not have saved him without his reading and much lesse would his reading have saved him without that favourable Law yet his life is a thousand fold more worth then his reading of two or three lines and therefore he owes a thousand times more thanks to his Prince for giving him his life upon such a condition then to himself for reading supposing his reading to have been the purchase of his life If a man sell a farme to his friend for five hundred for which another would have given him a thousand what more common then to say He hath given his friend five hundred in the buying 3. But in sober sadnesse doth Mr. Eyre think the welch man speaks §. 25. properly in his God blesse her father c That were a jest indeed How comes it then to be a ridiculous object if there be not some h pleasing deformity in it that flatters the fancie and surprizeth k See Sie râ—de la Câ—ambre Charact. of the Passions ch 4. of laughter p. 210. the soule so moving laughter And what can that deformity be except the welch idiome but the fallacy of non causa pro causa putting that for the cause which is not the cause as we are wont out of Cicero when we see a little man girt with a great sword to transplace the Subject and the Adjunct and say who tied that man to that sword Had the welch man cried as he was bid God blesse the King and the Judge the propriety of the speech had spoiled the jest and deprived it of that facetiousnesse and lepidity which now causeth us to make merry with it A certain discovery that the speech is not proper nor the condition of reading the cause of his pardon the speech becoming ridiculous upon no other account but because it would insinuate that to be the cause which was no more then a condition But the serious judgement of all offendors who escape death by this means and the wisdome of our statâ— determining it to be an act of royal grace and favour to pardon a man on this condition might one would think be of as much authority as one welch mans word It is true indeed the Law nor the Judge could save him unlesse he read nor will God save us unleâ—â—â— we believe Heb. 3. 19. They could not enter in because of unâ—eliâ—f Not through defect of power or mercy in God which are both inâ—inâ—te but because he hath confined himself in the dispensation of pardon and salvation that he will bestow it upon none but them that believe Is it therefore not of grace because not without faith Whereas the Apostle sayes It is of faith that it might be of grace Rom. 4. 16. In that which followes I finde nothing which is not answered already §. 26. or must not be answered in due place for whereas Mr. Eyre sayes that the performance of the condition makes the conditional grant to become absolute the words are ambiguous If he mean it makes it absolute as that without which it had never been absolute I grant it if he mean it makes it absolute by contributing any direct causality I deny it for upon performance of the condition the conditional grant doth indeed become absolute not by the worth or efficacy of the condition but by the will of the Promiser that upon the existence of such a thing or action will be obliged and not without it We have already given several instances of conditions which have nothing of worth in them to engage the Donour and therefore cannot be the cause of the gift for nothing can produce an effect more noble and excellent then it selfe Nor doth it receive any addition of intrinsecal worth by being made the condition otherwise we might work as rare feats by the influence of our wills as l Magnet cure of wounds Van Helmont thinks may be wrought by the magick of the fancie 'T is but willing a pin to be worth a pound and it shall be done And when he addes in the next place that if faith be the condition of the New Covenant in such a sense as perfect obedience was the condition of the old man must needs be his own Justifier if he mean such in the matter and particular nature of the condition It is true if he mean such in the common nature of a condition it is false for we have shewed before both from Reason and Scripture Divines and Lawyers that some kinde of conditions are so far from being inconsistent with grace as that they advance it rather As suppose some benefit of very great value be bestowed on a worthlesse person upon condition that he acknowledge the rich superlative grace and love of the Donour to be the only cause of it Finally thus he speaks As in the old Covenant it was not Gods threat that brought death upon the world just so in the New if it be a conditional Promise it is not the Promise that justifies a beleever but the beleever himself The answer is ready Death came into the world by sin as the culpable meritorious cause but sin could not have slain us but by the Law 1 Cor. 15. 56. Rom. 5. 13 14. Ergo. It is not warily said that Gods threat did not bring death upon the world 2. And when Mr. Eyre hath proved that our performance of the Gospel-conditions hath the same proportion to our salvation as sin hath to our destruction the Papists shall thank him Rom. 6. last The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Mens not-accepting of the grace of God may make that grace without effect as to themselves 2 Cor. 6. 1. Rom. 3. 3. But that therefore their acceptance is the cause of Gods being gracious to them is wilde reasoning And as to worthy Dr. Kendal out of whom Mr. Eyre quotes these passages he hath publickly enough and in Mr. Eyres hearing for one declared himself to be no enemy against conditions of Justification or salvation That he that is pardoned upon his reading doth not pardon himself §. 27. I proved thus because then he must concurre either to the making of the Law which gives pardon upon such a condition or to the pronouncing of the sentence of absolution upon himself according to that Law This Mr. Eyre saith is an impertinent answer because the question is not whether a man did concur in making the Law and Rule of his Justification but whether he had any causal influxe in producing the effect thereof Rep. My answer if he will call it so was very pertinent as to the case of an offendor saved by his Clergy whose pardon is perfected by a Law which gives the remote right and sentence passed according to that Law which produceth his immunity it selfe If then the said offendor cause his own pardon it must be by concurring some way or other to the production of one of these The case is altogether
brazen Serpent else they could not have seen it so they that look upon Jesus Christ i e. beleeve in him are spiritually alive or else they could not put forth such a vital act Rep. But wherein doth this make against me The most that follows from hence is either that the habit of faith is before the act as the faculty of sight before the operation of it which is no part of the Question between Mr. Eyre and me or that a man is quickened internally by faith before he is quickened morally by Justification and pardon even as they put forth the vital act of seeing before they received that healing which prevented their approaching death which is the very thing I am proving 2. But in every similitude there is some dissimilitude and if Mr. Eyre will instance in things that do not come into the comparison he may as well inferre that faith is an act of natural power because their looking to the brazen Serpent which represented faith was so I say therefore that they that were stung with the fiery Serpents though they were not dead as to the utmost and last act of death which consists in the separation of the soule from the body yet they were dead in effect and as much as the nature of the type and the scope of the comparison requires as having received their deaths wound which would soon have prevailed over the remainders of their life if it had not been prevented by looking up to the brazen Serpent And therefore of him that looked on the Serpent of brasse 't is said that he lived Numb 21. 9. That is saith Mr. Eyre he had ease from his anguish And §. 4. so by looking up to Christ by faith we finde ease and rest to our wearied soules A man is said to live when he lives comfortably and happily Rep. Which is neither true in the Proposition nor Reddition of the comparison Not in the first for in the type the opposition is not between ease and paine but between life and death Numb 21. 6. The fiery Serpents bit the people and much people of Israel died and ver 9. It came to passe that if a Serpent had bitten any man when he beheld the Serpent of brasse he lived as Hezekiah is said to live Isa 38. 21. when he recovered of a mortal disease not only from the pain and anguish of it but principally from the mortality of it Nor in the second for though life in Scripture may sometimes signifie a happy prosperous and comfortable life yet in our Saviours use of it it hath not that sense precisely though that may very well be included consequently partly because the life obtained by looking up to Christ is opposed not to pain and sickness precisely but to the death and destruction of the whole person John 3. 15. The Sonne of man must be lifted up that whosoever beleeveth on him should not perish but have everlasting life partly because the same life is called salvation ver 17. God sent not his Sonne into the world to condemn the world but that the world through him should be saved Now though a man may be said to live when he lives comfortably yet he is never said to be saved in Scripture precisely because he lives comfortably When Paul sayes Now we live if ye stand fast 1 Thes 3. 8. I think he is to be understood of a joyful comfortable life But it had been very uncouth to expresse the same life thus Now we are saved if ye stand fast But Mr. Eyre hath a sad quarrel against me for reading that §. 5. text John 6. 40. thus It is the Will of God that he that seeth and beleeveth the Sonne shall be justified whereas the words are That whosoever seeth the Sonne and beleeveth on him may have everlasting life Herein he saith I have corrupted and falsified the text Rep. What you please Sir provided you take in all manner of Commentators as well as my selfe for I know no man but you that excludes Justification from being there contained in eternal life As when the Law sayes Do this and thou shalt live the life promised includes Justification primarily so when it is said He that believes shall have eternal life life includes Justification in like manner And though there be many more blessings included then that single one of Justification yet that only being to my purpose I thought I might mention it only without being guilty o◠corrupting or falsifying the text I had thought also the believer may be said to have eternal life in right as well as in possession as the Lord speaks a little below ver 47. He that believeth on me hath everlasting life And to have right to life or life in right is to be justified and therefore is our Justification called Justification of life Rom. 5. 18. And grace reignes through reghteousnesse unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord ver 21. SECT II. THe next comparison I made use of for illustration and proof §. 6. of this matter was out of John 6. 51 52 53 54. where faith is compared to eating and Justification to the nourishment we receive by our meat As then we are not first nourished and then eat the meat that nourisheth us but we eat our meat that we may be nourished by it so neither are we first justified and then beleeve on Christ that hath justified us but we beleeve in Christ that we may be justified Mr. Eyre answers That this is a mistake like the former for it is Christ himself who throughout that Chapter is compared to bread and food whom by faith we receive for our refreshment consolation and spiritual nourishment Rep. As if Justification were none of that nourishment which we receive by faith because Christ himself is the meat on whom we feed This answer is a plain yielding of the Argument unlesse Mr. Eyre intend that it is only comfort and refreshment and not Justification and pardon which is the nourishment we receive by feeding on Christ which if he doth intend we oppose from the text 1. That Christ invites us to eat of his flesh that we may live not simply that we may be refreshed and comforted it s in vain to talk of refreshing and comforting him that is dead ver 33. The bread of God giveth life to the world the very substance and being of life not only the well-being which consists in refreshment and consolation And though life may now and then though very rarely signifie precisely a comfortable life yet here surely it signifies more as being opposed to eternal death under which the world is supposed to be till Christ give them life ver 50. to be I mean in respect of guilt and that very life in the losse of which consists the whole misery of unbelievers ver 53. Except you eat the flesh of the Sonne of man and drink his blood you have no life in you 2. And that Justification or pardon of sin is so far from being excluded as that indeed it is the principal blessing included in the life here promised is manifest from the Lords own
why Because it was the Will of God that none of the elect should perish or be condemned Answ True not executively But Mr. Eyre knows we put a difference between perishing and condemnation in this debate and that by condemnation we mean not the execution of punishment or wrath but a legal obligation to the suffering of it And though God did purpose that the elect should not perish or be condemned executively quoad eventum yet should Mr. Eyre prove that he purposed that the elect should not stand obliged equally with other sinners for some time to the suffering of wrath This if he prove I will yield the cause The purpose of God in it selfe makes no difference between men whose cause is the same before the just and impartial Judge Do we not know that a Prince may purpose to save the life of a Malefactour against whom notwithstanding the Law is in force and judgement proceeds and sentence passeth and the man thereby as much obnoxious to death as any other Melefactours till some other act of the Prince besides his meer purpose interpose and prevent his death But of this we have spoken largely already The Assumption namely that all the world is under condemnation §. 4. before faith I proved from the expresse testimony of the Lord Jesus John 3. 18. He that beleeveth not is condemned already That is saith Mr. Eyre He that never believeth as chap. 8. 24. If you beleeve not i. e. not at all you shall die in your sins Our Saviour had no intent at all to shew the state of the elect before believing but the certain and inevitable misery of them that beleeve not by reason of the sentence of the Law that had passed upon them All the rest of the answer consents well enough with that Explication of the text which I gave in my Sermon Rep. First for that which is pretended to be our Lords intent in these words let me intreat thee Reader to peruse and ponder the text for I think thou shalt hardly meet with the like abuse of the Oracles of God in any Authour that acknowledgeth the Divinity of Scriptures ver 14. As Moses lift up the Serpent in the wildernesse so must the Son of man be lifted up ver 15. That whosoever beleeveth on him should not perish but should have everlasting life ver 16. for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Sonne that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but should have everlasting life ver 17. for God sent not his Sonne into the world to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved ver 18. He that beleeveth is not condemned he that beleeveth not is condemned already c. Thou seest Reader that the words contain a most serious and faithful testimony to a sinful world that though they had brought upon themselves eternal miseries yet God had sent his Sonne into the world not to condemn the world but to save them and if any man perish 't is not for want of a sufficient remedy provided in the death of Christ but for their own wilful refusal to embrace and make use of it as himselfe tells us ver 19. And this is the condemnation that light is come into the world and men have loved darknesse rather then light Now what sayes Mr. Eyre why he will have us beleeve that the Lords intention is quite against his expression and that he is come to testifie to the world that their misery is certain and inevitable by reason of the sentence of the Law that had passed upon them It is time to burne our Bibles if such glosses as these must be received for truth 2. If the misery of those that beleeve not be inevitable by reason of the sentence of the Law how is this to be understood either that the Law passed sentence upon them as unbelievers but this I suppose is too unreasonable to be affirmed or that the same men who afterwards prove unbelievers were before sentenced by the Law to certain and unavoidable misery But then their unbeliefe contributed nothing to make their misery unavoidable whereas our Lord chargeth the unavoidablenesse of misery upon wilful unbelief ver 19. This is the condemnation not that men are in darknesse but that light is come into the world and men have loved darknesse rather then light Were it not for this men might do well enough notwithstanding all that the Law had done against them Ergo misery is not made certain and inevitable to any by the Law before unbelief be added 3. Mr. Eyre told us but now that the Law condemned all men equally that 's the sense of his words if there be any sense in them The Law saith he doth not consider men as elect or reprobate I know not how it should for the Law is neither God nor man nor Angel as believers or unbelievers c. how comes it then to passe that misery should be made unavoidable to one and not to another by the same Law Next we shall enquire into Mr. Eyres Exposition of ver 18. §. 5. He that beleeveth not is condemned already that is saith he he that never beleeveth which is not only gratis dictum spoken without so much as a pretence of Reason but is manifestly inconsistent with the text Indeed condemnation is executed upon none but final unbelievers but unbelievers in the text are to be understood generally of all unbelievers whatsoever and not to be confined to final unbelievers 1. Such unbelievers are here meant who are part of that world into which Christ is sent for after the Lord had said ver 17. God sent not his Sonne into the world to condemn the world but that the world by him might be saved He distributes this world into two parts Beleevers and Unbeleevers ver 18. He that beleeveth is not condemned he that believeth not is condemned already But final unbeleevers as such are no part of that world into which Christ is sent for a final unbeleever is he that dies in unbelief if he beleeve but one minute before his death he is not a final unbeleever And Christ is not sent to the dead but to the living 2. Such unbelievers are here meant whom Christ was sent to save ver 16 17. But Christ was not sent to save final unbelievers as such Ergo such unbelievers are not here meant 3. We have also mention of a double condemnation in the text one which Christ findes men under when he comes into the world and which he comes to deliver them from ver 17 18. The other which men are left under for final unbelief and rejecting of Christ the light of life ver 19. This is the condemnation c. for Christ could not finde men condemned for a final rejecting of him till he had been preached and tendered to them Ergo they that beleeve not ver 18. are unbeleevers in general 4. The condemnation here spoken of is
sufficient cause of condemnation though he be not actually condemned for want of the concurrence of some other cause but what that actuall condemnation is which is hereby intended to be excluded we must farther enquire Condemnation which we are forced often to observe signifies either the sinners obligation to punishment or the execution of punishment in the former sense he is condemned who by the Law is guilty of death in the latter sense he who is actually damned and suffers the punishment threatned In distinction from one or both of these it is that a man is said to be damnable in himself If from the former the meaning is this That all the world the elect and all have wrought that evill which were most sufficient to work the forfeiture of their right to life and make them lyable to eternal death if there were any Law in force against them If this be the sense Mr. Eyre will have the Apostle speak in when he sayes all the world is become guilty before God marke what follows 1. Then the Law neither doth nor ever did condemn any man living for men are supposed to be damnable and but damnable not actually condemned for want of a Law in sorce to condemn them that is to hold them under an obligation to punishment The Law doth but shew its teeth pardon the expression reader but it neither doth nor ever did bite any man no not the most presumptuous transgressours of it though transgressours be as fit objects as can be for the Law to take hold of if it had power so to do Hence secondly I would ask whether ever God did condemn any man If he did by what Act not by the Law that shews indeed who are damnable in themselves not who are condemned of God I suppose it will be said that some are condemned by the eternall Act of Reprobation â—ut I leave it to Mr. Eyre to prove that the name or nature of condemnation can agree to that Act according to Scripture which if he cannot prove as sure enough he cannot nor all the men on earth it must needs follow that there is no such thing as the condemnation of any man according to Scripture Against this sense of the text I could adde much more if I could perswade my self to think that it were needful for the help of any man But it may be this damnability is opposed to damnation executed §. 19. and then the meaning is That the Law doth not shew whom God damneth that is punisheth with damnation but who are damnable or punishable in themselves if God should try and judge them according to the Law But 1. This is nothing to the purpose It is no part of my undertaking to prove that every one who at present is an unbeliever is damned as that word notes the execution of damnation or wrath actually inflicted but that he is condemned that is under a legal obligation to punishment till some gracious act of God discharge him When therefore Mr. Eyre opposeth that men are not condemned by the Law but damnable he fights with a shadow for he that is damnable executively is condemned legally which is that I am proving for it is the work of judgement to execute Laws and to give to every man according to what is due to him by Law if then upon supposition that men were to be tried and judged by the Law of works they would be found damnable it must be also supposed that they were before obliged by Law to the suffering of damnation 2. Otherwise the Law is but the carcasse of a Law and called a Law equivocally as we call a dead man a man for example There was a Law in Israel that whosoever should not humble himself upon the day of expiation should be cut off Lev. 16. which Law is now abrogated Neverthelesse it may be truly said that if a Jew who now keeps not that day were to be tried and judged by that Law he would be found punishable If it be said that Law is now abrogated and so no man incurres the penalty upon the non-observance of it It is most true yet may he be said to be punishable by it in sensu diviso in the very same sense in which Mr. Eyre allows sinners to be damnable by the Law of works namely upon supposition it were in force to make the penalty due and sinners were to be tried and judged by it 3. And was it not worth the while for the Lord Jesus to come down from heaven to redeem sinners from the curse of the Law and that at no easier a rate then by being made a curse for them when the Law never cursed or condemned any man but only shews who are damnable in themselves if they should be judged by the Law From which way of judgement the Elect are supposed to be secured by an antecedent act of God SECT V. MY second Argument to prove that the condemnation mentioned §. 19. John 3. 18. cannot be meant meerly of condemnation in conscience was this The condemnation of an unbelievers conscience is either true or false If true then it is according to the judgement of God and speaks as the thing is and so God condemns as well as the conscience If false c. Mr. Eyre answers There is a threefold act of conscience about sin 1. When it witnesseth to us about the desart of sin 2. When it witnesseth to us concerning the act of sin 3. When it witnesseth to us concerning our final state and condition before God Now if conscience bear witnesse to a man concerning what he hath done and what is his desart in so doing it doth but its duty But if it tell a man that for the sins which he hath done he is a damned creature and must perish everlastingly such a conscience is both penally and sinfully evil Rep. The Argument is wholly untouched For the question is not whether an unbelievers conscience condemn him truly in reference to his final estate but whether it condemn him truly in reference to his present state If it tell him that at present he is in a state of condemnation doth it speak true or false Herein Mr. Eyre will not answer me but saith only that if it tell him his case is desperate and without hope it speaks false I need not tell Mr. Eyre that his answer is impertinent I am perswaded he knows it well enough conscience may tell an unbeliever that he is condemned and herein it speaketh true though it do not tell him that there is no way of coming out of this state of condemnation which were false 2. The two former answers also are not much to purpose for to witnesse concerning the act and desart of sin is as proper to the conscience of a believer as of an unbeliever whereas our question is only concerning the unbelievers conscience And if this be the whole of what conscience can justly charge upon an unbeliever then is the
believer as much subject to condemnation of conscience as the unbeliever Upon the second branch of the Argument there is nothing I shall §. 20. need reply to saving only that passage of Mr. Eyres That Christs merits will not save those whom God doth condemne To which I say that though none other can justifie those whom God condemnes yet God himself may and doth justifie those whom he had before condemned or else no sonne of Adam ever was or shall be justified Rom. 5. 18. As by the offence of one judgement came upon all men to condemnation even so by the righteousnesse of one the free gift came upon all men unto Justification of life A third Argument proving that the condemnation mentioned â— 21. John 3. 18. was not to be meant of condemnation in conscience only was because it is called the wrath which shall abide on unbelievers ver 36. Mr. Eyre answers Therefore we say no elect unbeliever is condemned of God because the wrath of God doth not abide upon him Rep. It is yielded then that the condemnation about which we dispute is not meerly condemnation in conscience which is as much as I ever sought from the place and that Mr. Eyre knows well enough 2. We have shewed before that the wrath of God is upon every one that is an unbeliever at present though it do not abide upon any but final unbelievers Lastly thus I argued The condemnation here spoken of is opposed §. 22. to salvation v. 17. Ergo it is more then condemnation in conscience Mr. Eyre answers That the condemnation opposed to salvation is damnation and then by Mr. Eyres Argument the Elect because they are sometimes unbelievers must all be damned Rep. Sure Mr. Eyre believes not our English Proverb As good never a whit as never the better Salvation is sometimes taken strictly for an executive deliverance from wrath Rom. 5. 9. And so none are saved in this life Sometimes more largely and so it containes both that compleat salvation and the beginnings of it in this life viz. that right which is given us to it in our Justification Luke 19. 9. Rom. 1. 16 17. and 10. 9 10. He that beleeveth not is under condemnation as it is opposed to salvation in the latter sense The second answer is replied to already CHAP. VIII A Reply to Mr. Eyres twelfth Chapter My third fourth and fifth Argument for the Antecedent of faith to Justification vindicated SECT I. A Third Argument by which I proved Justification to §. 1. be consequent to faith was taken from the several similitudes by which Justification by faith is illustrated I instanced particularly in two The first was that of the brazen Serpent John 3. 14 15. As Moses lifted up the Serpent in the wildernesse supply that whosoever looked on him might recover of the sting of the fiery Serpent See the story it selfe Numb 21. 8 9. so must the Sonne of man be lifted up that whosoever beleeveth on him should not perish but have everlasting life And John 6. 40. It is the Will of God that whosoever seeth and believeth the Sonne should be justified Mr. Eyre doth utterly deny that it was the intent of the Holy Ghost to shew by these comparisons in what order or method we are justified in the sight of God Wherein he fights not only against me but against a Comparamus fidem cum intuitu serpentis aen i. Intuitus ille vim medicam in se non habuit sed ut instrumentum conditio est à Deo ad sanâ—tatem impetrâ—ndam ordinata Anton. Wallaeus oper Tom. 1. p. 423. all men that I can read upon the place and against common sense which upon the reading of the words cannot but apprehend the order and method of our spiritual healing represented by that bodily cure wrought upon those that looked up to the brazen Serpent But it may be he intends to deny Justification to be included in the Promise of not perishing but having eternal life Let us try it His second answer therefore is The stinging of the fiery Serpents did plainly shadow forth the effects of the Law in conscience Now as the Israelites when they were stung by those fiery Serpents found no ease till they looked up unto the brazen Serpent so the soule that is smitten and wounded by the Ministry of the Law will never finde rest till it look unto him in whose wounds and stripes is the healing of sinners Rep. The effects of the Law in conscience might very well be shadowed §. 2. forth by the stinging of the fiery Serpents as part of that punishment which is due to sinners but that it should represent no more is spoken gratis Sin stings because it kills the person as well as because it disquiets the conscience 1 Cor. 15. 55 56. and a fiery sting it is because it makes the sinner obnoxious to the displeasure of God who is a consuming fire and whose wrath burnes to the very bottome of hell not in the conscience only but upon the whole person unlesse it be prevented by faith and repentance 2. Observe also Reader how Mr. Eyre is constrained to mince the matter that he may make his Interpretation the more current The Israelites saith he being stung of the fiery Serpents could find no ease till they looked up to the brazen Serpent As if their wound had been only painful but not mortal And as if they had looked up to the brazen Serpent not for life but only for ease whereas they were all mortally stung many died actually all had received their deaths wound death was begun upon them all and would unavoidably have grown on to the last and utmost degree if it had not been prevented by the brazen Serpent To teach us though Mr. Eyre will not learn it that every unbeliever is in a state of death and condemnation nor can escape the last and sorest part of this death but by looking up to Jesus Christ 3. The reddition of the comparison is this in our Lords words So must the Sonne of man be lifted up that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life which according to Mr. Eyres sense is this That whosoever beleeveth on him should not be disquieted in conscience but should have rest and ease in his Spirit This indeed for the most part doth in some measure follow upon our Justification as no doubt but the Israelites recovered life and ease together But to be delivered from perishing and to have everlasting life in right or possession is surely more then to have ease from present anguish of spirit Should I take this liberty of interpreting Scripture Mr. Eyre might justly have been angry with my forehead In the third place Mr. Eyre tells his Reader that this very comparison §. 3. makes against me I had need look to that But how doth it make against me As saith he the Israelites were alive when they looked upon the
which will be hard to do Doth not our Glorification depend inseparably upon our Predestination yet not immediately And when afterwards Mr. Pemble is quoted with great ostentation to justifie that God is well pleased with the persons of the elect unregenerate but not with their unregeneracy it may be of some authority with men that cannot reade English Mr. Eyre sets down his words at large and what saith he why that God loves the persons of the elect but not their vices as Parents love their childrens persons even while they chastise them for their vices But is God therefore well pleased with the elect because he loves them that is hath purposes of doing them good or because Parents love their children and would do them all the good they can are they therefore well pleased with them even while they are correcting them for their vices let themselves judge We have shewed before that well-pleasednesse imports an approbation of a person and supposeth him endued with lovely and amiable qualities And as for the inference which I made upon Mr. Eyres distinction between unregenerate men and their unregeneracy it was grounded upon presumption that the said distinction intended to shew the difference between Gods well-pleasednesse with the Elect before and after their Conversion otherwise I undertake not its defence In the next place Mr. Eyre addes something to clear up the difference §. 17 between the actions of regenerate and unregenerate persons As 1. That the best actions of unregenerate men are impure and sinful which though they are pardoned unto all the elect yet are they not acceptable to God but in themselves most abominable and loathsome in his sight Answ The best actions of unregenerate men are materially good as Prayer hearing of the Word Almesdeeds c. It is the want of a good principle and a good end which makes them unacceptable unto God 2 Chron. 25. 2. If the sinfulnesse of them be pardoned they must needs be acceptable as we observed before 2. Saith he The best works of good men are acceptable and pleasing unto God 1. Abstractly and in themselves thus faith hope love are pleasing to God 2. Concretely as they are acted by us and so they are acceptable to God as they are washed and cleansed in the blood of Christ Answ 1. Abstracta dicunt essentias faith hope and love in their abstract nature are not considered as our actions but as vertues and in themselves good therefore that part of the answer is impertinent might we suppose that these vertues might be found in persons not elect their own goodnesse would commend them to God as much as when they are in persons elect 2. For a work to be washed and cleansed in the blood of Christ is to have the sinfulnesse thereof for his sake pardoned which because it is done to the elect as much in their unregeneracy as after the good works they do when regenerate can be no more acceptable then before SECT IV. OF all the places in Scripture which speak of our reconciliation unto God by the death of Christ I know none that seem to §. 18. make it an immediate effect of his death but that in Rom. 5. 10. and therefore I opposed that to my selfe and answered it in my Sermon And that the truth of my answer and the impertinency of all that Mr. Eyre sayes against it may the better appear I shall transcribe the text at large ver 8. But God commendeth his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us ver 9. much more then being nâ—w justified by his blood we shall be saved from wrath through him ver 10. for if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Sonne much more being reconciled we shall be saved by his life ver 11. And not only so but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom we have now received the atonement The main objection is out of ver 10. We were reconciled to God by the death of his Sonne The answer which I gave to it in short was this That Christs death was the price of our reconciliation and so it is through the death of Christ that we are reconciled be it when it will be that we are reconciled which that it is the Apostles meaning we shall prove by and by in the mean time let us see what Mr. Eyre hath against it His exceptions are six 1. Saith he It offers a manifest violence to the text To say That we were reconciled is as much as we shall be reconciled Answ And it is a manifest violence to my words to say that I so interpret it I say we were reconciled quoad meritum immediately in the death of Christ that is his death purchased reconciliation for us and therefore through that death it is that we are reconciled actually and effectivè whensoever it be The second exception is the old irrational notion That if reconciliation depend upon conditions to be performed by us then we are the causes of our own reconciliation Where not only the consequence is false as we have largely shewed above but the antecedent also impertinent I am not now disputing whether reconciliation follow faith but whether it exist immediately upon the death of Christ The third This reconciliation was made when we were enemies Ergo before our believing Answ Yet will it not follow that it was made immediately in the death of Christ which is the thing Mr. Eyre should prove If we be not reconciled before we are born it is sufficient to prove that we were not reconciled in the death of Christ immediately whether faith be supposed to be necessary or no. 2. The word reconciled is used twice in ver 10. If they both relate to one and the same reconciliation of which I doubt as I shall shew farther by and by yet I readily grant that it was made in the death of Christ Were not my words plain enough before That we are said to be reconciled unto God in the death of his Sonne inasmuch as Christs death was the price of our reconciliation The cause was then in being though the effect do not follow till some time after The fourth If the meaning were no more but this That it is through the death of Christ that we are reconciled be it when it will be that we are reconciled then this clause when we were enemies would be superfluous Answ The emphasis of those words is plain God reconciles his enemies to himself whensoever it be that he reconciles them and Christ purchased reconciliation for enemies not for friends See Câ—l 1. 21. The fifth God was in Christ not imputing our sins to us 2 Cor. 5. 19. Answ That doth not prove but that I rightly interpret the Apostle here 2. In 2 Cor. 5. 19. reconciling and non-imputing are all one the latter interprets the former God did act towards the reconciliation of sinners and
to our Justification before God the contrary to which he had spoke but just before upon v. 5. Obj. Nulláne igitur utilitas erit circumcisionis Respondet in Christo nihil valere ideoque justitiam in fide sitam esse c. Perkins his words are these in answer to the objection of the Papists from those words Faith worketh by love Paul saith he doth not shew in this verse what justifieth but what are the exercises of godlinesse in which Christians must be occupied And he doth not shew how faith justifieth but how it may be discerned to be true faith namely by love But neither doth this intend any thing more then to shew the reason why Paul describes justifying faith as working by love viz. not that it justifieth as working by love though it be the property of that faith by which we are justified to work by love But he was far from thinking that faith was no whit available to our Justification before God It is his own observation upon this very verse not far before The second Conclusion Faith is of great use and acceptation in the Kingdome of Christ By it first our persons and then our actions please God and without it nothing pleaseth God And immediately after these words which Mr. Eyre refers to disputes for Justification by faith without works against the Papists The last place I mentioned was 1 John 5. 11. He that hath §. 40. the Sonne hath life he that hath not the Sonne hath not life Mr. Eyre answers He doth not say that all who have not faith except final vnbelievers have not the Sonne or any beneâ—t by him Rep. This upon the matter is to deny that the testimony is true 1. Life doth here signifie all that blessednesse which God hath given us in Jesus Christ ver 11. Ergo he that hath not the Son hath no benefit by him But he that believeth not hath not the Sonne for to have the Sonne is to believe on him Ergo he that believeth not hath not the Sonne nor any benefit by him That we have the Sonne by believing on him is manifest 1. From the Apostles own interpretation for having spoke in general He that hath the Son hath life he applies it particularly to those to whom he writes v. 13. And these things have I written unto you that believe on the Name of the Sonne of God that you may know that you have eternal life 2. From the perpetual sense of the phrase throughout all these Epistles as chap. 2. 23. Whosoever denieth the Sonne the same hath not the Father but he that acknowledgeth the Sonne hath the Father also suitable to what this John records in his Gospel chap. 12. 44 45. He that beleeveth on me believeth not on me but on him that sent me And he that seeth me seeth him that sent me And more expressely in his Epistle 2 ep v. 9. Whosoever transgresseth and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ HATH NOT GOD But he that abideth in the doctrine of Christ HE HATH both the Father and the Sonne Compare 1 ep 2. 24. 2. If we are said in Scripture any where to have the Son in any other sense then by believing or as excluding believing why have we no intelligence of it Mr. Eyre might very well think we should interpret his silence partly in that he declares not how we may be said to have Christ any otherwise then by faith partly in not attempting to justifie it from the phrase of Scripture as an argument that himself is conscious that the doctrine which he here suggests hath no footing in the Scriptures Briefly the Apostle speaks without distinction or limitation He that hath the Sonne hath life even that eternal life whereof he spake in the verse immediately foregoing If the Son may be had without believing then eternal life may be had without believing also wherefore we winde up the Argument If it were the Will of God that none should have the life which is in his Sonne till by believing he had the Sonne then was it his Will that none should be justified by the death of Christ till they did beleeve The reason is because the life of pardon or Justification is an eminent part of that life which God hath given us in his Sonne and virtually includes all that life we have by Christ But the antecedent is proved true from the text Ergo the consequent is true To these texts mentioned in my Sermon and now vindicated let §. 41. me adde one or two more If God hath set forth Christ to be a propitiation through faith in his blood then was it not the Will of God that any man should have actual remission or Justification by the blood of Christ till he did beleeve But God hath set forth Christ to be a propitiation through faith in his blood Ergo. The Assumption is the Apostles own words Rom. 3. 25. The reason of the Proposition is plain because if any man be pardoned and justified immediately in the death of Christ then is not Christ a propitiation z Inseriâ— fidem ut doceat fidem esse conditionem sub quà Christus nobis datus est propitiatorium Dav. Paraeus in loc through faith but without it Not that our faith contributes any degree of worth or sufficiency to the blood of Christ by which it may be made in its kinde a more perfect cause of our remission but because God hath so constituted that our remission shall not follow and so our sins not be propitiated quoad â—ffectum in the blood of Christ till we beleeve Again the Compact and Agreement between the Father and the Sonne in his undertaking the work of Redemption is set down at large Isa 53. throughout particularly ver 10. 11 12. where also the Justification of those for whom he died is mentioned as the fruit and effect of Christs offering himselfe for them and bearing their iniquities but not before their faith but through it ver 11. By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justifie many that is by the knowledge of him where knowledge as elsewhere in Scripture often signifies faith And what shall I say more we have proved from multitudes of Scriptures that God requires commands and exhorts all men to beleeve that they may be justified by the blood of Christ And what stronger evidence can we need then this that it was not the Will of God that men should be justified by that blood before they did beleeve even as under the Law there was no propitiation by sacrifice typical but supposed on the offendors part the concurrence of some act as a Lev. 5. 5. câ—nfession b Chap. 23. â—9 30. humiliation c â—b 1. 4 3 2 â—assim laying his hand on the head of the sacrifice d Lâ—v. â— 16. â—ide Joma Peâ—râ—k 8 8 â— or the like signifying that faith by which sinners should be justified when Christ the true sacrifice should
Indeed it were ridiculous to suppose that God should make any action which is wholly and immediately from himselfe the condition of any blessing he gives as that he should promise to glorifie us upon condition he raise us from the dead to raise us upon condition he justifie us to justifie us upon condition he give us faith But the same faith which God worketh in us is also our act for it is we that beleeve and not God though he make us to beleeve and as it is our act so is it performed voluntarily and a fit object of a command or promise I mean capable of being commanded or rewarded or of being made the condition of a reward And thus for example obedience was the condition of that life which was promised to Adam this Mr. Eyre grants Neverthelesse to the exercise of that obedience the concurrence of God was necessary as of the first cause for creatures essentially depend on God not only for their being but for their motion and operation Acts 17. 28. Ergo a voluntary act of ours may be the condition of our salvation though God work that act in us How many orders doth God give to Joshua Gideon David and others concerning the times and places when and whither they should remove their host that they might put their enemies to the rout or escape an overthrow by them These motions were the conditions of those special victories or deliverances which God would give them yet by the efficiency of Gods power and providence did they move from place to place Hundreds of like instances are obvious One thing more Mr. Eyre addes If saith he any shall say that §. 28. God did will that by Christ we should have faith and after that reconciliation yet 1. It will follow notwithstanding that our reconciliation is an immediate effect of the death of Christ as Owen proves against Baxter page 34. And 2. Then all the controversie will be about Gods order and method in conferring on us the effects of Christs death Answ That reconciliation is an immediate effect of the death of Christ may be understood in a double sense either 1. By comparing the effects with the cause and then the meaning is that the death of Christ contributes an immediate efficiency to our reconciliation whensoever it is that we are reconciled and this is all that Mr. Owen sayes in the place mentioned Meritorious causes saith he do actually ipso facto produce all those effects which immediâ—tâ—ly slow from them not in an immediation of time but of causality I doubt not but the death of Christ hath in its kinde an actual and immediate influence upon our eternal glorification which yet is the last effect or benefit we receive by him Or 2. By comparing the effects with the cause and one with another and so that is the immediate effect of the death of Christ which exists immediately upon the death of Christ without the interposition of any other cause to produce it Of this only is the Question as also Mr. Eyre himself hath hitherto understood it otherwise I am perswaded himself will grant that all the Arguments he hath hitherto used one or two at most only excepted come not within sight of the Conclusion they aime at As to the second thing that then all the controversie will be about Gods order and method in conferring on us the effects of Christs death though if there were nothing else but this in question it will be of very dangerous consequence to pervert and trouble that order which God useth in bringing sinners to life yet is there much more in question viz. whether upon supposition of Christs Purchase and Gods special purpose of giving faith to some the same faith as it is a voluntary act of ours may not by Gods Will of Precept be made the condition of our partaking in righteousnesse and reconciliation by the death of Christ This is the thiâ—g which Mr. Eyre should have disproved if he had intended his Argument should have concluded any thing We have already shewed at large the monstrous inconveniences that attend the denial of it and so much hath been spoken by those that are for the middle way of universal redemption especially the French Divines that I cannot think it worth my labour to adde any thing more The Lord Jesus hath put the matter out of Question to me John 6. 39 40. And this is the Fathers Will which hath sent me that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing but should raise it up again at the last day And this is the Will of him that sent me that every one that seeth the Son and believeth on him may have everlasting life and I wil raise him up at the last day The former verse declares his own and his fathers special Will to save the elect The latter that yet the condition of beleeving is imposed on all men the elect as well as others that they through the performance thereof may be saved And so we are come to the last Argument which in brief is this §. 29. The imputing of our sins to Christ was formally the non-imputing of them unto us But our sins were accounted or imputed to Christ without any condition on our part Ergo they are discounted or non-imputed to us without any condition performed by us Answ I deny the Proposition namely that the imputing of our sins to Christ is formally the non-imputing of them unto us because 1. If this be true then doth not God for Christs sake forgive any mans sin as the Apostle saith he doth Eph. 4. 32. the reason is plain because it was not for Christs sake that himself was punished Our pardon is not the effect of Christs punishment but on the contrary his punishment is the effect of our pardon if the imputation of our sins to him be formally the non-imputation of them to us 2. What then is the meaning of Pauls prayer for them that deserted him 2 Tim. 4. 16. The Lord grant that it may not be imputed to them that is the Lord grant that Christ may be punished for them or what is the meaning The Lord grant they may be some of those for whom Christ hath been punished that were all one as to pray that they may be elected from all eternity Whatsoever sense M. Eyre will put upon the words it will either not agree with sense or not with himself or not with the text 3. Upon the same principle it will follow that the death of Christ as it was a satisfaction and his resurrection from the dead contributes nothing to our justification neither by way of influence nor by way of evidence for might it be supposed that the Lord Jesus had lyen for ever under the power of death that had been the best evidence to us that we should never be punished if his punishment were formally our nonpâ—nition and by way of influence it can do nothing because
Gods freeing or taking off punishment from us is in nature before his laying it on Christ if the imputing it to Christ be formally the non-imputing it to us many other inconveniences attend this doctrine but it is needlesse to insist upon the mention of them Besides these Arguments there are several testimonies of Scripture §. 30. which M. Eyre mentions to prove our reconciliation to be the actual and immediate effect of Christs death let us view them Colos 1. 14. Eph. 1. 7. Heb. 9. 12. 2 Cor. 5. 18 19. Heb. 1. 3. and 10. 12 14. Colos 2. 10 13 14. Rom. 8. 33 34. Ans 1. We have already answered at large to Rom. 8. 33 34. 2 Cor. 5. 18 19. Eph. 1. 7. and by consequence to Colos 1. 14. for the words are the same in both those places We have therefore here to answer no more then the texts out of the Hebrews and one out of the Colossians let us take them in order Heb. 9. 12. Christ hath obtained eternal redemption for us I cannot assure my self how M. Eyre understands this text but if he see no more in it then all men I can meet with he can conclude no more from it then what was never denyed namely that Christ hath purchased eternal redemption for us But he hath also purchased eternal life and glory for us will it therefore follow that our glorification is the actual and immediate effect of his death he gave himself to redeem us from all iniquity Tit. 2. 14. are we therefore freed from all sin immediately in his death The next is Heb. 1. 3. Christ by himself hath purged our sins and afterwards sate down as having finished that work Heb. 10. 12. Ans The former place according to the original saies no more then that Christ in his death made a purge of our sins 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is no more then we have often yeelded that Christ hath made a plaister in his own blood for the curing of our wounds that is in dying he performed that righteousnesse which is the cause of our remission his blood being that which washeth us from all our sins But that this purge had its effect immediately upon its own existence is that which M. Eyre must give us another Text to prove whereas he addes that he afterwards sate down as having â—inished that work Heb. 10. 12. and good reason because that one offering of himself was so perfect and sufficient for all those ends unto which it was ordained that there is no need that himself or any thing else should be offered a second time for those ends But if M. Eyre mean that he hath so perfectly reconciled us in his death not only quoad constitutionem causae but quoad effectum as that there needs nothing more to be done towards our reconciliation he may do well to reconcile the Apostle to himself who tells us his work in heaven is to make reconciliation Heb. 2. 17 18. Wherefore in all things it beboved him to be made like unto his brâ—thron that he might be a mercifull and faithful high Priest in things pertaining to God to make reconciliation for the sins of the people for in that he himself hath suffered being tempted he is able to succour them that are tempted compare Heb. 4. 15. and 7. 25. The like answer I give to Heb. 10. 14. By one offering he hath perfected §. 31. for ever them that are sanctified namely that Christs death hath perfected us quoad meritum not quoad efficaciam The death of Christ saith the l Dr. Godwin in Rom. 8. â—4 sect 5. pag. 177. Author often commended was perfect for an oâ—lation to which as such nothing can be added there needed no more nor any other price to be paid for us But hence to inferre that therefore we were perfectly reconciled quoad effectum in the death of Christ is point blank against the Text which tells us in the very next foregoing words v. 13. that Christ doth yet expect till his enemies be made his foot-stoole amongst which the Apostle reckoneth sin and death 2 Cor. 15. 26 55 56. which though together with Devils they were destroyed in some sense in the death of Christ Rom. 8. 3. Heb. 2. 14 15. Yet forasmuch as the holy Ghost witnesseth that Christ doth yet expect a farther destruction of them it lets us understand that these enemies and sin in particular was no farther destroyed in his death then as therein was laid the foundation and cause of a perfect and eternal remission which by virtue of that blood carried up and pleaded in heaven should be given unto them that by faith come for it unto the throne of grace as the Apostle explaines himself Heb. 4. 14 15 16. and in this very chapter v. 26. If we sin wilfully after we have received the knowledg of the truth there râ—mains no more sacrifice for sins implying that a wilful rejecting of Christ through unbelief which I conceive to be that special sin which the Apostle means deprives us of the benefit of remission of sins by his sacrifice which how it can be if sins were perfectly and absolutely pardoned immediately in his death I cannot conceive see also v. 38 39. The last place is least of all to purpose Christ saith M. Eyre §. 32. hath made us compleat as to the forgivenesse of our sins Colos 2. 10 13 14. Ans 1. The Apostle speaks to such who had already received the Lord Jesus v. 6. And of such no doubt it is true that all their sins are pardoned 2. But neither doth the Apostle limit our compleatnesse in Christ to the forgivenesse of our sins nor doth he say that we were made compleat in his death but rather in his exaltation And ye are compleat in him who is the Head of all principality and power His scope is to roote and establish the Colossians in the faith of Christ v. 7. in opposition to such innovators as would have introduced the worship of Gentile Daemons v. 8 18. or the observation of Jewish rites v. 20 21. as if without these Christ had not of himself been able to save them But ye are compleat in Christ saith the Apostle or be ye content with Christ as the words will beare to be rendred as who alone is most sufficiently able to give and increase you in all good and to deliver you from all evil and bestow on you the reward of eternal life v. 15 18 19. But what all this is to the purpose I know not It seems Mr. Eyre had a mind to bring it in for company CHAP. XI A reply to Mr. Eyres fifteenth Chapter of justification in Christ as a common person Justification not proved thereby to be before faith SECT I. WE are now come to the review of those two Arguments §. 1. mentioned in my Sermon which Mr. Eyre made use of to prove that the elect were justified before beleeving The former in short
in its formal notion includes not the non-imputation of sin or that non-imputation of sin which includes not essentially the imputation of righteousnesse He hath told us long since that both these are immanent and eternal acts of God and as such the death of Christ procures neither the effects of both are one and the same and it is therefore impossible to distinguish them in reference to their effects It is to me a mystery beyond comprehension how that imputation which constitutes a sinner righteous should yet include nothing of the non-imputation of sin or how sin can be non-imputed to a sinner and yet he abide unrighteous unlesse some other act concur to make him righteous His third answer is The non-imputation of sin to us antecedes §. 17. the imputation of righteousnesse to us in order of nature only not of time Rep. That is the righteousnesse of Christ avails nothing to the non-imputing of sin to us The very naming of these hideous doctrines is a sufficient confutation of them Should I have delivered such things the names of all the most loathsome hereticks that ever were would have been accounted too soft to have been thrown at my head Yet Mr. Eyre hath not done objectâ—ng against himself but in the §. 18. end of this third answer brings in some body objecting thus We were not then I suppose he means when Christ died Ergo righteousnesse could not then be imputed to us His answer is They might as well object our sins were not then Erge they could not be imputed unto Christ in the businesse of Justification God calleth things that are not as if they were Rom. 4. 17. Rep. 1. I deny the parity of reason between the one and the other Sin can neither be punished nor pardoned before it be committed in â—r to the person that sinâ—eth Neverthelesse he that hath the absolute dominion of his own life as Christ had may as a Surety suffer all that punishment which by the Law can at any time grow due to sin for even amongst men p L. Sâ—ipulaâ—â—s sum L. potest ss de fide juss §. side â—â—ss instit de fide-juss 〈◊〉 accipi potest in â—uturam obligationem Sureties are admitted upon future obligations If as soon as death by the Law was made the punishment of sin before men had broken the Law the Lord Jesus had given up himself to death that in case we should sin his death should have had the same effect as now it hath in this case our sin though then but possible had been imputed unto him for he had borne the penalty due to it and threatened against it but his righteousnesse had not been imputed to us upon the same supposition that we had not sinned In like manner though the sins of the elect were not in being I mean of all the Elect borne since his death when Christ died yet the full penalty which could at any time grow due to them was then in being and determined by the Law which punishment also in summe and substance he might and did undergo that when we should sin we might yet be washed in his blood from all our sins The future sins of the Elect Christ might make so farre present in himself as to endure all the penalty which they could at any time deserve it being not our desert of punishment which obligeth him to suffer it but his own voluntary submission to it which makes punishment due to him as our Surety before it become due to us as actual sinners But pardon of sin being essentially the destruction of that very obligation which the sinner hath contracted upon himselfe doth therefore essentially suppose the sinner and his sin in being though another may suffer for him yet another cannot be pardoned for him pardon of sin being a personal priviledge that is such as rests in the person of the sinner or nowhere 2. And that God in the matter of Justification calleth things that are not as though they were is no part of the Apostles meaning Rom. 4. 17. but to shew the ground of Abrahams stedfast believing on God for the obtaining of a blessing to sense and reason impossible namely that he should become the father of many nations his own body and Sarahs wombe being dead v. 19. The reason hereof was because God is he that raiseth the dead and is able to give being to things out of nothing for he calleth things that are not as if they were therefore Abraham against hope believed in hope v. 18. This is that faith through which he and all his children in the same faith obtain righteousnesse Having thus at large demonstrated the weaknesse of the argument §. 19. from our Justification in Christ as a common person to prove our Justification before faith I left this censure upon it they are credulous soules that will be drawn by such decayes as these into schisme and faction to the hardening and discomforting of more hearts in one houre then the opinion it self should it obtain will do good to while the world stands which censure is of such ill resentment with Mr. Eyre that he hath used no lesse then two leaves of paper to wipe off the dirt untruth slander and what he pleaseth cast upon himself and his Church thereby As to the Argument his own deserting it in plain ground is evidence enough that it is too weak to bear the weight which is laid upon it and if men will embrace opinions which have no stronger foundations is not their own credulity in fault The charge of schisme and faction was not intended against him or any of his charge in particular I little know whether all under his charge be of his opinion or whether all of his opinion in the place he lives in be under his charge but in general against all who without better ground then the foresaid Argument will afford them shall by jealousies separations envyings backbitings rash censurings c. violate the rules of Christian love and peace whereof if neither Mr. Eyre nor any of his charge are guilty yet some others of his judgement in this point are and that so foully that he would loath to undertake their defence if he will be true to the Profession which here he makes of himself CHAP. XII A Reply to Mr. Eyres Sixteenth Chapter concerning our being in Covenant with God before believing SECT I. THe third and last Argument for proving our Justification §. 1. to be before faith I thus proposed and as I thought according to Mr. Eyres minde If we are in Covenant before we believe then we are justified before we believe But we are in Covenant before we beleeve Ergo This Argument Mr. Eyre disclaims as being none of his at least as not being proposed in that forme in which he dressed it and hereupon expatiates in two leaves of paper upon the discourse which passed between himself and me shewing the orderly progresse in which his
told them If Christ were not risâ—n they were yet in their sins seeing they were discharged and acquitted from them so long before 3. His intercession is also vain for he lives to intercede for us to save us from wrath Rom. 5. 9 10. Heb. 2. 17. and 7. 25. We are secured from wrath before sayes Mr. Eyre 4. Our preaching is vain for we are to preach to every creature under Heaven That except they beleeve they shall be damned Mark 16. 15 16. and multitudes even all the Elect are secured from wrath before 5. It doth also imply a contradiction that a man should be acquitted from sin who was never a sinner or discharged from condemnation who was never condemned If it be said the Elect were sinners and condemned in Gods fore-knowledge Mr. Eyre is better read in Dr. Twisse then to be ignorant of what inextricable inconveniences that answer is liable to But let us heare Mr. Eyres proofes of his Assumption God saith he loved the Elect from everlasting and his love is velle dare bonum c. Answ Which as was observed before is one of the g Vid. Croll Cont. Grot. cap 5. par 6. 7. cap. 1 p. 1. Socinians weapons by which they attempt the ruine of Christs satisfaction against which our Divines have provided sufficient armour A love of benevolence or good will moving God to seek out a way of satisfaction to his own Justice and of Justification of a sinner we readily grant h Vid Joh. Cameron oper p. 361. f. But his love of friendship and well-pleasednesse with a sinner was not from everlasting but in time as being a consequent of the death of Christ in whom he hath made us accepted Eph. 1. 6. as Mr. Eyre doth not only yield but contend below from Mat. 3. 17. and so saith the Apostle Rom. 9. 25. I will call her beloved who was not beloved out of the Prophet Hos 2. 23. and as for the text which Mr. Eyre quotes Ezek. 16. 6. I cannot divine to what end it is unlesse it be to finde me work seeing the love there spoken of is manifestly temporal ver 8. and the life mentioned ver 6. in the latter is the flourishing and honourable condition unto which God had raised Israel both in respect of their Politick and Church-State who were originally the fewest and meanest of all people and in a spiritual sense is the life which he breaths into sinful soules But what Mr. Eyre would inferre from hence himselfe best knows In short I readily grant that Gods eternal love doth concurre ut causa universalis prima as the first universal cause not only to our Justification in time but to all other our spiritual blessings but an universal cause produceth nothing without particulars and the quality of the effect is not to be ascribed to the universal but to the particular cause 2. Mr. Eyre is proving that Gods velle non punire is that act by which we are discharged and acquitted from sin and secured from wrath I wish he had shewed me how this Conclusion issues from these premisses His Argument in forme must run thus Gods eternal love discharges the Elect from sin and secures them from wrath Gods velle non punire is his eternal love Ergo. The major is already disproved The minor if understood of the love of God in whole confounds Election and Justification which yet Mr. Eyre is careful to distinguish a little below for what is Gods Election but his Love or his velle dare bonum If of the Love of God in part the Argument will run thus That which is part of Gods eternal love is a sinners discharge from sin Gods velle non punire is part of his eternal love Ergo. If the major be true Gods purpose of giving Christ of calling sinners of sanctifying them yea of afflicting them and of administring any Providence towards them which in the issue proves for their good may as well be called their Justification as his velle non punire 3. Mr. Eyre hath already granted at least verbo tenus that notwithstanding the Will of God not to punish the Elect the Law must needs be satisfied for their sins no lesse then for the sins of others If this be true then the eternal act of Gods Election in it selfe considered gives the Elect themselves no more security from wrath then if they had not been elected Surely that concession will never be reconciled with the doctrine here delivered But we come on to Mr. Eyres second proof and that is from §. 10. Scripture Rom. 8. 33. Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods Elect The Proposition is either an universal Negative No Elect person can be justly charged with sin or an universal affirmative All elect persons are free from the charge of sin Answ Mr. Eyre should have put in the Apostles answer to the Question and then he had prevented mine The words are these Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods Elect It is God that justifieth Hence it follows either negatively that no elect person being justified can be effectually charged with sin or affirmatively that all the elect that are justified are free from such a charge free I say not because elect but because justified for the charging of sin is manifestly opposed not to their Election but to their Justification but that their Justification is their Election or any part of it or contemporary with it as I may so speak is an inference without any foundation in the text 2. Yea it cannot be inferred according to Mr. Eyres principles though we should grant the Election here spoken of to be that which is from eternity of which presently for the Justification here spoken of is that which is grounded in the death of Jesus Christ Who shall condemn it is Christ that died But the eternal Justification which Mr. Eyre is pleading for from the text is not grounded in the death of Christ for it is an Act in God from eternity Now observe Reader that Mr. Eyre denies Christ to have merited the Act of Justification but only the effects I would know then whether the Apostle speak of the Act or effects of Justification in those words Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods Elect if of the Act then the Elect were from eternity unchargeable and whose charge then did Christ beare and why doth Mr. Eyre all along tell us that our discharge from the curse is the fruit of Christs merits yea and what more as to the tâ—rminus à quo of our salvation I say what more could Christ merit possibly then that we should not be chargeable with sin And if that were done before by an eternal act there will be no effects of Justification left for Christ to merit as to our deliverance from sin But if the Justification here spoken of be meant not of the act but of the effects Mr. Eyre will grant me without
imputation be ab aeterno non-futura then is it ab aeterno undeprivable of its futurity for nothing but that which is future can be deprived of its futurity and if it be future ab aeterno then it cannot be made ab aeterno non-future for to be future and non-future ab aeterno is a contradiction 3. But if Mr. Eyre by his privative non-imputation mean no more then a positive act by which that punishment is kept off which is or will become due to a sinner I answer farther That the very essence of the pardon of sin consists in making that punishment undue which before was due and consequently in freeing the sinner from all actual suffering for sin for the remission of sin is opposed to the retaining of it John 20. 23. or else in preventing that that punishment shall never become due which otherwise would be due If in the former sense sin be pardoned from eternity for non-imputation and pardon are all one both in Mr. Eyres sense and of the Scriptures Rom. 4. 7 8. then cannot punishment become due in time but it is from eternity non futurum debitum even as the pardon of sin present and actually committed makes that punishment remaines no longer due to a person which till then was due And if it be from eternity a non-futurum debitum then neither can it be pardoned from eternity pardon being essentially a discharge from punishment due actually or in futurition nor if it could can that pardon be an act of grace because it is no grace to pardon him who neither is nor never will or can be punishable Yet here Reader distinguish of the duenesse of punishment which may arise either from the nature of sin in it self and in this sense it is impossible that sin should be pardoned either from eternity or in time because it is impossible but that sin should be in it selfe punishable or worthy of punishment even as on the contrary vertue is in it self essentially laudable or rewardable Or it may be the act of God by his Law making punishment due to the sinner or obliging the sinner unto punishment for his sin and in this sense only is it pardonable and if it be actually pardoned from eternity then is punishment made from eternity non debita which as I said before destroys both the substance and grace of pardon let us see if we can clear it by Mr. Eyres comparison This Will of God saith he is like the will of a man not to require that debt that shall or is about to be contracted Come on then Titius knows that Caius will be indebted to him and his purpose is before-hand not to require this debt I ask Is this purpose the pardon of the debt or no if not the cause is yielded if it be we will suppose that Titius makes this purpose within himself in the moment A the debt will be contracted in the moment C. All the space of time that is between A and C the debt is not actually a debt but only future If then this future debt be forgiven in the moment A then from thenceforth it ceaseth to be future and so cannot exist in the moment C because for a debt to be forgiven is to be made no debt if it be forgiven at present it is none at present if it be forgiven for the future it is not in futurition to be a debt 4. I will only adde this That according to Mr. Eyres own principles punishment doth never become due to the Elect so as that they stand obliged before God to suffer for any of their sins for that which in the protasâ—s of the similitude is a debt between man and man is a sinners obligation to punishment in the reddition Now Mr. Eyre denies that an elect sinner is at any time unjust simply and absolutely but only in a diminutive sense that is unjust by nature or of himself but positively just by grace at the same time which is but the carcasse of unrighteousnesse making the sinner unrighteous no otherwise then as it were materially he doing that which on his part is sufficient to oblige him to condemnation but he is never formally unjust because the grace of his Judge prevents his actual obligation Ergâ— he doth never stand actually obliged to the suffering of punishment nor is ever actually and formally indebted And whose debt then it was that Christ paid or what debts they are which we are to pray for forgivenesse of Matth. 6. 12. I must confesse I cannot tell which is all I shall need to speak of that second sense in which some may take the pardon of sin Nor will I adde any more animadversions upon these passages though I had once intended it because some have been mentioned already before and others we must make use of in that which follows SECT IX SO much for Mr. Eyres first Proposition upon which I have been §. 26. necessitated to dwell the longer because his discourse is so perplexed and intricate In that which follows I shall be more brief His next Proposition is this If Justification be taken not for the Will of God but for the thing willed to wit our discharge from the Law and deliverance from Punishment so it hath for its adequate cause and principle the death and satisfaction of Jesus Christ Answ The substance of this Proposition I could gladly close with but something is first necessary to be animadverted 1. Whereas Mr. Eyre here makes the satisfaction of Christ the adequate and as in his Explication he tells us often the immediate cause of our Justification if by adequate and immediate he mean only in genere causae meritoriae I consent because there is no other meritorious cause that comes between the death of Christ and our Justification But if he mean that the death of Christ is simply the adequate and immediate cause then I deny it because the act of God as Justifier comes between the death of Christ and our Justification Rom. 3. 25. 26 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood that he might be just and the Justifier of him that believeth on Jesus And the Lord Jesus himselfe also as Lord of soules and having all judgement committed to him by the Father joynes in putting forth the same act of Justification which was merited in his blood as we before observed 2. Mr. Eyre hath been disputing hitherto that Gods Will not to punish is our Justification That by which we are secured from wrath discharged and acquitted from all sin and wrath yea that it was a real discharge from condemnation an actual and compleat non-imputation of sin But now he tells us that the death of Christ is the adequate and immediate cause of our discharge from the Law and freedome from punishment I think for my part it is beyond mans ability to invent or utter more palpable contradictions To be secured from wrath and not secured acquitted
hath been transacted between God and Christ And doth not Mr. Eyre see that if he yield it to have the nature and operation of a Law in discharging sinners he contradicts himself in his next answer wherein he denies that Justification is the discharge of a sinner by a declared act that is by a Law Indeed such a Gospel as he here speaks of may declare the sinner to be discharged by some former act but it selfe cannot be his discharge and therefore the answer is nothing to the purpose 2. The atonement made by Christ may be said to be perfect two wayes 1. In respect of it self and so it was most perfect as wanting nothing that was requisite to constitute or make it a compleat cause of our peace 2. In reference to its effects and so it is yet imperfect and shall continue so till the Saints be glorified because till then they shall not have the full effect or perfection of peace purchased in the death of Christ If Mr Eyre mean this latter sense when he sayes the Gospel declares a full and perfect atonement made by Christ he begs the question In the former I grant it 3. And so that the Elect were cleansed from their sins in the death of Christ quoad impetrationem because he obtained eternal redemption and cleansing for them but not quoad applicationem till they do beleeve because the remission purchased in the death of Christ is not applied or given to us till we believe 4. Though the Priest made an atonement for all the sins of Israel upon the day of expiation Lev. 16. 30. yet did God require the concurrence of their afflicting themselves and humbling their soules on that day ver 23. otherwise they should have no benefit by that atonement Lev. 23. 29. Whatsoever soule shall not be afflicted on that same day he shall be cut off from among his people Is not this to teach us that without faith and repentance we shall not have remission by the death of Christ Secondly Mr. Eyre denies the Proposition which stands upon §. 2. this ground That Justification is the discharge of a sinner by a published declared act Where note Reader that by a declared act I mean not an act of God declaring and manifesting to a sinner that he is justified as Mr. Eyre doth willingly mistake me and thereupon patcheth a non-sequitur upon me which I intend not to unstitch but such a declaration of his will as is essential to make it a Law for the very essence of a Law consisteth in this that it is the declared will of the Law-giver Deut. 29. 29. and 30. 11 12 13 14 15 16 c. which is the only rule that determines both de debito officii of what shall be our duty to do and de debito poenae praemii of what rewards or penalties shall become due to us Accordingly the thing I maintain is that our discharge from punishment due by Law must be by the revealed will that is by some contrary Law or Constitution of God And I very well remember that in private conference with Mr. Eyre about nine or ten yeares since I told him my judgement was so then and that our Divines were generally dark in opening the nature of Justification for want of taking notice of it to which he then consented But Tempora mutantur c. the thing it self I thus proved Sin is not imputed where there is no Law Rom. 5. 13. Ergo neither is righteousnesse imputed without Law Mr. Eyre answers 1. Though men will not impute or charge sin upon themselves where there is not a Law to convince them of it yet God may for his hating of a person is his imputing of sin The scope of Rom. 5. 13. is not to shew when God begins to impute sin to a person but that sin in being supposeth a Law and consequently that there was a Law before the Law of Moses Rep. Doth Mr. Eyre indeed think that when it is said Sin is not imputed where there is no Law the meaning should be men will not impute sin to themselves where there is no Law To impute sin hath but two senses in Scripture 1. To punish it 2 Sam. 19. 19. 2 Tim. 4. 16. and then the meaning is that men will not punish themselves where there is no Law and because the punishment which the Apostle doth here instance in is death therefore the full sense will be this that men will not kill themselves where there is no Law a very probable glosse Or 2. To accuse or charge the guilt of sin upon a person But the use of the Word will not allow us to understand it of a mans imputing or charging sin upon himself a Vid Guil. Esthi in loc For it is never used in all the Scriptures to signifie the act of a man upon himself but perpetually the act of another as Paul to Philemon ver 18. If he owe thee any thing impute it to me especially when it is put passively as here it is sin is not imputed See Rom. 4. throughout 3. And I do heartily wish Mr. Eyre would have given us a short paraphrase upon the thirteenth and fourteenth verses that we might have seen what tolerable sense could have been made of them according to his Exposition and whether the Apostle do affirme or deny that men did impute sin to themselves before the Law especially if the Apostles scope be what Mr. Eyre sayes it is namely to shew that sin in being supposeth a Law how can it be conducible to that scope to speak of mens not imputing sin to themselves without a Law 4. The grand designe of the Apostle is plainly to illustrate our salvation by Christ by comparison of contraries and the similitude in its full explication stands thus As by the disobedience of Adam sin and death entred upon all his children so by the obedience of Christ life and righteousnesse betides all his The Proposition is set down ver 12. Wherefore as by one man sin entred into the world and death by sin and so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned This is proved ver 13 14. and the summe of the proof as I take it is this Sin was imputed and that unto death from the beginning of the world Ergo there must be some Law in being according to which sin was imputed for it cannot be imputed where there is no Law ver 13. This Law must be either the Law of Moses or the Law given to Adam The former it cannot be for sin and death were in the world long before that Law was given even as long as from Adam to Moses ver 14. Ergo it must be the Law given to Adam And so hath the Apostle his purpose That it was by the disobedience of one namely Adam that sin entred into the world and death by sin From whence it is manifest that God doth never impute sin without a Law that is doth
that which is avoidable and is actually avoided by beleeving Ergo it is not the condemnation of final unbeleevers The Antecedent I proved in my Sermon from ver 36. He that believeth not the wrath of God abideth on him implying that the wrath of God by the Law is upon every sinner for he is condemned already yet not so necessarily and remedilesly but that by beleeving he may escape it but if he beleeves not then it abides on him To this Mr. Eyre tells me That to say the place hints there is a wrath of God which is done away by believing is but an attempt to suborne the Spirit to serve our turne A short way of answering Arguments y Contra Crell p. 452 453. This very interpretation doth Essenius vindicate at large against Mr. Eyres friends in the point of eternal reconciliation the Socinians and urgeth the significancy of the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 abideth according to its constant use in Scripture though I stand not so much upon the bare word The same interpretation doth z Tract 14. in Joan. Non dicit Ira dei venit ad eum sed manet super eum c. Augustine give of it and many others Protestants and Papists Chemnitius a Analys in loc Piscator Aretius Beza Dyke Jansenius Tolet Ferus c. Who being such professed enemies in religion cannot be rationally suspected of a confederacy against the Spirit I had thought a Minister might have said not only to each man distributively but to the whole world collectively if he were able to speak to their hearing believe in the Lord Jesus and you shall be saved without being guilty of suborning the Spirit to serve his own turne And yet surely in so saying he doth more then hint that the wrath of God may be escaped by believing 5. And that I do not erre in the meaning of the holy Ghost I am yet farther convinced because the Lord came not into the world to §. 6. give life simply but to give salvation v. 17. that is to give life to them that were dead Ergo they whom he saves were dead de jure or de facto as the Apostle argues 2 Cor. 5. 14. If one died for all then were all dead And to be dead in Law is to be under condemnation Now whom doth Christ save not final unbeleevers but such as are unbeleevers for a time only Ergo they who are now beleevers were sometime under condemnation or else Christ never saved them If they are only condemned in themselves or by the Law in that diminutive respective sense in which Mr. Eyre useth that phrase they are never a whit the more in danger of perishing for that and therefore not capable of being saved properly 6. The comparison which our Lord proposeth v. 14 15. and upon which this whole discourse dependeth puts it yet farther out of doubt As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wildernesse even so must the Sonne of man be lifted up that whosoever beleeveth on him should not perish but have eternal life Concerning which words we debaâ—e more particularly under the third generall Argument following and therefore here I shall only make some brief observations upon the coâ—parison and passe on 1. As then the people for whom the serpent was lifted up were all mortally stung of the fiery serpents see the story it self Numb 21. 6 7 8 9. So is all the world become subject to condemnation through sin for the people that were stung in the type are the world in the Antitype and their mortal wound there is condemnation here by our Lords own exposition v. 16 17 19. 2. That as the serpent was by Gods appointment lifted up in the wildernesse that whosoever looked on him might be healed of the mortal bites of the fiery serpent and live so is the Sonne of man lifted up that whosoever beleeveth on him should not perish but should have everlasting life by Gods appointment in like manner v. 15 16. 3. That as the serpent was not lifted up to destroy any of the people for they were mortally wounded before but to heale them so Christ was not sent into the world to condemn the world for they are condemned already but to save them v. 17. 4. Yet they that looked not on the serpent so lifted up did thereby procure unto themselves a certaine death because it was to be absolutely unavoydable by any other means whatsoever so they that beleeve not on the Sonne of God but love darknesse rather then light do thereby procure to themselves certaine and remedilesse condemnation v. 18 19. There remaining no more sacrifice for sin as the Apostle speaks Heb. 10. 29. Hence I deduce these four Corollaries 1. That condemnation lyes upon all men without difference for sin 2. Yet there is a remedy and way of escape from this condemnation revealed in the Gospel 3. That the way to escape condemnation is to beleeve on Jesus Christ 4. The contempt of Christ by positive unbelief makes condemnation unavoidable Ergo every man in the world whiles an unbeleever or so long as he continues in unbelief is under condemnation And as to the Text which Mr. Eyre brings in for illustration §. 7. Joh 8. 24. If you beleeve not you shall die in your sins I consent to Mr. Eyres interpretation that the meaning is if you beleeve not at all or if you never beleeve you shall die in your sins And it informes us in the truth of those two things which I have been hitherto contending for 1. That because of their sins they became lyable to eternall death 2. That yet their condemnation was not peremptory and irrevocable unlesse to all their other sins they added unbelief final for if at any time they did beleeve they should escape that wrath which was due to them for sinne As when Paul saies Act. 27. 31. Except these men abide in the ship you cannot be saved He shews them that they were in eminent danger of perishing in the waters and yet that they might be safe enough if the men aforesaid continued in the ship That place therefore makes against Mr. Eyre altogether SECT II. BEfore we speak any further of this place we must attend M. §. 8. Eyre who interposeth another Text which I mentioned not under this but under the former Argument to the same purpose and that is Eph. 2. 3. Where the Apostle tells the Ephesians whom God had chosen to eternall life chap. 1. 4. that they were by nature children of wrath as well as others Mr. Eyre answers 1. That the Text doth not say that God did condemn them or that they wâ—re under condemnation before conversion Rep. This might have been spared if this text had been answered in the place where I produced it and so it may yet for wrath and condemnation often signifie one and the same thing in Scripture Joh. 3. 19 36. 1 Thes 1. 10. Rom. 1. 17 18. 2.
alledged for Justification before beleeving which will not hold as strongly for sanctification before beleeving it hath nothing but my confidence to support it If I had said Nothing could be said against sanctification before beleeving which will not hold as strongly against Justification before believing there had been the more appearance of reason for this censure but as my words lay I appeal to himself for judgement for Justification before believing he layes these two foundations namely the eternal Will and Purpose of God to justifie and our Justification in the death of Christ And it cannot be denied but that the Scriptures speak every whit as much concerning the Will of God to sanctifie Eph. 1. 4. 2 Thes 2. 13. and of our Sanctification in the death of Christ Rom. 6. 6. Col. 3. 3. Wherefore seeing this is all that Mr. Eyre hath to say for Justification before faith I was no more confident then true in affirming that as much might be said for sanctification before faith As to the differences which here he puts between Justification and §. 19 Sanctification I own them as readily as any man except what shall be below excepted As 1. That the former is a work or act of God without us the other is the operation of God within us c. But he should have remembred that we are not now comparing the nature of the things but the likenesse of expressions Now suppose we should say as some whom p Epist dediâ— fol. 3. Mr. Eyre counts worthy of the honour of his patronage q Deâ—râ— and Eâ—ton c. quo 〈…〉 〈◊〉 Christ dyinâ— 99. That our mâ—rtification is nothing else but the apprehension of sin slain by the body of Christ or we mâ—rtifie our selves only declaratively in the sight of men If Mr. Eyre should urge the text under debate 1 Cor 6. 11. against this notion and should say the Apostle tells the Corinthians Such and suâ—h they were in times past but now they were sanctified Ergo They were not sanctified before Doth not the aâ—swerâ—ly as faire for the foresaid Authours That they were now sanctified in their own apprehension or declaratively in the sight of men as for Mr. Eyre himselfe who interprets Justification in such a sense And if it be law ful for him to fancy a distinction between the act and effects of Justification and obtrude it upon us without one syllable of Scripture to countenance it let others be allowed on their own heads to fancie some such like distinction of sanctification and it will be a thing not worthy the name of a work or labour to prove that men are sanctified as well as justified before they beleeve The second difference that Mr. Eyre puts between Justification and §. 20. Sanctification is this That the sentence of Justification is terminated in conscience but Sanctification is diffused throughout the whole man 1 Thes 5. 23. Rep. The intent and sense of this I own also But 1. I reject the terme of Justification terminated upon conscience Passio as well as actio est suppositi It is the man not his conscience which is justified Again the meaning of it is that a mans Justification is manifested or declared to him But this manifestation is either by immediate revelation and that is not to the conscience properly but to the understanding or by the assistance of the Spirit enabling the conscience to conclude a mans Justification and then it is the conscience that terminates not upon which Justification is terminated 2. Assurance by our Divines is wont to be made a part of sanctification and may very well be included in the sanctification of the Spirit 1 Thes 5. 23. as distinct from soule and body If then the Justification spoken of here and in other places of Scripture be our assurance that we are justified then the distinction here proposed between Justification and Sanctiâ—cation falls to the ground A second Argument which I mentioned to prove that Justification §. 21. here could not be meant of that which is in conscience is this The Justification which they now had was that which gave them right and title to the Kingdome of God which right and title they had not before for if they had this right before then whether they believed or no all was one as to the certainty of their salvation they might have gone to heaven though they had lived and died without faith Mr. Eyre answers 1. The elect Corinthians had no more right to salvation after their beleeving then they had before for their right to salvation was grounded only upon the Purpose of God and the Purchase of Christ 2. Yet it will not follow that they might have gone to heaven without faith seeing Christ hath purchased faith for his people no lesse then glory and God hath certainly appointed that all that live to yeares of discretion whom in his secret Justification he hath adjudged to life shall have this evidence of faith Rep. The former answer is such as I never read before in any writings of God or man viz. That some men that live in adulteries idolatries blasphemies murders and all manner of ungodlinesse yet have as much right to the Kingdome of Heaven as the most faithful humble mortified laborious Christian or Apostle that lives upon the earth the height of whose blessednesse it is that they have right to enter into the Kingdome of God Rev. 22. 14. If this blessednesse may be had in the service of sin and Satan in the fulfilling of the lusts of the flesh and of the minde in the unfruitful works of darknesse Let us eat and drink for to morrow shall be as to day and much better 2. None have right to heaven but under the notion of a reward wicked and â—ngodly men that live in contempt of God and all good have no right to heaven as a reward Ergo whiles such they have no right to it at all Shall I need to prove the Assumption If ungodly Atheistical wretches have right to heaven as their reward as the reward of what of the good service they do to the devil for grace they have none The Proposition is undoubted for heaven or the inheritance and the reward are Synonyma's in Scripture-language words of the same import and reciprocal Col. 2. 18. and 3. 24. Heb. 11. 26. 2 John 8. And therefore it is well observed by Dr. Twiss r De â—raedest Digr 3. c. 5. p. 34. f. Deum intendisse manifestationem c. God intended the manifestation of his mercy upon mankinde ex congruo juxta obsequium ejus qui salvandus est suum The sense of which he delivers s Against Mr. Cotton p. 41. elsewhere God will bestow salvation upon all his elect of ripe years by way of reward and crown of righteousnesse c. for which he quotes at large 2 Thes 1. 6 7 8 10. and then addes It is pity this is not considered as usually it is not
of the same kinde with our condemnation in Adam it is manifest it must be understood of reconciliation in the cause not in the effect Nor let it trouble the Reader that the Apostle speaks as if the effect §. 21. were wrought we were reconciled for nothing more common in Scripture then to speak of the effect as wrought when provision is made of a sufficient cause by which it shall or may be wrought Ezek. 24. 13. I have purged thee and thou wast not purged that is there was nothing wanting on Gods part that might conduce to her purging though the effect did not follow Col. 1. 23. the Gospel was preached to every creature under heaven not that every person and Nation had then heard the Gospel for they have not yet heard it but that by Gods permission and commandment they might hear it Christ hath abolished death 2 Tim. 1. 10. namely he is the authour and cause of its abolition or he hath abolished it quoad meritum for death is not destroyed de facto quoad effectum till the Resurrection 1 Cor. 15. 26 54. so in verbs of active signification Heb. 4. 12. The Word of God is powerful piercing to the dividing asunder c. Psal 19. 7 8. converting making wise rejoycing the heart enlightening the eyes all which do not so much signifie the act as the vertue and sufficiency of the cause In like manner when Christ is said to be the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but for the sins of the whole world 1 John 2. 2. it is to be understood of the vertue and sufficiency of his blood to take away sin not of a propitiation then presently wrought and effected for there is none such before faith if the Apostle may be beleeved Rom. 3. 25. Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood Multitudes of like instances are obvious A third Argument is that mentioned in my Sermon out of v. 11. §. 22. By whom we have now also received the atonement which in plainer termes is this That now that is since we are believers we are actually reconciled unto God Mr. Eyre answers 1. That I might as well argue that because the Apostle saith 1 Cor. 15. 20. Now is Christ risen Ergo he was not risen before he wrote that Epistle Or from Eph. 2. 2. The Spirit that now worketh in the children of unbelief Ergo he did not work in them before Rep. Doth Mr. Eyre then think that the particle now in this place is to be taken in the same sense as in those if he doth his next answer is a nullity if he doth not he might have spared this The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 now hath several uses sometimes it is a meer supplement or redundancy Psal 39. 7. sometimes a note of transition as when it is said Now it came to passe sometimes of a continued act as Eph. 2. 2. Heb. 9. 24. sometimes of a supposition Rom. 8. 1. 1 Cor. 7. 14. sometimes of opposition or of assumption 1 Cor. 15. 20. Heb. 11. 16. but most commonly and naturally of time and particularly of the time of mens being converted Rom. 6. 19 21 22. and 1â— 30. Gal. 2. 20. and 4. 9. and elsewhere often so is it taken here as being distinguished from the time of the death of Christ ver 10. and superadding some other benefit then what was effected immediately in his death namely the receiving of reconciliation neither of which are to be found in either of the places mentioned by Mr. Eyre nor will any of the other sense of the word comport with this place His second answer therefore is We cannot receive or apply reconciliation to our selves but by faith yet it follows not that God did not account it to us before Rep. The accounting of reconciliation to us is an expression I never heard before 2. Justification and reconciliation are here used to signifie the same thing Ergo to receive the atonement is all one with the receiving of Justification or pardon of sin as Acts 26. 18. and 10. 43. which we have shewed before cannot be meant of our knowing our sins to be pardoned SECT V. FOr farther Explication of the difference between our reconciliation §. 23. in the death of Christ and after our believing I observed out of Grotius a distinction of three periods of the Will of God 1. As it may be conceived immediately after sin committed before the consideration of the death of Christ And now is the Lord at enmity with the sinner though not averse from all ways and meanes by which he may returne to friendship with him again 2. As it may be conceived after the death of Christ and now is the Lord not only appeasable but doth also promise that he will be reconciled with sinners upon such â—â—â—mes as himself shall propose 3. As. the same Will of God may be considered after an intercession on Christs part and faith on the sinners part and now is God actually reconciled and in friendship with the sinner Against any of these particulars Mr. Eyre excepts nothing but exclaims against the whole as extreamly grosse and why forsooth because it makes God changeable But as grosse as it is not our Protestants only but the Scriptures also own every syllable of it nor will the satisfaction of Christ stand without it God was in friendship with Adam while he continued righteous and without sin I conceive it is next to an impossibility that the righteous Lord should be at enmity with a righteous man who neither is a sinner nor in the room of a sinner After Adam had sinned was not God at enmity with him Yes surely unlesse Christ be dead in vaine by his death we were reconciled while we were enemies After the death of Christ God is reconciled unto sinners Lo here God is a friend an enemy and reconciled again and is this such monstrous Divinity with Mr. Eyre But for the Readers farther information I shall endeavour to shew how God may be first a friend then an enemy then reconciled without any variablenesse or shadow of changing in himselfe and then shall adde a word or two more concerning our reconciliation in the death of Christ and so return to Mr. Eyre Reconciliation is the redintegration or renewing of friendship §. 24. g Vide Arist ad Nichom 8. 2 7. and friendship is either 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 between those who may be equally serviceable one unto another in any office of love and friendly communication of good in a way of arithmetical proportion or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 between those that are of unequal condition the one excelling the other in dignity or age or power between whom there cannot therefore be any reciprocal communication of good but in a way of geometrical proportion he that is of low degree and meaner rank imparting love and honour and observance to him that is of high
hence follow that sinners were reconciled immediately in the death of Christ without the intervention of a Covenant that is without the ministry of reconciliation Yea rather the just contrary follows for making of peace in Christs death is here made the means and cause of a future reconciliation that follows when even when by the Gospel sinners are converted unto God As is evident in the example of these Colossians v. 21. And you that were sometimes alienated and enemies by wicked works yet now hath he reconciled As also by that place altogether parallel to this Eph. 2. 15 16 17. Having abolished in his flesh the enmity even the Law of commandments so making peace And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the crosse and came and preached peace unto you c. Here we see 1. What is meant by making of peace viz. A plucking up the bounds and throwing down the wall that separated the Gentiles from the Jews and by consequence from God or an obtaining of a Covenant of peace that might reach even unto the Gentiles who before wâ—re afar off and strangers from the Covenants of promise v. 12 13. that they also might be fellow heires and of the same body and partakers of the promise in Christ by the Gospel chap. 3. 6. 2. Here is the end of this peace made by the crosse viz. That both Jews and Gentiles in one body might be reconciled to God that is through the same faith in the same Lord Jesus Christ in whom there is neither Jew nor Gentile neither circumcision nor uncircumcision but all are one in him through the same saith Gal. 3. 28. and 5. 6. 3. The means by which they came to be of the same body namely by the preaching of peace v. 17. Can any thing be spoken more fully against the immediate reconciliation of sinners in the death of Christ or for proofe that Christ obtained that Covenant of peace through the preaching of which the Gentiles were converted and so reconciled unto God Gal. 3. 13. saith that Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law that is paid the price of our redemption or obtained eternal redemption for us as Heb. 9. 12. but doth it say that we are delivered without a Covenant made in the same blood and death of Christ nay the Apostle supposeth the just contrary namely that blessednesse whereof sure our reconciliation with God is no small part is given to us by Covenant v. 11 14 15 16. Even that which he calls the promise by faith in Jesus Christ v. 22. The last text is that mentioned in my sermon Matth. 26. 28. Christ saith Mr. Eyre doth not say that he shed his blood to procure a conditional promise but for the remission of the sins of many Ans But he sayes his blood was the blood of the New-Testament which was shed for the remission of sins Of which former words Mr. Eyre is content to take no notice But out of doubt they teach us this or they teach us nothing that by the blood of Christ was the Covenant of remission obtained and sealed or that Covenant by which sin is pardoned to them that beleeve for the blood of Christ pardons not sin immediately but unto them onely that drink it by faith Joh. 6. 53 54 55 56 57. Hence the Apostate from the faith is said to count the blood of the Covenant by which he was sanctified an unholy thing Heb. 10. 29. SECT VII HAving thus shewed from the Scriptures that sinners are not immediately §. 31. reconciled in the death of Christ I proceeded farther to shew the grounds of it and they are two partly because the death of Christ was noâ— â—olâ—â—â—ejujdem but tantidem not the payment of that which was in the obligation but of the equivalent and therefore doth not deliver us ipso facto partly the agreement betwixt the Father and the Son of which more by and by Mr. Eyre answers to the former Whether the death of Christ be solutio ejusdem or â—antidem as it is a satisfaction or payment of a debt so the discharge thereby procured must needs be immediate for that a debt should be paid and satisfied and yet justly chargeable implies a contradiction Rep. Yea Then the Lawyers abuse both themselves and us for there is scarcely a determination more common in the Law then o L. mutuum §. 2. ff de reb cred l. cum â— de sol l. Debitor ff de sol ubi pro debitorem legendum creditorem l. si â—c §. 3. ff de re juâ— that a debtor is not discharged ipso facto upon the payment of any other thing then of that same which is in the obligation Titius is bound to pay Sempronius a hundred pounds in current mony of England when the day of payment is come he brings the full value in corne or he is bound to pay silver and he brings gold is he hereby discharged No. But if he bring the very same thing which he was bound to he is discharged ipso facto Now if when he brings gold instead of silver or corne instead of mony some act of the creditour is requisite to admit the payment of one instead of the other that so the debtor may be freed then is it also in the creditors power especially the debtor also consenting to propose upon what tearms he will that the debtor shall be freed either presently or after some time either upon condition or without which is all I seek for at present the consequence of this we shall see by and by In the mean time Mr. Eyre will have me prove that the death of Christ is not solutio ejusdem A service which I little expected to be put upon by an English Divine p Vide librum â—vi mei reverendissimi Robertâ—â— arkeri de descensu l. 3. §. 57 58. p g. 108 109 The Assemb larg Catech. oâ— justi q. 2. 1. All our Divines acknowledge that Christ made a true proper satisfaction unto God for our sins q L. â—â—tisfact ff de solut Ergo his death was not solutio ejusdem the payment of the very same which was in the obligation but of the equivalent onely 2. Mr. Eyre himself but just before did intimate some kind of acknowledgement that the death of Christ was a payment of it self refusable Ergo it was not solutio ejusdem r L. quod in di em ff de sol l. quod quis 49. ff â—â— Action l. Accept 19. c. de usur for no creature can refuse to admit of that 3. It was not Christs death but ours that was in the obligation for the Law requires that he that sins dye and no man else If he that sinneth not dye that death cannot be the same which was in the obligation s Ut in contractu ersenali de facto Ulpian in l. inter â— rtif 31. ff de sol In corporal punishments which
if they be both in the very same bond and obligation hath some thing of truth in it though then also the surety hath the same action against the debtour which the creditor had before otherwise it is most notoriously false and the contrary determined frequently in the y I. in summa l. Si poenae D. de condict in deb l Si quid possessor ff de Pet. Haered l. Papin ff Maâ—d civil Law If the payment of the surety do presently discharge the debtour it is because he agrees with the creditour that the payment which he makes shall be accepted for the present and immediate discharge of the debtour which is the second thing I beganne to mention before and shall now farther explaine The death of Christ being not the very same which was in the obligation therefore that it may be effectual for our deliverance there is a double act required on Gods part to whom this payment is made the one is to admit or give way that satisfaction be made the other factam ratam habere to accept it when made and consequently to discharge and free the debtour for Christs satisfaction was admitted that our obligation might he destroyed by the intervening act of God the supream Governour of mankind Rom. 3. 25. Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation that he may be the justifier of him that beleeveth in Jesus Moreover Christ being not a sinner but a surety and his payment not the payment of the principal debtour but of a surety therefore it is in his power to agree whether his payment shall be accepted and be effectual for the discharge of the sinner presently or for some time to come absolutely or upon condition Whence by the way appears what little strength there is in Mr. Eyres second exception viz. That Christs payment is lesse efficacious then if we had paid our selves if we be not thereby discharged presently because Christs satisfaction produceth its effects according to the agreement between his Father and himself and no otherwise and the virtue of it is to be measured by the greatnesse of the effect which could not be wrought by any meer created cause whether it produce it sooner or later upon condition or without Wherefore if we prove that the Father and Son agreed that none §. 35. should have actual discharge by the death of Christ till they do beleeve we carry the cause by Mr Eyres owne judgement Yet in yielding thus much he hath not a little prejudiced the authority of his own determinations so I call them because he lays them downe so peremptorily and axiomatically as if they needed no proofe How often doth he tell us before and after this concession that our discharge in the death of Christ must needs be present and immediate as pag. 68. § 7. Our discharge from the Law was â— not to be sub termino or in diem but present and immediate And in this chapter § 13. The death of Christ as it is a satisfaction or payment so the discharge thereby procured must needs be present and immediate As if it were a contradiction in the nature of the thing that we should not presently be discharged if Christ hath made satisfaction And yet here yeelds that by a contract or agreement between the Father and the Sonne the discharge obtained in Christs satisfaction may be suspended It is therefore a thing possible that Christ may have satisfied and yet we the elect I mean not be presently discharged And what then means the must needs were it a thing denyed it were easie to give innumerable instances of satisfaction made when yet the person for whom it is made is not presently freed but because it is not denied I hasten to the service which Mr. Eyre challengeth me to performe with a promise that if it be performed he will yeeld the cause and that is to shew that it was the will of the Father and of the Sonne that none should have actual reconciliation by the death of Christ till they do beleeve For proofe of this I quoted the words of the Lord Jesus wherein §. 36. he gives us an account both of his own and his Fathers will in this matter Joh. 6. 40. This is the will of him that sent me that whosoever seeth the Sonne and beleeveth on him may have everlasting life To which Mr. Eyre answers This Text and others like it do only shew who have the fruition and enjoyment of the benefits of Christ to wit thâ—y that beleeve Rep. An answer which lets me see something of what the wit of man can do in darkening plaine testimonies whose sense is obvious at first view even to vulgar capacities This is not the first time we have met with this answer in Mr. Eyre and it hath been already convicted and cast by more then a jury of Arguments in â—hap 5. 8. two places and therefore here I shall speak but briefly to it 1. Iâ— this and the like Texts do only shew â—â—o are the persons that have the enjoyment of Christs benefits namely beleevers then either they shew that beleevers as such in seâ—s◠〈◊〉 are the subjects of that life which is here promised and then I have what I would have for if men as beleevers are the subjects of this life then the prooâ—â—s full that they do not begin to partake in this life before they are beleevers much lesse before they are borne and least of all at the time of the death of Christ nor was it the will of the Father or of the Sonne that they should so do Or the meaning is that the persons who enjoy this life are such whose property and priviledge it is to be beleevers some time or other sooner or later though they may not be beleevers when they first begin to partake therein and so they are described à câ—nsâ—quenti from their faith as a consequent of their first partaking in this life And if so I shall return Mr. Eyre his offer namely that if he will shew me but one place of Scripture from the beginning of Genesis to the end of the Revelation wherein persons that shall enjoy a benefit are described from the consequent of that benefit with a distributive particle preposed such as is the particle whosoever in the present Text and I will yeeld him the cause at lest so farre forth as it is concerned in these Texts But if Mr. Eyre cannot give one instance of the like phrase of speech in all the Bible as I know he cannot then let him take heed least he become guilty of that which he doth elsewhere groundlesly charge upon me I meane of attempting to suborne the spirit to serve his own turne And what I speak of the description of a person in order to his receiving of a benefit is true also in respect of any evil threatned How many hundreds of times are such sentences in Scripture As for example Matth. 5. 22. Whosoever is
be offered up And as to Mr. Eyres two evasions that to be justified by faith doth sometimes signifie By faith to know that we are justified He might as well say the world was made by faith For by faith we know that the world was made Heb. 11. 3. And that otherwhile faith signifies Christ believed on we have often and I trust satisfactorily discovered that they are inventions from beneath not doctrines from above Let us now see what Mr. Eyre brings to prove that it was the §. 42. Will of God and Christ that his death should be available to the immediate and actual reconciliation of sinners without any condition performed on their part Foure principles he lays down which neither singly nor joyntly can bring forth the Conclusion they are in travel with 1. Christ by the Will of God gave himseâ—f a ransome and sacrifice of a sweet smelling savour unto God Answ But the Question is Whether it were the Will of God that remission should follow immediately upon the offering up of this sacrifice before the sinner beleeves and repents 2. That this ransome was alone and by it selfe a full adequate and perfect satisfaction to divine Justice for all their sins Answ But the Question is whether satisfaction may not be made by a voluntary surety with this agreement that they for whom it is made shall not be freed by it till they performe such or such a condition If it may as Mr. Eyre granted but now then he should have told us not only that Christ made satisfaction but that he made it with this intent that the elect should be presently discharged by it Otherwise he begs the Question a second time 3. God accepted it and declared himself well-pleased therewith insomuch that he hath thereupon covenanted and sworne that he will never remember their sins nor be wroth with them any more Isa 43. 25. and 54. 9 10. Answ The Question is still begg'd No doubt but God was well-pleased with the death of Christ as with a sacrifice or satisfaction in it self so perfect that his justice could not require more But whether he accepted it and was well-pleased with it so as that it should presently without the intervention of faith produce the pardon of any is the question which is here resolved by a go-by It is certain that some effects of Christs satisfaction are not communicated to the elect before they believe much lesse immediately in the death of Christ and seeing we are to grow up in him in all things till we have attained to the fulnesse of the life of Christ I confesse it is beyond my comprehension how we come to be perfect in one part of his life that is in one fruit and effect of his death while we remain imperfect in all the rest As to the Covenant which Mr. Eyre speaks of that God will never remember the sins of the elect nor be wroth with them any more Isa 43. 25. and 54. 9 10. The former place proves no more then that God takes it as one of his royal prerogatives to be a God that pardoneth sin as he also doth elsewhere Exod. 34. 6 7. Mich. 7. 18. the latter that the pardon which he gives is eternal neither that the elect are pardoned immediately in the death of Christ or while they continue in unbelief But the contrary is plainly supposed Isa 54. 1 2 3. 4. That by this ransome of Christ they are freed and delivered from the curse of the Law Gal. 4. 4. and 3. 13. Answ Quoad meritum not quoad effâ—ctum till they believe as we have shewed before Christs death hath redeemed us from the power of sin as well as from the curse of the Law 1 Pet. 1. 18. were the elect therefore sanctified immediately in the death of Christ He hath redeemed our bodies as well as our soules yet are not our bodies redeemed quoad effâ—ctum till the Resurrection Râ—â— 8. 23. till then they lie in their graves by vertue of that common obligation unto death which the first Adam brought upon all men 1 Cor. 15. 22 49 56. And thus thou seest Reader with what successe Mr. Eyrâ— hath attempted to prove That it was the Will of God in giving his 〈◊〉 death and the Will of Christ in giving himself that his 〈◊〉 should be available to the immediate and actual reconciliation of sinners without any condition performed on their part â—is next undertaking is to prove That there was no such compact and agreement between the Father and the Son that his death should not be available to the immediate reconciliation of sinners but only upon conditions performed by them In the issue of which whether he hath been any whit more happy then in the former we come now CHAP. X. An Answer to Mr. Eyres fourteenth Chapter and all the Arguments therein contained by which he endeavours to prove that there was not any Covenant passed between God and Christ to hinder the immediate and actual reconciliation of Gods elect by his death and to suspend this effect thereof upon termes and conditions to be performed by them but contrariwise that it was the Will both of God and Christ that his death should be available to their immediatâ— and actual reconciliation and Justification without any Condition performed on their part SECT I. HIs first Argument is this There is no such Covenant doth appear in Scripture Ergâ— there is none §. 1. Answ That the Antecedent â—s false hath been already proved from John 6. 40. and 3. 15 16 19. and Gal. 5. 2 3 4 5 6. and 1 Joh. 5. 11. and Rom. 3. 25. and Isa 53. 11. and all those places which declare Justification to be consequent to faith or wherein men are perswaded and commanded to turne unto God that their sins may be forgiven them Many such places have been already produced and vindicated against Mr. Eyres exceptions and it were no hard matter to produce many more as Jâ—r 26. 2 3. Stand in the Court of the Lords house and speak unto all the Cities of Judah all the words that I command thee diminish not a word If so be they will hearken and turne evâ—ry man from his evil way that I may repent me of the evil which I pâ—rpose to do unto them And Jer. 36. 3. It may be that the house of Judah will heare all the evil which I purpose to do unto them that they may returne every man frâ—m his evil way that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin Plainly discovering our conversion unto God to be the condition of our partaking in his pardoning mercy Which doth also notably appear by the contrary steps which sinners tread in working out their owne damnation Mark 4. 12. That seeing they may see and not perceive and hearing they may heare and not understand lest at any time they should be converted and their sins should be forgiven them But of this we have spoken enough before His second
of this we have spoken more largely before The sixth Argument follows If the sacrifices of the Law were immediately §. 11. available for the typicall cleansing under that administration then the sacrifice which Christ hath offered was immediately availeable to make a real atonement for all those sins for which he suffered The reason of the consequence is because the real sacrifice is not lesse efficacious then the typical But those legal sacrifices did immediately make atonement without any condition performed on the sinners part Lev. 16. 30. Ergo. Ans 1. I except against the proposition because there is no necessity of the consequence The atonement made by sacrifices might be available to an immediate cleansing though Christs be not because 1. God might will the former though not the latter 2. The people cleansed by sacrifice were all in being 3. And all actually guilty of those sins from which they were cleansed by sacrifice 4. And the punishments from which they were delivered were for the most part carnal and outward and as it were present being either actually upon them as their separations from the congregation for leprosie or other defilements suddaine plagues destroying multitudes of them c. or in sight as it were and neere at hand in which respect it was necessary that the atonement made by sacrifice should have the more immediate effect But they who are purged by the sacrifice of Christ many of them were not in being when his sacrifice was offered nor multitudes of them yet much lesse had they then committed those sins from which his sacrifice doth afterwards purge them nor is the punishment of their sins already upon them but put off in expectation of repentance If Mr. Eyre will give me that liberty which â—e takes himself I might as well argue thus If the sacrifices under the Law obtained no pardon but for sins committed then neither doth the sacrifice of Christ obtaine present pardon for sins to come not yet committed But the first is true Ergo so is the last I doubt he would not grant my proposition The reason which he addes for confirmation of his own hath no weight for the efficacy of the sacrifices typical and real is rather to be measured by the greatnesse of the effect wrought then by their quicknesse in working them That sacrifice is of greatest efficacy which produceth the greatest effect whether it produce it immediately or no for example The sacrifice of Christ is of greater efficacy then those under the Law because they sanctified to the purifying of the flesh but the blood of Christ purgeth the conscience Heb. 9. 13 14. But it did not purge our consciences immediately as soon as it was offered for we had then no consciences to purge Yet I hope Mr. Eyre will not say that Christs sacrifice is therefore of lesse efficacy then the other But the assumption is that which I do most except against viz. §. 12. That those legal sacrifices did immediately make atonement without any condition performed on the sinners part How doth Mr. Eyre prove this Thus it is said Lev. 16. 30. the Priest shall make an atonement for you Ergo there was no condition required on the peoples part But neither was the atonement perfectly made by the offering of the sacrifice but it was moreover required on the Priests part that he entred into the holy of holies and made atonement there to v. 12 15. a type of our Lords entrance into heaven to make reconciliation there for our sins Heb. 9. 24. and 2. 17 18. and 4. 14 15. and on the peoples part that they did upon that day humble and afflict their soules otherwise they could not have any benefit by that atonement as we have observed before out of v. 29 30. and Lev. 23. 27 28 29. We have also already shewed that in some other cases some actions were required as conditions without which sinners received not the benefit of that typical atonement But for the general this may suffice that the people who received the benefit of those sacrifices were a people in Covenant with God and worshippers of him Heb. 10. 1 2. which was the grand condition of their partaking in the effects of that whole ceremonial service and were therein types of the spiritual worshippers of the new Testament who come by faith to the blood of sprinkling even to Christ crucified for a spiritual and eternal cleansing SECT III. WE come now to Mr. Eyres seventh Argument Some of §. 13. the Elect are reconciled to God immediately by the death of Christ without any condition performed by them viz. elect Infants Ergo all the elect are so reconciled Answ I deny the consequence because it infers an universal from a particular The Apostle sayes It is appointed unto all men once to die Heb. 9. 27. and through death to enter into Heaven shall I say this is false because Enoch and Elijah went to Heaven and never saw death If the general directions commands and promises in Scripture must all be arraigned of falshood if they be not applicable to Infants as well as unto persons that have understanding to know their Masters will we shall make sad work exceptions of particular persons make no breach upon a general rule The Apostle sayes He that will not work must not eat If we should give Infants no more food then they work for the world would be soon at an end 2. But I deny the antecedent also viz. That elect Infants are immediately reconciled to God by the death of Christ without any condition performed on their part A double answer therefore are our Divines wont to make to this objection 1. That Infants may have the seed or habit of faith though it be not wrought in them in the ordinary way of preaching 2. That their Parents faith is the condition of their salvation if they die before they are capable of putting forth the act of faith themselves Mr. Eyre will not hear of either of these answers but invades them both The former 1. Because Infants have no knowledge of good or evil §. 14. Deut. 1. 39. and there cannot be faith without knowledge 2. Faith cometh by hearing of the Word preach't Rom. 10. Now Infants heare not or if they do they understand not what they hear Answ 1. Wilt thou see then Reader what is the aime and upshot of all Mr. Eyres discourse this it is that there is no necessity of believing or repenting that men may be saved for Infants are saved without it as not being capable of so much as the habit of either and God doth not give salvation unto Infants in one manner and to men in another these are his own words therefore men also may be saved without it 2. Or if he shall say as he doth somewhere else that God hath purposed to give faith to all that are of yeares of discretion before he give them salvation yet still we retort upon him what he
of our first Justification but the first simple act of faith and perseverance in the faith to the end the condition of final Justification as Paul also doth 2 Tim. 4. 7 8. I have fought a good fight I have finished my course I have kept the faith From HENCEFORTH there is laid up for me a Crown of righteousnesse c. So Rev. 2. 17. To him that overcometh will I give a white stone c. of which we have spoken before Wherefore I deny that which should be Mr. Eyres Assumption viz. That it was the Will of God that the elect should be perfectly and compleatly reconciled or justified whilest they live in thâ—â— world The reasons of which denial I have already given at large and shall not now repeat them And whereas Mr. Eyre thinks much â—â—at the elect should be denied perfect reconciliation not only till they beleeve but not till death He may be pleased to understand that I deny them to be perfectly justified or reconciled till the resurrection For as long as any enmity remaines undestroyed they are not perfectly reconciled But all enmity is not destroyed till the resurrection 1 Corinth 15. 25 26. And what hath Mr. Eyre against it words and nothing else §. 23. 1 Saith he innumerable Scriptures declare that the Saints are perfectly justified Aâ—sw But doth not quote us so much as one and a good reason why 2. That nothing shall be able to separate from Gods love Answ Not for ever but for a time it may tilâ— all enemies be subdued the last of which is Death The happinesse which the soule enjoyes in the mean time is its own not the happinesse of the person as our Lords Argument supposeth Mâ—t. 22. 31 32. 3. Justification is as full and perfect as ever it shall be it doth not grow and increase but is perfect at first â—nsw Prove it it grows in the renewed acts of pardon Hâ—l 12. 17 1 Johâ— 2. 1. 2. â—or God doth multiply â—orgivenesses Isâ— 55. 7. It grows in the perfection of its parts whereof the most absolute and compleat is our Justification in the day of judgement It grows in the perfection of its effects which are begun in the soule first and so take place upon the body and the whole man Râ—m 8. 10 11 23. Paul expected a farther participation in the righteousnesse of Christ then he attained to in this life Gal. 5. 5. Phil. 3. 8 9 11. 4. Baptisme saith Mr. Eyre which seales to us the forgivenesse of all our sins is administred but once in all our life-time to shew that our Justification is done all at once Answ Baptisme seals that Promise by which all sins past are forgiven f Luke 3. 3. Mâ—rk 1. 4. and all sins future shall be forgiven when committed the sinner continuing in the faith of Jesus Christ from which if he fall away it is impossible that he should be renewed again to repentance Hebr. 6. 6. or be capable of having another Covenant made or sealed to him by which his sins may be remitted Heb. 10. 29. Mr. Eyre here addes some texts of Scripture Ezek. 16. 8 9. Acts 13. 39. 1 John 1. 7. Col. 2. 13 14. to what purpose I cannot imagine unlesse it be to prove that all sins are forgiven at once for neither of these texts speak a word of Baptisme If he mean all sins past are forgiven upon the first act of faith I have granted it but if he mean all sins to come also it lies upon him to prove it that is that sins not committed are sins SECT IV. THe eleventh Argument proceeds thus If it were the Will of §. 24. God that the death of Christ should certainly and infallibly procure the reconciliation of his Elect then surely it was not the Will of God that it should depend on termes and conditions on their part because that which depends upon future conditions is as to the event altogether uncertain Answ 1. Neither doth this Argument prove that we are justified immediately in the death of Christ or before we beleeve 2. I deny the consequence with the proof of it for although that which depends upon future conditions as to the event be uncertain as the word uncertain signifies the same with contingent for it is a true rule in the Civil Law f L. Si pupillus ff de N vat Conditio necessaria non suspendit dispositionem yet is this uncertainty or contingency to be understood in reference to man and the second and immediate causes of a things existence not in reference to God to whom even contingent events g Vidâ— doctisfimum D. Ramum Schol. Dialect l. 5 c 6. are as certain as if they were necessary we shall make strange work in Divinity if events shall be denied to be contingent in their own nature because in reference to Gods Will or knowledge they are certain and infallible and so far forth necessary for example God did will the certain and infallible saâ—ety of all those that were in the ship with Paul Acts 27. 24. yet neverthelesse it came not to passe but upon condition of their abiding in the ship without the performance of which condition they had perished ver 31. Except these abide in the ship you cannot be saved And Mr. Eyre might easily have foreseen that this Argument wounds himself as much as us He acknowledgeth the Covenant made with Adam to have been conditional and in that very thing placeth the main difference between it and the Covenant of grace obedience then was the condition of Adams continuance in life and sin of his death But did not God know that Adam would sin and will to permit it or will Mr. Eyre deny this because his death was suspended upon a future condition and therefore was altogether uncertain as to the event Physician heal thy selfe It is by the Will of God that contingent things come to passe contingently Nor is the twelfth argument more happy If God willed this §. 25. blessing to the elect but conditionally then he willed their reconciliation and Justification no more then their non-reconciliation and condemnation for if he willed their Justification only in case they should beleeve and repent then he willed their damnation in case they do not beleeve and repent Ergo he willed their Justification no more then their damnation contrary to John 6. 38 39. and 17. 21 22 24. Answ h Vide Amyrâ—ldâ—m Spâ—â—im Animâ—d Speciâ—l coâ—tra Spâ—â—hâ—m à p. 146. ad siuâ—m libri Out of doubt God willeth the damnation even of the elect themselves in case they do not beleeve and repent though that case supposeth what is not to be supposed without more dâ—stinctions then my present matter will permit me to digresse into but Mr. Eyres inference that therefore he wills their damnation as much as their Justification is meerly drawn in without any disposition in it selfe to follow for the Promâ—se of remission upon condition of faith
our discharge in his death But some men had rather speak nothing to purpose then nothing at all As to the reason added we have already shewed at large in what sense Christs death may be called the payment of our debt A debtour cannot discharge a debt and yet that debt be justly chargeable upon him but that another may not leave a full and sufficient price in the Creditors hand that he may discharge his debtour some time after that price is paid or upon some condition to be performed by him I shall beleeve when I see not words but power and argument which I have long in vaine expected from Master Eyre The Conclusion therefore and summe of my Answer was this Justification §. 15. is either causal and virtual or actual and formal we were causally and virtually justified in Christs Justification but not actually and formally Mr. Eyres answer is nothing but a repetition of several things already confuted concerning the imputation of our sins to Christ and the payment and satisfaction in his death but upon the distinction it self he fixeth nothing By all which I perceive he is weary of his argument drawen from Christs Justification in his Resurrection to prove ours I speak of a Justification virtual and causal in Christs Resurrection and he answers I know not what concerning Christs death Yet the latter part of the answer deserves a little consideration I grant saith Mr. Eyre that the death of Christ doth justifie us only virtually but the satisfaction in his death doth justifie us formally And therefore Christs dying for us or for our sins his reconciling us to God and our being justified are Synonyma's in Scripture phrase Rom. 58 9 10. Rep. 1. The distinction here proposed I never reade before nor can I understand now viz. How we are justified virtually in the death of Christ as it was his death not as it was a satisfaction in whole or part If the meaning be that there was that vertue and worth in the death of Christ as made it satisfactory which no mans death else could be for want of the like worth yet is the speech strangely improper As if a broken undone debtour seeing a very wealthy man that hath many thousands more lying by him then his debt comes to should say his debt is virtually paid or himself virtually discharged by that mans money 2. To say that Christs satisfaction doth justifie us formally is to deny our Justification formal to be Gods act for it was not God but Christ that satisfied or that it doth at all consist in the pardon of sin for Christ did not satisfie by having any sin pardoned to him or that he was justified before us yea rather we are first justified if his satisfaction justifie us formally because himself was not properly justified till his Resurrection I have often read that Christs satisfaction justifies us materially being that matter or righteousnesse for which we are justified never till now that it justifies formally 2. The next observation that Christs dying for us or for our sins and our being justified are Syâ—â—nyma's in Scripture is most plainly refuted by Scripture Rom. 4. 25. who was delivered namely unto death for our sins and rose again for our Justification In the next place Mr. Eyre undertakes the answer of an objection §. 16. not made by me but by some others and it is here brought in by head and shoulders without the least occasion offered saving what Mr. Eyre hath made to himself by forgetting his own argument and the right prosecution thereof and deflecting from our Justification in Christ as a common person to the Purchase of Justification in his blood Neverthelesse because the truth is on the objectours side and Mr. Eyre in answering contradicts himself let us see what is said The objection is this 2 Cor. 5. 21. Christ was made sin for us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that we might be made he doth not say that thereby we are made the righteousnesse of God in him Ergo the laying of our sinnes on Christ is only an Antecedent which tends to the procuring of our Justification and not the same formally Thou seest Reader that the scope of the objection is to prove that the death of Christ is the meritorious cause of our Justification which Mr. Eyre after frequent acknowledgements of the truth of it doth now plainly deny and that of Justification not as signifying the act but the effects What have we heard so often of Christs procuring meriting purchasing Pardon and Redemption when he is here denied to have done any thing tending to the procuring of our Justification But let us see Mr. Eyres answer it consists of three parts 1. Saith he That this phrase that we might be or be made doth not alwayes signifie the final but sometimes the formal cause as when it is said That light is let in that darknesse may be expelled Rep. But in this sense is that phrase very rarely if at all used in the New Testament and improperly wheresoever it is used and thrice in this chapter but a little before used in its most obvious sense verse 10. 12 15. and in this text cannot have that sense which Mr. Eyre here mentions because himself acknowledgeth in his very next answer that the imputation of our sins to Christ and of his righteousnesse to us do differ But the Apostle in this verse speaks of the imputation of our sins to Christ and of his righteousnesse to us Ergo the making of him to be sin for us and of us righteousnesse in him is not formally the same Mr Eyre 2. Though the imputation of our sins to Christ and of his righteousnesse to us differ yet the imputation of sin to him and non-imputation of it unto us is but one and the same act of God Rep. 1. I must needs say this is to be wise above what is written The Apostle supposeth the imputation of righteousnesse and non-imputation of sin to be one and the same act differing only in respect of the terminus à quo ad quem Rom. 4. 6 8. David describeth the blessednesse of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousnesse without works Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin 2. Mr. Eyre argued not far before that God promiseth nothing in his Covenant which Christ hath not purchased But non-imputation of sin is the special blessing promised in the Covenant Heb. 8. 12. for the pardon of sin and the non-imputation of it is all one Rom. 4. 7 8. Ergo it was procured in the death of Christ 3. According to the model of this distinction the death of Christ procures the imputation of righteousnesse but not the non-imputation of sin that is it procures positive blessings but not the destruction of or our deliverance from the evil and miseries of sin which makes our Lord but halfe a Saviour 4. Would Mr. Eyre had told us what is that imputation of righteousnesse which
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we are wont to render Covenant or Testament may be taken in such a signification which appeare not either in the Old or New-Testament unlesse where they are used Metonymically or Metaphorically or other wayes tropically in any other sense then of a Law or a Testament or a Convention And most strange that he should also tell us gratis that it is called an everlasting Covenant 2 Sam. 23. 5. not onely a parte post but a parte ante not onely as hauing no end but also as not having beginning when the Hebrew word will by no means enforce it and it is most certaine that that Covenant made with David had a beginning recorded 2 Sam. 7. 16 19. and all the places mentioned in the margine as Gen. 17. 7. c. Do also speak of such everlasting Covenants as we know were not without beginning And whereas Mr. Eyre doth afterwards acknowledge that notwithstanding this Covenant be eternall yet there are more especially three periods of time wherein God may be said to make this Covenant with us As 1. Immediately upon the fall of Adam 2. At the death of Christ 3. When God bestowes on men the benefits of the Covenant If we are properly in Covenant from eternity there is no act of God in time by which we are brought into Covenant nihil agit in simile therefore these three periods of time are but three degrees of manifestation that we are in Covenant Accordingly as I argued before in the matter of Justification so now in the matter of the Covenant If the Covenant of grace consist essentially in Gods eternal purpose of blessing the elect then is not the word Covenant that Covenant I mean by which the elect are saved taken properly in all the Scriptures forasmuch as it no where signifies the foresaid purpose A thing as incredible and abominable as the former But let us farther examine this undenyable truth If the foresaid §. 14. purpose of God be the Covenant of grace then Christ did not obtaine by his death that God should make a Covenant with the elect But the consequence is false and Socinianisme Ergo so is the Antecedent Mr. Eyre answers Though we do not say that Christ procured the Covenant he might have added and therein we agree with the Socinians yet we say the effects of the Covenant or the mercies themselves were all of them obtained by the blood of Christ as deliverance from the curse inherent holinesse c. Rep. Such a salve for the honour of Christs merits I remember we had before in the matter of Justification viz. That Christ merited the effects of Justification not the act even as he merited the effects of election but not the act As if the reason were the same between a particular univocall cause such as Justification is determined to a particular kind of effect which causes do alwayes produce their effects immediately without the intervention of any other cause and an universal cause of severall heterogeneous effects such as election is and therefore produceth nothing but by the sub-serviency of those severall kinds of causes ordained to their severall kinds of works But the like distinction here between the Covenant and its effects is of worse consequence if I mistake not Therefore against Mr. Eyres answer I have these things to object 1. It makes void the death of Christ for if the elect before the death of Christ haue a foederall right to the blessings of the Covenant then they are righteous before his death for to be righteous by righteousnesse imputed and to have right to blessednesse are inse parable But Christ is dead in vain if righteousnesse comes by any other way or cause then his death Gal. 2. 21. 2. If the Elect are in Covenant before the death of the Mediatour they must have the blessings of the Covenant whether he die or no for every Covenant induceth an obligation in point of faithfulnesse at least upon the Covenanter to fulfill his Covenant If then God have made a Covenant before the death of Christ with the Elect what should hinder their receiving these blessings without his death Either God is unable to fulfill his covenant but he is Almighty or he is unfaithful but he is a God that keepeth covenant or our sin hinders but he hath covenanted before the death of Christ that sin shall not hinder for pardon of sin is a special branch of the covenant Or finally he hath covenanted to give us these blessings through the death of Christ and no otherwise But then we are not in covenant before the consideration of Christs death and besides which I most stick at then the whole reason why God should punish his deare and only Sonne so grievously is this it was his pleasure so to do But surely he that doth not afflict men meerly because he will Lam. 3. 33. would much lesse deal so with his Son 3. Either Christ and his merits are part of the blessings of this covenant or no. If they be then it is false that Christ merits all the effects and blessings of the covenant for he did not merit that himself might merit or be by his death the meritorious cause of our blessings If not then the New-Covenant is never a whit better or more excellent then the Old The first covenant was faulty because it could not bring sinners to perfect happinesse Heb. 8. 7 8 9. and 7. 19. Rom. 8. 3. If the New-Covenant cannot give us the blessednesse it promiseth unlesse Christ merit and bring forth the effects thereof then is it altogether as impotent and unprofitable as the old a faire advancement of the Covenant of Grace 4. Nor can I conceive how this eternal Covenant can consist with what Mr. Eyre hath hitherto been disputing for viz. That the New Covenant was made with Christ he performed the conditions and we receive the benefit Christs death was either the condition of the Covenant or of the effect of it Not the former if it consist in Gods purpose Mr. Eyre knows how our Divines disgust a conditional purpose in God And how it should be the condition of the effects when it is not the condition of the Covenant it self I cannot reach I know Mr. Eyre will tell me that there are no conditions of Gods purpose and yet there may be and are conditions of the things purposed But then that purpose is not a covenanr properly so called Metaphorically it may be it may so be called but then it is such a Covenant as is neither made with man nor with Christ but with God himself being no more then his own resolution within himself And yet the foresaid position viz. That there are no conditions of Gods purpose though there are causes of conditions of the things purposed had need of a distinction too for so farre forth as they are the effects of purpose they have no other cause or condition and
Which way doth this prove that Gods eternall Election is the thing in respect of which he is our God and we his people 4. That the said Covenant was a type of the Covenant made with Christ Yet againe The Prophet inferres this their relation unto God from his everlasting love Jeremiah 31. 1 3. Answ Negatur The Apostle likewise Romans 8. 31. Answer Negatur So 2 Tim. 2. 19. The foundation of God standeth sure The Lord knoweth who are his Implying that the Election and foreknowledge of God doth make men his Ans Mr. Eyre knows how Mr. Mede and others expound this place Prove 1. That by Gods foundation and knowledge is meant his Election and foreknowledg 2. That his are meant of his by Election It may be meant of such as are his by sincerity of faith 3. That if men were called his in reference to his Election of them it must therefore needs be understood in the same sense as when he is said to be our God and we his people The second Argument is this God is a God not only to his §. 3. people who are called and do believe but to their seed who are not called and do not yet beleeve As the God of Abraham and his seed So Act. 2. 39. The promise is to you and your children This is the ground of Infant Baptisme Answ It is not then in reference to Election that God is said to be our God and we his people for certainly all the children of faithful Parents are not elected 2. The children of the faithful are altogether in the same Covenant with their Parents whiles by reason of their infant age they are in morall consideration raâ—â—er parts of their parents then divided from them by a personal subsistence of their own as not being then able either to owne or reject their Fathers Covenant Neverthelesse when they come of age they must themselves answer and fulfill the conditions of the Covenant as their Fathers did else will God call them as he did Israel Hos 1. 6 9. Lo Ammi Lo Ruhama ye are not my people nor will I be your God And thus I think are all those Covenants to be understood wherein God promiseth mercy to the faithful and to their seed God promised mercy to David and his house yet so that thy children take heed to their way to walk in my Law as thou hast walked before me 2 Chron. 6. 16. and chap. 7. 17 18 19. God promised mercy to Abraham and his seed by vertue of which promise he was gracious to the children that had not rebelled against him though the same promise profited not their Parents because of their unbelief Deut. 1. 39 40. With Heb. 4. 1 2. and often doth the Lord require of them to return to him and obey his voice that he might give them the blessings of their Fathers Covenant See Lev. 26. 40 41 42. Deut. 29. 12 13. and other places innumerable In like manner the promise is to you and your children saith Peter Act. 2. 39. therefore are they exhorted to repent and be baptized that they and their children might continue the people of God and partake in the full blessednesse promised long before and now exhibited in Christ Jesus The same promise is left to all in the Church under the Gospel Heb. 4. 1 2 c. But it concerns them to see that they do not fall short of it through unbelief as the Apostle there speaks The sum is God is the God of the infants of faithful Parents in signe whereof they are baptized But they when they are grown up must see that they personally fulfill the conditions of the Covenant otherwise God remaines no longer their God unlesse it be externall and in regard of outward Administrations which doth not concerne our question Thirdly thus he argues They whom the Lord hath purchased §. 4. to be a peculiar people to himself have the Lord to be their God Answ I deny this proposition Christ purchased his wife before he made her his wife and he purchased a people out of the hands of those Lords that ruled over them Sin Satan the Law and God himselfe as the Judge and Executioner of his Law before he made them his people Indeed Mr. Eyre tells us a little below that by the purchase of the blood of Christ we were made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a peculiar people Tit. 2. 14. when the text saies no such thing but the just contrary He gave himself for us that he might purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works He might as well say that by the death of Christ immediately we are made zealous of good works or redeemed from all iniquity that is made to deny all ungodlinesse and worldly lusts for that 's the meaning of those words here as appears by their opposition to verse 12. That which makes us a pâ—culiar or a choise and excellent people is Christs purifying us which purifying being the effect and end of his death is some other act then his dying for us Compare Eph. 5. 25 26. 2. This Argument contradicts the first There Mr. Eyre argued that God was our God and we his people by the act of eternal election if that be true then the purchase of Christ is not that which immediately makes God our God and us his people 3. The promise that God will be our God and we his people is no effect of Christs death if his purchase immediately made that God was our God and we his people for what was already done could not be promised to be done But saith Mr. Eyre What a man purchaseth he obtains a Legal right and propriety in therefore the Apostle concludes from hence that we are not our own but Gods because we are bought with a price 1 Cor. 6. 19 20. Answ A right Why I doubt not but God and Christ have a right not onely by creation but by redemption to the obedience and subjection of all the world at least wheresoever he comes by the Gospel to challenge it that they should not live to themselves but should wholly addict themselves to glorifie God in their souls and bodies Otherwise let Mr. Eyre tell me how men can be said to deny the Lord that bought them 2 Pet. 2. 1. 2. But if this were not so and that it were no sin in men to deny the Redeemer to be their rightfull Lord as the Apostle sayes he is Rom. 14. 9. What hath Mr. Eyre gained If I buy a piece of Land to make it a Garden an Orchard or a Vineyard 't is neither of these till I have made it so Or if I purchase a servants freedome that I may make him my heire some other act besides the meer purchase is necessary that he may be my heir In like manner if Christ purchase sinners that he may purifie them and make them his peculiar people they are not his people nor is he their God meerly because of his