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A26832
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Vulgar errors in divinity removed
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Battell, Ralph, 1649-1713.
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1683
(1683)
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Wing B1150; ESTC R10796
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49,392
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154
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this unmerciful opinion are such as these First that of St. Paul in the ninth Chapter to the Romans ver 11. For the Children being not yet born neither having done good or evil that the purpose of God according to Election might stand not of works but of him that calleth it was said unto her the elder shall serve the younger as it is written Jacob have I loved but Esau have J hated You see say they before Jacob or Esau had done good or evil one was loved and the other hated My answer is First these words are not spoken of Jacob or Esaus persons but by a figure the person of either is put to represent and shadow out the condition of their Posterities Secondly the Election there mentioned is meant chiefly concerning things Temporal not things Eternal That that saying The elder shall serve the younger was not meant of their persons but of their Posterities may appear from Gen. 25.23 Two Nations are in thy Womb and two manner of People shall be separated from thy bowels and the one People shall be stronger than the other and the elder shall serve the younger Esau in his own person never served Jacob nay Jacob called Esau his Lord and bowed seven times to the ground before him Gen. 33.3 and was glad by a Present to obtain his peace of him If Esau had done so to Jacob how would they have triumphed in their personal sense Secondly that the love and hatred was meant chiefly concerning things temporal see Mal. 1.2 3. from whence the words were taken Was not Esau Jacobs Brother saith the Lord Yet I loved Jacob and I hated Esau and laid his Mountains and his Heritage waste for the Dragons of the Wilderness So that you plainly see the Apostle means not personal Election to eternal life or hatred to eternal death but of choosing Jacobs Posterity to be a greater Nation than the Off-spring of Esau meerly for his good pleasure which no man can justly speak against for he may do what he pleases with his own good blessings If it be said the temporal blessings on Jacob's Posterity did shadow out spiritual 't is not denied but they might and certainly to be brought so nigh unto God as to be his peculiar People in Covenant was a spiritual blessing and if all that were in Covenant were elected the Argument were of force but seeing they are not all Israel which were of Israel it falls to the ground The truth is the words are here used by the Apostle by way of Allegory and all that he accommodates them to is to shew that God might justly cast off the Jews the People of the elder Covenant of Works and take in the Gentiles those minors and youngers into the Covenant of grace in their rooms as may appear from Rom. 9.30 What shall we say then to these things That the Ghntiles which followed not after righteousness have attained to righteousness even the righteousness which is of faith But Israel which followed after the Law of righteousness hath not attained unto the Law of rightehusness Wherefore Because they sought it not by faith but as it were by the Works of the Law And this he makes the conclusion and is the chief if not the only thing he doth infer from the whole Allegory And what he says to Moses is most equal I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy that is it belongs to me to appoint upon what terms I will shew mercy and justifie men whether by the Law of Faith or by Works For as he that builds an Hospital hath an equitable right to appoint the qualifications of the persons that shall partake in his gift whether poor Children or Widows Aged persons or the like so it belongs to God to appoint upon what terms he will justifie men whether by the Law of Works or by the Law of Faith and seeing neither Works nor Faith can deserve it at his hands Justification is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth but of God that sheweth mercy God hath reason enough for all his doings but in distributing mercies which have no foundation in merit he need give no account or reason of it but his Will And so likewise for his judgments upon Pharaoh here used as a Type of the obstinate Jews although God had reason enough to raise him up I suppose out of the former Plague to reserve him for a more famous overthrow because the Hebrew hath it I have made thee stand The Septuagint hath it for this cause 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thou hast been preserved till now The Chaldee Paraphrase and Junius so likewise explain it And although God had reason enough to find fault with him for hardening of his heart though now judicially hardened and he could not help it yet the Apostle waves these Reasons and says Nay but O man who art thou that repliest against God As if he had said it is intolerable presumption to quarrel at the ways of God as unequal when they clearly appear to be his You ought rather with reverence to presume there is wisdom and righteousness in them though you through ignorance cannot comprehend them For as his power in forming man ought not to be found fault withal and none ought to say Why hast thou made me thus So neither his Justice which is as infinite as his Power and renders to men only according to their Works A second Scripture is this Hath not the Potter power over the Clay of the same lump to make one vessel to honour another to dishonour Ver. 21. Whence they infer God is the Potter we the Clay the Elect are the Vessels of honour the Reprobates the Vessels of wrath and dishonour and if God make a Vessel of wrath shall the thing framed say to him that framed it Why hast thou made me thus To this I answer We are indeed in Gods Hands as the Clay in the hand of the Potter and when he framed man of the dust of the earth he might have made him the tail and not the head of the Creation he might have moulded us Dogs or Swine or loathsom Serpents and in that sense Vessels of dishonour but to make us Vessels of wrath and in that sense Vessels of dishonour so the good God could not make us no more than he can lie or be cruel or deny himself The nature of God cannot come so nigh the nature of the Devil as to be a Murtherer from the beginning There can be no Vessel of wrath without sin Ephes 5.6 For these things sake having fore-mentioned many sins he saith the wrath of God comes upon the Children of disobedience But we cannot be sinful as we come out of his hands and therefore cannot come out of his hands Vessels of wrath he like the good tree cannot bring forth corrupt fruit Jer. 2.21 God doth avouch he never made a degenerate Plant Yet I had planted thee a noble Vine wholly a right seed The
it but also lay it to their charge that it was not efficacious as it might have been if they had actively concurred and cooperated with it he should not only be a mocker of men but also under colour of kindness make a way to his wrath and indignation which is far from the candor and nature of God who is always merciful and serious in his offers of Grace If it be said he doth not mock us but justly challenge from us that lost power which he once gave us as a Creditor may justly challenge from a Prodigal that money he hath spent and hath not now to pay Some are of opinion that it is not the Prodigals fault now that he doth not pay if he be willing to pay and hath it not but his fault was only this that he brought himself into that condition And so it is not a fault that he which cannot receive grace doth not receive it but a sad consequence only of his former sin which brought this impotency upon him for which he ought to be pitied not upbraided if he desire to receive it Others answer it befits the goodness of God in the New Covenant of Grace made with mankind to allow sufficient strength of grace to perform the conditions of that Covenant in such a measure as he for Christs sake would accept Or else 1. The Covenant of Works would be more gracious than the Covenant of Grace for under that mankind had strength allowed him Adam did not fall for want of power to stand Or else 2. The New Covenant should leave a man in a worse condition than it found him for the abounding of grace would make his sin abound being sure to be always refused But Christ is the Mediator of a better Covenant every way considered a more gracious than that of Works and Gods primary intent in giving it was not to make sin but to make grace abound I only ask a question if Zeleucus put out both the eyes of an Adulterer for Adultery and then offer him his Book to read and hang him because he cannot read was the offer of the Psalm of mercy a mercy to him or a mockery So if God first justly blind our understanding and harden our hearts as a punishment of our sin in Adam and then make us a tender of grace in Christ but never open our understandings to see it nor soften our hearts so far that if we will we may embrace it but all his offers are upon impossible terms to be accepted whether the case be not alike and Parallel 6. Lastly it is objected that it is God that worketh in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure Phil. 2.13 Where you see say they St. Paul attributes both the will and the deed to the grace of God I answer the meaning of the Apostle is that God gives us a power to will and still assists us with his grace till we bring that power into Act and so a man works out his own Salvation and he ought to do it with fear and trembling that is he ought with reverence and godly fear stand in aw lest when God inables him to work he be wanting to himself and to the grace of God lest he grieve and quench the Spirit and cause him to depart But if a man concur only subjectively and passively to pious works as they would have it then it must be said or may truly be said at least that God in us believes repents of sin and doth all other gracious Acts which how absurd and blasphomous it would be I leave the world to judge It is said our Saviour marvelled at their unbelief but if it be as they say I marvel why he should marvel for he knew before-hand they could do nothing and he was resolved not to do all things alone to bring them to the Faith But certainly he had good cause to marvel that when he afforded them such a measure of Grace as would have converted Tyre and Sidon and would have made Niniveh repent in Sackcloath and ashes they should be so wilful and obdurate that it made no kindly impression upon them If any thing had been wanting on his part to have brought them to the Faith he would not have upbraided them with their unbelief or have shamed them by the very Heathen nor have denounced a more intolerable measure of damnation against them if there had not been offered them superabundant advantages of Grace I conclude therefore with the Father Sola voluntas ardet in gehennâ which I will English thus Wilful men will want no woe Vulgar Errors CONCERNING REDEMPTION Removed SAint Paul comparing the First and Second Adam together shews us the hurt we received by the disobedience of the First and the benefits we receive by the obedience of the Second For Adam and Christ are to be considered as two roots as we proceed from the one we are of the wild Olive but as we are engraffed into the other we contrary to our natures partake of the good Olive Now look what loss Mankind did receive by the one it was the good pleasure of our good God that the same benefit Mankind should recover by the other When the Apostle says many dead by Adam he says many made alive by Christ When men condemned by Adam he says all justified by Christ now what he thus makes equal for men to dis-equalize to such a degree as not one of many to be redeemed though all in Adam were lost is not to make a much more on Christs side but a much less Contrary to the Apostle who all along puts the redundancy on Christs part that where sin abounded grace superabounded that as sin reigned unto death so grace did reign unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Now sin did reign over all men without exception unto death therefore grace must have a proportionable reign unto life Christ must fulfil on his part what appertained to the procuring the Salvation of all or else the Salve is not so broad as the Sore which yet the Apostle hath been proving at large in the fifth Chapter to the Romans Our Church rightly grounding her Faith upon the Scriptures teaches most truly that Christ died for all men in her Catechism she teaches the Child to answer I believe in God the Son who redeemed me and all mankind and in her Collect for Good Friday prays for all Jews Turks and Insidels that God would bring them home to his Flock that there may be one Fold under one Shepherd Suppose God to hear the Prayers of his Church and to bring these to the knowledge of Christ I demand Hath Christ any salvation in him for these men or no If he hath sure I am he purchased it with his bloud and so died for them If not our Church is mistaken in praying such may be brought to Christ for salvation who hath no salvation in him for such or ever laid down his life a