Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
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A48584
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A treatise of election and reprobation in vindication of the universal grace and love of God to mankind by B.L.
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Lindley, Benjamin, d. 1723.
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1700
(1700)
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Wing L2312; ESTC R28788
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51,533
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66
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Chosen To which I answer Calling is an effect of God's Love and Election is from the same From God's Love to us springs his Choice of us So Calling and Election are equivalent or the same in kind But there is a degree of Election which is only said of the Faithful they were Called and Chosen and Faithful and True but though all are Called yet only a Remnant prove Faithful and True Thence it comes to pass of the many that are Called few are Chosen Wisdom saith the wise Man exalteth her Children c. If a Man commit himself unto her he shall inherit her c. At the first she will walk with him by crooked ways and bring fear and dread upon him and torment him with her Discipline until she may trust his Soul and try him by her Laws then will she return the strait way unto him and comfort him and shew him her secrets but if he go wrong she will forsake him and give him over to his own Ruine I could wish this were not G. K's own case but I am afraid on 't However it appears hence that God's Dealing with us is Conditional and what were these many called to if not to Faith and Holiness and Eternal Life And whence comes it that so few of them are chosen but from their Disobedience and Unfaithfulness Who not committing themselves to the holy Spirit of Discipline nor abiding the Trial of her Laws have gone wrong and so been forsaken and given up to their own Ruine But G. K. will neither have Election to be Conditional nor General though he must either grant this or allow a possibility of Salvation to such as are not chosen of God or Elected to Faith and Holiness as the Means nor to Eternal Life and Happiness as the End to be in due time obtained by the said Means or else agree to an absolute Reprobation of some But he saith He is well perswaded there is no absolute Reprobation c. Contr. 4. And if he allows a possibility of Salvation to such as are not Chosen c. then he will make two ways of Salvation the one by Election the other some other way he is yet to tell us of According to the first the Elect only are saved according to the latter some other People If he allow it not he must concede an absolute Reprobation of them and so take home his Contradiction Besides if he deny an Universal Salvation as free for Mankind he must also deny Universal Grace the Universality of Christ's Death who tasted Death for every Man and of the Gospel all which imply Universal Salvation tendered G. K. argues in p. 11. If Election were only Conditional why did Paul he should have said Peter exhort Believers To give all diligence to make their Calling and Election sure For how can that which is only Conditional be made sure to some more than to others Now he presseth them to make it sure to wit That they may have the assured knowledge of it Not that it was not sure unto God for as Paul declared The Foundation of God standeth sure having this Seal c. This Text stood directly in his way and therefore he endeavours the more to darken it by the Smoak of his Pit But this Fallacious and Sophistical Exposition will not do For Peter's exhorting Believers To give all diligence to make their Calling and Election sure sheweth something on their part to be done for the ascertaining it unto themselves they had it the Election belong'd unto them but they could not hold it nor be assured of their continuance in it unto the end nor bind it nor seal it to themselves but by a diligent perseverance in the Fear and Grace of God adding to their Faith Vertue c. which shows the performance of some Duty incumbent upon the Elect something to be done some Condition to be observed on their part the neglect whereof hinders them from having their Election made sure to them For we see the Text calls it their Calling and Election to whom it is directed and though it was theirs your Calling and Election yet something was still to be done to make it sure which shews it was theirs yet not so sure but that it might be forfeited and lost For if it had been so sure when he so exhorted them there had been no need to give diligence to make it sure for that which is already so needs not still to be made so nor can it thereby be made sure if it were sure before Therefore if their Election to whom Peter writ had at that time been sure his Exhortation had been ill grounded and in vain But he presseth them to make it sure saith G. K. to wit That they might have the assured knowledge on 't But he might as well have said any thing else for there 's no more evidence of this being the Apostle's meaning than that he meant any other thing nor can he perswade us Peter was so incapable or insincere in his Expression as to say one thing and mean another or that he meant not as himself saith but as G. K. saith for him And to this Query How that which is only Conditional may be made sure by some more than others I answer By Performance of the Condition as if a faithful true Master promiseth a certain Reward to each Man who will do so much Work in such a time He that useth diligence and finisheth his Work in the time allowed makes the Reward sure and such as neglect and finish not their Work in the time lose their Reward Thus that which is conditional may be made sure or may be forfeited Further G. K. saith in p. 12. The Foundation of God standeth sure c. And that this Foundation is God's Everlasting Love in his Son Christ Jesus who hath loved and chosen them in Him as his Members before the World began And though they lapsed and fell from Him their Head yet he is sent of the Father to recover and save them all and every one of them c. to wit the Elect. Here 't is plain G. K. makes only a certain Number he calls the Elect to be loved and chosen in Christ as his Members before the World began and restricts the Mission and Death of Christ to them saying That he is sent of the Father to recover and save them all and every one of them c. So according to this Doctrine Christ was not sent of the Father to be the Saviour of the World but to save them the Elect then of consequence he died not for all People for he died for none but them he was sent to save and so as he was sent to save but a particular Number he died but for that particular Number But if Christ died for all Mankind then either all Mankind were capable of Salvation and of being chosen of God in Christ Jesus or Christ died for some who were not thus choen of
Potter to make it Now it is a received Axiom Nullum simile currit quatuor therefore as no Work of God was marred in his hand Mankind came forth from him according to his designation in his own Image a Vessel of Honour c. Object 5. The Children not being yet born neither having done any good or evil that the purpose of God according to Election might stand not of Works but of him that calleth it was said The Elder shall serve the Younger as is written Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated c. Answ The Scripture speaks sometimes of singular Persons or Individuals when it is to be understood 1. Of Nations or People descending from them or 2. Of certain Spiritual States and Conditions We have instance of the first in Canaan the youngest Son of Ham Gen. 9.25 whom his Grand-father Noah cursed and denounced him a Servant of Servants to Shem and Japheth And in Esau and Jacob of whom it was fore-told The Elder should serve the Younger Gen. 25.23 And in Ephraim and Manasseh of whom it was said Gen. 48.19 The Younger should be the greater None of all which things were fulfilled in their Persons but in their Posterities c. For instance of the second Abraham had his Son Ishmae by Hagar Sara's Hand-maid a Bond-woman of Egypt of the Posterity of Ham this is said to be born after the Flesh And he had his Son Isaac by Sarah the Free-woman and this is said to be by Promise And these things saith the Apostle are an Allegory for these are the two Covenants the one from Mount Sinai Gal. 4.26 which is Hagar answering to Jerusalem that now is the other answering to Jerusalem from above The like Instance we have in Isaac Abraham's Heir and the Heir of God's Promise he had by his Wife Rebekah two Sons Jacob and Esau under whose Types are typified the Spiritual and Carnal Mind and Birth the Degenerate and Regenerate the Earthly and Heavenly c. So they are a double Instance to us in treating of this Text which is to be Mystically and not Literally understood as appears from the Blessing of Esau with the Fatness of the Earth Gen. 27.39 and the Dew of Heaven from above which is the same in effect with Jacob's Blessing only he had rule given over him but 't was only for a time for in the said Blessing the time is prophesied in which Esau should break Jacob's Yoke from off his Neck Now if God had hated Esau then Isaac could not at all have Blessed him in the Faith for whatsoever is done in the Faith is done in concurrence and accord with God but if God hated Esau and Isaac blessed him they would be contrary and repugnant the one to the other for all Blessing is of Love and so Isaac's Blessing of Esau had not been in the Faith for in it only things pleasing and acceptable to God are done and no works of jar and disagreement or contrariety to him these are not of Faith but the Scripture is express in it Heb. 11.20 That by Faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come so it must needs be that these things are an Allegory and that God did not hate Esau's Person but spoke of what he hated under the Type or Figure of him Take this Scripture literally to relate unto Esau in a strict and proper Sense and it would be of absurd and blasphemous Consequence for if it represents God as at Variance with himself and in a great degree Unhappy working without Pleasure Grace or Goodness in the Production of wretched hated Beings to Eternal Misery even Nature shrinks and is in horror at any dissimulate and monstrous Birth much more it is contrary to the God of Nature and to suppose othewise of God is no Christian but an Heathenish Notion it is so remote from Divine it is not Humane that God should be imployed in the making so many Thousand of People for the Torments of Hell Fire Such Notions had the Heathens of old concerning their Moloch and other false Deities to appease whose imagined Fury they caused their Children to pass through the Fire and become Burnt Sacrifices Having shewed the Blasphemy and Error that attends a Literal Construction of this Text and that it should be Mystically understood I shall proceed to speak something of its Mystery before I pass from hence We read in Scripture of two Seeds Mystically the Seed of the Woman which Seed is Christ who is also the Seed of the true Church and of the Kingdom of God and the Serpent's Seed or Seed of Antichrist of which cometh the false Church and Kingdom of Darkness And as every Birth hath its beginning from some Seed so of the first of these proceedeth the Birth of the Spirit called in Scripture Regeneration the New Birth the New Man c. And without this be there is no Salvation and how pure and spiritual a Seed is this Seed of the Living God of which Souls and Spirits are born Of the other proceedeth the Birth of the Flesh called in Scripture The Old Man with his Deeds Degenerate or the Vncircumcision the Reprobate Birth c. And how filthy and polluted a Seed is this Seed of the Serpent whereby Men become as Dogs Swine Serpents Dung Filth c. Now as according to the first we are in Christ Branches of him and Christ is God's Elect in whom his Soul delighteth blessed above all for ever And according to the other we are of the Devil Children of him Sprouts out of his Stock and the Devil only is God's Enemy cursed above all Cattle and above every Beast of the Field So of the first of these Election is predicated and Reprobation of the latter We are in a State of Election or Reprobation as we are related to the one or other of these Births if we live according to the one we shall die or the other we shall live Note For the prevention of mistakes in the weakest Reader that this Birth called the Birth of the Flesh is not to be understood simply of the Natural Birth but as fallen into Carnal-mindedness And the Scripture teacheth That to be Carnally-minded Rom. 8.6 7. is Death but to be Spiritually-minded is Life and Peace that the Carnal Mind is Enmity against God it is not subject to the Law of God nor indeed can be so they that are in the Flesh cannot please God This Mind is Dead an Enemy a Rebel and can never be otherwise it 's not capable of being made better to please God or to be subject to him or live there is neither Life Salvation or Blessing belongs to it it is not Heir to or capable of any good it is none of God's Works but is of the Evil One This is the Reprobate's Description On the other hand That which is born of the Spirit is Spirit this Birth is willing to all good it is its