of your Strength and Parts in writing against such as called forth your Antisozzo and not in calling it a Crispian Heresie to say A Believer is to work from Life and not for Life or a Crispian Heterodoxy to say Christ bore the Anomia of Sin whereas the Scripture saith He bare our Sins And if you can separate Anomia from Sin then it is not Sin and then according to you Christ did not bear Sin But I hope upon a sedate recollection my Dear Kratiste will give Glory to God and own his intemperate and unbecoming Heat against the Reporter and his Apocryphal Tobias or rather against the Truth being under the violent hurry of a Temptation to exalt his Wit and Fancy whereby he has grievously shewed his weakness in trusting too much to his Parts §. CXXXVIII Now that the Lord would please graciously to make some of these Remarks useful to some serious considering Servants of our blessed Lord Jesus as they have been refreshing to the Composer and that we may lay out all our Time and Strength all our Parts and Estate That Christ alone may be exalted That all may honour the Son as they honour the Father for which end all Judgment is committed to the Son and that thereby we may advance the Glory of the Free Grace of God to poor Sinners in Christ and in him only Our whole Salvation being of Grace and not of Works lest any Man should boast And that through Faith in Jesus we may daily duely humbly and yet with holy boldness wait with our Loins girt with the girdle of Truth for our Lord from Heaven in the â—lory of the Father in his own Glory and in the Glory of the Holy Angels and all his Saints with him is the Prayer of a very unworthy and yet in some sense a happy Branch of him whom my Dear Kratiste hath unmercifully traduced P. S. §. CXXXIX FInding the Controversie maintained concerning a Change of Persons between Christ and Believers and Dr. Crisp much reflected on in a Letter that Mr. Williams hath procured from the Reverend Bishop of W in order to justifie himself from the Charge of his denying a Change I cannot well avoid saying a word or two to the said Letter with great deference to the Author I commend Mr. Williams for fleeing for Refuge to Men of Name but all the Names and Men in the World cannot help him in this Case when he had absolutely denyed a Change Now to be thought to own a Change unless he first plainly owns his Error in his flat denying a Change he may not fairly shift it off that he owned it in a Sense but disowned it in the Doctor 's Sense when without any distinction he said plainly thus Whether there be a Change this the Doctor affirms and I deny Which is so manifest a denyal of a Change in any Sense as words can in general make it 'T is as if I should say I went into Paul's Church to hear the Organs and there was not a Man there I saw a Singing-Boy and he said there was a Man there The Boy affirmed there was a Man there This the Boy said and this I deny Can I help my self and say there was a Man in a Surplice but there was not a Bishop there or a Doctor there This is a sorry shift with an untruth into the bargain for me to say there was not a Man there and then shift it off with I owned there was a Man in a Surplice there So Mr. Williams Whether there be a Change this the Doctor affirms and I deny This a Change here must in all ordinary acceptation of the words be taken for any Change without any sort of distinction This I deny said Mr. Williams Now to help him over this stile he troubles the Bishop whom I honour as a Person of great Worth and Learning though I cannot admire that sort of Station of Lord-Bishop in the Church of the Living God which very Station might occasion the Treatise of The Mischief of Separation and produced my Dear Kratiste's Mischief of Imposition yet I make bold to say with Thanks to the Bishop How warily soever he writes as to clearness in the Point of Commutation yet he writes with wonderful Modesty and in every Tittle like a Gentleman not be-heriticking not bemonstring Dr. Crisp as the Rebuker hath unaccountably done but like a Christian Gentleman and Scholar saith mildly This I take to be Dr. Crisp 's Sense of the Change of Persons not with a ruff-hewen Pen This is Dr. Crisp's Dreggy Antinomianism This is his Heterodox Heresie This is his Wild monstrous Sense And this is his Apocryphal Story §. CXL But to the Bishop's Argument he saith This I take to be Dr. Crisp 's Sense of the Change of Persons It is such a Sense as implies an Actual Translation of the Personal Guilt of all the Sins of Believers on Christ and his Personal Righteousness on them But note the Doctor mentioned not Personal Guilt nor Actual Translation but kept himself firm on the Scripture Foundation of Christ being made Sin for us and we made the Righteousness of God in him From whence he infers If Christ was made Sin for us he was as sinful as we that is by Imputation and if we are made the Righteousness of God we are as Righteous as he that is as Christ God-Man with his Mediatorial Righteousness wrought out for us and imputed to us than which what can be a more clear Consequence if we are the Righteousness of God But to evade this or to reflect on the Doctor the Bishop saith Concerning the Translation of Guilt which results from the Act of Sin committed if this Guilt be translated Christ must become the very Person who committed the Sins and so he must be look'd on not only as an Actual Sinner but as the Person who committed all the Sins of those for whom he dyed Which comes near to horrid Blasphemy This is a strange Inference for one of the Bishop's Learning Could not Christ as our Surety sustaining the Persons of Sinners stand in their place and stead and as their Sponsor pay their Debts and answer for their Sins laid on him unless he become the very Person that committed the Sins This takes away all Suretyship Surely he may be in the place of David and bear the Sin of his Murder and Adultery and it being imputed to him he may bear it away and he may be reckoned as and reputed as the Murderer and yet not be the Murderer or else how could God in Justice punish him and take pleasure to bruise him as our old Protestant Divines argue all along from Isa 53 §. CXLI Well what doth the Bishop own then As far as I can see not one Tittle of our Sins being by God laid on Christ or of Christ's bearing our Sins which is the Life and Soul of the Gospel and of all Consolation to poor Sinners that flee for refuge to him
and Arminianism through the great Mercy of God to this Nation hath been kept alive and warm in all Parliaments since 1628 even in the Reign of King James the Second and there is no doubt of losing it in this Reign wherein His Majesty hath given good Proof that he is neither Papist nor Arminian nor inclining thereto Now whether the Quotations in this Treatise do not shew that some mentioned therein go against the Orthodox Church judge ye and the Lord give you VVisdom to withstand Thus hoping for a favourable Construction of my Endeavour pro modulo si non pro voto to vindicate the Truths of the Gospel I beg the Lord's Blessing on you and am Your Humble Servant Hananiel Philalethes 28 July 1698. To my Dear Kratiste the Author of the Rebuke and Vilifier of Dr. Crisp SIR I Cannot but be troubled that in your declining days you should inflame the Reckoning as you have done in your Rebuke to the Grief of your best Friends among whom my self am particularly concerned that you should so violently let fly against those Truths of the Gospel which have solaced the Souls of Thousands as held forth by the Doctor whom you have very ungravely treated as an Heterodox wild Monster to the Eternal Infamy of his Name and Family what in you lay I hope e're this God hath caused you often to mourn over your intemperate Management of your Rebuke and lest you should come short therein that I may provoke you seriously thereto I think it necessary to lay before you the Character I had lately from a Worthy Minister of the Gospel and Friend of yours concerning him you have so unmercifully traduced which was given by one that sometimes in the height of his Zeal was as bitter as any against Dr. Crisp except your self that is by Mr. Richard Baxter upon his Death-Bed but two days before he dyed as this Friend of yours assured me once and again that Mr. Baxter told him and he related it to you very lately as thus that Mr. Baxter said to your Friend There has been a great deal of Talk about Dr. Crisp but I look upon him to have been a Godly Holy Man and that he was Sound and Orthodox and that he brought in more Souls to Christ than any of us but this was his Fault said Mr. Baxter that being a Popular Man and mightily flock'd after he would preach Extempore Sermons which exposed him to deliver Things undigested which needed to be corrected but for the main he was Sound and Orthodox For which Testimony I thanking the Relater desired him to give me it in Writing in ipsissimis Verbis but being prudent he desired Excuse and repeated the same again to me and afterwards to others I told him as to the Extempore Sermons that was a great Mistake to my knowledge and I was glad God had convinced so great an Enemy to the Doctor Now if this be true as there is not the least grain of ground to doubt it coming from a Faithful Holy Minister then surely Dr. Crisp was not such an one as my Kratiste hath blackned him to be God having provided for the embalming his Memory with sweet Odours even from his gain-sayers when launching into Eternity to give an account of their hard Speeches unrepented of I hope it may please the Lord by his Holy Spirit striking in with this and other Occurrences to lower the top-sails of my good Friend before he brings you to the brink of Eternity when your Natural Parts will signifie nothing and that you may have more Time than Mr. B had to testifie to the World your high prizing the Free Grace of God in Christ as held out by many besides Dr. Crisp as in the ensuing Treatise and that you may testifie to the World also that your Father in Law Mr. King mistook in his Prophesie saying as I am told That his Son in Law your self had good Parts but his Pride would undo him But I hope and pray the contrary viz. That God would undo him only of Natural self and do him up again by the renewing of the Spirit To his Grace I commend you and am Your real Friend a Happy tho' Vnworthy Branch of the Doctor Hananiel Philalethes 28 July 1698. To all that love our Lord Jesus in Sincerity Grace Mercy and Peace with Growth therein while they peruse a few Remarks on a Rebuke to a Report concerning some Differences between the Congregational Ministers and Presbyterian wherein the Rebuker to Vindicate Mr. Williams hath bespattered not only Dr. Crisp and others he calls Antinomians but some great Doctrines of the Gospel which are Establish'd by Law in the Homilies and which by Act of Parliament are to be Read in Parish Churches when there is no Sermon SECTION I. I Who account my self a Happy though Unworthy Branch of the said Doctor finding in the abovesaid Rebuke that the Author has flown into frothy and bitter Invectives against the Reporter Mr. Lob for a very Modest Account he had given of the Differences among some Ministers and that the Rebuker hath branded Dr. Crisp and his Sermons with Crispian Heresies c. though mostly consonant with the Scripture and the Judgment of Thousands of serious Christians but chiefly I finding the great Doctrine of the Free Grace of God in Christ as asserted by the great Reformers to be in the said Rebuke obscured whereby Socinianism and Arminianism gets ground and being incouraged by Augustine in Antisozzo his saying That all Men that can handle a Pen are obliged to say somewhat against the Enemies to the Free Effectual Grace of God I therefore think it my Duty for the Honour of our Lord Jesus to spend a few Hours in some necessary Remarks on the said Rebuke and though but in a mean manner yet humbly to offer this Mite of my Testimony to the Truth so far as the Lord shall guide me which I humbly implore his assistance in by detecting several Blemishes cast on the Truth in the said Rebuke which I premise with that saying of our Lord Jesus Wisdom is justified of her Children §. II. So I desire these Remarks may be which begin with noteing the Sarcasms or Taunts the Rebuker casts on Mr. Lob for his Report which first entrance shews with what an unbeseeming Spirit he manages his Design To which I may say Do Men gather Grapes of Thorns or Figs of Thistles By their Fruits you shall know them Can any expect our Lord Jesus should be honoured in such a Discourse which begins with treating a Reverend Minister with such opprobrious Language as in the two first Pages to cast these Eleven Reflections on him As Prevaricating Partial A Learned Divine In a Jeer. Insolent Scribler A Huff Little Fooleries Fire-balls So he calls his Papers Poyson Pedantick Great Wit In a Scoff To which I Remark That doleful is the Consideration that God should suffer an Eminent Person a Reverend Divine of the First Rate in the
Faith in him or else we must feign that a Believer hath a Spiritual Life in him that is not from Christ if he have Faith before he is united to Christ as some pretend and so there would be two Spiritual Lives in a Believer one before Union to Christ which works Faith and the other from Christ upon acting our Faith But this Ass of our own Spiritual Life and the Oxe of Christ's Life in us will not draw well together So that I think I may safely conclude this is no Heresie to say that Union to Christ is before Faith much less is that which follows an Heresie to say that we partake of the Spirit by vertue of that Vnion This is brought in as part of the fifth Heresie Whence do the Branches partake of the Sap of the Vine but from the Root by Vertue of Union to the Vine 'T is strange to admiration that this should be question'd by those who like Peter seem to be Pillars in the Church to call it an Antinomian Heresie to say We partake of the Spirit by vertue of Vnion to Christ If the Spirit be not in us before Faith how can he convince of Sin in not believing and thereby work Faith Doth not the Scripture say plainly 1 Cor. 12.8 9. To one is given by the Spirit the word of Wisdom to another Faith by the same Spirit Doth the Spirit give Faith and is he not then in the Soul to work Faith before it is wrought Is not the Former before the Thing formed If so then sure my Dear Kratiste was in a great Mistake and has sadly imposed on those that profess Faith in our Lord Jesus to rank this for a Heresie That we partake of the Spirit by vertue of our Vnion to Christ which in Naturâ is before Faith The sixth as being much akin to the former I pass only with the naming of it 'T is Heresie he saith to say Justification in regard of Application must be before Believing Whose Saying this is or whence it is taken I know not If the meaning be that God applies it to us or reckons it to us before our Believing that we are Justified This is so far from Heresie that I think the contrary is a Contradiction Or 't is Nonsense for me to believe a Thing is mine before it is given me or applyed to me and so made mine And in that Sense the Application of Justification by God's Spirit to my Conscience that God hath loved me and given his Son for me this must first be applyed to me before I can believe it or else my Believing is but Presumption But if by Application of Justification before Believing he means that the Soul doth apply it to himself before his Believing I think he is to seek for any that hold that Tenet §. XXVII His seventh Heresie is this That the first Application ordine Naturae saltem is to an Vngodly Man eo nomine that he may believe That this is a blessed gospel-Gospel-Truth and no Heresie appears by what our Blessed Lord Jesus saith That he came not to call the Righteous but Sinners And his immediate Call made them follow him as Levi from being a Publican to be a believing Disciple Nay saith our Lord Publicans and Harlots enter into the Kingdom of God before you Ye believed not but the Publicans and Harlots believed Matth. 21.31 32. Here was Application to ungodly Wretches eo nomine that they might believe and when Publicans and Harlots they did believe and so came off from their Ungodliness Yea the Dog Syrophenaecian as Christ called her she had Faith given her while she was a Dog even to the Admiration of Christ himself who said O Woman great is thy Faith And saith the Apostle for a full Proof that the Application is to an ungodly Man eo nomine While we were Enemies we were reconciled to God by the Death of his Son Nay as God will have it the very word ungodly which they oppose as Heresie is asserted in the Scripture that the first Application of Christ is to an ungodly Man in Rom. 4.5 To him that believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly his Faith is counted for Righteousness If the Blessed Apostle saith God justifieth the ungodly I trow this is no Heresie in him but if Heterodox Dr. Crisp say the same words then 't is an Antinomian Heterodoxy Now there 's a great out-cry what do you make God to be Is God such a Friend to Sin as to justifie the Vngodly Doth it become the Holiness of God to justifie an ungodly Man This is the way to vindicate all licentious Antinomianism That God justifies the Vngodly and that while he is an Enemy he is reconciled to God O out upon such profane Antinomians We can allow the Apostle Paul to use such Language because we can distinguish this into he doth not justifie the Vngodly that the Apostle means so whatever he saith but we cannot bear it that Apochryphal Tobias should say so nor that Mysterious Nonsense say so as Mr. Williams called Mr. Cole we cannot bear it in him for this is to open a gap to Profaneness to say God justifieth the Vngodly §. XXVIII The eighth Heresie is to assert That we believe that we may be justified declaratively The Case I take to be thus The Apostle saith in Gal. 2.16 We believe that we may be justified by the Faith of Jesus from whence the Neonomians conclude that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere our Act of Faith is that very Thing which justifies us or that we are justified by our Work of Faith if not by Works of Faith and Holiness which sometimes they joyn yet at least by a Work by our Act of Believing Whereas the Orthodox according to the Homilies and Doctrine of the Church of England from plain Scripture put Faith it self from us as that Act that justifies and say Faith justifies only declaratively as it manifests to the Conscience our being justified by Christ's Blood Rom. 5.9 and freely by his Grace not our Grace of Faith through the Redemption that is in Jesus Rom. 3.24 Titus 3.7 It is still ascribed to his Grace not any Grace in us our Grace of Faith being only the Instrument or Hand given us of God to receive Christ and all in him If Justification be as they would have it from any Act of ours as the Ground or Cause of it then we are not freely justified by his Grace but by our Work of Believing which if not a Popish is an Arminian Tenet to blemish the Free Grace of God in Jesus Christ So that it may be safely concluded that it is no Heresie to say our Justification by Faith is declarative in as much as the Essence of Justification is by the Blood of Jesus and the Grace of God imputing it to us is the form of our Justification which being received by Faith is thereby manifested or declared to the Conscience by the Illumination of the Holy
Spirit Could she and Christ be one Spirit Could she have the Comeliness of Christ upon her and not appear in his Person How could her Name as well as his be the Lord our Righteousness Jer. 33.16 23.6 if she did not take upon her the Person and Condition of Christ Or how else could she be called Christ 1 Cor. 12.12 O that we did more taste the Sweetness and Comfort of this Relation and Condition every day then instead of calling it uncooth and novel we should give Glory to God for his Infinite Rich Grace to marry us to his Son Jesus and be ravished with his amazing Love to make such vile Creatures as we are in our selves in whose Flesh as the Apostle saith in Rom. 7. dwells no good thing that we should be Members of his Body of his Flesh and of his Bones which is to take his Person and Condition with a witness What new coyned business is it to say Christ and Believers are one that they take his Person and he theirs when the Scripture so frequently speaks of I in them and they in me I the Surety they the Discharged I standing in their stead taking their Sins on me and so sustaining their Persons Thus they taking his Person and Condition are made the Righteousness of God in him 2 Cor. 5.21 O that we could well conceive and receive this that we could feed and feast on this Marrow and Fatness of the Gospel every day and drink deep draughts of this Unsearchable Rich Grace of God then we should adore his Goodness and not call it a Monster or a wild monstrous Sense this Change of Persons §. LXVII For the Conclusion the Rebuker is pleased to leave the dreadful Tail of his wild Monster in his Comment on the Doctor 's Scripture Assertion in these words And now you have it that Change of Persons which the Doctor affirms and Mr. Williams denies which had he not he had denied his Redeemer and betrayed the Gospel Here 's a deadly Sting in this Tail a very malignant one for it is neither better nor worse than to say the Doctor by his wild monstrous Sense of the Change of Persons has denyed his Redeemer and betrayed the Gospel Bona verba easily and dangerously enough said but not at all proved I am sure he that denies Christ being made of God Sin for us very Sin not the shadow or shell of Sin and that denies our being made the Righteousness of God the very Righteousness of God-Man Jesus Christ in him he by having our very Sins laid on him he therein sustaining our Persons and we by having his very Righteousness imputed to us and being upon us whereby we stand in his Person and appear Righteous in the sight of God as he is Righteous as being cloathed with his Righteousness he is the denyer of Christ and betrayer of the Gospel nay he wholly evacuates and exinanitiates the Gospel For what Benefit can we have by Christ's Death if our Sins were not made his and laid on him and he made Sin for us Or by his Righteousness if it be not made ours given to us and we appear in it in and through Jesus Christ before God How could the Apostle say of any Man 1 John 3.7 He is Righteous as God is Righteous but by his believing in Christ where his Faith is accounted to him for Righteousness As Abraham's Faith justified him not his Act of Faith barely but the Act taking in the Object of it viz. Christ's Righteousness and so he truly doth Righteousness that believes in the Lord Jesus his Righteousness and Strength and thus doing Righteousness he becomes Righteous as he is Righteous and to deny this is to betray the Gospel in order to bring in our own Righteousness to joyn it with Christs as it were by the Works of the Law Rom. 9.32 Or how are we accepted in the Beloved if we do not appear in his Person before God and so sustain his Person Is this a denying Christ and betraying the Gospel O that God would anoint Mens Eyes with the Collirium the Eye-Salve of the Spirit then they would be able to bear the light of the Glory of God as it shines on and in poor Creatures in the Face of Christ to make Righteous as he is Righteous and not dazzle them to make them call this betraying the Gospel §. LXVIII It may do well for all Calumniators to consider the Judgment that God inflicted on the Children at Bethel that mock'd Elisha saying Come up thou bald Head Come up thou bald Head which is a thousand times less detracting than to say thou denyer of Christ and betrayer of the Gospel whereupon there came out of the Forest two She-Bears and tare in pieces 42 of them Which was a far less Judgment than what God has inflicted on some to leave them to write against the Truth and thereby to harden themselves and grieve the Godly So far as the Rebuker has dipt his Pen in Gall in this kind I only say The Lord rebuke thee Is not this a Brand pluck'd out of the Fire What! call a faithful fervent Servant of our Lord Jesus the Air of whose Sermons carries such a favour of Love and Honour to our Lord Jesus and such a Zeal for Holiness that his very Enemies even Mr. Williams could say he believed he was a Holy Man I say for my Dear Kratiste to call such an one A wild monstrous denyer of his Redeemer and betrayer of the Gospel has a dismal Aspect as if God had left such if not to the hardening their Heart against the Truth yet to such an high towering Opinion of themselves in order to the greater humbling them that for their falling into such contemptuous Language they may be made contemptible by some sharp Pen. We read that Michael when contending with the Devil about the Body of Moses he durst not bring a railing Accusation against him but said The Lord rebuke thee And so I beseech the Lord in Mercy to do to all that call the Advancers of Free Grace in Christ by such virulent Names as we have seen §. LXIX In Page 41 our Dear Kratiste seems mighty angry with the Reporter Mr. L. for saying It 's impossible to establish the Doctrine of Justification on its true and proper Basis any otherwise than by clearing the Point of Commutation of Persons And yet the Rebuker himself owns this to be Articulus stantis vel cadentis Ecclesiae Then sure it ought to be cleared And how can that be That the Holy Innocent Jesus should be made Sin and the Unholy the Nocent Sinners should be made the Righteousness of God but by a Commutation of Persons He standing in our stead being our Surety sustaining our Persons on the Cross suffering for us as Calvin Luther Twiss Pemble Harris with a multitude more do affirm whom the Rebuker will own to be of the First Form of Learned Holy Divines not Apocryphal Tobiases and we
Exchange of Person for Person which is the surest Exchange in War or Captivity when nothing but one Person will be taken in the room of another §. LXXIV One would wonder how it should happen that my Dear Kratiste and his Friends should be ignorant of such Passages as these so as he should speak as if this Term was never dream'd of before when the Great Luther is so precise in the Term and other Excellent Men. Therefore I beseech you be not too confident of your grasping all Things in all Councils Synods and Assemblies lest you lose all O how much better is it to say with the Apostle He that thinketh he knoweth any thing knoweth nothing as he ought to know it and with Agur I have not the Vnderstanding of a Man than to Challenge all the World with what is said in all Councils General and Provincial The humble he will teach and the mock he will gâ—â—â—â— in Judgment Which the Lord grant to us all and that we may be ever learning of our Blessed Lord and Master to be meek and lowly §. LXXV My Dear Kratiste goes farther in Bontering the Phrases of Christ's taking our Person and we his Person and spares not to call them Apocryphal Phrases though they are such as many Holy Men have made use of to clear up the great and comfortable Doctrine of Christ's being our Surety and making Satisfaction for us Well may he call Tobias Apocryphal if he calls his great Teacher under Christ the Apostle Paul Apocryphal as I shall shew by and by He is pleased to come forth in great State in Page 49 as my Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer with his Quo Warranto against the Commutation of Persons and thus Harangues the World Quo Warranto Why must all the World be Hereticated that dare not subscribe to these Apocryphal Phrases which neither Scripture nor Antient Fathers nor General nor Particular Councils nor Synods nor Assemblies nor single Churches ever brought into their Creeds c. What a scampering flourish is here over all Councils Fathers c. circuating the Universe as if our Author were the Magazine of all Learning and had fortified himself on every side against this Change of Persons and Christ's sustaining our Person as if the Phrase were intollerably uncooth I shall only attack one Fort which is the first Out-Fort the Scripture and if that be taken he must yield all the rest The Scripture is the Pillar and Ground of Truth We will see if that doth not bring into our Creed this Term of Christ's bearing our Person and we his Person or that which is plainly tantamount doth not the Apostle say Col. 2.6 7. As ye have received the Lord Jesus Christ so walk in him Rooted and built up in him What is this but to be in his Person by Faith joined to the Lord and so he coming one Spirit as the Apostle saith which is the same as to be one Person But as if God would at once by one stroke quell all the Quarrels and Exceptions against the Truth and calling it unintelligible Nonsense as in Truth it is to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Philosophers he condescends to the very Term of our being in the person of Christ and saith in 2 Cor. 2.10 by the Apostle Paul If I forgave any thing for your sakes forgave I it in the Person of Christ What thinks my Dear Kratiste now Is this Term so novel as never to be brought into our Creed by Scripture Councils or Fathers O how good is it to be humble and not to tower to the top of all Learning denying this phrase to be in Scripture Fathers or Councils when at the very threshold we see one may fall For here the very express Scripture uses the phrase of the Apostles being in the Person of Christ and forgiving an offending Brother in the Person of Christ And so I hope we shall all learn to forgive one another and not to rebuke with immoderate strains as our Rebuker hath very unwarrantably done in charging the Doctor with wild monstrous Sense and Apocryphal Phrases when he speaks the Apostle Paul's Language §. LXXVI I hope you will allow the Apostle to bring this Term of our sustaining Christ's person into our Credenda or Things to be believed though the Doctor whom for it you charge with Antinomian Heresie may not use the word without a severe Lash Is this to learn of our Lord Jesus who would excuse his Disciples under failings and not presently bring them to the block much less would he tax them with a wild monstrous Sense of Things when they spake only the Sense of the Scriptures But why this Expression should be Heresie in the Doctor though Orthodox in the Apostle I can quickly tell It being I reckon from his having some Mens persons in admiration Our Kratiste having some time since prest hard on the Conscience of Mr. Williams he is now raising up his Reputation which he might suppose this a proper way for by loading the Doctor with the Title of a Dreggy Apocryphal Heretick because Mr. Williams had written so much against him in his Gospel-Truth stated and so the Rebuker here seconding Mr. Williams in aspersing the Doctor would redintegrate the said Mr. Williams into the good esteem of those who had occasion given them for low Thoughts of him upon account of what the Rebuker had reflected on Now to make him amends if Mr. Williams hath criminated the Doctor the Rebuker must do so also or how can Mr. Williams stand Rectus in Curia or in statu quo with those who had taken some Offence at those Things he was charged with So that Things being thus Mr. Williams being to be redintegrated into publick applause now if Mr. Williams say I deny a Change Kratiste can do no less than say The term of a Change is novel and unintelligible If Mr. Williams say This is Dr. Crisp ' s Error or Mistake Kratiste will exemplifie enlarge and perfect the Crimination and call it Heresie Which how Christian like it is or the contrary I hope the Lord will one day convince him §. LXXVII In Page 51 he offers us a moot Point worthy to be taken notice of thus I would propound a moot Point whether the Socinians who have blasphemously degraded the Person of Christ into a God by Office though a meer Man by Nature or the Antinomians who own him to be a God by Nature yet affirm him to have been a Sinner the greatest of Sinners nay Sinfulness it self do more derogate from the Honour of our Redeemer For Answer This is so far from being a moot Point that it is no point at all unless you can find any of your Antinomians that assert what you here say they affirm You cannot but know your Antinomians own and assert strenuously That the Lord Jesus was ever holy harmless separate from Sin a Lamb without spot in his own person being perfect God and perfect Man nay they
of which you may find whole Sermons on that Text Tit. 2.12 The Grace of God teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live godly righteously and soberly So that from his Doctrine there is no Reason to make that an unpardonable Sin to assert the necessity of Regeneration and as little Reason to do it on account of his Conversation which through the Grace of God was by the Report even of his Enemies untainted yea exemplarily holy as several at this day in this City can witness For farther Satisfaction be pleased to read him on the Sermon intituled Free Grace the Teacher of good Works where he saith in Fol. 35 Good Works are necessary ex parte Dei ex parte Rei ex parte nostri on the part of God on account of the Thing it self and on our own account O! that it might please God to fill my Dear Kratiste's Bosom with fervent Charity to prevent for the future his charging a fervent Servant of our Lord Jesus as if it were an unpardonable Sin against such an one to urge the necessity of Holiness Though still I take it to be an unaccountable Contradiction to the Gospel and the Free Grace of God in Christ whereby we are saved for any to assert the necessity of our Holiness so as that it shall come in to have any share with our Lord Jesus in the saving us for in that respect we must always say with David Psal 62. He only is my Rock and my Salvation and in Psal 71.16 I will go in the strength of the Lord God I will make mention of thy Righteousness of thine only There must not come in one Rag of our own no not so much as to wrap about a cut Finger 'T is only the fine white Linnen of Christ's Righteousness can recommend us acceptable to God with which the good Lord cloath us §. XCV The next excursion to be lamented in my Dear Kratiste is his branding all that dissent from the Writings of Mr. Williams to be whaffling Whelps that can bark and not bite In Fol. 58 he speaking of Exceptions that were made or to be made against Mr. William's Writings saith thus Was ever a poor Creature thus tyed to a Stake to be baited by the English Molossi and by every whaffling Whelp that could bark though not bite This is very hard Language against his dissenting Brethren in the Ministry I cannot now wonder at what an Eminent Person told me lately That the Rebuker had better have cut off his Fingers than to have written that which he calls A Faithful Rebuke Was it ever heard of that a Gentleman a Scholar a Divine one Sagacious to an high degree should so far indulge his Heat as to call the Reverends Mr. Cole and Mr. Mather now with the Lord at Rest dying in the Joy and Comfort of opposing Mr. Williams's Errors and to call Hundreds of Able Divines in this Kingdom and in effect to call all the reformed Churches abroad and our Reformers at home that made the Homilies wherein they do oppose his Errors to call them all whaffling Whelps that can bark and not bite O! that there might be a due Reflection then there would be smiting on the Breast and saying What have I done to reflect so indecently on the Servants of the most High lest our Lord Jesus cast him to the Ground with a Saul Saul why persecutest thou me §. XCVI O how sad is it that my Dear Kratiste should so far ingage himself in such a Cause as he should think might need such Railings as suit only to a Rabshakeh not a Protestant Divine This is the way to have Ismaels Character his Hand against every Man and every Man's Hand against him O! that the Lord would cause him upon a Melius Inquirendum to pour some Oyl upon this Vinegar of whaffling Whelps and that he would follow Holy Austin and retract such Language and own Humanum est errare One would stand in admiration at such an Expression from one that would surely be accounted a lover and learner of our Lord Jesus who was meek and lowly and so far from calling any of his followers whaffling Whelps that he called Judas his betrayer Friend Mat. 26.50 and when he was reviled he reviled not again and when he was forced to chide his Disciples how sweetly doth he do it Ye know not what Spirit ye are of And so I suppose may be said of this Rebuker §. XCVII What if Paul and Barnabas differed so that they parted one from another did Paul call the other a Whelp a whaffling Whelp Sure our faithful Rebuker when the Lord shall be pleased to convince him of his excess herein he will go and bewail this before the Lord that he hath opened the Mouths of Scorners who may say we may well call these Parsons a parcel of pitiful Fellows for you see how one of the first Rank calls his Brethren Whelps whereas the Servant of the Lord must not strive but be gentle towards all 2 Tim. 2.24 How happy would it be if all that fear the Lord would learn of Abraham who said to Lot Let there be no strife between thee and me for we be Brethren §. XCVIII He having provoked the Reporter now he fears his Friend Mr. Williams whom he has taken this Pains for may be set in the Pillory there to be palted with rotten Eggs and all this because it had been propounded that he should give Satisfaction about what might be excepted against him And I pray where can the hurt of this be that he should be desired to satisfie those that object against him Is this palting him with rotten Eggs If he be to be palted with Eggs of his own laying that are not very sound I know one that hath got together about a hundred out of his Nest of Man made Righteous besides what are laid in his gospel-Gospel-Truth If it should happen that some of these be cast on him and defile him it is not his Friends flattering can make him clean 't is only his going into the Fountain of Life the Lord Jesus can take away all the uncleanness that such Eggs will bring upon him I will cast none of them at him but only break three of them before him which I am sure have a worse savour than the rottenest Egg in the Town these I take out of Fol. 140 of Gospel-Truth where he saith The respect to Glory which our good Works have they are as Seed to the Harvest that 's one and as the Foundation to the Building that s a second and as Work to Wages there 's a third So that he makes our good Works to be our Christ Jesus I begin with his second as being most of the Romish scent Our good Works have the same respect to Glory that the Foundation hath to the Building Was ever any thing more Popish Doth not the Scripture say I lay in Zion for a Foundation a Stone a tryed Stone Isa
Penalty of Sin may be inflicted there 's a necessity that the Guilt of Sin be imputed Now to talk of Guilt imputed and not the Fault is Nonsense For what Guilt is there where there is no Fault Did Christ bare Sin and Guilt without Fault Then he bare faultless Sin and faultless Guilt which is ridiculous Well but my Dear Kratiste goes on currently for his Antinomians and saith It 's impossible indeed that we should personally have committed Adam 's Sin or performed that very Obedience which Christ performed but not impossible that the Disobedience of the one or Obedience of the other should be reckoned AS committed and performed by us How doth this agree with his equal Astonishment and Indignation at the horrid Opinion to say That the Fault of Sin was laid upon Christ O! that he would humbly own his hasty heat O! that he might recover himself and return to the Truths he owned in Antisozzo and not call it an horrid Opinion That the Fault was laid on Christ when himself owns the Guilt was lest he exasperate his tart Answerers to call him not only an Ecclesiastical Droll but a Terrae Filius Droll to talk of Guilt without Fault This might possibly occasion that severe Reflection of Fits in the Rebuker not fit to be mentioned but meliora speramus we hope better Things and such as accompany Salvation by his freeing himself from halting in the Point of Christ's Satisfaction which the Reporter chargeth him with §. CIX I proceed to convince if it may please God my Dear Kratiste of his unbenign Temper in his treating the Opposers of Mr. Williams in Pa. 60. O! how unlike are those Passages to any thing we find of our beloved Lord and Master Jesus the meek and lowly who had no Guile in his Mouth and who being reviled reviled not again But so it fares not with the Rebuker who though he was not reviled in the Report yet he Banters and Jeers his Friends that concur not with him in Page 60 with this Expression speaking of his Opposers he saith of them They will make no farther Contest with Mr. Williams I mistake saith the Rebuker but private Whisperings and evil Surmizes and insinuated Slanders and clandestine Reproaches may be multiplyed while Mr. Williams lives O what a dire Charge is here in this climax and constellation of Accusations Here are Whisperings Surmises Slanders and Reproaches and these epethited with being private evil insinuated and clandestine Nay 't is to be feared they will feed upon his Carcase See here what Cannibals he makes all the Gospel-Ministers that cannot that ought not to concur with Mr. Williams his unsound stating of gospel-Gospel-Truth May not Men write and plead for the Truth which it is obvious Mr. Williams hath wronged as on that Text Phil. 3.9 but they must be invidiously loaded as above O my Dear Kratiste I beseech the Lord to mollifie your Temper and to give you an humble broken Gospel-Sense of your too much giving way through the Temptation of the Floridness of your Stile to an excess of Carnal Passion in your Rebuke Doth not the blessed Apostle tell us in 2 Tim. 4.2 that his beloved Timothy though but a Young Divine that he should rebuke with all long-suffering How much more is it a Duty for the Elder Divines to exercise long suffering yea all long-suffering in their Rebukes cujus contrarium we see Some talk of having a Commission from all the Systematical Divines as Antisozzo had but I fear you have exceeded that as well as the Apostle's Admonition in your Rebuke to the Report §. CX Are all accounted by the Rebuker as Cannibals that write against Mr. Williams How then shall I escape who put my Mite into the Treasury of pleading for Free Grace Every one hath not a Face of Brass neither doth God say to all Contenders for the Truth as he did to Ezekiel in Ezek. 3.9 As an Adamant harder than a Flint have I made thy Forehead therefore fear them not and must we not therefore plead for Truth for fear of being called Man-Eaters I hope my Dear Kratiste will remember what Antisozzo saith in his Preface That Austin would have every Man that can hold a Pen write against Pelagius that sworn Enemy to free discriminating effectual Grace And if so why may not the Reporter or any Pen-Man write against Mr. Williams and all those Forty Nine Vouchers who declares That a degree of our Gospel-Obedience to a Law that admits Sin doth concur to our Justification quite contrary to the Scripture which saith We are justified freely by his Grace through the Redemption that is in Jesus Are we bound to contend earnestly for the Faith and will you load with multiplyed Sarcasms those that cannot swallow such distastful Morsels as he cuts out Such as this That our being found in Christ Phil. 3.9 is principally meant of being found in our own Gospel-Holiness Than which nothing is a greater misprision of Treason against the Righteousness of Christ imputed to Sinners for their Justification O! that God would shew that such prophane words do eat as doth a Gangreen What bring in our Holiness to sit jigg by joul with Christ's perfect Righteousness And for opposing this shall the Servants of the Lord be accounted Cannibals to feed on Mr. Williams his Flesh §. CXI The next hard word bestowed on Free-Grace maintainers is calling them Bigots nay Bigots that never will forgive That is because they do and must contend for the Truth therefore they are accounted implacable Though I am bound to forgive all Injuries done to my self am I ever bound to suffer the Truth to be invaded and silently to sit down satisfied with it Was not meek Moses in a Transport when Aaron made the Calf yet not implacable Must many whole Churches of our Lord Jesus be called unforgiving Bigots for holding fast the Faith once delivered to the Saints Is not the Spirit to war against Fleshly Principles as long as they war against the Spirit O! that my Dear Kratiste might obtain to descend from his lofty strain and follow our dear Lord who dyed for us leaving us an Example that we should follow his steps in being meek and lowly of Heart and not fly into Astonishment and Indignation for being mildly opposed §. CXII O! how unlike is this treatment of this Rebuker to the treatment our blessed Lord Jesus gave to his Disciples when instead of watching with him when he was under the dreadful conflict in his Agony and instead of praying with him they fell a snoring Did he scour them off as our Rebuker has done No he sweetly gently mildly reproves them with an Excuse The Spirit is willing but the Flesh is weak Nay when they call'd for Fire from Heaven on the Samaritans doth he call them wild Monsters as our Rebuker No but tenderly reproves them Ye know not what Spirit ye are of He doth not cast Fire-brands Arrows and Death at them calling them horrid
Hereticks that fill with equal Astonishment and Indignation as of late we see in the froth of my Dear Kratiste §. CXIII I now must write in Tears this next Paragraph and O that my Head were Waters and mine Eyes a Fountain of Tears over my Dear Kratiste to see that a Good Man and Eminent should be guilty of the following Passage which I fear hath been tragical and bloody O what is poor Man when the Lord leaves him to the exercise of his meer Wit and Reason The Rebuker turns quick and plays at sharp with the Manuscriptor and accosts him for saying What a Negative of the same import with an Affirmative Whereby the Manuscriptor reflected on Mr. Williams for his former asserting no Change of Persons between Christ and Believers and saying afterwards that he meant this No Change doth allow that he was for a Change on which the Manuscriptor saith What a Negative of the same import with an Affirmative Upon which the Rebuker lets fly and fastens his Talons on him with this Answer I make no question but he had heard of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Marriage and no Marriage grating on his tender Conscience Here we must take the word tender to be Ironically spoken by the Rebuker O! how can he look on this Passage without blushing and a few Tears if the Lord graciously give a due Sense of the Uncharitableness of it when he sees the direful Consequence of it the Lord 's taking the blessed holy Servant of his this object of your boasting over a repented of miscarriage from this World to himself And who knows but such a Reflection as this of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 might hasten his Death to be wounded so in the House of his Friends by a Brother in the Presbyterian Ministry If the Righteous fall seven times a day how can you look God in the Face with Peace while you insult in 〈…〉 â—ner over one you cannot but own God had raised up aâ—â—er his â—ail and raised to a higher pitch of Zeal for the Glory of God and for the publishing his Free Grace in the Gospel through our Lord Jesus Christ Is such a Retort like the moving of the Spirit of God in a Christian who should in love gentleness and meekness do every Thing especially when writing a Tract relating to the great and glorious Truths of the Gospel to the Glory of God in the Name of the Lord Jesus Was this in the Name of Jesus who when reviled reviled not again to criminate a Servant of the Lord Jesus in the Ministry of the Gospel We have heard of a Cham that discovered what he should have concealed and of the Brand yea black Curse that is upon all his Seed to this day if the black Ethiopians be his Seed as is most probable O blessed Lord let not the like be on the Seed of my Kratiste The Apostle tells us Ye have heard of the Patience of Job but draws a Vail over his Passion and saith farther upon it and the end of the Lord that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender Mercy O that the Rebuker were like him But the tender Mercies of some are cruel What would and it may be thereby kill a Man whom God had both wounded and healed The Lord give a due sense and forgive §. CXIV Again We have heard of the mocking of Ishmael Gen. 21. of which the Apostle saith He that was born after the Flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit Gal. 4. So that in God's sight a mocking fleering jibing taunting Spirit though done with the smartest Wit is accounted Persecution and if it be to those born after the Spirit it may issue in great Judgment The Dragon was cast into a bottomless Pit that cast water out of his Mouth to swallow the Woman Rev. 12. 20.3 I beseech the Lord that such mocking may not be laid to the Charge of the Rebuker in the great day of the Lord when he cometh to convince not only the ungodly of their ungodly Deeds but of their hard Speeches O that he might lay it to his own Soul now that it may not be laid to his Charge then God hath taken this aspersed Servant from the malevolent Aspersion of Man and I hope the Blood of Jesus applyed to by Faith with Repentance may prevent this Man's Blood from crying for Vengeance Which I pray his Adversaries may flee for to the hope set before them and that they take heed how they secretly Joab like stab by vituperation any of the Servants of the Lord for the time to come O! how ill might it look if any should return a worse Reflection than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 on some that lift up their Heads very high being held up by the Chin by mighty swimmers But the Lord rebuke their uncharitable Spirit is the best return I can make §. CXV I am amazed or as in a Dream to see the prevaricating of the Rebuker in Page 61 where speaking of Mr. Williams's Gospel-Truth stated c. he saith Reader thou hast heard much noise about that Book and of the Subscription to it by some Ministers I could wish thou wouldst be so just to the Subscribers as to view with thine own Eyes how far the Subscription extended It was no more than this They judged that he had in all that was material fully and rightly stated the Truths and Errors therein mentioned I viewed this over and over never suspecting a plain untruth in the Rebuker but took it for granted that this was all that he had subscribed to That he judged that Mr. Williams had in all that was material done as there is declared But being provoked to be just to him and see with my own Eyes I turned to the Subscription and to my amazement found the old saying useful 'T is good to tell Money after ones Father for he fell far short of saying the Truth and the whole Truth of the Subscription for it extended far beyond what he saith it extended to For there to set off the Book he stiles Mr. Williams our Reverend Brother and such a Character to the Book is no small extolling it that he is by Forty Nine Divines called our Reverend Brother whereof my Dear Kratiste is one of the first three But looking forward with mine own Eyes I found he went ten times farther in celebrating the excellency of that Piece which made such a Noise a Noise that hath sounded into the Low Countries to indamage the Truth as I have heard and that is this We do account say the Forty Nine that he hath done considerable Service to the Church of Christ And what could they say more of Calvin Melancthon Luther Nay very little more of St. Paul's Epistles I wish they said as much of some passages therein Christ made Sin and made a Curse §. CXVI But with mine own Eyes with the help of Free Grace Spectacles not Arminian ones I find
But we are to contend earnestly for the Faith once delivered to the Saints which Faith seems to be taking wing and leaving us under that sad word of our Lord When the Son of Man cometh shall he find Faith on the Earth There being very little of it now what with open Enemies scoffing at all Revealed Religion on one side and seeming Friends though as bad Enemies on the other side that joyn Man's Obedience with Christ's Righteousness as concurrent causes or means of our Justification and Salvation and so bringing in our Gospel-Holiness as co-partner with our Lord Jesus the Alpha and Omega the First and the Last the Author and Finisher of our Salvation To whom with the Father and Blessed Spirit even to him that sits on the Throne and to the Lamb that was slain and is alive in the midst of the Throne and to the seven Spirits before the Throne be Honour Glory and Praise for ever §. CXXI Now that these plain Remarks on some of the great Truths of the Gospel which have been struck at may be beneficial to the humble Peruser to settle him on our Lord Jesus the only Foundation in order to be built up in the most holy Faith by him who buildeth all Things who is God Heb. 3.4 is the fervent Prayer of the unworthiest I say of the unworthiest in his own Eyes of any that sincerely desires to cast in his Mite to the Treasury of the Testimony of Jesus God blessed for ever §. CXXII Having taken the freedom out of love to the Truth and zeal for the Glory of God's Grace therein manifest to be a little plain with my Dear Kratiste hoping for a Blessing of the Lord thereby on his and others Souls I find my self ingaged to make some Remarks on the Reporter the first occasioner of this thus-handled Debate And first I must and do own that I humbly judge that he hath done great and good Service to the Truth by delivering his Report with much plainness and perspicuity however it be censured by the Adversary and I take it that he deserves Thanks of Thousands besides my self who make the Truths of the Everlasting Gospel their daily Study for his ingenious Vindication of his Report from the Slander of its being called false by the Rebuker §. CXXIII But two Things wherein I take him to have exceeded I hope may be rectified that is his hard pressure on my Dear Kratiste and his tart Passages on Dr. Crisp As for the Rebuker was it not enough when the Reported had sufficiently foiled him nay and had laid him so flat on his Back as to be for ever unable to stand upright again in that Cause by clearing his Report from being false But when he had him down sure he should not have prest him to Death or worse by his Printing such a Letter as tax'd him not only with Buffoonry but with being by fits delirous and to charge him with denying Christ's Satisfaction for our Sins §. CXXIV As for the first I that have known him above Twenty Years never heard before or saw the least Tendency to those unhappy Fits Though upon inquiry of the ground of such a Charge 't is said The Writer knew well what he said But however this I take to be too severe a Reprimand for his Rebuke considering how terrible a blemish it is to so eminent a Person 's Ministry to be tax'd with being delirous O how few can be free if every Transport shall lay a Man under such a Censure Therefore this I would advise the Reporter to be humbled before the Lord for considering how in many things we offend all §. CXXV As for the Reporter's Argument That the Rebuker denies Christ's Satisfaction for Sin because he saith Christ's Death was for our good and it was impossible it should be more and that therein he Justâ—fies the Socinians I answer this Conclusion That he denies Christ s Satisfaction hereby looks like a strain upon the words beyond the meaning of the Rebuker for it seems apparent in this Rebuke especialâ—y in his other Writings That he expresly owns Christ's Satisfaction for Sin Though in that Expression of his in Fol. 37. he hath unhappily gratified the Socinians too far by saying It is impossible that Christ's dying in our place and stead should signifie any more than for our Good God forbid that my dear Kratiste should mean by that word only for our Good as the Socinians do That Christ's dying was only for our good as an Example or to confirm his good Doctrine only No He means I hope That Christ by his Death took away the Sins of all the Elect That he bare their Sins and bare them away into a Land of Forgetfulness never to be remembred more as our Scape goat That he suffered for their Sins That he wash'd them from their Sins in his Blood And so he died for our Good that we should have the Good and Benefit of his taking away our Sins and of his becoming a Propitiation for us a Sin-offering for us a Ransom to the Father for us and also himself to be ours the Lord our Righteousness for which let us ascribe Honour and Glory to him continually for that he hath loved us and washed us from our Sins in his Blood §. CXXVI Then for the Reporter's Tartness against Dr. Crisp I am Amazed so florid a Person should so far blemish his Discourses be so Dis-ingenious to the Doctor as to say He believes there is somewhat Dangerous in the Doctor 's Writings in Page 87. of his Vindication and not to give one Instance of it His words being these If there is any thing Dangerous in the Doctor 's Writings as I believe there is It would have been fair to have given one dangerous Passage at least but for want of that I turned to some of the most severe Passages of Mr. Williams's against the Doctor and to Dr Chancy's Apology for the Doctor to see what was so dangerous and I found in P. 37. of Gospel Truth Mr. Williams had loaded the Doctor thus Reader how horrid a sound must it have to a Christian Ear to say A Christ odious to God abhorred by the Father Here Mr. Williams speaks as if Dr. Crisp had said these words A Christ odious to God abhorred by the Father But Mr. Williams deals unjustly herein for as to the word A Christ odious there is not such an Expression in the Doctor and as for abhorred by the Father the Doctor s words are Christ is as it were abhorred by the Father But suppose it were as Mr. Williams brings it in How much more Horrid a Sound is it to say Christ is odious to God than to say Christ is made Sin by God himself If we had due Thoughts of the Horridness of Sin and that Christ was made Sin that is by Imputation we should think it as much a Debasing of our Lord Jesus to be made Sin by God as to be accounted Odious or Abhorred
Iniquities and these very Sins and Iniquities not made his or accounted his by Imputation §. VI. In Page 7. O! how doth the Rebuker fly out against this Sentence of the Reporter By this blessed change Christ is made Sin and Curse and we delivered from Sin and Curse as if the Reporter had imposed the Turkish Alcoran on our Faith whereas he no where denies the Order of the Gospel for our enjoying the Blessedness of our being delivered from Sin and the Curse viz. the intervening of Faith and Repentance And yet this the Rebuker calls Learning to quibble at Cambridge Sure this is not a Stile becoming a Grave Learned Instructor of Souls and yet the Rebuker cannot refrain his own Quibbles dish'd up with much Tartness calling the Reporter's Substance of the Gospel A superfaetation of Articles spawning of Creeds equipping Confessions every Campaign O! whither will not a fertile Fancy transport a Man that prefers his Wit before his Master Christ's Humility §. VII The great Objection comes in Page 9. about the Change of Persons between Christ and Sinners The Rebuker owns there was a Change of Christ for Sinners but denies that Christ took the Person of Sinners But if we read John 17. there we may find for our Comfort in Christ's Prayer Christ saith Thine they were thou gavest them me and I am glorified in them that they may be one in us Is not this taking their Persons into Oneness with himself And v. 23. I in them and thou in me that the World may know that thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me And how can we be said to be Crucified with Christ to be Buried with him Risen with him if he took not our Persons He hath made us sit in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus It is not said only with him but in him Surely then Christ hath taken the Persons of Elect Sinners into himself and to deny this looks like denying being chosen in him from all Eternity and real Union to him and Incorporation in him in time §. VIII In Page 10. the Rebuker seems to swerve very much from the Orthodox in his opposing the Terms laid down and contradicts them very Dogmatically and in the place of that which he calls the Reporters Terms of Art he gives us his Sense concerning the Change of Persons All that the Case of Sinners required for Satisfaction to Divine Justice was a Substitute or Sacrifice to be offered for our Sins for the Substitute to take on him the PVNISHMENT due to them That 's all he allows not the Sins not the Guilt not the Offence only Punishment that 's all that Justice requires But to take on him the Person of Sinners as the Phrase is new and uncouth so it 's to me unintelligible till they who have invented it shall interpret it O! that Men were wise to Sobriety and not in effect to tax the Holy God with speaking uncouth new unintelligible Things 'T is evidently not true that the Term is new how uncouth or unintelligible soever it may be to some who will repel Scripture Truths Will any pretend to teach the Most High how to speak of our Sins laid on Christ by saying he only bare the Punishment due to them and that 's all that our Case required God saith expresly The Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all and he shall bear their iniquities Their very Iniquities it was And he bare their Sins iii his own Body on the Tree Our very Sins our very Iniquities And is all this dwindled to nothing but the Punishment due to them Bearing Sin is in Deed and Truth if God say true bearing Sin 't is not bearing Punishment that follows bearing Sin Bearing Punishment is a word invented to nullifie Christ's bearing our Sins and so to evacuate the Gospel For if Christ bare not the Sins as well as the Punishment the Sins must lye on the Sinner to all Eternity For Sin being once committed must be born by us or our Surety I can find but lew Texts where Christ is said to bear Punishment due to Sin but through Infinite Rich Grace many Texts of Divine Truth shew that he bare Sins and did them away In bearing the Chastisement of our peace he bare our very Sorrows and Griefs which is more than bare Punishment due for Sin §. IX But this is new uncouth and unintelligible that Christ should take on him the Person of Sinners till they interpret it who invented it For this we may raise the Dead without a Miracle to prove the Expression though not the Invention of it that being Time out of mind I at present omit Calvin and Luther Twiss and Davenant Men of great Name and propose the Famous Dr. Harris who was an Eminent Member of the Assembly in 1642 and in opposition to the Poor Presbyterians as the Rebuker calls Mr. Williams and his Friends though the said Doctor was an Honourable one he saith plainly Christ sustained the Person of a Sinner in his Treatise fol. 215 thus Christ he stood in our room and sustained the Person of a Sinner though in himself sinless I add saith Dr. Harris if this were not true that Christ sustained the Person of a Sinner how could God punish him So that this uncouth and unintelligible saying was not only intelligible to this Learned Doctor but is by him well interpreted by his Question Else how could God punish him if he sustained not the Persons of Sinners in himself As much as to say God could not justly punish Christ if our New Neonomian Doctrine be true That Christ bare only the Punishment due for Sins that he did not bear the Sins the very Sins the very Iniquities of his People Now saith this Doctor he was so far from not bearing their very Sins that he bare their Persons which surely must include their Sins and all the horrid Appurtenances belonging to them But well may this be unintelligible to such as call Mr. Cole's Works Mysterious Nonsense What then is the great Armah's saying fol. 192. in the Sum of Christian Religion Our very Nature Body and Soul being coupled to the Body and Soul of Christ Is not this unintelligible But saith the Rebuker This new Phrase that Christ took on him the Person of Sinners is a Phrase to puzzle and confound Mens Vnderstandings Answer So doth the whole Doctrine of the Gospel do to some Understandings As that we should be Righteous by the Righteousness of another that we should be Christ s Delight from all Eternity before we had a Being Prov. 8. How may that of the Apostle confound a Man I live not I but Christ in me I sin not I but Sin that dwells in me and we were planted in the likeness of his Death our Old Man crucified when With Christ we are dead to the Law how By the Body of Christ What Nonsense and puzzling Stuff is this to the Natural Understanding Was I in being when Christ was Crucified No How then
Eph. 5.30 And he that is joyned to the Lord is one Spirit Is not this one Spirit one Person Is the blessed Holy Spirit the Third Person in the Trinity Is he a Person and are not Christ and his believing Members becoming one Spirit are they not become thereby one Person Why else are they called Christ 1 Cor. 12.12 Is this novel uncooth and unintelligible to my Dear Kratiste a Master in Israel Need Christ and they go into his Mothers Womb to become one Person §. XLVII As for Legal Vnion before Faith I know of none unless he means a faederal Union such as Children of believing Parents have or bare nominal Christians have Sure these may be distinguish'd without Offence from such as have a Mystical Union by Faith without any Heresie attending it Thus we conclude the 21 Antinomian Heresies which have met with a Presbyterian Lash as the Great Apostle Paul did with the like from the Jews They appear not so formidable as the Neonomians would make them but rather some of them shine forth with brighter clearness for great Gospel-Truths by their being so set forth This I am comfortably satisfied in that God hath by the late Abuse put on Evangelical Truths held out by the branded Dr. Crisp Mr. Cole and many others he hath inlightened many Souls thereby and I wait in assured hope that God will in his blessed time which is hastening make the Light of the Sun of Righteousness shining in the Gospel to be as the Light of seven Days when Men will not put Light for Darkness and Darkness for Light Which the Good Lord for the sake of thy dying and interceding Son our Lord Jesus do thou hasten §. XLVIII In the mean time to our grave Rebuker I say Kratiste Theophile most excellent Sir take heed you be not a Theomaikos a Fighter against God while you design to justifie a Man whom you cannot vindicate with Honour till he renounce some Expressions in his Books which fight directly against the Gospel especially that Soul-endangering one in his Preface to gospel-Gospel-Truth stated which is this I affirm that the Righteousness of God Phil. 3.9 principally intends the Gospel-Holiness of a Person justified by Christ's Righteousness Which is an Interpretation that is directly opposite to all sound Protestants Judgments From such Interpreters of a gospel-Gospel-Truth the Lord in Mercy deliver all his People and from being a Champion for such an Interpreter the Lord deliver the Rebuker and all his 49 Vouchers §. XLIX In Page 27 he bewails the Case and saith And thus the Breach became beyond the Vnited Brethrens making up He means I suppose beyond their Power of making up that is because these Antinomian Heresies were not recanted And no wonder that it was beyond their Power to make up the breach that these Points made for how can Truth and Error coalesce If the Poor Presbyterians as he calls them do insist on the renouncing these 21 Doctrines as Heresies which have much of the Marrow of the Gospel in them as appears from plain Scripture and sound Authors already quoted they may enjoy their Repose in their own benighted Sentiments but may not imagine that they who are clearlyer inlightened in the Mysteries of the Gospel having tasted the good old Wine of God's Everlasting Love of Electing them in Christ that they will come to the new Wine of a pretended New Law given them by Christ That we performing Gospel-Obedience with our sincere indeavours to fulfil that New Law of Faith Love Repentance Holiness and perseverance therein this though imperfect in its self shall be accepted instead of perfect by Vertue of the Righteousness and Merits of our Lord Jesus Which in effect is to say that we are not saved by Grace but Christ hath merited that we should save our selves §. L. That this is their meaning appears by what Mr. Williams who seems to be their general Mouth has said in his Preface to Man made Righteous by Christ's Obedience Where he rebukes his Antinomians for owning no Law of God that admitted of faulty Obedience and by way of Contempt to Mr. Cole c. he saith They own no Law but the Law of Works which admitted nothing short of perfect sinless Obedience So that he looks on it as an horrid Error to hold that no Law is given by God that admitted of Obedience that had Sin in it Which shews plainly that they hold that God has set up a Law in the room of the Moral Law and that this their New Law which they have invented for God and wretchedly impute to God it doth admit of Sin in the Obedience to it than which there cannot be a more horrid Affront offered to the Holy God viz. That God should set up a Law that allows Sin Now if contradicting such Doctrine as this is accounted Antinomianism then to be freed from their Slanders we must rob God of his Honour nay deny him to be God to comply with their Doctrine of charging on God his making a Law that allows Sin in our Obedience to it For I dare be bold to say in Contradiction to such an Assertion and in Zeal to the pure Holy Nature of God God never did nay never can and that 's a bold word but true if God be God and Holiness his Nature he never can make a Law that admits of any thing but Sinless Obedience For God saith he cannot behold Iniquity and for any Man or number of Men or for any Angels of Heaven to talk at that rate for God to make a Law that admits of Sin let him be accursed To talk of a Law that admits of Sin is to make the Maker of such a wooden Law to be little better than a wooden God It is enough to make ones Flesh to tremble and Spirit rise into a rage against the bold strokes of some Ungodly Pens that corrupt the Gospel and Minds of Men to talk of a Law of the Holy God that admits any thing of Sin Mr. Williams and his Justifiers have subscribed to the Assemblies Confession of Faith and they say upon the Head of Repentance There is no Sin so small but it deserves Damnation and they justifie it by that Scripture The Wages of Sin is Death But our Neonomians our New-Law Men bring in God making a Law that admits of Faulty Obedience or Obedience that is not Sinless which is all one with Faulty Obedience Now my Dear Kratiste this Man's Champion pray where is this accounted for And if not how can it be expected that the Breach between the Orthodox and these should be made up Offences will come but woe to that Man by whom they come To such a Man as would impose a Law allowing Sinning Obedience And if Sinning then it hath Sin in it and if so and that the Assembly say right from the Wages of Sin being Death the least Sin never so small deserves Damnation then they will bring in God making a Law in complying with
which is laid Jesus Christ 1 Cor. 3.11 and all hay and stubble upon it shall be burnt Which every sincere lover of our Lord Jesus daily prays may be hastened Even so come Lord Jesus §. LXXX Our Rebuker like some Captain General in the Confederates Army in Flanders where most of them are Papists or very sorry Protestants is in the next place giving orders for a kind of Popish Barriere to be set about the Divine Justice in pa. 51 though by the way a Barriere against an Enemy had been more like a General 's Word of Command but let it go for the Neonomian Word of Command a Barriere about Divine Justice his Sentence is this I would have I your General a Bar a Barriere about the Divine Justice that Men may not dare to represent him or it for better sense as a Tyrant in making so many millions to damn them eternally to damn them without respect had to their demerits This is plain Arminius or worse and such as I never suspected from my Dear Kratiste to justifie the general out cry of corrupted Natural Religion What did God make us to damn us How could we help our first Parents Sin But doth not the Scripture say In Adam all dyed for that or in whom all have sinned and by the offence of one judgment came upon all Men to condemnation Rom. 5. And will you now run with the Herd and cry God made Millions to damn them as a Tyrant without respect to their Demerits because they are condemned in Adam Now I see some Reason why the Rebuker said once in the Pulpit in Pinners Hall We did not sin Adam ' s Sin But I am sure he must own that in Adam all dyed then he must own with Augustine In Adam all are damned Damnati antequam nati Damned before Born and yet God no Tyrant but Holy and Just as well as Gracious and Merciful Hath not the Potter power over the Clay of the same lump to make a hundred Chamber-pots and but five drinking Vessels Shall proud insolent Man teach God what Vessels of Wrath prepared of old to this Condemnation to make Jude 4. and what Vessels of Mercy Or whom he will to have Mercy on and whom he will to harden O that Men were wise and not to set Barriers of their divising God hath set his Barriere and let Men stand and adore and tremble at that word What if God willing to shew his Wrath and to make his Power known endured with much long-suffering the Vessels of Wrath fitted for destruction Is God by saucy prophane Man to be called a Tyrant for shewing his Wrath on Vessels of Wrath before of old ordained to this Condemnation having fitted themselves by their Sin in Adam for this destruction Shall we say it is without their own Demerits when God saith in Adam all dyed O that Men were wise to Sobriety and would not think to jostle God out of his Throne Let us adore Free Rich Sovereign Grace that is published in the Gospel that whoever will may take the water of Life freely Rev. 22.17 All in the sound of the Gospel being invited to come to Christ and they shall find rest for their weary Souls Those that charge God as a Tyrant for damning Millions without respect to their Demerits when they are lost and condemned in Adam will not condemn a Temporal Prince for a Tyrant to take and sieze the Estate of a Traytor condemned and to take it from all his Posterity ever after to the Worlds end And shall Man be justified as no Tyrant and God be charged so arrogantly Let us adhere to God's Barriere that in Adam all sinned and the Wages of that Sin is Damnation to all that have not an Interest in Christ §. LXXXI In his hedge about Justification I take notice of his indispensable Bulwark that is That Faith be made indispensably necessary to it in all the Adult Here one might ask what precise time should be fixed for the Adult it being an odd word and unscriptural The Scripture saith He that believes shall be saved he that believes not is condemned already And if there be not the Seed of Faith in Infants before they dye which God alone gives as Sanctification in the Womb or afterwards when he pleaseth I know not how according to the Scripture our only Rule to judge by they can be saved if they have not the Seed of Faith in Sanctification Would you have one way for Infants to be saved and another for the Adult when Christ alone is the Way the Truth and Life But passing by that it may be ask'd what kind of Faith is it that is to be so necessary There is bare assent to the Truth and this many call a Faith sufficient provided they live good Lives as they call it but this Faith the Devils have and tremble Then there is Historical Faith and Temporary Faith There is above and beyond these a Faith of assurance which some make absolutely necessary I would hope he means none of these but a Faith of adherence to the Lord Jesus for Life and Salvation by him and him alone of relying on him trusting to him renouncing our selves and our best performances as loss and dung in the matter of Justification or as any cause of our Salvation This might have given some Light into his indispensably necessary 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 about the Doctrine of Justification I fear there lyes a snare in this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this indispensably necessary Some and those mighty Friends to the Arminians make Faith necessary as a Cause or Co dition that stands in the place of Works of the Law Some make it a Condition as joined with Repentance and pers verance in Gospel-Obedience and so put it in the place of Christ's Righteousness imputed to us and make Faith as it is our Work to be imputed to us for Righteousness And so the Hedge is become a hodge-podge of our Gospel Righteousness joyned with Christ's Righteousness under the notion of Faith a Condition O how good is it for us to fence our selves with God's Word that the Foundation of God stands sure Whom he did foreknow them he did predestinate and them he called and them he justified and them he glorified Here 's not a word of what we do that we predestinate we call we justifie or we glorifie our selves 't is God doth all And if instead of our pleading to justifie and glorifie our selves we would indeavour to justifie and glorifie God for his free justifying and glorifying us through and for the sake only of his dearly beloved Son our Dear and Blessed Lord and Saviour it would be much better than to make a pother about the Conditionality of Faith when all is of Grace But I hope in this indispensably necessary Faith to Justification he doth not exclude some mixture of doubting with Faith though he names not the least allowance for that and yet where is the Faith
for my part if I did not look on the Lord Jesus as sustaining my Person on the Cross and sustaining it every moment not only by his common Providence but in himself and by himself as Flesh of my Flesh I must look on my self as I am in my self a lost wretched forlorn Creature to be miserable in Hell to all Eternity But I flee for refuge to him to be kept in this Faith I in them holy Father and thou in me that they may be perfect in one John 17. That is in himself the blessed Lord Jesus sustaining our persons to whom be Glory for ever §. XCI I come now to his Postscript which is sharp and stinging to purpose as if he had not sufficiently degraded Dr. Crisp in the body of the Rebuke he blackens him by comparing the Doctor to Apocryphal Tobias and Mr. Williams to Canonical Daniel thus All this is nothing but a tryal of Skill between the Apocryphal Story of Tobias and the Canonical History of Daniel Tobias and Daniel being the first Names of the Doctor and Mr. Williams as much as to say all the Doctor 's Sermons are Apocryphal Stories but Mr. Williams s Books of gospel-Gospel-Truth are Canonical History To which I may return there is also the Canonical History of Tobias and there is the Apocryphal Story of Daniel relating the filthiness of the Elders with Susanna For instance Tobijah which signifies my good Lord hath near as honourable a memorial put upon him in Canonical Scripture as Daniel God my Judge 'T is true Daniel is called O greatly beloved and God grant that our Daniel may be so also upon a due sense of his Miscarriages in his Books and Converse It is also true in Zach. 6.10 14. of Tobias he was to take Silver and Gold and make Crowns And 't is said The Crowns shall be for Helem and Tobiah c. Here was a Crown for Tobijah signifying the Crown of Righteousness and I question not but your traduced Tobijah hath been wearing one before the Throne and before the Lamb and casting it down before him this Fifty Five Years Here were several Crowns made and I hope one remains for my Dear Kratiste for the blessed Jesus pardons and so overlooks innumerable Failings and will give a Crown of Righteousness to all that love him that will submit to his Righteousness Then for the Apocryphal Story 'T is true Tobiah is brought in with his Dog following him but no Dogs barking at him Such Things are reserved for these latter days But how is Daniel brought in He like my dear Kratiste comes in giving a faithful Rebuke to a sad Report of a Lascivious Elder and saith O thou Elder that art waxen old in Wickedness thy Sins are come to light §. XCII What Issue have we of this tryal of Skill Is your Tobias the more Apocryphal because his Name is in the Apocrypha And is your Daniel the more Canonical in his Writings because his Name-sake was 〈◊〉 Man greatly beloved Or on the other side may not your Tobias have a Crown given him as well as Tobijah had one And may not your Elder have a severe Rebuke given him as well as Daniel's Apocryphal Elder had one For every one shall receive according to his own Work So that this Apocryphal Witticism might have been spared for any honour it can bring to your Daniel or dishonour to Tobias But this is plain evidence that the Rebuker hereby declares that he takes all the Discourses of Dr. Crisp of the Free Grace of God in Christ to be Apocryphal Stories and all that Mr. Williams hath writ is Canonical History especially his Gospel-Truth stated which is supported by himself and Forty Eight more Vouchers This must pass for Canonical though he makes room therein for more to be saved than ever God chose in Christ and though he saith to this purpose That God hath set up a New Law that doth not require SINLESS Obedience §. XCIII In the next place he treats the Doctor more roughly if not prophanely for he calls the asserting the necessity of Repentance Regeneration and Faith the unpardonable Sin against the Doctor whereas we know of no unpardonable Sin but that against the Holy Ghost which some in opposing clear Gospel Free-Grace come very near unless they do it ignorantly But to talk of an unpardonable Sin against the Doctor and that for asserting what the Doctor never denyed is a strange strain of Wrath against his Memory His words are these in Pa. 56 57 That although the express Word of God doth express the necessity of Regeneration to our entring into the Kingdom of God and requires Repentance that our Sins may be blotted out and Faith in Christ that we may be justified This the Rebuker calls the Brethrens fully bearing Testimony against the Antinomians and adds that their asserting this is the unpardonable Sin against Dr. Crisp The Rebuker means that Mr. Lob accounts this Testimony of the Rebuker to be the unpardonable Sin against Dr. Crisp which I may say is Gratis dictum sed non gratiosé It is freely said but not graciously I do not see what could be spoken with more malignity to say it is never to be forgiven by Dr. Crisp's Vindicators to say Regeneration Repentance and Faith are necessary Sure my dear Kratiste cannot be thought not to have read Dr. Crisp where he may find this Charge That the Doctor accounts it a horrid Crime to assert Faith Repentance and Regeneration necessary to be most false I appeal to the Rebuker's Conscieâ—ce for I 〈◊〉 not but he hath read the Doctor 's Sermons or Dr. Chancy's Quotations where he brings in Dr. Crisp saying in express words quite contrary to this Charge and fully owning the need of Sanctification c. In Fol. 46 Dr. Crisp saith thus There is no Person that is a Believer but after he hath received Christ he is created in Christ Jesus unto good Works that he should walk in them I say he that sprinkleth them with clean Water that they may become clean from all their Filthiness writes his Law in their inward parts So that I say mark well my words That Sanctification of Life is an inseparable companion with the Justification of a Person by the Grace of Christ Now can any Thing be more clear than that it is no unpardonable Sin with Dr. Crisp to assert the necessity of Regeneration Repentance and Holiness For that he saith Sanctification which includes them all is inseparable from Justification that one is never without the other As much as to say with the Apostle Christ who is made of God to us Righteousness for Justification he is at the same time made of God to us Sanctification §. XCIV Now methinks 't is strange that he should be branded with your Titles of Apocryphal wild Monster Crispian Heterodoxy especially to blast him in the business of Holiness Repentance c. who so strenuously hath asserted its inseparableness from Justification
his Subscription extends yet far higher and is got near the Third Heavens for to their Commendations of a Reverend Brother and their celebrations of doing Service they add their Supplications with expectations saying Adding our Prayers that these Labours of his may as we hope they will be a means for the reclaiming of those that have been mislead Is not here a plain demonstration of a great abuse put upon his Reader and an open untruth in matter of fact to say that the Subscription was no more than this They judged that he had in all that was material fully and rightly stated the Truths and Errors therein mentioned Was his doing considerable Service to the Church nothing Were their Prayers for the Success of the Book nothing Is this a Faithful Rebuke to a False Report Is it not rather a very False Report of his own Fact What then may be expected of his Report concerning others O how could he say it is NO MORE when 't is visibly three times more Proh Dolor §. CXVII It calls to my mind that dear Equivocation of Saphira to Peter Acts 5. when he ask'd her whether she sold the Field for so much she answered Yea for so much This was not downright for no more Upon this Peter charges her to have tempted the Spirit of the Lord and saith Behold the feet of them that have buried thy Husband Then she fell down strait-way-at his feet and yielded up the ghost There might have been some plea by a Sophister in her behalf he might with an Arminian Wit have said what Saphira said was true she answered Yea for so much so it was but she did not say it was for no more and yet she tempted the Holy Spirit which cost her at least her Natural Life But he must be a Gigantick Sophister that can remove the Block our Rebuker has laid in the way of a true Relater I don't see what Invention can save his Expression from being a solemn Untruth for him to say it was no more when it was much more a great deal and so much more had they subscribed in commendation of Mr. Williams's Book as might well make his Head giddy and turn round to be carried I will not say by what Spirit to so high a Mount yea to the Pinacle of the Temple as to have so many Ministers avouch to the World That he had fully and rightly stated Truths and Errors so as to do considerable Service to the Church of Christ §. CXVIII My Heart is troubled for exposing the Rebuker thus in this particular but how should I be faithful to him in his Remarks or better invalidate his supporting Mr. Williams's Errors if I should not shew what shifts some are driven to that will justifie him or themselves for being his upholder And though this failure be discovered in one accounted a great Master in our Israel yet the Apostle advises that when some Men sin they should be rebuked before all that others may fear 1 Tim. 5.20 When the whole World must be told in Print so great an Untruth 't is necessary they should be undeceived that the Author may retract it and own himself to have erred The Lord grant we may all learn by this fall to fear and tremble lest being left by the Spirit of God when we go to vindicate what we ought not we fall before all O that my Dear Kratiste might here see the fruit of a towring Spirit §. CXIX I would gladly contrive some Figure in speaking or writing to salve the Veracity of the Faithful Rebuke in saying the Subscription was no more when in Truth it was abundantly more I can find nothing but a far stretch'd Synecdoche of a part for the whole will do the feat and so I may say it was no more that is no more to be owned to the World when we see how many Exceptions are against the Book we subscribed to So a Man that owes him 100 l. may come to him and say Sir I have brought you 20 l. and I owe you no more How no more than 20 l. is not here your Bond for 100 l. That 's true but I owe you no more but 20 l. because I intend to pay you no more So the Subscription was no more because we intend now to own no more But if his Apocryphal Tobias had been guilty of making such Figures he would have been branded justly with a wild monstrous Sense of Change of Persons But my Kratiste may possibly be excused for haste and I wish this were the greatest Fault in his Rebuke §. CXX One word to the trite and tart Conclusion he saith If these contenders go on to exact so much and yield so little for the sake of Vnion they sell their own Innocency and the Churches Peace for nothing This is smart and quick pretty biting for a Conclusion What nothing less than selling Innocency for nothing and Peace for nothing Is the Truth nothing Half an Eye may see that 't is Truth is contended for When Hezekiah had a Sentence of Death sent him his Answer was Isa 39.8 Good is the Word of the Lord for there shall be Peace and Truth in my days He was not for a pretended Union and a formal Peace without the great Pillar of Truth to support the Building Do not the Papists argue at the same rate for Peace They are all for submitting to the dictates of their Antichristian State for the sake of Peace and Unity but the Apostle exhorts to contend for the Faith and saith We gave not place no not for an hour that the TRVTH of the Gospel might continue When the Truth is opposed oppugned undermined by bringing in Evangelical Obedience to a Law that aâ—ows some Sin and this Obedience of ours to have some share in our acceptance with God and when the vindicating the Truth shall shake the Foundations of a patch'd up Peace we are not long to question which is to be preferred the holding fast the Truth or keeping such a Peace But how can contending for the Truth be said to sell Peace for nothing Is the Change of Persons between us and Christ nothing whereby he was made Sin for us and we the Righteousness of God in him I think this is something though Mr. Williams once absolutely denyed it Is the bringing in a New Law that admits of Sin in our Obedience nothing Is denying that Christ suffered the Idem of the Law for us nothing Is Mr. Williams's denying our Redemption in a way of Justice nothing As he does Fol. 15 of his Man made Righteous I suppose those that see the Infinite Concernment of their Souls in these Points will say they are something yea Things of more value than the Peace that all the Plenipotentiaries made at Ryswick for that Peace is but finite but these Truths are of infinite duration The Wise Man bids us buy the Truth and sell it not And if not sell it at all then not for Peace
from helping to wash away the Guilt or Fault that they need to be wash'd in the Blood of Christ to take away their own Guilt and Fault and the making one Debt for our Lord Jesus to satisfie even that of the Fault in our best Works is a strange way for our clearing our selves from a former Debt or Fault §. CXLV I would humbly recommend to all that stagger in this Point but especially to the Dignified Persons of the Church of England to look again and again into the Sound Fundamental Doctrines of the Church as they are exemplified in the Homilies appointed by several Acts of Parliament to be read in the Churches when there is no Sermon which Acts have never been yet repealed and I may say are as necessary in this Degenerate Age of the evacuating the great Truths of our Religion as when first made These Homilies speak home to the Point that the Bishop is upon of Christ's bearing our Sins Those Holy Servants of the Lord that composed them soon after the Nations coming out of the Blind Popish Religion they say in the second Sermon of Man's Misery thus He Christ paid our Ransom to God with his own Blood and with that he CLEANSED us from our Sin They don't say he bare the Punishment only but he by his Blood shed on the Cross then at that time he cleansed us from our Sins How could that be if our Sins our very Sins were not then translated to Christ as Dr Crisp from the Scripture and these Homilies saith So that for Mr. Williams or the Bishop or any Man to say it is near Blasphemy to say our very Sins were laid on Christ is to run a Dagger to the Heart of the Doctrine of the Church of England and to evade plain Scripture as well as to make Dr Crisp an Antinomian for it for the Doctor herein runs parallel to the Sound Orthodox Doctrine of the Church for which besides the main Bulwark of the Scripture he hath many Acts of Parliament to back him from the Slanders of the Despisers of the Free Grace of God §. CXLVI I being now perusing these Homilies and considering how the Reverend Bishop in his Letter insists so much on Conditions required by God of Man in order to God's Favour I make bold to make a little Remark how much the Bishop differs from those Antient Doctors of the Church and from himself if he be true to his Subscription to the Doctrines of the Church First let us see what the Bishop saith then what the Homilies say In Page 67 the Bishop saith I could easily prove that in all the Transactions between God and Mankind some Conditions on our side were required in order to his Favour So it was in the State of Innocency a tydy Argument so it continued after Man's Fall But I pass over these and come to the Terms of Salvation as declared by Christ himself The main Business of his Preaching was to put Men upon performing such Conditions as were necessary to their Salvation Promising Blessedness to the Humble Merciful Pure in heart Matt. 5.3 4 c. What do these things mean if they be not Conditions on our parts necessary in order to Happiness But God he still insists on our own endeavours by striving to enter c Do not these note the necessity of the Performance of Conditions on our side And therefore all Imaginary Notions of such a Change of Persons as hath no regard to any Act of ours is wholly repugnant to the main Scope and Design of the Gospel Thus the Bishop What is become here of the whole Tenor of the Gospel we are Saved by Grace being Justified freely by his Grace through the Redemption that is in Jesus not of Works lest any boast this is thrust quite out of doors for what are these Conditions and these Acts of ours but Works which though called for and necessary to glorifie God by way of Service and Thanks yet not any way to Justifie us or Save us For we are Saved by Grace and not of Works otherwise Grace is no more Grace 'T is for another end that all our Holiness is called for to Repent be Humble Pure of Heart and Merciful 'T is to magnifie God that hath saved us by Christ Saints shall be Holy Humble Pure of Heart in Heaven Is that in order to get God's Favour No but to serve and glorifie God for his Favour and we are to do the Will of God as near as we can on Earth as it is done in Heaven not to get Heaven which Christ alone hath bought for us but to magnifie God for giving himself Son and Spirit to us and for giving Heaven and all Spiritual Blessings with him begun in this Life and perfected above to make our Works Conditions on our parts to get Heaven is to Rob our Lord Jesus of his Crown and Glory and to set it on the Head of our sorry imperfect Works But besides the whole Current of the Gospel that we are saved by Grace let us see what the Bishop hath signed to and is dignified by even the Doctrines of the Church of England and they are clear for our Interest in Christ and Salvation to be all of Grace they drive us from all Works of our own and say in that second Sermon of Man's Misery No part of our Justification is of our selves no part not the least dram of our Works is to come in for any share in our Justification And in the next line they say Our Justification cometh only by Jesus Christ Here is not the least tittle of our Acts of Obedience insisted on or Gospel-Conditions to get Salvation 't is only by Christ all they insist on is to render Thanks to God for Free Salvation by Christ as it follows What Thanks worthy and sufficient can we render to him Let us burst forth with joyful Voice praising this Lord of Mercy Then they reiterate our not being able to do any thing of our selves wholly to renounce our selves and say very unlike the Bishop's Letter In our selves we may not glory which of our selves are NOTHING but Sinful neither may we rejoyce in any Works we do How nothing but Sinful and no rejoycing in any Works we do May we not Joy in performing the Conditions and doing Acts to obtain God's Favour No no there is no rejoycing in any thing for we are nothing but Sinful As for Conditions to get God's Favour they knew none but Jesus Christ he was the great Condition he being the great only compleat Saviour the Alpha and Omega first and last in our Salvation This Doctrine would be accounted Rank Antinomianâ—sm in Dr. Crisp a dangerous Error to take Men off from good Works to tell them we are nothing but Sinful and we may not rejoyce in any Works we do But this is honest good sound Orthodox yea glorious Doctrine in the Hearts of those that have tasted of Salvation by Free Grace and is establish'd as
run very clear Streams from the Fountain of Israel and they as I quoted before out of the first part of the Sermon of Salvation are wonderful clear for such a Change as the Doctor affirms and Mr. Williams denies saying So that Christ is now the Righteousness of all them that truly do believe in him He for them paid their Ransom by his Death he for them fulfilled the Law in his Life so that now IN HIM and BY HIM every true Christian Man may be called a fulfiller of the Law This Golden Sentence which might be for an Ornament in Gold Letters in every House in England doth fully vindicate to a Tittle Dr. Crisp's Change of Persons Christ himself is their Righteousness he paid Ransom for them they were fulfillers of the Law in him and by him What can be more full to the Point I hope the Bishop will not charge these great Men the Composers of this Sermon as he has done the Doctor with an imaginary unproved Change §. CLI One word more to the Bishop's Argument to prove that it is but an imaginary Notion to think that we are compleatly Righteous by the Righteousness of Christ without any act of ours which Argument of his is in these words I could easily prove that in all the Transactions between God and Mankind some Conditions were required on our side in order to his favour So it was in the State of Innocency so it continued after Man's Fall as it appears by those words of God to Cain If thou dost well shalt thou not be accepted if thou dost not well Sin lyeth at the door Gen. 4.7 'T is strange so great a Man should offer so weak an Argument to argue from a state of Innocency or from the state of Reprobate Cain or from the Covenant of Works what belongs to the Elect under the Covenant of Grace and under the Gospel where Works and Grace are made opposite Terms If of Works then no more of Grace saith the Apostle Was not Abel first accepted and then his Offering Is not the first Promise all of Grace He Christ shall bruise thine the Devil's Head And is not the last Promise the like Whoever will let him take of the Water of Life freely But by the Bishop's Doctrine a clever way is made to overthrow the whole Gospel To you is born a Saviour and to subvert the Orthodox Doctrine of the Church of England at once by bringing from the Dead the Covenant of Works to be saved by our doing well and not by Christ's doing and dying for us Whereas Abel's Sacrifice was accepted he himself being first accepted and his Sacrifice being offered in Faith but Cain and his Sacrifice rejected being not offered in Faith not looking to Jesus alone for Salvation by him The Bishop seems to run counter diametrically against the Apostle who argues strenuously Not of Works of no sort kind or degree lest any boast and by the Deeds of the Law shall no Flesh he justified He sums it up in Eph. 2. By Grace ye are saved through Faith and that not of your selves it is the Gift of God Not of Works lest any boast And Christ is the end of the Law for Righteousness to every one that believeth Thus the Scripture is plain against this Argument of the Bishop That our performing of Conditions must be in order to gain God's Favour §. CLII. Then for the Doctrine of the Church see what that saith of Conditions or of any Works of ours to gain God's Favour In the second Sermon of Salvation the good Christians of those days that were singed by the Popish Fires in Queen Maries days they tell us So that the true understanding this Doctrine That we be justified by Faith freely without Works or that we be justified by Faith in Christ only is not that this our own Act to believe in Christ or this our Faith in Christ which is within us doth justifie us A Sentence fit to be ingraven in every Church in England in order to take Men from trusting to their Repentance or good Works The like again is in the same Sermon as followeth We must renounce the Merit of Faith Hope Charity and all other Vertues and good Deeds And we must trust only in God's Mercy and that Sacrifice which our High Priest and Saviour Christ Jesus once offered As great and as goodly a Vertue as lively Faith is yet it putteth us from it self and remitteth and appointeth us unto Christ for to have only by him Remission of our Sins Observe these Eminent Stars of the first Magnitude in the Heaven of that Church of Old they are so far from bringing in our Repentance Charity and good Deeds or any act of ours to obtain Favour with God which the Bishop pleads for that they exclude Faith it self as having any hand in justifying us any farther than as it remitteth us to Christ But alas how is our Gold become Dross How are our great Men fallen from the Pure Primitive Doctrines of the Church of England And though they live splendidly by subscribing to these Doctrines yet in their Preaching and Writing they miserably warp as here in part from them Witness the setting up some Acts of ours to be done in order to obtain God's Favour And because God treated with Adam on account of Do and live therefore 't is supposed monstrously that Men when dead in Sins must work for Life or as the Bishop The Ministry of Reconciliation in St. Paul is wholly founded on Conditions on our side which he calls Acts of ours and may as well be called our good Works And all this because the Apostle pray'd them to be reconciled to God which cannot well be construed to be more than to pray them to accept the Reconciliation which God had made of Sinners to himself by Christ at his Death For if as the Apostle saith God was in Christ reconciling the World to himself then the Work was done when Christ cryed out on the Cross It is finished And if the word of Reconciliation was committed to the Apostles to publish to the World the Reconciliation that God had made of Sinners to himself by Christ what could his Embassadors mean in praying Sinners to be reconciled to God but to accept of what he had mentioned before of the act done long before viz. That God had reconciled Sinners to himself by Christ and to let them know that they were some of the reconciled ones if they would accept thereof and take these Waters of Life freely and so accept the Exhortation as Titus did 2 Cor. 8.17 §. CLIII O! how sad is it to eclipse the glorious Gospel Truth That our Sins were laid by God on Christ as the Doctor insists on it while the Bishop is pleased to load it with such very bad Consequences as might deter the weak and unconsidering from believing the plainest Positions in the Scripture viz. That the Lord laid on him the Iniquity of us all and he bare