following of Adam as the Pelagians vainly talk but it is the corruption of the Nature of every Man whereby Man is very faâ—… gone from Original Righteousness and is enclined to Evil. So that in every Person born into the World it deserveth Gods Wrath and Damnation Surely here 's something that deserves our most serious Thoughts That which deserves Damnation at Gods Hands deserves consideration at ours He that can carry about with him daily a depraved Nature enclined to evil running counter to Gods Will and not lament it with a bitter Lamentation has taken some of our Authors Hypnoticks and how to bewail it without being sensible of it is a Mysterie perhaps as deep as any of those we owe to his Discovery And is not this to Reproach Christ himself Mat. 9. 12 13. They that be whole have no need of the Physitian but they that are sick Ay says he these are Metaphors and I will Rail them out of Credit and Countenance immediately Well you shall not fall out with Christ for a Metaphor if I can help it Read the Next words I come not to call the Righteous but Sinners to Repentance And they must be sensible sinners that will regard the Call of Christ or think they need Repentance Another Quarrel he has against the Practice of their Religion is That they hold it absolutely necessary that we be sensible how Impossible it is for us to Attone the Wrath of God to have any righteousness of our own that can bear the severe Scrutiny of his Iustice. Be it so if there be no Remedy It seems then if we could work up our Imagination into a Presumption that Gods Anger against sin is very small and our Righteousness very great so great as to endure the severe Scrutiny of Gods Iustice we might purchase this Gentlemans favour But the Gospel has taught us otherwise Rom. 3. 10. That there is none righteous no not one That by the deeds of the Law shall no flesh be justified in Gods sight ver 20. But he lays about him and Reproaches the Spirit of Bondage the Spirit of Adoption and at last falls a Reviling Christs own Words We shall says he in his fleering way never Value and Prize Christ and go to him for Salvation till we are Convinc'd of the necessity of him and driven to him by the Threatnings of the Law and the Promise of Ease and Rest is made only to the weary and heavy Laden and those only shall be satisfied who Hunger and Thirst after Righteousness Really this Doctor Owen and his Fellows are dangerous Persons I wonder not now that some think it not fit they should live a day That ever they should be so bold to read or quote Matth. 5. 6. Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after Righteousness for they shall be filled or that other place Matth. 11. 28. Come unto me all you that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest or to mention Galat. 3. 24. Wherefore the Law was our School-master to bring us unto Christ But did they make the Scriptures or coin and invent these words of their own heads or has our Author a License to expose the Expressions of the Holy Spirit as well as the Doctors Surely an awfull regard to the Authority of Jesus Christ speaking in them might have commanded some Reverence to them and controlled this unbridled liberty of prostituting Sacred Matters But thus much and too much of what they make of Conviction And now says he being thus stung with Sin it is time for us to look up to Christ as the Israelites did on the Brazen Serpent that we may be healed But is this Gentleman indeed a Minister a Teacher of others the Rector of St. George Buttolphs-lane and knows not that he reproaches Christ himself Ioh. 3. 15. And as Moses lifted up the Serpent in the Wilderness even so must the Son of Man be lifted up that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have Eternal Life And does not Christ himself authorize the Parallel That as none were healed in the Wilderness but those onely who sensible of pain looked up to the Brazen Serpent as Gods own Institution to which a Promise of healing was annexed so neither can we receive any benefit by Christ till under a deep sense of our sin and misery we accept of and close with a Redeemer whom the Father has held forth to be a Propitiation through Faith in his Blood for the Remission of sins But this is not all Now we must begin to see his fulness and perfection and suitableness to the wants and necessities of our Souls that he is our Attonement our Wisdom our Righteousness and all that we can desire or need Well and if they do conceive Christ to have both fulness and suitableness of all Grace and Mercy in him I hope it 's neither Felony nor Treason neither We have an Assurance Heb. 4. 15. That Christ is such a Priest as is touched with a feeling of our Infirmities and was in all points tempted like unto us yet without sin there 's great suitableness and we are encouraged to come boldly to the throne of Grace that we may obtain Mercy and find Grace to help in time of need and there 's fulness And surely our Author does sometimes pray to Christ at least he is enjoyn'd by the Litany to say O God the Son Redeemer of the World have mercy upon us miserable Sinners Now if he can indeed discover no suitableness no fulness of Grace in Christ to answer the needs and wants of those miserable Sinners he had better save his Breath to cool his Pottage It is further charged upon them That when the sense of their sins and unworthiness makes them afraid to come to Christ they have recourse to their Acquaintance with Christs Person to answer their Doubts and quiet their Consciences Which charge though it has a Tincture and dash of our Authors good Nature in it they can easily bear and do confess that when the sense of their sins and Unworworthiness at any time discourages them from Comeing to God for the Pardon of sins they do relieve themselves from the Gospel which has spoken great things of the Ability and Readiness of a Mediator to save humble and repenting Sinners that are willing to receive him as God has offer'd him in the Covenant of Grace They do there find that Christ came into the World to save the chiefest of Sinners such as had been Blasphemers Persecutors and Injurious and yet have obtained Mercy that Christ in them might shew forth all long-suffering for a Pattern to them that should afterwards believe on him to Everlasting Life 1 Tim. 1. 15 16 17. And do further believe that to deny this is at once to renounce the whole Gospel and if it be not a Fruit of down-right Infidelity and Atheisme yet most apparently leads thither Our Author having destroy'd the Living begins to prey upon the Dead
than the Gofpel allows The Question then shall never be stated by me thus Whether we must Obey or no Keep the Commandments of Christ or no And that upon Peril of Eternal Damnation But whether out of this Obedience of ours may be gathered that righteousness in which we may safely venture to appear before the Iudge of all the Earth in the great day as that which we resolve to stand and abide by venturing our all upon it This is that the Doctor thinks the Apostle reproved Rom. 9. 31 32. Israel which followed after the Law of righteousness hath not attained to the Law of righteousness because they sought it not by Faith but as it were by the Works of the Law Where the Apostle Intimates that though we do not directly seek a righteousness by the Works of the Law yet to do it Obliquely and Indirectly is destructive and that the Doctor intends no more no other than this is evident from the words our Author calls in And though I would have walkt according to my own mind yet now I give up my self to be wholly guided by thy Spirit This Netled our Authors Conscience and he takes Sanctuary in the most wretched Subterfuge that ever betrayed it's Confider What a pretty Complement does the Soul make to Christ We are now sheer gone from the Truth of the Principle to the Truth of the Heart in receiving it If it proves a Complement in the Mouth of an Hypocrite yet in Thesi its a Truth That whoever receives Christ upon his own Terms does renouncing his own will and way give up himself wholly to be ruled by the Spirit speaking in the Scriptures At this wiâ—…d rate I have often heard a silly Quaker answer this Proposition Iesus Christ that Died at Jerusalem is the Saviour of the World Ay says he but doest thou witness that from the Light within 2. Others make Obedience necessary upon the account of Christs Fulness But this he says makes it no otherwise necessary then as we are necessarily passive in it However if it be necessary upon any account it 's enough to make him blush that flatly Charges it upon them to say it 's not necessary But to be passive in our Obedience is all the Soul means in giving up it self to be ruled by the Spirit of Christ. Then the Soul means Nonsence For to give it self to be ruled by the Spirit has something of Activity in it Our help and asistance to give up our selves is from the Spirit but the giving up is an an act of the Souls 'T is the Believer that obeys and yet the ability to obey is from the Holy Ghost It 's the Creature that works and yet its God that works in him to will and to do of his own good Pleasure Phil. 2. 13. It 's the man that believes and yet he believes according to the working of Gods mighty Power Ephes. 1. 19 20. What is it else that he prays to the Spirit for O God the Holy Ghost proceeding from the Father and the Son have Mercy upon us miserable sinners But all this might have been Superseded had our Author duly Recollected what he has Subscribed and openly given his Assent and Consent to in the 10th Art of the Church of England We have no power to do Good works acceptable to God without the Grace of God preventing us that we may have a good Will and Working with us when we have that good Will Allow but the Doctor the Benefit of the Clergie and he will need no more to bring him off though that very Article would prove our Authors Neck-verse In the Work of Grace the Spirit Acts according to the Nature of the Subject which is here the Rational Creature He gives not new Natural Powers but a new Moral ability to Exercise them he bestows not a new Will Physically but enlarges it from its Fetters discharges it from its Slavery and powerfully though Gently enclines it to Gods Testimonies not destroying its radical self-determining Power and hence I conclude our Author is but sorrily Skilled in the true meaning of souls when they Profess a subjection to Christ. The Soul meant honestly she had no Mental reservation none of these Quirks and Tricks but plainly and sincerely Designed to give up her self in all Obedience to her Lord and Saviour She in her Text intended very singly but our Author has Commented upon it Knavishly I said so indeed in haste another would have said perhaps Foolishly for what more Idle Chat could he have Learn't from the good Women his Neighbours at Billings-gate than a willingness to obey against ones Will. This is all our Author is willing to own of the Grounds of our Obedience but I shall help his weak and frail Memory a little though to his great Regret Doctor O. Com. pag. 212. Obedience says the Doctor is necessary as a Means to the End N. B. God hath appointed that Holiness shall be the Means the Way to that Eternal Life which as in it self and Originally is his Gift by Jesus Christ so with regard to his Constitution of our Obedience as the Means of attaining it is a Reward and God in bestowing of it a Rewarder though it be neither the Cause Matter nor Condition of our Justification yet it is the Way appointed of God for us to walk in for the obtaining of Salvation And therefore he that hath hope of Eternal Life Purifies himself as he is Pure and none shall ever come to that End who walketh not in that Way for without Holiness it is impossible to see God The bare Repitition of which words are as plain and full a Rebuke to all our Authors Dirty Nasty Reflections as a reasonable Creature can desire But these things we shall meet withall anon and therefore here they shall lie ready in Banco till our Authors Leisure shall call for them I had now eased my self and my Reader of any further Vexation in this Section had I not unhappily overseen one Passage in Mr. Watson from which our Author thinks he has some Advantage The words are these Evangelical Truths will not down with a Natural Heart such a one had rather hear some quaint Point of some Vertue or Vice stood upon than any thing in Christ c. Which he thus Canvasses Such sanctified Souls and Ears loath all Dull Insipid Moral Discourses which are perpetually Inculcating their Duty on them and Troubling them with a great many Rules and Directions for a good Life which he is pleased to call the Quaint Points of Vertue and Vice Good Sir be not angry have but a little Patience and all will be well to your Hearts Content Mr. Watson does not Inveigh against your Poynant Invictives against the one or your most Elaborate Encomiums of the other Run down sin at the highest rate of Zeal and Fervency you can render Prophaneness as Odious and expose her for a Fulsomè sâ—…urvy Baggage if you please Invent new Names for her
when a Serpent swallows a Serpent he becomes a Dragon What then could we expect less than Legion from the Teeming Womb of such Big-bellied Monsters For though in point of Argument his Mountain is often delivered of a Mouse yet in point of Errour his Mouse alwayes brings forth a Mountain 2 It was a Spur to my duller Temper to Observe how he had raked all the Kennels and common Sewers of Friendly Debates Ecclesiastical Polities which with Martial Law and Civil War make up the Four great Soloecismes of this last Age and borrowed Auxiliaries from the Scavinger to compose an Oleo to throw in the Faces of the Innocent some of the particulars the Reader will find wiped off by these Papers and returned with that Correction and Chastisement which it became me to give them though not with what they deserved to Receive but for fouling my fingers with them all I must beg Excuse it had been a work no less irksome and tedious than the cleansing of Augaea's Stable and no otherwise to be effected than by Letting in the Thames from Billings-gate through Buttolph-lane Yet one Instance of the Many omitted and one is too much for a Taste I shall here give the Reader hoping it may not turn his stomach against the Rest Dr. Owen Com. p. 177. has said By the Obedience of Christ I intend the universal Conformity of the Lord Iesus Christ as he was or is in his being Mediator to the whole Will of God c. Now this Obedience of Christ N. B. as Mediator may be considered two ways 1. As to the habitual Root and Fountain of it 2. As to the Actual parts and Duties of it 1. The habitual Righteousness of Christ as Mediator N. B. p. 178. in his Humane Nature was the absolute complete exact Conformity of the Soul of Christ to the Will Mind or Law of God 2. The Actual Obedience of Christ was his willing chearful obediential Performance of every Thing Duty or Command that God by vertue of any Law whereto we were subject did require and Moreover to the Peculiar Law of the Mediator Hereof there are two parts 1. That whatever was required of us by the Law of Nature c. He did it all 2. There was the Peculiar Law of the Mediator which respected himself Merely and contained all those Acts and Duties which are not for our Imitation Thus far the Doctor But now what a world of wit has our Author shewn upon this Occasion or rather no Occasion Declaiming for four five or six pages together upon the Trite and Common Theme of his own Ignorance pag. 298 299 300 301 302 303. So that by the Law of Mediation sayes he He understands whatever Christ was bound to doe as our Mediator whatever was proper to his Mediatory Office All this is not imputed to us as though we had done it I hope we shall find something at last to be imputed to us but there 's nothing left now but thirdly that which concerns him in a Private Capacity as a Man subject to the Law Now had this Gentleman been pleased to have understood the Doctor a little before he had pretended to Confute him he might have seen that He supposes 1. A general Law of the Mediator whereby he gave Obedience to the Law of Nature c. in our stead 2. The peculiar Law of the Mediator which respected himself merely to this he gave not Obedience in our stead But still whatever Obedience he performed 't was as Mediator though not according to the peculiar Law of the Mediator But alas this would have spoyled a great deal of excellent Wit and dear Drollery which no man engaged in a Design of Raillery and Scolding would willingly lose for a World especially when he was practising like the great Balsac in some of his Letters to make an Experiment what The Height of forced Fancy can produce out of a barren and dry Subject or placing his Draining Engines to Recover the Boggs and Fenns upon New-Market Heath 3 His Subtle and Politick Method of venting Blasphemies was that which mainly pressed me to this Service For it 's now grown the solemn Mode of this Tribe of Men to vomit out the most opprobrious Language against the Lord and his Christ and then to wash their hands in Pilate's Innocency by saying These are the Consequences of other Mens Opinions And herein lies this Authors singular Excellency and proper Talent Thus when some affirm That God is a Holy God a Righteous Governour a Iust Iudge who will by no means clear the Guilty one that will not fail to recompense to every man according to his Works and yet in infinite Wisdom and Mercy has made Provision in the Death of his Son for securing the Glory both of his Essential and Rectoral Righteousness that he may be and appear to be just and the Iustifier of him that Believes in Iesus You shall now guess at the Lyon by his Claw and see what nasty dirty filthy stuffe he can extract out of this Doctrine Pag. 46. The Iustice of God hath glutted it self with Revenge in the Death of Christ and so henceforward we may be sure he will be very kind as a Revengefull man is when his Passion is over And pag. 47. The summe of which is this That God is all Love and Patience when he has taken his fill of Revenge as others use to say the Devil is very good when he is pleased Again whereas the Church of England Art 17. has express'd her Conceptions about Predestination in these words Predestination to life is the everlasting Purpose of God whereby before the Foundation of the World was laid he hath constantly decreed by his Councel 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 Our Author is pleased to droll upon this Tremendous Mystery at this pleasant Rate Pag. 57. This falls hard upon those miserable Wretches whose ill Fortune it was without any fault of theirs to be left out of the Roll of Election Thus when one had ventured to say by Warrant from Christs own Mouth John 3. 14. That Christ was compared to the Brazen Serpent c. he comes in with this snearing Droll p. 115. Who can forbear being smitten with so lovely a Person In all which and a hundred times more we are bound to suppose That there is Nihil bonis moribus contrarium quò minùs cum publicâ Utilitate Imprimatur Now if no Reverence of the Majesty of God no Regard to the Authority of the Holy Scriptures no Respect to the Harmonious Confessions of Faith of All Protestant Churches could oblige his Pen to observe a due Temperament yet methinks Civility to that Church whereof He is a Member which has not been Uncivil to him and may exercise more kindness to to him might have commanded more becoming Language about those things wherein she has
his Prophetical Office subtract offering himself a Sacrifice from his Sacerdotal Office and then Governing the Church raising the Dead and judging the World c. from his Regal Office and when you have done compute the clear Remainder and I suppose at the foot of the Account you will have three great Cyphers without one poor figure to give them the least significancy or value I know he will say He does but onely place them upon other Bottomes and so long as we find them what 's matter where they are found But then say I they will have but a praecarious station in any other place and he that removes them from their proper and true grounds can with a wet finger jostle them from that false Basis whereon out of meer good Nature he had for a season set them But to come closer home to our Author There are two small faults I charge this Discourse with Confusion and Falshood First Here 's a great deal of Confusion As your old dull Philosophers use to tell us that Cold did congregare Heterogenea Unite things that were of differing Names and Natures so has our Author glazed over his discourse with Ice which has so united things of various Natures that its hard to find sure footing in his Expressions Christ pardons sin upon one Account governs his Church and raises the Dead upon another The former he does by his Sacrifice the other by his almighty power And yet some of these things in one respect belong to one Office of Christ and some of them to another he purchases Grace as a Priest he dispenses and gives forth that Grace as a King he offers Sacrifice for sin as our High-priest yet he applyes the pardon of sin to us as a King But Secondly I find as much Falshood as Confusion in these Expressions and that 1. In denying that these are truely appropriated to Christs kingly Office For if Governing the Church raising the Dead Iudging the World do not speak a king never talk more of a Kingly Office in Christ but make that Metaphorical too as you make the rest and so the Tree is cut up by the roots 2. In that these are assigned only as the Reward of his Death and Suf ferings For we find Christ invested with an Authority to execute and actually executing these Powers before his Death saving in one or two particulars where the Nature of the Thing did exclude the perfect and compleat exercise of them at that time It may be worth the while to run over the particulars 1 For governing the Church he gave Laws to it set up new Institutions of Worship for it Baptism and the Lords Supper to continue to the end of the World sent out his Apostles to preach the Gospel and we have good and sufficient warrant for it under our Authors own hand just on the other side of the Leaf That his preaching the Gospel was the exercise of his Regal Power and Authority in publishing his Laws 2 For sending his Spirit that is in an extraordinary way pouring out the gifts of Miracles 't is true the full and abundant effusion of these Gifts was reserved for the day when the Son of Man should be glorified Yet it is clear beyond Contradiction that Christ had the Power and delegated the Power too before his death The Gift of speaking with Tongues there was no need of and Christ never used to bestow extraordinary Gifts without an extraordinary and pressing Reason The Apostles were sent to their own Countrey-men and could dispatch their Errand and deliver their Message in their Vernacular and Mother-tongue Math. 10. 5. Goe ye not into the way of the Gentiles and into any of the Cities of the Samaritans enter ye not but goe rather to the lost Sheep of the house of Israel But as to other miraculous Operations of the Holy Spirit he had Authority to make it over to others v. 8. Heal the sick cleanse the Lepers raise the Dead cast out Devils Nay the Seventy Disciples had an extraordinary power in their Commission as it appears Luke 10. 17. And the Seventy returned again with joy saying Even the Devils are subject to us through thy Name That is We produced thy warrant and authority and the very Devils could not resist it 3 As to forgiveness of sins there needs no other proof that Christ had the power than that he exercis'd it Matth. 9. 2. Son be of good cheer thy sins be forgiven thee I know there are some who will allow Christ a Power to forgive sins even here on Earth but then it 's such an odde kind of Forgiveness as never was heard of Volkel lib. 3. de verâ Relig. cap. 21. Non diffitemur quidem eum viz. Christum cùm in terris degerit divinissimâ potentiâ praeditum fuisse quam ipse peccatorum in terrâ condonandorum id est terrena ab hominibus supplicia propulsandi potestatem appellat We deny not that Christ even when he was upon Earth had a most divine power which he calls a Power to forgive sins that is to drive away from men temporal and bodily punishments A very liberal concession truly to cure a Fever or an Ague must be pardon of sin when these mens Necessities require it should be so 4 That Christ did dispense Grace and supernatural assistances at any time we are glad to hear owned and as sorry that they vanish again into smoke and nothing when our Author is out of the good Mood but let them signifie what he will for once he dispensed them before his death he conquered Errour and Ignorance destroy'd the Kingdom of darkness by the brightness of his Appearing erected a Throne in the Hearts and Consciences of men by the power and evidence of Truth And I suppose he will allow Christ to do no more now he is risen from the dead 5 That Christ raised the Dead needs no other Confirmation than to call over the Instances of Lazarus the Widows Son of Naim the daughter of Iairus but whether he did it with or without Authority I list not to dispute till I hear the Gentleman endeavour to disprove it 6 That he answer'd Prayers will need no proof I think it would puzzle the most froward Caviller to instance in one Case where-ever he denyed Mercy to any that with Faith or Importunity craved it for themselves or others 7 That the power to judge the World was committed to him we have his own words Ioh. 5. 27. The Father hath given him authority to execute judgement because he is the Son of Man And the ground of this Power entrusted with him is not assigned because he had merited it by his death and sufferings but because he was the Son of Man And though it be true that the General Judgement be yet to come yet Christ was furnisht with ample Power to execute it whenever it should come Say the same of his bestowing immortal Life on all his Disciples Now concerning all
draw with him towards a Conclusion Our Author is beginning to make an end but he must first discharge his stomach of a little froth and gall and spit up some venome that lies in his chest in the face of his Adversaries without which he could not possibly conclude his Chapter He tells you summarily what great feats he has done and what greater Atchievements he will adventure on What he has done amounts to this he has discovered great Mistakes in other mens Divinity but cannot espy any in his own he can spy a Mote in his Neighbours eye but considers not his own Beam He has also discover'd the rise of these Mistakes to be from the various usage of the Name Christ in the Writingâ—… of the Apostles The more excusable it seems they are if they had occasion from thence to erre which they might the more easily doe because as he observes well the Writings of Paul are obscure He has also discover'd to us the temper and humour of those Mistaken men They are zealous to advance Christs Person to the prejudice and reproach of his Religion which yet our Author himself when a Qualm of sweet Nature comes over his Heart thinks to be Impossible p. 17. The greater Opinion we have of his Wisdom and Reverence for his Person the more sacred Regard we have for his Lawes He has also discovered a horrid Plot to introduce a fancifull Application of Christ to our selves instead of the substantial Duties of the love of God and Men and an universal Holiness of Life But this is but a plot of his own making unless he had some supernatural Assistances from Beneath He has also for ever discharged the world upon his Blessing from closing with Christ getting into Christ and above all from overloving Christ and admiring his Excellencies and Perfections his Fulness Beauty Loveliness and Riches Wherein if he prevail to his mind he has for ever Obliged the Prince of Darkness to him and done more service to his black Kingdom than he with his Legions hath been able to effect these Sixteen hundred years What he intends further to doe he has reduced to four heads to which I referre the Reader and upon the whole Matter doe onely make this one Observation That through this whole Chapter he has cheated and tormented us with a sorry old Threadbare fallacy A benè compositis ad malè divisa The Persons whom he reviles dare not put asunder those things which God hath joyned together They love the Person of Christ and not therefore break but keep his Commandements They think that Faith in our Lord Iesus Christ and Repentance from dead works are very consistent may and must sweetly meet together and Kiss each other They would be glad to see those who revile them to love and admire Christs Person and shall be content to be reproved so far as they neglect and undervalue his Precepts but they are not to be frighted out of their Love to Him who loved them and gave himself for them They do freely confess that they admire at the Love of the Father in sending his onely begotten Son into the World upon such a design as to save Sinners and they do equally admire the Love of the Lord Jesus Christ that he was so willing to come into the world to be tempted persecuted reproached and at last to dye and give his Life a Ransome for many And though they have heard many Reproaches and Blasphemies uttered against their Saviour yet they have not met with one solid concluding Argument why they should not love him And therefore if they must be vile upon these Accounts they resolve in the strength of Christ to be vile more vile still and shall bind all the Ignominy that is cast upon them for Christs sake unto their Temples as a Crown and Diadem For indeed they do persist in that perswasion with some Obstinacy that it was the Person of Christ who dyed for them it was He upon whom the Chastisement of their Peace did lye it was He whose Soul was made an Offering for sin and upon whom God laid the Iniquities of us All. And therefore our Author must bear with them if they love him as much as they can because they have reason to fear they shall not love him as much as He has deserved They remember a Dreadfull word If any man love not the Lord Iesus Christ let him be Anathema Maranatha and would not for all the world fall under the weight of it Their love to his person makes them studious to please him fearfull to offend him zealous to glorifie him and if the will of God be so humbly content to suffer for him They have not met with any Author that has till of late endeavoured a Confutation of Christs personal Excellencies perfections fulness beauty loveliness and riches and they that have made the Attempt have exposed themselves to the universal censure of all that wear the Name of Christian and therefore they do ingenuously acknowledge that they doe admire and honour them and do humbly hope Christ at his coming will not rebuke them for it And when they are invidiously traduced as setting the Person of Christ at oddes with his Gospel they are satisfied that they have not done it in Principle and lament that they have in any the least degree done it in Practice And as they know that the Charge as apply'd to them is a pure impure slander so they conceive it 's vey difficult if not impossible in it self nor can they apprehend how any can really and truely maintain a due esteem of Christ in their hearts but they must have a proportionable value and regard for all his Commandments and Injunctions That these things are become Riddles to any professing the Name of Christ they tremble at as a sad symptome that the Gospel is hid to them and from them They do also in the general approve of any Labours managed with a due regard to the Majesty of God and the Lord Jesus Christ in order to the discovery of any Expressions in their Writings or Discourses which might in the least be misinterpreted to degrade and thrust down Holiness from its Throne but withall they are unwilling to be railed out of a good Opinion of Christs Person seeing that however they may have sinned in breaking his Laws it will not mend the matter to lessen the honour they justly have for Himself and had rather be severely chidden for their sin than scoffed out of their Duty But of these Matters thus far CHAP. II. Of what use the Consideration of Christs Person is in the Christian Religion IN the Entrance of this Chapter I observe our Author is feelingly concern'd to amove from himself the sinister suspition of a Design to render Christ useless And he makes a solemn Protestation not onely of his own Innocency but is ready to become Surety and Compurgator for all his Accomplices A design sayes he which I confess I
am wholly a stranger to as I believe all those are who are so much charged with it When we hear a man zealously purging himself of some Notorious Crime noysed abroad onely in the general without praevious Accusation it 's apt to fly-blow our Heads with jealousie he may be Tardy an over-forward Vindication being reputed more than half an Accusation But I dare be one of his Twelve-Godfathers in this matter that he does not make Christ useless but will allow him to be of some use that is to say that Christ is good for something and in effect a little Better than though next to Nothing and I can with more security become Bound for Him because he has given me good Counter-security that I shall not forfeit my Recognizance P. 330. I could never perswade my self no not for your heart though you had attempted it that the perfect Obèdience and Righteousness of His Life was wholly excluded So that whatever rendred Christ beloved of God contributed something to our Acceptation P. 331. We ought not to think that we receive No Benefit by the Righteousness of Christ. And I hope something is better than Nothing Nay such is his Charity he can be content to Allow that God was somewhat more pleased with the Obedience of Christ than the Faith of Abraham ibid. And that his Sacrifice was of greater value than the Blood of Bulls and Goats p. 19. Naughty men are they then that wrong Him and Them so as to insinuate that they design'd to make Christ useless the rather because they proceed upon so bad a Ground We are charg'd with making Christ useless onely because we dare not make his Laws so And thus it seems they have unhandsomely payd him in his own Coyn who charges them with making his Laws Useless onely because they dare not make his Person so And yet to deal plainly with Him for all this I find a Double charge upon the File against him 1 That though he has not made Christ altogether Useless yet he has made him Needless Though he can use Him yet he could have spared him though he can make a shift with him he could have made a Rubbing shift without Him Ut tecum possum vivere sic sine te So p. 46. I should rather have thought that Gods requiring such a sacrifice as the Death of Christ was not because he could not do otherwise And if Gods Iustice could be contented without that sacrifice I may presume it shall not stick at our Authors good Nature p. 43. Had Christ never appeared in the World yet we had Reason to believe that God is thus Wise and Good viz. to Pardon sinners And as he labours to Prove Enoch Noah Iews and Gentiles who knew nothing at all of Christ p. 44. yet understood God to be a God pardoning iniquity without him And surely if the World jogg'd on for four thousand years without Christ it might have worn out the Remainder without him too 2 I find a second Charge against him That though he make not Christ useless as to some common ordinary and general Ends which might have been attain'd and reach'd without him yet he renders him wholly Useless as to those special those main and glorious purposes for which he came into the World The making satisfaction to Divine Iustice the Imputation of his Righteousness to Believers his powerfull and effectual sanctifying them by his Spirit for whom he undertook Whereof we shall meet with abundant Evidence in the progress of his Discourse So that a Declaration contrary to the Fact is of small weight with considering Readers and sinks it self below all consideration But to return Two things fill up this Chapter First That the Person of Christ is of some Consideration and Secondly That the consideration of his Person is of some use onely the difficulty to be assoyled by His Abilities is Of what use the consideration of his Person should be 1. Then the Person of Christ is of some consideration but e're he ventures upon that Province he bethought Himself it would be a Task worthy his great Parts to indoctrinate our Plumbeous Cerebrosities in the Nice Point What the Person of Christ is P. 15. By the Person of Christ I mean what all men ought to mean nay there 's no doubt of that All men at their utmost Peril ought to mean to a hairs breadth just as our Author means Christ Himself Had it not been a Prodigy as great as ever was in the World if by Christs Person had been meant any body else Such then is Christ's Person The Consideration thereof follows And as he assures us the onely proper consideration here is the Greatness of his Person This is the onely or however The onely Proper or at least the onely Proper consideration here whatever other improper considerations of it there may be in other places or cases upon other accounts or occasions at other times it skills not for Here at this Time and in this place the onely Proper Consideration is the Greatness of his Person And yet methinks the exceeding loveliness of his Person standing betwixt God and lost Sinners his laying down his Life as a Ransome payd to God his standing as a Surety in our stead his bearing our sins in his Body on the Cross might have claimed a Place and come in for a share in our consideration of his Person But thus much for that 2 The Use of this consideration follows And some good Use he has assign'd it 1 And first it 's a plain demonstration of Gods love to Mankind that he sent so dear and so great a Person into the World as his onely begotten Son to save Sinners It is so indeed but a very weak demonstration of Gods Love to his own Son to send him into the World to grapple with all those Miseries he met withall in his Soul in his Body from Enemies from Friends from Men from Devils nay from himself whom it pleased to bruise him and lay upon him the Iniquities of us all to make his soul an Offering for sin nay to be made sin for them who himself knew none to Die a cursed Death and all this without any Absolute or Indispensible necessity Contrary to all the Rules of Decorum Nec Deus intersit nisi dignus vindice Nodus inciderit And it would be of use to consider also the Love of Christ his Willingness to Accept the Terms of being a Redeemer though He knew well they were severe and would cost him Sweat and Blood and yet He cheerfully Undertook Underwent and went through with them He voluntarily assumed a Body that He might become a Sacrifice Heb. 10. He was willingly for a little while made lower than the Angels by Dispensation who was above them by Nature for the suffering of Death Heb. 2. 9. He understood well the Debtor was Insolvent and yet he became Surety He knew well the Righteousness of God and yet He was ready to put in sufficient
we cannot Imitate them for those special Ends which Christ had in His Eye yet must we Imitate that Moral principle from which and the General End unto which he Levelled those Actions Thus we cannot Die for that end for which Christ Died especially to Attone sin yet may we must we Conform our Souls to that Love which carried him out to the Work and Eye the general Advantage of the Church in laying down our Lives when called to it 1 John 3. 16. Herein perceive we the Love of God that he laid down his Life for us and we ought to lay down our Lives for the Brethren And the Argument concludes strongly If Christ a Person so great laid down his Life a Life so precious for us so unworthy and in such a way to be a Propitiation for our sins how much more ought we Inconsiderable Creatures to lay down our Lives so useless for the Brethren so dear to God when our single Death may by the Providence of God prevent some Impending danger or notable Ruine that Threatens the Community So again Col. 3. 13. As Christ forgave you so also do ye We are to forgive as Christ forgave And yet the As is a Note of Similitude not of Equality Christ's forgiveness is one thing ours another they differ Specifically yet there 's a Moral equity which holds that if Christ freely pardons our sins much more ought we in our way to pass by and not Rigidly exact those Trespasses committed against us But the Actions of Christ as a Man Living in Obedience to the Moral Law and especially that Frame of Cheerfulness Readiness Sincerity therein these call for our Imitation 4 This assures us of the Infinite value of his Sacrifice and the power of his Intercession I have heard some Travellers when they have met with a spot of good way after long tedious laping in the Dirt say they could be tempted to ride it over again but the consideration how long they have been and how soon again they must be engaged in wayes of the same difficulty has reformed the vanity of that Crotchet I could gladly dwell upon some pleasant passages in this Chapter which prove undenyably that there 's no such thing as summum malum in the world but that I am importun'd by the approaching foul way to make haste into it that I may get the sooner through it Sun-shine is pleasant but it often proves a breed-storm and a Dead calm in our Master Aristotles Philosophy is the Prognostick and Prodrome of an Earth-quake But yet why should we kill our selves for fear of dying and make our selves miserable for fear another should do it for us We will then make the best we can of the present Halcyon tranquillity This assures us of the Infinite value of his Sacrifice and the Power of his Intercession 'T is so indeed for though the Manhood onely was the Sacrifice yet the Person God-Man was the Priest and though the Sacrifice was not God yet was it the Sacrifice of him who was God none can therefore wonder that our Author calls it of Infinite value Nor on the other hand let any surmise that he uses the Term Infinite to impose upon us though some perhaps may carry a jealous Eye over him because he has dropt an odde word or two elsewhere which seem to warp the sence of Infinite to Finite or Indefinite In p. 208. he denyes that the Divine Nature it self hath endless boundless bottomless Grace in it Though God be rich in Grace he hath no where told us that his Mercy was bottomless and boundless which yet is that Notion of Infinite that we have ever Received and yet the same Author in the same Page will allow Grace to be Infinite A world of sin is somewhat though it bear no Proportion to infinite Grace Hence I perceive some would inferre that if the Grace of the Father may be infinite and yet not boundless the Blood of the Son may be so too of Infinite value that is of a great uncertain worth in which sence Vorstius will allow God to be Infinite They do also foment their own suspicion from what here follows as it were by way of Exegesis His Sacrifice was of greater value than the Blood of Bulls and Goats Nay then if there was onely a Magis and a Minùs in the case all this might be and yet Christs Sacrifice come infinitely short of Infinite These things may be objected but for my own part though he be angry at it in other places when he is not concerned I shall interpret his words according to their Chime and clink and charitably expound his meaning by the sound of words That which follows is Truely excellent God cannot but be pleas'd when his own Son undertakes to be a Ransome and to make an Attonement for sinners which is so great a Vindication of Gods Dominion and Sovereignty of the Authority of his Laws the Wisdom and Iustice of his Providence that he may securely pardon humble and penitent sinners without reproaching any of his Attributes What pity 't is a single word should here be lost 1. God will not indeed cannot pardon any sin to the reproach of his Attributes The hopes of sinners are small if these be their hopes that to pardon them God will destroy Himself It would be the reproach of pardoning Mercy it self should we conceive it ready to pardon without respect to the Interest of other Attributes As therefore God is ready to pardon a way must be contrived that he may securely pardon and when 't is said he cannot 't is no Impeachment of His Omnipotency He is therefore Omnipotent because he cannot Doe some things the Doing whereof would imply want of Power He cannot Dye and is therefore the rather Omnipotent because he cannot He cannot Deny himself and therefore he can doe all things because he cannot doe that for he that can Deny Himself his Word Promise or Threatning may be presumed Able to doe very little Thus therefore God cannot pardon sin without security that his Attributes be not reproached for so to doe would argue a Remisseness and languid easiness in a Governour which is a weakness and no perfection 2. We gather from our Author That even humble and penitent sinners need the Interposition of Christ that God may securely pardon them for besides that even they are but imperfectly such and that sin still cleaves to their Repentance and Humiliation and further that the displicency of God against sin as it is sin small or great is essential to Him besides all this those however humble and penitent ones turning from sin for the future have yet old scores to discharge former Reckonings to clear and have need of Christ to cross the Book for old Arrears though for the time to come they should reach the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which yet it 's much to a little they will not doe but when Christ undertakes to be a Ransome God may securely
pardon humble and penitent sinners and not till then 3. In pardoning of these humble and penitent sinners Gods Dominion Sovereignty and the Authority of his Laws must be vindicated for God being the Righteous Iudge of all the Earth should he discover a facile Indulgence and indifferent connivence at Sin the Authority of his Lawes were gone in a moment and the sinews of Government cut asunder God then must be declared to be a Righteous God the Sanction of the Law as to Promise running thus Doe this and live Doe this personally doe this exactly doe this constantly and perpetually and then live and as to Threatning thus Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the Book of the Law to doe them Gal. 3. 10. And of the same mind with our Author is as I remember one Dr. I. O. who is very peremptory that the Iustice of God may have its actings assigned to the full which is not done by Any that ever yet was heard of but the Lord Jesus Christ Now whilest I see the sweet Agreement of these two at present I fancy my self with Aeneas in the Elysian fields pleasing himself with the Amicable correspondence held between Caesar and Pompey and yet his delight mixt with another passion even grief in the foresight of their Civil Wars and Friendly Debates Illae autem Paribus quas fulgere cernis in Armis Concordes Animae nunc dum nocte Premuntur Heu quantum inter se bellum si Lumina Vitae Attigerint quantas Acies stragémque ciebunt Aeneid lib. 6. 4. Jesus Christ having undertaken to be a Ransome and to make Attonement for Sinners and his blood being of Infinite value the oldest greatest and stubbornest Sinners through Faith may possibly come to be concern'd in Christs Ransome and Attonement and so may be saved with a Notwithstanding their sins for seeing Gods Dominion Sâ—…vereignty the Authority of his Laws the Wisdom and Iustice of his Providence are all vindicated by this Means and security given that none of his Attributes shall be reproached what can Now hinder repenting sinners from coming to God and what can hinder God from rewarding those that so come and diligently seek him Nay 5. God cannot but be well pleased when his own Son undertakes to be a Ransome and to make Attonement for sinners And the Reason is evident The price being of Infinite value and payd into Godâ—… hands he cannot but be satisfied with it Nay further We can Reasonably desire no greater security for the Performance of the Gospel-Covenant than that it was sealed with the Blood of Christ the surety of a better Testament Heb. 7. 22. who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one that undertakes for the Performance of it I could willingly lose my self my Reader and my Time in the Throng of these good words Say not This is only the Sealing of a Covenant on Gods part undertaking for him whose veracity needs none to undertake for it but not for us whose guilt and weakness needs an undertaker The Covenant being mutual the undertaking must be supposed Reciprocal also and so I hope our Author intends it that as Christ undertakes for God with Man so he undertakes with Man unto God Perhaps you will say A word or two might have been added to have put matters out of dispute why so there might in any bodies Writings besides his and as many spared hanc veniam petimúsque damúsque As 1. It 's likely you would have had him say The Vertue of Christs Sacrifice depends not onely very much on the Greatness of his Person but Altogether and the Acceptation thereof with God depends on the Compact between them both seeing that which depends altogether does depend very much on the Greatness of his Person and therefore pray let that break no squares 2. Whereas he sayes The Blood of the Son of God is such a Confirmation of the Covenant as the World never had before Perhaps you would add Actually because the World had it before Virtually exhibited in Sacrifices and accepted as already Performed But set your hearts at Rest whether he meant well or ill in this Chapter I 'le engage you shall not be prejudiced if he happens to discover an ill meaning in the next Chapter and in the mean time let us go seek all over Pauls Church-yard Little-Britain and Duk-lane for an old Treatise De modo tenendi Anguillam Aequivocationis per Caudam 5 The Person of Christ is of no other Consideration in the Christian Religion than as it has an influence upon the great Ends of his Undertaking I confess I had thought our Author had not been upon the Head What Consideration the Person of Christ is of but Of what Use the Consideration of his Person is but let that pass I had thought too that the former four particulars had shewn us What influence Christs Person has upon the great Ends of his Undertaking and therefore this seems not to be a fifth Particular but the total summe of the other four but I wave that too The Lord Jesus Christ undertook both with God and with Man for God and for Man and he had special Ends of his undertaking in both He undertook for God that he should be willing to pardoâ—… sinners and for man that he should return and come back to God He undertook to God that his Attributes should not be reproached but all secured his Righteousness cleared his Holiness vindicated he undertook to man that God should make every word and letter of the Promises good as they stand in the Covenant of Grace He undertook that Godâ—… Iustice should not break out upon the believing repenting creature to consume him and he undertook that Man should not break in upon Gods glory nor break away from Gods Wayes in a manner inconsistent with a New Covenant What a horrid Absurdity then must it be to imagine that his Person will destroy these Ends or to expect more from the excellency of his Person than his Gospel has promised Most wretchedly therefore doe they deceive themselves and wrong the Redeemer who Trusting to the goodness of his Nature Renounce his Mediation that trust in his Person without a Promise nay in contradiction to the Terms of that Covenant which he hath seal'd with his Blood that quit hiâ—… Promise to rely and rowl on his Person For should he acquit those men whom his Gospel condemns wilfull and incorrigible sinners this would flatly disannull the Covenant Though he may absolve such sinners as the Covenant of Works condemns through the Intervention of Christs Sacrifice But I perceive we are besides the Cushion all this while nay besides the Book for he knows none thaâ—… will in so many words own it nor does he dares he charge any man with it but yet it 's the natural Iâ—…terpretation of Trusting in the Person of Christ. That is It 's impossible to Trust in Christs Person but you doe ipso facto Renounce
Brimstone upon their heads and it was goodness that he did it not in stead of those fruitfull seasons he might have sent Famine and Cleanness of Teeth and there was much Goodness in that yet whether they could from hence bless themselves with a well-grounded Hope that he would pardon their Iniquities I much question And 2. The Servant in the Parable Math. 18. 26. could understand the difference between forbearance and acquittance Have patience with me and I will pay thee all Time and Day were considerable Favours in his Judgement though his Master did not throw him in the Bond. 3. I am sure God himself understood the difference between a Reprieve and a Pardon between that Goodness which he shews in forbearing and that which he manifests in forgiving Rom. 9. 22. He endured with much long-suffering the Vessels of Wrath fitted to destruction A presumptuous Conclusion therefore had it been from Gods general Goodness and indulgent Patience to argue his Forgiveness and pardoning-Grace 4. Adam in the state of Integrity understood very well God to be good he could not look besides a Demonstration of it and yet no Notion of Gods Pardoning Grace was concreated with him whereof he could have no use in his worship of and walking with God A threatning against sin he had but not the least intimation that God would pardon it till it was revealed upon another Account We are not here enquiring what presumptuous and vain hopes secure sinners might form to themselves of Indempnity nor how their hearts might be fully set in them to do evil because judgement against an evil work was not speedily executed nor what flattering thoughts might tickle their breasts that God was such a one as themselves because he kept silence at their proceedings and spoke not his Fury in Thunder and Lightning nor do we enquire what Natural earnest desires they might express to obtain the Favour of God what projects plotts and contrivances they invented to relieve their guilty Consciences wounded with apprehensions of wrath how they skin'd over their Sores with some Services and lickt themselves whole with their Sacrifices and Oblations But the Enquiry is this What solid Ground they had from Gods common and general Goodness his Governing the World his Patience Forbearance and long-sufferance with his Bounty to Sinners to conclude from thence that he was a Sin-pardoning God When I seriously consider into what inextricable Labyrinths and Mazes those poor Heathens did run themselves how they were bewildred in their own Inventions how they tyred themselves off their Leggs in their own wayes and spent themselves to their skins with Sacrifices if by any means it might be possible to purchase the good will of a Deity I presently conclude they had no settled fixed Apprehension of any such thing in God For though they might hear a rumour that there were a people in the World towards whom God shew'd himself propitious and favourable and that the way of the peoples part to reconcile this God to them was by killing of Beasts and offering up them to him in Sacrifice and might therefore hence fall upon this practice of Sacrifices yet not understanding the true use of them what reference they had to a promised Mediator they must needs fluctuate and toss up and down in uncertainties about so weighty a Concern Hence was it that least they should not hit upon the True God in that Crowd and Throng of Deities wherewith they had overstockt the Commons they set up an Altar To the unknown God and least they should miss the right Sacrifice and most acceptable Offering sometimes they Sacrificed the worst sometimes the best of Men and sometimes to please their God the better they would let him choose by Lot which he would have They tryed Conclusions with almost all sorts of Creatures and all to answer the demands of an importunate Conscience which as Gods Officer was alwayes haling and dragging them before the Barr of Gods Justice to answer for their Delinquencies Either then they had no Notices of Sin-pardoning Mercy or what they had came not in from the Works of Creation and Providence but were some scattered Beams and broken Splinters of Traditional Knowledge derived Originally to them from the People of God who themselves had received it by pure Revelation in and through a Redeemer All this while our Author sits fretting himself like Gumm'd-Taffata that when he has been for two whole pages together preparing his Reader to swallow his Pills yet we should cunningly pass it over with a dry Foot and never bestow the least Consideration of it That he may not therefore think himself neglected we shall give him a full and a fair hearing The Light of Nature says he and the Works of Creation and Providence and those manifold Revelations God hath made of himself to the World especially that last and most perfect Revelation by Iesus Christ assure us that God is infinite in all his Perfections They do so let him make his best of that And therefore that he is Powerfull and can doe whatever he pleases Very good goe on So Wife that he knows how to order every thing for the best Better and better and yet p. 30. he tells us Long and sad Experience proved that all the Means he used to reform the World proved ineffectual So Good that he designs and desires the Happiness of all his Creatures according to the Capacity of their Natures Stick a Pin there So Holy that he hath a Natural Love to all good Men And so Gracious too that he made them Good else they never had been so but he hates all Sin and Wickedness It 's well Gods Hatred of Sin is as Natural to him as his Love of Good Men. And will as certainly punish all Obstinate and Incorrigible Sinners but yet that he is patient and long-suffering towards the worst of Men and uses various Methods to reclaim them and is as ready to pardon them when they return to their Duty as a kind Father is to receive an humble and penitent Prodigal Where there are some things that wound our Authors Cause to the Heart and nothing prejudicial to the Truth which he opposes For 1. He grants that Gods Love to good Men and his Hatred of Sin are both equally Natural and therefore I suppose Essential to him 2. That Gods punishing obstinate Sinners is equally Natural to him with his rewarding Good men But 3. The Fallacy of all is that lapsed Man stands related to God as a Father whereas he should have proved and not supposed that the Light of Nature of Scripture discovers any other Relation of a Revolted Sinner unto God than that of a Creature to his Creator and a Subject to his Governour before he be taken into that special Relation of a Son to a Father by Adoption in Christ. 4. A Supposition that God is ready to pardon Sinners when they return to their Duty is ambiguous vain and as he takes it false
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
recommend his Glory and Perfections What Nature will teach us so great a Darling of hers the Privado to all her Mysteries cannot be Ignorant of but in my Judgment he fetches a huge Blow to do Nothing We believe God was perfectly happy from all Eternity in the Enjoyment of his own Self and Infinite Perfections and needed not have recommended his Glory to his Creatures he made not the World because he needed it but by our Authors good leave or without it supposing that God will recommend his Glory he must have something out of himself to which he may recommend it And on like Supposition that He will Manifest his pardoning Grace and Mercy there must be a fit Object capable of that Grace and Mercy unless our Author from his too much familiarity with Nature can tell us how God can Pardon one that is no sinner or forgive him that is not guilty Though every sinner be not an Object qualified to receive Mercy yet he must be a sinner upon whom pardoning Mercy is exercised though all Misery be not a fit Object of pity yet Pity supposes Misery some of Gods Attributes create their Objects as Omnipotency but others do suppose them as Sin pardoning Grace and so God may be said to need Sins and Misery to recommend some of his Perfections I am sure supposing sin and misery to exist God has recommended his Son to us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us Rom. 5. 8. Of the same bran is that which follows God would not Truckle and Barter with the Devil and Sin for his Glory It 's like he would not but when the Devil and Sin had confederated against God I know not why God might not Over-reach them in their Designs and as he has made the wrath of Man so he might also the policy of Satan to serve and praise Him and thus he fixes a New end upon sin which the Devil never dreamt on or however did not design But I perceive our Author is wondrously pleased with the fine Notion of Trucking and Bartering and that we might not loose the beauty of it he warns us amongst the Errata I would there were no worse that for Truckle we read Truck Oh be sure Courteous Readers you do not mistake for there 's some weighty Controversie depends upon it which the Coffee-house and the Inch of Candle must determine But further Nature teaches him That God had much rather be Glorious in the Happiness and Perfection and Obedience of his Creatures than in their sin and misery Nature is an excellent School Mistress I see and this is one of her highest Mysteries that God delights in Obedience more than Sin But what now if Sin and Disobedience have got in for my part I question whether Nature will teach him that God had rather much rather or however how much rather he had be more Glorious in exacting one Attribute than another or whether God may not equally glorifie himself in the Execution of his just Displeasure against Sin obstinately pursued as in the glorifying the Penitent and Reformed sinner but this I know that the former has more deserved Eternal Punishment than the other can pretend to merit Eternal Life But perhaps he has Ballances that will turn with the Twentieth part of a Grain and in these he knows how to weigh which of Gods Attributes weigh heaviest And that he can do for he tells us That pardoning Mercy and vindictive Iustice are but secondary Attributes What warrant he has to marshal Gods Attributes in this order I dare not enquire which are first rate which second rate Attributes is a Nice enquiry but I expected a Dish of Coleworts before he had done for these have been served up to us in the Racovian Catechism Let these things be as they will I observe 1. That vindictive Justice and pardoning Mercy are both equally Gods Attributes 2. They are not the less Essential and primary Attributes because they were not Eternally exercised for then neither would Omnipotency be such God was Eternally Omnipotent though he Created not the World from Eternity and he was also Eternally a God of pardoning Mercy and a God of punitive Justice though to the Exerting the outward Acts proper to those Eternal excellencies there was required an Object capable of receiving them This Nature and Scripture teaches us and we are not much concern'd in our Authors Theologie but to close up all he gives us an Inference from his Doctrine and a Reason of that Inference His Doctrine was this Vindictive Iustice and Pardoning Mercy are not Primary but Secondary Attributes His Inference is this Therefore God cannot Primarily design the glorifying of them His Reason is this For that cannot be without Primarily designing the sin and misery of his Creatures That is God cannot Primarily design one thing except he Primarily designs another and so we shall have two Firsts without a Second This is very thin Stuff it shines through 2. The Reader has heard to his great Contentment how admirably he has acquitted himself in the Matter of sin if he can but play his part as well in the Matter of our Righteousness too he will deserve the Whetstone and that may save him the Labour of going to the Counter-door As it is with your Artificial Fencers that never knew further than the Discipline of the School they have all the Terms of Art know their Postures and with good Credit can play a Prize upon the Stage yet when these men come to Sharpe when the Point of a real Enemies Sword is ready prest at the heart it puts them often out of their forms their School-play and Systematical skill Thus possibly it may fare with our confident Bravo's who can talk very confidently of appearing before God in their own Duties and a Righteousness finely Composed out of those Materials yet possibly their Blood may freeze in their Veins and the Colour forsake their bold Cheeks when God shews himself in his glorious Majesty and they must be in a moment as they must be for ever None ever Ranted higher than Bellarmin nor Hector'd the World with Arguments against Imputed Righteousness yet when he saw Death was in good Earnest he was glad to Lower his Top-sail and cry out Precor ut inter sanctos suos non estimator meriti sed veniae largitor me admittat And in his very Ruff against that Doctrine retreated to his Tutissimum est liâ—… 5. de justificatione What Doctor Owen asserts herein is briefly thus much Com. pag. 113. All men are perswaded that God is a most Righteous God Hab. 1. 13. and therefore the Ungodly cannot stand in the Judgment Hence the enquiry of every one convinc't of Immortality and the Judgment to come is concerning the Righteousness to appear before this Righteous God The first thing that offers it self for Direction and Assistance is the Law which hath many fair Pleas to prevail with a Soul to close with it for a
about the Necessity of Good Works For says he when they are pressed with those Scriptures that urge the Necessity of Good Works What do they then Nay that he could not tell but carries on a suspended Sence for almost two whole Pages and in the end leaves it unintelligible Nonsence But however let us hear those Texts that are so pressing for Good works and a holy Life Why VVithout Holiness no Man shall see God The wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all Unrighteousness and Ungodliness of Men. Truly these Scriptures do press upon our Consciences and Practices but not upon our Principles Well then there are others that assert Our Acceptation with God depends upon a Holy and Vertuous life I promise you that presses indeed But it does not press me Our Acceptation with God depends upon a Holy life as the Qualification but it depends upon Christ for Procurement But the places are Acts 10. 35. God is no Respecter of Persons but in every Nation he that feareth God and worketh Righteousness is accepted of him Well let us examine whom this Text does press most The Apostle Peter in that excellent Discourse ver 43. tells us To him Christ give all the Prophets witness that through his Name whosoever believeth in Him should receive Remission of sins Whatsoever of acceptation with God then they that fear God and work Righteousness do obtain still it 's through the Name of Christ. The Text then presses not us he must call for more weight if he designs to Press us to Death But as I remember pag. 44. our Author with much Confidence would bear us down that the Iews who knew nothing at all of Christ yet undeâ—…stood God to be a Sin-pardoning God And yet the Apostle assures us 1. That all the Prophets gave witness to Christ. 2. That their Testimony was this That they were to expect Remission of sins through the Name of Christ. 3. That the Means of acquiring the Remission of sins through Christ was by believing in Him And now let him ask his own Shoulders whether this Text does not press him But there is another Scripture that will break their bones Mat. 5. 20. Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees ye shall in no case enter into the Kingdom of Heaven And what was their Righteousness Why he tells us They were a company of Immoral Hypocrites who placed all their Righteousness in observing the Ceremonies of the Law without the purity of their Hearts and Lives Well and we think a Man may Travel a great many Leagues beyond such Debauches and never come near the Kingdom of Heaven Let them then Groan under the weight of it who place their Religion in Ceremony and prophane Drollery it presses not them who professing Faith in our Lord Iesus Christ and Repentance from Dead works subject themselves to his Gospel Well but there is one more that will Grind them to Powder ver 19. He that breaks the least of these Commandments and teaches men so shall be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven And this will certainly press them who Renouncing their part in the Satisfaction given to God by Christ trust to their own Imperfect repentance wherein there are so many Flaws as will amount to the breach of some Commandment and then our Author has quite shut them out of the Kingdom of Heaven To conclude this Section our Author has one round Fling at Doctor Owen and it is ex Officio no doubt I suppose he may hold some fair Estate by this Tenure That he Persecute the Doctor with Fire and Faggot as far as a pair of Shooes of a great price will carry him The Question is What necessity there is of Obedience The Doctor had said That Universal Obedience and good Works are Indispensibly necessary to Salvation by the sovereign appointment and Will of God To this our Author answers This is not one syllable to the purpose Why then It 's the end of the Fathers electing Love That 's not one syllable to the purpose It 's the end of the Sons redeeming Love That 's not one syllable to the purpose It 's the end of the Spirits sanctifying Love That 's not one syllable to the purpose Well but it 's necessary to the Glory of the Father Son and Holy Ghost That 's not one syllable to the purpose neither If neither the Sovereignty of God over us the Love of God to us nor the Glorifying of God by Us be to the purpose of Obedience let our Author speak to the purpose So he will God hath commanded Obedience but where 's the Sanction of the Law Will he Damn all that will not Obey for their Disobedience Where 's the Sanction of the Law I am sure that Question is very little to the purpose It 's the Command it self that makes a Duty that creates a necessity The Authority of the Law-giver lays the Obligation upon the Subject It 's our Interest to Obey upon the account of the Sanction but it 's our duty to Obey upon the Command it self But not to hold him in suspense God will Damn all those that will not Obey for their Disobedience Our Author has now quite run himself a Ground and is Pumpt dry of his Drollery and therefore turns Catechist and Persecutes us with Impertinent Queries I have heard some say that an Ideot may tye more Knots in an Hour than a Wise-man can untye in a day But however though we might plead it's Coram non Iudice yet for once let him suppose himself in his Desk and his poor Catechumens humbly waiting upon his Foot-stool Quest. Will God Damn those who do not Obey for their disobedience Answ. Yes and it please you Sir Qu. But will he save and reward those who do Obey for their Obedience An. He will reward their Obedience but not save them for their Obedience Qu. But will the Father Elect none but those that are Holy An. Yes and it like your good Learning he Elects them that they may be Holy but not because they are Holy Ephes. 1. 4. Ephes. 2. 10. Qu. But wil the Son Redeem none but those that are holy An. Yes indeed Sir a great many for a Redeemer supposes them to be sinners and Captives under sin Qu. But will he reject and Reprobate all that are not Holy An. God has not Reprobated all that were or are not holy for then he had Reprobated all the World but he will reject all that continue unholy to the Death Qu. But tell me Doth this Election and Redemption suppose Holiness in us or is it without any regard to it An. Neither the one nor the other It 's Fallacia plurium Interrogationum They neither presuppose Holiness in us nor are they without all regard to Holiness it is a necessary Effect but not a Cause of Election and Redemption Qu. Dost thou stand chopping Logick with thy Betters If we be Elected and Redeemed without regard
he will improve it Where says he the Fellowship of Christ can signifie no more than fellowship with the Church because the Apostle addes in the next Verse I beseech you brethren that you all speak the same thing that there be no Divisions among you I confess he has a heavy hand at Reasoning and it goes hard with us that must continually feel the weight of it But yet 1. The Apostles Argument will conclude as strongly from the Communications of Grace from Christ unto Peace among our selves as from Union q. d. You have all been made partakers of the Communications of Grace and Peace from Christ you have many mercies in hand and more in hope much in possession but infinitely more in Reversion and will you run into Factions among your selves But 2. The very plain Truth is The Apostle argues neither the one way nor the other Verse 9. has no such Influence upon Verse 10. but the Rise of his Discourse is from Verse 3. Grace be unto you and Peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Where you have First The Union and Relation God our Father Our Lord and Saviour Secondly The Communion that flows from that Relation 〈◊〉 and Peace i. e. All new covenant-Covenant-Mercies And because whatever Grace or Peace comes from the Father as the Fountain and Spring from the Son in a way of Purchase and Procurement comes also from the Holy Ghost by way of Immediate Efficiency therefore it 's called also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Cor. 13. 14. The Grace of our Lord Jesus the Love of God and the Communion or Communication of the Holy Ghost be with you all You all that is The Church of God at Corinth with all the Saints in Achaia Chap. 1. ver 1. who are supposed to be already United to Christ both in our Authors false Notion and in the true Now this Communication he calls The Grace of God given them or Communicated to them by Jesus Christ Verse 4. And shews the Measure of it Verse 5. Ye are enriched in every thing by Him And Verse 8. He shews that God would confirm them in as well as enrich them with his Grace to the end And for a Proof of this he minds them of the Faithfulness and Steddiness of God in his Covenant Verse 9. God is Faithful by whom ye are called unto the Communication of our Lord Jesus Christ. The end of your Effectual calling to an Union with Christ is a Communication of this Grace and Peace from Christ. And then Thirdly Our Authors Memory is very Treacherous For first he observes That Communion with God signifies a Political Union and that Political Union was such a one as is between a Prince and his Subjects pag. 156. And that certainly has the Persons of both for the Terms of the Relation And pag. 185. He observes That our Fellowship with the Father and the Son is founded on our Fellowship with the Christian Church and therefore fellowship with the Father and the Son and fellowship with the Christian Church are two things really distinct for it would be harsh to say a thing is founded on it self And yet after all this Fellowship with Christ can signifie no more than Fellowship with the Church And thus the short and long of the Business is this Union with Christ is Union with the Church And Communion with Christ is Communion with the Church And Union with the Church is Communion with the Church Quod erat Demonstrandum But we are terribly Threatned with an Argument from 2 Cor. 6. 14. Be ye not unequally Yoaked together with Unbelievers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Where the Apostle refers to a Levitical Ordinance Deut. 22. 10. Thou shalt not Plow with an Ox and an Ass. In proportion to which the Apostle forbids Believers to joyn in the same special League and Covenant with Unbelievers Now the Reason why he disswades them from such an unequal union is because the end of all union is a Communion or Communication each to and with other in that Union But to be sure where there are such Contrarieties of Interests and Inclinations in the Persons joyned together there can be no assistance to the same common VVork The Cedar in Lebanon and the Thistle in Lebanon are not qualified for a Match for they will never serve and accommodate each other in the Duties of the Relation When the Wise God chose a VVife for Adam he provided one that was Homogeneous with him Bone of his Bone and Flesh of his Flesh that she might be a Meet-help for him But now says the Apostle If you joyn your selves with Unbelievers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 VVhat participation of good things can you expect from them whose Religion is as contrary to yours as Righteousness is to Unrighteousness And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 VVhat Communication can there be between Light and Darkness Pagans can Communicate nothing to you but their uncleanness and I would not have you communicate with the unfruitful Works of Darkness Ephes. 5. 11. Again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 VVhat Concord hath Christ with Belial VVhat Symphony or Harmony can there be in your Conversations You will be always Jarring There will be no Melody or Musick in your Converses VVhen you would be praising to their Idols so that never was there greater Confusion of Tongues at Babel than there will be in your Society And then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what Portion can a Believer have with an Unbeliever He will not ought not partake of the Lords Table with you and you will not ought not partake of the Table of Devils with him For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what Consent or Suffrage will the one give to the other The living God will not vote for dead and dumb Idols The Arke will never endure Dagon How absurd therefore must it be to enter into a Relation with them with whom you can enjoy no Fellowship in that Relation One Reserve he has still left from the Lords Supper whereby our Fellowship with God and Christ are expressed 1 Cor. 10. 16. The Cup of Blessing which we bless is it not the Communion of the Blood of Christ Now says he it 's called a Communion because it signifies 1. A Communion of Christians with each other 2. A Fellowship with God That is it 's called a Communion because it 's no Communion but onely the sign of a Communion There is indeed an outward and visible sign and there is also an inward and invisible Grace really exhibited and communicated from Christ by the Ordinance to the worthy Receiver And thus much he might have learn'd from the Church Catechism Qu. What is the inward part or thing signified Ans. The Body and Blood of Christ which are verily and indeed taken and received of the Faithfull in the Lords Supper Qu. What are the Benefits whereof we are partakers Thereby Ans. The strengthning and refreshing of our Souls by the Body and Blood of Christ As our Bodies
the decking with Ornaments and aâ—…dorning with Iewels the representing true Believers accepted with God through a better Righteousness than their own 2. The Reader would admire to hear these glorious Gospel-Promises recorded in the Old-Testament thus interpreted to bare skin and bone But our Author confesses he swarms with prejudices against the Doctrine of Imputed Righteousness When Prejudice sits upon the Bench it 's like to go very ill with poor Truth that stands at the Bar. As a Bribed Fancy will admit the most feeble Appearances for plain Demonstrations of what it longs should be True so a mind fore-stalled with prejudice will despise the clearest evidence for what it desires to be false And we need no other instance of all this than our Author 's great Indisposition and Averseness to receive the present Truth And 1. I perceive he is very much stumbled at one thing That in all our Saâ—…iour's Sermons there 's no mention of his Imputed Righteousness Now because the same Charity that commands me not to lay a stumbling-block in the way of my Neighbour enjoyns me also to remoâ—…e it out of his way or however to help him over it the ensuing Considerations will afford him that Civility if he please to accept it 1. If our Saviour had mentioned the Imputation of his Righteousness a thousand times over he could easily have evaded it at his rate of answering for he might have said This is but to interpret Scripture by the sound of words or if that had been too frigid that it 's sufficient to say The words may possibly have another meaning though he could not tell what that should be or that by the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness no more is meant but the Accepting of our own Righteousness which Christ has commanded in the Gospel 2. It may be of good use to him to consider Whether Christ's Silence raised his prejudice against the Doctrine or his own prejudice against the Doctrine raised the conceit that Christ was silent in it Whether it was the want of an Object to be seen or the want of eyes to see the Object For most men are deaf when they have no mind to hear and blind when they have no will to see For 3. Christ in his Sermons has plainly revealed the case to be such between God and man that without a better Righteousness than their own they are all lost for ever Matth. 5. 19. He that breaks the least of these Commandments shall be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven that is shall never come there Now the universal Suffrage of all mens Consciences is That there is no man that lives and sins not and therefore Christ has determined upon him that he shall never enter into the Kingdom of Heaven I never yet heard that God has dispenced with one jot or tittle of the Moral Law but Do this and live is as strictly exacted as ever So that unless a Surety be admitted and the Righteousness of another owned the case of all the Sons of Adam is deplorable and desperate To deny then the Righteousness where in the believing sinner may stand before this Righteous and Holy God is to affirm the Eternal Damnation of all the World 4. Christ has plainly discovered to us such ends of his Death and Sufferings as evidently prove the impossibility of being justified by our own Righteousness Matth. 20. 28. He gave 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his Life or Soul a Ransome a Redeâ—…ption-price for instead of many Which is no whit less than that of the Apostle 2 Cor. 5. 21. He was made sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the Righteousness of God in him And the same with Isa. 53. 10. It pleased the Lord to bruise him when he shall make his Soul an Offering for sin c. Again Matth. 26. 28. This is the Blood of the New-Testament which is shed for the Remission of the sins of many Whence it 's plain that God in pardoning sin in justifying and accepting the sinner has such a respect to the Satisfaction of Christ in our stead as may properly be called the Imputation thereof to us 5. Though Christ mention not the Imputation of his Righteousness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet has he mentioned that Righteousness which it's certain from the Scriptures must be imputed to Believers or they can have none of that benefit by it which they are said to have Matth. 3. 15. Christ fulfilled all Righteousness and vers 17. In him or upon his account God is well pleased comes to delight in Believers whom he accepts in the Beloved Ephes. 1. 6. ' 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He hath graciously accepted us in his Beloved one Hence it is the Holy Ambition of all the Saints 2 Cor. 5. 9. to be accepted of him or in him ' 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That regard then which God has to the Obedience of Christ as the Reason for which he accounts a Believer righteous we judg may commodiously be called the Imputing of Christ's Righteousness to them without the Leave License or Faculty of our Author A second Prejudice that is deep-rooted in our Author's breast against this Doctrine is That Christ exacts from men a Righteousness of their own if they would find mercy with God A Righteousness of their own Ay but let them be sure they come honestly by it The Righteousness of Christ must be made ours or else we shall never find mercy with God We must also have another Righteousness of our own an Inherent Righteousness if ever we expect to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven and find mercy with God in his great Day But what is that Righteousness for which we are just and accepted with God But for the removing of this small prejudice may he please to consider 1. How easie it is to vapour and make a flourish with those Texts that require an Inherent Righteousness as a necessary Qualification for Eternal Salvation and yet how hard to produce one place that mentions our own Inherent Righteousness as that which answers God's holy Law makes Reconciliation with God and constistutes the sinner spotless and blameless before God the Holy Righteous Judg yet such a Righteousness we want and such a one we must have 2. Our own Righteousness is very pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ being the fruit of Faith and following after Iustification So says the Church of England Artic. 12. But says She Works done before the Grace of God and the Inspiration of the Spirit are not pleasing to God for as much as they spring not out of Faith in Christ Artic. 13. Which two Articles I shall leave to our Author to confute at his best leisure A third Block which I perceive lies in his way is That our Saviour should never once warn his Hearers to beware of trusting to their own Righteousness But 1. Christ preach'd to the Iews who had had warnings â—…now to beware
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
rewards of Acceptation as righteous when they are not righteous and this for Christs sake then either there will be some immediate proper effect found ouâ—… for the Obedience of Christs Life and Death or else all comes to no more than this That God will Accept us righteous or unrighteous that is right or wrong 3. I would observe also That he supposes God to have dispensed with the Moral Law Which is News to me and I confess I doe not believe it nor shall I till I hear it confirmed Some Errors though speculative are daâ—…ble and such may this prove For if we like Fools goggled in with the Rhetorical Divinity of this Age should Trust to Gods Abatements of his Law and at last it should prove that God loved Righteousness and hated Iniquity as such we were in a most wretched miserable and undone Condition merely by Trusting to Indulgence I demand therefore good Counter security of our Author That God will deal with me as righteous though I be not so in the Account of his Law unless I be considered as found in Christ not having my own righteousness which is of the Law but that which is by the Faith of Christ the righteousness of God by Faith The Moral Law is the Image of Gods Mind his Nature transcribed into his Law and one jot nor tittle of this Law shall ever pass away How much of this Law God will dispense with what part of it or what degrees of the violation of it is to me unknown and if with any whether he may not possibly dispense with the whole by the same Reason is more than our Authors Principles can inform me he that may dispense with one part of it may with another and so of the rest For where to stop or put bounds to such a Dispensation as comes from the Grace of God is very impossible to determine unless we knew the true bounds of Gods Grace And whereas our Author talks of the rigour of the Law there 's nothing of it rigorous in its own Nature and the least particle of it would be impossible to be observed according to its exact demands if it were made the Law of our Iustification He that breaks the Law in one point is guilty of all and the Curse is denounced against him that confirms not all that is written therein to doe it 4. The Difficulty remains to this day Why God should be so pleased with the Righteousness and Obedience of Christ that he should allow the Disobedience of Another And it will remain for ever a Difficulty both why God should inflict Evils upon the Posterity of Adam for his sake or deal with them as righteous who in the Account of his Holy Law are not righteous for Christs till we understand the true Nature of the Two Covenants the one made with Adam and all his Natural seed the other with Christ and all his spiritual seed both which Seeds were to stand or fall according as their respective Heads and Representatives should acquit themselves in point of Obedience and Disobedience towards God and his most holy and righteous Law The same liberty that he has taken I question not but he will give and I shall be very modest in a few Enquiries 1. May we enquire Whether what he allows of Influence to Adams Sin upon his Posterity will satisfie the Apostles Intendment The Apostle asserts v. 18. That by the offence of one judgement came upon all to Condemnation v. 19. That by one mans Offence many were made Sinners And there are these things considerable 1. That Adams Sin had this Influence upon Posterity that they were made Sinners also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Transgressors of a Law for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to deviate from a Rule to come short of a Mark that is set us to aim at as Suidas observes 2. That the Posterity of Adam were so made sinners that they were lyable to condemnation Iudgment came upon them to Condemnation This I Observe because some talk as if they were Sinners in jest but God lets the Sons of men know that they are obnoxious to Condemnation for the Offence of that one Man 3. The Apostle shews how they were made sinners and how they were liable to Condemnation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they were so by a Constitution God did not infuse sin into them and make them sinners Inherently but they were made so by a Law-constitution And it was needful that the Apostle should clear that Point because the Vindication of Gods Iustice called for it For how could God deal with them as sinners in respect of Condemnation who were not first sinners in respect of Guilt Guilt and Condemnation do Reciprocally prove each other To assert them to be sinners proves them liable to Condemnation and to assert them liable to Condemnation presupposes them to be sinners for what is Condemnation but the evil of Punishment inflicted for the evil of sin committed Nor can it consist with the Righteousness of the Iudge of the whole Earth to treat them as sinners as to Punishment who were not first so as to Guilt contracted To clear therefore the Righteousness of God that he may be Iust when he Condemns we must understand that the sin of Adam is one way or other made the sin of his Posterity Several ways there are Contrived to Salve this Difficulty some say as was noted before that Adams sin being Imitated by his Posterity they become sinners and so liable to Condemnation A dull Contrivance which our Author himself will not allow who asserts that God was so displeased with Adams Disobedience that for his sake he Entailed many Evils upon his Posterity but if there be nothing more but the Infection and Contagion of his Example then it 's not for Adams Sin Fault or Offence that they are made sinners but for their own In Defiance of the Apostle and his way of Reasoning the very truth is God made a Covenant with Adam and in him with all his Natural Posterity Adam was not only the Natural Parent but the Moral Head and Representative of all his Seed and therefore according to this Righteous Law of God his Offence was theirs what he forfeited they forfeited what he lost they lost he sinned they sinned he came under the Condemnation they came under it also And this does fully satisfie the Apostles Reasoning By one Mans offence many were made sinners by one Mans offence Iudgment came upon all to Condemnation And God has given us pregnant Instances of his Righteous procedure in Punishing the Members of Political Bodies for the Offences of their Political Heads 2 Sam. 24. Thus he Punisht Davids sin in Numbering the People upon the People who were Innocent in his Transgression personally and to say as some have ventured to say That the People had sins of their own for which God might Righteously punish them is to say a great Impertinent truth For whatever sins
Matter of Justification before God and when it was attainable and it shall be once more the proper sence of being made righteous in Heaven where the spirits of just men are made perfectly perfect but to us in the way it 's not the proper sence of being made righteous but a Figurative sence as we may call an Aethiopian white because his teeth are so and it must be a stretching Synechdoche that will denominate a Christian Righteous by inherent Righteousness if he shall compare the Attainments of a Pilgrim with the perfect Law of God but the proper sence of being made righteous is that of the Apostle Rom. 5. 20. By the Obedience of one Man many shall be made righteous made so perfectly and compleatly by the Constitution of the Law of Righteousness and Faith for thus we are compleat in Christ Coloss. 2. 10. through whom we are presented to God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unblameable and unreproveable in Gods sight so pure that there is not a spot or blemish to be found in a Believer in the sight of God himself which upon the Account of inherent Righteousness is impossible Inherent Righteousness is properly Righteousness for so much as there is of it but it is so imperfect that it will not denominate any man properly righteous in the sight of God 2 There is another thing which mightily discomposes this kind of Argumentation We may be said to be made righteous by the Righteousness of Christ in a proper sence Why so Oh! Because the Righteousness of Christ is one of those great Arguments of the Gospel that forms our Minds to the Love and practice of Holiness and so makes us inherently righteous Which is this The Righteousness of Christ and our Righteousness hang so loosely and contingently together that it seems very absurd to ascribe the Effect of the latter to the former If indeed the Righteousness of Christ did properly necessarily and infallibly produce an inherent Righteousness in us it were warrantable to say we were made righteous by it but when the Connexion is so accidental so uncertain that the Effect depends upon our own Free-will as in the New Theology it does we cannot properly be said to be made righteous in this sence by his Righteousness For when all these Arguments and Motives have done their best That which does the work is Free-will and Humane Endeavour and therefore properly are we said to be made Righteous by them 2. Sect. A Forensick sence which is this The Grace of the Gospel accepts and rewards that sincere and Evangelical Obedience which according to the Rigour and Severity of the Law could deserve no reward This Forensick is a hard word and if I might presume to soften it a little with Interpretation it should be thus A Forensick sence of Justification is a sence borrowed from Courts of Judicature where the Judge absolving or acquitting a Prisoner of those Crimes wherewith he stood charged does not doe it by making him innocent or honest by infusing into him the Habits of Vertue but onely declares That according to the Evidence he is found Innocent Righteous Just and therefore as the Law acquits him so the Judge as the Minister of the Law declares him to be acquitted Now the Question is Whether our Author has given us a true Forensick sence of Iustification or no His Sence is this The Grace of the Gospel accepts and rewards that sincere and Evangelical Obedience which according to the Severity and Rigour of the Law deserves no reward which seems to me so far from a Forensick sence that it 's the Forensick Non-sence of Justification for does a Judge pronounce and declare him righteous whom the Law says is unrighteous Can he justifie him whom the Law condemns The Judge sits not there as a good Natur'd Man with a Chancery of Charity in his own breast but as a Righteous Governour to render to every man according to his works weighed in the Ballance of that Law by which he is to judge And shall we dare to fancy that the Grace of the Gospel will pronounce that Man righteous reward that Man as righteous who is not righteous by the Law of God if that be the Law by which he must be Condemned or Acquitted I will grant that in a Criminal Cause which by the Law deserves Bodily Punishment if the Constitution of the Law will Allow it the Judge may lay the Punishment of the Guilty Person upon another who will freely undergoe it or that which is equivalent in the eye of the Law to it and acquit him that in the first Consideration of the Law was not innocent Let us apply it God is the righteous Iudge of all the World and by his Eternal Holy Law he will Judge the Sons of Men so true is God to his own Law that he will not acquit and justifie him whom the Law condemns nor Condemn him whom his Law Acquits nor is it possible he should To say the Sinner is righteous by the Verdict of his Law when by the Verdict of the Law he is not righteous is not consistent with the Veracity of that God who cannot lye But there is another Law the Law of Righteousnesse and Faith which Sovereign Grace has set up and this admits the satisfaction of Another admits a Sacrifice a Surety even Jesus Christ the righteous whom God hath set forth to be a Propitiation through Faith in his Blood to declare his Righteousness that he may be just and the Iustifier of him that believes in Iesus If now according to the Terms of this New Law of Grace the Righteousness and Sufferings of this Jesus may be accepted for the Delinquents then will there a genuine sence of a Forensick Iustification be found out Yet let us examine these things further 1 The Grace of the Gospel says he accepts and rewards that sincere Obedience Let it be supposed he means the Grace of God declared in the Gospel yet this is so far from being Grace that it is not good Moral Vertue Is that Grace or something that deserves Another Name to declare an Offender to be righteous when he is not so to pronounce he has kept the Law when he has broken it and yet thus must the Grace of the Gospel speak if it declares him righteous in a Forensick sence who is a Violator of the Law and yet has no Substitute to keep it for him Here is some Provision made for an Imaginary Grace to the destruction of real Iustice whereas in the true Covenant of Grace there is a blessed Accord of all Gods Attributes Mercy and Truth have met together Righteousness and Peace have kissed each other 2 If it be the Grace of God or the Gospel that accepts this sincere Obedience then how do we owe this to the Righteousness of Christ what Influence has that upon God to move him to accept and reward that sincere yet imperfect Obedience which his Law will not accept This is the thing
It was enough that God had firmly revealed that he had made sufficient provision for it by a Mediator Abraham believed stedfastly that the means God had chosen were proportionable to their end and the rest was to be left to God 4. And herein lay much of the Bondage that Believers were in Under the Old-Administration of the Covenant of Grace they had not so satisfactory an account of the particular means how the Redeemer should work out their Deliverance which way he should accomplish the great work of Propitiation and therefore when fresh guilt contracted by fresh sin lay upon the Conscience their faith was staggered and peace broken because they had a clear Objection against their pardon from their sins but not so clear a Solution from the promise of the pardon of it the Promise being encumbred with so many intricacies that the only refuge was a Retreat to the Faithfulness of God in general Which yet was no easie work under the Scruples and Cavils of present guilt and the Accusation of Conscience Ay! but says he this was more than the Apostles understood till after the Resurrection though Christ had expresly told them of it Was it so Then 1. They could never know it to the World's end For if telling and express telling will not make us know there 's no remedy we must be content to be ignorant But this is our Author's humour to reproach all the World for Soâ—… and Fools but himself and a few more Rational Heads The Jews were all Fools they had more particular Promises than Abraham and yet they looked only for a temporal Prince The Apostles they were all Naturals for they had been told and expresly told of it and yet understood no more than the wall I wonder what could have been done more to make them know it unless it had been beaten into their heads with a Beetle I suppose our Author has got this fancy from some such place as that Mark 9. 31. The Son of Man is delivered into the hands of Men and they shall kill him and after that he is killed he shall rise again but they understood not the saying But can we be so vain as once to imagine that they understood not the Grammar of those words that they knew not the literal sence of dying No! but they had not such clear satisfaction about some of the Consequents of it Perhaps they had not such a firm and stedfast belief of the truth of it as might bear up their hearts at an even rate of Tranquillity and Calmness under their temptations and tryals they might not improve the Truth to encourage in a patient waiting for the Resurrection of Christ And that this was it that pinch'd them is plain they declare it Luke 24. 19 20 21. Concerning Iesus of Nazareth how the chief Priests delivered him to be condemned to death and crucified him but we trusted that it had been be that should have redeemed Israel They believed his Crucifixion but were staggered about his Resurrection Hereupon Christ rebukes their slowness of heart to believe all that the Prophets had spoken how Christ ought to suffer and to enter into his glory ver 25 26. Besides it 's a common Rule That verba intellectus implicant affectiones words that in their bare sound only denote the understanding yet in their true intent and meaning take in the will and affections And again Negatives are often put for Comparatives I will have Mercy and not Sacrifice that is I will have Mercy rather than Sacrifice So here They understood not that is They understood not so much of it as such clear Expressions deserved 3. Another great Scruple for I see there 's no end of them is this He must understand the perfect holiness and innocency of Christ's life But that was the least thing of a thousand He needed no Elias to explain that a very Nullifidian would have believed that he whom God had designed to bless others must needs be perfectly blessed himself 'T is true had Christ's work been no other than what our Author has cut out for him he might have discharged it without an absolute sinless Perfection A Prophet might have revealed the whole will of God and afterwards confirmed his Doctrine by his death but to be a Propitiatory Sacrifice this required that Christ the Antitype should be holy harmless undefiled and separated from sinners And in this God was punctual and precise under the Law that the Sacrifice of Atonement should be without spot and without blemish And thus much Abraham might learn from his own Sacrifices and had he conceived the least suspicion that Christ would prove a sinner it had damped his joy and triumph in the foresight of his day Ay! but says he further he must understand that he fulfilled all Righteousness not for himself but for us Answ. 1. It 's a most wretched and unrighteous way of procedure to call things clear and evident into question for the sake of some that are obscure and disputable It becomes ingenuous persons to agree to what is clear and certain leaving them upon their own Basis and to reduce the doubtful to them It 's plain that Abraham was justified by Faith his Righteousness was the Righteousness of Christ If the measure of his knowledg herein be unknown to us yet that he had a knowledg is not so If God revealed this to Abraham's Faith I doubt not but he believed it That he did not is more than our Author can prove If he shall attempt it his Arguments may be considered in the mean time his Conceits and Crotchets ought not to prejudice the Truth But if God did not reveal it Abraham's Faith might live though not be so vigourous and strong without it 2. Abraham might know that what Christ suffered he suffered not for himself but in the stead of those for whom he suffered for he saw the Sacrifices die and yet not for their own sins And why he might not conclude That what a Redeemer did was for others too I cannot tell 3. There 's many a sincere and sound Believer that understands not all the Terms of Art that are used in the Explication of the Doctrine of Justification that perhaps cannot tell you which part of Christ's obedience answers this and which the other exigency of the sinner and yet believes the Thing that Christ is made to him Righteousness of God He is not so well versed in the Nomenclature of the Schools as to call every thing by its proper name but goes downright to work he renounces his own Righteousness sees the necessity of a Redeemer to make his peace with God accepts of life upon God's terms and leads a holy life suitable to his present mercies and future hopes and leaves the rest to the Learned World to wrangle about who may perhaps dispute themselves gravely and learnedly into Hell whilst the poor honest man believes his Soul into Glory 4. He must understand the great mystery
of the Incarnation of the Son of God Understand the mystery of the Incarnation I assure you it 's fair if it be well believed I have not met with many not with any that understand the mystery of it to this day It 's more adviseable for our Author to secure his own Faith in this point than Abraham's Understanding Abraham was a Believer and received his Religion upon the Authority of the Revealer but our Author will own none but what approves it self to his Reason and whether the Incarnation of Christ have had that happiness with him I cannot tell and therefore to deal plainly with him I have some Conjectures that may weigh against his Prejudices which incline me to choose Abraham's Faith even in this particular before his own But however that be the Scripture assures us that Abraham was justified the same way that New-Testament-Believers are One God one Lord Iesus Christ one Holy Spirit yesterday to day and the same for ever and if his poor prejudices must controul divine Revelations I cannot help it An Atheist would believe there iâ—… a God but that he cannot get over all Objections and our Author would believe the Gospel-report of the way of Abraham's Justification but that he cannot weather all the Prejudices which he first creates and then pleads 5. He must understand the nature of Faith and of rowling the Soul on Christ for Salvation and renouncing all Righteousness of his own Answ. I question not but the Father of the Faithful one so much in the exercise of Faith understood very well the nature of it and that he would hardly have lighted his Candle at our Author's Torch but it 's grown the Mode for junior Understandings to vilifie the grey Heads of the Fathers and to count them all Blâ—…ck heads that think not to a hairs breadth with them Abraham knew that Faith consisted in a firm belief that what God had promised was true and that the things of the Promise were exceeding good and so to him He gave a full assent and consent to both with their special Reasons he embraced the mercy of the Promise with thankfulness and joy and credited the veracity of him that made the Promise with security of mind and he felt by experience that quiet and satisfaction of Soul that arises from an interest in him that gave and that Redeemer that was given in the Promise And if he must be jeered for rowling himself on God and on his Christ for ought I know he must bear his burden 5. And now conformable to his old awkward humour our Author will attempt the deciding the Controversie Which way Abraham was justified from Heb. 11. And this I say is a perverse and awkward way of proceeding to wave the proper places Rom. 4. Gal. 3. where the Apostle professedly disputes the point and fix upon one where he disputes it not Two things he would perswade us to believe him in 1. That the Apostle in this Chapter discourses of a justifying Faith To which I answer That the Apostle does indeed Treat of a Faith that justifies but not of Faith as it justifies A justifying Faith has many excellent and admirable uses does a Christian noble service besides that of justifying him before God It teaches him to trust God in all the ways and methods of his Providences to depend on him for all the good things of this life as well as those of a better It deals with the Promises of the life that now is and those of that to come It encourages us to pray Give us this day our daily bread as well as Forgive us our trespasses It instructs us to commit our concerns to his fatherly love and care to wrestle vigourously with all the oppositions we meet with in the Profession of Christianity to walk comfortably chearfully conscientiously in our particular Callings to despise the things that are seen which are but temponal in comparison of those which are not seen and are eternal It taught Abel to offer Sacrifice to God whereby he had the witness that he was righteous God testifying of his gifts And if our Author can see no difference between being made Righteous and having the witness of it in his Conscience he needs a Collyrium which I cannot help him to It taught Enoch also to walk with God from whence he had the same testimony that he pleased God The same Faith that justified him procured him a testimony of his Justification but not as it justified him The Direct Act of Faith is one thing and the Reflecting Act of Faith another It taught Noah also to take Gods warning of the approaching Deluge and to prepare an Ark to escape the danger Whereby he condemned the World and became heir of the Righteousness which is by Faith that is he had more full assurance of his Acceptation with God According to a common Rule Multa tunâ—… fieri dicuntur quando facta esse manifestantur 2. He would perswade us into his Notion of a justifying Faith This justifying Faith says he is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen But the Apostle does not here intend to give us a strict Definition of a justifying Faith but a Description of its most noble effects A justifying Faith produces these effects but not at all times nor in all persons justified it 's Faith in its vigour not in its essence that is here described By this Faith the Elders obtained a good report before men and their own Consciences yet was it not this Act of Faith that justified them before God though it was the same Faith that produced this Act by which they were justified Whereas therefore he would oblige us yet more by his critical skill in the Gr. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a firm and confident expectation of those things we hope forâ—… and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Argument of the Being of those things we do not see For my part I am not much edified and therefore let him make merry with his own Talents That which follows will be more for our Information for he will now speak to the Act the Object and the several kinds of Faith 1. For the Act of Faith It is as he says such a firm and stedfast perswasion of the truth of those things that are not evident to sense as makes us confidently hope for them But this seems to me to be a hungry description of the Act of justifying Faith The Scripture has other apprehensions of this matter which describes the Act of faith by receiving John 1. 12. To as many as received him to them he gave power to become the sons of God even to them that believe on his name Where if the Evangelist may be trusted to make his own Exegesis Receiving of Christ and Believing on his name do mutually interpret each other It 's not enough that the Understanding be engaged in this work which may be found in the worst of men and