is our head but he governs us by his Spirit which is infused though I think no habit be and when we are lead by this Spirit as there is Rule there is Influence and this Union must be Real and Mystical and not that which is Political only Suppose a man whâ—se head was high as the Heavens yet so long as the same soul animates all the members the feet as in the head it is one man Christ our head is in Heaven and we on earth yet as the same Spirit is in us which is in him the head and members make one dy nay in the words of the Scripture one Christ O Agrippa believest thou the Prophets O thou Author of this Book against Dr. Owen Believest thou these mysteries of the Christian Religion I know that thou believest For the later sort There is one place in his Book where we have two of his pernicious errors together The Doctor belike hath said that though a man should reform his life and be changed from vice to vertue and that by hearing the word preached This is the most I count he saies and which may be exemplified in Herod who heard John and did many things yet if there be not an habitual righteousness infufed it signifies nothing to regeneration To this purpose is it only and altogether the Doctor speaks Hereupon this Gentleman breaks out and challenges him before his own party as he speaks and before the world for contradicting the Scripture He that doeth Righteousness is born of God and then charges him with Pelagianism He professes he is in earnest and that this is rank Pelagianism that the Doctor allows so much to be done without saving grace I have the more reason to be moved at this because a certain person of quality and of a ready judgement having this Author by him turned me to this place as if the Doctor was much to be blamed when I must needs say that this Gentleman hath no where exposed himself so much in his Book as here where he endeavours to expose the Doctor There is no man that reads practical Divines that lay down characters of the truly godly man the sound Believer and how far the Hypocrite may go but does know they speak commonly as the Doctor does and there are few one would think so inconsiderate or raw but should also know here how to distinguish so easily as between the matter of what is done and the manner of the performance Good works may be considered quoad operis substamtiam or quoad modum quo ordinaniur id vuam aevernam There is no good act no not the least that can be done is performed in that manner as it ought or as it is required to be accepted in order to salvation but a man must be born of God according to his text and have the assistance of the Spirit But for the matter of the work or of our duty this Author must consider better that the Regenerate and Unrepenerate are alike as to that One can hear and pray and give alms and abstain from evil as well as the Other and many times the veryest Hippocrite pretends most Nay what saies this Gentleman to Socrates Aristides Epimomdas Plato Plutark Cato What saies he to Almanzor that Mahomet in Einperor whose life is set out by Sir Walter Rayleigh in a little Book for such singular vertues especially as to his goodness and righteousness that I find him not paralleld by any Christian Will this Author censure Sir Walter for a Pelagian for such a narration or will he make me one if I believe it Or will he come over here and when he hath placed such in a state of Nature and so out of a state of Grace will he allow an Heathen or Mahometan to be a regeherate person Hath the Gentleman read Ruiz or one such a kind of Schoolman as he all over Let him see when they have denied against pelagius all ability in man to do any thing even but to give an occasion which is active and not passive only to infuse in us their justifying grace whether they are also ignorant of some such distinction It is no Pelagianism in the Schools to say a man can do many things civily morally good through the power of nature education custome for company sake for glory but it is so to say he can do any thing without preventing grace in order to his justification There is no need therefore of such vehemence nor of any such expressions he uses otherwhere I will desire the Doctor to consider whether the Father of lies be not the representative of such shameful Writers as he is the example of These kind of words are not well There is a great deal of acrimony I see with a little truth mixt methinks like the fire and hail that ran together in one of the Egyptian Plagues in the Books of many late rising adversaries to this learned pious and reverend person It were happy if the opprobrious words of the prejudicate would make thewise mend their faults It were well also if such an inconsiderate confident piece of elation of mind as here indeed is be but repressed with the shame and blushes of another Let the righteous smite me it shall be a kindness and let him reprove me it shall be an oyle and not break my head CHAP. VII Of Dr. Owen's Book of Justification and of the reconciliation of St. Paul and St. James and the Imputation of Christ's righteousness upon his account HAving said this for the Doctor I have a little now also to say to him I was reading his later Book of Justification when this Author came to my hands and I had thought of making some remarks upon it I am not satisfied with what he hath offered for the reconciliation of St. James and Paul on that subject This is the reason I suppose that is the most solid why so many do choose here of late to go with the mediocrian or steer the middle way in that point I perceive that Dr. Tully with our first Reformed Divines and this excellent Doctor are for distinguishing of Faith and Justification but will not let us by no means distinguish of Works for the reconciliation of the Apostles I do wonder at this The Apostle James and the Apostle Paul do both agree that we are justified by Faith The one saies we conclude that a man is justified by Faith and the other saies also it is by Faith Their seeming difference is only about works when one saies by Faith without Works and the other by Faith and Works also And how then comes it to pass that we must not distinguish of Works but of Justification and Faith to compose the difficulty I will offer the Doctor therefore here one Argument under his favour which shall be but one and that not as others have so far as I know for then it were like he had already weighed it It is this That Justification which St. Paul
the one does ever savingly believe and repent or is truly converted till he have the other also there is no hurt in it but I see no need of it What need is there of Grace only to bring us power which we have already There is no man shall be condemned for his cannot but his will not Every man then must have power A man hath his faculties his Understanding his Will and his Executive power the object is proposed His duty known There is nothing to hinder He may act if he will The Scripture indeed speaks of a Cannot that we can do nothing that we are dead in trespasses and the like but all these expressions put together comes to this to wit such an indisposition on the soul as that a man certainly never will of himself This is the Scriptures cannot truly defined See Mediocria in the Paper of Election which otherwhere therefore is ordinarily called a will not You will not come to me that you may have life There is Natural power still where yet there is Moral impotency as others have it And it is no absurd thing I hope to say a man can do what he can that is he can do what he hath natural power to do Here then I will stick Power is of Nature I said it before but to exert that power into act is of Grace Power is of Nature but to Will and to Do is of God There is no people but have the Object I count and some light of it in their measure so that every body may live according to what he hath and be accepted if he will I grant this to the Pelagian to the Schools to the Arminian that every one may if they will The Spirit saies come and the Bride saies come and whosoever will let him come What 〈◊〉 I say more Whosoever will believe and repent may believe and repent whosoever will be saved may be saved This I say with them but I must then say again with the Orthodox that if any will it is of the grace of God If he will it is of Gods grace against Pelagius No man cometh to me unless the Father draw him If he will it is of Gods special grace against the Arminian But ye believe not because ye are not of my sheep As many as were ordained to salvation believed In short then whosoever will may or can but no man will though he can without grace and this grace Here is the decision of this great controversie And as for the Arminian grace what good of that which if one had it not he should have pleaded a Cannot and been excused but by having it he must be condemned In the last place seeing I perceive this Gentleman is listed for Arminianism I care not if I tell him yet some more of my heart about it I am pretty sensible how things hang together If God intend to give grace and salvation to a few particular persons it is suitable that such only should be redeemed and if this grace be free as decreed absolutely to these it is suitable the will be not free so as to be able to choose or refuse it It is then agreeable that those be kept by the same almighty power to salvation Here are the five points on one side On the other hand If a man that hath grace is to take heed lest he fall it is suitable that grace be such as might be refused at first as well as it may after be lost That the will consequently is free so as to co-operate with it or not That Christ therefore hath purchased but the same grace for one as well as another That Election then be of such persons as use their own liberty and Gods grace as they ought when those that do not are justly rejected and condemned I must declare now I find here no aversion in my mind against the last set of opinions but rather some disinclination to the former I feel my genius more afraid of a captivity by that we call Orthodoxism than by any thing else which makes me come with less prejudice to read Vorstius than Rutherford or Twisse I have no preocupation therefore I am sure on my affections whatsoever I have on my judgement in these points Nevertheless there is a chain laid on my soul from the holy Scriptures which holds it fast The chain consists of these links Personal Election Regeneration and that Few shall be saved These three Doctrines I must say are so concatenated in my mind one with another that so long as any one of them will hold it is in vain to make any attempt to get loose from either of the other I cannot but confess many times they are grievous to my mind and I could wish they were otherwise but if they are the dictates of holy writ I must pray to God to forgive my reluctancy and submit to them I have had indeed sometimes in my soul some other notion of Election than is expressed ordinarily by others I have lookt methinks on the deliberations of the Almighty with his Son from eternity to speak after the manner of men to be how they should be glorified most in the Salvation of man and there are two waies to that end the way of Works and the way of Grace If man being made after Gods image does live according to the law of his Creation and stand in that estate he must be happy and glorifie his Maker in a method of works but if he be left to himself and fall and be recovered by the rdemption of the Son and then have a new Law for his faln condition and continued help to live according to it then shall God glorifie himself in mans salvation by the methods of his most wonderful grace Now what if Gods election from eternity be nothing else but this design that mans salvation shall be in a way of Grace and not of Works He hath chosen us in him saies the Text that we should be holy I put the Emphasis on the words in him It is Christ hath procured the new Law according to which we may be holy and accepted when else we could not be holy by the Law of our Nature and so it is not by the works of righteousness which we have done or works by that Law but by the renewing of the Holy Ghost or his assistance to perform the Law of Grace so that when it is said other-where Not of works lest any should boast it is added For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus to good works We were created at first to a law of righteousness but this being once broken unless we had had a new Law purchased by Christ and a new Creation through him we could not have been righteous any more so that it is not of works which are properly mans own according to the Law of his Nature but of those which we are created to in Christ Jesus to wit those which are called the righteousness of
therefore for it is another and this Authour must not compound his with it to be laid down in the second place By the natural man which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we may understand him who hath onely the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or reasonable soul derived from Adam and by the spiritual man him who hath received the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or that Spirit which is from Christ The first man Adam was made a living soul the second Adam was made a quickening spirit This Spirit as it was promised to be poured out upon men in the latter daies which was the time of the New Testament so do we find it given ordinarily at their Baptism and Confirmation as we read in the Acts and as we find in this Epistle The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit with all Where we have this Spirit given and that to every one and the Manifestation of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That manifestation possibly might be by some Shechinah sometimes on the heads of the baptized but the certain meaning appears in the following verses to be by the miraculous gifts then poured out Among which gifts one of them was the Discernment of mysteries Spirits that is Doctrines and so is the Spirit given and received we are to suppose in this place We have received the Spirit of God saies the Text to this effect That we may know the things which he hath freely given us The whole meaning then is thus the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the man who had not this Spirit then poured on him could not discern those things of the Spirit as others of them could who had it because these hidden things were discoverable by that miraculous gift and he having not the Gift to discern them must judge of them by natural reason onely and so they were foolishness to him when as to them who had it they appeared the Power of God and Wisdom of God And of this Spiritual man so interpreted that is the inspired man one that had the mind of Christ in the last verse and that received the Spirit in the tenth for this effect the discernment of these things it is easie to understand how he could judge all things and be judged of none in regard that this inspâ—ration within could be discernable to himself onely and so the text and context and the whole chapter shall be made to agree throughout one verse with another Nevertheless there is one inconvenience this interpretation is liable to as will make it to be refused by most men when we have said all we can It is this that if this be the meaning then must this whole place be applicable onely to those Christians in the Apostles daies and no Christian at this time can be concerned That is if this be the sense then is there no man now that hath received the Spirit of God that he may know the things of God no spiritual man now in the true sense of this place but all must be natural men onely as having not the Spirit according to this interpretation when yet the giving of the Spirit otherwhere and in the sense of other Texts is a branch of the New Covenant and he that hath not the Spirit of Christ St. Paul saies in another place is none of his There is a third Interpretation therefore that by the Natural man and Spiritual man we are to understand the Vnregenerate and Regenerate man that is one that hath not and one that hath received the Spirit to the ordinary effects of it which is illumination and sanctification And this is the most general Opinion and Interpretation which is received by our Divines and so taken up by Dr. Owen however elaborately he hath improved it so little reason hath this Gentleman or any others to make any assault on him for that matter When the unreâ—â—â—â—rate man then in the Text is said not 〈…〉 things of the Spirit or Doctrines of Christ 〈…〉 he cannot that is morally cannot receive 〈…〉 meaning of our Divines in general is this that 〈◊〉 does not or cannot receive or discern them so as to savour them or relish them he does not or cannot embrace them in his heart as good to him or so as to lead his life according to them In short he cannot receive them so as to apply them And this is a Truth never to be gainsaid by this man though which of the three Interpretations is to be preferr'd I pass not my own judgment Let us hear this Authour's Objections The Doctor saies he does grant that an unregenerate man may assent to the truth of the things of God and if he can assent to them he can see a conformity in them to God's Attributes and a suitableness to the ends of the Gospel and if he can see this then will they not appear foolishness to him and consequently he can know them Every one will answer to this There is a Speculative and a Practical knowledge When our Divines say the unregenerate man cannot know these things they understand it of a Practical knowledge he does know them special lively but he hath no vital experimental knowledge of them And when the reason is given in the Text because they are spiritually discerned we must expound spiritually i. e. by the assistance of God's Spirit according to this third Interpretation The Natural man does not receive know or discern these things of God as able I account to apply them because they are discerned onely by a supernatural assistance of the Holy Ghost which they having not cannot do it I will answer farther The Spirit may be given and received to divers effects on her for illumination and conviction or for conversion and sanctification If the Natural man who is one without the Spirit hath not the Spirit at all to illuminate and convince him he believes not the Doctrines of Christ though he hears them There is no man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost and while he in his heart believes them not they are indeed to him but foolishness when if he hath the Spirit but to enlighten and to convince him he may dogmatically receive them going so far and yet until he hath the Spirit also to convert him and sanctifie him he cannot discern them I must still say so as to apply them to his salvation Here are three Interpretations then proposed to them who please to strive for mastery I have but one Note more to add out of this Authour By being spiritually discerned saies he speaking of these things in the Text is meant their being known understood and judged of by the revelation and testimony of the Spirit Thus much is right and must be agreed upon by all three Interpretations onely their difference then also must be laid down This revelation or testimony of the Spirit therefore is either external or internal The first Opinion which is this Author's will have this
by some Teachers as Noah was to the old world teaching this Law for there never was any other righteousness since Adam fell but of this Law only to save any or by the dictates of their own hearts did or do understand it in some measure so that if they live up to this Law according to the light only which they have they are not only under the possibility but in a state of Salvation This is a noble truth and worthy of God and his goodness and I cannot part with it But for that Grace which is the subjective grace of God consisting in those operations of his Spirit that bring over the hearts of men to perform those terms which this law of grace requires of us To speak of that as common and belonging to all is I say to speak of what this Author knowes not because these Operations are for certain secret and indiscernible and to affirm of that which he knows not what is inconsistent with the nature of what he speaks For if those operations belong to all and are not vouchsafed to some peculiar persons only with discrimination from others they are not Grace This is so true that when I say the grace of the Gospel which is Objective is universal to all mankind if there were not other creatures besides men to whom Redemption and Reconciliation is not vouchsafed as to us it could not be called Grace It were a Benefit and infinitely great but not properly Grace There is a world of fallen Spirits as well as men and there was nothing due to the one or the other but punishment yet when no kindness was due the Son of God came from Heaven and took on him our nature to redeem us and not them this makes the Redemption of Christ to be grace to us And now when the benefit or benefits purchased by Christ are applied to particular persons by the operations of the Spirit working Faith and Repentance which are the conditions upon which they are applied in some persons and not in others if these operations were indeed common and vouchasafed to those that believe and repent not as well as those that do this Application were not of Grace Where there is none refused there is no election If one be not preferred and not another or before another there is no Grace The ground of this opinion of sufficient grace common to all hath arose as I conjecture from an apprehension that the help or assistance of God which we call grace is conversant about the Power which is in man so that a man is enabled thereby only to act but the Will or actual willing is of himself St. Austine I remember does tell us that this was the conceit of Pelagius and he sets himself therefore to prove that Grace is conversant about the will it is Grace saies he that inclines the will it is of God to work in us to Will and to Do of his own good pleasure And indeed I do not see how it can consist with the nature of the Spirit of God who is God that is with the simplicity of the Divine Nature which is devoid of all composition Subject and Accident Power and Act how any operation can be attributed to him but in regard of some effect If there be such an operation then imagined which is sufficient only to produce such an effect on man but it is hindred by the resistance of his will here being no effect there is no operation can be ascribed to God in whom there is but one eternal standing Will the Will being not taken for the Faculty neither but Act. Besides this determination of the Schools that God is a Pure Act and can be capable of no new operations but only as he is denominated an Agent from such continued new effects wherein my own understanding I confess must be ever at a loss there is this plain thing to be thought on by every body that no wise person who is not destitute of power does operate without Effect 'T is true that the Scripture somewhere speaks of resisting the Spirit and receiving his grace in vain but this is not to be understood I suppose so as if there were no effects wrought on such souls but that there are farther effects saving effects and it is to be attributed to the obstinacy or wickedness of their Wills that those effects are not wrought also I must therefore deliver here my opinion of this universal sufficient Grace which I find in the Schools and in the Arminians but confined to those under the Gospel by this Author and I do think really it is an invention only to put off St. Augustine and to escape the condemnation of Pelagius in a point which in the substance of it they judge fit to be maintained The point is this that if man does doe what lies in his power God in his justice will give him his grace Facienti quod in se est Deus non potest nec debet denegare gratiam which I mention the rather because I see this Doctrine laid down in some good Books of late without suspicion of Pelagianism in it Well! If any say now that man by doing what he can of his own strength does obtain Gods grace this shall be Pelagianism and be anathamatized by the Schools themselves but if he say that by doing through Gods grace what he can he shall obtain or merit more grace and so justification and life it shall be the doctrine of the Church Let it here be but supposed then that God gives his Grace or assistance to All that they may act and that which Pelagius would have is brought in for good Doctrine without any heresie at all in it and this is the device of the Arminian from the Schools which if it were in rerum naturae as in mens Books I do apprehend that Pelagius or Austine would have light upon it and then would the one have received Pelagius opinion with more candor and the other would have defended it so cleverly as never to have been condemned But if this universal sufficient grace was indeed never thought upon till after their time I wonder not that Pelagius and Austine could not be agreed but I do wonder that any who believe this knack should make so much matter of it whether they agreed or no. I think it really but much at one to hold that every one hath power by Nature as to affirm that all have Grace If Grace be as common as Nature why is it called Grace Not that I see any hurt in holding Sufficient grace provided that Effectual be held also If universal grace be brought in for exclusion of special grace I can by no means admit of it for that some persons have that grace from God whereby they are effectually wrought upon and saved and not others is beyond disputation If sufficient grace common to all and special too be held so as it be conceived that no man for all
doth in that manner work his graces in us that they are still the genuine effects of the Evidence and Motives of the Gospel Of the natural use of our faculties the understanding and will and of our own care and diligence in using the external means of grace His operations in us make us capable of recovering our selves by degrees and all the while there is no sensible difference between them and the natural operatious of our minds and yet we are sure we have his assistance and help in all the good we do and without it we can do nothing at all to saving purposes This is the Doctrine which if no inferences but Orthodox be drawn from it I take to be sound We have then some Vse of it which is also very good There is but a little of it but if he had been more in that and less in quarrels with the Doctor it had yet been all better And so God bless the hopeful Author in his Studies CHAP. VI. Of the Authors Calumniations of Dr. Owen and some reply to them Having thus done with the Book there are some passages require my reflection upon them for the Doctors vindication The Doctor is accused of Nonsense of Contradiction of Error It is fit that some thing should be said in reference to the two latter though it be but a rudeness to go about to answer any thing to the former For the first therefore I will say this only If the Doctor hath expressed any thing darkly that this Author cannot make sense of it such a place or passage as to him is to go for nothing That is all in civility to be said of it For the second There is one instance I will mention about Election The Doctor in one place of his Book speaking I suppose to a prophane person yet presuming on his Election tells him He cannot believe his Election any otherwise but as God reveals it by the effects that is untill he believe and repents he cannot conclude he is Elected In another place speaking I suppose to the tender serious Christian who is yet in trouble about his Election he saies He cannot justly doubt of his Election until he be in such a condition as wherein it is impossible that the effects of Election should be wrought in him This the Author makes a contradiction but it is only the distinguishing between these two things A not concluding and A concluding not and the Doctor is cleared The man who sees not the effects of Election on his heart and in his life cannot conclude that he is elected here is the not concluding which ought to be And the man that sees them not cannot conclude for all that that he is not Elected because they may be wrought in him before he dies here is the concluding not which must be avoided So the one is rebuked and the other supported as they should both be Such are the Doctors contradictions For the third which is the Doctors Errors I must distinguish of Error There is Human Error Error common to man It is the nature of man to be subject to mulake to be deceived to err saies the Orator and there are Pernicious Errors This Gentlemans accusations are of both sorts For the former sort There is two or three places where this Author is very confident upon the Doctor for his saying that the Spirit is given to us in his Person as well as in his Effects which methinks I cannot pass because I do not know well whether the Error be in the Doctor or in this Author or in my self I am apt to think that it is too much to say that the Spirit dwelleth personally in any man though we are said to be the Temples of the Holy Ghost and that it is too little to say he is given only in his gists graces or effects I would say rather that the Spirit is given it self for these Effects I look upon the Spirit of Christ to be given to us for a principle of life and union with our Head from whom we have through this Spirit the communication of all saving influence unto a holy life It is the received opinion that there is an habitual righteousness infused by God in the soul for our justification according to the Schools or according to our Divines for our Regeneration and that this is the principle of life and power in the soul unto holy operations I must confess here I do not receive this Doctrine I have it somewhere in my Mediocria I think more cautiously but I do really believe no infusion of habits I count that the Spirit by a motion on the Will exciting it to act does incline it to farther acts by the impression which is made and that the habit then is acquired by the iteration of those acts and delight in them or love to them shed abroad in our hearts by the same Holy Ghost given to us I do believe consequently that it is the Spirit it self dwelling in us as the Scripture understands its own expression which is that principle of life from whose constant secret and unperceptable aid does proceed all those actions which are holy and good and acceptable to God I do believe there is a time when Christ gives his Spirit to every one of his Elect for uniting him to himself as his head and that this union is effected immediately by that communication and that through this Spirit all vital influence must be derived to us I cannot frame my self to say the Spirit is personally in us but he is in Christs members as a principle of life and spiritual action and as the formal band of that union which we have with him Now ye are the body of Christ and members in particular As the body is one and hath many members and all the members of that body are one body so also is Christ I cannot tell well therefore how to brook some expressions as I find somewhere in this Author and in another before him that when the Scripture speaks of our having the Spirit of Christ and having it so as to be led by him and if we have not the Spirit of Christ we are none of his they are willing to interpret the having Christs Spirit to be only the being of his temper and and disposition which is the bringing down the Scripture to our ordinary converse and seems to me unholy I hope these men do believe the Christian faith and do reverence his mysteries And there are these three of them The mysterie of the Trinity The mysterie of the Incarnation and the Mystical Union between Christ and his Church It is true that Christ is not a Natural head but a Political as opposed to natural but not as opposed to mystical He is a Political head as he governs us and as we are in subjection to him but he is also a Mystical head vouchsafing to us that spiritual influence which enables us to obey him He governs us and so