endeavours to unite and become one with that ever-blessed Being subtracting his affections from all earthly vanities as finding something more noble and worthy to bestow them upon Lib. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thus as Porphyry speaks of the Egyptian Priests 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He hath given up his whole life to Divine Contemplation and search after the Deity Such Power have Evangelical Truths over the minds of men that they transform them into their own native image and similitude and the more they are looked into the more they enravish them with their heavenly beauty and pulchritude And because afflicted and persecuted Vertue could not be thought eligible meerly for it self nor be a sufficient argument to induce us to the love and practice of it who were so fatally addicted to the concerns of sense therefore God who knew our frame and how far and to what degrees we had apostatiz'd from his holy Nature did not only propound good things to our choice but solicit our wills to the embracing of them by the strongest evidences and most attractive motives that our Natures were capable of receiving The life of sense being more powerful and laying a greater though not a juster claim to our minds as we are born into this World God was pleased to deal with us after a sensible manner and in a way of condescending Wisdom proportioning the Truths he delivered to us to our capacity of reception And this was that the Apostle called the Foolishness of Preaching wherein God stoops down and puts on the garb and frailties of humanity and suits the results of his will with our mean and shallow apprehensions Great is the Mysterie of Godliness God was manifested in the flesh and cradled in the circle of a Virgins arms which clearly demonstrates even to outward sense the exceeding Goodness and Wisdom of Almighty God that he hath not cast off the care of Mankind but is at peace with the World and hath put on the bright robes of Loving-kindness and Mercy which he hath given a large Specimen and full proof of in the Mission of the Lord Christ from heaven God would have all men lay aside their hard thoughts and causless-jealousies and suspicions of his Nature as if he did not from his heart intend them good but only suspended his anger for a time which might again break out upon them in prodigious floods of vengeance and fury For this is the most certain sign that God wills and desires our happiness and welfare in that he hath united himself to our Nature and sent down his only begotten Son for no other purpose but to seek and to save that which was lost And if he spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all how shall he not with him also freely give us all things What is there now can lay a greater tie upon ingenuous spirits then the discovery of so much undeserved kindness and love What heart is there so obdurate and rocky that this will not dissolve into the tears of love and joy to behold the blessed Jesus hanging between heaven and earth upon the Cross that he might reconcile all things that are in heaven and earth and become a propitiatory Sacrifice for all mens sins in the World It is said of Socrates that he was so inamour'd with this Divine passion of Love that he styled himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A servant of Love Let therefore Love which is the Proxenet of Nature the great instrument of conciliating hearts beget in thee a return and retribution of Love and never think of those streams of blood which so copiously flowed from the wounded body of thy dying Lord without a passive and melting spirit but be likewise a servant of Love and act under that generous principle for Love is of God And every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God And that we may not think we are set to remove mountains or perform impossibilities when we are exhorted by the Gospel to the participation of Gods holy life we shall never be left alone to sink under our load and die but shall have the assistance of that Almighty and Demiurgical spirit of Love who hovered over the dark Chaos and brought into Being the goodly frame of heaven and earth and replenished all the immense tracts of space with sutable inhabitants Wisd ch vii This is that Wisdom which is the brightness of the Everlasting the unspotted mirrour of the power of God and the Image of his Goodness which remaining in her self makes all things new and in all ages entring into holy souls makes them friends of God and Prophets She will not lodge in a sinful body nor abide when unrighteousness cometh in For she is more beautiful then the Sun and above all the order of stars being compared with the light she is found before it This kind and loving spirit will God bestow upon every one that asks it of him to repair his broken and decayed Nature to raise up the Divine Image to joynt and confirm every perverse dislocation in the frame of his soul and to perfect and compleat the living efformation of Christ within him Let no man then despair of attaining to a state of Blessedness under the Gospel for this Benign Spirit whose delights are with the Sons of Men pervades the whole World and touches and overshadows every man with out-stretched wings who is willing to have the Divine Image and Pourtraiture formed in him and doth not by impurity and uncleanness chase it away Though our enemies are mighty and our souls weak yet let none despair of Victory for through the assistance and conduct of that Almighty we shall be able to overcome them He is ever cherishing and fostring the life of God wherever it 's born into any soul and sweetly insinuates into our minds and hallows and sanctifies all our powers and excites us to a serious and hearty pursuit after the indispensable laws of Truth Righteousness and Goodness We are not fallen and degenerated beyond the power of God but his Spirit is able to raise and bring up our souls from the lowest Hell and to renew and reform our debased and wretched Natures For what cannot he do who at first made us faultless and happy till we ruined and defaced his blessed Image and rendred our selves the miserable objects of his compassions What is there in our frame so stubborn and insequacious that he cannot rectifie and redress who at first created all things and brought into Being all the Beauty and Harmony of Heaven and Earth He will never leave us destitute and forlorn but will take hold of every fitness and capacity till he have perfected in us the Divine life and brought us unto Glory But because Examples are more prevalent with mankind then Precepts and Instructions that God might not leave any thing undone which would in any kind conduce to our Interest he hath recommended to us the Example
Imprimatur Tho. Tomkyns R. R mo in Christo Patri ac Domino D no. GILBERTO Divinâ Providentiâ Archi-Episcopo Cantuariensi à Sacris Domesticis Ex Aed Lamb. Festo S ti Andreae 1667. DEUS JUSTIFICATUS OR The Divine Goodness Vindicated and Cleared against the Assertors of Absolute and Inconditionate REPROBATION TOGETHER WITH Some Reflections on a late Discourse of Mr. Parkers concerning the Divine Dominion and Goodness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plato WISD xi 23. For thou lovest all the things that are and abhorrest nothing which thou hast made for never wouldest thou have made any thing if thou hadst hated it LONDON Printed by E. Cotes for Walter Kettilby at the Bishops-head in Duck-lane 1668. THE PREFACE TO THE READER IT cannot be unknown to any man who hath either carefully observed the manners of Mankind or perufed the Writings of those of this present Age who have made many sad Declarations against the general Corruption of the World that either men are stupidly and blockishly Ignorant even in these dayes wherein Knowledge so much abounds or their Leaders have caused them to Err by instilling into them such Principles as may fairly consist with the practice of Vice and Immorality which easing them of that tedious burden of severe Mortification and sharpe Conflicts with the irregular and inordinate motions of sense and the bodily life soon captivated them to the embracing of them and made a speedy conquest of their unwary Judgments and so infinitely prejudiced their minds against the reception of better Sentiments and Notions that they cannot believe either the sense of the most pious and venerable Antiquity or of our own present Church to be Orthodox And I wish I could say that this latter hath not been the greater cause of those monstrous Impieties which in these late times so much prevailed amongst us For certainly mens natural Faculties and Capacities are no whit worse for the entertaining of Truth if it were rightly and duely propounded to them than former ages but might be much better if every Preacher of the Gospel and Steward of the Mysteries of God had faithfully discharged the trust committed to him But when those that took upon them the title of Evangelical Shepherds came not in at the right door but impudently challenged and usurped that Sacred Office and Dignity of being Co-workers with Christ the chief Shepherd in that great work of implanting his own life and lovely Nature in the lapsed and degenerate souls of men it is no wonder if the Flock went astray and became faint and weak through the unwholesomeness or undue order and proportion of their food And doubtless the blessed Jesus who came into the World to heal and cement the broken ruins and decayes of our Natures did not intend to bring this Heroick undertaking to perfection by perpetual Miracles but by a natural and orderly Method and therefore as he himself before he left the World breathed on his Apostles and gave them Commission both to Teach and Govern his Church So did they having received Authority from the Prince and Head of the Catholick Church the Lord Christ Ordain and Constitute fit persons to succeed them in that Function by which we are sufficiently instructed that it is not for every man to take upon him the Office of a Minister of the Gospel lest God take as little delight in him as he did in those Prophets of old who run before they were sent which too many did in the late times upon the pretence of some inspired Excellency and Perfection above their Brethren but only for those that come into their Office by a regular and due manner and according to the Fundamental Laws and Apostolick Constitutions of the Church wherein they live I may therefore refer the Miscarriages observed amongst us to these two General Heads 1. The great Pride and Self-conceitedness which reigns in vulgar spirits whereby they make their vainglorious Minds the estimate of their Perfections and by puffie conceits of themselves crumble into infinite Sects and Divisions and he that can best act the part of an inspired person and cant most fluently in Scripture expressions becomes the Ring leader of the Sect. And what gives greater occasion to this then that pleasant Doctrin to carnal minds which teaches them that when they can but collect themselves to be heirs of heaven and fancy their names enrolled among the Stars they are then safe enough They shall tread upon the young Lyon and the Dragon and the enemy shall never be able to move or disturbe their rest And all this shall be conferr'd upon them without any attempts or endeavours of their own toward the attainment of it This cannot but fill their sailes and blow up their light heads when they consider how easily they have obtained heaven and how God himself by a peculiar and discriminating love hath separated them from the rest of the polluted rabble of mankinde and dignified them with the title of his Beloved Ones And as the Nature of every Heresie is to diffuse and spread it self and by a contagious affriction savour all capable Subjects round about it no sooner is this Doctrine propounded but it findes good entertainment by the unstable and injudicious because it complies with and patronizes their darling Vices and renders it self very grateful to the Animal Life and withal requires no great pains or labour to be fully instructed in it nothing that shall rouze them up from their deadly slumber or molest their desired security the whole business is nothing but an inactive and easie belief of certain propositions and a delight some application of them to themselves and then Heaven cannot fail of being their portion and reward Thus while they soar aloft and fly in their vain dreams and imaginations they are really suckt into a living Hell of woe and misery and the unrighteous nature whose counsels are the very inspirations of that bottomless-pit takes greater hold upon them and having no substantial foundation to bottom themselves upon they perish in a storm and the windes of adverse fortune sink them even when they think themselves in the haven of Felicity True goodness and righteousness cannot consist with a proud and haughty spirit and is neuer found but in that humble Temper which the Blessed Jesus recommended to all his followers when he said Learn of me for I am meek and lowly of heart And certainly 't is the greatest Obex and impediment to real and solid wisdom that possibly can be imagined when we are impatient of instruction and refuse such wholesome precepts and counsels as tend to the building of us up in our most holy Faith and by high-flown imaginations climb to the highest boughs of the tree of knowledge when we are yet unacquainted with the Rudiments of Christianity The way to life and blessedness lies not in the self-chosen tracts of opinions nor in sequestring our selves from the rest of the world by an impertinent contention about words
way and live He would have all his Creatures know that he is no way accessary to their destruction Hos xiii 9. O Israel thou hast destroyed thy self but in me is thy help And when he sees what froward and untoward Creatures we are that readily forsake what he loves and run after that which his soul delighteth not in making such unhappy choices for our selves as if we studied how to be our own Executioners then he begins to reason with us O my people what have I done unto thee Mich. vi 3. or wherein have I wearied thee Testifie against me Jer. ii 5 31. What evil have ye found in me Have I been a barren Wilderness unto you or a Land of darkness and if any shall yet be so presumptuous as to cast the blame of their wretchedness and misery upon so benign a Father he stands ready to acquit himself and calls heaven and earth to record against them that he hath set before them Life and Death Deut. xiii 19. Blessing and Cursing and requested them to chuse that which may make them for ever happy Joh. v. 40. But they will not come unto him that they may have life Nay further that God might take away all manner of excuse from the Sons of men and mannage his cause in a way of Reason and Equity he hath not onely shewed his Righteousness to the Heathen and declared his Salvation to the Ends of the Earth but asserted it possible for men to perform his Will so that his yoke is in it self easie and his burthen is really light and his service is reasonable * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is agreeable to the dictates and sentiments of our rational Nature Rom. xii 1. For the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise the Word is very nigh thee Rom. x. 6 8. in thy mouth and in thy heart that thou mayest do it No man can complain of any hard usage that God commands impossibilities and injoyns things that are above his reach For the Spirit of God that mighty principle of Life and Vigour which pervades the whole World of intellectual agents is ready to assist the generous and hearty attempts of all sincere persons after the Divine Life and Nature for so he who gave that gift to his Apostles and assured mankind of the continuance of it till the end of the World hath long since made known to us that if Earthly Parents know how to give good gifts to their Children Luk. xi 13. God our heavenly Father should much more give his Holy Spirit to all that ask it of him He would have all the Creation take notice that it is not for any ends of his own that he is at such pains with us My people sayes God have forsaken me the fountain of living waters Jer. ii 13. and have hewn out to themselves broken Cisterns which can hold no water Methinks the words signifie thus much as if God should thus bespeak us O my people if you could mend your selves by forsaking me the fountain of living Waters then I could be content and reason would that I should bear with you but that you should betake your selves to broken Cisterns which can hold no water and are then dryed up when ye most stand in need of them this argues your lightness and folly Isai xxx 18. God waits to be gracious and with infinite patience and long-sufferance expects our Repentance and suffers that tempestuous whirlwind of enraged Vengeance which Sin and Vice have fed and congested to roll long within the Orbe of Mercy before it burst forth and bear down the sinner into the horrors and agonies of Eternal ages And this is sufficiently evidenced by those Pathetical expressions of his unwillingness to punish his Creatures till at last being compelled to it he sets about it with a kind of reluctancy of spirit and is as it were grieved to the heart that he must use such rigorous means to reduce them to himself Hos xi 8 9. How shall I give thee up Ephraim how shall I deliver thee Israel How shall I make thee as Admah how shall I set thee as Zeboim Mine heart is turned within me my repentings are kindled together This is Gods gracious Expostulation with himself as if he should have thus said What shall I do unto thee O my people or how should I behave my self toward thee Should I make thee an example of my judgment as Admah Or should I consume thee in a moment like Zeboim No surely my heart is quite averse from such harsh proceedings they are even extorted from me therefore my heart yerns after thee O Ephraim my bowels are turned and melted within me an expression of the dearest love and affection that possibly can be Jer. xxxi 20. I am even overcome with those deep-fetcht breathings of affectionate Love which I bear unto thee therefore I will not execute the fierceness of my anger for I am God and not Man I bear no malice against any of the Creation but had rather my kindness then my displeasure should endear men to the consideration of their own happiness And at last he appeals to our own Reasons and Consciences and is content to submit himself and his Dispensations to our own thoughts whether we can imagine any better course then that he hath taken to reform us Isai v. 4. Judge I pray you between me and my Vineyard what could I have done more to my Vineyard then I have not done So that it is only when all means prove ineffectual that the God of Love turns to a consuming fire and makes us the proper objects of his direful Vengeance To take yet a more direct view of that fair Perfection the very root and centre of the Deity I mean Goodness or Love let us behold God manifest in the flesh and look upon him who being the brightness of his Fathers Glory the express Image and Character of his Person encircled with the loving armes of Heaven and folded up in the bosome of Blessedness yet left those sacred Mansions of Happiness out of pure good will to the race of Mankind and put off the robes of Glory that he might be capacitated to dwell in a body of flesh to the intent that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life That pure soul which shone with an Ethereal brightness farr surpassing the glory of the Sun being vitally united with the Eternal Logos and full of the Divine Life did inwardly pity and commiserate the lapsed posterity of Adam wherefore that he might more abundantly demonstrate the riches of his grace he declared himself the Saviour not of some few only but of the whole World that the design of his appearing was to scatter an healing influence upon the broken and distracted Sons of men and that the effects of it should be good tidings of great joy to all people assuring guilty
of an unlimited Will and Power how and when he pleaseth and declaring their effluxes and emanations to be the rule of reason and measure of all Moral Actions and the grand Law of the whole Creation or else in those Hymns and Hallelujahs which are offered up to him by intellectual Beings from all quarters of the Universe Whereas in truth his Glory is nothing without himself nor any acquisition and purchase to augment his happiness for he being an Infinite Plenitude of all Perfection is incapable of receiving any complement of Glory or Blessedness but then he most of all elevates and raises his glory and lustre when he most of all communicates his Nature and shines in with a full and uninterrupted light of Truth and Goodness upon all the intellectual Creation He never seeks his Glory in respect of us in any other way than by dispreading and imparting those Soveraign Attributes of Love Mercy Patience Wisdom and Justice And we in the most proper sense do then advance the Glory of God highest and discover it to the World in the most ample and transcendent manner when the life of God becomes a Vital Principle in us carrying us beyond the reach of corporeal exsudations and defilements which render the soul inept for a conformity to his blessed Image and when Truth Holiness and Righteousness in which the Divine Nature is copyed out become not empty and insignificant Names and sounds of words but actuating and quickning Principles and we studiously endeavour to engrave those beautiful Forms in our minds and spirits In a word then do we glorifie God when we converse with him in the Temple of an unspotted heart and derive from him in whom there is no blemish of iniquity such an Universal Holiness as lives within us and pervades and sanctifies all our actions And this the Lord Christ who best knew how to glorifie God hath intimated to us Joh. xv 8. Herein is my Father glorified that ye bear much fruit I have now finished this Argument from the consideration of the Divine Nature and have deduced such genuine and legitimate Conclusions that if rightly estimated and weighed cannot but implant for the future in every unprejudic'd mind more generous and serene Apprehensions of the Deity then are offered in any Scheme of the Supralapsarian or Sublapsarian Doctrins both which concurr in that which appears most deformed to every pure and defecate eye viz. The Eternal Reprobation and Confusion of the greatest part of Mankind the one upon pretence of Gods sole Will and Pleasure and the other under the mantle and cover of Adam's transgression in whose loins the whole race of Mankind was included when he fell and lost his Paradise Both which opinions though never so fairly guilded over do really make God put on the mask of cruelty and rigour that he might appear just in his Oeconomy and Administration of the affairs of the World and that which is most barbarous and infamous in the eye of reason is made to speak the glory of the Deity And that God might bring about this dismal and black design of Damning his Creatures he must compass it by injurious artifices and tyrannical contrivances rot unlike that inhumane fraud Tiberius used to Brutus and Nero the sons of Germanicus Suet. in Vit. Tâ—…b c. 54. Variâ fraude induxit ut concitarentur ad convitia concitati perderentur How deep a stain doth this cast upon the lovely rayes and efflorences of the Divine Goodness and Mercy making him to become the Executioner to his own off-spring and rend that dear life in pieces which his own hands gave Being to And although the Sublapsarian Dogma be entertained of some on purpose to mollifie that harsh decree of the Supralapsarian Reprobation yet if we divest it of those terms and artifices of words wherewith it is mantled over to appear more specious to the World we shall find it cast as great a blot upon the Divine Nature as the other For whether is it better to say That God by his Eternal Prerogative of Absolute Dominion over all his Creatures has adjudged the greatest part of Mankind to inevitable misery for no other reason but upon the impulse of his own Will and to shew the glory of his Power Or to say That God for the sin of one Man whom he made the Representative of the succeeding Generations of Men to the end of the World committed some thousands of years ago and imputed only to his Posterity who were no more able to help it than to hinder their being born into the World should take the advantage of his lapse and decree the greatest number of Mankind to Everlasting destruction And if we impartially view this latter it will appear no less precarious and absurd than the former For though it be true that we are really and formally guilty of Original Sin yet to say that God did physically predetermine Adam's fall or in the mildest sense That he looked upon man as fallen for the Reprobationists are not consistent with themselves and so took the opportunity which he foresaw would offer it self by his lapse to bring about his design of ruining the greatest number of Mankind is to bring Almighty God the Father of compassions upon the stage of the World speaking unto the calamitous Off-spring of Adam like the Wolfe when he intended to devour a Lamb Ante hos sex menses ait maledixisti mihi Respondit agnus Equidem natus non eram Pater hercule tuus inquit maledixit mihi Atque ita correptum lacerat injustâ nece Should God take the souls of men being yet innocent so soon as he set them upon acting in the World according to those Principles and Powers he bestowed upon them at their first production and cast them into everlasting burnings they would have this comfort left to them that they suffered innocently and never in the least measure violated any of the sacred Laws of Heaven But when they shall hear that their Creator and Father who upon that very account could not inflict a greater evil than the good he bestowed on them hath contrived their death and drawn them into sin that he might with the fairer shew of equity punish them with infinite tortures both in body and soul this injustice must needs appear unspeakably grievous For although some would seem to excuse this Oeconomy from all harshness iniquity and rigor by substituting the softer termes of Preterition or negative Reprobation yet if they will unmask their apprehensions and speak plain sense the difference will appear only in words not in the thing it self and is all one as if a man should seek to alleviate the calamity of a condemned Malefactor by telling him he should not die by Common but Noble hands For the event declares Gods intention and the denial of his help to extricate them from misery is equivalent to a positive Reprobation Let us consult a little our own faculties and reason
himself or how the Grace of God which came by Christ did abound and was made more efficacious then sin For if the sin of Adam destroyed and slew more than the Death and Passion of the Lord Christ made alive then were Sin of a larger extent and more potent than Grace 〈◊〉 v. and the Apostle could not truly affirm That where Sin abounded Grace did much more abound CHAP. IV. A fourth Argument against the Doctrine of Inconditionate Reprobation taken from the Evangelical Dispensation wherein is shown the purport and design of the Gospel which is to reinstate all men into the Participation of the Divine Nature and that that Rigid Doctrine is destructive of so high and glorious an end THere is no Man that knows himself and discerns the true frame of his own Being what sublime and noble perfections the soul is capable of and withal reflects upon the weak and imperfect state of the Sons of men how uncertain and fluctuating their judgments are at the best and how frequently obscured with prejudice how impotently stubborn their wills to the election of substantial good and how broken and disordered the faculties of their whole man but will assuredly conclude that all Mankind however it comes to pass are extremely alienated and apostatiz'd from that innate purity and excellent state in which they were created for no Man that believes himself made by an Alwise and infinitely perfect Author can imagine that he came thus lame and maimed out of his hands and sunk as low as the capacities of their Nature will permit being only vivacious and active to trifling low and bodily interests and concernments carrying on such poor and momentary designs as are unworthy the native generosity of their minds in a word so devoid of that life in the possession of which consists their true felicity that they are past hopes of recovering by their own solitary endeavours their pristine and ancient glory But although Man by that venturous and bold revolt from the blessed Kingdom of Light dispossessed himself of Gods favour and forfeited all right and title to his ordinary care and Providence yet that ever-to-be-magnified Goodness which made him at first Lapsable beheld him as a calamitous object of compassion and designed the erecting and reedifying that glorious Temple which sin and unrighteousness had miserably defaced and ruined and the repossessing his own life of it's rightful Government and Dominion in the Souls of Men which however they come into the World the subjects of bruitish lusts and passions are yet capable of Angelical accomplishments and a Vital Union with the Creator of all things God therefore being the highest and most perfect life and feeling and knowing his Nature to be the most pretious thing in all the World and the utmost perfection of every Rational Being could not but intend graciously to his lapsed Creatures and seek the extension and dispreading of his goodly Attributes over all capable subjects of the World of life For he that shall look upon the diligence and activity of the dark Powers in enlarging the bounds of their usurped Kingdom and consider the contagious and disseminating Nature of every pitiful and degenerate lust how every crazie and sickly vice attempts and offers at a further explication of it self and every small Exarchat of that Hellish Principality endeavours dayly to make new additions and take in fresh supplies to maintain the general cause of unrighteousness and augment their petty Royalties can never think that God will sit as a disinteressed spectator but promote and advance his own good life to the command of the whole Creation and brake down the power of that great Arimanus who captivates the sons of Men in the fetters and shackles of Mortality and Death The life of God is a strong and powerful principle and hath alwayes the arme of Heaven to aid and assist it but all sin and unrighteousness is a meer poverty and deficiency not able to exist in the World did not the self-wills of men uphold it and can never stand against the potent assaults of the Heavenly Nature Which holy life that God might reestablish in the World he hath delivered the Gospel the last and most perfect dispensation that ever was or shall be communicated to Men which consists not in an external and dead form of words nor is it a meer systeme and compendium of such precepts that like the Mosaical Law sanctifie only to the purifying of the flesh but cannot 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Perfect him that doth the service as pertaining to the Conscience that is Purge and cleanse his mind from dead Works and make way for the consummation of the life of God within him whereby he shall no longer be in bondage and servility to every caitive lust but act spontaneously under a free and generous principle and become a law to himself but such a Method of perfect Righteousness and Virtue as shall purifie refine and exalt the spirits of Men from all feculent concretions and subdue every irregular motion and unruly desire that would tempt and sollicit their choice of corporeal joyes and beget in them so true a relish of unblameable Goodness and Holiness as should at the end of their mortal life instal them in the full possession of everlasting Tranquility and Peace Of which glorious contrivance though we have a Scheme and Model drawn out in the Holy Gospels yet there is a life and spirit in Christianity that cannot be blotted on paper but lives and acts in such hearts as are framed and squared according to those Rules contained in the Sacred Writings And this he who is the Author of our Faith and Blessedness testified when he said that his Words were Spirit and Life such as were able and designed to revive the dead and sensless minds of Men and propagate a vital heat and motion through the torpid and benummed World and accordingly the Apostle St. Paul tels us that Christianity is indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Law of the Spirit of life Rom. viii 2. 2 Cor. 3. and in another place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The ministration of the Spirit and the ministration of Righteousness in opposition to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The dispensation of Death and Condemnation intimating that under the Gospel men shall not have a Mechanical and Artificial Religion but such as frames the life and spirit of God in their hearts and becomes a Vital forme tuning their souls into an Universal consent with Gods own Will whereby they send forth most harmonious and Divine accents not only when they are stricken and beaten upon by an external hand like Memnon's statue whose Musical notes ceased so soon as the Sun-beams were withdrawn from it but from an internal Power incorporated and made one with their own spirits It is true when God at first made Man and sent him into this lower World he left him to be governed by those innate prescriptions and rules of Righteousness
36. to judge themselves unworthy of everlasting life Acts xiii 46. To reject or render ineffectual the Counsel of God against themselves Luke vii 30. Not that they do directly and principally intend any such thing but because they commit and act those things which do either naturally or by virtue of the Divine command produce such an event and consequence In like manner on the contrary Men are said to work out their Salvation Phil. ii 12. To save themselves 1 Tim. iv 16. To save their own souls Luke ix 24. because they act and prosecute those things which have an indisputable tendency to such a desired end For a Conclusion of this whole Discourse I shall briefly examine these two following Illations and Deductions of the Contra-Remonstrants from the Doctrine of Absolute and Irrespective Decrees 1. That none can be a true believer or sincere Christian who knows not when nor how he was regenerated and born again by the Spirit that is to speak in their language who cannot tell when he felt the mighty and efficacious power of the Divine Spirit dashing asunder his strong heart and gathering up the broken shivers and uniting them together and changing them into a heart of flesh and infusing new qualities into the will and raising the whole man from death to life See XI and XII Canons of the Dort Synod De homonis corrupt convers◠ad Deau 2. That every man who by those evidences signs and marks of True Believers prescribed to him can collect himself to be such that is to be in a state of Grace and Salvation may assuredly believe that he shall to the last Period of his life remain and 〈◊〉 a living member of the Catholick Church and undoubtedly partake of everlasting bliss and glory Attic. IX and X. of the Dort Synod De Perseverantia Sanctorum Against the first of these I shall lay down these Conclusions 1. That he is a true and sincere Believer who hath to his utmost endeavours so mortified and subdued the body of sin that he willingly harbours no vice nor takes any complacency in the impure motions of the brutish life but through a fixed belief in the Goodness of God displayed unto mankind through the Lord Christ resolutely presses forward to higher measures and degrees of Christian perfection and incessantly breaths after a fuller participation of the Divine Nature Such a man I look upon to be truly regenerate and born anew of the Spirit of God and to be affected according to his proportion as Christ himself was affected when he dwelt on earth and conversed with men And though this Divine life dispread and manifest it self by successive acts and shine not so full and bright as when it is near it's Center yet it is as truly a God-like Nature as an Infant is a Man though he be not so in growth and stature It is nothing but our self will which stands out against heaven and keeps such an impregnable fort against the grace of God and whoever is truly dead to it and receives the gentle impressions of the Divine Spirit into his soul and acts correspondently to so holy a principle he is certainly in the Land of Life and Truth and partakes of that blessed Nature which cannot rest among the dust and rubbish of this lower World but separates whatever is heterogeneous in the soul of man and by perpetual and successful attempts restores again those Divine forms which shone gloriously in humane minds before their unfortunate recession and retrogradation from the lucid fountain of their everlasting joy and happiness 2. The first actings of Grace in such a Man as I have above described are altogether undiscernible and imperceptible being nothing else but the preparatory Exertions of that Almighty Goodness the Source and Father of all things for the fitting and adapting Men to receive the Divine Image and Form of the Holy Jesus according to the words of the Lord Christ John vi 44. No man can come unto me except the Father which hath sent me draw him and in this the Nature of Man is wholly passive and the only thing pertaining to him is to see that he do not obstruct and hinder the progress of that efficacious Love by a cowardly submission to the importunate motions of iniquity and unhallowed actions Now the effluxes and operations of this Vital Principle are coeval with the first actings of Reason and discriminative Perception and extend themselves according to the dimensions of the intellectual Powers but no man is any more conscious of it's energy then of the growth of his bones for so he that made the Nature of man and knows his frame hath told us Luke xvii 20. The Kingdom of God cometh not with observation And Mark iv 26 27. So is the Kingdom of God as if a man should cast seed into the ground and should sleep and rise night and day and the seed should spring and grow up he knoweth not how And when men are born again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of that incorrupible seed 1 Pet. i. 23. sown in their hearts by the Eternal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Christ calls his Father John xv 1. it breaks through the clods and springs up being cherished by the dew of heaven and the warmth of that immortal fire which passeth through the intellectual world and melts and refines every lapsed Being from the contracted filth of material concretions and no man can say Lo here I was caught by the breath of God or lo there was my resurrection from the comfortless grave of sin and death John iii. 8. For as the wind bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth so is every one that is born of the Spirit But this I would have understood of the ordinary way of Gods dispensing his Grace and not of that supernatural manner whereby he converted Saul casting him down to the Earth by a voice from heaven nor of the diffusion of the Spirit to the Heathens when first converted to the faith For such as also notorious and gross sinners may have some sensibility of Divine Vegetation and apprehension of some external circumstances attending the New-birth unto righteousness But for those who are born and educated under Christian Parents our Church hath excellently well determined in the service and office of Baptisme That they are Regenerated and born again not only of Water but of the Spirit by which their Natures are Sanctified as we read of the Prophet Jeremy and John the Baptist who received the spirit of holiness and were hallowed from their Mothers wombs and for any man to enquire of such or for them curiously to search after some preternatural stirrings and motions of the Divine Spirit in their souls by which to discern the first dawnings of the grace of God upon them is as impertinent as it would be to demand of them when first they heard or perceived