But from thence it unavoidably follows that the Devil wants nothing but Supream Power to legitimate all his Wickedness and to change the nature of it from Wickedness to Goodness If that Spirit had Supream Power we must call him as we now do GOD most Holy most Just most Righteous And seeing God hath all Power and Authority it would on this Hypothesis be in him Righteous Good and Praise-worthy if He were pleased to damn his most faithful Servants to break the Covenant and disappoint the Hopes of Life and Happiness which he hath confirmed by his Oath and on the contrary should think fit to save not only the most Godless and Impious Men but the very Devils These Consequences are unavoidable on the before-said Hypothesis or Doctrine that Things and Actions are not Good or Evil in themselves but only by the Will of Supream Power and they that admit of such Consequences or cannot decline them how can they be disputed with But let us see what is the Doctrine of the Vnitarians concerning the first Sin or pretended Fall of Adam and the Consequences thereof What Vnitarians teach concerning the Sin of Adam and the Consequences thereon WE say when Almighty God had formed the Protoplasts Adam and Eve He forthwith declared them Proprietors and Lords of whatsoever is in the Earth or Seas Gen. 1.28 Have Dominion saith God there to them over the Fish of the Sea over the Fowl of the Air and over every living thing that moveth on the Earth And I have given you every Herb and every Tree Adam having thus received from his unspeakable Maker such Marks of his Favour was admonish'd withal that he must remember he is a Creature and has received of another whatsoever he is or hath Notwithstanding thou hast to deal with such a Soveraign as will not require of thee unreasonable or troublesom Testimonies of thy Regards and Respects to him See the whole World is before thee and it is all given to thee only in this Paradise there is one Fruit the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledg of that thou art not to eat 'T is the Obedience that thy Maker requires of thee 't is the only Trial his Goodness is pleased to make of thy Love and Duty to him If thou breakest this Charge the Penalty is that thy Life presently departs from thee the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt die that is shalt return to Dust from whence as much of thee as is visible and as thou art yet aware of was taken It cannot be denied that this was the most proper of all Trials the most prudent of all Commands Adam could not be forbid to commit Adultery or Fornication there being but one Woman and she also his Wife or Murder because he had too much occasion for Evt and she for him to entertain such Thoughts or Theft for all the World was theirs But he was thorowly tried by the Prohibition of the Tree of Knowledg because of our natural Thirst of Knowledg and the Ambition all have to be wise It is not necessary however to determine whether the forbidden Fruit had indeed a Power to sharpen the Faculties of the Mind Understanding and Memory 'T was sufficient for the Trial God designed to make of Adam's Obedience only to name or call that Fruit the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledg There was nothing more just than that Adam should be satisfied with the great Advantages he already possest for all the Creatures whether Animate or Inanimate were his and he could not but be sensible that his present Knowledg or Understanding was sufficient both for himself and them But Adam was perswaded by Satan to endeavour himself to make himself more like to Elohim i. e. to the Angels and Spirits of Heaven by the use of the forbidden Fruit. Thou shalt know saith the Tempter if thou follow my Counsel Good and Evil the meaning seemeth to be Thou shalt know whatsoever Good and Evil is in every thing by the use of this happy Fruit. He that forbids thee this Fruit has confest its Virtue in the Name he was given to it why therefore has he forbad it to thee but because he is envious jealous or morose Ye shall not surely die by eating this Fruit for how should it be more mortal to you than to the Serpent and to so many other Beasts and Birds as daily gather it up Adam hearkens to these and such like Reasonings eats the forbidden Fruit and thereby becomes obnoxious to the Penalty even present Death But it pleased God to defer the threatned Punishment or Penalty he deferred it for upwards of nine hundred Years which seem to be Lunar Years that is Months notwithstanding what Dr. Lightfoot and others have urged for such kind of Years as are now in use Their Arguments are partly Mistakes partly Inadvertences partly groundless Conjectures But tho the threatned Punishment was not presently executed on Adam and Eve yet the Wisdom of God did not think fit to incourage Sin by wholly passing over this beginning of it He punish'd Adam and caution'd his Posterity by cursing the Earth that is by causing it to bring forth Thorns and Thistles c. as well as profitable Seeds and Plants so that Adam and his Descendents must now Manure and Till the Ground if they would have a regular Harvest of Seeds and Fruits Against Eve he pronounced that whereas Conceiving and Child-bearing are naturally and necessarily both sickly and painful in some degree yet both these should be more troublesome to her than usual or natural I will GREATLY multiply thy Sorrows in thy Conception and with Sorrow shalt thou bring forth saith the Angel who represented God Gen. 3.16 The Holy Scriptures go no farther than this in the account they give of the Sin of Adam and the Punishment and Consequences thereof saving that they expresly contradict the Doctrine of Trinitarians concerning a threefold Death Temporal Spiritual and Eternal which was inflicted they say on Adam and on all his Descendents for his Sin Where shall we look for the true Explication or Meaning of the Penalty or Punishment annex'd to a Law but in the Sentence which the Judg and Lawgiver himself passes on the Offender The Law was this The day thou eatest thereof of the forbidden Fruit thou shalt die Gen. 2.17 that is say the Vnitarians Thou shalt return to Dust thy Life and Spirit shall leave thy Body and be disposed of as shall seem good to thy Maker who in Judgment always remembers Mercy Let us now see in the Sentence whether this was not indeed the whole meaning of these words of the Law Thou shalt die Gen. 3.19 Dust thou art and to Dust thou shalt return Here is the evident Declaration from the Mouth of the Judg and Law-giver giving Sentence what was meant by the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt DIE. And this Penalty Punishment and Sentence was at length executed on Adam tho he had the favour of a long Reprieve
Thought as that of David was it came solely from David not from God for in that very Context 2 Sam. Ch. 7. God disallowed and forbad it declaring withal that He had reserved that Work for Solomon the Son of David No one will be so unchristian as to deny that 't was a good Thought and Action in St. Paul and his Company that they attempted to preach the Gospel in Bithynia but it came from themselves not from God for the Text says God suffer'd them not so to do Acts 16.7 7. If our Case were such with respect to Good and Evil as our Opposers pretend that is if all the Good we do and all the Evil we forbear is only by a daily hourly and momentary Grace for so they affect to speak inspired infused or blown into us The Words of the Divine Law should be directed to God's Grace in us not to us But now this is not only not so but the Phrase and Expression used in the Law or Commandment plainly supposes that we can obey by our own proper Powers Such in particular is that remarkable Text at Ezek. 18.31 32. Make you a new Heart and a new Spirit for why will ye die O House of Israel I have no pleasure in the Death of him that dieth wherefore turn your selves and live ye 8. Our Ability to Good as well as Evil is evinced also by this that God declares he will punish the neglect of Duty and every evil Doer after a most terrible and condign manner This would be too apparently unjust and tyrannical if himself hath so made us that we cannot do that Duty or forbear that Evil without a particular and extraordinary Grace and Aid which is in the Gift and Power of God only and which he refuseth or omitteth to bestow on us Our Opposers deny that we can so much as pray for that Grace or Aid of God by which to do Good and forbear Evil for they say the very Affectus orandi the Inclination or Intent to pray is purely the Gift of God As for the Word and Sacraments another means for obtaining God's Grace we shall see hereafter that our Opposers make the outward Word of no Efficacy ascribing all to the inward Word which is not at all in our Power and in order to any Benefit by the Sacraments so called they require a great many previous Graces which are only in the Hand of God So that after all their Subterfuges Evasions and Shifts their Doctrine concerning Grace amounts to this God will punish Men eternally in Hell-Fire for not doing and for not forbearing what 't was not in them to do or forbear without such an extraordinary Grace of God as was wholly in him to give and not at all in them to attain or get As to the Texts by them alledged to prove that all is done by the Grace of God and that we are impotent and averse also to all Good They have been often told by the Socinians and Remonstrants and in the Annotations of the excellent Grotius how those Texts are to be understood To them therefore I refer without ingaging in so long and tedious a Digression Of the Word and Sacraments NOW that the Elect may obtain the before mentioned Grace of God by which to believe aright and to do that which Good is the Trinity have appointed the Word and Sacraments A Sacrament consists of two Parts an outward visible Sign and an inward invisible Grace or Energy The visible Sign of the Sacrament of Baptism is Water the inward Grace is New Birth unto Faith and Righteousness By this Sacrament even Infants are regenerated or born again by the Spirit co-operating that is to say Faith Obedience and other saving Graces are conferred in this Sacrament on Elect Infants In the Sacrament of the Supper the outward Sign is Bread and Wine the inward Energy or Grace accompanying it is first Remission of Sins next the refreshing and strengthening our Souls in Faith and other Graces These things are amply and often taught us by the English Church both in the publick Catechism and in the Offices or Forms of administring Baptism and the Lord's-Supper The Word is another appointed means of Grace but no one is to think that 't is by Arguments used by a Preacher or by the Rewards or Punishments held forth in the Word whether written or preach'd or such-like external and human means that our Minds are savingly convinced or our Wills and Affections rightly disposed No no the inward and ineffable Word which God himself speaks to the Heart and which towards the Elect accompanies the Word preach'd or read when and as oft as God pleases this is that only Word which begets Faith worketh Obedience and in one word that whole Renovation or Change which denominateth a Man or Woman the Child or Servant of God And thus much is plainly and undeniably intimated in the Collects and other Prayers and Offices of our English Service-Book and is the known Doctrine of all the Orthodox of all indeed but Socinians and such as are more or less Socinianiz'd The English Service-Book and the Articles are so clearly for these Doctrines that it hath occasioned this Declaration of what may be meant when Men subscribe to the Articles Homilies and Service-Book to be favourably received even this that Men subscribe not to the Truth but to the use of the Service-Book and again they subscribe to the Articles as to Articles of Peace and Communion which they will not publickly impugn in the station of Preachers not as to Articles of Faith or of absolute and undoubted Verity This is the sense in which perhaps most Men now subscribe to the Homilies Articles and Service-Book and which upon occasion they declare to be the meaning of their Subscription But all such are reformed according to the Model not of our first Reformers but of Socinus Arminius and Episcopius whatsoever the Station may be that they hold in the Church The Notes The Sum of this Doctrine is tho we are so made by God as to be by Nature impotent to all Good and disposed to all Evil yet to cure the Elect tho not wholly yet in part of this corrupt and depraved Condition of our Minds and Souls God has appointed the Word and Sacraments Which are a sort of means that work not by any natural Energy of their own nor by any Harmony Sutableness or Agreeableness to our Powers Faculties or Natures but by a Theurgical Telestick and Mystical Operation Which is to say they work on our Minds as Spells Charms and Incantations and such like obtain their pretended Effects namely by a Praeternatural Power extraordinarily given to them by God or by those Spirits that preside over such Affairs Let a Man in black sprinkle you with some of the Church's Water or give you a bit of Bread or a sup of Wine over which he has pronounced the Wonder-working Words prescribed in Mother Church's Ritual tho by Nature you
meer Human Nature continuing and abiding a bare and meer Human Nature is a Divine Nature For in affirming it hath Infinite Dignity and Merit how much soever they may say in words 't is a bare and meer Human Nature they have in sense affirmed 't is a Divine Nature For what is Divine but as much as to say of Infinite Dignity and Infinite Excellence or Merit The third Wonder is That by Virtue of the Incarnation of a Divine Person in an Human Nature the Divine Person or God must be said to have been born in Time to have suffered and died and on the contrary the Humanity or Man Christ Jesus must be said to have been from all Eternity to be Omnipotent Omnipresent Creator of all things and whatsoever else is said of God But that our Opposers may not complain that they are misrepresented I must own this is only the fore part of the Prodigy the other end or hinder part is of a contrary Nature For tho you must say God was born God suffered God died yet saith their Doctrine farther you are not really to think God can be born in Time can suffer or can die and on the other hand you must say the Man Christ Jesus was from all Eternity created the World is Omnipresent and Omnipotent but you are not so to think The reason is because the Communication of the Properties of the Divinity to the Humanity and of the Humanity to the Divinity is not real but only nominal or in words Now Unitarians being but plain Fellows and having Country Consciences like not this juggling that we must say one thing and must think or mean another Yet because we ought to yield to hard things for Peace sake if our Opposers are content that we may do so also in the other Articles that is if they are content that we only say as is said in those Articles and may declare at the same time that we think the contrary and if Trinitarians will also so do in those Articles we will comply with them in this third Wonder or Mystery of the Incarnation And this is the only Composition that can possibly be agreed to in these Controversies without renouncing our Christianity our reasonable Faculties and our Senses Of Grace IT is true the Lord Christ God and Man in one Person paid down a more than sufficient Ransom for the Actual Deliverance of a thousand Worlds from the Imputation of Adam's Sin and the Consequences of that Imputation even the three Deaths yet the Ransom was not accepted for all but only for the Elect nor yet was it accepted for Deliverance from the whole Punishment but only from part of it For no Man is thereby delivered from such a share of Spiritual Death as to be able to do a good Action or think a good Thought without an immediate and particular Assistance or GRACE of God's Spirit beginning continuing and perfecting such good Action or Thought in him and by him As hath been often defined and concluded in the Councils of the Orthodox in opposition to the Heresy of Pelagius revived by Vnitarians and Arminians The Notes After they have tried their Skill in misrepresenting and deforming the true Idea we ought to have of God and of his Perfections and Attributes our Opposers proceed to calumniate Human Nature the Image of God and will have it to be the Image of the Devil They tell us we come into the World so depraved in all our Faculties and Powers that we cannot do any good Action no nor think a good Thought without a particular and extraordinary Grace of God beginning continuing and perfecting such good Action or Thought in us and by us In sober sadness is this the Character of that sort of Creature of whom the Apostle saith be is made in the similitude of God James 3.9 Or is it the very Description of the Devil himself if at least it be not a Calumny even of him Will God own such a Creature as his Similitude as has a natural Impotence to all that is holy and good and a violent and perpetual Biass to Evil only and to every kind of Evil Yes they say our Likeness to God consists not in a Capacity to Holiness or ought that good is but in the Dominion we have over some Creatures in this lower World But by this account of our Likeness to God he that is most of all unlike to God is much more the Similitude and Image of God than Man is the Dominion and Power of Satan is incomparably greater and larger than Man's is therefore in their Hypothesis he is more the Similitude of God than Man is But as absurd as these things are I will not now insist on them but content my self to acquaint the Reader with some of the principal Reasons of the Vnitarians why they hold that Man is a free Agent as capable of doing Good as Evil nay more capable of the former because he has more reason for it than of the latter not the Slave to only one of the Contraries but at absolute liberty towards both 1. Our Blushes and Remorses for having acted at any time otherways than we ought are Testimonies and Witnesses of our certain and internal Consciousness that we could have done as Religion and Duty require of us that is could have forbore that Evil and have done the contrary Good 2. Deliberation and Consultation what and how we are to act argue also not only that we are free but that we are sensible we are so 3. We experience that our Piety and Vertue are our own Work by the Difficulty we feel and the slow Progress we are able to make in attaining those Habits and in subduing the contrary Habits 4. If Men are good not by a spontaneous Choice or Power of their own but only by an extraordinary and immediate Aid no tolerable reason can be given why we should not always be acted to Good or why we are but partially and imperfectly Good Is it credible that God should do his own Work in us after a desultory inconstant and impersect manner 5. What Piety or Vertue is it or how can God love or esteem any Person whether Him or Her for that well-doing or that abstinence from Evil which was not their own Choice Will or Discretion but the Work and Effect solely of God's Grace acting by them or in them 6. That every good Thought and Action is not an Inspiration or the Gift or Grace of God is confirmed by this that God doth sometimes disallow and forbid some good Intentions and Actions of his Servants Thus 't was a good Thought and Intention in David that he would build an House for the Lord a Temple for God's publick Worship and Service 't was so good a Thought and Purpose that it was rewarded with a Promise from God that God would build David 's House i. e. would establish and confirm his Family on the Throne of Judah and Israel But as good a
Person They confound us yet more if more can be by telling us only and so often of the Creator never of Creators as Trinitarians would have us to speak Gen. 6.7 Jebovah said I will destroy Man whom I have made Isa 42.5 HE that created the Heavens HE that spread out the Earth HE that giveth Breath unto the People Nehem. 9.6 THOV hast made the Heaven the Heaven of Heavens with all their Host the Earth and all things therein the Sea and all that is therein and THOV preservest them all and the Host of Heaven worshippeth THEE This Text assures us there was no dividing the work between two or more Persons It was one THOU who both created and preserves all things and THEE saith the Text the the Host of Heaven worshippeth not YE not THEM not more Persons but one only Isa 4.28 The CREATOR of the Ends of the Earth fainteth not Rom. 1.25 Served the Creature more than Gr. besides the CREATOR But what is not really found in Scripture for their purpose Trinitarians know how to discover that 't is there which with respect to the case before us they do these two ways First by interpreting the Texts which by Confession of their ablest Criticks speak of the new Creation or Renovation of the World from Idolatry to the Knowledg of the one true God which was by Christ concerning the old Creation or the making of Heaven and Earth which was by God Secondly They oft-times honestly add the word or words that were wanting on their behalf which they have done in abundance of Contexts But for both these Artifices their Detection and their Confutation I refer to the brief History of the Vnitarians Of Original Sin SOon after the Creation Adam the first Man transgressing the Law given to him of not eating the forbidden Fruit he thereby incurred the Penalty of Death that was the Penalty annex'd to the Law which he had violated But first he incurred this Penalty not only for himself who was the actual and real Offender but for his whole Posterity God impating to them or reckoning to them his Offence as if they had been the Doers of it Secondly We are to know that in the word Death there is implied not only what is naturally and commonly meant thereby even the Separation of the Soul from the Body and the Body's returning to Dust but first such a Corruption and Depravation of our Faculties that we are all born naturally averse from every good Word and Work and inclined to Evil only and to all kinds of Evil. Then all Temporal Calamities and Evils to which human Life is subject and finally Eternal Damnation All these are implied in the words of the Sanction The day thou eatest thereof thou shalt die and they are by Divines commonly called the three Deaths or the threefold Death Spiritual Temporal and Eternal But we mean not to say that the word Death doth in its first or proper Signification import all the abovesaid Evils But it pleased God when He passed Sentence on Adam to extend the Signification of that Word which exprest and contained the Penalty of his Law 'T is true 't would be cried out on as most unjust among Men to reckon or impute the Transgression of a Father to his Children and other Posterity and much more if they were punish'd for it in a far more extream manner than is truly and indeed implied in the Penalty annex'd to the Law that was violated that is if the Word or Words of the Penalty were extended and strained beyond their proper and natural meaning Yet these things cannot be unjust with God because He can do no Unjustice and the reason of that is because Things or Actions are not just or unjust in themselves or in their own Natures but only as God who hath all Authority and Power either willeth and commandeth them or on the contrary nilleth and forbiddeth them The Notes This Postulatum that Things or Actions are not just or unjust in themselves or in their own Natures but only as the Supream Authority and Power that is to say GOD shall please to will or nill them to command or forbid them is indeed necessary to the Defence of such Doctrines as these that God doth arbitrarily impute the Sin of one Man to all Men and that in punishing those whom he hath made guilty by his meer Will he infinitely exceeds the true proper and natural Signification of the Words in the Sanction that is of the words of that part of his Law which contain the Penalty of transgressing it That Postulatum is so necessary to this Doctrine of Original Sin that it must be owned that the Calvinists have judged better and spoke more consistently than their Opposers of some other Sects and Churches who hold Original Sin as 't is before described and yet seem unwilling to allow of that only Basis on which Calvinists have rightly seen it will stand namely this that Just and Unjust Good and Evil are only the Will and Prohibition of him that hath Supream Power But as the Postulatum is necessary to the Doctrine for which it was devised so it as much destroys the Eternal Rectitude and Holiness of God as the Doctrines in the foregoing Paragraphs which have been already considered overthrow the Unity the Omnipresence and other his Essential Perfections and Attributes It is horrible but to think that these Imputations on the most Holy God are such as would make up the just Character of an Almighty Devil For if the Devil had Supream Power what worse could he do than they feign is done by the Fountain it self of Rectitude and Holiness Could he do worse than impute the Sin of one Man to all Men and punish them for it besides and beyond his own Sanction with an utter Inability to all that is good then punish Inability which was neither their Act nor Desert and of which himself was the only cause with Eternal Damnation Here many to help themselves a little say God saves some from this Ruine he rescues his Elect tho not from Sin and Temporal Death and Calamity yet from Eternal Damnation nay bestows on them the unspeakable and everlasting Beatitudes of Heaven But this is no better than the other For the highest Injustice to the far-greater number is so far from being excused by an ungrounded Partiality for a very few that this latter may be truly called a new and fresh Instance of sort of Unjustice Is it not Partiality and Vnjustice too to make a great number of Creatures of the same kind and tho one deserves no more than another of them either for Good or Evil cherish one with whatsoever Omnipotence can do for him and burn against the other with Wrath eternal and insupportable But they say God having all Authority and Power what He willeth must needs be Law that is to say Justice and what He nills or forbids must be Transgression that is to say Evil Sin and Vnjustice