with God 5. It is as absurd to imagine that ' Paul preached not as wel repentance as faith to the Jayler because there is no expres mention of repentance in the Text as to suppose that Peter preached not as wel faith as repentance to the Jews because in his Sermon there is no expresse mention of it or that our Saviour preached not faith but repentance onely in his first Sermons because * Matthew makes mention of this latter alone what if I should ad or that the twelv preached not faith as wel as repentance because Mark saith no more but that p they went out preaching that men should repent Such negative arguments proov nothing 6. If we shall demand of Paul what his constant cours of teaching was in his preaching of the Gospel and publishing the covenant of grace he wil tel us that it was the very same both for matter and method that his master began with and not one way to some and another way to others as this Autor seems q sometime to imply but the same for substance both to Jew and Gentile r Testifying saith he both to Jews and Gentiles s Repentance towards God and t Faith on Christ and he putteth repentance therein following u his Masters method in the front And yet more fully relating both his commission from Christ and his putting of it in execution for the former he saith that x Christ sent him to the Gentiles to open their eyes and to turn them from darknes to light and from the power of Satan to God that they might receiv remission of sins and a share among those that are sanctified by faith on Christ and for the latter that y out of obedience to Christs command and in pursuance of this his commission which I suppose he understood as wel as this Autor and kept as close to it as any Antinomian of these times yea as any that ever preached Christ z he preached or published both to the Jews and to the Gentiles that they should repent and turn to God doing works beseeming repentance such as might shew them to be truly penitent and their repentance to be sound and sincere And thus Pauls preaching to the last comes home to John Baptists preaching at first and is the very same you see with that which this Autor makes to be the very character of a Legall Teacher Oh but the pressing of these things as a duties without which a man can have no interest in Christ that is it that argues a legal Teacher I might for warrant hereof alledge that of our Saviour as b Vnlesse you believ that I am he you shal die in your sins so c unlesse ye also repent ye shall perish and that of the Autor to the Hebrews d without holines no man shal ever see God but that Mr. Eaton e tels us that that of our Saviour f Blessed are the pure in heart for they shal see God is not Gospel but Law tho therein I beleeve him not and that of John g He that saith he is in Christ is h indebted is obliged to it as a debt as a duty for what is duty but du debt to walk as Christ walked to live as he lived But I wil insist onely upon Paul as zealous and as precise a preacher of free grace as ever any he albeit he affirm confidently that i there is no condemnation to those that are in Christ yet he subjoyneth withall and that is I suppose a qalification at least k who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit and yet further a litle after l Therefore brethren we are m debtors we stand obliged and bound to it as a du debt if ever we look to be saved not to live after the flesh but as before he said to be thence supplied here to live after the Spirit and that this is his meaning and it is in nature of a condition on mans part reqired it is apparent by what followes n For if ye live after the flesh ye shal die but if by the Spirit ye mortifie the deeds of the body ye shal live Which tho it be pure Gospel and life even upon such terms propounded free grace for no Law ever promised life unto mortification of the flesh no more then the sight of God to such imperfect purity as our blessed Saviour above spake of yet if the Minister of Christ shall in these daies pres he shal not escape the odious and opprobrious brand of a deep and down-right Legalist Howbeit we need not be ashamed a whit of our teaching when we can vouch such precedents as these are for it in regard either of this or any the like aspersions or ignominious terms that presumptuous and self-conceited persons shal endeavor to fasten upon us and must light upon them as well as upon us who have in their teaching taken that cours before us and with whom if we must be deemed erroneous we shal not blush so to be but shal o esteem it p a grace to be disgraced with them and for doing as they did To draw all to a hed if the Gospel propound and promise pardon of sin and salvation q without any condition at all as this Autor tels us required on our parts and all conditions and qalifications which he is so r oft girding at destroy the freenes of grace then neither John the Baptist nor Christ nor the Apostles of Christ from the s first to the t last did any of them preach either Gospel or free grace and if the Gospel and free grace that this Autor and other his coasserters of free grace hold out to us be such as admits not nor acknowledgeth any such conditions or qalifications as have been above-recited then we may boldly conclude that it is another Gospel and another free Grace then ever John or Christ or his Apostles preached But this Autor a if he have erred in any thing he saith it is in filling out that Wine too freely which the Master of the feast if he mistake not hath bidden him saying Drink yea drink abundantly O beloved Can. 5. And b if he must erre he would erre rather with those that pas for Antinomians then with those that go for Legall Teachers c the former whereof he must prefer before the Latter for that they being jealous least free grace loose her â— cry down men to exalt Christ whereas those other being jealous lest bolines should be sleighted to exalt men cry down Christ and the danger here it seems therefore also he supposeth the lesse because d Free grace can not of it self tempt any to sin Where first for the filling out of this Wine TOO freely let me advise him in sober sadnes to be wel advised what he doth and to take heed how he contract the guilt of so
into his wounds to keep them from closing and could have no rest or ease therefore until he was setled on those Antinomian principles the relation whereof is the main subject of his whol dramaticall discours I could quit him if need were with somewhat the like story of one that having taken some evil courses troubled much and long in mind about them could not satisfie himself in ought untill he turned Papist and had upon shrift by a Popish priest been assoyled but these are unsound and sandy grounds to build new courses upon for assurance of sound peace here or salvation hereafter 2. Be it a puzzeling way or no and such as it is here said to be it is a Scripture way sure as this Autor himself can not deny but is enforced to confesse tho in the very same place where he makes such acknowledgement speaking of it in very base and broad language il-beseeming a Minister of the Gospel as he professeth himself to be For first in way of answer to that doubt x Because ye feel not your self sanctified you think not your self justified 1. y I shal allow you saith he your sanctification so far as the Scripture doth as a lower motive and more carnally mixed way of perswasion and assurance of justification z such as by spiritually carnal works of obedience and holines can give but a mixed act of assurance at the best being of a mixt nature of flesh and Spirit Where 1. I wil not stand to pres those places where Christ is said to be a made unto us as wel sanctification as righteousnes and redemption and where those that are b washed by him are said to be as wel sanctified as justified I wil give him onely his own words out of his Preface c Righteousnesse and Holines blood and water Jesus and Lord Christ called and justified are stil to be found together in the word And if they go thus together then the one may with good ground evidence the other nor can the one be where the other is not Nor are Gods Messengers to be jeered and scoffed at as Legal Teachers and Miscelane Divines for joyning them together in their teaching Yea if God in his word have so linked these together what guilt incur they that seek to divorce them and bear men in hand that they may have the one tho they have not the other 2. For those broad and base terms that he brandeth this assurance with for which he might justly expect an heavy reckoning but that he fancieth * no believer accountable to God for any sin I shal for present onely demand of him what he thinks of Faith because he saith that tho d Christ be ours without faith yet by it we know him to be ours whether our Faith be not of a mixt condition like the poor mans in the Gospel that had some dregs of e infidelity mixt with it and whether the assurance arising from such Faith be therefore but a mixt act of assurance at the best as if the assurance that the pledges f or earnests rather of Gods Spirit gives to the soul depended upon the perfection or qantity of them and Gods penny were not an earnest for that purpose as good and as sure as a pound But let us hear what he saith further to those Scriptures where such marks and signs are to such purpose propounded 2. g The marks saith this Autor as others of the same stamp before him delivered in the Epistles of John and James c. are rather marks for others then for our selvs to know us by Which is so directly contrary to the main intendement and expres words of either Apostle that it may worthily be wondered that any man of an ingenuous disposition should have the face or forhead to averre it For whom doth James direct his whole discours unto but to h the party himself whose faith was to be tried or whom did John labour to give assurance to concerning their estate but to those i whose joy and comfort arising from the apprehension of that their own blessed condition he intended and desired thereby to improov Yea that both James and Johns intendement is as to undeceiv those whose faith and profession was not sound and sincere in their as frivolous because groundles so perilous and pernicious because presumptuous conceits and mistakes concerning themselvs whereby they deceaved and beguiled k not others more as this Autor himself speaks then themselves so to settle the truly faithful and religious in a more firm and ample assurance of that their estate their own words evidently avow l If any man among you saith the one seem religious and bridle not his toung m he deceives his own heart and his religion is vain And n If we say saith the other that we have communion with him and walk in darknes we lie and deal not truly and as in those words for the negative so in the next for the affirmative p If we walk in light as he is in the light we have communion God and we either with other and the blood of Jesus Christ his Sonne cleanseth us from all sin And yet more expresly to cut of all cavils q We know not that you or others I know not who but that we our selvs are passed from death to life because we love the brethren And again r Hereby we know that we are of the truth and may s stay or assure not other mens minds of us but our own hearts not in mans ey but in his that is in Gods sight And whence ariseth this assurance of aeceptance with God and prevalence with him in their prayers for that is also subjoyned And whatsoever we reqest of him we receiv t because saith the Apostle we keep his Commandements and do those things that are wel pleasing in his sight We might again here urge that of Paul willing the Corinthians to u examine not others but each one himself and to x try not others but themselves whether they were in the faith or no and whether Christ were in them or no which sure must be by some marks and enjoyning the Galatians y each one to examine his own worke that he may have matter of joying not in another but in himself in his notice of himself and his own estate not in other mens opinion and estimation of him But to pitch upon Peter whose words also this a Autor himself takes notice of elswhere and we the rather therefore presume them to come within compas of his et caetera tho whether they do or no is not greatly materiall when he adviseth those to whom he writes that is b all the faithfull without exception to c give all diligence d to make their calling and election sure e by adding unto faith vertu and to vertu knowledge and so forward he that shal
say his meaning was to make it sure to others rather then to themselvs may as wel assay to bear men in hand that it is * midnight stil at mid-day But f All other assurances saith this Autor his own onely excepted these mixt gros and carnall ones as before he stiled them tho not denied to be * found in Gods Word are but rotten conclusions from the Word and such things as tru Legall preachers have invented not understanding the mystery of the Kingdom of Christ g nor being cleer enough in judgement to unmingle things that Antichrist had confounded and put together thereby h like some Chirurgeons who keep their Patients from healing too soon that they may make the cure the more admired keeping wounded souls accordingly with their wounds open Thus our Ministers he makes no better then meer Mountebanks for so to lengthen his cure that he may seem to have done some great matter saith a grave Physician in a Chirurgeon is but i a Player-like or a Mountebanks part and what is it think we then in a Divine But why did he not adde and to draw the more Fees from them as the Orator complains of some Teachers of youth in his time that k kept their Schollers longer in their rudiments then was needfull as wel to draw the more money from their parents as to make that they taught them seem a more difficult matter For sure as good ground he might have had for the one as the other None good at all I assure my self for either For whose spectacles hath this brother borrowed or what prospective glas hath he gotten by which he is able thus to pierce and pry into mens hearts to descry what their secret intents and ayms are in the courses they take as before he described them tho I suppose not very faithfully neither for the satisfying of such as repayr unto them for direction or for comfort Herein therefore this Autor as he transgressed the bounds of l charity so he encroacheth too much upon the m royall prerogative both which the Lord in mercy n remit to him whether he suppose he need remission of any sin or no which according to his own principles * he deems he doth not Besides that in these passages he seems more then once to cros and contradict himself For 1. he charges these points on the Legall Teachers as their own inventions and yet as verifying therein the old Greek Proverb o The tripping toung sometimes tels truth he confesseth them to be conclusions drawn from Gods Word for if conclusions fetcht from Gods Word how then the inventions and devices of men or how conclusions from the Word if inventions of men not to insist upon that unsavory term that may seem to cast an aspersion on Gods sacred Oracles when conclusions from the Word so confessed to be are styled rotten conclusions Again he ascribeth those preposterous courses that these Legall Physitians take with their spirituall patients one while to unskilfulnes an other while to unfaithfulnesse Sometime he makes them a company of sely ignoramusses blind blundering bussards men of no understanding or judgement unable to dive into those deep mysteries that he and his are so wel seen in or so to distingvish those things that Antichrist hath blended and jumbled together as they do or p to give a troubled soul any sound satisfaction whom yet in q this dim light such as it is that they have he says he doth not wholy despise and contemn and that upon condition too so that they contend not against the more glorious light of truth that he and those of his strain hold out r whereof some sleight glimerings yet he hath observed in some of their discourses Sometime on the other side he makes them a crew of cunning I might wel say cheating companions that have subtilly for sinister ends invented and devised these courses of cure s under a pretence of thorough humiliation to keep their patients in pain the longer under their hands for their own admiration and advantage not regarding the whilst what they poor souls indure while their wounds are on purpose kept from closing All the help he can have to salv this contradiction for if it be of meer ignorance for want of better and cleerer light then not of set purpose for by-ends or if of this then not of that all I say that I can think on to reconcile this contradiction must be to say that some of them are failing in the one kind and some faulty in the other or that all of them generally do in some things erre by mistake in others wilfully transgres But leaving him to make his cros and uncharitable censures of his brethren good as he shal think good himself let us in steed of that rotten stuffe as he is pleased to style it that these Legall Teachers have yet from Gods Word invented see what stays and supports for mens souls this Autor himself therein t like the Spider that weaves her web out of her own bowels hath spun us not out of Gods Word as the Legalists that u spin out he saith such fine threds in Divinity as are not strong enough to bind up a broken spirit but out of his own brains x We must believ saith he that Christ hath believed perfectly he hath repented perfectly he hath sorrowed for sin perfectly he hath obeyed perfectly and he hath mortified sin perfectly and y that our repentance is tru in him who hath repented for us our new obedience tru in him who hath obeyed for us our mortification tru in him through whom we are more then conqerours and why he altered his style more in this then in the rest or why he spake not here the same of belief as before he did that he doth of repentance I wot not But these I may truly say are not conclusions from Gods Word but groundles assertions wrought out of his own curious head and fancy without warrant from Gods Word For where findeth he in the whole book of God that ever Christ repented for us or that he mortified sin not in us but for us in himself as in himself or in his own person he obeyed for us and yet not to free us from obedience neither but to set us a a copy to give us a precedent that we might tread in his steps as for matter of patienee so for matter of b obedience tho that neither the principall end with him of either These glorious lights therefore set up to dazel mens eyes and amuse their minds we can not admit until they can be shewed to be rays of that light that the Law and Testimony holds out according to which unles men speak we are taught and warranted by the Spirit of God speaking in his Prophet to deem that there is no d spark of true light in them And indeed what
upon Spirituall workings as Philosophers upon morall vertu and do bring down the Spirit into the Allegory and so allegorize and incarnate or make fleshly the things of the Spirit Where by the way observe a prety evasion here closely insinuated a litle before more expresly propounded that may serv to shift of whatsoever of the Apostles method matter and manner of teaching was before related contrary to that that these men approov and agreeable to that which is by those practised whom they control and oppose s The Apostle speakes many things too as himself says because of the infirmity of our flesh and they belike have found out a more spirituall way then that the Apostles in their teachings and writings used which if they have much good may it do them we shall be content to tread in their steps whom we know to have had * an unerring spirit Again t Mans obedience to God is not so notionally nor orderly caried nor so purely as the Gospel cals for This because we reqire of those that desire pardon of sin peace with God and salvation by Christ repentance and bumiliation and sorrow for sin and prayer for pardon and a new cours of life as our Saviour himself and his Apostles did But saith this man u They run in a legall strain and would work God down into his old and former way of reveiling himself as under the Law when he seemed to be onely in the way to reconciliation and peace rather then pacified and thus in prayer and fasting and other acts of obedience they deal with God as they did under the old Testament not considering the glorious love reveiled in Christ crucified and how all Gospel ordinances are onely ways and means to reveil this love and grace by the Spirit of adoption not any waies or meanes of ours for getting some love from God which Christ himself hath not gotten for us Then belike in the time of the old Testament these were waies and means for Gods people that then lived whereby to get some love from God which Christ himself had not gotten for them But if God in those times were not pacified or did not cary himself toward them as pacified how says the Psalmist x Lord thou hast been favourable to thy Land that is the inhabitants thereof Thou hast forgiven the iniqity of thy people and hast covered all their sin a passage * absurdly prest by the Antinomians to proov that to be done now which they deny to have been then thou hast wholy taken away thy wrath and turned from the fiercenes of thine anger Was not Christs blood think we as effectuall for the pacifying of Gods wrath in those times as in these These be new doctrines indeed But y This is the common way of dealing with souls and bringing them up into assurance as thus Repent and pray and live an holy life and walk according to the Law of God And dare this man without any of these give any man assurance If he do he dare do and doth more then Christ or his Apostles are read to have done But in jeering way mine Autor proceeds z If they answer they can not do thus ob then say they can you not desire to pray and repent and if they say they cannot desire ob but then say they can you not desire that you may desire and thus they wind them up by acts of their own spirit and run theni out to the end of their own working when as their desires of desires and the spinning of such fine threds in Divinity are not strong enough to bind up a broken spirit Thus is he pleased to skof some questions that such Divines as go * the old way of the Prophets and Apostles with repentance and sorrow for sin which these of the new cuâ— can not away with do some time propound to disquieted consciences in which they seem to descry some beginnings of grace not as this man speaks to wind them up by acts of their own spirit but to sift out the workings of Gods spirit in them and thereby to make way for such further matter as may give fuller satisfaction then they are as yet able to attain Nor is this a to place them on the bottome of their own righteousnes as he injuriously chargeth it b like the botome or point of a top as he is pleased to resemble it as if this were that which they perswaded men to restâ—on as that whereby the guilt of their sins were discharged and Gods justice satisfied which yet according to this mans principles was done in the the times of the old Testament when by such means as these Gods favour and pardon of sin was c purchased as with a price but to give them assurance by d the first fruits of the spirit bestowed on them and begun in them which the holy Ghost is pleased to call e Gods earnests and the Seal of our redemption that they are of the number of those that have interest in Christ by whom as freedom from Hel and the gvilt of sin so Heaven and happines is purchased for them But this wary man g Dares not take this way for that is to take the disease for the Physitian and to give men no oyntment but blood of their own wound to heal them And so belike John did when he went this way to work as before was shewed h Nor would be take that other way which many do that are of this legall strain too as to apply promises to them first which many times in steed of drawing the soul to Christ puts it further of bringing some conditions which the soul qestioning in themselves dares not meddle with before it be prepared by Christ and his freenes He might have said which mans corrupt and carnall heart until it be wrought upon by Gods Spirit and prepared by Christ who is said to i give as wel repentance as remission of sins yea first repentance and then remission of sins to Israel and to bles them as wel by turning them away from their iniqities as by discharging them of the gvilt thereof is very loth to condeseend unto and we therefore have invented a readier way and a shorter cut for them without all that ado But let them carry men on along so long as they please in a fools paradise unles the conditions that Gods Prophets for there is no new way to Heaven now but the same that ever was and Christs Apostles propound to all that look for salvation by Christ be performed there is little hope for any man to attain life eternall unles some other way can be discovered that the Word of God hath not But you see the man is humorous and very hard to please by any way that these Legall Teachers take tho never so consonant to Scripture And therefore altho that Peter when l They in the Acts after he
is this but to bear men in hand as for confession of sins which some of them have taught that it is sufficient for men to believe that Christ hath confessed their sins for them so for matter of sorrow for sin and repentance that it is sufficient for them to believ that Christ hath perfectly sorrowed and repented for them and what he hath done for them they need not do themselves Howbeit f by this time he hopeth Free grace is no Antinomianism By what time he means I know not for this is but in his Preface but by this time I hope it may evidently appear in what hath been produced that Antinomianisu holds out an other manner of Free grace then either the Prophets of God or Christ and his Apostles ever preached Yea but g shal we call every one Antinomian that speaks free grace or a little more freely then we do No God forbid that Christ and his Apostles yea or Gods Prophets should by any of us be so termed or esteemed tho they speak free grace as far as any and as fully consistent with truth But if we speak free grace as far and as fully as they do we may justly give some such title for distinction to those that go further not because they go further then our selvs go but because further then they went yea if further I say not then the Apostles but then the Prophets went for Gods grace was ever alike free whose sayings tho they produce for such free grace as they hold yet in truth they deny them to have preached free grace affirming them to have propounded life and salvation in those times to Gods people h not of free grace but by way of payment and purchase Howbeit tru it is that not so much for this opinion as for some other tenents as * the deniall of the morall Law to be any rule of direction for believers to walk by and other assertions of the like stamp was this title not unfitly given to those of that straine who concurring yet in the principles by this Autor here insisted on as is usuall to stile a faction by a term taken from some one speciall tenent among others are therefore deservedly so called And this leads me from the specious Title of Free grace that he holds out in the Frontispice of his Fabrik to the amiable and amicable pretence of Peace that he hangs out in the Portal or in the Porcb before his Preface i It would be much matter of peace he saith amongst believers if the Names of Antinomian and Legall Teachers and the rest might be laid down and no mark or name to know one another by but that of believers that hold thus or thus for distinction And for my part I like not the imposing Names of such note either groundlesly or needlesly But why such as in their tenents do so palpably oppose slight vilifie yea traduce and * blaspheme Gods sacred Law as these men have done and do especially making such faction and fractions in our Churches should not be termed Antinomians I see no ground of just exception and it would be over teadious and a needles wast of time and pen for those that have occasion to deal with them to be continually paraphrasing or periphrasing of them by such circumlocutions of believers that hold thus or thus But why doth this Autor himself transgres those bounds that he would have others confined unto For why may not others call these men Antinomians as wel as he cals some other but k a litle after Arminians Since that albeit the opinions of both be bad enough yet he wil not I hope deny the name of Believers to the one no more then to the other especially if the definition of Faith above by him delivered be a sufficient index to denote a believer If he deem this such an effectuall means to make peace why doth he not keep precisely to it but fall so soon by taking the way himself taxeth to break peace But to let them pas whom we have at present nothing to do with why doth he in this very work of his so oft use this very term of Legal Teachers in the entry whereunto the very first motion he makes is to have it wholy laid down Or what is this but meer colluding and glosing to commend one thing and practise an other to prosecute the direct contrary to that which at first himself propounded I remember to have read sometime a Catechisticall Treatise of one who in his Preface complained much of the variety of Catechisnts ascribing the ignorance or non-proficiency at least of people hereunto that Teachers made use of many several Catechisms and kept not to that Common one publikely allowed to which for matter and method he gave the preeminence and yet himself at the same time together with that Preface set out such a form as differed more from that common one so highly by him commended then the most of them ordinarily then in use did The very like doth this Autor In the Introduction to his Treatise he commends Peace to his Readers and wisheth the name Legal Teachers wholy laid down as a cours thereunto much conducing yet in the Treatise it self and the body of his Book he is ever and anon girding at our Ministers under the name of l tru Legall Teachers and those m that pas for Legall teachers and that n are of a legall strain and that o run in a legall way whom also he doth insolently and contumeliously not reprove onely but reproach as in part also hath already been shewed Indeed the truth is Mr. Eatons spirit seems to be in this man revived tho carying the matter somewhat more covertly and cunningly then he did For thoroughout this whole Treatise this is one principall mark and matter that his discours mainly drives at to tax and traduce to debase and disgrace the Ministery and manner of teaching of the most faithful painful famous and renowned servants of God as wel of these times as of former ages by whose pious labours and religious endeavours backed with Gods blessing an innumerable number of souls have been won and brought in To which purpose let these few ensuing passages among a multitude of others be observed p The way of the Spirit is not so gros and carnall as the Divinity of former times and some of this present age would make it And why so but because they teach men by such signs and marks as they meet with in Gods Word and q the Word and Spirit I hope cros not but concur to try their spirituall estates For so afterward r They that write so of a regenerate estate and set us down such infallible signes as we meet with commonly do take their experiences too low and earnally and mistake the allegory and way of the Word or Scriptures which speaks of things because of the infirmity of our flesh write