salvation unto all men for the same purpose that they should deny ungodlyness and worldly lusts and live soberly and righteously in this present world W. P. Sound Doctrine OR The Doctrine of the Gospel about the extent of the Death of Christ DEar friend I received your book in which you prerend to answer my fourteen Queries and ten Absurdities which how well you have done let the Godly wise judge that have read it I am amazed to take notice how consident you seem to be in so bottomless a business as you maintain and with what subtilty not to say fraud you pass over the energie and force of my Arguments without notice and how you pretend that 't is an opinion very dangerous to hold that Christ died for all alike and yet you your self maintaining he died for all as if he died more for one then another and as if he died to save onely some and dyed for the rest to damne them I pray where do you learn that distinction of dying for all but not all alike was ever such a thing heard of among any that had the use of their reason I desire no greater advantage against you then that you are constrained and so are all of your opinion to speak without Art without Scripture without Reason and against all the best of Antiquities The holy Scriptures do indeed most plainly tell us that Christ died for all as you have also quoted Joh. 3.16 16.33 2 Cor. 5.19.1 Jo. 2.2.1 Joh. 4.14 Heb. 2.9 but do any or all of these or any other say that he died not for them alike or that he died for some more then other I shall not take upon me to write an answer to all your impertinent allegations and particulars in your book because I judge 't will be a mis-pence of time and blotting of paper to no purpose And were it not that I feared my silence would occasion you to be wise in your own conceit I would not have troubled my self to make any Reply unto your feigned doctrine for I do not much fear that many considerate good and sober men will be misled by such groundless conceits But being perswaded that possibly some weak persons may be misled by the pretended holyness of your self and Doctrine therefore I did resolve to write an Answer to your book which if you will weigh seriously in the balance of truth I hope it may put a stop to the exorbitancy of your Judgment it being the most fit way yea the way of our blessed Lord Jesus to reduce mens vile conversations by first purifying their hearts by faith and he who is not first cleansed in the inside of his heart no marvel if his actions be unclean he that judgeth not rightly of Gods wayes no marvel if he order not his own aright if I judge that God may pretend the grace of the Gospel i.e. remission of sins and Salvation upon amendment of life unto all protesting to them all that he desires their weal and yet intends it onely to a few of them I say If I judge God may do thus and yet be just no marvel then if I do also deal so with men my self this opinion altogether indulging such a practise for we are to follow the example of God both in Justice and holyness and all other perfection and 't is notoriously known to all considerate men that the Doctrine of the Gospel in every part of it is calculated for the Meridian of Godliness that being the great design of God in the world by all the Doctrines and preceps of the Gospel to lay obligations upon men to be holy in their conversations now by this you may know Truth from Errour for that Doctrine whose natural tendencie is to excite and provoke men to good and godly life is most assuredly from heaven but that teaching or those opinions that so much as but incline men to or allow them in any unclean or unrighteous pathes as your Doctrine doth is certainly not from heaven but earthly sensual and devilish as will afterward more fully appear I shall now begin with your first thing You say page a that I did not propound my questions to be informed and therein you were very right for indeed I thank my God I was not diffident of but believing in them when I put them to you but I did it to inform you and to rectifie your and others Judgements that judge not aright of God You say That my Queries are founded upon a groundless supposition to wit that you do not hold that Christ died for all which you say you do but not all alike I answer My Queries have a good foundation for if you maintain Christs dying for all in no other way then your nonsensical way 't is all one as if you had said in terminis he had not died for all for if he did not die effectually for all at least so far as to open a door of salvation for one as freely as another to what purpose was his death and what benefit have most men by his death you say They are freed from the curse of Adam but is that all are you so carnal have you such ignoble thoughts of the ever-blessed God and have you forgotten Joh. 3.17 Joh. 1.7 That all men might be saved and the many other places might be named wherein the Lord declares his desire to have all saved bâ—ing grieved and troubled in spirit when they will perish according to these Scriptures Ezek. 18.32 Chap. 33.11 Jer. 4.19 Judg. 10.16 Luke 19.41 You make such a confused work in your proofs for Christs dying for all as I never heard First you will not have it proved from these places Joh. 3.16 2 Cor. 25.19 c. because you say the word World is taken diversly in Scripture Sometimes for the whole sometimes for a part sometimes for the wicked and sometimes you say also for believers also but that 's false that the word World is taken many times for less then the whole I know and you needed not so have belabored your self to prove it What if it be meant for less then all sometimes yet sometimes it doth include all as you also confess and whensoever the death of Christ for all or his desire to save all is spoken of in this case it must be meant all for several good Reasons and Considerations as you shall hear afterwards onely take this one to chew upon in the mean time 'T is taken from Joh. 12.47 where our blessed Saviour saith If any man hear his words and believe not he will not judge him that is now rendring this reason For I came not to judge the world but to save the world By the word World here which Christ came to save and not to judge cannot be meant onely believers if at all but such as hearing do not believe or else the text will not be sense nor will the latter part be a reason to prove the affirmation in the
Sound Doctrine OR The Doctrine of the GOSPEL about the extent of the Death Of CHRIST Being A REPLY To Mr. Paul Hobson's pretended Answer to the Author's Fourteen Queries and ten Absurdities With A brief and Methodical COMPENDIUM of the Doctrine of the Holy Scriptures clearing up the riches of Gods love to all mankinde and his desires to save them that yet wilfully perish Also Of ELECTION and REPROBATION whereon they do depend and how the Objections against the Truth hereof may be Answered Whereunto is added The fourteen Queries and ten Absurdities pretended to be Answered by Mr. Paul Hobson but are wholly omitted in his Book LONDON Printed for Richard Moon at the seven Stars in Paul's Church-yard 1657. To the Church of Christ at NEWCASTLE in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ THe grace of our Lord be multiplied upon you all and strengthen you in every good word and work You may remember that one Mr. Paul Hobson who professeth and preaches up that faith which teaches a man to doubt whether Christ died for him or no did write a little book by way of Answer to the fourteen Queries and ten Absurdities which I presented unto him Which book I thought I was bound to answer for the sake of truth because he doth labour by so many subtilties to overthrow the very foundation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ And indeed had there not been an urgent necessity compelling me thereto I should not have undertaken such a task being I confess very unable to manage so great a work in such a publick manner which I have done though according to truth and my best endeavours yet not without some fears lest my weakness should disadvantage the righteous and undoubted cause I have in hand I had also another discouragement upon my spirit when I considered how many most excellent works are now in Print already about this subject so far transcending what I could say Notwithstanding I was perswaded to adventure upon this consideration That if I should have buried all in silence many of the Lords people might have stumbled and fallen from the truth of the Gospel and the adversaries thereof would have triumphed and so have hardned their necks more and more against the light of the glory of God shining forth to all the world in the face of Jesus Christ I desire you dear Brethren to accept this my small and first work of this nature in right good part and seriously peruse it over with an attentive eye I have endeavoured as much brevity as would stand with plainness If any thing at first reading seem-strange to you read it over again I have not willingly erred in any thing in this work that I know of I desire you to shroud this little Tract under your protection for it is not like to be the safer for being innocent I mean i' th' world it was not the modesty of Susanna that was able to secure her from the inditement of the Elders and 't was the innocency of Joseph that made his Mistriss pronounce him guilty But ye unto whom God hath given a spirit of discerning between truth and errour I trust will defend this little book because it labours to deffend the truth I pray God of heaven to encrease in you all vertuous and sound Principles that from thence may spring and also encrease a holy and Godly conversation more and more until we come to be perfect before our God in Sion This is the earnest request of Yours in the Lord Jesus W.P. To the Reader Courteous READER DAyly experience makes me sensible that the Devil never wanted cunning inventions to court men to the imbracing of false Doctrine and most commonly such false Doctrine whose natural tendency is to carry on the great design of Satan in the world to wit ungodliness and unholiness of life and conversation For he always labours to counter-plot the Alnighty in all his designs We may observe throughout the whole stream of Gods word Gods great design is to destroy the works of the devil that is sin and to make men holy to the end that he might make them happy Now Satan that arch-enemy of mankind be seeketh above all things to hinder this work for by hindring righteousness he knows he shall hinder the happiness of Gods creatures and because he well perceives that Gods design is to promote the work of righteousness in all people that so he might make all happy Satan there projecteth alwayes to counter-plot God labouring to promote sin in all that so he might promote the misery of all men So large as Gods love extendeth in endeavouring to save even so far also doth the envy of the Devil extend in his endeavors to damne And for as much as God hath tied himself that he will not work Physically upon man nor irresistibly but by gentle perswasions upon hopes of glory and feares of punishment and the devil hath not power to work otherwise then by alurements and promises and threatnings which he is not able to perform I say because God will not and the devil cannot work upon man otherwise then by perswasions therefore it comes to passe that all men are neither saved nor damned but onely those saved that are willing to let the Lord work on them and also are willing to work with him in purifying and cleansing themselves from sin and onely those damned that refusing Gods work do yield themselves to the working and works of Satan Now these things though they are most plain truth and do sure right well with good reason justice and equity yet they are much opposed by too many in our dayes whose â—eal is too great for their knowledge I desire thee most Kinde Reader to read this little Book seriously and weigh it 〈…〉 the balance of Truth and sound Reason and see wheâ—◠〈◊〉 I have not spoken to thy reason and search those Scripâ—â—â—â—â— which I have quoted if they be not to the purpose in 〈◊〉 and whether my design be not to magnifie the amplitude of Gods grace to sinners by which they are undoubtedly excited to amendment of life upon a sure and certain hope of glory and not upon any uncertain sound of the Gospel As they do that limit the general promises of the Gospel unto a few onely and without condition making an unknown and secret decree of Election to be the ground of their faith and so 't is no marvel if their faith be unstedfast and full of fears and doubts when the foundation of it is no better But I will detain thee no longer from the book itself lest I should make my Porch too big for the Cottage to which it leadeth But I commit thee to the guidance of God in the reading hereof that thou mayst not onely be brought to the acknowledging of those truths herein contained but also and chiefly that thou mayest in the power and and strength thereof live according to that grace of God which bringeth his
fore part of the verse but the sense would then be this nonsence If any man hear and believe not I judge him not for I cause not to judge believers but to save believers I trow this reason may satisfie a man of reason And whereas you say that the word World is sometimes taken for the believers that 's most untrue it being never taken for the better part though many times for the worse or greater parts Your three proofes for it are so weak that I think you might as fairly and to as much purpose have cited Matth. 1. to 17. the former of your three being grounded upon nothing but the malitious and lying opinion of the Pharisees what if the Pharisees did say thinking a few too many to follow Christ That the world was gone after him was it therefore true that they were a world or might properly be called the world see your self now in this glass Your second place Rom. 11.12 doth prove no more to a man that hath any brains but that the Gentiles are there called the World not the Elect onely among the Gentiles but the Nations of Gentiles who usually were called the World in opposition to that one Nation of the Jews Your third place Joh. 17.21 23. is meant of the world not of believers our Saviour being there praying for his own disciples that they might be so united to the Father and made one with him that they might the better be enabled in their great work of preaching the Gospel to all the world that the world might thereby be convinced to know that thou hast sent me and I sent them for he saith vers. 18. As thou hast sent me into the world so have I sent them into the world that is into believers quoth Mr. Hobson Also he prayeth that they may be kept from the evil of the world vers. 15. is that from the evil of believers Truely I have wondred that your understanding should be so infatuated as to summon Scriptures together so unduly but I remember 't is said The Lord catches the wise in their own craft God is just therein I pray God you seriously lay it to heart for what cause the Lord hath thus blinded or suffered your minde to be blinded so as you are not able to discern a Truth from an Errour nay to love Errour rather then Truth and would bring Scriptures to prove it too and for want of them you bring them that rather disprove it Next your come you say to your affirmation viz. that Christ died for all but not all alike pag. 6. First you prove that he died for all out of Tim. 4.10 Heb. 2.9 who denies it you might have as well proved it from those forementioned places which you excepted against the word every man Heb. 2.9 being taken as diversly as the word World but that you thought you would have some new-sangled way forsooth by your self to prove it for I think truely we may give you the honour or rather dishonour of inventing it never any before having so much boldness or so little wit as to maintain Christs dying for all from those places and not from the other or that held he died for all but not all alike In the next place you bestir you most monstrously and lay about you to prove that which scarce any will deny sâ—il that Christ by his death hath taken off the curse due to Adam from all men and freed all men from the killing power of that state And not contented with your Scripture-proofs you still huddle in more then a good many of a kinde of Scholastical Arguments to back that which will easily be granted but this peradventure was to shew your Scholarship and it may be your manliness how couragiously you can fight when none opposeth you But what of this what if Christ did do all this for all men doth that prove he did no more for them if not you have laboured in vain But it may be that shall be proved in the second part of your affirmation therefore I hasten to it i.e. that Christ died not for all alike And this you say you will prove in eight particulars some of which are so notoriously untrue and others so impertinently alleged that they are scarce worthy of an answer Yet lest you should triumph and crie Vicimus I shall give a brief reply to each of them in their order First That there is a people which God hath chosen and Elected in his Son mark that before the world was Who denies it and yet what a quoil the man makes to prove it do I deny Election or chusing out of the world no I believe it That God chuseth as the Prophet very fitly saith the godly man to himself Psa. 4.3 and also that before the world was he determined so to do and that is as much of Election as can be proved in Scripture that God doth use And whereas you say That Faith was an effect of ordination and you bring Act. 13.48 to prove it I say as 't is most untrue and against the current of Scripture and Reason so particularly that of Act. 13.48 is directly and plainly against you and I shall retort it unavoidably upon you The Evangelist Luke there being about to let Theophilus know who or what persons were ordained to life he doth most plainly say they were believers yea he restrains it from any others but believers in saying As many as were ordained to eternal life believed not a man more was ordained but such as believed Let any man now ask his Reason which of these is first Ordination or Believing and certainly Reason will tell him that Believing must be first especially if he consult with Joh. 1.12 Even to so many as believed on his name to them he gave power to become the Sons of God But perhaps you may fancie that Ordination must there be first because the order of the words is first If you should be so senceless then consider would it not be a ridiculous conceit to think that a Bullock hath horns before he hath hoofs because 't is said Psal. 69.31 This shall please thee better then a Bullock which hath horns and hoofs and would it not be as ridiculous to think that men are saved before called because 't is said 2 Tim. 1.9 Who hath saved us and called us If yet ye should be so dull as not to understand that Luke here intends Believing was before Ordination because he names Ordination first I shall give you a Similitude Suppose the King of a Nation having many Captives at his will and mercy do make Proclamation unto them all that whoever humble himself shall be ordained to life they that refuse shall be pursued with fire and sword unto death now suppose that I being in that country see divers of them humbling themselves and so finde acceptance with the King and are ordained to life and I come over to you and tell you the story I say thus
They have compelled me who under a colour of magnifying the grace of God and of justly reproving those that have been adulatores Naturae are turned themselves adulatores Gratiae So far forth that by them Satan seeketh to subvert the truth and righteousness of God and to extinguish and destroy all piety and religion in men bringing into the world a stupid sloth for some a remorsless infidelity and impenitency for others and an invincible desperation and hardness for othersome being the natural off-spring of that Doctrine that takes away all manner of will from men in matters of Salvation that turns the general promises of the Gospel into particular and private that limits an especial kinde of grace which is onely effectual to a few secret ones by a direct decree the rest being left destitute of true grace though they be called by the word of the Gospel CHAP. VII Of Free will COncerning free will I thought good to speak a few words and no more then I have great Antiquity for besides the word of God The commands and threatnings of Almighty God in Scripture whereby man is called upon and put in mind what God will have him do most evidently doth declare that man hath free will still after the fall as appears in such places as these Be not overcome of evil Rom. 12. Neglect not the grace that is in thee 1 Tim. 4. Love not the World 1 Joh. 2. If thou wilt enter into life keep the commandments Matth. 19. Which undoubtedly should be said in vain if there were no facultie or power left in man whereby he may by the help of grace if he will receive it when 't is offered him understand and obey Gods commandments This free will we may conveniently describe thus to be a certain power of the will joyned with reason whereby a reasonable creature without constraint discerneth and willeth good and evil but it willeth not acceptable good except it be holpen by grace but that which is evil it willeth of it self CHAP. III. Concerning falling from Grace THat a man who is really and truly in the state of grace and salvation may fall I will prove first by these two texts Matth. 24.13 and Ezek. 18.22 the first hath the promise of salvation to him that continueth to the end out of which I collect two things First that he to whom salvation is promised if he continue is in the right in which he should continue and is so ripe and fit for salvation that if he but continue such he shall be saved 2. That he who is thus excited to continue is presupposed possible to fall away deny the saith and imbrace this present world the answer that some rest in is to no purpose i.e. that means must be used in regard of our weakness but in regard of Gods Election and Christs intercession we cannot but stand for if two pillars be strong enough to bear up such a house as Sampson was in with the Philistines what need other supporter besides The second text is that of Ezek. 18.21 26 27. Which by no evasion can be avoided if the comparison there between a righteous man and a wicked be well observed for deny you in any wise that a righteous man can turne from his righteousness and die and I will with the like reason deny that a wicked man may turne from his wickedness and live and so we shall solvere Scripturas make void the holy word of God if a supposition putteth nothing in the one it putteth nothing in the other if it be ever seen that a wicked man turns from his wickedness and lives then it may as well be seen that a righteous man turns from his righteousness and dies Let me adde this one Argument more that the regenerate fallen into mortal sin is not then filius Dei It is taken out of 1 Joh. 3.9 He that is born of God doth not commit sin for his seed remains within him and he cannot sin because he is born of God I shall here do two things at once overthrow the strongest Arguments of my Opponents and I shall retort the text unavoydably upon themselves that is by giving the true sence of that place The scope of Saint John is not to prove that they that are born of God cannot depart or change from righteousness to sin or that there cannot be a succession of these two for this in the Apostles time was out of question But his scope is to prove that these two cannot consist or stand together which the will of the flesh would fain have to be born of God and to commit deadly sin They did admit for true that he that had been the member of an Harlot might by repentance become the member of Christ and that the member of Christ might become the member of an Harlot by falling into adultery But that a man might be at once a member of an Harlot and a member of Christ that they denyed these expelling one the other If we have entertained Christ in the Inne of our hearts we put the Devil to flight presently if we sin and by the gate of sin give entrance to the Devil forthwith Christ departs let them consider this who defend David to be still born of God when he stood guilty of Adultery and murther But they count it ridiculous to say we be so often born of God as we repent of sin it is more lamentable to fall oft into such sins then ridiculous to be often renewed by repentance because in our natural birth we are born but once therefore they will have it that in our Spiritual we are born but once There is no necessity in this consequence it should seem then that Saint Paul was not aware of this Argument when he said Gal. 4.19 My little Children of whom I travel in birth again untill Christ be formed in you This text of Saint John may be understood with much ease if we do but consider the acceptation of the word cannot there He that is born of God cannot sin rendring this Reason because he is born of God that is He cannot lawfully because in his new birth he had so solemnly engaged himself to Jesus Christ in Baptisme that if he should now return to sin he would be perjured and forsworn Like this is that of Saint Paul Rom. 6.2 3. How shall we that are dead to sin that is by Baptisme live any longer therein not how shall we possibly for 't was possible for he exhorts them verse 12. not to let sin reign in their mortal bodies But how shall we lawfully since that you have covenanted against it giving your selves up in Baptisme to be dead to sin and to rise out from thence unto newness of life you should do well to read this Chapter seriously as to this point It is ordinary in our common locution if we see a man doing that which is both unlawful and which he hath vowed against to say to him it is