of Christ's Blood whereas had he purchased them with his Blood they would have been the proper effects of it 3. Then it remains that Christ has purchased a Promise of bestowing the Material part upon our performance of the Conditional part And thus we are just where we were two miles ago and these great words of purchasing and procuring are shrivel'd up to Confirmation of a Promise but if he will say that the Blood of Christ his Death and dreadful sufferings were a proper price paid to God to procure or purchase a word from God that he would do that which was natural and essential to him then we shall thank him that he has such honourable thoughts of it as to judg it worth a good word The Scripture every-where ascribes the Blessings of the Gospel to the purchase and procurement of the Blood of Christ but if this be all that he has got a word from God it supposes the the Scripture to swell with Scenical Language and high Tragical Phrase which seems to carry sublime matters in it but when it comes to be stript of Metaphor and Allegory is a mere Anatomy From this precarious Hypothesis that the Apostles always write like himself that is improperly and impertinently and attribute such things to the Blood of Christ which are the proper and immediate effects of the Gospel-Covenant he will unriddle to us many Mysteries which are vulgarly reputed matters of weight and worth but if we can spare him a little Patience he will so uncase them that we shall confess they contain nothing that may deserve or need the Blood of Christ or any great matter to be made about them 1. Concerning Reconciliation The Apostle had said 2 Cor. 5. 18 19. All things are of God who hath reconciled us to himself by Iesus Christ and hath committed to us the Ministry of reconciliation to wit that God was in Christ reconciling the World unto himself not imputing their Trespasses and hath committed to us the word of reconciliation v. 21. For he hath made him to be sin for us what the import of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 reconciliation and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to reconcile is will not create us any great trouble because our Author allowing a reconciliation to be made between Iew and Gentile secretly confesses that Reconciliation implies the taking away of an enmity and bringing the differing parties into a state of Peace and Friendship But the Apostle in this place instructs us further 1. That the proper effect of this Reconciliation is not-imputing Trespasses God is by Nature a Holy God as he is Governour of the World he is a Righteous Iudg sin is both Contrary to his holy Nature and his Holy Law And therefore as a Holy God he cannot but hate sin as a Righteous Iudg he cannot but punish sin And because this sin is inherent in and committed by Man God hates the sinner upon the Account of his sin his Person and his best services are an abomination to the Lord. From hence it follows that sin being a transgression of the Law in its preceptive part renders the sinner Guilty that is obnoxious and lyable to the Law in its Sanction to the punishment Now this Righteous Iudg will certainly charge the guilty sinner with the penalty due to his sin but there is a way found out that he may be reconciled and not impute to sinners their Trespasses and this clearly shews that the Reconciliation here spoken of is a reconciliation of God to the Sinner such a one as makes provision that God shall not impute iniquity 2. The Apostle instructs us further in the way whereby Christ made this Reconciliation of God v. 21. He was
both be reconciled to God and what did the removal of Ceremonies contribute to that end But says he This New-Covenant belongs to all Mankind to Gentiles as well as Iews there 's now no distinction of Persons no Man is ever the more or less accepâ—…able to God because he is a Iew or a Greek very true I wonder when ever it was otherwise Our Author could have Answered himself from p. 27. Those particular favours that God bestowed on Israel were not owing to any partial fondness and respect to that People but the design of all was to encourage the whole World to Worship the God of Israel And that the Jews were not accepted for their Ceremonial Services we may easily believe if we can but believe what he tells us Pag. 269. The Law of Moses 〈◊〉 them up in a ritual and external Religion taught them to Worship God in the Letter by Circumcision Sacrifices and an external Conformity to the Letter of the Law but the Gospel aloue teaches us to worship God with the Spirit to offer a reasonable Service to him And if he can but assure me that the Gentiles were never the less accepted of God because they were Gentiles I dare give him my Warrant that the Iews were never the more accepted of God for their Judaism according to those Measures which our Author has given of their Religion which it seems was mere Pageantry 2. Concerning Redemption he acquaints us what it signifies both to Iews and Gentiles 1. As to the Iews They says he are said to be redeemed from the Curse of the Law by the accursed Death of Christ upon the Cross Gal. 3. 13. Because the Death of Christ put an end to that legal Dispensation and sealed a New and better Covenant between God and Man It 's well he could find any thing small enough to be the proper and immediate effect of the Death of Christ but who shall reconcile the Apostle and our Author The Apostle says Christ redeemed them by being made a Curse for them Our Author says No he only put an end to that Legal Dispensation The Apostle says they were redeemed by a price paid 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He brought them out with a price which he expresses in words at length 1 Cor. 6. 20. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ye are bought with a price No says he Christ's Death put an end to that legal Dispensation The Apostle says they were redeemed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from under the Curse No says he 't was only a freedom from the legal Dispensation Two suppositions he makes use of to give a Colour to his matters 1. Sect. That the Iews were under no other Curse but that of the Ceremonial Law Now 1. He should have been sure that the Ceremonial Law was a Curse It 's a wonder to me what grievous sins the Iews above all the World should commit that God should put them under such a Curse as should need the Death of Christ to redeem them from it especially what great Crimes had Abraham been guilty of that God should thus Curse and plague him with Circumcision which yet the Scripture calls the Seal of the Righteous Faith Rom. 4. 11. 2. It would be considered whether ever God gave a Law to any People in the World besides them that in its own Nature was a Curse Our Author once told us p. 196. That it pleased God to Institute a great many Ceremonies in the Iewish Worship to awe their Childish minds into a greater Veneration of the Divine Majesty And truly better so than worse better be frighted into Obedience than not at all Obedient But that ever God designed it for a Curse is past my apprehension 3. The Ceremonial Law in it's constitution end and design was a great Blessing there they had Pardon of sin Atonement Reconciliation exhibited and sealed to them Lev. 17 11. 2 Chron. 29. And all this could be no curse but to those who loved their sins better than the pardon of them and to such every Blessing of God would eventually prove a Curse 4. It will appear they were under a greater curse than what arose from the burden someness or their violation of the Ceremonial Law viz. That Condemnation which came upon all Men by the Fall of Adam Rom. 5. 12 13 14. 17 18 19. Such a Curse as was Common not only â—…o Iew and Gentile but to every individual under both capacities Rom. 3. 9. We have proved both Iews and Gentiles that they are all under sin ver 19. That every mouth may be stopped and all the World become guilty before God ver 23. For all have sinned and come short of the Glory of God And therefore all had need of free justification by Grace through the Redemption that is in Iesus Christ ver 24. 5. The Jews were under a curse upon the Account of their violation of the Moral Law and their not duly attending to the true ends of the Ceremonial Law but if the violation of a Law would make it become a curse then the Moral Law was become a curse too and then they had need of a Redeemer from the one as well as the other though both were blessings in themselves The Ceremonial Law in particular had this great blessing in it That as it discovered to them the demerit and Wages of sin in the slaying of the Sacrifices so it discovered a remedy two in the Sacrifices slain for them which directed them to look through them beyond them and above them to him who was the Lamb of God slain from the Foundation of the World All this was no curse 2. Sect. He supposes that the Text Gal. 3. 13. Christ hath Redeemed us from the curse of the Law being made a curse for us relates onely to the Iews Whereas the Apostle adds to obviate that Cavil That the Blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles Christ is made a curse for them upon whom the Blessing of Abraham came by his Death but the Blessing of Abraham came upon the Gentiles by his Death therefore Christ is made a Curse for the Gentiles And that the Law from the curse whereof both Jews and Gentiles were Redeemed by Christs being made a Curse for them is the Moral Law I have endeavoured to evince in the last Section but whether to our Authors content or no I know not One thing more he supposes that Christs Sealing a New Covenant is Redemption But there must go more than the sealing of such a Covenant as he has described There must be the payment of a Price to Iustice or there can be no Redemption To Redeem is properly to buy back again that which was forfeited and such were Sinners Their Persons forfeited to Iustice their Mercies escheated into the hands of the Law Now comes a Redeemer and gives himself to God as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Counter-price a valuable Consideration to Answer the demands of Justice and the claims of the Law and
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 obedience in it's common Nature without determining it's signification either to active or passive obedience but do they argue from the Nature and purport of the Word that because Christs obedience is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 therefore it must needs be active obedience No such matter but they argue from another hard word Yeleped Antithesis from the opposition that is there made between Adams disobedience and Christs obedience Thus the Dr. argued if our Author durst have read him Com. p. 185. It 's opposed to the disobedience of Adam which was Active The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is opposed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Righteousness to the Fault The Fault was an active transgression of the Law and the obedience opposed to it must be an active accomplishment of it If the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Adam was active then the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Christ must be active But our Author will have the other bout with him Christs offering himself in Sacrifice is called doing the will of God Heb. 10. 9 10. And whether this be properly said or not I will leave the Dr. to dispute it with the Apostle But I do not perceive the Doctor has any contraversie with though he has maintained many for the Apostle They are very well agreed for ought I perceive nor shall they Quarrel if I can help it The Doctor will not contend that Christs assuming a body in order to the offering a Sacrifice to God was not doing his will no he pleads for it to the cost of somebody But this is that which he disputes that in Rom. 5. 18 19. The Opposition between Adams Disobedience and Christs Obedience will prove them both of the same kind It 's acknowledged that Christ did actively obey in suffering his sufferings were Activo passiva But yet the Obedience mentioned in the place before us was an Active Obedience because Adams Disobedience was so One blow more and then our Author will yield us the Cause There is no express mention says he made in this Chapter of any other Act of Obedience whereby we are reconciled to God but onely his dying for us which makes it more than probable that by his Righteousness and Obedience the Apostle understands his Death and Sufferings I assure you I like it well when Men argue from the Context provided they do not destroy the Text and had our Author Religiously observed this Rule he had not turned his Readers stomacks so often with nauseous Interpretations but yet I have a few things to offer to him 1. That though there be no other act of Obedience mentioned whereby we are reconciled yet there may be another act of Obedience mentioned whereby we may be compleatly justified 2. Though there be no other act of Obedience mentioned in the fore-going verses yet there may be one in this No Laws of Cohaerence or Contexture ever obliged an Author that he might not pass to new matter and so has the Apostle done in this place and Case as the Opposition most undeniably proves 3. All that he says makes it but more than probable Now had there been any colour for Truth of his Conceit his confidence does not use to dwindle away into probabilities but he had fetcht the Great Commander and knock'd us all dead with irrefragable Demonstration for do you understand the Mystery of this more than probable when you hear him confess that Matters seem to be against him and but probably or a little more than probably for him You need not lay your Ear to listen in what quarter the wind â—…its But then 4. Nay hold Our Author yields Good Nature begins to work But yet says he these Expressions his Righteousness and Obedience seem to take in the whole compass of his Obedience in doing and Suffering the will of God All is well then and Dr. Owen is a very honest Man again And we will not vex our selves how to reconcile more than probable Con with seeming Pro. I have made some attempts formerly and once more whilst our Author is in the tractable vein I le try whether the Doctor and he may not be made good Friends for since our Author is coming towards a willingness to take in Active Obedience it 's but attempting however to prevail with the Doctor not to exclude the Passive Well look once more Com. p. 185. That the Passive Obedience of Christ is here Onely intended is false so that all that the Doctor contends for is that the Passive Obedience is not solely intended to the exclusion of the Active We are all agreed then in the meaning of the simple Terms and it 's well if we do not fall out again about the Propositions that result from them Let us now hear his Comment upon the words The meaning of the words says he is this That as God was so highly displeased with Adams sin that he entail'd a great many evils and miseries and death it self upon his Posterity for his sake So God was so well pleased with the Righteousness and Obedience of Christs Life and Death that he bestows the Rewards of Righteousness on those who according to the strictness and rigour of the Law are not Righteous that for Christs sake he he hath made a New Covenant of Grace which pardons our past sins and follies and rewards a sincere though imperfect Obedience There are two Questions which he here undertakes to Answer First What Influence Adams sin hath upon his Posterity and Secondly it is to be hoped that from thence we may at last know What Influence Christs Righteousness and Obedience have upon our acceptance with God 1 Quest. What Influence hath Adams sin upon his Posterity To this he returns God was so highly displeased with Adams sin that he entailed a great many evils and miseries and death it self upon his Posterity for his sake Now all this is true very true but whether it be the whole Truth that which will satisfie the design of the Text I shall examine by and by At present I shall onely make some short Notes upon it 1. God says he was so highly displeased with Adams sin that for his sake he entailed a great many evils Now had it not been fair to have shewn the Iustice as well as the Highness of Gods Displeasure in such a proceeding with his Posterity That God was justly as well as highly displeased with Adams Sin never created a Doubt to any man but that he should be so highly displeased with the Sin of one single Man to entail Evils upon Millions upon all his Posterity this would invite us to examine the Righteousness of the Entail The Posterity of Adam knew nothing of Adams Sin were not conscious nor consenting to it and yet God involves them in the Consequences of Adams Sin 2. God says he entail'd those Evils upon his Posterity for Adams sake Now here 's the old Blind again For to say that God did it for
Covenant made a Covenant his Righteousness and Obedience have procured a Covenant are the Meritorious cause of a Covenant when the total Summe of all is no more than this That God has promised to Pardon and Save us if we Believe and Obey the Gospel though we Obey not perfectly So that at last it 's our own Obedience that Recommends us to God our own Righteousness for which we are Iustified Whereas the Apostle is Peremptory That by the Obedience of Christ we are constituted Righteous His Conclusion is therefore this That the Righteousness of Christ is not the formal Cause of our Iustification but the Meritorious cause of that Covenant whereby we are declared Righteous and rewarded as Righteous I perceive the Righteousness of Christs Life and the Obedience of his Death are like to prove something ere long One while they Confirm and Seal another while they Procure and at last they Merit a Covenant I cannot but Examine particulars though I have often done it 1. The Righteousness of Christ is not the Formal cause of our Iustification Indeed I think it is not Never any Man in his Wits affirmed it so Give but us leave to call it the Material cause or the Meritorious cause immediately and properly of Justification and he shall take Formal cause and deal with it at his pleasure I think I have a Commission from all the Systematical Divines of Germany the Voluminous Tigurines and Bulky Low-Dutch with those few that are left in England to make a Bargain with him Hard and Fast That the Righteousness of Christ is not the Formal cause of our Iustification 2. Says he It is the Meritorious cause of that Covenant whereby we are declared Righteous A Meritorious cause sounds very high if it had an honest Meaning But what has it Merited Iustification By no means What then Any particular Mercy or Priviledge or Blessing By no means for then it would be a proper cause of it there 's an Exact and Severe proportion betwixt the Reward and the Work in all Merit What is it then the Meritorious cause of Why of a Covenant But are we made Righteous by the Covenant Not at all only we are declared Righteous But how does the Righteousness of Christs Life and the Obedience of his Death Merit such a Covenant at Gods Hands Nay That he will not tell us God was well pleased with them but why he should be so is a Secret which must be reserved for the coming of Elias 3. The last thing I shall Exmine is his Exceptions against our Interpretation of the Apostle 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Shall be made Righteous says he is the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Shall be Iustified Well I agree to him But then I say the former Expression explains the way of our being Iustified that it is by Vertue of a Gospel-Law-Constitution or Appointment of God who considering all Believers as one with their Redeemer does Constitute them Just and Righteous there 's the Formal Cause in the Righteousness of Christ there 's the Material Cause of Justification as all the Posterity of Adam are constituted Sinners and liable to Condemnation by the Constitution of the old Law as Represented by him their Common Head 2. He excepts That the Apostle tells us ver 17. Who they are that are Iustified by Christ and shall Reign with him in Life not those who are Righteous by the Imputation of Christs Righteousness to them But I do not hear the Apostle telling me one such word whatever he has told our Author privately by way of Cabala I hear him saying plainly That as by one Mans offence many were made sinners so by one Mans Obedience many were made Righteous And because I cannot devise how possibly one Man should be made a sinner dealt with as a sinner Condemned and Judged as and for a sinner by another mans sin unless he be some ways or other guilty of sin and because it is not the making of that one mans sin their own by Immitation and Example that the Apostle speaks of but by a constitution of a Covenant or Law Therefore till I can find a better Term to express the Doctrine by I shall call Gods charging Adams sin upon his Posterity to their Condemnation his Imputing it to them And then because I cannot neither devise with my self how one man should possibly be made Righteous by the Obedience of another but that others Obedience must some way or other become his own and because to say Christs Obedience is ours by Imitation of his Example is to cross the Apostles paralel and to cross the Truth for we Imitate it but in part and very Imperfectly therefore I shall take the Freedom also to call Gods constituting Believers righteous by the Obedience of Christ his Imputing that Obedience to them for their Justification provided always that when more convenient and expressive Terms shall be found out to satisfie the Apostle this of Imputation be left indifferent Well but if not these who are then Why those who have received the abundance of Grace and of the Gift of Righteousness these are justified by Christ these shall Reign with him in Life It 's very true the Apostle does tell us no less And I cannot imagine how he should more fitly describe a justified person that others may know him and he should know himself than by the Fruits and Effects of Justification such as abundance of Grace are For whatever our Author thinks of the Apostle he does not use to describe a thing by it self or something equally obscure but by that which is more known and Obvious than the thing described and therefore the Apostle seems not to describe Justification but a justified Person by Sanctification They that have received abundance of Grace and the Gift of Righteousness these are justified Persons not that Justification is from any Inherent work but that the justified Person is only known to himself to be such by an Inherent work and to others by the fruits of it This answer I will deal truly with my Reader came next to hand I had it from our Author and I presumed he would accept a bad one of his own before a better of another mans The Apostle says he tells who those are that are thus justified by Christ Nay then thought I that will kill no body for a justified Person may be described by his Qualifications and yet his Righteousness wherein he stands accepted before God not consist in those Qualifications But to deal plainly with him I do humbly conceive that the Apostle describes an Imputed Righteousness by that expression They which receive the abundance of Grace and the Gift of Righteousness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It was the over-flowing and Redundancy of Divine Love to accept a Surety to fulfill all Righteousness and Suffer for us and abundance of Grace too to let us in by Faith into the Righteousness of Christ's Life and the Sacrifice of Christs Death
If then the penalty of sin may be inflicted there 's a necessity that the guilt of the sin be imputed It 's impossible indeed that we should Personally have committed Adams sin or performed that very Obedience which Christ performed but not impossible according to the Constitution of the Law of the two Covenants made with the first and second Adam that the Disobedience of the one or Obedience of the other should be â—…eckoned as committed or performed by us And when the Apostle shall expressely tell us That by one mans Offence we are made Sinners Death is passed upon us judgement come upon all to condemnation and therefore and in the same way by the Obedience of one many are made righteous I shall see very good Reason before I quit my Faith and renounce the Apostle upon an idle Tale of I know not what impossibilities Secondly Affirmatively Because we are made righteous both in a proper and a Forensick sence by the Gospel Covenant which is wholly owing to the Grace of God and to the Merits and Righteousness of Christ. I see now how hard it is to get our Authors Mind out of him P. 320. The Covenant of Grace was then Owing to the Sacrifice of Christs Death and the Righteousness of his Life And p. 334. God for Christs sake made a New Covenant of Grace But now it 's Wholly owing to the Grace of God and the Merits and Righteousness of Christ So that 1. If the Grace of God and the Righteousness of Christ be Con-causes of the Covenant and yet their proper concerns are not distinctly meted and bounded out he may allow as small a share to the Righteousness of Chhrist in procuring the Covenant as he allows the Power of God in Conversion Righteousness is not owing solely to Humane Endeavours well it may not be wholly and solely owing and yet within a very small trifle it may be wholly and solely owing to them so here This Covenant is wholly owing to Gods Grace and the Merits and Righteousness of Christ but how small a little singer Christ may have in it is a Secret and till an admeasurement be made will be so 2. This Covenant is wholly owing to the Grace of God c. Now what he understands by the Grace of God he has often told us Pag. 322. The Grace of God is the Gospel And pag. 334. The Gospel is the Grace and abundant Grace of God And the summe of this Gospel in words at length and not in Figures is A Promise of Pardon and Life to them that believe and obey the Gospel and then the short and long of this Business is That the Covenant is owing to the Covenant or the Gospel is owing to the Gospel or the Grace of God is owing to the Grace of God 3. The Grace of God and the Merits of Christ are here assigned as Con-causes of this Covenant Now if it be of Merit how is it of Grace if of Grace how is it of Merit I can easily understand how Christ should merit Pardon and Life for me and yet that this should be of mere Grace from God to admit anothers Merits to procure those Blessings for me which I cannot procure to my self But I acknowledge my own weakness I cannot understand How this Covenant of his should be owing both to Merit and Free-grace that is How God should make a Promise to pardon freely without any Consideration of making the Promise and yet Christ should merit it at Gods hands which implies a valuable consideration But thus it must be when men to save the Lives of two or three sorry Crotchets will forsake the Conduct of the Scriptures and lean to their own Understandings for the Scripture assures us that Free-grace is the only Foundation of the Covenant of Grace and that Christ himself is the Gift of God Joh. 4. 10. who by the Righteousness of his Life the Sacrifice of his Death the Power and Prevalency of his Intercession admits us into all the Grace and Mercy and Benefits of that Covenant with Security to Gods Honour and the Repute of all his Attributes But 4. This is no fair or tolerable Account How we may be said to be made righteous by the righteousness of Christ because the Covenant is owing to his Righteousness if it had been owing to it for as fair an Account may be given How we may be said to be made righteous by the Virgin Mary If we may be said to be made righteous by any thing to which that thing is owing by which we are really made righteous then we may be said to be made righteous by the Virgin Mary We are properly made righteous according to our Author by our own Obedience that this Obedience makes us so is owing to the Covenant that Covenant is owing to the Obedience of Christ his Obedience is owing to his Nativity his Nativity to his Mother and that may be run up in the Genealogical Scale as high as Adam and thus at this rate we may be said to be justified by Adam And for this he has wisely made a reserve A fair Account how we may be said that 's All. Not that we are so but that we may be said to be so and the Mystery of it lyes here The Scripture has said that we are made righteous by Christs Obedience and we take it for granted that the Scripture had not said it unless it had been really true but there are some who doe not believe it to be really true and therefore they must set their wits awork to find out how it may possibly be said to be true and yet not really be so that so they may neither throw the Lye directly in the face of the Apostles nor yet be compelled to wave their own Unbelief But it seems there is a two-fold sence in which we may be said to be made righteous by the Gospel-Covenant 1. Sect. A Proper Sence which is this The great Arguments and Motives and powerfull Assistances of the Gospel form our Minds to the love and practice of Holiness and so make us inherently righteous What needed all this pother and stir to no purpose The Righteousness of Christ contributes something though he cannot tell what to the Gospel-Covenant this Gospel-Covenant contains Promises and Duties or Motives Arguments Reasons to Obedience now when these Promises prevail with us to love and practise those Duties to perform that Obedience then we become inherently righteous in a proper sence and so that none may take it ill they shall have liberty to say that we are made righteous by the righteousness of Christ His Righteousness or Obedience was an excellent Pattern of a strong Motive to our being righteous Two things I shall oppose to this 1. That to be made inherently righteous is not the proper sence of being made righteous This was indeed the proper sence of being Righteous under the Covenant of Works when a perfect exact compleat inherent Holiness was the