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
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
Nature and the Rules that he shall prescribe to him and therefore 3. Agreeable to his holy Nature and holy Law it shall not be with the Righteous after the way of the Wicked nor with the Wicked after the way of the Righteous for the Iudge of the whole Earth must do right This God has revealed and we believe and as much more as shall be made known to us to be of his Revelation But that God is so indifferent about Sin as these men would perswade us that those Scoffers Zeph. 1. 12. The Lord will not doe good neither will he doe evil did charge God wisely we do not believe but that he insists upon the Honour of his Attributes the Credit of his Laws the Vindication of his Authority which Ends if they may be otherwise attained than by Christ and his Sacrifice yet our Author has not yet discover'd to us the Way and however he has confessed that Christ is the best and most effectual Means of attaining them There are a few drops which follow this Storm yet behind The Doctor had said p. 96 97. That God does sometimes bear with Sinners and forbear them long and yet there may be no special design of Mercy in it neither But now evidently and directly the End of the Patience and Forbearance of God which is exercised in Christ and discovered in him to us is the saving and bringing unto God those towards whom he is pleased to exercise them God is now taking a Course in his infinite Wisdom and Goodness that we may not be destroyed notwithstanding our sins which a little before p. 97. sect 15. he explains to be by leading us to Repentance Now I knew it would be no difficult task to a willing Mind to put an ugly Vizor upon the fairest Face which thus he has done As before the least Sin could not escape without a just Punishment c. so now the Iustice of God being satisfied by the Death of Christ the greatest Sins can do us no harm but we shall be saved notwithstanding our sins But I doubt our Author will be miserably disappointed in his Markets and lose Money by his dirty Ware 1. The least Sin cannot escape without Punishment Very true we own it The wages of Sin is Death the Threatning is level'd at Sin as Sin and therefore against all sin A quatenus ad Omne valet Consequentia and therefore go scold with the Apostle that which will bring him off will bring off the Doctor 2. The Justice of God is Natural and Essential to him Well let him mend himself how he can we are of the same mind still and are like to be so 3. He cannot forgive sin without punishing it Goe on somewhere or other the Punishment must lye which amounts to no more but this that God cannot forgive sin but in such a way as may secure his Glory 4. The Iustice of God is satisfied by the Death of Christ It is so but that Satisfaction is applyed to particular persons in that way that God has appointed that no other of his Attributes may be damnified 5. Now the greatest sins can doe us no hurt Nay there our Author is quite out For Unbelief Impenitency Unregeneracy obstruct the Sinners having any share in the Satisfaction of Christ or the Benefits procured by it But 6. The Doctor had said We shall be saved notwithstanding our sins He does say we shall not be destroyed and let that amount if he pleases to We shall be saved That is 1. Former Sins repented of shall not be charged upon the Sinner to Condemnation 2. Such sins as are consistent with the state of Grace the Power and Predominancy of Godliness shall not eventually ruine the repenting Sinner and for those that are inconsistent with that state he that undertook to satisfie for them will also take care they shall not commit them that he may not lose the Fruit of his Death and Sufferings and therefore he has promised that he will put his Fear into their hearts that they shall never depart from him And now I think our Author has either lost Money by his Discourse or got it over the Shoulders All his hopes were to perswade us That the Doctor design'd to assert that the satisfaction of Christ would save sinners notwithstanding their sins lived in continued in delighted in and dyed in in sensu composito but let an ordinary Understanding with ordinary diligence read over that Paragraph and he shall find all conspiring with that great Truth Without Holiness no man shall see God And thus he has talk'd his pleasure about Mercy and Iustice. As to Gods Wisdom which most gloriously appears in this design of Saving sinners by Christ the Doctor had said Com. 98. That Gods Wisdom in managing things for his own Glory is clearly discovered in Christ And if Wisdom display it self in the works of Creation and Providence and in his holy Law yet still Wisdom is most eminently revealed in a Mediator and he was the more emboldened thus to speak because he had encouragement from the Apostle 1 Cor. 1. 24. We preach Christ crucified to the Iews a stumbling-block and to the Greeks foolishness but to them who are saved both Iews and Greeks the Power of God and the Wisdom of God And here I confess our Author had just Cause of Complaint That the Apostle should so unluckily place this Wisdom in a crucifyed Christ to the utter undoing that laudable Invention of Christ for an Office a Church a Doctrine and this might well vex every vein of his heart But still the Doctor proceeds and for ought I can see minds our Author no more than you would be concern'd about that peevish thing that infests your skins as you walk the streets with impotent Noyse shewing That this Wisdom of God is such a Mystery such hidden Wisdom such manyfold variegated curiously wrought Wisdom that the Angels desire to pry into it and the Wisdom thereof lyes much in this That by Christ things are recovered into such a state after the Confusion wherein they were involved by the Curse as shall be exceedingly to the advantage of Gods glory P. 98 99. This indeed was pungent and galled that tender part which cannot endure to hear too much Good spoken at once of Christs Person For says he if Justice be so Natural to God that Nothing could satisfie him but the Death of his own Son this may discover his Justice but not his Wisdom Why so Oh the Reason is plain Wisdom consists in the choyce of the best and fittest Means to attain an End where there are more wayes than one of doing it but it requires no great wisdom where there is but one possible Way Where I am stumbled at our Authors Philosophy as much as at his Divinity For 1. Saving to our Author his good Learning Wisdom lyes also in Managing fit Means in such a Way as may reach their Ends effectually that there be no disappointment in
never told us that he was bottomless and boundless And if God be not a God of bottomless and boundless Mercy it will not bear a regular proportion to enquire Whether Christs Goodness became less Infinite and boundless than it was before 3. He considers The Holiness and Innocence of Christs Life that he was a great Example of unaffected Piety towards God c. Hence does he reasonably conclude that he came to restore the Practice of Piety c. which had been banisht out of the world by the hypocritical pretences of a more Refined Sanctity in washing of Hands and Dishes in tything Mint and Cummin as he calls it Now this is to be fear'd is not very regular and exaâ—… for some would conclude as if Christ came to destroy the Ius Divinum of Tythes but we are to understand that the Venome and Villany of this Hypocrisie did not lye in Tything Egges or Pigs Chickens Ducks or Goslings Apples Pears or Plumbs much less those fatter Praedial Revenues of the Church but only in those uncanonical things Mint Annise Cummine and bate but those two or three and Tythes are Sacred out of all things from the Cedar in Lebanon to the Hyssop upon the Wall 4. Our Saviour by his Example as well as Laws taught us Another Lesson that as we lost our Happiness at first by Sin so the way to regain the Favour of God and an Immortal Life is by the practice of a Sincere and Universal Righteousness I must freely confess I would never desire any man to be more ridiculous whilest I live than our Author in these few words If he has forgot his design or lost himself in a Wood yet does he presume the Reader also has his wits gone after him a Wool-gathering He has pretended over and over that he would give us Another Scheme of Religion from acquaintance with Christs Person more beautifull for Colour more exact for Proportion than what all other men have been able to shew and all this without Gospel-Revelation And yet here contrary to all the Laws of Proportion he takes in Christs Laws from which we must learn this other Lesson but though his Laws came in by an Anomaly surely his Example is Regular and that teaches us that The way to regain Gods Favour is by the practice of a sincere and universal Righteousness Now if Christ has taught us this by his Example we must suppose that He had once lost Godâ—… Favour but happily regain'd it by this Expedient of a sincere and universal Righteousness Whether this be a Truth or no in it self is out of our Charter to examine for we are obliged onely to consider the Regularity of his Proportions and the self-consistency of his Notions 5. When We remember that Christ died as a Sacrifice and Propitiation for sin this gives Us a great demonstration of Gods good will to us how ready he is to pardon former sins in that he hath appointed an Atonement for us and given no less a Person than his own Son for our Ransome It 's very strange that none else may be allowed to gather all this from the Revelation of the Gospel and yet our Author with his Scrues of Artificial Connexions and Regular Proportions can draw it every Letter and Syllable from an Acquaintance with Christs Person But by what secret wayes he became Master of this Mystery is to me a greater mystery How the Person of Christ the Death of Christ should teach us the proper Ends and Designs of his Death unless he had Acquainted us with them I am yet to seek and so was our Author himself within these few leaves pag. 78. The Incarnation and Life and Death and Resurrection of Christ were available to those Ends for which God designed them but the Virtue and Efficacy of them doth depend upon Gods Institution and Appointment and therefore can be known onely by Revelation 6. He assures us That the Death of Christ assures him of the Desert of Sin and what it is And I aâ—… heartily glad to hear the News and wish it had been attended with Proof from Scripture which is pregnant in it and not shuffled off with that which is next dore to none Surely then there was somewhat in the Death of Christ which Answer'd the Demerit of it which was Gods Anger and Displeasure against it or it will be impossible from Christs Death to learn Sins Demerit without a Scripture-Comment upon the Text of his Crosse and Sufferings 7. Christs Death seals the irrevocable Decree of Reprobation That 's as terrible News as the other was comfortable but I fear he must be beholden to the Gospel for his Intelligence or he will never learn it from a bare acquaintance with Christs Person And now we may fairly presume there is such a Decree so irrevocable so immutable else how does the Death of Christ seal it It 's supposed ever that the Decree is made e re it be sealed but the vigour and quickness of our Authors Fancy is incredible and so at length those poor wretches whose hard Fortune it was in our Authors phrase to be left out of the Roll of Election without any fault of theirs are in the same Predicament they were in before Our Author has reserved one thing for the shutting up of this Section which being a matter of very great importance and yet so easie and accountable we may not doubt but he has handled it with much Exactness It is the True Method of a Sinners Recovery by Christ. From hence says he it 's easie to understand what is the True Method of a Sinners Recovery by Christ. And there are two parts of his Undertaking 1. The Erecting of his own regular and exact Method 2. The demolishing the confused Method of others And First For his own Method for so he is pleas'd to Nick-name it for divers good and valuable Considerations him thereunto especially moving it is no more but this When we are so affected with all the powerfull Arguments to a New Life which are contained in his Christs Incarnation and Life and Doctrine and Example and Miracles and Death and Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven and his Intercession for us as to be sensible of the Shame and Folly of Sin and to be reconciled to the Love and Practice of true Piety and Holiness Then What then O then we partake in the Merits of His Sacrifice and find the benefit of his Intercession and have A Title to all the Blessings and Promises of the Gospel This is the True Method of a Sinners Recovery But still I doe not see the Regular Proportion of it to his Design for as has been oft observed he pretends to give us a Scheme of Religion from the Person of Christ never medling with his Doctrine and yet now when he thinks it so easie to give us from thence a Method of a Sinners Recovery he is glad to be beholden to the Doctrine of Christ for he sayes When we are
without Gods respect to Christ for herein the Scripture is Peremptory and God is at a point with all the World Acts 4. 12. There 's no other Name under Heaven given by which we must be saved neither is there Salvation in any other 2. It 's evident from those very Places where the Concerns of Christ and of Faith are joyntly mentioned not only that they have really distinct Interests but that Christ carries the Supremacy and that Faith has only a subservient Concernment therein Rom. 5. 1. Therefore being justified by Faith we have peace with God through our Lord Iesus Christ. Whence it 's plain that whatever Faith contributes to our peace with God yet even that Operates through Jesus Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So Gal. 3. 16. Ye are all the Children of God by Faith in Iesus Christ It 's the Redeemer as made a Curse for us ver 13. that gives Faith all it 's Vertue and Efficacy And Gal. 2. 20. The life which I now live in the Flesh I live by the Faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me Where such a Concernment is ascribed to Christ in the Soùls life that Faith is not at all Capable of He loved me and gave himself for me 3. It 's no loss evident that Christ by his Death and Sufferings has removed those insuperable Impediments which lay in the way of a sinners Justification Reconciliation with God Expiation of sin which Faith could not possibly Undertake and Atchieve 4. That what ever Parts Christ and Faith have in this Glorious work yet no more must be Ascribed to either than can consist with a Free and Gratuitous Iustification Rom. 3. 24. Being justified freely by his Grace 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And 5. It 's evident that the Sacrifice Sufferings c. of Christ and that Reconciliation and Atonement procured by them do not in the least Enterfere with Justification by Free-Grace for Christ himself is Free-gift and that God would admit a Mediator to Interpose on our behalf that he would accept a Propitiation for us is all due to Free-Grace and therefore Free-Grace and Jesus Christ are joyned together Rom. 3. 24. Being justified freely by his Grace through the Redemption that is in Iesus Christ. 6. It is also as evident that to ascribe Justification to Faith as it is our Work or Act will take off just so much from the freedom of Grace as is ascribed to it as a work in us or done by us and therefore Faith must needs Justifie us by vertue of that respect that it carries towards a Redeemer and to assign it any other Interest is to Entrench upon that free Justification which the Gospel does so abundantly Preach Now what Title to give to Faith as it Justifies whether that of an Instrument or a Condition I dispute not let the proper Concerns of Faith and Christ be secured and their distinct Actings kept Inviolable and Sacred and if any can find more apposite and significant Terms than Protestants have used I shall be very well content But now our Author will favour us with a Reason why Iustification by Faith as it is our own Act may consist with Iustification by Free-Grace Modest men says he who dream not of Meriting by every thing they do would have thought that Free-Grace and Faith might have been easily reconciled though 〈◊〉 had justified as our own Act since the Reward and Recompence does so infinitely exceed the Work that there can be no suspition of Merit and where there is no Merit the reward is of Grace and not of Debt what ever the Condition of the Promise be But 1. Gods Free-Grace will not be beholden to nor stand to the Courtesie of Mans Modesty and besides all men are not so Modest as our Author is and if they were it would be hard Trusting them Man is indeed a very Proud and Haughty Creature till Free Grace tames him loth to stoop to those Methods of Gods Wisdom for the abasing the Creature that Grace may be magnified in his Mercies And I see plainly that God has Contrived the way of shewing favour to a lost Sinner in such Wisdom that every Mouth shall be stopped that Boasting shall be excluded and that no Flesh shall glory in his presence 1 Cor. 1. 29. 2. It 's not what men will do out of their sweet Natures that comes here into Consideration but what they may do God has taken a Course they shall not cannot have cause to Glory but if the sinner be justified by his own Act as 't is his he has whereof to boast Rom. 4. 2. If Abraham were justified by Works he hath whereof to boast though it may be some Virtuoso's would be so Modest and Civil as not to lay it in the Dish of Free-Grace 3. It 's precariously supposed that Grace in the justification of a sinner is only opposed to Merit The Scripture has opposed it to Works and set them as Inconsistent in the dealings out of Mercy from God to men whether there be such a proportion between the Work and the Reward or no Rom. 11. 6. And if by Grace then it 's no more of Works otherwise Grace is no more Grace 4. They may be very Immodest men and yet want the Confidence to dream of Merit by every thing they do and yet there are those that dream to this day of Meriting Heaven by that for which they a thousand times better merit a Halter Protestant Divines in the explicating the Concerns of Faith in our Justification that they might Accommodate their Discourses to the Capacity of them with whom they deal have found out certain Similitudes which do well express their own Intentions when they say Faith justifies us not as our own Act but by vertue of its Relation to Christ who is our Righteousness Thus we say the Ring stanches Blood and yet we intend no more than that the Haematites set in it has that Vertue That our Hand relieves us and yet perhaps it contributes no more towards it than that it receives the Charity of another That a Bucket quenches our Thirst yet all it does is to bring us the Water from the Fountain which quenches it And many others they have Invented the best they could find none so mean but is above Contempt yet none so excellent to be above Malice The use they make of them is as I said to cloath their Conceptions and give some Light into the Thing but by no means to prove the Truth when it is drawn into Controversie But from hence our Author is taking another Ramble and going to run his old Wild-Goose Chase of Prophaneness and Scurrility the easiest way of Confutation certainly that ever was Invented But let his own Folly chastise him or if not delight him and in the mean time excuse me from bearing him Company 2. Another Instance and but another he will give us How Men argue from their preconceived Notions and that is
purchase two bad ones at our Author's Hands for his pains Now Mr. Brookes you must know had said thinking no man no harm I dare say That Christ is generally rich rich in Houses Lands in Gold Silver in all Temporals as well as Spirituals with many more friendly expressions of the Fulness and Preciousness of the Grace that is in Christ To which our Author returns a solid though short Confutation That the Son of Man bad not a place whereon to lay his head And is not Mr. Brooks a rash and unadvised Man think you to rant it so high in extolling his Riches and to ascribe to him such vast revenues and possessions But let us be Charitable and put a favourable construction upon these dangerous words perhaps they are not so rank poyson as they seem to be 1. What if Mr. Brooks speaks not of what Christ was when he appeared in the form of a Servant but what he now is since he has reassumed his original Glory and as Mediator has all power in Heaven and Earth put into his hands and methinks it is no such flagitious Crime to assert that Christ has the disposal of all outward things for the good of his Church But I correct my self when I remember my Author has told us p. 162. That Christ has left the visible and external Conduct and Government of the Church to Bishops and Pastors and therefore it may be presumed also he has left the visible Revenues and Temporalties to their disposal also for it 's equitable that the Maintenance should go along with the work and therefore those Houses and Lands the Palaces the Tithes the Glebe the Gold the Silver which Mr. B. fancies are in Christ's hands are entrusted where they shall be converted to better uses 2. What if Christ for a season that he might feel our Infirmities and accommodate himself to that dispensation under which his wonderful Condescension had put him did wave the use of many things he had a Right to Yet 1. He had 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Title when he forbore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Use of those things 2. He used his Right too for others when he would not assert it for himself He was Rich even then when he for our sakes he became poor 2. Cor. 8 9. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let him not be reproached for his Love pardon him that wrong 3. That Christ had not where to lay his head signifies no more than that he had no fixed habitation at all times but generally went up and down doing good healing all manner of Diseases Preaching the everlasting Gospel for he had a House to hide his head in Ioh. 1. 39. They came and saw where he dwelt and a Pillow too to lay his head on Mark 4. 38. and could sleep securely in the midst of the Storm he wanted not conveniences for his life but was so swallowed up of his Fathers work that he accounted it his Meat and Drink to do his will and therefore I hope Mr. B. will out-live this assault and battery many a fair day And now all that I can instruct my self or my Reader in from this Discourse is That if Mr. Brooks or any of his Brethren shall assert the plainest Truth that ever the Sun shone upon our Author by the Laws of his Society is bound to oppose it SECT 3. Concerning the Nature of our Union to Christ Whereby we are entituled to all his fulness Righteousness c. WHen the Arm is in danger of being lost by a Gangraen it were unseasonable Diligence to attend the Cure of a Cut-finger When that Vessel in which all our common Concerns are embarqued is ready to sink it would be unpardonable folly in the the Passengers to study the security of their particular Cabbins like those whom the great Orator laughs at for presuming their Gardens Orchards and private Walks would be indemnified in the general Ruine of the City In this Section our Author lays his Axe to the Root of the Christian Religion leaving therefore particular persons to shift for themselves The Righteousness of Christs Life and the Sacrifice of his Death with that influence that they have upon our acceptance with God call for defence Many have been infamous for horrid Murders Cain is upon Record for a Fraâ—…ricide Saul for a Suicide Herod's Ambition was to have been a Deicide but this last Age seems to have out-done all in an Attempt to Murder the Death of Christ it self As if because Christ by his Death had destroyed him that had the power of Death these Men would avenge the Devils Quarrel and become his second hoping they may one day triumph over it and sing O Death we will be thy Death In Pag. 320. Our Author propounds this great Question What Influence the Sacrifice of Christ's Death and the Righteousness of his Life have upon our acceptance with God And he gives us both a Reason why he moves the Question and an Answer to it 1. The Reason why he moves this Question upon it Lest any should suspect that his Design is to lessen the Grace of God or to disparage the Merits and Righteousness of Christ. Now I would make a question upon it Whether his Answer to the Question will probably heal us of our suspicions or rather beget Iealousies where there were none and heighten those already conceived into violent presumptions if not plain demonstrations that such is his Design 2. His Answer to the Question is this All that I can find in Scripture about this is That to this we owe the Covenant of Grace That God being well pleased with the Obedience of Christ's Life and the Sacrifice of his Death for his sake entred into a New-Covenant with Mankind wherein he promises Pardon of sin and Eternal Life to those who believe and obey the Gospel This Answer contains three things 1. A Description of the Covenant of Grace 2. An Assertion that this Covenant is owing to the Sacrifice of Christ's Death and the Righteousness of his Life 3. a Supposition that the Righteousness and Sacrifice of Christ has no other Influence upon our Acceptance with God but that for his sake he entred into such a Covenant as he has here described with Man-kind 1. His Description of the Covenant is this A promise of the Pardon of sin and Eternal Life to those who believe and obey the Gospel A Description so liable to exceptions that it describes neither the whole of the Covenant nor a New-Covenant nor upon the matter any Covenant at all § 1. This Description gives us little very little of the true Covenant of Grace for 1. though he thinks to put us off with a promise of Pardon and Life to those who believe and obey the true Covenant of Grace has given us a Promise of that Faith whereby we may believe and of that New-heart whereby we are enabled to obey the Gospel And first we have a Promise of the right Faith made
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
admirable and to be placed amongst the wonders of the New-Divinity that God should enter into a Covenant with all the World to Pardon and save them upon condition of Faith Obedience and yet not let many of them know a syllable of it Nay that he should expresly countermand the promulgating of the Gospel to them And yet so has God done even by the preaching of the true Covenant of Grace Acts 16. 6 7. Now when they had gone throughout all Phrygia and the Region of Galatia and were forbidden by the Holy Ghost to Preach the word in Asia After they were come to Mylia they assayed to go into Bithynia but the Spirit suffered them not 2. Let us now briefly consider his Assertion That the Covenant of Grace such a one as he has made for us is owing to the Sacrifice of Christ's death and the Righteousness of his Life That God being pleased with these for Christ's sake entred into a New Covenant with Mankind I must tell the Reader that I have narrowly pryed into this Section wherein I find frequent assertions of this Doctrine That the Covenant of Grace is owing to procured by founded on the Obedience of Christ's Life and the Sacrifice of his Death and yet so unhappy have I been in my search that I cannot find any Proof or any attempt to prove it and therefore till I see evidence to the contrary I shall take it for granted that the Covenant of Grace is owing to founded on and given forth by that free Grace of God from whence it is justly denominated A Covenant of Grace though the intervention of a Mediator such a Mediator was absolutely necessary to put us into the Actual possession of those rich mercies designed for us by God in that Covevenant which Mediator himself is owing to founded on that Covenant of Grace and therefore the Covenant of Grace is not founded upon him but indeed for that Covenant which he is pleased to call a New-Covenant and a Covenant of Grace it 's no great matter where 't is founded and therefore let him dispose of his own Creature as he pleases 3. He supposes that Christ's Obedience and Sacrifice had no other influence upon our acceptance with God but that for his sake he entred into such a Covevenant with Mankind This is all however that he can find But this is a most miserable All and either is just nothing or very near it For § 1. Let him of Courtesy Answer one Question more since he is so good at it Whether God was ever at any time unwilling to pardon sin and give Eternal Life to those who did believe his Promises and obey his Precepts If he was unwilling Then let him shew how Christ's Obedience and Sacrifice did operate upon God to alter his will and of unwilling to make him willing what could there be in the Sacrifice of Christ's Death or the Righteousness of his Life that should make God more in Love with Faith and Obedience than he had been before But if God was willing and that without respect to Christ then how does he give the Pardon of sin and Eternal Life to them who Believe and Obey for Christ's sake I am sure of our Authors good-Nature in this point he will say he has said it That some that many were saved without respect to Christ The mercy and Grace of God it seems accepting their Belief of particular Revelations and their sincere Obedience to his Commands Repentance supplying the defects and shortness of their Conformity to the Law Now if God did all this without regard to Christ how does he do it for the sake of Christ But there 's an Answer to this that lies Dormant in the word Promise God did indeed Pardon sin and give Eternal Life to those who believed his Revelations and obeyed his Commandements but he never promised he would do it But now he has drawn out his Grace and good-will into a Promise to pardon sin and give Eternal Life upon the terms aforesaid and this he has done for Christ's sake And let us Audit the Account and all the influence that Christ's Obedience and Sacrifice bath upon our acceptation with God is that we have got a promise from God to do that which he would have done before to give us that he would have given us before only he would not promise to do it for us to give it to us Two things I shall briefly return 1. That God under the Old-Testament made explicite promises of the pardon of Sin and Eternal Life and if under that Dispensation I am sure our Author will say without respect to Christ that this was the Doctrine of the Old-Testament the Apostle asserts Act. 13. 40. To him give all the Prophets witness that through his Name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins 2 Sam. 7. 14. I will be his Father and he shall be my Son and there 's enough in that to secure a promise of pardon to a repenting Child Mal. 3. 17. They shall be mine and I will spare them as a Father spares his own son that serves him but it it is added If he sin against me I will chasten him with the Rod of Men but my Mercy shall not depart from him Ps. 99. 8. Thou answeredst them O Lord our God thou wast a God that forgavest them though thou tookest vengeance on their inventions And as the pardoning Grace that was in God's Nature was revealed to them as the foundation of their Faith and obedience Ps. 130. 4. There is forgiveness with thee that thou mayst be feared So it is drawn out into a promise v. 8. He shall redeem Israel from all his Iniquities which without the pardon of them is simply impossible As for the Promises of Eternal Lise we find good old Iacob now giving up the Ghost and having no hope in this Life expressing his Faith thus Gen. 49. 18. I have waited for thy Salvation O Lord Which doubtless was Eternal Salvation beyond the Verge of that short time of his Life which he knew was expired Ps. 73. 24. Thou shalt guide me with thy Counsel in my pilgrimage and afterwards receive me to glory but a more convenient place will offer it self for the discussing of this matter 2. If then this be all that the Obedience of Christ's Life and the Sacrifice of his Death do contribute to our acceptance with God that for Christ's sake we have got a Promise or a more explicite Promise of the pardon of sin and Eternal Life than before then I must be of the same mind still that it contributes just nothing to the acceptance of our Obedience with God Let me have Liberty to put the Case of two Persons v. g. David and Paul let us suppose these two equally obedient to God's commands the former without such an express and explicite promise of Reward the other encouraged by stronger Arguments of clear and numerous Promises of Pardon and Eternal Life Which
of these two is more accepted of God He that performed equal Obedience upon more feeble encouragements or he that upon stronger Motives yet gave but equal Obedience If Reason might determine this Controversy it would clearly carry it for him that bore equal burden with less strength performed equal duty upon less inducements If then this be all the influence that the Obedience and death of Christ have upon our Acceptation with God that thereby we have got a greater help to obedience the best Answer to the Question had been that it has no influence upon our Acceptance with God § 2. His Answer signifies nothing or very near it For the Question was What Influence Christ's Active and Passive Obedience have upon our Acceptance with God And he has framed an Answer to another Question What Influence Christ's Active and Passive Obedience have upon our Obedience Which is quite another thing If Christ's Obedience have any influence upon our acceptation with God then God for Christ's sake must accept us and our Obedience for the sake of Christ which otherwise he had not would not have done and Christ must be supposed to have done and suffered something which had such an influence upon God as to procure the favour of God towards our persons and services which without that consideration had not been could not be procured But if this be all That God has made us a Promise to accept that Obedience for Christ's sake which without any respect to Christ would have accepted though not say be would accept then if our obedience be little Christ will not make it reputed much if imperfect Christ's Obedience will not render it perfect and thus in plain Terms The Sacrifice of his Death and Righteousness of his Life procure no acceptance at all no not the least of our Persons or Obedience with God 3. His Answer is so like nothing as cannot be discerned from nothing The Question was What influence Christ's Righteousness and Sacrifice have upon our acceptance with God The Answer is God for Christ's sake entred into a New-Covenant with Mankind c. which is to leave the Question just as he found it and if he leave it no worse it 's pardonable for it will be enquired still What influence the Righteousness of Christ's Life and the Sacrifice of his Death had upon God to move him to enter into such a Covenant Under what Notion did his Life and Death operate upon God Did Christ make a proper Reconciliation and Atonement with God Was his Death a proper Sacrifice Did it expiate the Guilt of Sin No! not a syllable of all this only for fashions sake it must be said to have had An influence though what it is or how it had that influence he cannot tell But he will speak to these things more distinctly 1. What influence the Death of Christ has upon our Acceptation with God But it is to be supposed that we have had our Answer and must sit down by it That God was so well pleased with the Sacrifice of Christ's Death that for his sake he entred into a New-Covenant with Mankind The Proof is all in all Why this is plain says he in reference to his Death Hence the Blood of Christ is called the Blood of the Covenant Heb. 10. 29. It 's plain that God for Christ's sake entred into this Covenant because his Blood is called the Blood of the new Covenant but yet it 's not so very plain neither A man may possibly mistake it for all that he has said to satisfy him well But then Christ is called the great Shepherd and Bishop of Souls through the blood of the everlasting Covenant Heb. 13. 20. but I can find no such Scripture well However The Blood of Christ is called the Blood of sprinkling which speaks better things than the Blood of Abel Heb. 12. 24. which is an Allusion to Moses his sprinkling the Blood of the Sacrifice wherewith he confirmed and ratified the Covenant between God and the Children of Israel c. I expected it would come to this at long run God entred into the Covenant for the sake of Christ's Death because his Death confirmed the Covenant A very trim Reason The confirming of a Covenant supposes a Covenant in being If then all the design of the Blood of Christ was to confirm and ratifie a Covenant it will not follow that therefore God did enter into such a Covenant for the sake of the Blood but therefore he did not I deny not that the Death of Christ was a great Confirmation of the true Covenant of Grace to our Faith For what stronger Confirmation could the most jealous Soul desire of the reality of free Grace promising to pardon sin and bestow Eternal Life upon believers than that the Son of God himself should first take upon him our Nature and in that Nature offer up himself to God to atone and reconcile him to us that he should make satisfaction to God's rectoral Iustice and pay the price of our Redemption thereby removing out of the way of our Faith the grand impediments of it the Justice of God and the Commination of the Law which stood in the way of our Pardon and Salvation But to obviate our Author's design I shall a little divert the Reader with the consideration of these Propositions 1. The Confirmation of such a Covenant as he has described viz. a Promise of the Pardon of sin and Eternal Life to those who believe and obey the Gospel was not the main end of the Death of Christ 1. Because there is such an end ascribed to his Death which the Death of no other person in the world could in any wise reach but now to confirm the Gospel and all the Promises thereof was an end which the Death of another might reach therefore this was not the main end of the Death of Christ. The crucifying of Peter the Martyrdom of Paul were a great Confirmation of the Doctrine which they Preached the Doctrine which they Preach't was the Gospel and all its Promises yet neither was the Death of the one or other able to reach the great Design of the Death of Christ 1 Cor. 1. 18. Was Paul Crucified for you Or were you Baptized into the Name of Paul None could be Crucified for Sinners in that way that Christ was Crucified for them into whose Name they might not be Baptized but into the Name of no mere Man might they be Baptized therefore no mere Man could be Crucified for sinners in that way and for those ends which Christ was Crucified for Paul suffered Death for the Churches good but not in the Churches stead He dyed to Confirm what he Preacht and he Preacht the Covenant of Grace with all its Promises yet he was not Crucified for the Church his Soul was not made an Offering for sin God laid not upon him all our Iniquities his Death was not a Sacrifice of Propitiation And yet all this may be said of Paul's
shall be Pardoned and Saved if we Believe and Obey without any Ability purchased to Believe and Obey 2. Christ did not purchase any one single spiritual Benefit for us as the Cause of it immediate and proper 3. He purchased Nothing but that he may lose the whole Benefit of his Purchase 4. Obedience will as soon save us without the Blood of Christ as with it Lesser Obedience with that Blood is not more acceptable to God than Greater without it But this he will call an Influence upon our Acceptation with God I confess he is a Free-man for ought I know and may call or miscall Things as he has done Persons at his pleasure but surely no man whose understanding is his own would ever call this an Influence upon our Acceptation with God A contingent uncertain Influence it may have upon our Obedience but none at all upon the Acceptation of our Obedience An act of Love to God is as welcome and acceptable to God at this rate without Christ as with Him But this is the Misery of it when Men must say something and yet cannot tell well what to say but either on the one hand they must flie in the Face of the Scripture which they hardly dare do or else on the other hand renounce their beloved Errors which they are resolved never to do then must the Scriptures be wrested to their crooked Sentiments instead of Rectifying their crooked Notions by the straight Rule of the written Word 2 Having now Informed us what Influence the Death of Christ has upon our acceptance with God it remains that he Instruct us with equal Ingenuity what Influence the Righteousness of his Life has upon God for the same end But here he will be to seek for having assigned in words so much to the Death of Christ there is nothing left for his Life No matter upon which it may work but seeing all the former was in pretence there is Employment enough for it left still Though the pardon of sin and our justification be attributed says he to the blood of Christ yet I could never persuade my self that this wholly excludes the perfect obedience and righteousness of his life He cannot persuade himself very strange what had he attempted to satisfie his judgement about the exclusion of Christs righteousness and yet could he not be persuaded yes persuaded he was to exclude it but not wholly to exclude it there were some rubs and little scruples in the way that he could not get over but had he improved his own principles and built upon his own foundation I could have shewn him a way how he might wholly have excluded it for p. 243. he gives it us as a Note worth our observing that in the whole New Testament there is no such expeession as the Righteousness of Christ And p. 78. he lays it down as an infallible maxime That we cannot draw any one conclusion from the person of Christ which his Gospel hath not expresly taught seeing then we cannot safely draw any such conclusion from Christs Person and the Scripture has not expresly taught it what should hinder him from a plerophory in this point wholly to exclude that from his Creed which is not expresly taught in the Scripture and therefore may not be drawn from the consideration of his Person by consequence And if his scruples had been but as strong against the righteousness of Christ or he had been in the scrupling mood as against the justification of Abraham by the righteousness of Christ this matter had been put out of doubt with him wholly long before this In the mean time The righteousness of Christ is mightily beholden to his good Nature that when by his principles he might yet out of civility he would not and therefore could not wholly exclude it Some Place some Room it shall have some Remote and Improper causality as the Death of Christ had in our Acceptation with God But what may be the Reason why he could not altogether as well as almost exclude it O he tells us that the Apostle tells him Ephes. 1. 6. That we are accepted in the Beloved And is this the great difficulty Alas one of his Wedges would make this little Knot flie at the first stroke May there not possibly be given another meaning of it Must it needs be Interpreted of Acceptation through the active Obedience of Christ This would have done the work Or thus Our acceptation is ascribed to the Obedience of Christs Life because that has a great Influence upon us to make us Obedient which is that Righteousness for which we are accepted of God The Example of Christ has given us a Pattern of Obedience which when we Imitate we are accepted of God but what now if he had played one of his Omnipotent Machines against the Text he might have Batter'd down the Conclusion with ease By the Beloved is meant Christ by Christ is meant the Gospel by the Gospel is meant Obedience and then the sence is no more but this We are accepted in the Beloved that is We are accepted for our selves And I must needs say this had been a far more Rational Course than that he has taken with the Death of Christ Ay but says he whatever rendred Christ beloved of God did contribute something to our Obedience Something That 's a huge Kindness indeed There 's a vast distance between something and nothing and yet it may be such a something as is next to nothing Well we are glad of a little till we can get more For because he was beloved of God we are accepted for his sake That 's high and surprizing But still What kind of Cause was Christs Obedience of our acceptance One of the Poorest Lowest causes in the World is one that they Nick-name a Causa sine quâ non which yet is properly no cause at all And yet our Author when time was could tell us pag. 43. That had Christ never appeared in the World yet we have reason to believe God is thus Wise Good and Merciful to forgive us our sins when we return to our Duty Such a Cause was the Death of Christ of our acceptance Pag. 46. Gods requiring such a Sacrifice as the Death of Christ for the Expiation of our sins was not because he could not do otherwise If now we might have been accepted without his Incarnation I presume we might have been so without his Obedience and then it is not so much as that little nothing of a Causa sine quâ non But this is pure Trifling For the Question was What Influence Christs Righteousness has upon our acceptance with God He answers That because Christ was beloved we are beloved for his sake That is Christs Obedience has an Influence upon our acceptance but what that Influence is remains a Secret Suppose the Question had been Why are we accepted for Christs sake The answer might have been His Obedience has an Influence upon our acceptation Those
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 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
Salvation in the House of his Servant David as he spake by the mouth of his Holy Prophets which have been since the world began ver 72. To perform the Mercy promised to our Fathers and to remember his holy Covenant the Oath which he sware to our Father Abraham where the firm Oath and Covenant of God to Redeem his People is assigned as the Reason of his giving Christ to be a Redeemer The places are too many to be insisted on that confirm this Truth Iohn 3. 16. 1 Iohn 4. 9 10. 2. Sect. Free grace is given as the true Reason of the Covenant of Grace Heb. 8. 8. For finding fault with them he saith behold the days come saith the Lord that I will make a New Covenant with the House of Israel c. They were a faulty an undeserving an ill-deserving People yet Free grace will make a Covenant with them Nor is there any opposition between Free-grace and Christs Merits in this Case if we consider that Free-grace is the Original Reason of Gods designation and purpose to bestow the good things of the Covenant and the Righteousness of Christs Life and the Sacrifice of his Death the way of recovering these Mercies which by sin had been forfeited and lost 3. Sect. The Scriptures give us no intimation that Christ is the Foundation of Gods making this Covenant or the Original Reason of Gods design to bestow the Mercies of the Covenant though it abounds with Testimonies that Christ is the way of procuring for us and conveying to us these intended mercies and in those things which depend upon mere good pleasure Revelation must be our onely guide In this case we may conclude Negatively Non credimus quia non legimus And we may shrewdly conjecture that there is no pretence from Scripture for this Figment of our Authors because it 's the Foundation of all his mistakes and yet he has not so much as attempted the perverting of one Scripture to give colour to it which may be reckoned amongst the Admiranda Nili 2. His other Assertion is this Our own Righteousness is the condition of the Covenant which with his former Assertion is obtruded upon us without proof and therefore I suppose he intends they must both be maintained at the Charges of the Parish Now 1 It is agreed for ought I know that an inherent righteousness is a necessary condition of eternal Salvation Heb. 12. 14. Without Holiness no man shall see God It is a Condition in the Covenant though not of the Covenant such a Condition as is due to every Person in a Covenant-state it doth necessarily attend that state though it be not allowed as antecedent to a Covenant-state 2. As to the Constitution of the Covenant in Gods purpose and Counsel I know no condition at all They that talk of the right use of free-will future Faith or good works fore-seen as the Reason of that purpose talk without book and onely intimate what a rare Covenant they would have made for us had they had the modelling and Contrivance of it like him that boasted that if he had stood by God when he formed Man he could have told him how to have made him more commodiously Rom. 9. 11. The Children being not yet born neither having done any good or evil Where those words neither having done any good or evil must necessarily exclude all respect to the future good or evil they should do as the Reason of the purpose of God according to Election because it 's evident by the form of speech That they deny something more concerning the Children than the former words being not yet born and yet even they exclude Having done good or evil Actually 3. The Question then is whether An inherent Righteousness be the Condition required of us and in us antecedent to our first Covenant-state And I durst leave this Matter to be determined by the Church of England if our Author would do so too Art 17. Predestination 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 out of Mankind in Christ and to bring them by Christ to everlasting Salvation whence we are taught 1. That Election is not of all Mankind but of some out of Mankind 2. That this purpose of God was from everlasting 3. That it is a fixed constant decree 4. That the Design of it is to deliver those chosen out of Mankind from the curse under which Mankind was fallen and to bring them to everlasting Salvation 5. That the Reason of this eternal Election was his own counsel 6. That the Execution of this Decree is in and by Iesus Christ and the manner of it follows Wherefore they which be endued with so excellent a benefit be called according to the purpose of God working in due season by his Spirit They through Grace obey the calling they be justified freely they be made the Sons of God by Adoption they be made like the Image of his onely begotten Son they walk Religiously in good works and at length by Gods mercy they attain everlasting felicity Whence we are Instructed 1. That the calling of the Elect to a Covenant-state is from Grace as the reason and by Grace as it's efficient 2. Their obeying that call of God is by Grace 3. Good works necessarily follow effectual calling See also Art 10. 12 13. 4. Religious walking with God in good works is a necessary condition of eternal Felicity 5. That there is such a firm connexion in this golden chain of Salvation that no one linck can possibly be broken They are Elected freely called effectually justified freely Adopted graciously Sanctified gradually walk Religiously and at length by the mercy of God are saved eternally which the Apostle gives us more concisely Rom. 8. 30. Moreover whom he did Predestinate them he a so called and whom he called them he also justified and whom he justified them he also Glorified I conclude then that our own righteousness is not the condition of the Covenant of Grace neither of the designment of the Father nor the procurement of the Son nor of the effectual Operation of the Holy Spirit nor of our Covenant-state nor of our Covenant-right nor of the first Covenant-mercy but of many after-mercies and of Eternal Salvation it is the condition 1. Sect. That is not the Condition of the Covenant required of us on our part which God promises to work in us on His part but God has promised to work in us Inherent-righteousness both Root and Fruit Ezek. 36. 26 27. A new Heart also will I give you and I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my Statutes and ye shall keep my Iudgments and do them 2. Sect. That which God in Covenant bestows cannot be the Condition of a Covenant-state but God in Covenant bestows the new Heart for
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
that Sacrifice once for all to be offer'd up to God for that end 6. And it was Necessary that the gracious God who had trusted the World so long with Pardon Peace and Life should at last be satisfied and not alwayes be put off without due Compensation to his Justice and Truth 7. The Case and Condition of the Elect of God made by the common Apostacy Enemies to God and under the Curse annex'd to the Violation of the Law upon this one Supposition that God would pursue his Original Love and Purposes of Grace to them that a due Compensation should be provided for his wronged Justice Sin had perplexed matters and involved things in such Intricacies that Humane Wisdom could not find out an Expedient How God might be Just and yet the Justifier of him that believes how Mercy and Truth should meet together how Righteousness and Peace should kiss each other Many Salvo's have been propounded to the World many Expedients set on foot but upon severer scrutiny have been found Physicians of no value not able to heal the wounds of an inquisitive Conscience awaken'd with the sense of the Souls worth and Gods wrath in the Judgement to come All these things does the Lord Christ alone compromise adjust all these Accounts and reconcile these Intrests The Justice of God is satisfied the Law fulfilled the Truth of God secured his Holiness vindicated and all his Attributes unreproached 'T is true indeed God is a free Agent and absolutely consider'd might have left the world to perish under the Curse but seeing it pleased him to carry on his design of Love still notwithstanding the intervention of sin what others may pretend I know not but to our Apprehensions as there is but one God the Father of whom are all things and we in him so there is one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we by him 2 Cor. 8. 6. 2. The Work of Christ whilest in the World was the discharge of his whole Mediatory Undertaking as Prophet Priest and King To divide Christ is to destroy him As half a Heart is no Heart in Gods Acceptation so half a Christ is no Christ as to any saving advantage the Soul can possibly reap from him He was therefore 1. A Prophet to acquaint us fully with the Preceptive will of God in which rank we must place that great Command of Faith in Christ 1 John 3. 23. And this is his Commandement that we should believe on the Name of his Son Jesus Christ. He acquainted us also with the Promissory Will of God as the great Encouragement of our Souls in walking resolvedly with God in wayes of New Obedience He acquainted us also with the Purposes of God which should follow his Promises and Precepts to invigorate them with Efficacy and Success And this he does by the Ministry of his Word but more especially by the Holy Spirit inwardly and powerfully and yet sweetly not offering violence to our Faculties but making us a willing People in the day of his Power 2. He was a Priest and as such he offer'd himself a true and proper Sacrifice to God thereby answering the Sacrifices of the Old Testament which though they were Typical yet in their way were true and Real Sacrifices and all this in pursuit of the Fathers Love and his own 1 Joh. 4. 10. Herein is love not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the Propitiation for our sins what Intercessions as a Priest he made for those the Father had given him we need no other pattern of than that Prayer John 17. per totum 3. His Kingly Office he exercised in gathering governing defending protecting his Church abolishing those Laws which were accommodated to that other Dispensation and would not fit its present posture and instituting New Ordinances of Worship agreeable to the oeconomy of the New Testament which Office yet he exercised in such a way that little of Glory and Majesty appeared therein to a Carnal Eye the Grandeur thereof being vailed under the form of a Servant 3. The general Design of this Work we may assure our selves was exceeding Glorious nothing but admirable could be the Product of such an undertaking with what Joy and Triumph was it entertain'd by the Angels who were less concern'd therein than poor fallen Man Luke 2. Glory be to God on high on Earth peace good will towards men 1 Tim. 1. 15. This is a faithfull saying and worthy of all acceptation that Jesus Christ came into the World to save sinners the chiefest of Sinners Which Great End that he might attain he dealt with God as a Priest to reconcile him to us with Us he dealt as a Prophet enlightning our Minds in the Knowledge of God and our selves and as a King subduing our hearts by his Spirit of Grace to accept of those Terms which might secure the Glory of God in our Eternal Salvation But the main Design I shall express no otherwise than in the words of the Church of England Art 2. who suffered and was crucified dead and buried to reconcile his Father to us and to be a Sacrifice not only for Original but all Actual sins of Men. From whence we learn 1. That Reconciling and Sacrificing Work is onely proper for a state of Humiliation it 's annex'd to his Death Sufferings Sacrifice 2. That the Death of Christ according to the mind of this Article supposes God to be incensed against and angry with Sinners and therefore he suffered to Reconcile God to us 3. That the Death and Sufferings of Christ are of sufficient value to secure Gods Honour and appease his Anger 4. That Original Sin how small a mote soever it may seem in some mens eyes is yet such a troublesome Beam in Gods eyes that it requires the same Blood of Christ to be a Sacrifice for it 5. That all Actual sins even the smallest if any may be called small need the Blood of Christ to reconcile God to the Sinner without which they will infallibly destroy the Soul Thus far the Church of England of whose Doctrine our Author has great Reason to be very tender if not for the Truths sake yet for his Credits sake having subscribed it and above all for St. Georges sake Buttolphs-lane for otherwise it may be easie for some poching prolling Fellows to dismount George-a-horse-bâ—…k and get into our Authors Saddle CHAP. III. Sect. 2. Of Acquaintance with the Person of Christ. INterest is beholden to the Eagle for two of its greatest Excellencies a quick Eye to discover and sharp Pounces to seize the Quarry When once it had appeared in some pregnant Instances that the High-road to Preferment lay in the way of exposing Religion under the Persons of the Non-Conformists it 's incredible how soon sagacious Interest discern'd and made her advantage The old dull Methods of Marrying the Chamber-maid or Trucking with the young Gentleman grew as Obsolete as Systematical Divinity An unhappy happy
Transgressors and making Intercession for them Vers. 6. 10 11 12. By the Prophet Daniel was revealed his Death the precise Time of it and for what he dyed Dan. 9. 24 25 26. Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy Holy City to finish the Transgression to make an end of sin to make Reconciliation for Iniquity to bring in everlasting Righteousness And after sixty two weeks shall the Messiah be cut off but not for himself And is all this Nothing just Nothing in our Authors Arithmetick If this be his Nothing for Charities sake let him tell us what is one of his somethings No all this while the Iews knew nothing at all of what Christ was to doe in order to our Recovery But it became our Author who was to assign little work very little to Christ when he was come to allow just nothing to be known of him before he came But then it seems the Apostle Paul was besides the Book as well as the Doctor for he protests Acts 26. 22 23. That he spoke none other things than those which Moses and the Prophets did say should come that Christ should suffer and that he should be the first that should rise from the dead Upon our Authors Principles it were easie to prove that Paul never spoke one word of Truth in the whole Course of his Ministry and the Apostle Peter was as lamentably mistaken as he 1 Pet. 1. 10. Of which Salvation the Prophets have enquired and searched diligently who prophesied of the Grace that should come unto you searching what and what manner of time the Spirit of Christ that was in them did signifie when it testified before-hand the sufferings of Christ and the Glory that should follow And yet we have the testimony of Christ himself a witness greater than all Exception Luke 24. 25 26 27. O fools and slow of heart to believe all that the Prophets have spoken ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his Glory And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself No doubt many lazy and drowsie Iews not duely attending to the Concernment of their Souls in these matters knew little or to little purpose of what God spoke to them by Sacrifices and Types what that oeconomy pointed at they might not possibly regard the Prophesies or Promises of a Messiah nor is it any wonder when we consider how little sleepy Formalists dreaming Professors and sottish Hearers understand of him at this day who know no more of Christ his Person Office Work and Design than that ignorant Papist who being asked Who Christ was answer'd he believed he was as good a man as St. Patrick Or that other who concluded that Christ was something that was good or else they would never have put it into the Creed But then there were diligent Enquirers and Conscientious Searchers whose Faith engaged them in the pursuit of Eternal Life and these saw the day of Christ and rejoyced in the Sight But 2. It s an odde and perverse way to take the measure of the Jewish knowledge of Christ from our own clearer Light We see clearer than they yet will it not follow that they were stark blind though it be Mid-day with us it was not Mid-night with them and for my part I more wonder that they at the Break of day saw so much and we at Noon comparatively see so little and if some mens Designs take place we shall in a short time see less than they and what to the Jews was a difficulty must be to us a Crime viz. to have any Acquaintance with the Person of Christ. 2. And if indeed the Iews knew nothing at all of Christ they could not then mock the Gentiles who could not well be in a worse case nor come under a more dismal Character than to be without Christ. But to come a little nearer to our Author 1. What if some of the Gentiles also knew something and something very considerable of a Redeemer I take Iob to have been in that number and yet he knew that his Redeemer lived and that he should stand at the latter day upon the Earth Job 19. 25. Which place our Author cannot question referres to Christ seeing the Liturgy of the Church of England in the Office of Burial applies it so and I hope it shall never be said that as they Subscribe the Articles in Jest so they Worship God in Jest too But to purchase his Favour let it be supposed that the Gentiles knew nothing at all of Christ yet are we sure they knew God to be a sin-pardoning God For our Authors Discourse alwayes halts of one Leg at least and wears a Crutch if it be not like Homers Vulcan 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 foundred of all four 2. The Iews they understood the Doctrine of the Pardon of sin to be in God but then they understood by Promises Prophecies Types Sacrifices and the Tenor of the Covenant of Grace that God had provided a Redeemer the Gentiles they knew Nothing of a Redeemer but then they knew as little of the Pardon of Sin But here our Author will knock the Matter Dead by an Argument Those Natural Notions the Heathens had of God and all those discoveries God made of himself in the works of Creation and Providence did assure them that God is very good and it 's not possible to understand what Goodness is without pardoning Grace Not possible that 's a thousand pities I have sometimes sat admiring our Authors singular Happiness in defining to an inch so precisely Necessaries and Impossibles which are the two extremes of the Modes of Being And yet our Author can at one stride or jump pass from Necessity to utter Impossibility Some did but venture to say that God could not pardon sin without some intervening security to his Iustice And there grew such a Hubbub and Out-cry upon 't as if the Turks and Tartars had over-run all Christendome and yet our Author who can climb up all the stairs from easie to difficult from difficult to impossible has resolved upon the Question that from henceforth all shall adjudge it impossible to understand what Goodness is without pardoning Grace But is there indeed such a close Connexion so inseparable a glewing together of these two that we cannot prescind them with the sharpest act of the Understanding Is it easier to cleave a Hair or divide an Indivisible than to part Goodness and pardoning Grace I question not when he shall be at leisure he can slit a thinner matter a great deal than this is But yet 1. The Apostle Paul Acts 14. 16 17. assures us That God left not himself without a witness in that he did good and gave them rain from Heaven and fruitfull Seasons It was more than he owed to Condemned Sinners to afford them any kind of Goodness he might have rained Fire from Heaven and showres of
which he now confesses was not one word to the purpose For that which they call pardoning Mercy he sayes is not to be seen in Scripture-Revelation and perhaps that which he calls so may be seen in the Discoveries of Nature and found growing upon every Hedge We shall go near to entertain more Charitable thoughts of the Schoolmen and the old Systematical Divines hereafter for they would have set the Terms of a Question to rights and stated the due bounds of the Meaning of words before they had made a noyse and blunder about the Confutation of their Adversaries what our Author means by these things we must leave in the Clouds as we found it what others mean we are pretty well secured But we are not so secure of our Authors Honesty in this matter who jumbles together those things which the Doctor had separated and puts them all Pell Mell into the common Box as if he had asserted That the Love of God to Sinners his Justice against Sinners his Patience with and Long-suffering of Sinners were none of them discoverable but by Christ whereas the Doctor plainly and in terms asserts that Gods Iustice Patience Long-sufferance may be otherwise known as we have heard before and shall see again by and by The Rise of our Authors Fury and Indignation against the Doctor is from these words p. 93. Com. God hath manifested the Naturalness of his Righteousness unto him in that it was impossible that it should be diverted from Sinners without the interposing of a Propitiation Now says he this is such a Notion of Iustice as is perfectly New which neither Scripture nor Nature acquaint us with And if it be so I could heartily wish it underwent the Deleatur of an Expurgatory Index but how strangely is our Author wheel'd about it was but p. 42. that he deliver'd it with as much Confidence as most men are guilty of That the Light of Nature the Works of Creation and Providence besides Revelation doe assure us that God hath a Natural Love for all good men but that he hates sin and will certainly punish incorrigible sinners from whence we might have been prone enough to have dropt into such an Error that if Hatred of Sin be as Natural to God as his Love to good Men he cannot but hate the one and love the other for God cannot act against his Nature and must act according to his Nature Nay we should have concluded that it holds more strongly a great deal for his hatred of the one than for his love of the other seeing there 's something of sin in good men in the best of Men which may allay his Love towards them consider'd in their single and Personal Capacities but there 's nothing at all in sin not the least that may qualifie his Indignation against sin And had we not been snib'd we should have ventur'd further to say that as God has a Natural Love to good Men and will not fail to reward them so he has a Natural displicency against sin and therefore will not fail to reward it according to its demerits And then because we are assured from a surer hand Rom. 6. 23. That the wages of sin is death which by the opposition clearly intends eternal death we could not much doubt that a righteous and holy God will give to every one their wages without the interposition of that Propitiation whereof our Author makes so light Thus I say we had concluded but that our Author limits the Certainty of punishment to incorrigible and obstinate Sinners but this is but a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and will not much mend the matter both because those corrigible ones are not so wholly corrected but that still some remaining sins lodge in them which are the Object of Divine abhorrency and also because those Corrigible ones are onely pardoned and received to Grace through the Interest which they have in the Sufferings of Christ hence 1 Iohn 1. 9. If we confess our sins he is faithfull and just to forgive us our sins which Faithfulness of God has the Foundation of its Exercise in the satisfaction of his Vindictive Iustice which being once answer'd God that cannot lye promises the pardon of Sin through Christ which because he is faithfull and just he will make it good to the truely penitent Sinner But what Reason will our Author favour us with of his Blunt Negative Why All Mankind have accounted it an act of Goodness without the least suspicion of Injustice in it to remit Injuries and Offences without exacting any punishment I much doubt whether our Author was ever Principal Secretary of State to all Mankind that he should be so privy to their Sentiments his own daring Fancies and crude Conceptions are no just Standard of their Apprehensions and I am well assured that some of Mankind and such whose Learning and Judgement may vye with his and may be supposed to know Mankind as well as himself yet think not with him in this business but I shall lay a few things in his way let him remove them 1. The Strength of his Argument lyes in a most gross and palpable Absurdity viz. That there is the same Reason for Gods pardoning sin against his most holy Law that there is for a private Persons charitable remitting a trespass against himself That God as he is the Governour of the World may wave the Execution of the Sentence threatned against and due to the violation of his Rules of Government because a private Person may depart from his Right in a Six-penny matter but these things are wonderfully mistaken For 1. Our Author confesses that God will certainly punish all obstinate and incorrigible Offenders but if sin be consider'd onely as an injury against a private Person God may pardon even Impenitency and Incorrigibility it self And if it be an act of Goodness to remitt such an Injury without the least suspition of Injustice the greater the Offence is the greater will that Goodness triumph in remitting the greater Injury The degree of sin alters not the Case He that can pardon a Penny justly may also a pound who shall set limits to him how far he shall depart from his Right 2. That the Case is not the same between God and Man is evident from hence Man may depart from his Right to his Servant may Manumitt him and release him from all dependance on him from performance of all duty to him as his Master but it 's impossible to suppose that God should discharge and acquitt a Creature from its dependance on and its subjection to himself 3. God is to be considered not only as our Proprietor and Owner but as our Governour and Ruler Now the end of Government being the good and welfare of the Community every violation of the Law claims either that Judgement and Execution pass upon the Offender according to it or if not that good Security be put in that neither the Honour of the Legislator suffer Offenders be
encouraged nor the Common good damnified which was certainly done by Jesus Christ And God himself has declared how odious such an Indifferency of spirit is in a Magistrate Prov. 17. 15. They who justifie the wicked and condemn the Righteous are both an abomination to the Lord. 2. There 's a great suspition nay clear evidence of injustice in a private Persons departing from his right in some Cases we will suppose a summe of Money which is all the Livelyhood of a Personand his Numerous Family shall he not grievously sin who shall depart from his Right so far as to forgive this Debt and turn all his Family a grazing upon the bare Common of Charity which might have been plentifully provided for in a way of Righteousness and Justice But still he prosecutes the Comparison He is so far from being Iust that he is Cruel and Savage who will remit no offence till he hath satisfied his Revenge Which were true 1. If spoken of a private Person Vengeance belongs not to any in that state it 's a flowre of the Crown we are not to avenge our selves we may prosecute our own Right lawfully and yet even that managed with a revengefull Spirit is sinfull 2. A publick Person in punishing according to Law ought not to be called cruel and savage but just and righteous when the holy God executes the Penalty of his holy Law he does not satisfie his Revenge but vindicate his righteous Laws from Contempt he will not have them trodden under foot to please every sawcy and malapert Caviller that shall tax him with savage Cruelty And surely there are Terms more becoming the Majesty of a holy God which our Author might have bestow'd upon the righteous Iudge of all the Earth in his Process against Sinners That he is holy in all his wayes righteous in all his works that the same Law which is the Rule of Duty and Obedience is also the Rule of Punishing the Delinquent But still he will be importunate That part of Iustice which consists in punishing Offenders was alwayes look'd upon as an Instrument of Government and therefore the exacting or remitting Punishment was referred to the Wisdom of Governours c. What he means by an Instrument of Government I cannot well tell but this I know that Atheism will have God too to be an Instrument of Government a politick Engine to bridle the many-headed Multitude and keep the Herd of the Vulgar in some awe And I have learnt it from our Authors great Friend also that the Articles of the Church are an Instrument of Peace and no matter whether they be an Instrument of Truth but I would gladly be satisfied in a few things 1. Who they are that call Gods punitive Iustice an Instrument of Government and what warrant they have so to call it I have read indeed that the Law is an Instrument of Government but that the Righteousness and Justice of the Law-giver in giving to every one his due should be an Instrument of Government seems to me an Arbitrary Term onely invented that men might seem to say something when indeed they say just nothing 2. I would have a satisfactory Reason why That part of Iustice which consists in Punishing Offenders should be an Instrument of Government and yet the other part which consists in rewarding the Complyant and Tractable should not be such and why God may not as well choose whether he will reward the Righteous as whether he will punish the Wicked And then 3. Whether this will be an Instrument of Goverment or of Anarchy and Confusion for if after all Obedience and Disobedience the Law be not the Rule of dispensing Rewards and Punishments Good night to both If Laws be not executed both they and the Law-giver will be despised and this great Instrument of Government will be like Iupiters Log which made a noyse without execution and the wicked will be tempted to doe evil the Righteous discouraged in their Obedience But let his Antecedent sink or swim I am as little satisfied with his Consequent That therefore the exacting or remitting of Punishment was referred to the Wisdom of Governours who might spare or punish as they saw Reason without being unjust in either For 1. God has not left it to the Wisdom of Governours whether they shall secure the Ends of Government or no Nay we are assured that the Iews under their Theocracy were tyed up in many Cases especially and not left to their discretion Numb 35. 33. Thou shalt take no satisfaction for the Life of a Murderer he shall surely be put to death 2. What if God has obliged himself to the contrary that he will not remitt Punishment but has made his holy Law the Rule of his dealing with us as well as of our walking with him Numb 14. 6. 18. The Lord is long-suffering and of great Mercy and by no means clearing the guilty Nay what if this be the immediate result of Gods Nature supposing an Offender the Text makes this as essential to God as any of his other Attributes and if our Author can exclude one another when it shall serve the Scene will exclude all the rest and then we shall have a God to our Authors hearts desire In the Conclusion of this Point our Author unbosoms himself to us and ingenuously discovers the bottom of his heart namely that the Reason why he is so zealously engaged against the Vindicative Iustice of God is because he was well aware that it would put in strongly for the Necessity of Christs Death And he understood his Interest well enough for the Iustice of God once admitted enforces the Necessity of Christs Death if it be supposed that God will declare himself just in the pardoning of a Sinner and the Death of Christ also reciprocally will prove the holy peremptoriness of Gods Iustice against Transgressors For what else could call for the Death of the Lord Jesus Christ The Lord Jesus Christ was the onely begotten and dearly beloved of the Father free from Sin in whom no guile was found 1 Pet. 2. 22. and not onely voyd of Sin but full of Grace exact in his Obedience Matth. 3. 16. he fulfill'd all Righteousness and he durst avow it Iohn 8. 29. That he alwayes did those things that pleased his Father so that his Eternal Father in the view and Prospect of these things declares that he was well-pleased with him Math. 17. 5. Now let us consider how the Father dealt with this Dear this Holy this onely Son Isa. 53. 10. It pleased the Father to bruise him he hath put him to grief he laid upon him the Iniquities of us all what shall we say to these things the Father was well-pleased with his Person with his Obedience and yet well-pleased with his sufferings also he was made a Curse who was blessed for ever Gal. 3. 13. he dyed a poenal Death who had no Guilt Rom. 8. 32. God spared not his own Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
he spared him not in exacting Punishment Death came into the World by sin and yet Christ dyed who never sinned Rom. 5. 12. The Law in its Penalty had nothing to do with him who had not offended the Law in its Rule So that I profess I know no greater wonder in the world than that the Father would have him suffer and that he should be Capable of Sufferings till the wonder be removed by viewing Christ in the stead of others and thus the Scripture assoyls the difficulty Isa. 53. 10. His Soul was made an Offering for sin Nay he was made sin for us though he knew no sin that we might be made the Righteousness of God in him 2 Cor. 5. 21. He so loved the Church that he gave himself for it And appearing in this Quality Death the Officer of Gods violated Law might justly arrest him and the Father be pleased to bruise him delighted in his Sufferings upon one account who was so infinitely satisfied in his Person upon another And yet all this while our Author can see no necessity of Christs Death I should rather have thought sayes he that Gods requiring such a Sacrifice as the Death of Christ was not because he could not do otherwise but because his infinite Wisdom judged it the most effectual way of dispensing his Grace Then 1. It seems though Gods infinite Wisdom saw this the best way yet it might have consisted with his Wisdom to have pitch'd upon a worse and then it will be a Question whether that had been Wisdom or no For we are told p. 48. That Wisdom consists in the choyce of the fittest and best Means to attain an End when there are more wayes than one of doing it If then Wisdom consist in choosing the fittest and best Means and the Death of Christ was the best Means for dispensing of Gods Grace either it was impossible for God to choose any other way than this or it is possible for God to act in a way not consisting with Wisdom But 2. Our Author had highly obliged the World had he discovered how sin might otherwise have been expiated than by the Sacrifice of Christs Death The Iews have pitch'd upon a Cock and at last upon their own Death But it 's twenty to one when our Author shall substitute any in the room of the perfect Sacrifice of Christ we shall find as many real Inconveniences in it as he has found imaginary absurdities in the Necessity of Gods requiring satisfaction to his Justice and Christs Tendring it upon the Cross. But 3. Who ever asserted simply that God could doe no otherwise than to require the Sacrifice of Christs Death Alas our Author is wide the whole Heavens in this Matter It must first be supposed that God will treat with the sinner and that Christ will accept the Terms of being a Mediator between God and Man The Necessity proceeds upon a presupposed Voluntariness both in the Father and in the Son and when you have supposed them there are who will dispute it with our Author when he pleases that upon supposition God will accept and justifie a sinner a just Compensation must be made to wronged Iustice. I find our Author and his Confederates now and then speaking a good word of Mr. R. B. and I doe the more wonder at it because I did not think they had had a good word for any man but themselves I shall therefore give him a taste out of his learned Labours and if he likes it he may have more at the same rate 'T is in his Reasons of the Christian Religion Part 2. Chap. 4. Sect. 6. No Religion doth so wonderfully open and magnifie and reconcile Gods Iustice and Mercy to Mankind as Christianity doth It sheweth how his Iustice is founded in his Holiness and his Governing Relation It justifieth it by opening the Purity of his Nature the Evil of Sin and the use of Punishment to the right Government of the World and it magnifieth it by opening the Dreadfulness and Certainty of his Penalties and the Sufferings of our Redeemer when he made himself a Sacrifice for our Sins But the storm is not yet over nor our Authors Fury quite spent Dr. O. had said Com. pag. 94 95. That there are many Glympses of the Patience of God towards Sinners shining out in the Works of his Providence but all exceedingly beneath that discovery which we have of it in Christ for in him the very Nature of God is discovered to be Love and Kindness whatever discoveries were made of the Patience and Lenity of God to us yet if it were not withall revealed that his other Attributes his Iustice and Revenge for Sin had their actings assigned them to the full there could be little Consolation gather'd from his Patience and Lenity It were very hard if a Spider could suck no poyson out of these words and I should conclude she had renounced her Nature but what was there in all this that could exasperate a sweet natur'd Gentleman Whilest a sinner hangs by the meer forbearance of God he hangs but over Hell-fire by a single Thread and if that breaks he falls irrecoverably into Everlasting Burnings and it can be little Consolation the Doctor was gentle he might have used a harsher word and said just none at all to an awakened Conscience to have a place in Gods forbearance when he has none in his Forgiveness or to depend upon mere patience without an interest in Gods pardoning Mercy God may have patience with when he has no pardon for a sinner he had so for the Old World for Sodom for Ierusalem which yet perisht under his just displeasure A sensible Soul will be apt to argue thus I am reprieved but is my Pardon sealed God visits not my Iniquities upon me but will he remember them no more Those that are the familiar Acquaintances of Nature and of the Cabal to Common Reason have told me that Forbearance is no Acquittance that Patience abused turns into Fury Nay perhaps it may be in Judgement that a Sinner is forborn for God hath sometimes suffered the Nations to walk in their own wayes Acts 14. 16. And endured with much long-sufferance the Vessels of Wrath fitted to destruction But now through Christ the Nature of God is discover'd to be Love and Kindness for seeing Provision is made for and regard had of all his other Attributes and Essential Perfections God can secure to himself the Glory of them all and yet the Sinner escape wrath to come And indeed it 's altogether as unaccountable why God should be mercifull to the reproach of his Holiness as why he should be severe to the disparagement of his Mercy As the Goodness of God naturally discovers it self in doing good where all due requisites are found so does Justice as readily exert it self upon the Sinner where a Propitiation doth not interpose And if Conscience were rightly instructed in its Office from the Word it would mind the Sinner
in determining the Will And if by irresistable Grace no more be meant than a powerfull and effectual production of the principle of Grace in the Soul it 's no more than what God has promised in the New Covenant Ezek. 36. 26. A new heart also will I give them and I will take away the heart of Stone out of their flesh and I will give them an heart of Flesh And he that removes the onely resisting Principle in the Soul the Heart of Stone may be said well enough to act irresistably in the working of Grace Nor can I see any danger in ascribing such a way of working to the Holy Spirit nor did the Apostle Eph. 1. 19 20. who believe according to the working of his mighty power which he wrought in Christ when he raised him up from the dead where the Apostle is not afraid nor ashamed to ascribe the working of Faith to the same Power that raised up Christ from the dead and he that had a mind to make a fluster with Greek like our Author could take a fair Opportunity to tell him what 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doe signifie and then to rub him up with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And whether these denote not the Creatures Impotency and Gods Efficacious Power let the Reader judge 3. Our Author is much mistaken if he thinks that the work of Gods Grace and Spirit in Conversion of a Soul to God may be compared to the moveing of a Machine Perhaps he had seen about Billingsgate the Maugeing of a Crane where a lusty Fellow with a Mastiffe-Dog in a Wheel will take you up an incredible weight otherwise unmanagable and he being taken with the Omnipotency of the Engine knew not how to bestow his pleasure better than upon the Operation of the Holy Spirit But Gods Spirit knows how to act effectually and yet not offer violence to any of the Faculties of the Soul He can lead the Creature powerfully and yet in a way agreeable to its Frame and Constitution He that has engaged Ioh. 6. 37. That all that the Father has given him shall come unto him knows well how to bring them in without committing a rape upon their own wills he can make them willing and yield by surrender and not need to take them by storm he can powerfully and yet gently and sweetly lead his Creature he makes no Assault and Battery upon it When then the Psalmist prayes and we with him Psal. 119. 36. That God would encline his heart to his Statutes there 's enough in his Prayer to imply his own disability and Gods Power and yet enough in the Souls Inclination to exclude all Force and Violence But still he presseth upon the Doctor who p. 106. had said There are Four things in sin that clearly shine forth in the Death of Christ 1. The Desert of it 2. Mans Impotency by reason of it 3 The Death of it 4. A New end put unto it Against the two former he has sufficiently Discovered his feeble Passion the third he waves and now against the fourth he Rises up with incredible Zeal and Fury For says the Doctor Sin in its own Nature tends merely to the Dishonour of God the Ruine of the Creature but now in the Lord Iesus Christ there is the Manifestation of another and more Glorious end viz. The praise of Gods glorious Grace in the pardon and forgiveness of it God having taken order in Christ that that thing which tended merely to his Dishonour should be managed to his Infinite Glory And here our Author has need of all his Machines and Engines that he may disorder things so as to serve his turn of them and therefore upon good advise no doubt reserved them all for this place 1. One Machine which he plies is that old Rotten Engine called Invidious Representation and this will do good Service still for want of a better That is says he lest Gods Iustice and Mercy should never be known to the World he appoints and Ordains sins to this end that is Decrees that Men shall sin that he may make some of them Vessels of Wrath and others the Vessels of his Mercy to the praise of his Grace in Christ. It 's a sad Drudgery to satisfie wilfully blind Malice For what more plain from the Doctors words than that he speaks not Hot or Cold of Gods Ordaining men to sin but of his putting a New end to sin upon supposition that it is already in the World Cannot God bring Good out of Evil but our Author must go Mad It 's a very Ruful cause that needs such Subsidies to maintain it Let any one Read the Doctor again pag. 112. Sin in its own Nature tends merely to Gods Dishonour In the Lord Iesus Christ there is the Manifestation of another end And as he said before pag. 106. There 's a New end put to it of Gods Ordaining and Appointing and Decreeing men to sin not a word not a syllable only he says that supposing sin to be already in the World carrying on its fatal Designs of Dishonouring God Damning Souls God has in Infinite Wisdom Curb'd and Restrained its Natural Tendency Over-rul'd its native malice against and thirst after the blood of souls and made it Comply with his own Glory So said Austin God is so Good that He would never suffer sin to be in the World if He were not also Omnipotent to bring Good out of the Evil. 2. Another Machine which our Author plies upon those words is That famous Engine of Archimedes of which he used to boast that Give him but a place out of the World where to fix his Engine and he would undertake to Unhinge the Earth from its Center The same Confidence has our Author in this Machine which indeed never failed him And no less truly than commonly called a Down-right falsehood Let the Reader mark it well he charges the Doctor for saying pag. 112. Com. That the glorious end whereunto sin is appointed and ordained is discovered in Christ for the Demonstration of Gods Vindictive Iustice in Measuring out to it a meet recompence of Reward Now remember the old Caveat Hic nervus est sapientiae nihil fidere Take the Book and read with all the Eyes you have and can borrow and there you shall find the clear contrary The Comminations and Threatnings of the Law do manifest one other end of sin even the Demonstration of Gods Vindictive Iustice in measuring out to it a meet recompence of Reward but here the Law stays with it all other Light and discovers no other use or end of it at all but in the Lord Iesus Christ there is the Manifestation of another and more Glorious end c. And now after all this sorrow we shall have a fine Scene of Mirth for our Divertisment Nature says he would teach us that so Infinitely glorious a Being as God is needs not sin and misery to
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
had no such Infinite guilt in 't as Christians speak of nor did Gods Justice exact such Satisfaction For he is more Glorified by Conniving at and Indulging of sin at cheap Rates for the Naturalness of Gods Iustice to him is a Position to be abhorred without any Security given or Compensation made to it that is he is so Merciful that whereas sin may possibly have some Grains of Evil in it yet in God there are not only Drams but Ounces of such Mercy which he will freely dispense without regarding what becomes of his other Attributes which you will confess to be a glorious kind of Mercy and such as Impenitent sinners cannot wish for a better And since as I have often said and must Inculcate it again the Justice and Vengeance of God if they should prove more than Names yet require no Consideration to be had of them but that their Claims may be easily waved or slighted or slubber'd over by general Mercy without reference to Christ his Death or Sufferings and God can Pardon as many and as great sins as He pleases without fear of being reputed a Remiss Governor Hereupon a most glorious and comfortable Scene of Affairs appears to sinners for now God can embrace sinners as a kind Father and account them Righteous without any Adoption through Christ nay as we told you above though Christ had never appeared in the World And this is enough in all Reason to make sinners Transported with Joy But yet I have better News than this For as God never required that his Iustice should be satisfied so he is not so Punctual and Strict that his Laws should be Obeyed For if we be but Innocent once by Pardon what 's matter for a Righteousness by keeping the Law or any other way to make us accepted with God for the former will deliver us from Hell and that 's all that we need care for But indeed you cannot well conceive what 't is to be Pardoned but must presently be flusht up with a Conceit of Eternal reward There is one thing I would acquaint you with but 't is a great Secret If Christ has Satisfied at all it s for sins of Omission as well as Commission that is though we never Repent Believe Turn from sin to God yet if there be any thing at all in 't I 'me enclin'd to this that the very Neglect of the Terms of the Covenant shall not hurt us but we may be Reputed by God to have done all and never regarded to keep any And now God and sinners may very well agree together for though Communion be an ill favoured word yet I allow they may Converse For what should hinder them Original sin they have none and for Actual sin there 's no such Demerit in it as should necessarily enforce Gods Justice to Insist upon a Reparation of its Honour and therefore let none trouble themselves with those Mormo's some have made of Iustice to affright Children nor on the other hand make such a doe to be cloathed with the white and spotless Robes of Christs Righteousness for though I cannot deny God to be Holy yet his Iustice sleeps like a Sword of State in a Velvet Scabbard Let all therefore set their hearts at rest do but repent as well as you can and you shall be Saved with a notwithstanding Gods Iustice and notwithstanding you have no Interest in the Satisfaction of Christ. These may reasonably be supposed some of our Authors Fundamental Doctrines seeing he so vehemently Persecutes their Contraries which for Distinction-sake may well be called The Religion of his own Itching Noddle Our Author had promised â—…s a Discovery of what Additions some men had made to the Gospel and he has now saved his Recognizance and shew'd himself Master of his word at as wild a Rate as ever was Indited from Bedlam There is but one thing more calls for his Abilities and that is to Render the Practice of it as ridiculous as he has done the Principles and then perhaps we may obtain a short Cessation from this hot Service Now the Practice hereof he says consists in accepting of Christ and coming to Him and applying his Merits and Satisfaction and Righteousness to our selves for Pardon and Iustification and in those Duties which are consequent upon such an Union and closure with Christ. And is it possible that these things should hear ill with them who would pass for Christians Or must we Renounce the Scriptures to Gratisie a few Raving Men who are fallen out with all the World and their own Understandings Accepting of Christ must be Reviled and yet to this are we directed that we may become the Sons of God John 1. 12. As many as received him to them he gave power to become the Sons of God Coming to Christ must be loaded with Scorn and yet our Saviour has expresly encouraged All that labour and are heavy laden to come to him that he may give them rest Mat. 11. 28. If these Phrases be not rightly understood let us be Instructed in the Spirit of Meekness but by no means let the very Expressions of Scripture be the Theam for every conceited Buffoon to exercise his Railing Faculties upon The first thing that offers it self is a gross Self-contradiction For whereas he had Confessed that The Practice of these mens Religion consists in accepting of Christ c. And in those Duties which are consequent upon such an Union and closure with Christ yet in the very next words before he had finisht his Period or made a Pause he represents it thus Christ having satisfied for our sins it 's a plain and necessary Consequence that we have nothing to do but to get an Interest in the Satisfaction and Righteousness of Christ that they may be Imputed to us for he is very Ignorant of Christ that hopes any thing else will avail him to Salvation Nothing to do Yes We have those consequential Duties to do which follow upon our Union and closing with Christ. Nothing to do Why we have enough to do for Time and Eternity enough to fill up every corner of our Hearts every Moment of our Time with Service and Obedience to Him who hath Reconciled us to God by the Blood of his Cross If Malice were not sometimes blind there would be no Living by it in the World Now says he that we may thus come to Christ it s absolutely necessary that we be sensible of our Lost and Undone condition And dares he prescribe it as a safer way to keep up an Insensibility of it A sensless regard to our Sin and Misery thereupon is no very hopeful way to put a sinner upon a serious enquiry after the proper Remedy I wish we were sure of our Authors Thoughts herein and whether he does indeed own that All men are by Nature in such a Lost and Undone condition The Church of Englands Thoughts are Evident Art 9. Of Original or Birth-sin Original sin standeth not in the
his Death c. and the Salvation of all Mankind I presume the man 's either unborn or long agoe dead that ever asserted that there was any Connexion either Natural or Necessary between Christs Death and the Salvation of every individual Person that should be upon the Earth Does he mean any one of all Mankind I then do affirm and will abide by it that upon supposition the Son of God was incarnate took our Nature upon him and in that Nature dyed a cursed Death there is a Necessary connexion betwixt the Death of the Son of God and the Salvation of some at least of Mankind It 's very unconceivable that Christ should submit to such a Dispensation and have no fruit of his Labour But to put him out of fear that he may sleep at hearts ease we do not fancy any natural connexion of these things that Bond that tyes them together is the compact betwixt the Father and the Son that upon his Souls being made an Offering for Sin he should see his seed and the pleasure of the Lord should prosper in his hand Isa. 53. 10. The Total is this The Concurrence of the Sons Will with the Fathers good Pleasure gave the Death of Christ a necessary Connexion with the Salvation of some at least of Mankind But to talk at this loose Rambling rate is tedious All this while you see but very little into our Authors Design For as your great Politicians have their Causae justificae which they Hang out to view but the Causae suasoriae lie deep and are not to be Exposed to and Prophan'd by common Eyes Thus however our Author makes a Flourish and Vapour about the Connexion of Necessary causes and Necessary effects as if we see Fire we know it burns something and if we see Smoak we may safely conclude there is some Fire Which poor Reynards Experiment would have Confuted Notwithstanding I say all this Ostentation of Mysterious Philosophy there was something lay nearer his heart than this Bombaste and how to bring it upon the Stage handsomely required good Deliberation In plain Terms it was nothing but to state a Parallel betwixt the Rational and your Systematical Divine and to Demonstrate the excellency of himself and those of his exalted Intellectuals above those low Spirited Phlegmatick Tigurine Doctors who Trade all in gross Bodies and unweildy Systems of Divinity For these latter they Dull-men shape all Religion according to their Phancies and Humours and stuff it with an infinite Number of Orthodox Propositions such as the 39 Articles But now for your Rational Men They Argue the Nature of God his Works and Providences from the Nature of Mankind and those eternal Notions of Good and Evil from the Essential differences of Things from plain Principles which have an Immutable and unchangeable Nature and so can bear the weight and stress of a just Consequence Which singular Happiness may sooner be Envyed than Mistated Indeed it would do any man good at Heart to hear with what Nerves and Sinews of Brawny Reason they will Argue how they Drive all before them how they will Trounce a poor amazed Auditor into As. and Con. and force the most Obstinate herds of Contumacious Animals into good Behiavour by Duress In a word all their Discourses are Muscle and Cartilage And in one of these you shall have the Marrow and Pith the Quintessence and Elixir of your Profound Irrefragable Subtile Angelical Seraphical Doctors But I Chide my self for comparing them to the School-men who are Systematical Theölogues Let the Reader content himself with a short Specimen of their Abilities And 1. They argue from the Nature of God How Facile is he to Pardon sin all sin without any Compensation or Satisfaction made to his Justice For seeing Justice is but a secondary Attribute a mere Instrument or Tool of Government He may spare or punish as he sees Reason for it without being unjust in either For though the Scripture has told us Iosh 24. 19. That God is a jealous God who will not forgive Transgression nor sin and that He is of purer Eyes than to behold Evil and cannot look upon Iniquity Hab. 1. 13. And also that the wages of sin is Death which is the Religion of the Scripture yet now one of these familiar acquaintance of Gods Nature can inform you better that there was there was no necessity of Christs Death to declare the Righteousness of God that he might be Iust but that as he Pardoned the Old World for Four Thousand Years together who knew nothing of Christ 〈◊〉 he might have done for one poor Sixteen Hundred Years more and as much longer as it shall continue That Caution which he Hints to others pag. 76. he has as much need of himself That we be wary in drawing conclusions from Gods Nature since 't is so seldom we have any good Assurance those Inferences are Genuine Thus when he argues pag. 43 from Gods Long-suffering and Patience towards the World and the various Methods God uses to reclaim them that therefore he is as ready to Pardon sinners as a kind Father is to receive a penitent Prodigal I would have him Cautious lest he should over-run the Constable for God stands not related to sinners in the state of lapsed Nature as a Father but as an Enemy and our Son-ship and Adoption comes in by Jesus Christ and this may perhaps a little disturbe the Connexion of his Antecedents and Consequents And this for distinction-sake may be called his New Religion of Gods Nature from whence we learn those greater and deeper Mysteries whereof the Scripture is so silent And then 2. They argue with marvellous Success from the Works and Providence of God As how pag. 44. Those Natural Notions the Heathens had of God and the Discoveries God made of Himself in the Works of Creation and Providence did assure them that God is very Good and that 't is not possible to understand what Goodness is without Pardoning-Grace For you may be sure they cloud not see the Sun shine but presently they must conclude that the Light of Gods Countenance would shine upon them also nor have a showre of Rain but it did Demonstrate that God would wash away their sins nor forbear them a day but He would acquit them for ever But then 3. From the Nature of Mankind they Reason with incomparable Judgment As for Instance That because Man was Created upright therefore he is so still how Vegete Sprightly and active mans Nature is that without the Subsidiary assistance of effectual Grace working both to will and to do it can fulfil all Gods Commandments and that to talk of our own Impotency to Spiritual performances is to suppose us to be acted like Machines by an External force and the irresistable Grace and Spirit of God And further 4. They make admirable work from the eternal Notions of Good and Evil That God may punish sin if he pleases and if he sees good he may
to Christ we must go to Him And therefore Faith which is the Instrument of this Union is very Luckily called coming to Christ from whence it is very evident that to believe in Christ is to go to Him for Salvation Which Metaphors of coming and going are a very Intelligible Explication of Believing But does this Gentleman think we have not sins enough of our own to answer for but we must be Responsible for all the faults the Black-Jaundies of Malice can find in Scripture Or does he Fancy that we Penn'd the Scriptures and therefore must lie at Stake for all the Incongruous expressions that he is able to suppose in them Well thanks be unto God that the Scriptures never yet found a Match able to Cope with them For 1. It 's apparently false which he says These Metaphors of coming and going are a very Intelligible explication of Believing Whenas indeed Believing is that which Explicates those Metaphors of Coming and Going With the same Fore-head he might have reviled Christ for Interpreting the Preaching of the Word by the Sower Sowing his Seed whereas the Sower sowing his Seed is explicated by the Preaching the Word 2. Faith says he is very Luckily called coming to Christ. I shall spare him that Ignorant Expression that Faith is called coming to Christ No Sir not Faith but Believing not the Peace but the Acting of that Grace is so called But I shall not wave his blasphemous Flirtings of the holy Spirit What ever Expressions he has used to express Faith or its Acts by were upon advice with his own wisdom who will not learn of him how to guide the Heads and Hearts and Tongues and Pens of his Amanuenses in revealing to us the Mind and Will of God He has better Authority to Justifie Quod scripsi scripsi than either Pilate who once really Crucified Christ Or that other who has often Crucified him in Essigie It was advisedly so called but unluckily reproached 3. Those Metaphors of coming and going do very aptly and Intelligibly express the Motion of the Soul in its turning from sin to God by Faith in Jesus Christ For as in all Local Motions there is a Term from which and a Term unto which we move so in this Spiritual Motion there is a State or Term from which we pass that of Sin and Enmity against God and another to which we pass that of Holiness and Peace with God Our Saviour thought meet and we are to Acquiesce in his Sovereign Wisdom sometimes to employ a Metaphor in the Explicating of a Metaphor Mat. 13. 19. Then comes the wicked one and catcheth away the word that was sown in his heart ver 21. Yet hath he not Root in himself ver 22. The deceitfulness of Riches Choak the Word and yet till of late he was never branded for unintelligible explicating of his Notions If now the Reader would have an Instance to what Height encouraged Prophaneness may rise let him read what follows But when the Soul is come to Christ is this enough No sure the Soul then must receive Christ as St. Iohn tells us 1 Ioh. 12. To as many as received him to them he gave power to become the Sons of God That faith which serves us for Leggs to goe to Christ must be a Hand to Receive him and to apply all his Merits and Fulness and Righteousness to our Souls And now when we have Received him we must embrace him in our Arms too as good old Simeon did when he found him in the Temple which is a little nearer Union as plainly appears from the Example of the Patriarchs who saw the Promises afar off and embraced them Heb. 11. 13. and now we have Christ we must trust and lean upon Him as we are often commanded to doe which signifies that Act of Faith whereby feeling our own weakness as unable to support our selves we do lean and rest on Christ and if leaning be not enough we may make a little more bold and Roll on him as appears from Psal. 37. 5. Roll thy wayes on the Lord as the Original Gal signifies which is that Act of Faith whereby we being weary and heavy laden with sin and seeking Ease at last discharge our load and cast it on Christ and this is plain from the phrase of Believing in Christ and on him for what can that signifie but leaning and rolling on him laying and building our selves on him as on a Foundation And now we have thus brought our Souls to Christ we must commit them to his trust to take charge of them and if they perish it shall be his fault he must give an account of it Thus St. Paul did 2 Tim. 1. 12. I know whom I have believed and I am perswaded that he is able to keep that I have committed unto him against that day and Now we must hide our selves in Christ from the fierce wrath of God as the Dove in the Rocks But this is not enough yet for we must be cloathed with the Righteousness of Christ. And when we are thus united to Christ and made one with him then All Christ is ours as the Apostle tells us All is yours and ye are Christs and Christ is Gods The Merit of his Death is ours to free us from the Guilt and Punishment of sin and his Active Obedience to the will of God his Righteousness is ours for our Justification as is plain in that he is called The Lord our Righteousness and as I. O. well observes we are reconciled to God by the Death of his Son and saved by his Life Rom. 5. 10. And now I hope there 's none needs question but our Author is laid in with a Competency of those Endowments that may enable him to Deride the whole Bible from the first of Genesis to the last of the Revelations If our Author does not judge with others about the Meaning of these phrases and Expressions of Scripture he had the liberty for ought I know to discover and if he must needs to expose their Mistakes but to droll upon the very Expressions of Scripture without reference to any Interpretation and if to any to that which is most evidently the True is a Degree above the superlative of Blasphemy Let others admire which of his Talents they see good for my own part I read more of Ignorance in it than of all his other Characters 1. One gross piece of Ignorance is that he makes the Patriarchs embracing of the Promises explain Simeon's embracing Christ in the Temple 2. That in his goodly supposed Method of the Souls coming to Christ he fancies first that we have Christ and trust and lean upon him and yet after a while as if it were a new degree of Faith he tells us we must commit our Souls to him 3. He fancies that to come to Christ to receive him to embrace him are several Acts of Faith distinguished by some Intervals of time But let us hear the guilt of these Scriptures and
in Christ be improved for Obedience That his Love to us may so powerfully constrain our hearts that we may wholly live to him that dyed for us and rose again who is also at the right hand of God making Intercession for us To him be Glory Amen CHAP. IV. Sect. 1. Of our Union to Christ and Communion with him OUR Author will not in Courtesie or cannot for Shame deny that the Scripture does mention such a Relation between Christ and Christians as may be express'd by an Union and that these Phrases of Being in Christ and Abiding in Christ can signifie no less Now this Union to Christ being a very suspicious Phrase he is deeply concern'd to mollifie it with some such Healing Explication that it may not prejudice or however not utterly destroy his main design To interpret it according to the sound of words is to blow up himsels with his whole Cause and therefore it is judg'd a safer way to accommodate the Expression if it will be tractable or to force it if it proves obstinate to a Complyance with his own espoused Notions and preconceived Opinions And now we see that the True Reason why he so zealously declaimed against that way of Interpreting Scripture in the last Section was that he might without suspition serve himself of it in this Some do not like his Tottering and Staggering way of wording his Matters It may be express'd by an Union and it can signifie no less than an Union A form of speech invented doubtless to let us know how unable he is to deny and yet how loath he is to confess the plainest Truth I have not forgot that he told us p. 108. That the Scripture describes the Profession of Christianity a sincere Belief and Obedience to the Gospel by Having Christ and Being in Christ but now he is graciously pleased to Mount them a little higher and is gently content that they should signifie no less than an Union with Christ. Four Notable Observations he makes to us in this one Section 1 That those Metaphors which describe the Relation between Christ and Christians do primarily referre to the Christian Church and not to every Individual Christian. I am sorry that it must still be my great unhappiness to dissent from him but seeing all Accommodation is desperate we must bear the shock of his Reasonings as well as we can Christ says he is called a Head but he is the Head of his Church which is his Body as the Husband is the Head of his Wife No particular Christian is the Body of Christ but onely a Member in this Body This indeed would do pretty well but that it wants two small Circumstances Truth and Pertinency which being so inconsiderable we may well spare in any of His Writings And 1. Methinks I want that sorry circumstance of Truth in his Argument Christ is the Head of his Church as the Husband is Head of his Wife but the Headship of the Husband over the Wife will not exactly measure the Headship of Christ over Believers we must call in assistance from another Similitude that of the Head in the Natural Body over the Members Christ is a Head of Influence as well as Authority he communicates Grace to Obey as well as commands Obedience And this is that the Apostle would teach us Eph. 4. 15 16. The head even Christ from whom all the Body fitly joyned together and compact by that which every joynt supplyeth according to the effectual working in the measure of every part maketh increase of the Body to the edifying of it selâ—… in love Here 's an effectual Operation in every part the Growth and Increase of every individual Member by virtue of that Influence which the Head communicates to it And now to make the Husbands headship over the Wife to represent the whole of Christs Headship is craftily to seduce us from the Consideration of that Grace which from Christ we receive to help us in time of need The Holy Ghost has singled out the most per and perspicuous Metaphors that outward things would afford to instruct us in the Nature of that Union and Relation that Believers have to Christ the Priviledges and Advantages which they receive thereby and those Duties which indispensably arise from thence and yet such is the incorrigible and untractable Nature of all outward things such is their shortness poverty and narrowness that they do not yield a Similitude that will adaequately and commensurately express the total of Christs Grace Mercy and Authority or of our mutual Obligations and Duty Much of the Poverty and Beggarliness of the Mosaical Types lay in this those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gal. 4. 9. that they could not represent Jesus Christ to the life whom yet it was their design in some measure to shadow out And when I have named a shadow I have given a sufficient Reason of my Assertion for though a shadow may describe the general Lineaments of its Body yet it will not paraphrase upon the Complexion To supply this defect it has pleased the Wisdom of God to institute that numerous train of Types that so what could not be express'd by any one might yet in parcels be described by Another Hence is it that one Type represents the Death of Christ as a Sacrifice for Sin as the Goat of the Sin-offering Lev. 16. 15. Another the Intercession of Christ at the right hand of the Father as Aarons appearing in the Most Holy place upon the Feast of Expiation The same Wisdom has it pleased the Spirit of God to exeâ—…cise in describing to us the Union and Relation betwixt Christ and Believers for seeing that no one single Metaphor however borrowed from the nearest and most intimous Relation upon Earth could possibly convey to our understandings all that Mercy Grace and Love which from Christ issues to all that are in Covenant with him nor all that Reverence Love and Duty which from Believers is due to a Redeemer therefore has he chosen out many that so by putting together the Mercy and Duty which is comprehended in each we might spell out the Meaning of what is wrapt up in that Relation wherein we stand to him But 2. It wants Pertinency as well as Truth For what if no particular Christian be the Body of Christ. yet is he a Member of that Body and Christ as Head of that Body is related in particular to him without the Intervention of the Body A Body is nothing else but the result of all the Integral parts put together in their due Scite and proper Order and the Church is nothing else but the aggregate of many Christians united under their proper Pastor And as the Head in the Natural Body is immediately related to all the parts so is Christ immediately related to every true Christian. If then he will argue thus No particular Christian is the Body therefore Christ is primarily related to the Body any one with as much honesty may inferre
of the Mediation of a third Person and that he is so well satisfied with what he hath done in order to it that he appoints it to be published to all the world to assure the Offender that if the Breach continues the fault lyes wholly upon himself The Second is when the Offender doth accept the Terms of the Agreement offer'd And these two we assert must necessarily be distinguished in the Reconciliation between God and us For upon the Death and Sufferings of Christ God declares to the World that he is so well satisfied with what Christ hath done and suffer'd in order to the Reconciliation between himself and us that now be publishes Remission of sins to the World upon those Terms which the Mediator hath declared by his own Doctrine but because Remission of sins doth not immediately follow upon the Death of Christ without supposition of any act on our part therefore the state of Favour doth commence from the performance of those Conditions that are required of us c. And now let the Authority of the Church of England interpose Art 31. Of the one Oblation of Christ finished upon the Cross The Offering of Christ once made is that perfect Redemption Propitiation and Satisfaction for the sins of the whole World both Original and Actual and there is none other Satisfaction for sin but that alone But we shall be soundly pelted with the Fathers and therefore he cites a great many more from Chrysostom and from all concludes That according to the sence of this Holy man particular Christians are united to Christ by Means of their Union to the Christian Church otherwise I cannot understand how our Union to Christ can be an Argument to Union and Concord among our selves But if that be the worst on 't that he cannot understand it Charity commands me to relieve his labouring understanding It 's a good Argument that Children should entirely love one another because they are Children of the same Father and yet for all that they become not Children to their Father by means of their Union one to another as Brethren but they are therefore Brethren because they are Children of the same Father It 's an Argument that Subjects should study and follow the things that make for Peace among themselves because they are all Subjects to the same Prince aud his honour the strength and security of his Kingdom lyes much in it and yet their Union among themselves is not the Means whereby they become related to their Prince but because they are all Subjects to him they become fellow-subjects each with other And now methinks a very ordinary pair of Brains might have understood how our Union to Christ is an Argument to Christians to unite amongst themselves though by their union amongst themselves they had not been united to Christ And thus he might as well have quoted the Ancient Father Mercurius Gallo-Belgicus as either Ambrose or Chrysostom but that we are all mightily concerned to know that he reads the Fathers to very little purpose But from hence he will give us a very seasonable word of Exhortation That they would seriously consider it who boast of their Union to Christ and yet rend his Church into a thousand little Factions I am glad however that they are not great Factions And I would have them seriously consider it also who broach such Doctrines so contrary to the main design of the Gospel that if owned by any Church must necessitate an absolute and total separation if we will be true to Christ. There have been many sad Controversies amongst us but they have been about Mint Anise and Cummin in comparison of the great and weighty things of the Gospel but the Question now must be Whether Christ be a true and proper High-priest whether 〈◊〉 death upon the Cross be a proper Sacrifice offer'd unto God to reconcile him to sinners The Question is now Whether we must hold Communion with God in Prayer or no Whether Faith and Repentance will unite us to Christ Nay whether there be any such thing as an Union with Christs Person or no Nay upon the Matter whether there be a Person of Christ or no or that all must not be interpreted into Doctrine Church Office and I cannot tell what Some I perceive are hugely afraid least differences should be accommodated they dread The tombe of Controversies almost as much as their Own they are more solicitous how Quarrels may live than about their own Deaths and therefore fearing those smaller Bones of Contention would not set the World together by the ears long they have thrown more considerable ones before us to entail Contentions upon Posterity and propagate Divisions to Eternity It 's the Interest of some men to make loud clamours against Divisions variety of Opinions difference in Judgements and yet to take special care that there shall never want matter for them to complain of the Fire and yet pour in Oyl to quench it and if they may but warm their own hands can sing over the flames which they have kindled and do still foment It has been the Policy of Rome to build partition-walls of Separation and then to rail at all that cannot leap over them to thresh the Wheat out of the Floor and then rage at it for Dividing from the Chaffe to beat their Servants out of doors and then send Huy-and-cry after them with all the Marks and Descriptions of Run-awayes Thus far our Author has led us out of the way and it will be high time to return The Fathers may now go to bed and sleep our Author will give them no further trouble Authority is but an inartificial Argument and now have at us with down-right Demonstration and Club-law Those Sacraments our Saviour hath instituted are a plain demonstration that our Union with Christ consists in our union with the Christian Church 1. For Baptism Baptisme is the Sacrament of our Admission into the Visible Church but in Baptisme we make a publick Profession of our Faith in Christ Therefore the Union of particular Christians to Christ is by Means of their Union with the Church This is that plain Demonstration we are threatned with and in a while if our Author does but eat a dish of Beans and Bacon it will be a plain Demonstration In Baptism we make a visible Profession of our Faith in Christ and if this Profession be true such a one as the Church of England requires as prerequisite to Baptism we are thereby United to Christ antecedently to our Baptism If Baptism finds us not in Christ it puts us not into Christ If it finds us not qualified for a Church state it makes us not so it is a Symbol but it supposes the thing signified and conferrs it not It is a Seal but presupposes a Covenant But that we are admitted into the visible Church by it he will prove and indeed he is excellent at proving what none deny and very untoward at proving the thing
pretended to Love the Lord Jesus Christ provided we have but our Authours license to love him but now the Question will be this whether our Union to Christ consists in a mutual and reciprocal love And if our Authour had been judge a little while since he would have resolved it in the Negative That our Union to Christ consists in our Union to a particular Church and that it is a political union such a one as is between Prince and Subject and consists in a belief of his revelations obedience to his Laws and subjection to his Authority I shall only note a few things and dismisse it 1. That there is a love of Benevolence and good Will a designing purposing love in Christ towards us before we bear his Image and Superscription this love he bears towards those that are unlike him Rom. 5 8. God Commendeth his love to us that when we were yet sinners Christ dyed for us verse 10. When we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son 2. There must of necessity be the intervention of an Union a likenesse a Conformity of Natures before there can be supposed a love of mutual complacency and reciprocal delight in each other for this love this delight must have something to work upon As there must be a Conjugal Relation before the Husband can take delight in his Wife as his Wife and the Wife in her Husband as her Husband 3. That this love of good will in Christ is the Original Reason of our transformation into the Image of Christ whereby we become meet objects for that other love of Complacency 4. It s true that we love him as partaking of his Nature but then it s also as true that those Acts of love to and delight in Christ proceed from that New Nature which we derive from him 5. The Love wherewith Christ Loves us as the price of his blood is a differing love from that wherewith he loves us as his workmanship created in Christ Jesus to good works 6. I rejoyce however that we are owned to be Christs workmanship Created to good works which it were not so we had more reason to love our selves to admire and deifie our own natural Abilities which effected that glorious workmanship And I see of late our Authour takes to the Church Catechism which had he attended to in time had saved him half the Labour of his Book My good Child know that thou art not able to do these things of thy self to love God to believe in him to fear him with all thy heart with all thy mind withal thy strength to worship him to give him thankes to put thy whole Trust in him c. nor to walk in the Commandements of God and serve him without his special Grace which thou must learn at all times to call for by diligent prayer 7. The more we exercise our selves in the Love of Christ the more like him we grow and the stronger bonds are layd upon our Souls to maintain the Union inviolable but still there must precede an Union which is the true Foundation of the Exercise of this Love of Delight and mutual Complacency Ay but says he Love is the great Cement of Union which unites Interests and thereby more firmly unites hearts Let him call it the Cement or the Soder or the Glew it 's all one to me I conceive that Interest is the Cement of Love and not Love the Cement of Interest Men love because it 's their Interest so to doe but whether that Love that flutters up and down the world a thing so unstable and desultory that we cannot tell where to have it be a fit Pattern for the heigths and lengths and depths and breadth of the Love of Christ ora just Measure of it I very much question Many things we meet with that are full of delight but one may take a Surfeit of Sweet-meats and therefore I shall onely trouble the Reader with his Concluding Argument taken from the Sacraments Which are says he the Instruments and Symbols of our Union with Christ. And if by Christ he understands the Church it 's not worth the while to make a Controversie on 't we will grant That Union with the Church consists in Union with it and the surest Means to be United to the Church is to be United to it and this way seldom fails But if he had a mind to conclude something else he had done like a Neighbour to have informed us for I must needs confess I am in the dark But yet we shall not lose all our labour For these Sacraments represent both our external and real Union with him And it 's worth all our pains and patience to hear one of his Lectures upon this Subject First for our External Union Baptism is a publick Profession of the Christian Religion that we believe the Gospel own his Authority and submit to his Government Secondly These Sacraments signifie our Reall Union to Christ Thus Baptism signifies our Profession of becoming New men our profession of Conformity to Christ in his Death and Resurrection Now look how much Conformity to Christs Death and Resurrection is better than owning his Authority and submitting to his Government just so much is our Real Union better than our external which if one so exactly versed in the essential differences of things as our Author had not told us other wise ordinary Capacities had judged to be both one That little advantage there is the External Union carries it For as to our External Union Baptism he tells us is a Profession of it but as to our Real Union Baptism onely signifies a profession of it and then it will be somewhat better to make a Profession of submission to Christs Government than to make a signification of a Profession of Conformity to his Death I shall therefore rather acquiesce in the Judgement of the Catechism about the Signification of Baptism than in our Authors which makes this Question What is the inward and spiritual Grace Ans. A death unto sin and a New Birth unto Righteousness for being by Nature born in sin and the children of wrath we are hereby made the children of Grace 4 His last and most famous Observation is That Fellowship and Communion with God signifies what he calls a Political Union And would we knew what that was why it is this To be in fellowship with God and Christ signifies to be of that Society which puts us into a peculiar Relation to God that God is our Father and we his Children that Christ is our Head and Husband and Lord and Master and we his Disciples and followers his Spouse and Body It 's below the generosity of the Eagle to catch Flies an Employment more suitable to the impertinent humour of Domitian and therefore it may be expected that our Author should scorn to play so mean a Game as to impose upon our weakness with the Ambiguity of a poor word To be in Fellowship
Gospel the same Faith the same Blessing with Christians he was justified the same way but so had our Father Abraham But what is our Author's judgment in the case I confess that 's hard to discover p. 243. he gives us The Righteousness of God the Righteousness of Faith and the Righteousness of God which is by the Faith of Iesus Christ as Synonima's And again expresly p. 245. he observes it to us for a choice discovery That the Righteousness of God is the Righteousness of Faith or Righteousness by the Faith of Christ. And now p. 246. he is peremptory That this Righteousness of Faith and this alone can recommend us to God Which says he the Apostle proves from the example of Abraham and adds That Abraham who was the Father of the faithful was set forth for a patern of our Iustification Now scarce one of his Readers in a thousand but would have been trying Conclusions out of his premises Abraham's Righteousness was the Righteousness of Faith But the Righteousness of Faith is the Righteousness of Faith in Christ therefore Abraham's Righteousness was the Righteousness of Faith in Christ. Again says he the Apostle proves that this Righteousness of Faith and this alone can recommend us to God If then there be but one only Righteousness that can recommend us to God either Abraham and Christians have one and the same Righteousness or else one of them must needs want a Righteousness that can recommend them to God But now from these premises our Author concludes that Abraham's Faith was not a Faith in Christ. Then say I His Righteousness was not the Righteousness by Faith in Christ And then it was not neither the Righteousness of Faith no nor the Righteousness of God for our Author has warranted us p. 243 and 245. That the Righteousness of Faith the Righteousness of God and the Righteousness by the Faith of Christ are but all one Righteousness But here we have the Quintessence and Elixir of our Author 's rational Abilities To this purpose he argues The Father of the faithful and his believing Children are justified both one way But Abraham the Father of the faithful was justified one way and therefore Believers who are his Children are justified another Now I like our Author's Conclusions dearly when they are together by the ears with their premises Again Thus he reasons Abraham was set forth for a patern of our Iustification But nothing ought to be like its patern and therefore you may be sure if Abraham was justified one way Believers are justified another Again The Apostle proves what way Believers are justified from the example of Abraham But now the Apostle you know always argues from one sort of things to another his way of concluding is by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And therefore if Abraham was justified by Faith you may conclude from thence then Christians are justified by Works and if Believers are justified by Faith in Christ then to be sure Abraham was justified some other way The plain truth is our Author is got into a Cramp and has so hamper'd and bangled his matters that I am very confident none of his Readers do understand him and it were well if he understood himself There are two Enquiries he will make to enlighten us in this Mystery 1. What that Faith was whereby Abraham was justified 2. What Agreement there is between the Faith of Abraham and the Faith in Christ. 1. What that Faith was whereby Abraham was justified To which he answers 1. Negatively It was not a Faith in Christ. Which Determination might have better become any mans mouth than hiâ—… whose hand has subscribed the Seventh Article of the Church of England Both in the Old-Testament and the New Everlasting Life is offered to Mankind by Iesus Christ who is the only Mediator between God and man being both God and man And I do the rather urge him with this Article because it speaks not only what respect God might have to Christ in bestowing Eternal Life but that there was an offer to Mankind of Eternal Life through Christ which speaks that respect which Believers had to a Mediator in their Faith But perhaps these Articles are but matter of course and form and therefore I shall press him with what has more weight than a sorry Subscription The Righteousness of God says he p. 245. is the Righteousness of Faith or Righteousness by the Faith of Christ But Abraham's Righteousness was the Righteousness of God and therefore it was the Righteousness of Faith or the Righteousness by the Faith of Iesus Christ Yea says our Author Christ was the material Object of Abraham ' s Faith that is he believed the promise of God's sending Christ into the World John 8. 56. Your Father Abraham rejoyced to see my day and he saw it and was glad Hence it 's evident that Abraham had a great and personal concern in Christ's coming into the World which made his heart leap within him The same which the Apostle expresseth Rom. 5. 11. We joy in God through our Lord Iesus Christ through whom we have received the Atonement For what cause of all this triumph all this joy that Christ should come into the World some thousands of years after he should be dead and buried and rotten in his grave to preach a Gospel in which he had no concern and for which he should not be one pin the better But our Author will prove that Abraham's Faith was not a Faith in Christ because no man could believe in Christ till he came But I prosess my self otherwise perswaded and that the actual exhibition of Christ in the flesh was not at all times absolutely necessary to a believing in him Abraham believed that testimony which God gave of his son that in him all the Nations of the earth should be blessed He believed that God would bless him for the sake of Christ. He saw Christ slain from the Foundation of the World in Sacrifices He saw a Redeemer as that way which God had chosen to bruise the head of the Serpent which St. Iohn expounds 1 Epist. 3. 8. by destroying the works of the Devil and Paul Heb. 2. 14. by destroying the Devil that is so far as he had got the power of Death into his hands by sin and in that security which he received from the promise of God and from Christ who was the Reason of its being made good Yea and Amen His Soul did rejoyce with exceeding great joy for so much 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do import But our Author has a Notion of Believing that is worth two of this and will do his work To believe any thing upon the Authority of Christ is the true Notion of believing in him To which I answer 1. Supposing this to be the true Notion of believing yet might Abraham receive a Doctrine upon the Authority of Christ before his Manifestation in the Flesh Christ was Mediator before his
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
by the Law is the knowledg of sin But now the Righteousness of God without the Law is manifested being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets even the Righteousness of God which is by the Faith of Iesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe for there is no difference for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God Being justified freely by his Grace through the Redemption that is in Iesus Christ. In which words 1. I take notice of the Apostles peremptory Conclusion By the deeds of the Law shall no flesh be justified in his God 's sight Now as this Proposition smiles or frowns upon our Author or his Opponent so will the whole cause stand or fall on either side It seems indeed to carry a smart sound of words against his Notions but he is well enough provided against all Arguments drawn from express words and therefore we must enquire What that Law is by the deeds whereof no flesh can be justified If it proves the Moral Law our Author will not deny that he 's at least half undone and I find him feelingly aware of that all along Now to dally no longer with him nor to put him to a lingring death The Apostle who knew his own mind best has assured me that by Law he understands the Moral Law 1. It 's that Law by which we have the knowledg of sin His Argument runs thus By the deeds of that Law by which comes the knowledg of sin no flesh is justified But by the Moral Law comes the knowledg of sin therefore by the deeds of the Moral Law no flesh is justified The major is the Apostle's own in this very place The minor is his own too Rom. 7. 13. I had not known sin except the Law had said Thou shalt not covet From whence I argue By that Law which says Thou shalt not covet comes the knowledg of sin but that Law which says Thou shalt not covet is the Moral Law therefore by the Moral Law comes the knowledg of sin The major is the Apostle's own in the place last quoted the minor needs no other proof but that a man be able to read the Ten Commandments which is the sum of the Moral Law the Tenth whereof is Thou shalt not covet But now at what a weak rate must the Apostle argue to please our Author By the deeds of the Ceremonial Law shall no flesh be justified No Why not Why because by the Moral Law is the knowledg of sin 2. None can doubt of what Law the Apostle speaks that considers how he draws this great Conclusion out of vers 19. That every mouth may be stopped and all the World become guilty before God therefore by the deeds of the Law c. His Argument is this By the deeds of that Law by which every mouth is stopped and all the World become guilty before God shall no flesh be justified But by the Moral every mouth is stopped and all the World become guilty before God therefore by the deeds of the Moral Law shall no flesh be justified And this evidently excludes the Ceremonial Law from any Concern in this Argument For that Law never obliged all or half the World and therefore they could not violate it and therefore not become guilty by it before God Again the instances which the Apostle gives of the violation of the Law shews what Law he excludes from Justification vers 13. With their Tongues they have used deceit Vers. 14. Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness Vers. 15. Their feet are swift to shed blood c. which are all apparent violations of the Moral Law But is there never a Creep-hole at which our Author may escape the Apostles Argument Yes yes p. 245. The great dispute in the Epistle to the Romans is Whether we must be justified by the Law of Moses or by the Faith of Christ that is Whether the Observation of the External Rites and Ceremonies of the Law and an External Conformity of our Actions to the Moral Precepts of it will justifie a man before God c. This sorry evasion has all its small pretence from that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the deeds which our Author would willingly perswade himself signifie nothing but Observation of Ceremonies and outward Conformity to the Moral Law Now that the Apostle in this place directly excludes the Moral Law I have proved All the Question is Whether he disputes against Justification by external Conformity to its Precepts only or against Justification by whatever Obedience is or may be given to the Moral Law by man under his present Circumstances And against our Author's conceit herein I oppose these things 1. It appears not that ever there was such a Question started amongst any Christians Whether Hypocrisie would justifie a man before God much less was it ever laid down in Thesi and Dogmatically maintained that it would do so Many Hypocrites there were then there are so now who may deceive themselves into a Fools Paradise that Hypocrisie might not condemn and damn them but none ever so forsaken of common sense as to think that Hypocrisie would justifie and save them Many presume to be saved notwithstanding their sins but none to be saved for their sins If any should so dote they deserve to receive their Confutation from Bedlam rather than the Divinity-Schools I cannot therefore once imagine that the Apostle should so operosely handle a subject that he should rowse up his zeal and knit all the nerves of his spiritual Reason to confute what was either no-where or so thin and transparent a falshood that to recite it was clearly to confute it 2. The Deeds or Works of the Law are the Deeds and Works which the Law commands which it primarily commands but the Law never commanded outward Conformity of actions without inward Conformity of heart to its Precepts These are not the Deeds of the Law but such as God abhors therefore the Deeds of the Law by which no flesh shall be justified are not external works only 3. The Deeds of the Law by which no flesh shall be justified are the Deeds of every one of God's Laws the Deeds of every particular Commandment but the Deeds of one of God's Laws of onâ—… particular Commandment are only internal Deeds therefore the Apostle disputes not only against external deeds By the Law is meant the whole Law but one part of the Law extensively taken reaches internal deeds only As is evident in the Tenth Commandment Thou shalt not covet but according to our Author's way the Apostle should have laid down his Doctrine thus By the deeds of nine parts of the Law shall no flesh living be justified 4. The Apostle disputes against Justification by such deeds of the Moral Law as wherein all the World is become guilty But by the external deeds of the Law all the World is not become guilty therefore he disputes not against Justification by the external deeds of
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
fitted to return the Glory due to a Redeemer which an unhumbled unbelieving unconverted unsanctified Sinner could not possibly be 2 The Death of Christ devested of those its proper respects of a Sacrifice offered to God to atone and reconcile him a price paid to ransom and redeem us and a Punishment born to satisfie Divine Iustice was no infallible proof of the Doctrine which he preached For 1. Many have laid down their lives to Abett and endured extremity of Tortures rather than renege the Doctrine they have openly preached their Confidence the mean while supported either by a mistaken Conscience or perhaps some sinister respects All that it can prove in the largest judgment of Charity is That they suppose their Doctrine to be true or else would hardly lose their All rather than lose a Principle but not that therefore the Doctrine is true because the Preacher dies for it That which is false in it self will not become true by laying down our life for it In the Memory of the last Age there were some who sacrificed their lives to the Flames in defence of Contradictory Doctrines So that to say that the Death of Christ has no other use but To confirm the Truth of that Doctrine which he preacht is but a more modest civil and gentle way of saying it has no use at all 2. To whom should the Death of Christ confirm the Truth of his Doctrine to his Enemies or his Friends For his Enemies Many of his Sufferings the very greatest and sorest of his Sufferings were out of their notice either privately in the Garden or more privately in his Soul such as whereof they could take no cognizance and for these which were visible they looked on them as the just rewards of his violation of the Law As for his Friends his Death considered singly in it self without respect to its proper Ends was so far from confirming of their Faith or Belief of his Doctrine that it was that which shook their hopes and dasht their expectations out of countenance their Hearts died in his Death and those two expressed the Sense of more than their own diffidence Luk. 24. We trusted that it had been he that should have redeemed Israel But whether to Friends or Enemies the Death of Christ considered without his antecedent Miracles and subsequent Resurrection and concomitant Sacrifice was so improper a means to confirm that it had proved the clearest Confutation of his Doctrine that malice could have desired 3. The Death of Christ was so far from confirming this Doctrine That God would pardon Sinners that separate this one Consideration of it as satisfactory to Divine Iustice from his Death and it quite overthrows the credibility of the Doctrine and runs all the World down into utter despair For our Author must have a happy dexterity if he can conclude that because God dealt so severely with an innocent holy Person that therefore he will not fail to pardon repenting Sinners We must despair that ever repentance should make us personally equal with Christ If then God did these things in the green Tree what will be done in the Dry If Iudgment begun at God's own House where shall the Ungodly and Sinner appear He that spared not his own Son how much less will he spare the Sinner It could not be expected that any should believe Christ telling them God would pitty and pardon others who found him so severe to himself But that indeed the true Reason why God deals so graciously with the repenâ—…ing Sinner is because he had dealt so justly with his own Son voluntarily becoming his Surety and Substitute 4. There were proper proofs designed by God for the Confirmation of the Doctrine of Christ and no need at all to take sanctuary in that which nakedly considered was not so Those frequent clear stupendious Miracles wrought by Christ were fully adequate and commensurate to that End Reason will teach us to believe that God will not alter the course of Nature nor reverse its standing Laws to confirm a Lye to bear witness to a grand Imposture And surely they who would not believe Christ to be sent of God upon his Testimony to him in those Extraordinary Works would never believe it for his Death which was no wonder at all otherwise than as the fruit of his ineffable Love offering himself to God as a Sacrifice for Sin and so indeed it was the greatest Wonder of them all The Enemies of Christ triumpht in his Death that they had nailed his Cause with his Person to the Cross and that which they feared was his Resurrection A Miracle so far beyond all exception to confirm that he was sent of God and therefore his Doctrine must needs be true that their greatest care was to have prevented it by sealing the Stone and setting a Watch. 5. But supposing that the Death of Christ had confirmed his Doctrine and particularly this That God would pardon and save the Believing and Obedient Sinner Yet still what influence has this upon our Acceptance with God Will God accept our Obedience the more because we have greater helps to obey May our duty expect a greater Reward because we come easier by it But when all is said that our Author can say it 's our Obedience that hath the Influence upon our Acceptance with God and Christ's Death has only an Influence upon our Obedience The same Obedience given to the Commands of the Gospel without the motive of his Death had found equal if not greater Acceptance from him than when drawn from us by so cogent an Argument But if the Death of Christ may be said to have any influence upon our Acceptance with God because he thereby confirmed his Doctrine then the Death of the Martyrs also may be said to have an Influence upon our Acceptance with him for they by their Death 's confirmed the Truth which they preacht which Truth was the true Covenant of Grace And whereas many of them laid down their Lives with that Heroical Magnanimity with that gallantry of Spirit with more than that boasted Stoical valour kissing the Stake embracing the Flames triumphantly singing in the midst of their Torments professing they felt no more pain than in a Bed of Roses as if they were to ascend Heaven in that fiery Chariot to the Confutation of their Enemies the encouraging of their Friends and the credit of that Gospel they died for evidently assuring all that they were immediately supported from above to bear with patience nay with exultation those extremities which to Flesh and Blood were intolerable We see our Blessed Saviour on the contrary in his Sufferings strangely dejected amazed troubled in Soul earnestly begging that if it were possible that Cup might pass from him and crying out in the bitterness of his Soul That he was forsaken of God which consideration is enough to satisfy an impartial Enquirer That the Sufferings of Christ were fitted for some higher design than the confirming of
made sin for us that is he was constituted to be a sin-offering upon whom the Guilt and Punishment of our sin being laid the great obstructions to Reconciliation God's Justice and Holy Law being removed by being satisfied a way is cleared for a new Peace with God And the Apostle as hath been observed cites this from Isa. 53. 10. When he shall make his Soul an offering for sin the same word signifying both sin and sin-Offering 3. That the Preaching of this Reconciliation made with God to the World was committed to the Ministers of the Gospel that they as Ambassadors from God might treat with them also about their being reconciled to God which farther evinces a mutual Enmity and a mutual Reconciliation that God reconciled the World to himself by Iesus Christ whom God made to be sin for that great end and then establisht a Ministry to Preach the Doctrine to the Sons of Men and to deal with them in the Name of Christ that they would also lay aside their Malignity and accept of the Reconciliation procured by the Blood of Jesus Now this Reconciliation made with God respects the Gentiles and Iews equally for some might plead that it was the peculiar priviledge of the Iews as being the only Church of God to enjoy the benefit of propitiating Sacrifices others might think to do the Jews a kindness in pleading that Reconciliation only belonged to the Gentiles for they alone were Enemies to God and therefore they only needed it but the Apostle assures us that Iews as well as Gentiles had need of a Mediator of Reconciliation and that Gentiles as well as Jews had a share in the Grace and mercy of it God was in Christ reconciling the World to himself Thus the Apostle Eph. 2. 13. But now in Christ Iesus ye who sometimes were afar off are made nigh by the Blood of Christ. v. 16. And that he might reconcile both unto God in one Body by the Cross. Now here our Author meets us with a window open into his Soul that we may see the Pulse of his heart and what he understands by Christ's reconciling the World to God That is says he the Gentiles were received into the fellowship of God's Church and the Iews and Gentiles united in one Body or Society Some that were strangers to our Author's Sentiments would greedily ask what was that great quarrel between Jews and Gentiles that God must send his only begotten Son out of his Bosom to dye a most bitter violent painful lingering cursed Death to take it up That he must be made sin have Iniquities charged upon him to make them friends That there have been Wars and Contentions betwixt the Iews and their Neighbours Histories both sacred and prophane abundantly testify there are such amongst most Neighbouring Nations But shall we think that God will send his Son into the World to compose all the bickerings that ever were in the World But suppose there had been a Necessity of it was the feud so inveterate that nothing but the Death of him that came to make Peace could take it away must every Man dye a Cursed Death that comes to make up a breach between two wrangling Neighbours or Nations few would be ambitious to be Plenipotentiaries upon such Terms It is true there was a difference or distinction set up by God himself between the Jews and the rest of the World but no quarrel or enmity put between them But then 1. The Gentiles had Liberty to become Proselytes of Righteousness and then the union had been made the Ceremonial Law still standing in force 2. God could easily have taken down the Partition Wall and laid the Church open from the enclosure there was a Time when there was none of that discriminating Dispensation and he that set it up could have abrogated and repealed it without such a dreadful way of giving his only Son to be Made first Man and then Sin and then a Curse It seems strange that God should first Create a necessity of a quarrel and then put his Son upon a necessity to remove it at so dear a price as his own Blood 3. If our Author was once i' th' right there was no great need of removing these Ceremonies for says he p. 29. The rest of the World might when they pleased fetch the best Rules of Life and the most certain notices of the Divine Will from the Jews so long then as they might have a fairer Copy of their Moral-Law they needed not be beholden to them for their Ceremonies But the bottom of the business is this and no other The Scripture is most express that Christ is said to reconcile us to God by his Blood by his Death it would be a burning shame to deny it What is then to be done First it 's resolved on that it 's not to be endured that any of the Blessings of the Gospel be allowed the proper effects of his Death or Blood why then some wholsome expedient must be found out that the expression may be owned and yet the thing it self rejected And the best that can be thought on at present is this To imagine a most terrible War between Jews and Gentiles upon the Account of Ceremonies such as set the whole World on a Flame and involved all Mankind in the dreadful Combustion not a single Person in all the World but sided in with one of the parties And now if we could but be Masters of so much Confidence as to say that Christ came and dyed and was made a Curse to make these two Parties friends there would be something that might be called Reconciliation Now upon a serious view of the premises it was observed that the Jews had some marks of distinction whereby they were priviledged above and differenced from the rest of Mankind Now a difference you know sometimes signifies a Quarrel which fell out as luckily as heart could wish and therefore these tokens of difference shall be called Enmity and Christ's taking away this difference shall be called the removing of the Enmity and by Consequence Reconciliation yes there it must go if anywhere for I see and am glad to see it that our Author is willing to carry some fair Correspondency and not to fall out flat with the Death of Christ. Now says he This Union of Iews and Gentiles is owing to the Gospel which takes away all marks of distinction and gives them both equal right to the Blessings of the New-Covenant But 1. To what purpose was the Enmity removed between Iew and Gentile if the Enmity of God against both had not been removed all Union on Earth without Peace without Heaven is but a wicked confederacy 2. The Iews as well as Gentiles are said to be reconciled Now what-ever grudg the Gentiles might have against the Iews yet the Jews had no Cause of any against the poor Gentiles did they envy them their darkness and blindness and Alienation from their Common-Wealth 3. They must
Blood was carried in to the Holiest place ver 12. Neither by the blood of Bulls and Goats but by his own Blood he entred into the most Holy place having obtained eternal Redemption Thus Christ had obtained eternal Redemption and perfected the whole work of it as far as the paying of a price to God goes in the Matter before his Ascention and that which remained was the application of the benefit of what he had procured with God to us by his prevailing Intercession And as to the blood of the Sacrifices mentioned Exod. 24. 6. which the Apostle refers to ver 19. which our Author thinks had no other use but the confirming of the Mosaical Covenant it was never carried into the most Holy place at all nor the blood of any Propitiatory Sacrifice but onely that upon the Feast of Expiation once a year 2. The Apostle in this Chapter does not onely refer to the sprinkling of the Blood of the Sacrifice Exod. 24. but to the sprinkling of the blood of the Red Heifer Numb 19. 4. Eleazer shall take of her blood the red Heifer without blemish and without spot ver 2. and shall sprinkle it directly before the Tabernacle of the Congregation To which the Apostle expresly refers ibid. v. 12. If the blood of Bulls and Goats and the ashes of a Heifer sprinkling the unclean Sanctifieth to the purifying of the Flesh how much more shall the blood of Christ who through the eternal Spirit Offered himself to God purge your Consciences from Dead works And this blood was neither carried into the Holy place nor the Ministration of the Service performed by the High-Priest but by Eleazar which proves 1. That the blood of Christ had all its atoning vertue on this side his entrance into Heaven and 2. That Christ was Typified by the inferior Priests and not by the High-Priest alone For here not Aaron but Eleazar performed the Service of the Day 3. The Apostle clearly Disputes against this Figment of Christs presenting his blood to God in Heaven which the Men of this leaven will needs have to be all the Sacrifice that Christ Offered to God ver 25 26. Nor yet that he should Offer himself often for then he must often have Suffered No Offering without Suffering But Christ Suffered but once therefore he Offered but once Nay says the Apostle Now once in the end of the World hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself That which Christ did once he does not do always but if Christs appearing before God in Heaven be the offering of himself in sacrifice he does it always to the end of his Mediatory Kingdom 2 But what was it under the Law to which the Intercession of Christ answers To this he returns thus As the Death c. so his continual Intercession for us in virtue of his Blood once shed and once offer'd to God answers those frequent Expiations by Sacrifice under the Law especially to that General Sacrifice on the great Day of Expiation when the High-priest enter'd into the Holy of Holies with the blood of Beasts As the Death of Christ his Ascension and presenting his Blood to God answers that one so his Intercession answers the other Yes indeed just so with so much Truth and Regularity of Proportion that is with just none at all What parallel he can fancy between Expiation and Intercession I cannot divine This I know 1. The Expiations by Sacrifice under the Law were by Blood-shedding It was the Blood upon the Altar as the Life of the Sacrifice that made Expiation Lev. 17. 11. but in Christs Intercession there is no shedding of Blood 2. The Expiations by Sacrifice under the Law were by the Death of the Sacrifice and so was the Expiation of Christ And so says our Author too p. 327. He hath made a perfect Expiation for our sins by dying once p. 328. He procures the Pardon of our sins by his Death But in Heaven there is no Death and yet he says The Intercession of Christ answers the Expiations by Sacrifice under the Law that is just as much as Life answers Death But how to make our Author friends with the Apostle will be difficult who is so hard to be reconciled to himself 3. The Expiations which were made by the frequent Sacrifices were all without the Holyest but the Intercession of Christ is in the most Holy place And is not this a famous correspondency But how clear is all this if we could be reconciled to the Scriptures Where the Death of Christ upon the Cross answers all the Expiatory Sacrifices under the Law and the Intercession of Christ at the right Hand of God or his appearing continually in Heaven before his Father for us answers the High-priests entering into the Holy of Holies with that Blood which had been before shed at the Altar But whereas such was the imperfection such the poverty of the Types that no one was able to Answer all the Concerns of a Sinner no one could express all the various respects that a guilty Person had to God and his Law and therefore it was necessary that various Sacrifices should be instituted that they might represent those things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which it was impossible they should perform 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our Lord Jesus Christ by one Offering hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified Heb. 10. 14. For where Remission is there is no more Offering for sin v. 18. When therefore our Author affirms so secure of Contradiction That Christs continual Intercession answers those frequent Expiations under the Law especially that on the great day of Expiation he has said enough to determine this Matter For if there were frequent Expiations under the Law besides that of the Feast of Expiation and that there be any thing in Christs Sacrifice answering to them it follows that Christs Expiatory work was finish'd before his entrance into Heaven for the Blood of those other Sacrifices never came within the Holy of Holies which answers to the true Holy Place where Christ makes continual Intercession for us All this while the Reader ought charitably to believe that our Author is discoursing what influence the death of Christ hath upon our Acceptation with God To which he has answered that it Confirms a Covenant it procures a Covenant though how it procures a Covenant he has not yet informed us Justification Reconciliation Redemption are not the proper and immediate effects of his death nor indeed is any thing so but the abolishing ceremonies and conforming such a Covenant as he has obtruded upon us and for confirming that which he calls the Covenant there was the least need and I think no need at all but he closes up the whole with a parcel of good words Christ says he procures the pardon of our sins by his death and dispenses this pardon to us by his Intercession Is not this very Canonical and Orthodox yes sure but now mark his
interpretation of himself He sealed the Covenant of Grace by his blood and intercedes for us in the virtue of his blood So that he wheels about again and Procuration is turned into Confirmation Christs procuring the pardon of sin is no more than that he has scaled this Doctrine that whosoever believes and obeyes shall be pardoned Expiation that 's owing to Christs intercession in heaven and reconciliation is nothing but making the Iews and Gentiles friends and preaching the Gospel to reclaim men from their debaucheries Notwithstanding all this our Author will not be beaten out of it but that he and his principles are better friends to the blood of Christ than those men that pretend to magnifie it for they attribute no more to it than the non-imputation of sin that Christ by his death bearing and undergoing the punishment that was due to us paying the ransom that was due for us delivered us from this condition the wrath and curse of God and his whole displeasure c. But now our Author ascribes much more than all this comes to For says he the Scripture gives us a different account of it we are said to be justified and redeemed by the blood of Christ nay we have boldness to enter into the Holiest by the Blood of Iesus we have admission into Heaven it self but the Doctor Owen says that the Blood of Christ makes us innocent but cannot give us a right to the Kingdom of Heaven And now what comparison is there between these two The summe of the business is this Our Author attributes perhaps more to the Blood of Christ in wordy complement but what the Doctor ascribes to the Death of Christ he does in reality Our Author will confess that we are redeemed by the Blood of Christ but when you come as all that are not Children will come to examine what he means by it then it shrinks into this Christ by his Death confirmed the Promise of Pardon and Life to them that Believe and Obey and this Promise he has appointed to be declared to the world and when men believe it and obey the Gospel themselves they are then Redeemed Christs death is no immediate no proper Cause of Redemption no price pay'd to God accepted by him for poor Captive Sinners Nay our Author will not stick to say We are justified by the Blood of Christ too but when you come to sift his Notion it 's all bran he confirmed the Promise which when we believe and obey the Gospel Commands we are justified so that in my weak Judgement it had beeen commendable in our Author to have been very sure that he attributes any thing at all to the Death of Christ as the proper Cause of that Mercy before he enter'd into Degrees of Comparison with others something I do perceive indeed he would attribute to Christs Death Viz. The confirming of a certain Covenant but so feebly asserted so weakly proved that it needs the Candour of the Reader But now what doe these other men attribute to the blood of Christ Why Nothing but Non-Imputation of Sin bearing and undergoing the Punishment that was due to us paying the Price that was due for us delivering us from this Condition The Wrath Curse and whole displeasure of God and that by the Death of Christ all Cause of Quarrel and Rejection is taken away And if this be Nothing in our Authors Arithmetick we desire he will ascribe more to it if he can justifie it when he has done But the truth is our Author is most grievously gulled in this business He reads their Writings who are too crafty for him and smile to see how little he understands of them Though these men attribute no more to the blood of Christ as shed on the Cross yet they are willing to let him know that they attribute more to the Blood of Christ than as it was shed on the Cross The Blood of Christ and the Death of Christ are not Expressions of equal latitude All the Concerns of Christs Blood are not comprehended in his Death for they consider it as that in the virtue whereof he intercedes for them upon the Throne of Grace as that which gives them a holy and humble boldness to draw nigh to God the Quarrel being removed by his Death And that our Author may see his own delusion herein I shall give him a short Collation from that person whom he contends with Exercit. on Heb. Vol. 2. p. 99. There are Two general Ends of Christs Interposition 1. Averruncatio Mali the turning away of all Evil hurt dammage or punishment on the Account of our sins and Apostacy from God 2. Acquisitio Boni or the procuring and obtaining for us every thing that is good with respect to our Reconciliation to him Peace with him and Enjoyment of him and these are intended in the general parts of his Office For 1. His Oblation principally respects the making Atonement for sins and the turning away Gods wrath which is due to Sinners wherein he was Jesus the Deliverer who saves us from wrath to come And this is all that is included in the Nature of Oblation as absolutely considered but it had a farther Prospect for with respect to that Obedience which he yielded to God therein according to the Terms of that Covenant betwixt the Father and Christ it was not onely Satisfactory but Meritorious that is by the Sacrifice of himself he not onely turned away the wrath of God that was due to us but also obtained for us Eternal Redemption with all the Grace and Glory thereto belonging And now if our Author will but ascribe any of all these things to the blood of Christ as its proper and immediate Cause he may hope to perswade the world that he is willing to ascribe something to the Blood of Christ I know well he will say That the Blood of Christ is said to Redeem us is said to Iustifie us these are Scripture Phrases indeed the sound of words carries it thus but when he comes to open the Meaning of things the Blood of Christ does neither redeem nor justifie us but after multitudes of Deductions and great windings of Inferences and Conclusions one upon the Neck of another it does that which does another thing which procures a third which leads to a fourth which brings us to believe that Belief may possibly bring us to Obedience and when all is done it 's our Obedience that justifies us And we owe our Acceptation with God to our own Obedience and he is more inclined to think that nothing can justifie us rather than to own it due to the Righteousness of Christ imputed as he expresses himself p. 272. And now at length he once more casts up his Reckonings Our Righteousness and Acceptance with God is wholly owing to the Covenant which he has purchased and sealed with his own blood What a rare sound does that word purchase carry with it But 1. He has purchased no more than that we
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
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
that remains in the Clouds still and upon our Authors Hypothesis must lodge there Eternally 3 Our Author fancies a Rigour and Severity in the Law now what that should be is not easily conceivable Is it any of the Ten Commandements which is so rigorous above the rest which is it or how many are there of them and where has God dispensed with them or it or what part of the Law is it the external or the internal part wherein the Rigour of the Law lies or is it no certain thing but left to Discretion such as hath a latitude in some greater in some less or rather is not this Rigour of the Law as 't is here applyed a great Name of Blasphemy and reproach against the Law and therein the Law-giver all whose Commands and every part and parcel thereof are holy just and good And in a word if God can dispence with his Law and indulge the Violation of it what Reason can be given why he may not dispense with all the rest Why so he may if our Author say true p. 45. That part of Justice which consists in Punishing Offenders was alwayes look'd on as an Instrument of Government and therefore the exacting or remitting Punishment was referred to the Wisdom of Governours who might Spare or Punish as they saw Reason without being unjust in either And therefore he concludes There was no Necessity for such a Sacrifice as the Death of Christ for the Expiation of Sin He is now drawing his Conclusion and I hope will draw to a Conclusion So that our Righteousness is wholly owing to the Righteousness of Christ. I am in hope it will be owing to something before he has done A little before it was owing not solely indeed but almost to humane Endeavours and now the Debt is transferred wholly to the Righteousness of Christ. And yet he flies higher in his Complements to the Righteousness of Christ Which says he in this sence may be said to be Imputed to us because without this Covenant which is founded on the Righteousness of Christ the best man Living could lay no claim to Righteousness or future Glory And is it come to this Is there a sence wherein the Righteousness of Christ may be said to be Imputed to us And must all men be Reviled and Persecuted with Scurrility because they cannot Jump just into his Sence And yet the sence of this way of Imputation is Invisible VVas it not possible for God to pardon without respect to Christ O yes Could he not reward sincere Obedience without regard to Christ O yes Could he not accept him that walkt uprightly before him without any consideration had of Christs Righteousness Oh yes Could not God have promised to do all this as well as do it without a promise No doubt of that VVhy then might not the best man Living lay claim to that which God promised upon performance of the condition of which he promised it Yes indeed he might had God promised it but before the appearance of Christ in the Flesh he made no such promise VVell then all we have got by the Bargain is a promise that God will do that now which he always would have done and did do though not promise that he would do before the appearance of Christ and if he never had appeared If then this be the only sence in which Christs Righteousness may be said to be imputed to us it may be said to be imputed in no sence at all for it gives us no right upon which we may make a claim only an evidence of right whereby we may lay claim to Righteousness and future Glory But why might not the best man living lay claim to Righteousness and future Glory Why he supposes there was no such Covenant in the World before the appearance of Christ and he supposes that this Covenant was founded upon the Obedience and Sacrifice of Christ. Here must needs be a great mistake 1. Upon his own Principles For pag. 252. he asserts That Natural Religion is founded upon Natural Demonstrations that God is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him And that upon this Foundation Abel and Enoch proceeded in their serving of God pag. 253. And that they pleased God by their Obedience the Apostle assures us Heb. 11. 4 5. And that Abel obtained witness that he was Righteous And that Enoch before his Translation had this Testimony that he pleased God Now that which God Spoke by Natural Demonstration to that upon their diligent seeking of Him they might lay claim but God Spoke by Natural Demonstration that he was a Rewarder of them that diligently seek Him therefore to that Reward they might lay claim Yes no doubt a claim to that Reward But what was that A meer Temporal transitory Reward And was that all the Reward that righteous Abel was to have for his Sacrifice for his serving of God Doubtless for he was presently Murder'd for it And was that all the reward that holy Enoch might claim Doubtless for Good took him Ttranslated him to a better Life for before his Translation he received this Testimony that he pleased God 2. There 's a mistake upon better Principles That which God Spoke by Revelation to that they might lay claim but God Spoke to Abraham by Revelation that upon his walking uprightly before him He would be his God therefore Abraham upon his walking uprightly before God might lay claim to it that God should be his God Ay says our Author Be his God No doubt of 〈◊〉 But what does that signifie This was one of the great difficulties that lay in his way to believe that Abraham was justified by Christ. For then We must be well assured that the Blessings promised to Abraham were Spiritual Blessings pardon of Sin and Eternal Life And therefore this is Ignoratio Elenchi But I profess my Name on the other side And that the Promise that God would be Abrahams God comprehended all that ever God Promised or could promise to any of the Sons of Men When God could Swear by no greater he Swore by Himself and when he could promise no thing greater he promised Himself I will be thy God is the Abstract and Epitome of the whole Covenant of Grace 'T is that Gold in the Lump which was afterwards beaten out into greater breadth but still of the same weight Summe up all the particular Promises in the Gospel and the total Summe is no more than this I will be thy God And therefore when the Apostle gives us the Covenant of Grace Heb. 8. 10 11 12. He describes it thus I will be their God and they shall be my People That he will Write his Laws in their Hearts that he will pardon their Iniquities are some of the particulars included in that comprehensive Promise I will be their God 3. That which the Saints guided by the Infallible Spirit laid claim to that they might justly lay claim to but the Saints guided by the
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