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A61119 Reasons for vnitie, peace, and love with an answer (called Shadows flying away) to a book of Mr. Gataker, one of the assembly, intituled, A mistake, &c. and the book of the namelesse author called, The plea, both writ against me : and a very short answer, in a word, to a book by another namelesse author called, An after-reckoning with Master Saltmarsh, and to Master Edward his second part called, Gangrena, directed to me ... / by John Saltmarsh ... Saltmarsh, John, d. 1647. 1646 (1646) Wing S496; ESTC R11619 30,054 33

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to what we do for life then the Covenant of works had All the Works wrought in us then were freely of God and of free-gift too as Arminius well observes in the point of universall Grace and we wrought only from a gift given Either place Salvation upon a free bottom or else you make the New Covenant but an Old Covenant in new tearmes in stead of Do this and live Beleeve this and live repent and live obey and live And all this is for want of revealing the mystery more fully To your third That where we find Faith only preached and so Salvatio● made short work that it is because we have but the Summaries I agree with you that we have but the Doctrine of the Apostles as Johns of whom it is said He spake many other things in his exhortation to the people It is true we have much of what they said and we want much yet we have so much as may shew us that according to the work of Salvation in us Faith is the worke which gives most glory to God Abraham believed it is said and gave glory to God they that beleeve give glory and Faith of all the works of the Spirit is the glorious gospel-Gospell-worke Christ cals it the worke indeed this is the worke that ye beleeve So as the only reason why we heare so much of Faith in the Gospell is not only and meerely as you insinuate because we have but their Sermons in Summaries and because of another reason of yours drawn from the qualification of some they Preached to that had other gifts and not Faith But because Faith is of all Spirituall encreasings in us the most gloriously working towards Christ Faith goes out and Faith depends and Faith lives in Christ and Faith brings down Christ and Faith opens the riches and Faith beleeves home all strength comfort glory peace promises And Faith hath so much put upon it as becomes a stumbling stone and a rock of offence to many Justification imputation of righteousnesse is put upon Faith Salvation upon Faith as Christs Bloud is put upon the Wine the Cup that we blesse is it not the Communion of the bloud of Christ and Christs body upon the bread the bread that we breake is it not the Communion of the body of Christ and yet neither the Wine nor the Bread is his Bloud or his Body no more then Faith is either Justification or Righteousnesse but such a work as goes out most into him and carries the soule into him who is Righteousnesse and Justification to us The Word were no mystery if it were not thus ordered and things so mingled that the Spirit only could discerne and distinguish Do not the Papists stumble at Works And why because they see not Faith for Works And do not others stumble at Faith And why because they see not Christ for Faith Do not some say that the words world and all and every man makes some stumble at the Election of some and so conclude Redemption for all Master Gataker 1 That Christ and his Apostles never Preached Free-grace without conditions and qualifications on own parts Rom. 8. 1. Mat. 5. 8. c. 2 Christs Bloud or Wine is not to be filled out too freely to Dogs and Swine to sturdy Rogues 3 That saying promises belongs to sinners as sinners not as humbled c. and all that received him received him in a sinfull condition is a creeping to Antinomianisme 4 That God may be provoked to wrath by his Children and David and Peter made their peace with God by repentance 5 That God loves us for his own graces in us God is as man and as a Father is angry and chastiseth his for sin 6 Faith is not a perswasion more or lesse of Christs love all may have that men may beleeve too suddenly as Simon Magus 7 Christ bids us repent as well as beleeve yea first to repent we are to try our Faith 2 Cor. 13. 5. 1 John 4. 1. 8 That he clogs men with conditions of taking and receiving as well as we of repenting and obeying 9 The summe of this mans Divinity is Men may be saved whether they repent or no whether they beleeve or no Answer To the first That Christ and his Apostles never Preached Free-grace without conditions c. on our parts I answer They Preached Faith and Repentance and Obedience But how First in degrees of Revelation the Gospell came not all out at once in its glory They Preached them but how not in parts as we have their Doctrine as you confesse they Preached them but all along in the New Testament there is more of their glory and fulnesse revealed concerning them so as the degrees of revealing the parts or summaries of their Sermons the fuller discovery in the whole New Testament are those things you consider not and they are the things we only consider and so dare not Preach the Gospell so in halfes in parts and quarters as you do and yet will not beleeve you do which is so much worse Ye say ye see and therefore your sin remaineth To the second Christ Bloud is not to be filled out to Rogues and Dogs Take heed you charge not Christ for being with Publicans and Sinners you may upon this ground say he Preached false Doctrine because he said He came not to call the Righteous but Sinners What were all of us in our unregenerate condition sinners or righteous persons unholy or holy men of Faith or unbeliefe or not rather deall in trespasses and sins till quickned with Christ To the third That saying Promises belongs to sinners as sinners and not humbled c. I pray to whom doth all Promises belong first but to Christ and from whom to us but from Christ and what are the Elect and the chosen in him before they are called or beleeve but sinners as sinners Do you look that men should be first whole for the Physitian or Righteous for Pardon of sins or justified for Christ or rather sinners unrighteous ungodly While we were yet sinners Christ dyed for us He dyed for the ungodly Christ is the Physitian the Righteousnesse the Sanctification and makes them beloved that were not beloved and to obtaine mercy that had not obtained mercy and Saints who were Sinners and Spirituall who were Carnall So as we looke at Christ and the Promises comming to men in their sins but those men were beloved of God in Christ who suffered for sins before so as they begin not now to be loved but to be made to love God begins not to be reconciled to them but they begin to be reconciled to him The love of God being shed abroad into their hearts by the Holy Ghost which is now given unto them So as we looking at persons as chosen in Christ and at their sins as borne by Christ on his body on the Tree we see nothing in persons to hinder them from the Gospell and offers of Grace
Christ and not seeking your own things not making a gaine of godlinesse Whether all your Fastings and Repentance were from true meltings of heart sound humiliation or because the State called for it and constrained it Whether your praying and preaching was not much of it Self of Invention of Parts of Art of Learning of seeking praise from men Oh should the light of the Spirit come in clearnesse and glory upon your spirit Oh! how much of Self of Hypocrisie of Vanity of Flesh of Corruption would appeare how would all be unprofitable For my part I cannot be so uncharitable but to wish you a better assurance then what you and your Brethren can find in your own works or righteousnesse For it is not what we approve but what God approves is accepted And I am perswaded however you are now loth it may be to lose reputation by going out of an old track of Divinity as Luther once yet when once your spirit begins to be unclothed of forms of darknesse and art of self-righteousnesse and that you with open face behold the glory of the Lord you will cry out Wo is me I am undone for I have seen the Lord and Lord depart from me for I am a sinfull creature and What went I out to see My owne unrighteousnesse or rather A Reed shaken with the winde An Answer to a Book intituled A Plea for Congregationall Government or A Defence of the Assemblies Petition c. YOu write thus 1 That the independents confesse you a true Church and Minstery 2 Those that are ordained by Bishops may be true Ministers else how am I a Preacher or they true Ministers 3 Succession is not necessary to the essence of a true Ministery 4 If no true Ministery no true Baptisme 5 Must not there be persons ordaining and persons ordained And so the dissenting Brethren held 6 That you abuse the Assembly in ●●ing their Humble Advice touching the Divine Right of a Congregationall Presbyteriall and not of the other The Independents assert a Divine Right there and in Synods too as they do They hold a Divine Right in one as well as the other 7 Their ordination by Bishops though it should be null yet they have all you can alleadge necessary to a Preacher 8 Parishes here are but as in New-England as in Jerusalem Antioch 9 Some of the dissenting Brethren hold Synods an holy Ordinance of God and this Assembly so to be 10 If no Presbyteries must be of Divine Right because not infallibly gifted this concludes against Presbyteries and Ordinances 11 If you would have them content with a mixed power partly prudentiall because of their mixt ●●ointing you contradict that pure one you plead for 12 The Apostles and Elders and Angels of the Churches of Asia were not infallible as in divers practices 13 To say the Apostles did advise in place of the written Word is little lesse then Blasphemy 14 The Presbyterians in France and Scotland and the Netherlands do 〈◊〉 so imbroyle Kingdoms The feare of excommunicating Parliaments and Kingdoms is but a Bugbeare 15 They aske not of the State an Ecclesiasticall power but a liberty to exercise that power 16 Hath Christ said that in a sound Church Church-Officers shall excommunicate and in an unsound the Magistrate shall do it 17 He may in time say as much against Equity and justice living upon voyces in Assemblies as against Truth Answer To the first That the Independents confesse you a true Church and Ministery You are not to prove what others confesse or hold you to be but what you are indeed according to Truth Nor do I contend with those that hold you so but with you that hold your selves so as the Spirit to the Laodiceans Thou sayest thou art full c. and behold thou art poore c. To the second That they ordained by Bishops are true Ministers as the Independents and I a Preacher for all that Ordination If you meane that the Bishops Ordination makes not one for ever a false or Antichristian Minister I grant it because it is no marke to them that renounce it Babylon is no more Babylon to them that are gone out of it But what is this to your Ministery or Ordination who are yet under the Marke and Babylonish Ordination Renounce it come out as the Spirit cals ye and then your being Antichristian is no more to ye then to the Ephesians that they should be lesse light because they were once darknesse or lesse alive because they were once dead To the third That Succession is not necessary to a true Ministery It is both true and false in severall acceptions When there was a true power they ordained others and others them There was succession But that being lost under Antichrist so far as visibly to derive it to us there can be no such true visible Succession appearing And yet you that pretend to stand by the first power must prove your Succession if you will prove your power To the Fourth If no true Ministery no true Baptism For that as you please I dare not exalt the truth of your Baptism above that of your Ministery no more then you To the Fifth The dissenting Brethren hold there must be persons ordaining and ordained as well as we Ye● but do they hold Bishops ordaining and Presbyters ordained by Bishops and Presbyters of their ordaining ordaining others as you do To the Sixth of my unjust citing the Assemblies Modell or Humble Advice and that there is no more Divine Right asserted in the Congregationall Presbytery then in the Classicall c. which is done so by the dissenting Brethren I answer Let the Modell be printed to the world to end the difference betwixt you and me And for the Divine Right of the one and the other I am of your mind they are able to prove both alike of Divine Right that is in their Presbytery The one is no more of Divine Right then the other and neither of them of any And for the dissenting Brethren it is not them but you I deale with Why come you under their shadow in a storme and yet will let them have no liberty under yours but would turne us all abroad as Hereticks and Schismaticks To the Seventh Though the Ordination by Bishops be null yet they have the other necessaries to a Preacher Will ye undertake for the Assembly they shall stand to this that all their former Ordination by Bishops is null If so we are agreed if not all their other necessaries are no more then Ahabs peace What peace saith Jehu so long as the whoredoms of thy mother Iezebell are alive So what Ministery so long as the whoredoms of Babylon yet remaine To the Eighth That the Parishes are but as in New-England as in Ierusalem c. I pray forbeare this it is too manifest an errour Are the Parishes of England and Churches of Ierusalm one and the same so discipled so constituted Were all of Ierusalem and Antioch
girdles We are not now as Aaron and Moses we are not a Kingdom of Israell nor a Church of Israel though too many of you have preached the Old Testament more then the New for what advantage let the Magistrate judge To the Seventeenth That he may in time say as much of justice living upon voyces in Assemblies as of Truth and so to be a Mystery of Iniquity These are but infirmations to the Magistrate and ghosts of Jealousie which you raise And to put an end to such feares when I make Church and State Magistrate and Ministery Gospell laws and Civill to be both one then challenge me for that opinion But I have learned that Christs Kingdom and the worlds have a severall Policy and that may be a Law in the one which is not to the other And now is it your Inference or my Principle wrongs the Magistrate An Answer in few words to Master Edwards his second Part of the GANGRENA And to the namelesse Author of a Book called An After-reckoning with Master Saltmarsh MAster Edwards the difference betwixt ye both is this You set your name to more then you know as hath been well witnessed and this man dare set his name to nothing You sin without shame and your Partner is ashamed of what he doth Sin is too powerfull in you against Truth because you shew your selfe and Truth is too powerfull for him because he hides himselfe Master Edwards I shall answer you in these few words but first The Lord rebuke thee even the Lord 1. If the Image of Christ be in any of those you so persecute how can you answer it to Jesus Christ to cash any dirt on the glory of him 2. If God be in any of those you are so much an enemy to how will you answer it to fight against God any thing of God 3. If any of those be the children of the heavenly Father or the little ones of the Gospell It were better that a milstone were hanged about your neck and you cast into the Sea So Christ tels you 4. What is it to sin against the holy Ghost but to hate the Light once known or to blaspheme the works of the Spirit And you once professed to me you had almost been one of those whom you call Hereticks Oh take heed of that sin there is no more Sacrifice for that And how if the works of those you so judge be wrought in the Spirit shall you ever be forgiven in this world or in that to come Read the words and tremble 5. Doth not the Word bid you restore those that are fallen in meeknesse and tell your brother his fault first betwixt you and him And you never yet came to any of them that I could heare of but print proclaime tell stories to the world of all you heare see know Is Christ in this Spirit Is the Gospell in this straine Will this be peace to your soule hereafter 6. Solomon tels us that a man may seem faire in his own tale till his neighbour search out the matter And how dare you then take all things at one hand and not at anothers How dare you have one eare open for complaints and faults and crimes and the other shut against all defence Did ever Justice do this Did you ever call for their accusers face to face Did you ever traverse Testimonies on both sides And dare you judge thus and condemne thus Shall not the Judge of Heaven and Earth make you tremble for this Injustice Shall he not make Inquisition upon your soule for this bloud 7. It is any other ground or bottome you stand on in this your way of accusing the Brethren but Paul you say named some and the Fathers named some so and Calvin as you told me the other day when I met you And was there ever crime without some Scripture or shadow of the Word Did not Canterbury on the Scaffold preach a Sermon of as much Scripture and Story for what he did as you can for yours if you should ever preach there He thought ye ill Hereticks as you do us he thought he might persecute you as you do us and he had a Word from John Baptist for his manner of death and a Word from the Red sea and Israelites for his death and enemies and a Word from Paul for his Changing Laws and Customes and for his crime of Popery he had a Word from them that feared the Romanes would come and take away their Government Thus Satan and Selfe can paint the worst kind of sin Poore soule Is your conscience no better seated then in such aiery apparitions of Scripture and failings of Fathers Do not you heare the Prayers of those soules you wound pleading with God against your sin Are you not in the gall of bitternesse and bond of iniquity Is not your spirit yet flying when none pursues you Are not your dreames of the everlasting burning and of the worme that never dies Have you no gnawings no flashings no lightnings I am afraid of you Your face and complexion shewes a most sadly parched burnt and withered spirit Me thought when I called to you the other day in the street and challenged you for your unanswerable Crime against me in the third page of the last Gangrena in setting my name against all the Heresies you reckon which your own soule and the world can witnesse to be none of mine and your own confession to me when I challenged you How were you troubled in spirit and language Your sin was as I thought upon you scourging you checking you as I spoke I told you at parting I hoped we should overcome you by prayer I beleeve we shall pray you either into Repentance or Shame or Judgement ere we have done with you But Oh might it be Repentance rather till Master Edwards smite upon his thigh and say what have I done For your Anagram upon my name you do but fulfill the Prophesie They shall cast out your name as evill for the Son of mans sake And for your Book of Jeeres and Stories of your Brethren Poore man It will not be long musick in your eares at this rate of sinning For the namelesse Author and his After-reckoning let all such men be doing for me Let them raile revile blaspheme call Hereticks It is enough to me that they write such vanity they dare not own And now let me tell ye both and all such Pensioners to the great accuser of the Brethren Fill up the measure of your iniquity if ye will needs perish whether we will or no I hope I rest in the bosome of Christ with others of my Brethren raile persecute do your worst I challenge all the powers of hell that set ye on work while Christ is made unto me righteousnesse wisedome sanctification and redemption And I must tell ye further that since any of the light and glory of Christ dawned upon me since first I saw that Morning-Star of righteousnesse any of the brightnesse of the glory in my heart that heart of mine which once lived in the coasts of Zebulon and Nephtaly in the region and shadow of death I can freely challenge ye and thousands more such as ye to say write do worke print or any thing and I hope I shall in the strength of Christ in whom I am able to do all things give you blessings for cursings and prayers for persecutions FINIS Pag 144. line 37. for Antichristian read great corruption Rom. 15. 1. 1 Iohn 2. 13 14. 1cor 12.31,31.2 Mr Seam●n Mr. V●●●● Mr. Hill Mr Segwick c. Acts 5. 24. Matth. 18. 3. 16. 2● Luk 14. 16. Luk. 14. ●3 Mat. 3. 2 8. Mat 4. 17. Marke 1. 15. Acts 20. 21. P. 11 12 13. See p. 13. Rom. ●6 25 26. Ephes. 1. Pag. 14 15 16. Pag. 17. Pag. 20 21. Pag. 24. Rom. 5. Rom. 11. 28. Heb. 9. 28. 10 12. Rom. 3. Rom. 16. 5 7. Ephes. Psal. 1 Pet. 1. Pag. 43. Pag 81. 32. Pag. 17. Pag. 21. Mr Tombes
REASONS FOR Vnitie Peace and Love WITH AN ANSWER Called Shadows flying away to a Book of Mr Gataker one of the Assembly intituled A Mistake c. and the Book of the namelesse Author called The Plea both writ against me And a very short ANSWER in a word to a Book by another namelesse Author called An After-reckoning with Master Saltmarsh and to Master Edward his Second Part called Gangrena directed to me Wherein many things of the Spirit are discovered Of Faith and Repentance c. Of the Presbytery And some things are hinted to the undeceiving of people in their present Ministers By John Saltmarsh Preacher of the Gospell Acts 7. 26. Sirs ye are brethren why do ye wrong one to another LONDON Printed for Giles Calvert at the Black Spread-Eagle at the West end of PAULS 1646. Reader IN this Answer to Master Gataker I conceive thou hast a taste of the true Notion both of the sweetnesse and glory of the Gospell Imprimatur IOHN BACHILER May 26. 1646. To the Right Honourable the Lord Maior Aldermen and the Common-Councell of the City of LONDON Right Honourable MAny who call themselves Ministers and Prophets of God accuse us of Heresie and Schism before ye But I hope ye will take notice they are but men as we are and of like passions with us neither Apostles nor Prophets of the first Baptism or gifts of the Spirit Yet if the Priests and Elders or any Oratour as Tertullus accuse Paul to Festus or Agrippa he cannot but a●swer for himselfe I have but few words to speak to ye Noble Citizens That ye would in that Spirit which is of God judge the Doctrines of Men and single them from Traditions Customes Councels Synods Interests Ye are bid to try the spirits whether they be of God or no Try whether it be according to God for some Ministers and thse not Apostles to call others Hereticks who beleeve not as they beleeve What will become then of the strong and weak Christian of the children fathers and young men Trye whether they ought to p●ea●h to ye to suppresse all but themselves since they are not infallible but may erre and where is the Remedy then if they erre Who shall judge the Iudges Try whether this make for unity of spirit to allow no more fellowship nor brotherhood then in forme and practice And what will they have ye do if Formes should alter For States may change England hath done so Try whether this make for the glory of Christians to persecute or banish as they would have ye all but themselves May they not as well tell ye that God hath made England only for men of the Presbytery or one opinion to live in and worship in And where find they that Trye whether some by their daily Invectives from Presse and Pulpit against Independents and others bring not in the Popish Designe in another Forme to divide the godly party both Presbyterian and Independent and so to ruine all Try if all such Doctrine as they commonly preach and write to ye resolve not it selfe most into their own interests profits place power And what doth the Scripture and Histories tell ye of that And now I have done praying for ye That ye may be still a free City and not disputed by the miscelany of Logick and Divinity of some into bondage That ye may be still populous and not your streets growing with grasse through any unneighbourly Principle of Persecution which must needs lose ye many and much resort from this famous City under the name of Hereticks not letting such live beside them That ye may be a peaceable City and not raised up and dashed by any breath of men against the other and greater part of your selves the Parliament England hath long enough broken it selfe against its own walls let it now be our strength to sit still and to stand still and see salvation And since the Lord hath let the most of the successe of the Presbytery which is so much desired come thorow the hands of those and that Army whom they have told ye over often were Hereticks let this be but taken notice on by ye what God hath told ye in the successe of that Army and I trust ye will never regard the Messengers by whose hands the Presbytery in a kind came by beating them out of doores Thus rests he Who would rejoyce in your Peace Prosperity and GOSPELL-unity JOHN SALTMARSH REASONS FOR Vnity Peace Love THe Nations and Kingdoms of the world shall bring their glory to Christ and be at peace with all his according to the Prophesies Isai. 11 6 7 8. Revel. 21. 26. Isai. 49. 23. And how happy is that Nation or Kingdom which shall be first in this truth and have rather a peace of Prophesie than Policie a peace of God than man How happy shall this Kingdom be to fulfill any of this Prophesie of peace to one another and to the Saints That all Kingdoms and Nations and Princes and People prospered according to their love to Christ and his Pharaoh for Ioseph Ahasuerus for Mordecai Artaxerxes for Nehemiah and the people of the Iews and those Nations have been ever nations of bondage and tyranny to themselves which became so first to the Saints That Ierusalem hath been ever a burdensome stone and a cup of trembling to all that oppressed her and the stone cut out of the Mountaine without hands too mighty for all the Mountaines of the world And the bloud of the Saints where-ever spilled and whereever found in literall or mysticall Babylon never left crying till that very place had bloud given them to drink for in her was found the bloud of the Prophets That the true Peace indeed is more spirituall and comprehensive then men usually think it and takes in severall natures nations people languages of every tongue and kindred so severall spirits consciences judgements opinions not a Peace only of such or such an Opinion not a Peace only of such or such a Society of such or such a Body not a Peace of Presbytery only nor Independency only nor Anabaptisme only but a Peace of All so far as that all or many may be one which is that unity of spirit in the bond of peace That true Peace is an enemy to all selfish interest and selfish preservation and selfish unity or selfish peace because that when Unity Peace Preservation gathers up from that common interest Peace and Unity to which they are appointed by the law of Creation and Institution and becomes only their own and not anothers their own peace their own unity their own preservation they breaking that law of the Spirit and Communion of their first Creation each perishes in their single private and unwarrantable way of saving themselves And the eye saith unto the hand I have no need of thee and the head to the foot I have no need of you That there is no such impossibility of being one under divers Opinions
begin but not when ye end and they will be first in the Presbytery before ye in the Prelacy Therefore consider things 10. That these Ministers though some of them were old Non-conformists and have a power of God in them which I desire to love under any Forme yet according to their Interests they are not so nor to the flesh they are not so and it is their old man I write against not their new so far as they are men and so far as they are persecuters so far as they are lovers of gaine not of godlinesse so far as they are accusers of their Brethren so far as they are in the Forme of Godlinesse not in the power Therefore consider these men are not all spirit and truth we are not to call one of them Iubiter nor the other Mercurius They are men of like passions with us and ye and the worst I wish saving their humour of Persecution is that the Lord would make them love us in the Spirit and we shall in all love allow them their Formes To Mr. GATAKER SIR I Hope I shall answer all things materiall in your Book but your Margin I shall not meddle with I observe you commonly in all your books fill that with things and Authors of little value to Christ crucified As in your last leafe where you quote Sophecles the Poet comparing your selfe to an old prancing horse I should not rebuke your yeers but that I find you Comicall and Poeticall and for my part I am now ashamed to own those Raptures though I am young having tasted straines of a more glorious Spirit how much more you that are old and call your selfe a Divine ought not to have any fruit in those things I hope I shall be in no more passion with you than with your Brother of the Assembly Mr Ley. I write to edifie not to conquer nor to teach others but that we may be all taught of God JOHN SALTMARSH To the Author of the PLEA for the Congregationall or as he should have said Parishionall Government SIR A word to you the Author of the Plea You have so entangled and wrapped your selfe in the Congregationall and Church-principles as if you meant to engage me at once against your Presbytery and the dissenting Brethren But that Spirit which makes me oppose you makes me discerne your designe and so I hope I shall single you from them though you have cloathed your selfe in their Apologeticall Narration yet I must deale with you as your self and your Brethren not as theirs and it is but a little I have to say to you But why no Name Is your Divine Right so questionable that you will not own it or are you one of them that sit too neare it to commend it with open face and think you may better and more modestly do it in disguise and without a name Had I not some reason to suspect it came from some of that sort I had passed it by with as little noise as it came abroad And I have but little to say to you now I cannot stand long wrangling in things that grow clearer and clearer every day for the day breaks and the shadowes flie away SHADOWES FLYING AWAY Or A Reply to Master Gataker's Answer to some passages in Master Saltmarsh his Booke of FREE-GRACE Master Gataker 1 THat he was traduced by one Master John Saltmarsh a man unknown to him save by one or two Pamphlets as witnessing to the Antinomian party 2 That he must unbowell and lay open some of the unsound stuffe 3 That some think they have found out a shorter cut to Heaven 4 That my inferences upon his words are not true nor as he intended As if a Protestant with a Papist disputing about the Masse should say the Controversie is not concerning the nature of Sacraments c. Answ To the first ●hat you were traduced by me Let not you and I be judge of that both our Books are abroad and I have quoted your words to the very leafe where they are Your meaning I could not come at the deep things of the heart are out of the power of anothers quotatior For my selfe unknown to you but by two Pamphlets I take your sleighting I could call your Treatises by a worse name then Treatises for I knew one of them some yeers since that of Lots wherein you defended Cards and Dice-playing And it had been happy for others as well as my selfe in my times of vanity had you printed a Retractation I beleeve you strengthened the hands of many to sin I know you love ancient Writers well by your Margin and quotations And I pray remember how Augustine honoured Truth as much by confessing Errours as professing Truths What fruit should you and I have of these things whereof we are now ashamed For your witnessing to the Antinomian party against your will Is that your fault or mine Nor am I to judge of your reserves and secret senses but of words and writings Nor is it an Antinomian party I alleadge you to countenance but a Party falsly traduced and supposed so a Party called Antinomian by you and others and then writ against A setting up Hereticks to deceive the world and then telling the world such and such are the men You may make more by this trick then you find so To the Second that you will lay open the unsound stuffe I shall not be unwilling I hope to be told my failings but I must look to the stuffe you bring in the roome of mine and entreat others to trye the soundnesse of yours It is not my saying that mine is sound will make it better nor your saying it is unsound can make it worse Let every ones work be proved and then he shall have whereof to boast To your Third of some finding out a shorter cut to Heaven then some former Divines I know not what you meane by shorter cuts The Papists find a way they say to Heaven by works some Protestants by Jesus Christ and works and others by Jesus Christ alone and make works the praise of that Free grace in Jesus Christ And is that a shorter cut then theirs as you call it or rather a clearer revelation of Truth Methinks your expressions have too much of that which Solomon cals frowardnesse in old men Argue and prove and bring Scripture as long as you please but be not too quarrelsome But I shall excuse you in part because you tell us you are not yet recovered from sicknesse so as I take this with other of your Books as part or remainders of your disease rather then your judgement and the infirmity of your body not the strength of your spirit But why chose you not a better time to trie Truth in when you were not so much in the body To the Fourth That nothing lesse was intended by you I undertook not to discover your intents to the world You might have don well to have revealed your selfe more at first that I
detained in unrighteousnesse We blame not any that bid men repent or be sorry for sinne c. be humble c. if they preach them as Christ and the Apostles did as graces flowing from him and out of his fulnesse and not as springings of their owne and waters from their fountaines as if the teachers like Moses would make men beleeve they could with such Rods and exhortations smite upon mens hearts as upon rocks and bring waters out of them be they never so hard and stony We agree with you that repentance and sorrow for sinne and humiliation and self-deniall are all to be preached and shall contend with you who preaches them most and clearest but then because Iohn said Repent and Christ said Repent and Peter said Repent are we to examine the Mystery no farther Know we not that the whole Scripture in its fulnesse and integrality reveales the whole truth and must we not looke out and compare Scripture with Scripture spirituall things with spirituall and so finding out truth from the degrees to the glory and fulnesse of it preach it in the same glory and fulnesse as we find it We heare Christ preaching before the Spirit was given Repent and we find when the Spirit was given Christ is said to give Repentance to Israel and forgivenesse of sinnes and shall we not now preach Jesus Christ and Repentance in Jesus Christ the fountaine of repentance the author of repentance and yet preach repentance and repentance thus and repentance in the glory of it more The Apostle in one place saith Beleeve in the Lord Iesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and in another place He is the author and finisher of our Faith Shall we not now preach Iesus Christ first and Iesus Christ the fountaine and Iesus Christ the author of faith and beleeivng and yet preach faith yea and thus preach faith faith in the glory faith in the revelation of it faith from Christ and faith in Christ One Scripture tels us godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation c. And another tels us They shall look on him whom they have peirced and they shall mourne for him c. Shall we not now preach sorrow for sin took from Christ Christ piercing and wounding and melting the heart Christ discovering sin and powring water upon drie ground this is sorrow for sin in the glory of the Gospell One Scripture bids He that will follow me let him deny himselfe and take up his crosse Another saith It is he that worketh in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure and I am able to do all things through Christ that strenghneth me Shall we not now preach Christ our strength and Christ our selfe-deniall and is not this selfe-denyall in the glory of the Gospell So as the difference betwixt us is this Ye preach Christ and the Gospell and the graces of the Spirit in the parts as ye find it we dare not speak the mystery so in peices so in halfe and quarter revealings we see such preaching answers not the fulnesse of the Mystery the riches of the Gospell the glory of the New Testament We find that in the fulnesse of the New Testament Christ is set up as a Prince as a King as a Lord as a crown and glory to every grace and gift nay he is made not only righteousnesse but sanctification too and so we preach him Whereas to preach his riches without him his graces by themselves single and private as repent and beleeve and be humbled and deny your selves ye make the gifts lose much of their glory Christ of his praise and the Gospell of its fulnesse To the Second of your alleadging my Book in such and such pages as another Gospell from Christs I shall print them as you quote them and with them I desire these things to be considered together with the other parts of my Booke and the scope of it which you have detained in unrighteousnesse All these I freely open to the judgment of all who are Spirituall Master Gataker 1 That John Christs and his Apostles Method were all one for matter and manner for they all preached Faith and Repentance and yet we are ●a●ed for these things as Legalists by this Author 2 John and the rest preached life and salvation upon condition of Faith and Repentance and Obedience 3 Where we find Faith only preached it is because we have but the Summaries or heads of their Sermons Answer To the first that I taxe you for preaching Faith and Repentance a● the Apostles did and John did as Legalists Nay I tax ye only because ye preach it not as they did according to the full revelation of it in the New Testament but you preach it only as you find it in their Summaries and in the briefe narration of their Doctrine and this you ought not to do if you will preach according to that glorious Analogie of the Gospell and to this I shall only bring in your own words to convince you and so from your own mouth condemn you You say of the Apostles We have but Summaries of them as in Acts 2. 40. and 16. 32. and you knowing this preach only by their first Methods and Summaries not looking to the revelation of the mystery which the Apostle saies is now made manifest And for Iohns manner of preaching his Preaching is to be no more an example to you then his Baptism You know the least in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater then he To the second That Faith Repentance and Obedience were conditions of life and salvation Why keep you not to the Forme of wholesome words in Scripture Where doth the Scripture call these conditions of salvation They that are Christs do beleeve and repent and obey but do they bele●ve repent and obey that they may be Christs Hath not God chosen us in him predestinated us unto the adoption of children in Jesus Christ But I know you wil say That when the Apostles did beleeve repent and obey it is by consequence as much as a condition and the same with a condition But answer The interpreting the Spirit thus in the letter and in consequence hath much darkned the glory of the Gospell When some of Christs Disciples took his words as you do under a condition Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man c. the words saith he that I speake are Spirit Consider but what 〈◊〉 you bring the Gospell into first you make life appearing to be had in the Covenant of Grace as at first in the Covenant of Works Do this and live so beleeve repent obey and live thus runs your Doctrine nar can you with all your distinctions make Faith in this consideration lesse then a worke and so put Salvation upon a condition of works againe Is this Free-Grace or But you say Faith is a gift freely given of God and here is Free-grace still But I pray Is this any more Free-Frace respectively
there be they never so sinfull to us or themselves they are not so to him who hath chosen them not to him in whom they are chosen And this is the mystery why Christ is offered to Sinners or Rogues or whatsoever you call them they are as touching the Election beloved for the Fathers sake I speak of men to whom Christ gives power to receive him and beleeve on him and become the Sons of God and Christ findes them out in their sins and visits them who sit in the region and shadow of death and them that are darknesse he makes light in the Lord To your fourth That God may be provoked to wrath by his Children I pray Can God be as the Son of man Is there any variablenesse or shadow of change in him Can he love and not love Doth he hate persons or sins Is he said to chastise as Fathers otherwise then in expressions after the manner of men because of the infirmities of our flesh must we conceive so of God as of one another Can he be provoked for 〈◊〉 done away and abolished Hath Christ taken away all the sin of his Hath he borne all upon his body or no Speakes he of anger otherwise then by way of Allusion and Allegory as a Father c. And is that He is a Father after the fashion of men Or speaks he not in the Old Testament according to the Revelation of himselfe then and in the New Testament of himselfe now only because our infirmity and his own manner of appearing which is not yet so but we may beare him in such expressions and yet not so in such expressions but we may see more of him and his love and the glory of Salvation in other expressions and not make up such a love as you commonly do of benevolence and complacence Did David and Peter as you say make up their peace with God by Rapentance Is there any that makes peace but one Jesus Christ who makes peace through the bloud of his Crosse Can Repentance make peace Or Obedience make peace Is there any sacrifice for sin but that which was once offered even he that appeared in the end of the world to put away sin by the sacrifice of himselfe And was not this called by the Apostle One sacrifice for sins for ever Repentance Obedience c. may make way for the peace made already for sin that is in such workings of the Spirit the love of God in the face of Iesus Christ may shine upon the Soule more freely and fully and the more the Spirit abounds in the fruits of it the more joy and peace flows into the Soule and the more the Soule looks Christ in the face so as peace with God is not made but more revealed by the Spirit in obedience and love c. To your fifth That God loves us for his own graces in us I thought he had loved us too in himselfe and from that love given Christ for us and yet loved us in Christ too Can any thing without God be a cause of Gods love Doth God love as we love one another from complexions or features without or loves he not rather thus God is love and therefore we are made and Redeemed and Sanctified not because we are Sanctified therefore he loves us We love him because he first loved us he loved us because he loved us and not because we love him not because of any Spirituall complexion or feature in us because of his Image upon us that is but an earnest of his love to us that is only given us because he loved us he loves us from his will not from without for though we are like him yet we are not himselfe and he loves us as in Christ and himselfe Whereas you say God is as man and as a Father I hope you meane not as in himselfe but as in his wayes of speaking and appearing to us and if so we are agreed But your taking things more in the Letter then the Spirit makes your Divinity lesse Divine and your conceptions more like things of men then of God This makes the Gospell so legall and carnall when we rise little higher then the bare Letter or Scripture not the inspiration by which it came all Scripture being given by inspiration To your sixth That Faith is not a pers●sion more or lesse of Gods love and that all may have that I pray mistake not Can all beleeve from the Spirit Can all be more or lesse spiritually perswaded Do I speake of any perswasion of Christs love which is not Spirituall Deceive not your selfe nor your Reader nor wrong not your Author or do I speak of Faith abstracted from all Repentance Obedience c why deale ye thus When you say men may beleeve too suddenly because I presse men to beleeve and you instance in Simon Magus Was he blamed for beleeving too suddenly or for mis-beleeving because he beleeved the gifts of the Holy Ghost were to be bought with money Can any beleeve too soon if some mis-beleeve or beleeve falsly what is that to them that truly beleeve Shall the unbeliefe of some make the Faith of God without effect God forbid Can Christ be too soon a Saviour to us Can the Fountaine be too soon opened for sin Can the riches of Christ be too soon brought home Paul counts it an honour to be first in Christ Salute Andronicus and ●unia who were in Christ before me and the Church in Priscilla's house and Epenetus who were the first fruits of Achaia unto Christ To your seventh That Christ bids us repent as well as beleeve yea first repent Yea but will you take the Doctrine of the Gospell from a part or summary of it as you say and not from the Gospell in its fulnesse and glory and Revelation Will ye gather Doctrines of Truth as Ruth for a while did gleanings here one eare of Corne and there another and not rather go to the full sheafe to Truth in the Harvest and Vintage Will you pluck up Truth by pieces and parcels in Repentance and Obedience and Selfe deniall and not reveale these as Christ may be most glorified and the Saint● most Sanctified and these gifts most Spiritualized and improved Will ye Preach Doctrines as they lie in the Letter or in their Analogie and inference of Truth The Papists Preach Christs very flesh and bloud to be in the Wine And why but because they looke but halfe way to the demonstration of Truth in the Spirit they shut up Christ in one Not●●● and not in another and so loses the Truth by revealing it in that Forme of words which is too narrow for it and too short of the height and depth and length of it You say We are to try our Faith So say I too if you would not pick and choose in my Book to make me some other thing then you find me But you mean we must try our Faith for assurance as