actuall chusing of David to the Kingdom of Israel was that by which he had first actuall right to that Kingdom to which he had right before onely in Gods decree and of which afterwards he had possession So Gods actuall chusing of a man to the Kingdom of heaven is that by which he hath first actuall right to that Kingdom to which he had no right before saue in Gods decree Gods chusing a man therfore actually as they speak to the Kingdom of heaven is the very giving of him faith and holinesse for by these he hath this actuall right to eternall life and glory If therfore Gods chusing men actually opposed to his chusing them in decree be his giving them actuall faith and repentance then their faith and repentance goes not before Gods choise but on the contrary his chusing before their beleeving The giving of the grace by God must needs goe before the having of it by men With like successe they quote Rom. 9. 25 and â— Pet. 2. 10 c. which haue no shew of ground whereon to build their assertion that God chuseth men actually and particularly because they beleev and repent but most firm foundation for the contrary truth Men become Gods people and beloved actually by actuall faith and repentance which before were his and beloved onely in the purpose of his will according to election Rom. 9. 11. 13 and elect according to Gods foreknowledge 1 Pet. 1. 2 God therefore actually chusing men and making them his people and beloved which are all one by giving them to beleev and repent their beleeving and repenting cannot goe before his chusing them but the contrary The giving of the gift is in nature before the having and using of it by him to whom it is given and therefore â—ods chusing them which is his giving them faith and repentance is before their beleeving and repenting The next place being Rom. 11. 5. 7 they set down craftily thus v. 5 If they seek righteousnesse by faith and these are thâ— the elect according to the election of grace The words of the Apostle are So then at this time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace and v. 7 the election hath obtained it and the rest were hardened The thing obtained was the righteousnesse of God and of faith the wedding garment the righteousnesse which Israel obtained not because they went about to stablish their own righteousnesse but the election obtained it by beleeving even that remnant wherof Paul was one according to the election of grace What can be more plain against these men Or how can any more directly crosse the Apostle then they doe The Apostle saith we obtain the righteousnesse of faith which is the wedding garment according to the election of grace They say we obtain the election of grace according to the wedding garment and righteousnesse of faith and obedience The Apostle saith the election obtains the righteousnesse of Christ by faith they say the righteousnes of Christ by faith obtains the election turning Gods work upside down that they may establish their own Besides this proud exaltation and Babylonish building of mens works against Gods grace for if it be of obedience as they say then of works to wit the works of obedience the Apostle v. 6 clean overturns saying If by grace then it is no more of works otherwise grace is no more grace but if it be of works then it is no more grace otherwise works is no more works In alledging from 2 Pet. 1. 10 that this election must be made sure they as before craftily conceal part of the Apostles words which being laid down as the Text hath them overthrow plainly their errour The words are Giue diligence to make your calling and election sure He joyns calling and election together they leav calling out And herein I commend them as the master did the unrighteous steward for doing wisely though not honestly For who knows not that Gods calling us goes before our answering him by faith and obedience as the cause therof God cals and also elects men to faith and obedience and not for them The Apostles meaning is that the faithfull should use all godly care for the establishing and confirming of themselvs in the grace of God to which they were formerly called and chosen The like prophane boldnesse they use towards 1 Thess. 1. 4 where for the Apostles text Knowing beloved your election of God or Knowing beloved of God your election they put their own glosse The houshold of faith the Church of God are the elect of God The Apostle v. 4 mentions his knowledg of their election and v. 5. 6 the ground of that his knowledg and perswasion which was their faith and obedience by receiving the Word by him preached They were not therefore made elect of God by faith and obedience but therby known for such by men Col. 3. 12 makes against them also where their election is mentioned as a reason to moue them to put on bowels of mercy and all goodnes As indeed the gracious purpose of Gods election with his effectuall calling followeth and manifestâ—th is the onely Evangelicall motiue to all earnest study of obedience Their assertion following that Election is not of particular persons but of qualities is monstrous and most crosse to the Scriptures which never mention election of qualities but alwaies of persons Is the meaning of Christ Math. 22. Many are called but few chosen that many qualities are called and few chosen What quality but of sin and misery sees the Lord in them whom he calleth Or how can qualities be either called or chosen to grace or glory Christ tels his Disciples that he had chosen them out of the world If they were chosen out of the world which lyeth in wickednesse and hates the good for what good qualities trow we were they chosen If they were chosen out of the world and so were of the world before they were chosen out of it how had they faith and obedience for which these men wil appoint God to chuse them or else not That we are Gods generation viz. by creation is true but impertinent Of â—ods working good qualities in men by his word and spirit and of their resisting or not resisting we haue spoken and shall speak else where Rom. 8 29 makes for them as the former places shewing plainly â— that our predestination or election goes before our calling our calling before our justification our justification before our glorification The note in the English Testament upon Ephes. 1 is the same which the Synode at Dort and all Evangelical Churches professe Onely these mens errour is in their not putting a difference between Gods decree to saue and his actual saving of them that beleev whether by justifying or glorifying them Gods chusing a man whether in decree from eternity or by actuall and effectuall calling and calling of him out of the state of
receiving the word with joy are after when tribulation or persecution ariseth offended others haue made some growth yet become unfruitfull by the cares of the world and deceitfulnesse of riches the Lord would haue us take knowledg that such were never better then stony and thorny ground Thus that Iudas being lost was none of them whom the Father had given unto Christ but a child of perdition Thus where Israel did not obtain that which it sought for but was broken off yet that the election obtained it the gifts and calling of God being without repentance Thus that they which fall are such as think that is presume that they stand rather then ever doe so indeed Thus that though some come to err concerning the truth formerly professed by them yet the foundation of God stands steady having this soul The Lord knoweth who are his Thus that if some inlightned and tasting of the heavenly gifts c. fall away it is they that are dull of hearing like the earth that beareth but thorns and bryars notwithstanding the rayns falling upon it Thus that false Teachers and such as follow their pernicious wayes were at first and best but men creeping in unawares Lastly that such as went out of the fellowship of the Apostles and Churches in the outward profession of faith and holinesse were never truely and inwardly of them as was made manifest in due time CHAP. IIII. Of Freewill AFTER a lowd blast in the beginning as formerly of their full and sufficient dealing in the former point our Adversaries begin this with a false and foul accusation ADVERSARIES THE Calvinists hold that wicked men are compelled to sinn by Gods power and again that men are compelled by the power force and compulsion of Gods predestination to all wicked and cruell crymes Against which they alleag out of Bastingius and Thes. Genev. that Man by evill was spoyled not of his will but of the soundnesse of his will Therfore that which in nature was good in quality became evill and that as Bernard teacheth there is in us all power to will but to will well we had need to profit better to will evill we are able already by reason of our fall as also that there remains freedom in all good naturall civill morall and judiciall things but not in spirituall These things they say if we wil stand to they require no more DEFENCE BOth we will stand to them and they must fall by them as they might evidently see if they considered that all our question is about freedom of will in spirituall things which alone we deny The ground of their errour here is that they unskilfully confound necessity compulsion and conceiv not how a thing both free and casuall in it selfe may be the over-ruling hand of Gods providence be determined necessarily this way or that The difference between necessity and compulsion I haue formerly both proved and opened at large shewing how mans freewill in chusing that which is evill and Gods powerfull hand in governing him in that his choise according to his wise counsell to his holy ends may well stand together And for that which is good God works it by inclination by his Word and Spirit which inclination cannot be compulsion seeing compulsion and violence is onely against the inclination of the thing and not the inclining of it God herein first takes away the former corrupt inclination that â—t reign not which is the coard wherewith a man is tyed as they speak and then giues a new inclination contrary to the former not haleing up a man by main force as they mishape a similitude for us but giving inward will and strength of grace for the man to raise up himselfe by And if all kinde of necessity abolish all kind of freedom then in truth a man doth nothing freely for whatsoever he doth he doth it necessarily when he doth it They doe here in vain heap up Scriptures like medicines upon a sound stomack to prove that election and choyce cannot be but in or rather with liberty We acknowledg that whatsoever good or evill a man doth outwardly or inwardly where the will comes to work for there may be acts of the understanding and motions of the affections before and without the wills working he useth liberty and freedom in chusing or refusing that is he doth it not by any violence or compulsion but from the inward principles of his mind the understanding directing and the will consenting though yet the wicked being left of God cannot but doe wickedly any more then the Aethiopian can change his skin or the Leopard his spots nor the godly but doe godlily by the grace of God effectually inclining him thereunto Neither doth our affirmation make voyd or unmoveing the threatnings of God but makes both threatnings and promises and precepts and all most effectuall God by the inward work of his spirit giving an encrease to the outward preaching and opening the heart to receaue the same One man can move another by outward motives words and the like Will these men affoord God no more or other work Will they deny any inward work of Gods spirit at all above the words work though in and by it What mean then the holy Scriptures speaking so frequently of this Spirits work in men with means without means for ordinary and extraordinary operations both gifts and graces Or if there be such a spirit of God dwelling and working in men why doe they deny unto it a prevailing power wheresoever it pleaseth God to bestow it And for those that cannot repent as they plead for some God and their own consciences will plead against them that they will not repent and so are not tyed with a coard by others and violently with-held as they plead for them but doe willingly cast and keep the coards of iniquity and rebellion upon themselvs We acknowledg also and they therefore prove in vain that to whomsoever the word comes them God would have gathered unto him hearken unto his voyce repent that they might live and not dy to wit in that degeee of willing which stands in commanding those things and approving them if they follow and that the fault is onely in mens obstinacy if they repent not Neither doe the Calvinists as they surmise make either Gods decree or the defect of his grace in fault if men repent not because they affirm that God decreed not to give them the grace to repent nor doth give it them except eyther God may not require repentance of all or be bound to give it to all It is not my fault that a drunkard fals and lyes in the street though he cannot but both fall and ly there except I hold and help him up except withall I be bound so to help him nor my fault that a prodigal spend-thrift comes into debt and is cast into prison and cannot escape the one or other unlesse I pay his
debts except withall I be bound to pay them so neither is it Gods fault that men remain and periâ—h in that impenitency out of which they neither will nor can come without Gods speciall gift of repentance except it be Gods bounden duty as these men seem to make it to bestow that grace upon them The two places Esa. 5. 1. 2. 3 c. and Math 11. 21. 22 we will a little more particularly examine In the former where God saith he could doe no more to his vineyard then he had done he speaks onely of outward means as the text makes it plain I fenced it c. I would ask these men whether there be not requisite that the naturall vineyard may bring forth fruit something besides the fencing gathering out of the stones and the rest there mentioned It cannot be denyed that except besides and above all these God give the encrease by an inward blessing all planting watering and outward dressing whatsoever is nothing so is it in the spirituall vineyard much more though planted by Paul himself yea by Christ himself in the outward ministery And where God saith He expected sweet grapes but it brought forth wild v 4. we must not imagine as our adversaries seem to doe that God is deceaved in his expectation as men often are but onely that the Israelites did not perform that which God required and they ought Touching the repentance of Tyre Sidon First I would know how they prove that Christ speaks of other then legall repentance such as Ahab manifested in sack-cloth which was not from a godly sorrow for sin but from a servile fear of punishment Secondly eyther this repentance should haue been wrought by those mighty works alone or by them with other helps Mighty works alone cannot work faith repentance which must come by hearing instructions of the word which they serve to confirm unto men If Christ speak of his mighty works as means though not sufficient of themselvs yet availeable with other requisite helps he excludes not the spirits work but includes it But in truth the meaning of Christ seems to be no more but to reprove the obstinacy of Corazin in a form of speach like unto that Luk. 19. 40. If these should hold their tongue the stones would imediately cry out And as it were a vain thing hence to dispute about the speaking of stones so is it to gather any thing thence of the Tyrians repentance The meaning of the Lord here is not to commend the Tyrians at all but to upbraid the Chorazites and to shew their hardnes of heart to be greater then the others The like form of speach we haue to the like purpose Ezech 3. 6. And if so be there were in these Tyrians this pronenes to repentance if they had enjoyed the means which the others did but they wanted withall that God so desires the repentance salvation of all how came it to passe that God did not afford those helps unto them that were so prone and willing to have used them aright It seems the former case is now altered and that men might say to God that they would but he would not ADVERSARIES THeir invincible Argument servs onely to bewray their incurable disease in heaping together many Scriptures to prove that which no man doubts of namely that the works wrought in us by God are attributed to us also as the cleansing of our hearts c wherein yet they mingle with Gods truth their own errours and that in particular in affirming that God takes it to himself as a proper title to justify a sinner and yet that Dasaith he justified his heart DEFENCE FIrst if it be proper to God to justifie a sinner how is it common to David with him Secondly They slaunder David in making him say he justified his heart Could David forgiue the sin of his heart which God doth in justifying a sinner David Psal. 73. speaks of sanctification not of justification They ignorantly apply the Scriptures Psal. 108. 12. Psal. 118. 13. to Gods working grace in men being meant onely of his working deliverance for them They vainly and deceitfully affirm from Acts. 7. 51. 13. 46. that man may resist the grace of God wrought by his word and spirit The places speak not of any grace wrought by either of them The former speaks onely of resisting the spirit as the Authour of the word in the Prophets and others The latter of resisting the word of God not working but offering grace onely Besides they notably abuse those Scriptures cited in making them plainly to shew that man hath free choise to wit alike to work with God or against God in the work of his grace It is true that men whether receiving or refusing grace doe it freely and without compulsion but the latter freely of themselvs being left of God to themselvs the former freely by Gods speciall grace and spirit giving them and effectually drawing them to Christ. I say more effectually though not violently then any one creature can by violence draw another Oh that any made partakers of this free grace of Gods spirit dwelling in them should deny the powerfull work of it to establish their own freewill After Scriptures they come to experience And first they erre in thinking that liberty and necessity of sinning in wicked men cannot stand together It is certain that the more wicked either man or devill is he sinneth both the more freely and the more necessarily Their similitude of a mans drinking poyson is against themselvs so far as it is pertinent I would know of them how the drinking of poyson by any is unavoydable If they say because hee knows it not to be in his drink therin they grant that sins of ignorance are done unavoydably and yet not by compulsion as they conclude Secondly who would think that any after the profession of the knowledg and obedience of the Gospell which these men haue made so many yeares both in the Church of England and else where should so far apostate therefrom to Popery and Phaâ—isaism as to think it as easie a thing for a man yea though never so wicked to keep himselfe from all sin as from drinking of poyson which he knew to be in his cup For he that knows it not cannot avoyd it How grievously erre they in affirming that all men are able to keep the Law to wit without the least fayling all their life long in thought word or deed For this they plead in this whole Section that except it be possible for every man thus to keep the Law neither his conscience can accuse him nor God justly punish him for breaking it Neither doe the Calvinists hold as they barbarously speak unjustly slander that men commit evill by force of Gods providence or are decreed to doe evill or compelled to sin by power But they beleev as the Scriptures teach that all men
in Adam haue sinned and by sin lost the Image of God in which they were made so as the Law is impossible unto them by reason of the flesh and so cannot possibly but sin by reason of the same flesh raigning in the unregenerate and dwelling in all which these light persons expresly confesse in the sequel of this book and that this so comes to passe by Gods holy decree and work of providence answerable not forceing evill upon any but ordering all persons in all actions as the supreme Governour of all and that the wicked being left of God some destitute of the outward means the Gospell all of them of the effectuall work of the Spirit from that weak flesh and naturall corruption daily increased in them sin both necessarily as unable to keep the Law and willingly as having in themselvs the beginning and cause thereof the blindnesse of their own minds and perversenesse of their will and affections and so are inexcuseable in Gods sight Here with the lowd boasts of their large and undenyable proofs they joyn sundry errours As first in making the good things of creation to come from Gods grace viz. for salvation of which our question is The good things of creation the Scriptures account our own and of our selvs ever opposing them to the good things of grace to salvation Secondly they err egregiously in saying that what Adam had in creation and lost by transgression for himself and his posterity that is restored through Christ to wit to all for so the question is By this all should be restored actually into Gods favour haue his image repaired in them and be wholly free from that weak flesh making the Law impossible unto them With like perversnesse doe they misapply to all Adams posterity without difference that which the Apostle speaks of himselfe and other godly Ministers and Christians onely Rom. 8. 3. 4 2 Cor. 3. 5 Phil. 4 13 as any that pleaseth to peruse the places may see Lastly they most absurdly affirm that the flesh through Christ is able to fulfill the Law wheras we fulfill the Law no further then as we kill crucifie and destroy the flesh and lusts thereof by the Spirit ADVERSARIES TO the question Whether a man can doe any thing in the work of his regeneration they answer after much froath of words that faith and repentance is regeneration and that it is most plain as what is not to their peircing eye that even in the work of regeneration man may submit to it or hinder it DEFENCE AN ignorant assertion shewing the ground of their errour in not putting difference between Gods work and mans They may as rightly say that the life and motion of the childe is its begetting To regenerate is nothing else but to beget anew Doth the child beget it selfe Or doth not the parent onely beget it So God begets by the Ministery of the Word and man is begotten by him according to that of the Apostle Every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him So Iam. 1. 18. Of his own will begat he us by the word of truth By these mens doctrine we should beget our selvs of our own will Begetting in creatures is both in nature and time before the being of the begotten Men then before they be must beget themselvs by their saying And as God regenerates and not man so doth man being regenerated beleev and obey and not God Wheras if faith and obedience be regeneration then God beleevs and repents seeing God regenerates Besides as the outward means of regeneration may be and are by too many hindred from working and made unprofitable So where God pleaseth to add to the outward means and motives of the Gospell the inward work of the Spirit of which Spirit we are born or begot anew of the Spirit I say though by the Word by the same Spirit which he puts within them he takes away first what might hinder thier regeneration even their stony heart and giving them a heart of flesh a heart to know God and putting his fear in their hearts and by putting his Spirit in them causing them to walk in his statutes he thereby regenerates them or giues them faith and repentance which they must haue before they can beleev or repent as the childe must haue life before it can liue or doe acts of life and must be generated or begotten before it haue life or being Regeneration therefore goes before faith and repentance This Head they shut with answering three Scriptures The first Math. 22 but mistaken for Luk. 14. 23 which as it is frivolously objected if by any so is it easily answered The second is Ioh. 6. 44. No man can come to me except the Father draw him This is not meant say they of violent compulsion True nor yet onely as they would haue it of outward teaching by heavenly doctrine For thus the Father drew many that came not to Christ whereas hee speaks here of such a drawing as is peculiar to them that come to him who shall never hunger v. 35 and whom he will in no wise cast out v. 37. He speaks not therefore of the outward teaching onely but withall and principally of the inward teaching of the spirit as Esa. 54. 13 Ier. 31. 33. 34 1 Ioh. 2. 27. The most of them whom the Father drew by heavenly doctrine that is to whom Christ preached murmured at him v. 41 this hee reproues vers 43 vers 44 takes away the offence which might arise at the consideration of the small effect which his words had with many considering what he testified of himselfe v. 39. 40 shewing that such was mans perversenesse in spirituall things as that except God to the outward word adjoyned the inward work of the Spirit thereby drawing him his obstinacy could not nor would not be tamed nor he turned to God Lastly to Phil. 2. 13. It is God that works in you both the will and deed after much impertinent discourse and many errours mingled among they answer that God doth this in men by reasons and perswasions that they would chuse life and avoyd death And first they conclude without and against reason that if the regenerate haue power to resist they haue power not to resist which is as if a man should say if a fool can doe foolishly then he can doe wisely or the like Secondly it is a slander upon the Calvinists that they are divided in this point or that any of them affirms that the elect though unregenerate cannot resist good Whilst they are unregenerate they can doe nothing else but resist in spirituall things But God in time as he hath decreed by the spirit of regeneration overcomes their corruption and works in them not to resist but willingly to follow him that calleth them Thirdly I would know what they mean by these phrases of Gods sending his word and spirit to
work our regeneration and again of God by the power of his word and spirit shewing man the benefite of life c. If they consider the spirit onely as the Authour of the word speaking in the men of God why doe they not say the Spirit and the Word rather then as they do the Word and the Spirit Or how doth God send the spirit thus understood to work regeneration in men If they answer that God is ready to giue the spirit and so doth to them that will receiv it first to be ready to giue is not to giue or send secondly they should understand that to be willing to receiv spirituall things is a main fruit and effect of regeneration and therfore not a cause as they mistake For the will thus holily bent presupposeth the understanding divinely enlightned whose direction it follows and without which going before it is blind and brutish Neither can a man possibly will a thing but as he understands it to be good for him If the understanding be divinely inlightned and the will holily bent then the whole man is before regenerated that is begotten before of God by the spirit of regeneration In truth they but speak of Gods sending his Spirit to work in mans regeneration as Senacherib by Rabsakah spake of Gods sending him against Ierusalem He to cover the pride of violence and they to cover the pride of free-will in bending it selfe of itself to receiv grace offered To conclude this Head referring the Reader to the Arguments of conviction formerly laid down I onely add thus much that if God onely bend the will by perswasions of promises and threatnings and works not otherwise then by force of reasons and by using strong arguments and perswasions as they expresly affirm then that whose contrary both the Scriptures and experience confirms would ordinarily come to passe namely that the wise and prudent should haue heavenly things revealed unto them and discern them much more easily and effectually then babes and weak persons and so should be converted sooner then they specially sooner then harlots and light persons considering how much better they mind and understand arguments and reasons of all sorts then the other We therfore conclude with the Apostle that God works in us both the will and the deed not onely by his word working on us but by his Spirit working in us not onely by sending Paul to plant by propounding strong arguments of perswasion but also by giving the increase by the most effectuall work of his Spirit inlightning the eyes of the understanding to see the force of those arguments opening the heart to attend unto them and so writing them in the same heart and most inward parts as they cannot be blotted out CHAP. V. Of the Originall estate of Mankinde THE main question here to be discussed is whether all Infants sinned in Adam and so be guilty of death and condemnation naturally and without mercy in Christ or not This I will proue God willing against them answering and disproving what they bring to the contrary and that in their own order as followeth ADVERSARIES INfants had no life nor being as Adam had at that time when God gaue the Law to Adam and therfore no Law was given unto them and therfore sinned not nor were guilty of condemnation DEFENCE I Grant that infants had then no life and being as Adam had to wit actuall and distinct but affirm that they had both after a sort and as the branches in the root Odegos the guide of the blinde as Rom. 2. 19 affirms pag. 114 that mankind was in Adam in bodily substance they had therfore being in Adam after a sort namely so far as they were in him If they had being in Adam any way they had life also in him for nothing in Adam was dead but all living their being therefore so far as it was in him was a living being We reade Hebr. 7. 9 that Levi payed tithes to Melchisedeck in Abraham But how could this be might one say seeing Levi had then no life and being The Apostle answers that he was in the loyns of his father Abraham when Melchisedeck met him And reason teacheth that none can doe any act but he must first be nor doe it otherwise then as he is Levi therefore then had a kind of being and that living and reasonable also as he performed that act of paying tithes He in Abraham as a particular root Mankind in Adam as in a generall root 2 That Infants had a Law given them I thus proue First the word of God Gen. 2. 17. In the day that thou eatest of the tree of knowledge of good and evill thou shalt die the death shew that whom God threatneth with death to them he gaue the Law The punishment Gen. 3. 17. 18. 19 reacheth to all Adams posterity and so the threatning and by consequence the Law Secondly the Apostle teacheth Rom. 2. 15 that the Law is written in the hearts of the Gentiles according to which Law of nature written in their hearts though they had it not written in tables of stone as the Iews they shall be judged at the day of the Lord v. 15. 16. 17. These Gentiles cannot be imagined to haue this Law thus written any other way then as God in the beginning created Adam and all mankind in him after his Image in righteousnesse and holinesse in which respect also they are said to doe by nature the things contained in the Law having also a naturall conscience in them which without a Law were vain Vnder which generall Law binding the reasonable creature to faith and obedience in all things in disposition before use of discretion and in act afterwards the particular Law Gen. 2 is conteyned and to be referred unto it Thirdly if infants haue reasonable soules then haue they the faculties of understanding and will though not the actuall use of them as men haue This understanding cannot be conceived by any to be without all disposition and pronenesse either to the knowledg of God or to ignorance errour and doubting of him nor this will to bee without all disposition and inclination to will according to or against Gods will As the yong whelps and cubs of Lyons Beares and Foxes haue in their naturall and sensitiue faculties a pronenesse and inclination to raven and every beast pronenesse to the things of its kind after actually performed and practised by them so haue infants necessarily in their reasonable faculties a disposition one or other to understand and will things specially such as concern God by reason of the most naturall necessary and indossolible relation between the reasonable creature and the Creator and that specially in those most noble faculties The objection from Rom. 7. 1 hath in it no colour of truth for neither are there any such words that the Law is given especially onely which must be added to them that know it neither doth the Apostle there intend
such Heathenish men of yeares as became Proselytes then of their Infants to be circumcised with them The ground of this errour in so many is that they understand not the true nature of the Gospell and Ordinances thereof The Gospell aymes not at the exacting upon man as made after Gods own image obedience due as a naturall debt from the creature to the Creator as the Law doth but considers him as a most miserable creature drowned in sin and altogether unable to help himselfe neither yet servs it and its Ordinances primarily to declare and manifest what man in right owes and performs to God but what God in mercy purposeth doth and will perform to man being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a joyfull message or glad tydings of salvation by Christ. So to apply this for the baptizing of Infants albeit they on their part can for the present make no manifestation or declaration of obedience or thankfulnesse or any other goodnesse yet sufficeth it for Evangelicall dispensation that God according to the Covenant of grace I will be thy God and the God of thy seed can and will make manifestation and declaration of his gracious minde of washing them with the bloud and spirit of his Son from the guilt and contagion of sin they also being bound in their times to reciprocall duties Let us not think scorn as proud free-willers doe of Gods taking both of us and our infants to be his people going before our or their taking of him to be our God But let us rather magnifie his mercie in this regard both towards us and them ADVERSARIES NExt they undertake to proue that Infants are not regenerate and so not to be baptized Their reason is because they haue not faith and repentance This Regeneration they define to be a turning from sin to God which they would proue from Rom. 6. 11. DEFENCE THE Apostle Rom. 6 speaks not of regeneration it self which is Gods work but of our living to God as an effect therof For as our naturall life is an effect of our first generation or begetting by our parents so is our spirituall life an effect of our regeneration by God and his Word and Spirit Turning from sin is mans work by Gods grace Regeneration is Gods work not mans So for Repentance they roav about it on all sides but scarse touch the true nature of it Repentance to wit Evangelicall required for Baptism in men of years is neither a sight and knowing of sin by the Law for that the wicked also doe nor a confessing of sin for that is outward and follows repentance in the heart nor a sorrow for sin for that goes before it nor a promise to forsake sin for that follows after it as an outward effect no nor yet properly an endevour to forsake it though that come nearest Repentance is properly a growing wise afterwards and changing of the minde from sin to God in the purpose of the heaâ—tâ— having an effectuall endevour to forsake sin accompanying it as the effect thereof Now their argumentation in this place that because Infants haue not faith and repentance to wit actuall and that in manifestation also which are the conditions required in men of years for their Baptism and the inseparable fruits of regeneration therefore they are not regenerate and so not capable of Baptism is as if some idiot would affirm that infants are not born nor to be reputed reasonable creatures nor endued with the faculties of understanding and reason because they make no manifestation thereof no more then bruits doe Their proofs against the Regeneration of Infants thus disproved I manifest the contrary as followeth Christ the Lord teacheth that except a man be born or as the word more properly imports begot again hee cannot enter into Gods Kingdom Either therfore regeneration is to be granted Infants or Gods Kingdom to be denyed them If any say this is meant of men of years onely the Text convinceth him which opposeth the first birth or generation which is of Infants to the second regeneration The first as v. 6 being of the flesh making them so born uncapable of Gods Kingdom without the second by the spirit Secondly they confesse else-where that all by Adams fall haue that weak flesh Rom. 8. 3 by which they cannot keep the Law c. Now I demand whether Infants to be glorified carry this weak flesh hindring thus effectually true holinesse into heaven with them or no If not as is certain then it must be purged out of their soules and hearts as the seat and subject therof But nothing can purge out that which is contrary to holinesse saue the holy Spirit of God the Spirit of regeneration which lusts against the flesh and is contrary unto it either therfore they must be regenerated or not glorified Thirdly the Scriptures teach that by the spirit of Christ which is the spirit of life for righteousnesse dwelling in us our bodies shall be quickned and raised up unto glory Children therefore by their grant being to be raised again and glorified by Christ must haue Christs spirit which is the spirit of sanctification and regeneration dwelling in them Lastly joyn with these things that all are by nature I say by nature with the Apostle not by act alone as say the Adversaries children of wrath having right to wrath as children to their fathers inheritance and therewith that baptism is the lavacher or washing of regeneration it will follow that children if to be freed from the wrath to come and glorified are to be regenerated and baptized also Christ saues and so glorifies his body onely which is the Church which he sanctisies with the washing of water and the word and there is one body and one baptism ADVERSARIES THeir Answers to the Scriptures brought for the baptizing of the Infants of beleevers follow To Act. 2. 38. 39. Repent and be baptized every one of you c. for the promise is unto you and to your children and to all that are a farre off even as many as the Lord shall call they answer that this is meant of such fathers of the Iews and their children and fathers of the Gentiles and their children as beleev viz. both fathers and children and that by children are oft meant men of yeares in the Scriptures specially Abrahams children DEFENCE THat such are sometimes meant wee grant but deny that meaning in this place And first by them a far off are not meant the Gentiles far off in state as Eph. 2 but the Iews far off in time as the originall carries it Besides neither was Peter himselfe as yet sufficiently perswaded of the calling of the Gentiles Act 10 neither if he had was it as yet seasonable to mention that matter to the Iews Secondly in saying the promise is made to you and your children hee speaks of some solemn promise made to them all and the same to haue its fruit and effect
hardeneth Their alledging of Austin against the heathenish desteny which they held to come from the starres is frivolous and impious against Gods infinitely wise and powerfull providence in governing all things in heaven and earth In regard wherof the same Father saith that the things which are done against Gods will are not done without his will viz. ordering and directing them to their ends And if the penners of this book were not voyd either of all knowledg of the Authours judgment whom they cite or modesty in themselues they would never alledg Austin and Ursinus as patrons of their errours about the divine Predestination and other points therupon depending then whom the Synode at Dort hath none the one of former and other of later times more clearly witnessing with it and all the best Reformed Churches in those matters CHAP. II. Of Election THeir first head of Predestination being ended they come next to Election which they consider not as a part of the former with the Scriptures and all good Authours but as clean another thing But what may rather bee guessed then gathered from their words And first in laying down the supposed errours of their Adversaries concerning Election they doe us and the truth manifold injuries as the Reader may evidently see who pleaseth to compare with their calumnies the Confession of the Synode thereabout which is Electio autem est immutabile Dei â—ropâ—stium c. Election is the unchangeable purpose of God by which before the foundation of the world were laid out of all mankind faln from its primatiue integrity into sin and destruction by iâ—s own fault according to the most free good pleasure of his will he out of his meer grace hath chosen to salvation in Christ a certain multitude of such as were neither better nor more worthy then others but lying in the common misery with others vvhom to wit Christ he hath appointed from eternity for Mediator and Head of the elect and accordingly to giue them to him to be saved and to call and draw them effectually to fellowship with him by his word and Spirit or hath decreed to bestow upon them true faith to justifie sanctifie and at the length being powerfully kept in the fellowship of his Son to glorifie them for the declaration of his mercy and praise of the riches of his glorious grace as it is written He hath chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame in his sight with loue having predestinated us to the adoptien of children by Iesus Christ to himselfe according to the good pleasure of his will to the praise of the glory of his grace wherein he hath made us accepted in that beloved one Eph. 1. 4. 5. 6. And elsewhere Whom hee hath predestinated them also he hath called and whom he hath called them also he hath justified and whom he hath justified them also he hath glorified Rom. 8. 30. And by this joynt Confession all equall Readers will judge of the faith of the Evangelicall Churches in this point and not by the partiall and perverse relations of such Adversaries as catch here and there a piece divided from the rest and ometimes altering the words alwaies perverting the meaning therby cast stumbling stones in their own and others way ADVERSARIES THese things premised the particulars follow the first whereof is a similitude brought as they say by us to exemplify our opinion by of a phisition entring into the house of sick men and curing some and that for nothing who are bound to thank him and not cureing others who haue no cause to complain of him because he ows them nothing This similitude they except against as that in which comparison is made between a phisition who hath litle mercy in him in healing but a few and â—â—aving infinite numbers unhealed and God and Christ who are most mercifull saying Come unto me all that are laden and I will ease you They therfore to correct this will haue Christ compared to a Phisition truely mercifull that going into the house of sick men proclaims that he will heal all that will take a medicine which some taking are cured others refusing because it is bitter as to Deny a mans self Take up his crosse and follow Christ remain uncured DEFENCE FIrst the Scripture by them cited for their catholike cure is violently stretched aboue it reach For neither are all in the world no nor a handfull in comparison of the rest laden as Christ there speaks that is feeling and groaning under the intollerable burthen of sin and of the wrath of God due therunto This did very few of the other Iews and fewer of the Pharises who thought themselues righteous neither doth Christ so call and therefore not offer to cure by the preaching of the Gospell every particular person in the world from the beginning to the end therof This truthlesse and shamelesse assertion we shall haue occasion hereafter to confute at large In the mean while the place alledged proues onely thus much that Christ the good Phisition offers to cure all that come to him by the preaching of the Gospell with feeling of their sins and faith in his death and no more Secondly even for them that come to Christ and are effectually healed by him these men erre not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God for the conversion of sinners in affirming that he doth no more but provide the medicine of grace and outwardly perswade to the receiving of it or that there is which they take wrongfully for granted the same natural power in a wicked man to receiv grace offered by the Gospel that there is in a sick man to take the medicine offered him by the Phisition This capitall errour of theirs is in this place to be refuted and the contrary truth to be cleared namely that for the effectuall converting of men God not onely provides the medicine Christ and his benefits and by the Gospell exhorts to the receâ—t thereof and so leavs men to their own freewill indifferently without further doing But that wâ—thall and aboue the former hee by the inwâ—id work of hâ—s holy Spâ—â—it given them makes effectuall the outward means in opening the heart to attend to the things spoken with reverence in inlightning the understanding to discern and assent unto the same things as true and good and that with particular applications in bending the will efficaciously to consent to the same and all the affections of the soule to loue and like them But before this be done by us it is meet we answer an objection or two rather insinuated then expresly made by them Their words are which also as appears by the mark in the margent they would haue accounted remarkeable that Christ is willing and able to cure men by the means by which they are curable and not by the means by which they cannot bee cured for that his power herein
threatning that if they continued not in the bounty of God they should be cut off ch 11. 21. I answer as before first that the threatning is conditionall as Gal 1. 8 If we c. Was it possible that Paul should preach any other Gospell Or were he an Angell from heaven or of God that should so doe I suppose no ch 4. 14. But an Angell from hell rather and of the divell The question is not whether if any should not abide in the bounty of God they were to be cut off or no But whether any with whom hee hath dealt so bounteously as indeed to justifie and sanctifie them haue not also a promise by his power to be kept in that his bounty by the means which he hath appointed Secondly Paul pronounceth those Romans justified not from the judgement of certainty but of charity Of whom as some were undoubtedly sincere whom God did by this and the like warnings preserv and keep in his grace so for the hypocrites mingled amongst them it was but that which we say if in their time they were broken off from that which formerly they seemed to others by their profession and it may be to themselvs also to haue had And indeed this very place if it be well minded ministers full answer to the most of their Arguments This warning though immediately given to the Romans concerns all Christians as well as them And being founded upon an example of the Lords dealing with the Iews must be expounded and applyed accordingly Who then were these exemplary Iews formerly cut off by the Lord from the oliue tree Were they such as had once truely beleeved but had after made defection I suppose not even in these mens judgment but such as occupying a place in the Church yet were in truth faithlesse hypocrites and as chaff in the Lords flore which the Son of man comming with his fan in his hand purged out And in these we may see what kind of branches they are which in time come actually and visibly to bee broken off from the Oliue The instances following of Elies house loosing the Priesthood Saul the Kingdom of Israel and the Israelites Canaan serv onely to fill up room That Priesthood Kingdom and Canaan were not the graces of faith and sanctification in the heart nor the losse of them sin but punishments onely Onely the last place Math. 18. 32 where debt forgiven is as they say recalled were something to the purpose if the drift of the parable were to shew that God indeed forgivs sins and after unforgives them which were lightnesse unbecomming any graue and honest man But the scope of the parable being no more then that we ought to forgiue such as offend us and that otherwise God will not forgiue us to draw more from it is to forget that it is a parable and to take the high way to to most grievous errour Besides there is in this parable no colour for falling away from grace and true godlinesse formerly had but onely even their exposition being admitted that a man may haue his sins pardoned who yet wants all brotherly loue and goodnesse which the Scriptures every where deny Math. 6. 14. 15 Mark 11. 24. 25 1 Ioh. 3. 14. 15 Rom. 8. 1 Ps. 32. 1. 2. Thirdly by these grounds no man can certainly know that his sins are indeed pardoned whilst he liues in the world because he may still fall away and so haue his pardon recalled though sealed up unto him by the very spirit of God it selfe And so all our faith must be but adventure whilst we liue in the world whether our sins past be in truth pardoned or no contrary to the Scriptures Lastly this impeacheth both the justice of God and his truth His justice in making him require double satisfaction for the same debt first of his Son even the price of his bloud and the same also by faith applyed to the person that hath sinned and beleeveth and after of the person himselfe Of his truth and that both of his word absolutely promising forgiuenesse of sins to him that beleeveth and also of his spirit by which he seals up the same unto their hearts Their second and third reason taken from the fall and sin of Adam and all mens falling and sinning in and by him are wholly besides the question which is onely of falling from the grace of God in Christ from election in him from the loue of God towards us when we were enemies from mercy which presupposeth sin and misery and is properly Evangelicall God gaue Adam his portion in grace by creation and left it in his own keeping which hee soon mispent but hath dealt more mercifully with us in making his Son our feofâ—er in trust that he as our head might keep and improue the grace of God belonging to us as is meet for us lest we having â—ll at once and that same left in our own hands should mispend all as Adam did To that which they alledge from Eph. 1. 4 compared with Rev. 2. 4. 5 I answer first that Paul stiles those Ephesians elect onely as he knew them so to be which was by outward appearance of holinesse Secondly that the leaving of their first loue was not a total falling from grace but onely a decaying of their former zeal Thirdly the threatning of the Candlesticks removing was to the truely called an effectuall means of drawing them to repentance When these men can make it appear that any one of the truely elect and sanctified Ephesians did wholly despise this and the like means of their bettering I will then grant their proof strong It may as well be concluded that therefore the fire goes out because it hath good and fresh fuell put unto it and is diligently blown For these exhortations and admonitions are as fuell and blowing to preserv from going out the spark and fire of grace in the hearts of beleevers That onely he that continues to the end and overcomes shall be saved and that the promise of acceptance and salvation by them miscalled the promise of election is no otherwise intended to us then upon our abiding in the faith and obedience of Christ. Wee beleev and confesse with them according to the Scriptures but withall are taught and beleev according to the same Scriptures that God keeps all his holy ones unto the end and giues them to overcome that he puts his fear in their heart that they shall not depart from him that the seed sown in good ground shall neither wither by persecution nor be choaked by cares of the world or deceitfulnesse of riches or otherwise but shall grow up to the harvest that the gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church or any one member thereof built upon the rock of Peters confession that God is faithfull who with the temptation will giue a way to escape for all his that they are kept by the power of
God through faith to salvation and that being born of God they doe not sin nor can to wit as the children of the devill doe because his seed remaineth in them Their objections following that by our doctrine men need not fear falling into condemnation though they fall into notorious sin nor repent having committed such sins are of no weight seeing God though he promise salvation to the truely called certainly yet he neither promiseth it neither are they to beleev it immediately but by means of fearing to sin and of repentance when sin is committed which hee also promiseth to work and put in their heart that they shall not depart from him The Lord promâ—sed by the Prophet Ieremy that after 70 years of the Iews captivity accomplished at Babylon he would visit them and cause them to return to Ierusalem And whereas it might be objected against the certainty of this promise and event What Shall they return though they repent not nor seek the Lord but remain rebellious as they haue been and their fore-fathers before them He answers that then they shall call upon God and pray unto him and seek unto him and he will hearken unto them be found of them and return their captivity He promiseth both the end and the means and hee that promiseth is faithfull in performing and providing for both temporall and eternall deliverance and the meanes thereof Their Argument taken from exhortations and admonitions in the Scriptures that we receiv not the grace of God in vain 2 Cor. 6. 1 and the like hath formerly been fully answered They are not in vain either in respect of elect or reprobate neither yet will we own their absurd answer here fathered upon us that the whole Scriptures are given to keep both elect and reprobate from falling into grosse sins yet that neither the elect can be damned by transgressing them nor the reprobate saved by observing them The Scriptures haue divers ends and amongst others are given to keep all not onely from grosse but from all sins Neither doe we affirm that the elect cannot be damned by transgressing them or that the reprobate cannot be saved by observing them as they like deceitfull proctors plead for us or rather for their own advantage But this we say that the elect and truely sanctified are so kept by the power of God in his feare that they never transgresse as the wicked do nor can because his seed remaineth in them that they continually renue their repentance particular for sins known into which through infirmity they fall and generall for sinns unknown as David did and that even by means of those exhortations and admonitions which God opens their hearts to attend unto and giues increase accordingly And the contrary the reprobates being left to themselvs of God haue by their own and satans malice their eyes so blinded and hearts hardened as though those means of exhortation come unto them they either understand them not or beleev them not or despise them but never observ or obey them aright Their curses of the doctrine in this point received in all Reformed Churches as Atheisticall and damnable and their blessing themselvs from it is here as every where the fruit of that wilde zeale wherewith their ignorant hearts are possessed Their answers follow to the Scriptures brought against them The first is Math. 24. 24. If it were possible they the false Teachers should deceiv the very elect Whence we conclude as they say that it is not possible the elect should perish And here first they shew who are the elect of God noting indeed the persons but perverting the order of grace If in saying as they doe that the elect of God are those that receiv and obey the truth of Christ and abide in him unto the death they meant that such as are chosen of God in his decree before the world and actually and effectually chosen and called in time by the Word and Spirit to beleev and obey did so abide to the death it were but the truth which the Scriptures teach and we professe But intending as they doe that men haue onely the promise of actuall and particular election till then but are not absolutely elected and that absolute election follows this abiding in Christ till death they are like the foolish builder which would lay the foundation upon the roofe of the house By their comment upon Christs words men should be in danger to be seduced by false Prophets when they haue abiden in Christ unto death for till then they will haue none elect and the elect are here said to be in danger to be seduced That which they gather from the manifold warnings in the Scriptures to the elect that none deceiv them c. is true namely that the elect may fall from their election or rather from the grace received if they take not heed But they should withall proue that God doth ever so far leav and forsake any truely justified and sanctified in Christ as that they take no heed at all as they ought It is certain that if the very elect Angels in heaven or Christ Iesus upon earth had taken no heed to Gods commandements they could not haue observed them That which is added that many fall away not by being deceived but willingly forsaking the truth and again that many fall away willingly not being deceived is neither pertinent seeing the place in question speaks onely of such as are deceived nor true seeing a man cannot will any evill but under a shew and appearance of good so presented to the will by a deceived and eâ—â—ing understanding And so the Scriptures every where ascribe all manner of defection from God and his holy commandements to errour either in the generall ground or particular case The next place is Ioh. 10. 27. 28 My sheep hear my voyce and they know me and follow me and I giue unto them eternall life and they shall never perish neither shall any take them out of mine hand My Father which hath given them me is greater then all and no man is able to pluck them out of my Fathers hand They here conceiv the purpose of Christ to be to confirm his sheep so long as they continue his sheep c. But herein they draw violently Christs purpose to their own For Christ as may be seen by comparing herewith v. 16. 26. 27 is to shew how it came to passe that some of his hearers beleeved and obeyed his voyce and some not Many of the Iews beleeved not because they were not his sheep some did being his sheep to wit by destination of God Christ saith not that they are not his sheep because they beleev not but that they beleev not because they are not his sheep that is not being of the elect of God they are left to their own impenitent and unbeleeving heart which they also willingly harden against Christs voyce Where v. 16 he saith Other
also the workers of iniquity not with a passion of the mind as hatred is in man but with a holy will to punish the violation of his righteous Law And though with a generall loue of the Creator to the creature he alwaies after a sort loue the persons of men as being his generation yet he loues as is meet the honour of his holinesse more then the happinesse of his creature having violated and prophaned it without repentance They further bewray their ignorance where they think to mend the matter in saying that God hates the persons as weapons and instruments of those wicked qualities Where hath God ever so spoken or any other man before them The godly qualities or graces of knowledge faith loue patience and the like are the spirituall armour and weapons of godly men the members also of men are called the weapons of righteousnesse or unrighteousnes for that with them they practise perform the works thereof But to say the persons are weapons and instruments of the qualities is to put the person in the hand of the weapon to be used by it wheras on the contrary all know that the weapon and instrument is in the hand of the person and to be used and exercised by him They here in desiring the Reader well to observ what they haue said as being a most blessed truth are loath that their nakednesse should not be seen in their spirituall drunkennesse ADVERSARIES NOW for the words of the Apostle to which they return after so long wandring their comment is They went out from us c. that is say they Those lying spirits those persons who had once the spirit of truth in them went out from the Apostles and other Saints And again those lying spirits and Antichrists in mens persons went out c. and were never of the truth the summe of all being that lying spirits and Antichrists in mens persons went out of the truth DEFENCE A Riddle better fitting H. N. then the professours of the truth in simplicity It behoues us therefore a little to insist upon the Text opening it according to the Apostles meaning and ours with him and first proving against them that by those that went out are not meant the lying spirits in the persons but the persons themselues And first these words They went out from us or better from out of us shew that those out-goers were formerly of them in a respect else how could they haue gone out from them But lying spirits were never of the Apostles and Saints but the persons sometimes were Secondly hee saith not as they corrupt the Text If they had been of the truth but of us nor they would hane continued with it but with us nor but they are not of it but they were not of us all carrying it to persons so and so qualified Thirdly Is it to be conceived that the Apostle would complain as heere he doth that lying spirits did not continue with the Churches Fourthly in saying They went out of us that it might be manifest that they were not all of us he shews that by their out-leaps something was manifested which was hid before But it was plain before to the Apostles and Saints that lying spirits were not of the truth He speaks therefore of the persons of hypocrites whom by this their professed defection God discovered Fithly in saying they were not all of us he insinuates that some of them were What some lying spirits of the Spirit of truth No but that not all the persons that formerly professed the truth with them were true members of Christs body which they were Lastly v. 20 He makes an opposition between them of whom hee writes and to whom But yee What yee spirits and so v. 28 little children that is little spirits All may see with what spirit these men are led He then speaks of the going out of persons not of spirits as they mean but being indeed Antichrists as v. 18 in regard of their spirits and doctrines for which they pretended the spirit of Christ. That which they add of the spirit of Hymeneus together with his person being in fellowship with Paul is like the rest By his Spirit it seems they mean his faith in saying faithfull Hymeneus was of the truth erroneous Hymeneus was never of it Hath the faith of a person fellowship with the Saints Or did Hymeneus his faith sometimes hold faith and a good conscience and after put them away Or are not these things plainly spoken of the person of men Paul speaking that of Hymeneus and others which hee knew in regard of outward appearance and not that which he knew not of the inward truth in the heart The meaning of Iohn is plain enough that these Antichrists went out of the Church not by making any seperation or schism from it as some thinke for they still continued in the outward fellowship preaching and prophesying and deceiving but in it by heresie and prophanenesse contrary to that outward profession of faith and holinesse which they had formerly made by which their defection they shewed that they were never truely regenerate and inwardly and indeed living members of the body but having been hypocrites at their best God so ordered that they should hereby discover themselvs For had they been indeed of the number of the faithfull they had so continued to the end Which truth this Apostle confirms further ch 3 very evidently saying whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin For his that is Gods seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God He doth not say as some would haue him he cannot sin or commit sin that is giue himselfe to sin as the wicked doe whilst the seed of God remains in him or whilst hee is born of God but for or because this seed of the new birth remaineth in him One observation I will here annex and so conclude this Head It cannot be saith Christ but offences will come And of all offences none is greater and which more wounds the tender heart of a weak Christian then when he sees such as by their former profession and appearances haue purchased to themselvs the opinion of piety and godlinesse to apostate and fall away from that their former profession either to grosse errour or prophanenesse This occasions him to suspect Satan by suggestions of unbelief furthering him herein that there is not in the course of Christianity that power of grace stablenesse and true comfort which it promiseth This stone of offence which Satans malice casts in the way Gods spirit removeth in providing that where there is in the Scriptures either mention or insinuation of mans falling away from the grace of God there is withall commonly an item given in the same place that such persons were never effectually sanctified but hypocrites at their best whatsoever they seemed either to others or to themselvs Thus where some at the first
as in a generall root was so conceived and brought forth by his mother in sin Secondly it is one thing to be conceived and born in sin another thing to be made of sin The former David affirms of himself the latter they vainly impute to us and refute in us with many words That Infants are under condemnation that is naturally guilty thereof hath been formerly proved that actuall faith in Christ is required for their reconciliation to God doth not follow hereupon Actuall I say for the seed of faith they haue and of all graces for but by Gods holy Spirit in them which carries all graces with it they cannot be holy and so not bee glorified if they be not holy first but that hereupon they need actuall faith is their saying without proof Actuall sins indeed require actuall faith but for sin in disposit on called originall why may not faith in disposition suffice through the mercy of God for the applying of it About the Infants of Sodom and Gomorrah they discourse marvellously as first in ranking them in their deaths with unreasonable creatures in theirs secondly in making them not onely innocent but godly also The Scriptures teach that besides the temporary death those Cities suffer the vengeance of eternall fire Let them proue children not to haue been of those Cities If God exempted them or any of them from that vengeance it was not for any condition cōmon to them with bruit beasts as they insinuate but with respect to Christ besides whom the Scriptures acknowledg no other Saviour nor no other salvation but by him ADVERSARIES TO a question moved by themselves What need Infants haue of Christ if they be not under condemnation they answer that through his redemption they liue and moue and haue their being and injoy all other earthly blessings with resurrection from the dead and glorification 1 Cor. 15. 12. DEFENCE THus they make Christ and Infants amends But how proue they that by Christs redemption they liue moue c The Scripture Act. 17 to which they haue reference is meant of the naturall life of all by Gods work of creation and providence which is nothing but continuation of creation and nothing at all to Christ as Redeemer The redemption for which Christ came is from sin and so from the curse due for sin as the Scriptures every where testifie The first Adam was made a living soule the last Adam a quickning spirit We haue therfore our naturall life motion and being common to Heathens with Christians by the first Adam our spirituall and glorious life by the second Lastly the Apostle saying 1 Cor. 15. 22 In Christ shall all be made aliue speaks onely of all beleevers as is evident v. 14. 17. 18. 19 who haue Christ for the first fruits and are Christs v. 20. 23. Are any Christs but Christians Is not the lump and the first fruits one Men should haue risen again though Christ had never come or been promised but to condemnation Our resurrection onely in regard of the glory of it is from Christs glorious resurrection And if Infants haue glorification from Christ then they haue the pardon of sinne from Christ also 1 Cor. 15. 17. 23 and therewith his Spirit dwelling in them for sanctifying and quickning them Rom. 8. 9. 10. 11. These men divide Chrst making him a King to some for glorification to whom hee is not a Priest for redemption by his bloud Next to a question by themselvs moved How wee must haue the Son they answer by keeping his commandements forgetting faith by which alone we receiv Christ from which followeth loue purity of heart and obedience Which faith hath more properly the consideration of a condition as a hand to receiv a promise then of an act of obedience to a commandment It is true being rightly understood which they add that repentance is of all sin to wit particularly of all sins known and generally of sins unknown For Who can understand his errours Cleanse thou me from secret faults said he that observed and knew his wayes better then either these men or I. Doe they think nothing amisse slips from them in thought word or deed or ever hath done whereof they doe not or haue not repented particularly Is their knowledge so perfect as they need not pray for further enlightning as Eph. 1. 17. 18 Are they certain they are ignorant of and erre in nothing in the Scriptures written for their bearning This their book sufficiently reproues their Pharisaicall dream of perfection Where speaking of Idolatry they affirm that God cannot bee worshipped after a false manner they expresly contradict the Scripture saying The people did sacrifice still in the high places yet unto the Lord their God onely Here was worshipping the true God and him onely and yet after a false manner in a respect The same the Apostle teacheth the Athenians The God whom you ignorantly worship declare I unto you When Papists direct their prayers to God the maker of the world and father of Iesus Christ hoping the rather to be heard by means of the Virgin Maries intercession who doubts but they worship the true God but in a false manner Neither doth Deut. 18. 20 proue the sin one of speaking in the name of a false God and speaking falsehood in the name of a true God but divers though both deserving death Next they in their wilde order come to treat of Faith where they affirm that no man can haue faith to justification before he haue repented If they had sayd that no man hath the grace or habit of faith before the grace of repentance it had been true God by the spirit of regeneration infusing the habits of all graces at once But that the act and exercise of faith in beleeving is before our repenting appears both by Scripture and common sense We liue the life of Christ wherof our repenting is a part by the faith of the Sonne of God God purifieth the heart by faith and justifies the ungodly by his faith In all which it is plain that faith hath the preheminence and first work So 2 Cor. 7. 10 Godly sorrow workes repentance Repentance then presupposeth godly sorrow Godly sorrow or whatsoever is truely godly must needs please God which without faith no man can doe but even every thing is sin Faith working that which worketh repentance must goe before it Secondly godly sorrow is not onely for the fear of punishment for so the devils are sorrie but for the offence of God specially Now none can be sorrie for his offending God except he loue God nor loue him except he know first that he bee loved of him in Christ in which faith consisteth We beleev therefore before we repent in the truth of the thing and order of causes though we can hardly discern this order in our own sense CHAP. VI. Of Baptisme IN the next place they come to
it is easier for these men to repeat over the same things many times then once to justifie them ADVERSARIES TO the Scriptures record that little children were brought to Christ that he might lay his hands on them and pray or blesse them and that wheras his Disciples would haue hindred them from him even upon the same ground without doubt upon which these men excludes them he being therewith displeased bids suffer them to come unto him for that of such is the Kingdom of heaven and takes them in his armes and blesseth them and to our collection hence they answer first that He saith not that Infants are of the Kingdom of heaven that is obeyers of the Gospell but that they that will enter into the Kingdom of heaven must become as little children for of such c. And that his mayn end was to declare the innocent estate of Infants and to teach all to be like unto them by conversion and withall that Christ baptized them not and lastly that his blessings are manifold to Infants in their creation life and bodily benefits DEFENCE LET us examine the particulars First they presume but cannot proue that onely such are of the Kingdom of heaven as obey the Gospell Shall Infants which they affirm else-where be glorified in the Kingdom of heaven and yet are they not of it There are not two Kingdoms of heaven but one begun in grace and perfected in glory Secondly they to make more colourable their erroneous construction of the Evangelists words and Christs work about those Infants cite for Math. 19 and the like places Math. 18 that so the slight Readers such as their Disciples are might conceiv that Christ had no other meaning in the other places by us alledged then in that by them and that he spake not of a child personally but in condition as David was Ps. 131. Wheras in that place Christs meaning was to reprov the ambitious contentions amongst his Disciples by the contrary disposition in a childe which he therfore took and set in the midst of them but in the other his purpose was to shew what interest the children of the Church had in him and in his blessing for which they were brought unto him by their parents Against these depravers both of the word and work of God I thus argue That which the parents which brought their infants desired that the Lord did for them But it is plain that their desire in bringing them was that he might pray for them and blesse them as the Scriptures expresly teach he did But say they he baptized them not True for hee baptized none though actuall beleevers It sufficeth that he did that by which he declared that they had right in him and in his blessing and that it was his will they should come unto him Let them shew a way how they can now come to Christ saue by Baptism Or how they can haue right in his blessing and yet haue no right in his bloud-shed and in Baptism for the signifying and applying it They add that Christ healed the sick and gaue bodily blessings of life growth in stature and the like But as it is meerly and vainly imagined that these children were brought for the healing of any bodily diseases so are we taught expresly by the Holy Ghost that Christs blessing them was not for bodily benefits but because the Kingdom of heaven was of such that is appertained to them and to such as they were ADVERSARIES TO our next Argument taken from the circumcision of Abrahams infants they answer First there is no commandment for baptizing of Infants now as there was for circumcising them then Secondly that that commandement was for males onely children or servants though unbeleevers Thirdly that circumcision was to be performed onely on the eight day so as there is no proportion between Circumcision and Baptism DEFENCE HEE that pleaseth to reade the former passages between them and us which they haue in their hands but answer not shall see how weightlesse this exception is and how we haue proved against them that the Church of Israel and ours is one in substance the covenant the same which God made with them in Christ to come and with us in Christ come in the flesh and withall how our Baptism succeeds their Circumcision They trifle in objecting the Legall difference of daies and sexes which the Scriptures expresly teach to bee abolished Are not Pastors now the Lords Ministers as the Levites were of old and their successors therein and yet are they not tyed to any certain Tribe as they were Is not our Lords Supper the same in effect with their Passeover Both the one and the other the mysticall eating of the Lamb of God Which yet is not tyed to any certain day or month as was the former Lastly they err grievously in saying that unbeleeving servant and children were commanded to be circumcised The Lord would haue all the wicked cut off from his people and would he haue unbeleevers received unto them Hath God entred Covenant with unbeleevers to be their God as he hath done with all to whom Circumcision appertained Was it the seal of the righteousnesse of faith and yet due to the faithlesse Rather then these Adversaries will admit the seed of the faithfull to be of Gods people now they will haue very Infidels and Vnbeleevers of old to haue been of his peculiar ones If their heresie were detestable who made the God of the Law worse then the God of the Gospell surely theirs is not light nor small who thus contumeliously speak of him in his people which he took neer unto himselfe and whose God he became and of that speciall Ordinance by which he differenced them from the prophane world as holy unto him in which they interest the unbeleevers and unholy ADVERSARIES NOW followeth our main foundation that as the infants of Abraham and of the Israelites his posterity were taken into the Church-covenant or covenant of life and salvation as they call it and rightly in a true sense with their parents and circumcised so are the infants of the faithfull now and to receiv accordingly the seal of Baptism to which they say and proue as they say that neither Circumcision was nor Baptism is a seal of the Covenant of salvation but the spirit of promise which is ever the same DEFENCE THeir dispute from the seal of the Spirit to proue that there is no other seal is as if a man should deny all teaching direction and comfort by the Word and Sacraments because the Spirit teacheth directeth and comforteth the faithfull This point I haue else-where proved at large against them neither are they either able or doe they goe about to giue any shew of answer and yet without modesty they repeat their former bare sayings fully answered and refuted Where the Apostle 2 Cor. 1 and Eph. 1 4 speaks of the seal of the spirit means
disciples Phillip and the rest had a calling extraordinarie These Adversaries neither haue the former nor challenge the latter And indeed by this defence so oft renewed by them they make it evident to all the world that they neither consider of their own practise seriously nor of mine exceptions Of the difference between teaching and baptising I shall speak in the fourth Rule as I haue also formerly both in this Treatise and else-where at large cleered their exception about ordination which they cunningly dissemble Here I onely demand of them whether one man alone without either presence or preceding election of the Church may ordain a Pastor as is their manner of baptizing And for me doe they not know in their consciences that I was ordained publiquely upon the solemn calling of the Church in which I serue both in respect of the Ordainers and Ordained Whilst then they account me wilfully blinde in putting difference between my Church ordination their Baptism they shew themselvs witlesly blinde in making them alike To my proof from Math. 3 that Christ in comming to Iohn to be baptized of him fulfilled all righteousnesse c. they answer That this is still done when any disciple c Wherein first they make both Iohn and Christ disciples of Christ Secondly if Christ had herein considered Iohn as an ordinarie disciple onely what needed he to haue come from one countrey to another even from Galilee to Iordan in Iudea to haue been baptized of him Why might he not as well haue used some ordinary disciple neer at hand Christ therefore in being baptized by Iohn fulfilled all righteousnesse in consecrating unto us Baptism as Circumcision to the fathers in his own person who of God is made unto us righteousnesse and that by Iohns ministery who had a most solemn and singular calling thereunto Lastly it is not likely which they take for certain that Iohn in these words I had need to be baptized of thee meant not to wit at all of the baptism with water considering that the quest on between our Lord and him was about that Baptism and none other The words therefore insinuate that some special state and calling is required in the Baptizer aboue these mens common disciple-ship Heer first in answering Ioh. 1. 19. 25 for their own credite they disgrace the Priests and Levits as blind and ignorant Pharisees for demanding of Iohn by what authority he baptized But considering both their places and Iohns practise in bringing a new ordinance of Religion into the Church they did nothing herein not well sorting with their office Secondly their answer that Iohn proovs his authority to baptize by proving his authority to preach from Esaias the Prophet Esa. 40. 3 shews how short their wits are in gageing the depth of the Scriptures He doth not proue his authority to baptize by a common authority or liberty to teach which any of Israel gifted might use but he justifies his whole ministery in all the parts of it by his speciall calling as the harbinger and fore-runner of Christ plainly foretold by Esay and Malachy Doe they think that the Prophets words The voyce of one crying in the wildernes appertained to every Israelite that could teach as they ascribe power to baptize to each of their teaching disciples Or might Iohn without a special calling haue instituted and brought into the Church as he did a new ordinance Yea I would know which of Iohns disciples ever offered to baptize Of whom yet it cannot be doubted but divers were able to teach As Cowards most vilifie in words where in deed they dare doe least so doe these men account this proof most vain against which they haue nothing to bring saving an equivocation in the word Ordinances and a cunning course in leaving out that which I alledg from Rom. 12. 3 which would discover the fallacie The different nature of baptism and teaching meerly by a personall gift is evident A man becomes a Prophet and able to teach by the gifts of the Spirit knowledge and utterance But I would know by what gift of the Spirit any becoms a Baptizer or able to baptize 2 Besides the Scriptures 1 Pet. 1. 12 the light of nature and generall law of loue shews that he who knows any thing profitable for another should in his place upon occasion declare it to him so as teaching by him that hath abilitie hath its plain foundation in nature But so is not Baptism by the light of nature but meerly ordained and instituted of God by supernaturall revelation in which respect I call it an ordinance And this consideration alone if there were nothing else wil with reasonable men oversway all their presumptions Actions of religion are some of them performed immediately from a personall gift and grace of the spirit in the heart as preaching or prophesying and prayer out of a speciall state or office others by no speciall gift of the spirit at all but by authoritie conferred upon some speciall person as the ministration of Sacraments censures ordination the like lastly some others by both as pastoral preaching prayer c the gift ministring abilitie and the office charge to use the gift for feeding of the flock committed to the officer In answering my fift Proof the alledg things partly imperâ—â—nâ—nt and partly unreasonable Of the former sort is their discourse about the Eunâ—â—chs being a member of Christ and his remaining in any particular Church Whereas they should haue answered directly whether by his faith and baptism hee had been made a member of any particular Church or not But they seeing what would follow upon a direct answer haue rather chosen an indirect evasion Of like hue is that which they add of Israels renewed covenant conceiving Israel as a true Church which we meddle not with in this businesse Absurd it is in it selfe and a slandering of our practise which they affirm of one casting out another where there are but two of a Church Which of us ever so held or practized One man or woman either may upon just ground separate from a whole Church may he or she therfore excommunicate a whole Church Or hath I. M. excommunicated the whole Church of England Separation where lawfull onely shews the liberty which every Christian hath to keep himselfe pure from the sins of others Excommunication imports a judiciarie power and state of authority to execute a solemn censure and punishment which appertains onely to the Church gathered together in Christs name which one cannot be Two may joyn together and so receiving one another mutually may become a Church or may upon just occasion part a sunder and so dissolv but cannot receiv in to speak properly or cast out one another by solemn ordinance this imports authority the former liberty onely But thus it becomes the new builders of Babylon to use brick for stone and lime for well tempered morter Their answer to my