their own Hands God works in Conversion because the Will works saith Bellarmine but we answer by querying Whether we should judg of the Church's Doctrine by her Collect and Catechism or by her Articles of Religion surely by the latter Again Are we to pray for Turks Jews and Infidels Conversion without this addition if it be the Will of God to convert them I think not This Term all Mankind so general no more is signified thereby than Christ died for Mankind in Opposition to Angels kind and we say the same The ground for praying for Turks Jews and Infidels ariseth from the Scripture prophesying of the Jews Conversion and bringing in of the Fulness of the Gentiles which is plainly notified in the 11th of the Romans But that Christ died for all and every one with his own and Father's Intent to save them we deny and offer those Arguments drawn up lately by that Learned and Reverend Brother Mr. Isaac Chauncey in his late Book entituled The Doctrine which is according to Godliness there cannot be better Arguments produced The Preface swells else I would have transcribed them all take but one sutable to the following Subject and I will bid the Reader farewel It is not fit Christ should die for all seeing his Father elected not all and gave not all to him For Christ to redeem more were to disobey his Father's Will and not to do it If any say God elected all it is most absurd to talk of chusing some from among many others when a Man takes the whole Number this is no Election Or if any say Election is conditional provided if a Man will this also is no Election for if Election be upon the Condition of Man's Free-will neither one nor another is chosen but all have equal pervious Designation to the end and so there is no Election at all Farewel EPHES. 1.5 Having predestinated us to the Adoption c. THis Text speaks this Truth viz. That particular Persons are decreed unto Eternal Life and the Means thereof are decreed in their effectual working Some singular Persons are the immediate Objects of Election the word us denotes it it speaks Persons still All the Adversaries grant Persons are elected but here is the difference some think that Persons are in God's Eye first and his Love was first cast upon them as soon as he thought of glorifying himself out of himself among the Sons of Men and whatever Means some calls them Conditions by which they may come to this Salvation they are chosen to they shall have Strength from God to perform The other think that Persons are elected but out of fore-sight that they do fulfil such Conditions and those Conditions are first of all ordained and Persons so far as they come under them Some of them say that the Object of Election is Man dying past the use of Reason who in all probability will not return and live to enjoy the Means wherein they may use the Power of their Will to take or leave Some will say a Man is not elected while he is a Man of this World Therefore this Order they that are of this Opinion make of God's Decrees 1. God decrees to send his Son into the World that he dying his Justice might be satisfied he might be free upon what Terms he would save Men. The second Decree that Men shall have no other Terms for Salvation but Perseverance in believing on him who hath died for them Third Decree to give fit Means to make them believe 4. God picks out particular Persons as his chosen ones as they fulfil the Conditions at the Point of Death Or thus God considered all the ways possible that may bring to Salvation and of all pitch'd upon the way of Faith this they call Predestination unto Life 2. Then there is a particular Decree of this Man or the other to Life according as he hath fulfilled that Condition By what hath been said you may see the difference This is not God's Election to say if Men believe and persevere in believing then they shall be elected and saved then I will pitch upon you rather than others to Life but this is God's Election I do take thee and therefore will enable thee and not others to do all the things I require of thee I will call thee and I will not depart from thee till thou art partaker of Eternal Life the Question then is great about the Cause of God's Election what makes a compleat Act of God's electing God chuses particular singular Persons John Peter Paul these are those God immediately pitcheth upon not Conditions first and then Persons as they fall under these but Persons first and appoints them to all the Means I prove this 1. By Scripture 2. By Reason 3. I will show the danger of the other Opinion The Scripture saith that the very Hairs of our Head are numbred Mat. 10.30 Acts 27.34 not one falls without your Heavenly Father 2 Sam. 14.11 Much more surely hath God a Care of all the Heirs of Salvation of all that shall be made partakers of that Inheritance in Glory things that are numbred are that they may not perish If superfluous things are taken care of by the Providence of God and it reaches to minute things as Hairs of the Head doth it not extend think you to the Persons of them that are saved The Proofs of Scripture for this are three 1. That the Scripture is silent about any such way as the Adversaries speak of now the Scripture is the Light that is given to know the Mind of God by in this matter The Silence of the Scripture in this thing speaks aloud what it saith nothing of is not to be believed For in this lieth the very Nature and Essence of a Rule that what is not according to it is not right nor authentick not to be supposed in the Scripture are all the Truths that are to be received and view it throughout and there is not a word of this viz. That there are Conditions made of Election if we believe and repent and persevere indeed of Salvation there are Conditions the Scripture speaks of taking Conditions in a general sense as they signify Means to a thing or a Connexion betwixt one thing and another but Salvation is much differing from Election as much as the Effect from the Cause and the End from the Means we are saved by Grace therefore in the use of Means but Election gives that Grace Some Scriptures seem to be for them but of them I shall speak afterwards 2. The Scripture speaks of particular Persons singular Persons elected where-ever it speaks of Election or Predestination in this of the first of the Ephesians predestinated us i.e. the Ephesians in distinction from others In the second Chapter he saith they were Children of Wrath by Nature as others till God made known his Purpose to them by calling of them It must have been instead of this word us all Men predestinated all Men
ruin the Innocent whenas we heartily declare that God never determined to ruin any but for Sin and never did execute his Will and Determination and so actually ruin any but for Sin contumaciously continued in to the end And is this to ruin the Innocent When the Decree was made Man was neither nocent nor innocent for the Creature had no Existence before the Creation nothing had a Being but the Decree and so that of Reprobation had a Being before the World was The Nature of God he saith cannot come so nigh the Nature of the Devil as to be a Murderer from the beginning intimating that by our Doctrine we make God to be like Satan a Murderer from the beginning But I doubt not but this Author will by this Crimination make himself like Satan a Liar and false Accuser of the Brethren Ad triarios ventum est Cannot we defend our selves Satan was the moral Cause of Eve's sinning and so of Destruction Did we ever say that God was the moral Cause of Eve's sinning I trow not And then how can he be said to be the Murderer He that is not Causa Causae how can he be said to be Causa causati Is the Judg that passes Sentence upon a Criminal a Murderer or the Sheriff that executes the Sentence We profess constantly steadily that God never did sentence any to Death but for final Sin we are speaking of the Adult neither did he decree any to Hell but for final Impenitency in Sin much less doth he execute any inflict Death eternal upon them but for persevering obstinately in Sin to the end of their days without Repentance And to say that the Judg of the Earth in executing Judgment upon Sinners is to make him like the Devil is Monstrum horrendum c. This is all that can be laid to our Charge that God denies Faith and Repentance to some which he gives to others and hath decreed so of his meer Will and Pleasure according to that in the 9th of the Romans He will have Mercy on whom he will have Mercy and whom he will he hardens not by infusing any Hardness into any but by not infusing Grace Is this to make God like Satan a Murderer Is Satan Sovereign Lord Hath he Power over the Creature as the Potter over the Clay But this Man doth apprehend God to be like Satan a Murderer because he wills to punish some for their Sin persisted in and because he will not give Faith and Repentance to all Who can think but he is for universal Salvation The Adversaries do much insist upon this Theam crying out that we render God cruel in this Point of absolute Reprobation One of them hath this strain 'T is contrary to sound Reason which cannot but argue such a Decree of extreme Cruelty c. But doth not sound Reason also argue the Prescience of God of as extreme Cruelty as this Doctrine of Reprobation and they cannot without offering Violence to the Light of Nature deny the Fore-knowledg of God and whatever Absurdity they would fasten upon us from our Tenet of absolute Reprobation shall necessarily divolve upon themselves in every respect if they preserve but the undeniable Doctrine of God's Prescience Another vulgar Error is concerning Free-will in Mr. Battell's Book why he should call the Calvinistical Tenets vulgar Errors is uncouth whenas the Pelagian Heresy sutes the Reason and Affections of all natural Men and is very plausible to the common People There is Popery and Pelagianism in every ones Belly by Nature whole Towns and Countries espouse this Harlot and wonder after her but strait is the Gate and narrow is the Way of Truth and few find it I have read over the Treatise of Free-will and find nothing but what is in Cardinal Bellarmine the Jesuit The Author describes Free-will in the same Terms with the Jesuit but how well does he agree with his Mother the Church of England hath he not undoubtedly spit in her Face while he contentedly sits in her Lap and sucks her Breasts Did he ever subscribe or swear to the tenth Article of Free-will is it not diametrically opposite to his Book Let the Reader judg The Condition of Man after the Fall is such that he cannot turn and prepare himself mark that by his own natural Strength and good Works to Faith and calling upon God wherefore we have no Power to do good Works pleasant and acceptable to God without the Grace of God by Christ preventing us Mark that that we may have a good Will But the Import of all this Treatise is viz. That there is a Free-will-in-fallen Man to spiritual and supernatural Acts tho indeed he calls it a remote Free-will to supernatural Acts that this Will of Man is not subject to the special Motion of God in the Act of Conversion so that the Grace of God is irresistably powerful P. 73. This as the Opinion of our Divines he disputes against that this Will is ready tho with some Remoteness to act with God's Grace and is as bent to chuse Good as to refuse and chuse Evil is not dead but sick and lame and this Power waits for God's Power that they may act evenly and jointly in the working out of Salvation pag. 81. And that Man's Will together with the Grace of God casts the Scale in Conversion not to wrong him he saith Grace hath the chiefest Stroke in it pag. 91. But which of them moveth first he saith not and surely the first Mover hath the greatest Stroke Now Bradwerdine asserts God to be the first Mover in all Actions and it 's most consonant to right Reason and if in all then surely in good Actions He hath it 's true mentioned preventing Grace In pag. 77. he is there setting forth the difference betwixt one dead naturally and one spiritually dead and the first difference is this viz. The one is capable of preventing Grace and the other is not but is not he that is naturally dead as capable of the miraculous preventing Power of God in raising him up from that kind of Death to Life as he that is spiritually dead is capable of Grace preventing to convert him And must not this Grace as really go before Conversion in Order of Nature at least as the other miraculous Power precedes the Resurrection or quickening of him that is naturally dead He saith one may be raised by Means the other only by Miracles we query what those Means are External only or Internal i. e. infusing of spiritual Life as a Principle and is not this a Miracle Job 5.25 compared with 28. there you plainly perceive there is as much Power exerted in raising the spiritually as the naturally dead but the Author supposeth external Means only according to that he writes p. 79. Efficacious Grace is nothing but Perswasion which doth not determine the Will This is noisom Pelagianism Our Opinion is plainly this and we have Boldness in the Truth viz. In our Conversion Free-will
they are in the Favour of God But God doth not speak now to Men immediately but by Scripture The Spirit makes use of the Sciptures now in this case if we would prove our Election it must be by our calling and our calling must be proved by the Word of God through which he calls us Secondly Reason cannot give us an Assurance of our Election For this doth not know neither can know spiritual things 1 Cor. 2.14 But the natural Man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God for they are Foolishness unto him neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned Reason is led by Sense and Feeling and therefore biassed in Judgment Thirdly Nor thirdly You must judg of it by external Privilege So the Jews thought Rom 9. because to them were committed the Oracles of God therefore if they were rejected God was not true they thought they were elected to eternal Life because they were elected unto the Means but it is not so for many are called but few chosen Fourthly The Testimony of a Church will not do it A Christian it 's true is bound to take their Testimony as a Help to clear his own Case and Condition and to help him to make a Judgment of himself whether he is meet for Ordinances This is to be taken as to the Judgment of Mens Graces and it is a Divine Testimony for it is an Ordinance of God but it is not full and compleat you must have other Grounds than this Do not rest in this that God hath plucked you out of the World and call'd you to a Church and you enjoy Ordinances upon the Testimony of the Saints but be as curious to know your Election from the Spirit and the Word as if you were not of a Church Fifthly It is not by a Man's making Judgment of himself from the Perswasion of his own Heart for many Eyes see more than one It 's hard for a Man to walk so evenly as to escape the Observation of vigilant Saints who walk with God and have their Eye-sight daily quickned by searching into their own Conditions In Gal. 5.8 there were some we read of that were perswaded that because they did so and so according to the Law of Moses therefore they were justified now saith the Apostle this Perswasion cometh not of him that calleth you It is no matter what you think of your selves you must have a Testimony from him that calls so no matter what thou thinkest or mayest think unless God justify and ratify and testify it to thy Spirit Now the right trying of your selves ought to be done 1. With much Justice and much Impartiality to a Man's self As in a Court of Justice a Man must not regard whose the Cause is but the Cause it self so must a Man in the Judgment of himself Allowances are to be given for the Degrees of Grace and the Time they have been under the Means but as to the Truth of Grace the Person must not be considered at all Sometimes when we fall upon the Trial of our selves our Eyes are blinded with Anger we have fallen into some Sin and upon it there hath been a Spirit of Indignation and Wrath in us against our selves and we are very jealous of every thing that Conscience can say or which our Ways do speak saith Conscience to a Soul Thus hath it been with thee sometimes viz. thou hast sought the Lord and feared him above all things his Love was better than Life thou thought'st it a Burden to live longer than thou hadst the Kisses of his Lips Saith Conscience again to a Man Thou liest through the Wrath that is in him Why dost thou speak thus to me How long shall I charge thee in the Name of the Lord that thou speak nothing but the Truth Can there be the Love of God and the Love of Sin Whatever I have done it is no more than what a Hypocrite may do and I am afraid it will prove so This is a Judgment blinded with Anger At another time we are in love with our selves and indulgent to our selves then every little is much and every probable Argument a Demonstration and this is the Reason why Men mistake they are not in cool Blood they are not equal Arbitrators they look upon the Cause as their own and not upon the Cause in it self Oft-times our Judgments are rash and indeliberate upon a sudden Apprehension without weighing and pondering of what went before or what may follow after The Rule in this Case in this That therefore when thou hast any Conceptions of thy spiritual Estate that thou let these abide in thy Mind sometime before thou pass a Judgment on thy self Hast thou any Thought comes into thee of the Love of God keep it nourish it lodg it sit thee down alone weigh it examine it consider whence it took its Rise consider what its Effect is in thee When thou findest it came in according to the Manner of God's Working and it works divinely and heavenly in thee then let it be as a Decree not to be altered As Saints fall into Sin through Indeliberation and want of consulting the Matter and judging by the Appearance of things so they fall into Misjudging of themselves and their Estates because they do it heedlesly and without Consultation Object But you will say I have taken this course as near as I could and yet I cannot attain to the Assurance of Election the Word hath been my Rule and nothing else I have looked upon Privileges and the Dictates of my own Spirit and my Reason when they have come alone as lying Reports in which there is no Certainty I have laboured to set my Soul in as even a Frame as I could when I have gone about the Work and yet still Difficulties have perplexed me and puzzled me Reasons why we have not Assurance 1. Thou hast it may be been unacquainted with the manner of judging thy self and receiving the Witness of God thou art in the dark as to this matter And as it is with a Man that hath been in black Darkness he cannot presently see when he comes into the Light so here thou art but newly come out of the dark and art not acquainted with the Light with this way of judging thy self and having the Light of the Spirit In 1 Sam. 3. young Samuel was unacquainted with God's way and manner of appearance and speaking and therefore when he did speak to him he ran to Eli thinking it had been Eli. Some of us are not well skill'd with these things God hath been beating down thy Corruptions struggling with thee imbittering Sin to thee by Godly Sorrow but thou knowest not what these Evidences of Eternal Life experimentally mean thy Eyes have been upon thy Works and Doings and thou knowst not what God speaks to thee when God is speaking Peace thou understandest it not 2. Thou mayst want it in that thou mayst be dallying trifling with some one Corruption
or other it may be thou wilt not commit it but thou wilt salute it it may be it hath not actual but it hath contemplative Commission the whole Act is in thy Thoughts tho not in thy Practice there is a constant breaking out of Corruption upon all Occasions Now 1 Joh. 1.6 If we say we have Fellowship with him and walk in Darkness we lie and do not the Truth i. e. as when Mens Consciences tell them that when they lie they speak not the Truth so when a Man goes about to lay hold on Assurance his Conscience tells him he cannot be assured of his Election who walks not sincerely with the Lord. A corrupt unprofitable Word will grieve the Spirit by which ye are to be sealed Ephes 4.30 3. We want it because we are not sollicitous to grow and encrease in all Graces but only in some one we neglect some Graces while we follow after others we do some Duties not others or all we know If we would make our Election sure 2 Pet. 1.5 the Apostle tells us We are to give all Diligence to add to Faith Vertue c. He reckons upon all the Cardinal Graces and Vertues of a Christian which comprehend all the rest in which our Diligence is to be not one but all We have prayed for it no question but never joined Fasting to Praying we have done both but only alone never in Company of the Saints that understand the Voice of God it may be we have done this but yet never waited upon the Lord in the Use of those Ordinances which he hath appointed his People to walk through and as Trunks by which he speaks and conveighs himself It may be thou art given to Anger Passion Frowardness and strivest against it but then art led and not a little by a covetous Worldly Spirit it may be thou art against this yet there is in thee a vain foolish Spirit following the Customs and Fashions of the Times that the World may know thou hast a Liberty I do not say that those that do such things cannot have assurance but that the allowing a Man's self in any one Sin or the neglecting of any one known Duty is the Cause many times that Assurance is not given 4. Suppose that be not the Case yet it may be thou takest not the Hints and Opportunities God gives when he would speak his Mind to thee or thou withdrawest when he hath spoken a word or two thou hast made nothing of it yet such there have been upon thy Spirit and thou hast not regarded them every Touch of God upon the Heart every Intimation is like a Character which is but a little Dash but it contains a whole Word or like some Hieroglyphicks of the Heathen a whole Story was comprehended in one Sign or Image So if thou hast been able to have construed or expounded that Touch of God upon thy Heart it would have told thee the Love of God from Eternity and would have shewed how it hath waited on thee and done thee good in several Estates as in the knowledg of Duty And if a Man would know his Duty he must take the least Motion and Intimation of it and the least Light must be made much of if he will grow up to know the Mind of God fully So it is also in the knowledg of our State thou must begin with Principles to know thy Duty thou must begin with Intimations to get Assurance God begins after that manner with his People whereas Presumption is all at once and comes by Violence Lastly If that be not the Case it may be thou dost not go on with the Trial of thy self it may be when thou art sick or in imminent danger or to do some hazardous Duty then thou goest about it diligently else desistest Now Suits in Law hang long come not to an end because they are not followed As he that would have a true understanding of any Science must traverse the Principles clean through so he that would have Assurance must go on the next day where he left off before Thou dost not make it the Work of every Grace and every Prayer to search into thy Heart nor the Work of every Day but now and then when thou art in some imminent danger or special Service Let us know this to encourage us there is nothing God takes more Pleasure to reveal than his electing Love tho it pass thy Knowledg yet as the Apostle saith Ephes 3. Christ and the Spirit dwelling in thy Heart by Faith will make you see into all the Heights and Depths Lengths and Breadths that pass Knowledg And tho it be the Weakness of a Christian to analise and go from the Effect to the Cause yet unto this Men should endeavour and labour that they come to know the Cause and Fountain whence all their Good comes and God hath given you two Lights in this Firmament for the revealing of it 1. Your Faith 2. Your Love As the Sun doth sometimes make another Sun in the Firmament so doth the Love of God work in us a Love of electing him again That you may read all the whole Heart and Frame of God's Intentions towards you in the Reflection of your Heart towards him make it your Work to make your Election sure He is a happy Man that knows the Causes of things and he is the wise Man that doth know things by their Causes There is nothing more pleasant and delightful than for you to drink of the Fountain a little of the Knowledg of God's electing Love will be like the Spirit of Wine like a Spring within you like a strong Motion The Saints do much by the Power of Grace but much more by the Power of Love and aspecially by that Love that hath ordained all those things to be given so freely to them even the Love of Election And if it were for nothing but for this that you may come to know your Estate abhor Conditional Election which puts you to work but gives you no Certainty nor Security of your Condition but only by your Walkings as they say themselves which are changeable and that Doctrine will bear it that he that lived forty or fifty Years in a holy way and all things ready to go to Heaven yet hath his Will so changeable and slippery that in one moment he may turn off from God and lose all he hath done and never be remembred but perish eternally were there nothing but this to make a Man stand at a distance from that Doctrine it should do it However it may seem to the Flesh to keep a Man cautious and wary in what he doth yet notwithstanding a Man can have no Knowledg in this World how it shall be with him to Eternity whereas our Doctrine calls up to the Mount and bids us there sit down and read our Names in the Book as they are made known by the effectual workings of the Spirit If you would know whether you be