on directing and sending the poor sin-sick wounded Sinner to the Son of God with his Wounds and Plague-sores to be healed pressing him to believe in the Son of God out of whom no Salvation is to be found Hereto I add the peremptory Command of God himself that the poor despairing Soul believe on the Son of God 1 Jo. 2.23 Mark 16.16 By these Methods and Ways of God's own appointment God is pleased to work saving Conversion and effectual Faith in the Souls of elect Sinners To what hath been offered out of God's own Word to prove the Doctrine of Particular Election before time I here set down the Judgment of the most Orthodox Protestant Churches concerning the same Not that I think the Word of God stands in any need of Humane Testimony to help it out but rather to shew forth the sweet Harmony which is between the Holy Scriptures and the Saints of God in their Holy and Orthodox Confessions of their Faith concerning the present so much controverted and impugned Doctrine of Election and Reprobation before time As also to shame those nominal Protestants both Non. and Conformists who have so apparently turn'd the back upon their own Articles of Faith whereby both the one and the other Party hath not a little strengthened the Foundation of the Jesuits hope of bringing England's Neck once more under the Papal Yoke From which I heartily wish and sincerely pray that God will ever keep us I begin with the Church of England Predestination to Life is the everlasting Purpose of God whereby before the Foundations of the World were laid he hath constantly decreed by his Counsel secret to us to deliver from Curse and Damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of Mankind and to bring them by Christ to everlasting Salvation as Vessels made to Honour Wherefore they which be endued with so excellent a Benefit of God be called according to God's Purpose by his Spirit working in due season They through Grace obey the Calling they be justified freely they be made Sons of God by Adoption they be made like the Image of his only begotten Son Jesus Christ they walk religiously in good Works and at length by God's Mercy they attain to everlasting Felicity See 39 Articles of the Church of England Article 17th of Predestination and Election Secondly The Confession of Faith agreed upon by the Assembly of Divines at Westminster By the Decree of God for the Manifestation of his Glory some Men and Angels are predestinated to everlasting Life and others to everlasting Death 1 Tim. 5.21 Mat. 25.41 Rom. 9.22 These Angels and Men thus Predestinated and fore Ordained are particularly and unchangeably design'd and their number is so certain and definite that it cannot be either encreased or diminshed Those of Mankind that are Predestinated unto Life God before the Foundation of the World was laid according to his eternal and immutable Purpose and the secret Counsel and good Pleasure of his Will hath chosen in Christ unto everlasting Glory out of his meer free Grace and Love without any foresight of Faith or good Works or Perseverance in either of them or any other thing in the Creature as Conditions or Causes moving him thereunto and all to the praise of the Glory of his Grace As God hath appointed the Elect unto Glory so hath he by the eternal and most free Purpose of his Will fore-ordain'd all the means thereunto 1 Pet. 1.2 Ephes 1.4 5. Ephes 2.10 2 Thes 2.13 Wherefore they who are Elected being fallen in Adam are Redeemed by Christ are effectually called unto Faith in Christ by his Spirit working in due Season are Justified Adopted Sanctified and kept by his Power through Faith unto Salvation 1 Thes 5.9 10. Tit. 2.14 Rom. 8.10 Ephes 1.5 1 Pet. 1.5 Neither are any other Redeemed by Christ effectually Called Justified Adopted Sanctified and Saved but the Elect only Jo. 17.9 Rom. 8.28 Jo. 10.26 The rest of Mankind God was pleased according to the unsearchable Counsel of his own Will whereby he extendeth or withholdeth Mercy as he pleaseth for the Glory of his Soveraign Power over his Creatures to pass by and to ordain them to Dishonour and Wrath for their Sin to the praise of his glorious Justice Mat. 11.25 26. Rom. 2.12 2 Tim. 2.19 1 Pet. 2.8 See The Assemblys Confession of Faith Chap. 3. of the eternal Decree of God To this the Church of Scotland hath fully agreed With this also agrees the Articles of Faith of the Church of Ireland in Bishop Vsher's time See those Articles And Vsher's Body of Divinity Quest What are the parts of Predestination Answ Election and Reprobation 1 Thes 5.9 Rom. 9.13 22 23. Quest What is Election Answ It is the everlasting Predestination or Fore-appointing of certain Angels and Men unto everlasting Life and Blessedness for the praise of his Grace and Goodness 1 Tim. 5.21 Jo. 15.16 Rom. 9.22 23. Ephes 1.4 5 6 9. Quest What is Reprobation Answ It is the eternal Predestination or Fore-appointment of certain Angels and Men unto everlasting Dishonour and Destruction God of his own freewill determining to pass them by refuse or cast them off and for Sin to Condemn and Punish them with eternal Death Prov. 16.4 Exod. 9.16 Rom. 9.17 22. 2 Tim. 2.20 Mat. 25.41 See Vsher's Body of Divinity pag. 91 92. The Church of France in the 12th Article of the Confession of her Faith hath these words viz. We believe that God out of that Corruption and general Curse into which all Men were plung'd doth free those whom in his eternal and immutable Counsel he elected of his meer Goodness and Mercy in our Lord Jesus Christ without the Consideration of Works leaving the rest in the same Corruption and Damnation to shew forth in these his Justice and in them the Riches of his Mercy for none of them are better than others because God hath separated them c. The Synod of Dort in the 7th Canon doth lay down this plain and clear Definition of Election thus viz. Election is the unchangeable Purpose of God by which before the Foundation of the World according to the free good pleasure of his Will of his meer Grace he hath chosen out of all Mankind to Salvation in Christ a certain and set number of Men neither better nor more worthy than others but lying in the common Misery with others and fallen from original Righteousness into Sin and Destruction by their own fault c. And in the 15th Canon of Reprobation they say thus viz. The Holy Scripture doth manifest and commend unto us this eternal and free Grace especially when it doth farther witness That not all Men are elected but that some are not elected or are passed by in the eternal Election of God viz. Those whom God according to his free just unreproveable and immutable good Pleasure decreed to leave in the common Misery into which they had cast themselves by their own fault and not to
refusing to receive and submit to the contrary Doctrine which is according to the Scriptures and the only Doctrine which designs the Destruction of Sin in the Hearts and Lives of true Believers and the Promoter of true Holiness God most Justly punisheth such People with a giving them up not only to believe the most Nonsensical Lyes for true Religion but even to wallow like Swine in the Mire of the grossest Immoralities even to an excelling the very Pagan World To illustrate the point I am now defending against the Quakers and Arminians viz. That God in Electing some and Reprobating others doth Act therein most freely as an absolute Soveraign Let them give me leave to put this Question to their Reason and Conscience such as it is suppose that all the several Parties in the City who differ in their Mode or Way of Worshipping God should in their respective Meetings instead of Worshipping God lay all their Heads Hearts and Hands together to contrive and carry on a Plot against the King and the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom with a full intent to destroy both the one and the other to which Plot all the several Parties do as one Man harmoniously and unanimously agree the Law condemns not only the Practice as Traiterous and Treasonable but Sentences the very Persons all and singular who are prov'd to have had any hand in such a Plot to a shameful and cruel Death The Plot comes to be Discovered upon Discovery the King who hath the Executive Power of the Law in his own hand he considers the matter and finding that all these several Parties whom he took to be Loyal Subjects are turned Rebels as most evidently appears by the unnatural Plot lately engaged in by them all against both his Person and Government for which both he and they know full well the Law condemns them all alike The King to whom the Executive Power of the Law belongs according to his Prerogative he Nominates two Select Parties out of all the rest viz. Quakers and Arminians to whom he resolves to extend his Favour in giving to them his Royal Pardon the other several Parties distinct from them he resolves to leave them to the Sentence of the Law to undergo the deserved Penalty thereof for that horrid and unnatural Rebellion I would fain know what the Quakers and Arminians could object against the King of England for passing an Act of Indemnity or Free Pardon on the People called Quakers and Arminians and leaving all the other Parties to suffer Death Seeing that herein the King Acts by Prerogative not according to Desert for the Quakers and Arminians deserved Death as well as the rest who are excluded out of the Pardon My reason tells me that the Quakers and Arminians would be so far from charging the King with Injustice or Partiality that they would rather sound forth his Praise for saying them by his Favour and Mercy no way deserved whom in strictness of Justice he might have left to the Sentence of the Law And in case any of the Criminals condemned to Die should offer to murmur against the King for making such a Difference between his equally guilty Subjects would not the Quaker and the Arminian both Plead the Kings Prerogative for saving themselves when at the same time and by the same Soveraignty he past by the rest and shall the King of Kings be Disputed against and Reflected on for Acting in matters of the like nature by his own undoubted Prerogative If any should be so saucy and bold as to demand a reason why or wherefore the King of England should leave seven or eight several Parties out of his Royal Pardon and extend the Benefit thereof only to two Select Parties who were both as liable to Death by the Law as the others the Answer is ready it is the Kings Soveraign Will and Pleasure to make the two Select Parties Nominated in his Pardon Objects of his Pity and Mercy and the rest to be the Objects of his incensed Justice to undergo that Death and Misery which they by Rebeilion brought upon themselves Now in all this hath not the Potter power over the Clay of the same lump to make one Vessel to Honour and another to Dishonour Rom. 9.21 Reader I pray consider that the lump in the place now quoted intends no other than Men and Women whom God the absolute Soveraign of the World Decreed to Create The making Vessels is Gods Creating Mankind with a purpose to permit their Fall His making one Vessel to Honour and the other to Dishonour is Gods Creating one with a sixed purpose to recover him out of that fallen State into which he was to fall and that by Soveraign Grace the other he leaves to Die and Perish in that wretched State into which he of his own default fell In this Procedure God is altogether free neither can the Creature so left by God any way reflect on God as dealing unjustly or unequally with him and the reason is because God is under no Tye or Obligation to give Grace to that Creature who of his own accord did abuse and throw away that stock of Grace whereby he was rendred capable of keeping the Law of his Maker and who by the Instinct of his vitiated and corrupted Nature doth obstinately oppose and resist the means of Cure propounded and tendred in the Gospel So that the point in Controversy between me and the Adversaries already Named is in this comparison propounded in the Verse last quoted lively set forth from which it is apparent that the design of the Apostle is to prove that God as the undoubted Soveraign of the World who Acts what him pleaseth and that according to the Counsel of his own most Holy Will decreed to make some of the corrupted Mass to be Vessels of Mercy and of the rest Vessels of Wrath and that by Electing some unto himself upon whom he purposed to bestow his Love with all the means tending to fit and prepare those Persons so Elected and Chosen for the actual enjoyment of that Love Such as a Redeemer to Die for them Faith whereby they should be made Partakers of that Redeemer with all the saving Graces of the Spirit promised in the Covenant of Grace with final perseverance in Grace to the end the rest as hath been before observed he left or passed over purposing to leave them in that wretched and deplorable Condition into which they causelesly plung'd themselves Neither is God therefore the cause why the Reprobate is Sinful and Wicked but his own Will which being left to its own natural freedom did most freely and readily choose that which was by Gods Law forbidden upon pain of Gods Displeasure and Curse The second Property in Gods Act of Election is its unchangeableness and therefore most certain it is that he or she whom God hath once purposed to Love and Save shall never finally or totally fall away from Grace or miscarry eternally Psal 33.11 The
inwardly stirred up to Adore and Magnifie the Riches of Gods Free Grace who hath vouchsafed to regard such poor contemptible Worms as they judge themselves to be Object 2. The Doctrine of particular Election cuts off the force and strength of all Threatenings and Warnings which are Recorded in the Scriptures as a Curb and Bit to restrain Men from Sin Answ The ever Blessed and Holy God who decreed to elect and choose a particular number to Salvation hath decreed also the means of bringing them to that End whereof those Threatenings and Warnings scattered here and there in God's Word are a part the which the good Spirit of God makes effectually useful to work and encrease in the Elect called to State of Grace the Filial and Reverential fear of God as also to Caution them against all kind of Declinings in the way of Holy walking with God in the way of new Obedience to his Holy Commandments the which God hath revealed in his Word to be the only way in which true Believers must go to an actual Possessing the purchased Inheritance according to Psal 1.1 2 3. Psal 119.1 2 3. Heb. 12.14 These Divine Threats and Warnings are through the saving Influence of the Spirit of Grace made a powerful Bit and Curb to restrain the savingly Converted from returning with Approbation and Delight to former and forsaken Folly and not only so but to keep them more close to their Duty in a Gospel Dependance on Christ their Mediatorial Head for all manner of Supplies till they come to Glory Those Threats and Warnings if they were ten thousand times more than they are will never curb or restrain any Reprobate from loving and liking Sin 'T is true that through the common Operation of the Spirit of God such Threats and Warnings may for a time influence a Hypocrite to a keeping him from the External gross Act of Sin and a putting him on doing many things which are Morally good in themselves But Alass what will this avail while the State of the Man is unchanged and his Heart unrenewed Sad Instances hereof are Recorded in God's Word witness Pharaoh Exod. 7.4 and Judas Mat. 26.15 Mat. 27.5 with many other Reprobates whose Names are left on Record in the Book of God who were neither restrained from Sin nor yet kept back from running headlong to Hell with this Bit in their Mouths The Spirit of God by the Holy Prophet gives a full Description of the natural Disposition of wicked Hypocrits as touching the Incorrigibleness of their Hearts in going on in Sin not only under God's Rod but also under his favourable Dispensation which one would think should win them to Repentance Jer. 5.3 Rev. 16.9 10 11. Esa 26.10 11. Rom. 2.4 5. Object 3. If I be elected to Life eternal before time I may live as I list I need neither to Believe to Repent or to use the means of obtaining Salvation And though I live after the Flesh I shall be Saved being elected Answ To this threadbare Objection which is commonly in the Mouths of all Cavillers against the Doctrine of Election I answer in two Particulars First This Objection doth not in the least find any Encouragement from the Doctrine of particular Election before time as will evidently appear by the Inseparableness of the End and the means asserted and held forth in the Word of God and constantly maintained by the Orthodox against Papists Arminians c. He who hath elected to Life eternal he hath also elected to the means such as believing in the Lord Jesus Christ held forth and offered in the Gospel Repenting for Sinning against God advancing in Holiness and Persevering in the same to the end From whence it plainly appears that he who makes this Objection is either wilfully ignorant not in the least understanding the Doctrine of Election according to Divine Revelation or which is unspeakably worse an affected Caviller and a wicked Subverter of the Gospel Suppose I should Query of the Papist the Arminian the Quaker and Freewiller who are all agreed in opposing and decrying the Doctrine of particular Election before time and Perseverance to the end whether they believe that God hath decreed or absolutely determined in himself how long he or they shall Live or continue in this World The Answer will undoubtedly be in the Affirmative viz. That God hath decreed or determined in himself how long he or they are to live or continue in this World If then say I you believe that God hath decreed in himself how long you are to live or continue in this World what need you to mind any of the Concerns of this World for the Support of Humane Life why will you so Insatiably covet the perishing Riches and the transitory Pleasures of the present World seeing God hath decreed how long you are to live The Answer again will be he that hath decreed how long I am to live in this World he hath also decreed and in his revealed Will commanded me to Exercise my Reason and my other natural Faculties in order to precure and make use of the ordinary means such as Food Ravment Physick and the like whereby in an ordinary way the Life and Health of the Body are secured and maintained Here in the Concerns of the Body they are sharp and witty enough even to an out-doing thousands of the Children of God But in the Concerns of the Soul they are as Corrupt and Heterodox as they are sound and rational in the other If a Papist or an Arminian should fix his Purpose of Building a House in such or such a place it cannot be rationally supposed that he intends to Build without Materials therefore my Reason tells me that in order to accomplish that his Purpose he hath also purposed to provide all the several Materials necessary for such a Purpose Qui seriò vult finem Media etiam ad finem illum tendentia vult He who in good earnest wills the end he also wills the means leading to that end is a sure Rule both in Logick and Divinity And why these Popish Arminian Cavillers should not allow it its proper place in the Doctrine of Election before time I can understand no other Reason for it than either because God hath Judicially smitten them with blindness of Mind that they should not be able to understand or believe this amazing Doctrine of Election before time or else because God hath left them as he did Pharaoh to harden themselves that they might with the greater Acuteness and Stubbornness oppose and withstand his Soveraignty in Electing some and Reprobating others of the same fallen and corrupted Mass and that before time Secondly As there can be no Argument more Cogent and Irrefragable to evince and prove a Man to be either a Fool or a Madman than his resolving to expect the Accomplishment of the end such as Building a House or Living in the World without the use of the proportionate means leading to such ends
Hell in my own Apprehensions while I bordered so near the Confines of final Desparation finding in my self how vastly short my Personal Qualifications came of answering the Laws demand as a Condition of Life and Salvation I found that nothing could possibly quiet or satisfy my wounded despairing Conscience but what doth effectually appease and satisfy that Holy God against whom I have so many thousands of times offended which can be nothing short of an infinite Righteousness which Righteousness can be had no where but in Christ God Man and no way to be had but in a way of Believing of which Mystery my blind and perverted Reason was as ignorant as a Beast And not only so but my Heart and Soul were Zealously set against looking for Life and Salvation in any other way than that of Free-will and general Redemption This Principle so every way Quadrating with my Legal Frame of Heart which was acted by no other Principle But do and Live Here it might not be amiss or unseasonable for the relief and encouragement of a poor tempted Soul who as touching this very point of Election may be walking in Darkness having no light of Comfort in his own Spirit to answer or resolve this needful Question How shall a poor bewildred tempted Soul come to know that it self in particular was elected of God before time To this Question about which many of God's called ones are not a little distressed in their own Spirits I shall answer in three Particulars First The way to know thou art elected before time is to go about it in a right way or manner By this I mean thou art not to attempt to pry into the Secret Counsels of the most High concerning this Matter knowing that secret things belong to God and to none else until he pleaseth to reveal them Deut. 29.29 Therefore in order to know this Mystery to thy comfort do as thou wouldst do if thou wert to bring both ends of a Bottom of Thread or Yarn to meet together the way is not to begin at that end which is hid in the very centre of the Bottom but to take the end which is outmost and next to thee and by thus doing thou wilt soon bring both ends to meet whereas if thou go about it in any other way as by cutting or ravelling the Bottom to hasten the work thou wilt but fret and vex thy self and which is worse thou wilt marr and spoil the work Do not then attempt as the Devil and Carnal Reason would have thee to climb up to Heaven to inform thy self of this Matter God's Work must be done in the way of his own Appointment which is that thou begin first with thy own Heart See examine and search thy own Soul to find out whether his Holy Spirit hath ever been at work there The Cause must be known by its proper Effects not the Effects by the Cause 2 Cor. 13.5 Gal. 6.4 2 Pet. 1.10 Election the thing thou wouldst fain be resolv'd about is the cause this is a Secret in God's Breast which can be known by thee no other way ordinarily but by its Effects which are Faith in thy Heart and Obedience to Christ's Commands in thy Life and Conversation If the Spirit of God hath called thee to embrace and close with Christ held forth in the Gospel and if the Fruits of that thy closing with Christ do discover themselves in thy Life and Conversation thou hast no Ground or Reason to question thy Election but what the Devil and thy Carnal Reason suggest Acts 13.48 And as many as were ordained to eternal life believed Jo. 10.26 But ye believe not because ye are not of my sheep as I said unto you In the Scriptures now quoted Election to eternal Life is held forth as the Cause of Faith and Faith or believing in Jesus as the undoubted Fruit or Effect of Election Secondly Art thou frequently tempted to doubt of and question thine Election to eternal Life This is an undoubted Argument that the Devil discerns in thee the Fruits and Effects of God's electing Love to thy Person which puts him upon tempting thee to question and doubt of God's Love to thee Where the Devil knows he hath the full and quiet Possession of a Sinner there he suggests that the Man is a good Christian His Faith is a good Faith and God is his Father and that he is elected and shall be Saved notwithstanding he lives after the Flesh On the contrary where the Devil sees and discovers the Fruits and Effects of God's Grace and Love appear there he pesters the Soul with Infernal Suggestions and Temptations to put the Soul on mis-believing and questioning the Truth of God's Grace bestowed on the Sinner Thou art but a painted Hypocrite thou art none of God's Elect it is in vain for thee to hope or expect to go to Heaven Thus he dealt with the Believers Redeemer Mat. 4.3 6. If thou be the Son of God c. And if the Adversary hath done this to the green Tree what will he not attempt to do to the dry Luke 23.31 Thirdly Dost thou find thine Heart fixedly resolved come Life come Death to cast thy Soul at the foot of Divine Soveraignty in the way of Duty shunning all known Sin and pressing after Holiness resting entirely on the Grace and Merit of Christ after Life and Salvation Thou art to know for thine everlasting Comfort and Encouragement that no Reprobate ever was or ever shall be able to do this Time will discover that thou art one of God's Elect go on in the strength of thy God Fear not CHAP. II. Of Reprobation BY what hath been discoursed out of the Holy Scriptures concerning the Act of God's Election of some to Life and Salvation by Jesus Christ to the praise of the Glory of his own Grace it unavoidably and by necessary consequence follows that the same Soveraign God hath Reprobated or Rejected the rest not so elected and that from all Eternity having decreed never to recover them by converting Grace but hath fixedly purposed for Sin to Damn them and that for the Praise of the Glory of his own Justice Nothing can be more plain than that if God hath elected and chosen a certain number out of the whole corrupted Mass or Lump of fallen Mankind in whose Salvation he hath purposed to Glorify his Mercy and free Grace by Jesus Christ then hath he refused or passed by the rest as will most evidently appear in all the parts of it The Decree of Reprobation hath in it four parts to each of which I will speak as plainly and as briefly as I can First God hath refused or rejected some particular Persons on whom he purposed never to have Mercy this is most evident from the Scriptures following Jo. 10.26 But ye believe not because ye are not of my sheep as I said unto you Rom. 11.7 But the election hath obtained it and the rest were blinded Rom. 9.18 Therefore hath
give to them saving Faith and the Grace of Conversion It were almost endless to insert all the Confessions and the Judgments of the Orthodox in all Ages who have held and with an unshaken Confidence maintain'd to the Death the very same Faith concerning the Doctrine of Election and Reprobation on whom with the Pen-men of Holy Writ the frothy Arminians of the Age we live in who are more Crafty than truly Wise do not spare to cast the basest Reflections as if they were no way worthy to compare with themselves for either Learning Parts or Piety But whatever others think for my part I am neither affraid nor asham'd to tell them that the Advances they are daily making towards the Scorners Se et in contemning and undervaluing the bright shining ones gone to Glory it is to me an invincible Argument not only of their being destitute of true saving Grace but that this their priding it over the best of Men is a sure Prognostick of their own Destruction when the overflowing Scourge threatened in Esa 28.15 comes on England The Arminian Drugs of Free-will in fallen Man general Redemption falling from Grace with temporary Conditional Election reviv'd and sown in England by the Jesuits Art and propagated by too many Preachers of the two Parties above-mentioned have proved the most successful Expedients to lay England open to utter Ruine that ever those Incendiaries of the World could devise And indeed the poisonous Drugs now mentioned have so Epidemically overspread the Nation that I cannot see how the Land can be cured in an ordinary way any other way than by the Preachers of both Parties who have imbib'd those poisonous Principles and by Preaching convey'd them insensibly into the Heads and Affections of of the People Vomitting up by sound Repentance those cursed Principles as some have done their Doctrine of Passive Obedience and Non resistance the which had they not done the Land before this time would in all probability have been turn'd into an Aceldama or a Papal Slaughter-house Vomitting up I say by sound Repentance the cursed Principles above mentioned and labouring in Preaching up the Soul-saving Doctrine held forth in the 39 Articles of Q. Elizabeth and the Assemblys Confession of Faith on which they have so shamefully and apostatically turn'd the back to undeceive the People who by their means have been so sadly corrupted in their Principles and by reason of those Principles so wretchedly engulfed in the Quagmire of Debauchery and open Prophaneness It will prove their own and the Nations great Advantage to endeavour seasonably and Cordially to Retrieve the ground they have lost by their modish Compliance with the corrupt and erring Humour of the two last Reigns and that by sounding in their respective Pulpits a timely Retreat and exhorting the People with them to a cordial Reception of their Abdicated Articles of Religion from which the Infernal Craft of England's Enemies and their own supine Incautelousness have drawn them aside It is infinitely better for such manifest Corrupters of the true Protestant Doctrine to own their Errors and repent of them here while the Gate of Mercy is open and all true Protestants Hearts and Arms are open ready to receive them on their return from the Communion of the worst and most pernicious of the Churches and poor England's Enemies than to own and repent of their Errors and Prevarications in Hell of which place such Men cannot but know it is said Ab infernis nulla Redemptio There is no Redemption or Returning from Hell This the Inhabitants of that place know Experimentally to their endless and remediless Sorrow and Grief From which place should it please the Holy Soveraign of the World to send the most Gigantick Disputers against the Doctrine of God's free Election of particular Persons before time which are now Tongue-ty'd in that place of Torment to London to relate what they know by sad Experience since Death arrested them they would be forced I doubt not to declare that no Wit or Parts natural or acquired no Courage or Magnanimity of Mind no Morality or personal Qualifications acquirable by any of Adam's Children is or can be Armour proof against the Vindicative Proceedings of an Angry and a Sin revenging God against those Papists Arminians Socinians Freewillers c. now in Hell who when on Earth did bend all their Wit and Learning to run down and ridicule the Doctrine I am now Vindicating It will be well for their Successors who are yet this side Hell if this plain dealing with them prove an occasion of awakening them and putting them upon a serious Consideration of the present State they are in and the way they walk in that being savingly convinced both of the Wretchedness of the one and the Destructiveness of the other they may be driven by a Holy Despair of ever being saved in an unregenerate State and walking in ways of their own devising to shelter themselves under the shadow of that Mediatorial spotless Righteousness of the Son of God by a sound Faith and an Evangelical Repentance which the Spirit and Word of the ever Blessed God assures me is the only way to escape Hell and eternal Ruine which is all the harm I dare to wish them and the greatest Enemies I have now Living I conclude my Treatise with an Apologetical Reply to c. An Apologetical Reply to the Slanderous Charge given in against me to some of the London Ministers by that Malecontent Party which Schismatically separated from the Church in C. whereof I was the then Lawful Pastor THE Charge was That I was a Man of an Independant Judgment a great Enemy to Mr. Baxter declaring that Mr. Baxter is Damn'd in Hell a Man who openly declar'd that Christ hath but two or three true and faithful Ministers in and about London who Preach Christ in Truth and who bid a publick Challenge to Mr. Williams and all the Baxterians to dispute certain Positions held and asserted by Mr. Baxter and such as go his way and to add no more one who is an universal Decryer of all the Duties of Holiness in a Christians Life and Conversation crying out in the Pulpit Away with your Holiness to Hell with your Duties and personal Qualifications This Charge consists of five branches or parts to each of which I will speak as distinctly as I can and that with as great Seriousness and regard to Conscience as if I were to make the present Defence at the Bar of the Great Judge I begin with the first viz. My being an Independant I have this to say for my self first the Congregational way of Church Government is the Principle which according to my present light I apprehend to be nearest to the Platform of Gospel-Churches planted by the Apostles which to own and practise I am fully convinc'd is my Duty For which I humbly hope and charitably believe none of my Brethren of the Presbyterian Perswasion dare to censure or blame me until I can