and the free choise of the Divine Will and therefore though we may conclude from the Divine Nature that God will be gracious and compassionate to sinners yet we cannot certainly know in what measures and proportions God will exercise this Grace and Mercy without an express declaration of his Will and when God has declared his Will as he has now done in the Gospel it is then at best to no purpose to argue from his Nature unless we have a mind to encourage Sinners to expect more Grace from the Divine Nature than God hath promised in the Revelation of the Gospel So that though we should suppose that he did not consider this boundless Grace in Christ as Mediator but considered it as in him who is Mediator which by the way spoils all the comfort sinners might take from the boundless mercy of the Divine Nature in Christ if this be not in him as our Mediator unless we may expect more Grace from Christ upon his Personal account than from his Mediation that is more from the Person than from the Gospel of Christ which contains the terms of his Mediation which he so vehemently disowns yet I say this Argument were weak and fallacious because we cannot reason thus from the Divine Nature it self for though the Divine Nature be the Fountain of Grace and Mercy yet the Divine Will regulates the exercise of it and assigns its measures much less can we reason thus from the Divine Nature considered in Christ as our Mediator for a Mediator as Mediator though he be God-man is not the Fountain but Minister of Grace as Christ witnesses That he came not to do his own will but the will of him that sent him And thus he is considered in Scripture even where he is said to be the only begotten of the Father full of Grace and truth which seems not primarily to refer to the inherent glory and perfection of his Nature though that may be proved from it but to the glory of his Ministry which was the only glory the Apostles could then discover when his Essential Majesty was hid under a vail of flesh and therefore I think still the Doctor would do well to make God the Father the Fountain of Grace for though when we consider the three Persons in the Sacred Trinity in the Unity of the Divine Essence what is attributed to one is supposed to be attributed to the other yet when we consider them under different capacities and relations it is not so Christ as God essentially one with the Father and Holy Spirit is the Fountain of Grace as Mediator he is the Minister of it the Father sends and Christ is sent the Father prescribes his work and he finishes it And therefore to make Christ as Mediator the Fountain of Grace is a derogation from God the Father whom the Scripture makes the first mover and supreme Agent in the work of our Redemption I observed in the same place another instance of this way of reasoning from the Divine Nature in Christ to prove that Eternity Unchangeableness and Fruitfulness of his Love Now this I say is a way of proving the Eternity Unchangeableness and Fruitfulness of Christ's love which the Scripture no where teaches but is wholly owing to an acquaintance with Christ And I wonder that the Doctor should be at a loss to know what it is I except against whether it be that the love of Christ as he is God is Eternal Or that it is Unchangeable Or that it is Fruitful or Effective of good things unto the Persons Beloved It is neither of these in themselves considered for I own all as he very well knows but I except partly against his way of stating these things and partly against his way of proving them or rather against both together What he means by this Eternal Unchangeable and Fruitful Love he tells us himself The love which I intend and whereunto I ascribe those properties is the especial love of God in Christ unto the Elect. This is such a love as is Eternal without beginning and without end as does not change with the changes of the object as the love of men does and is so fruitful and effectual as to love Life Grace holiness into us to love us into Covenant to love us into heaven Now my business is not to dispute the case whether God have elected some particular Persons whom he will infallibly bring to glory which I never denied yet and I think never shall But the question is Whether the Eternity and Unchangeableness and fruitfulness of this Electing Love can be proved from the Eternity and Immutability c. of the Divine Nature The inconvenience I then urged it with was this If this love be so Eternal and Unchangeable c. because the Divine Nature is so then it was always so for God always was what he is and that which is Eternal could never be other than it is now and why could not this Eternal and Unchangeable and Fruitful love as well preserve us from falling into Sin and Misery and Death as love Life and Holiness into us all To this the Doctor answers That Gods love is in Scripture represented Unchangeable because he himself is so but it doth not hence follow that God loveth any one naturally or necessarily His love is a free act of his Will and therefore though it be like himself such as becomes his nature yet it is not necessarily determined on any object nor limited as to the Nature Degrees Effects of it which he proves from the different dispensations of the Grace and Mercy of God under the Law and Gospel and adds God is always the same that he was love in God is always the same that it was but the Objects Acts and Effects of this Love with the measures and degrees of them are the issues of the counsel or free purpose of his Will Now this Answer is what I would have and plainly discovers the Sophistry of this way of reasoning For if this electing Love be not the immediate and necessary effect of the Divine Nature but the free choise and purpose of his Will then we cannot learn either that it is or what it is from the bare contemplation of the Divine Nature but from the declarations of the Divine Will for we can prove nothing from the Divine Nature but what has a necessary and inseparable connexion with some attribute and perfection in God but where a free choice and counsel intervenes we must be contented to be ignorant or to learn from Revelation We may certainly conclude from the holiness and goodness of God that God will love good men and hate the wicked because holiness includes in the very notion of it a necessary love to goodness and hatred of evil and from the immutability of God we may conclude his unchangeable love to goodness and hatred of evil as the Psalmist expresseth it Psal. 103. 17 18. But the mercy
room and place of the Righteousness of God It is most true that all the Righteousness of man cannot prevail with God to do us good there is but one mover of God the man Christ Iesus who is the only and sole Mediator If you will have your own Righteousness to be your Mediator with God to speak to God for you to prevail with God for you what is this but to put your Righteousness in the room and place of Christ Which is the very same with what Dr. Owen affirms That our Righteousness can contribute nothing to our acceptance with God And if you will have Dr. Crispes sense in fewer words It is as much as to say Our standing righteous by what Christ hath done for us concerns us in point of Iustification in point of Consolation and in the business of Salvation we have our Iustification we have our Peace we have our Salvation only by the Righteousness Christ hath done for us They are both you see agreed in attributing our Justification and Salvation entirely to the Righteousness of Christ and as for Peace and Consolation the only difference is that Dr. Owen sometimes attributes it to Christ and sometimes to Holiness but Dr. Crispe is always consistent with himself and his own Principles and yet this difference is so very small that Mr. Saltmarsh undertakes to compound it and to allow Christians of a lower form to fetch their comforts from Holiness as a mark and evidence though a very uncertain one And now they are agreed about the place of Christs Righteousness they cannot differ about the place and use of Obedience for whatever does not belong to the Righteousness of Christ may be very safely attributed to the Righteousness of man Thus for instance the Reasons assigned by Dr. Owen for the necessity of Obedience are First The Soveraign Appointment and Will of God Father Son and Holy Ghost Thus Dr. Crispe tells us That one end of our good works is a manifestation of our Obedience and Subjection to God that is our Obedience to the Soveraign will and appointment of God and therefore he professes I speak not Beloved against the doing of any Righteousness according to the will of God revealed let that mouth be forever stopped that shall be opened to blame the Law that is holy just and good or shall be a means to discourage people from walking in the Commandments of God blameless Dr. Owen's second Reason is That Holiness is one eminent and special end of the peculiar dispensation of Father Son and Spirit in the business of exalting the glory of God in our Salvation It is a peculiar end of God's Electing love the Son 's Redeeming love and it is the very work of the love of the Holy Ghost To the same purpose Dr. Crispe though not so particularly tells us that the end of good Works is The setting forth of the praise of the glory of the Grace of God That is of the Grace of God in Electing of the Grace of Christ in Redeeming and of the Grace of the Holy Ghost in Sanctifying But thirdly Dr. Owen tells us That Obedience is necessary with respect to the end of it and that whether we consider God our Selves or the World First The end of Obedience with respect to God is his glory and honour So says Dr. Crispe too That the end of good Works is the actual glorifying of God in the World that our services may glorifie God that is Father Son and Holy Ghost Secondly The ends assigned by Dr. Owen with respect to our selves are Honour Peace and Usefulness The first of these I do not find Dr. Crispe mention because I suppose he might think it a greater honour to be cloathed with the perfect Robes of Christs Righteousness than with the rags and patches of our own The second he rejects as Dr. Owen sometimes does and ought always to do if he would be true to his own Principles The third he owns but refers it to its proper head where it ought to be placed the end of holiness with respect to others in doing good in the World and being profitable to men That we may serve our Gentration according to the Apostle's charge that men study to maintain Good Works because saith he these things are profit able unto men There is this usefulness of our Righteousness that others may receive benefit by it Let your light so shine before men that they seeing your good Works may glorifie your Father which is in heaven which compriseth Dr. Owen's ends of Conviction and Conversion and the benefit of all for it must be confessed that Dr. Crispe hath not so good a faculty as Dr. Owen in making distinctions without a difference Dr. Crispe indeed will by no means allow that our own Righteousness can keep off Judgments either from our selves or from other men as Dr. Owen would have it but thinks that God can be moved only by the Righteousness of Christ and that if we must trust wholly in the Righteousness of Christ for our deliverance from future punishments we may as reasonably trust him for present deliverances But to proceed with Dr. Owen Fourthly Holiness is necessary with respect to the state and condition of justified persons for they have a new Creature in them which must be nourished and kept alive by the fruits of Holiness Now though Dr. Crispe was never guilty of talking at this absurd rate yet he says that which is more intelligible and wherein the true force of this reason if it have any must consist viz. that Holiness is necessary as it hath a necessary cause a renewed and sanctified nature infused into Believers by Christ. Thus he affirms That there is no Person is a Believer and hath recieved Christ but after he hath received Christ he is created in this Christ to good works that he should walk in them He that sprinkleth them with clean water that they become clean from all their filthiness puts also a new Spirit into them and doth cause them to walk in his Statutes and Testimonies And the Doctor honestly confesses that the only security against the evil consequences of his Doctrine is the power and efficacy of the Grace of God in bridling mens corrupt Passions That the same Christ who hath born the wrath of the Father and the effects thereof the same Christ doth take as strict an order to restrain and keep in the Spirit of a man as to save that man This is the true and clear way of arguing according to these Principles from the state of a Justified person because such a man is Sanctified too and must live holily And fifthly Dr. Owen assigns another reason of the necessity of Holiness That it is necessary with respect to the proper place of Holiness in the New Covenant as God hath appointed that Holiness shall be the means the way to Eternal life though it be neither the cause matter nor
the Merits of Christ are imputed to us we understand the same thing of his Holiness and active Righteousness for since his Purity and Holiness gave worth and dignity to his Merits in the same sense wherein his Merits are said to be imputed to us his active Righteousness and Obedience is imputed also So that the Bishop never thought that the Obedience and Righteousness of Christ is so made ours that we are accounted by God to have done the same things to have performed all that Righteousness which Christ performed which is the modern notion of Imputation but it is so imputed to us that upon account of the Merits of Christs Life and Death God forgives the Sins and accepts the Persons of those who heartily believe in him as the same Learned and Reverend Person excellently explains it soon after Where he tells us that we are delivered from the Law by Faith in Christ Whosoever believes in him shall not perish and shall not come into condemnation or into Iudgment as he reads it Iohn v. 24. and adds What Iudgment is this from which Believers are delivered by Christ Proculdubio strictum illud ubi juxta normam legis aliquis examinatur prout deprehenditur huic norme respondere justus aut injustus pronunciatur c. No doubt that strict Judgment where men are examined according to the Rule of the Law and are pronounced just or unjust as they are found to agree with that Rule Iustificatio igitur salus credentium non ex eo dependet quod habent in se qualitatem nova justitiae quam audent legali examini stricto Dei judicio subjicere sed quod per propter Merita Redemptoris non subituri sunt tale judicium sed perinde cum illis agetur ac si haberent in seipsis exactam justitiam legalem Therefore the Justification and Salvation of Believers does not depend on this that they have such an internal Righteousness as they dare submit to a legal Tryal and to the strict and rigorous Judgment of God but that by and for the Merits of their Redeemer hey shall never undergo such a Judgment but shall be dealt with as if they had an exact legal Righteousness of their own And this he tells us hemeans by the Merits of Christ being the formal cause of our Iustification and in this sense I heartily own it though the abuse of that Phrase is a sufficient Reason to alter it Let us now consider in the third place what is required on our part in order to our Justification by Gods Mercy and by Christs Merits and that is plainly expressed in the Homily And upon our part true and lively Faith in the Merits of Iesus Christ which yet is not ours but by Gods working in us That we may the better understand this we must enquire What is meant by this Faith in the Merits of Christ And what is meant by a true and lively Faith in Christs Merits And what our Church attributes to this Faith in the Work of Justification First What is meant by Faith in the Merits of Christ Now the general Notion of Faith is that it is a perswasion and belief in mans heart whereby he knoweth that there is a God and agreeth unto all Truth of Gods most holy Word contained in the holy Scripture This is such a Faith as Devils and wicked Men may have But then a Faith in Christs Merits or a true justifying Faith such as no wicked men can have is not only the common belief of the Articles of Faith but it is also a true trust and confidence of the Mercy of God through our Lord Jesus Christ and a sted fast hope of all good things to be received at Gods hand and that although we through infirmity or temptation of our ghostly Enemy do fall from him by sin yet if we return again to him by true Repentance that he will forgive and forget our offences for his Sons sake our Saviour Jesus Christ and will make us Inheritors with him of his everlasting Kingdom and that in the mean time till that Kingdom come he will be our Protector and Defender in all perils and dangers whatsoever do chance and that though sometimes he doth send us sharp adversity yet that evermore he will be a loving Father unto us if we trust in him and commit our selves wholly unto him hang only upon him and call upon him ready to obey and serve him That is a Faith in the Merits of Christ is a sure Hope and Confidence in God a certain Expectation of all temporal and spiritual good things from God for the Merits of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ upon the condition of Repentance and a new Life or as it is excellently expressed a little after in the same Homily For the very sure and lively Christian Faith is not only to believe all things of God contained in holy Scripture but also is an earnest trust and confidence in God that he doth regard us and that he is careful over us as the Father is over the Child whom he doth love and that he will be merciful to us for his only Sons sake and that we have our Saviour Christ our perpetual Advocate and Priest in whose only Merits Oblation and Suffering we do trust that our Offences be continually washed and purged whensoever we repenting truly do return to him with our whole heart sted fastly determining with our selves through his Grace to obey and serve him in keeping his Commandments and never to turn back again to sin So that Justifying Faith according to the sense of our Church is not a perswasion that our sins are actually pardoned or that God for Christs sake will forgive our sins without requiring any more of us than to believe that he will forgive them But it is a firm perswasion that God will forgive our sins for Christs sake if we repent of our sins and forsake them and determine through his gracious assistance never to return to them again But we shall understand this the better if we consider secondly what is meant by a true lively Faith in Christs Merits for our Church distinguishes between a dead and a lively Faith A dead Faith is by the holy Apostle St. James compared to the faith of Devils which believe God to be true and just and tremble for fear yet they do nothing well but all evil And such a manner of Faith have the wicked and naughty Christian People which confess God as St. Paul saith in their mouth but deny him in their deeds being abominable and without the right faith and to all good works reprovable And Forasmuch as Faith without Works is dead it is not now Faith as a dead Man is not a Man This dead Faith therefore is not the sure and substantial Faith which saveth Sinners Let us now consider what a lively Faith is and the description of that follows in these words Another Faith there is in
Fears The Hope of Heaven and the Fear of Hell are the great Motives of the Gospel but are of no use in this new Religion since a justified Person who yet may be very wicked is in no danger of Hell and is secure of his Inheritance in Heaven For if a justified person may miss of Heaven and fall into Hell his Justification is worth nothing a man had as good be Unjustified as to perish with his Justification And therefore though God if he pleases may sanctifie whom he first justifies yet there is no Argument left to perswade a justified person to be holy if he may be justified without it This I particularly shewed in my former Discourse where I examined Dr. Owens Reasons for the necessity of Holiness which either prove nothing or prove only the necessity of Event that God will necessarily make men holy not such a necessity of Duty as will make every considering man who hath any value for his Soul freely chuse Holiness But instead of answering what I there urged the Doctor in his Vindication transcribes a long Paragraph concerning the necessity of Holiness and leaves it to the judgment of his Readers which I must needs say was very boldly done if he thought his Readers had any judgment though it argued more craft to give me a fresh challenge as if I had yet said nothing to him The Doctor only takes notice of two or three things which I answered to his Reasons for the necessaty of Holiness and passes over all the rest as unanswerable scoffing which is his way to call that scoffing which he cannot answer As first he proved the necessity of Holiness from the command of God which had been a good Argument had it been used by another man but the Doctors Notion of Justification by the imputed Righteousness of Christ only evacuates this command and therefore I enquired where is the Sanction of this Law will he damn those who do not obey for their disobedience And will he save and reward those who do obey for their obedience Not a word of this for this destroys our Iustification by the Righteousness of Christ only And if after all these Commands God hath left it indifferent whether we obey or not I hope such Commands cannot make Obedience necessary This last Clause the Doctor recites and cries out Wonderful Divinity A man must needs be well acquainted with God and himself who can suppose that any of his Commands shall leave it indifferent whether we will obey them or no. This I confess is wonderful Divinity but I know no reason the Doctor should wonder at it because it is his own For such indifferent things he makes all the Divine Commands while he makes them unnecessary to our Justification which quite destroys their Authority and Sanction For a Law if it may be so called without Rewards and Punishments is left at the liberty of the Subject to obey it or not and such a Command cannot make Obedience necessary But the Doctor proceeds But may we not notwithstanding this Command be justified and saved without this Holiness Wherein he designs to represent my Sense though he have changed the words and answers false and impertinent we are neither justified nor saved without them though we are not justified by them nor saved for them This is warily expressed but will not serve his purpose for by our not being justified without Holiness he means no more than that God at the same time when he justifies infuses the Habits of Grace and Holiness renews and sanctifies us too and therefore we cannot be said to be justified without Holiness because we are justified and sanctified at the same instant though in order of nature we are Justified before we are Sanctified and therefore in our Justification God had no respect to any sly Antecedent Holiness which as to the present Dispute is the same thing as to be Justified without Holiness The Doctor professes it as his avowed Doctrine That Holiness and Obedience is neither the Cause Matter nor Condition of our Iustification and therefore not Antecedently necessary And expresly tells us That the Passive Righteousness of Christ only is imputed to us in the non-imputation of Sin and that on the condition of our Faith and new Obedience so exalting them into the room of the Righteousness of Christ is a thing which in Communion with the Lord Iesus I have as yet no acquaintance withal And a little before Are we then freed from this Obedience Yes But how far From doing it in our own strength from doing it for this end That we may obtain Life Everlasting It is vain that some say confidently that we must yet work for Life it is all one as to say That we are yet under the Old Covenant Hoc fac vives we are not freed from Obedience as a way of walking with God but we are as a way of working to come to him So that Holiness contributes nothing to our Justification and Eternal life and therefore we may as well be justified and saved without them which destroys the Necessity and Sanction of the Divine Laws and leaves it at every mans liberty to Obey or not to Obey were they not over-ruled like spiritual Machines and Engines by an irresistible Power In the next place the Doctor proves the necessity of Holiness from the Ends of God in Election and Redemption God Elected us and Christ Redeemed us that we might be holy This is a very good Argument too if it be rightly managed but that it can never be upon the Doctors Principles that is if we deny the Antecedent necessity of Holiness to our Justification For if God have absolutely Elected us to Eternal Life without any condition required on our part only purposing to make those holy by an irresistible Power whom he hath Elected this only proves the necessity of the Event that those who are Elected shall be holy but can be no Argument to engage any man to press after Holiness For this Election to Holiness doth not make Holiness necessary on our part with the necessity of Duty or of a Condition without which we shall not be saved but only makes it necessary on Gods part as to the regular execution of his Decree of Salvation And the same may be said of Redemption if we are so absolutely Redeemed by the Death of Christ as to have a right to all the benefits of it as Justification and Eternal Life without any condition required on our part If we are justified freely by the Grace of God through the Redemption which is in Christ Iesus without any regard to Repentance or New Obedience to qualifie us for this Grace then our Redemption by Christ cannot make it a necessary Duty in us to be holy though Holiness may follow as a necessary Effect This I expressed in fewer words but to the same sense in my former Discourse Will the Father Elect and the
justified in time as soon as they are capable of it that is as soon they are in being In his Book of Communion p. 204. he has ten Propositions much to the same purpose He there tells us That Christ in his undertaking of the work of our Redemption with God was constituted and considered as a common publick person in the stead of them for whose reconciliation to God he suffered And that being thus a common Person upon his undertaking as to merit and efficacy and upon his actual performance as to solemn declaration this is what Dr. Crisp calls Gods laying iniquity upon Christ by way of Obligation and by way of Execution was as such as a common person acquitted absolved justified and freed from all and every thing that on the behalf of the Elect as due to them was charged upon him or could so be So that he was from all Eternity upon his undertaking and in time upon his actual performance as a common Person that is in the name and as representing the persons of the Elect acquitted absolved and justified and therefore as it follows Christ received the general acquittance for them all and they are all acquitted in the Covenant of the Mediator whence they are said to be crucified with him to die with him to rise with him to sit with him in heavenly places namely in the Covenant of the Mediator This is what Dr. Crisp calls a secret application of Gods laying iniquity upon Christ to particular persons which is done before they know it and the only difference between him and Dr. Owen is that Dr. Owen will not allow this to be a discharge of the Elect in their own persons but only in the Person of the Mediator and Dr. Crisp thinks it more proper to say that this is a personal discharge of them since it is done in their names and persons but it is no great matter who speaks most properly when the thing is the same In another Discourse of the Death of Christ in answer to Mr. Baxter's Objections against his Treatise of Redemption p. 72. he asserts that the Elect have an actual right to all that was purchased by Christ's Death before believing and that is equivalent to their having a right from Eternity or from the first moment of their being And he offers it as his one opinion Whether absolution from the guilt of sin and obligation unto death though not as terminated in the conscience that is though it be not known to the Person which is Dr. Crisp's secret application for complete Iustification do not precede our actual believing and expounds the Justification of the ungodly Rom. 4. to this sense as Dr. Crisp expresly does And though he dare not assert complete Iustification to be before believing yet he affirms that absolution is as it is considered as the act of the Will of God that is secret and known only to God for a discharge from the effects of anger naturally precedes all collation of any fruits of love such as faith is And the difference between this absolution and complete Justification is no more but this That absolution wants that act of pardoning mercy which is to be terminated and completed in the conscience of a sinner That is though such a man be pardoned before believing yet he can have no sense of his Pardon before believing which is exactly Dr. Crisp's notion And absolution wants the hearts perswasion of the truth and goodness of the Promise and the mercy held out in the Promise And it wants the Souls rolling it self on Christ and receiving Christ as the Author and Finisher of that mercy an All-sufficient Saviour to them that believe All which signifies no more than that Absolution is before and without Faith for this apprehending the truth and goodness of the Promise and rolling it self on Christ according to the Doctors notion constitute the justifying Act of Faith And therefore when the Doctor elsewhere tells us that the Elect till the full time of their actual deliverance determined and appointed to them in their several Generations be accomplished are personally under the Curse of the Law and on that account are legally obnoxious to the wrath of God He only chuses to contradict himself to avoid the imputation of Antinomianism For by their actual deliverance I presume he must understand the time of their actual believing and if they are absolved before they actually believe how can they be under the Law or legally obnoxious to the wrath of God And therefore he immediately qualifies this that though they are obnoxious to the Law and the Curse thereof yet not at all with its primitive intention of execution upon them which is as much as to say that they are obnoxious to the Curse of the Law but not obnoxious to the execution of that Curse which I take to be non-sense How then are they obnoxious to the Curse of the Law Why as it is a means appointed to help forward their acquaintance with Christ and acceptance with God on his account By which I suppose he means that their Absolution being at present secret and not terminated and completed in the Conscience they are terrified and scared with the threatnings of the Law as fancying themselves to be under it when they are not and this makes them fly to Christ for refuge and sanctuary And though Dr. Crisp indeed do not like this way of affrighting men to Christ by the Law yet the difference is not great and makes no material alteration in the Scheme of their Religion And therefore when Dr. Owen adds That it was determined by Father Son and Holy Ghost that the way of the actual personal deliverance of the Elect from the Sentence and Curse of the Law should be in and by such a way and dispensation as might lead to the praise of the glorious grace of God and to glorifie the whole Trinity by ascending to the Fathers love through the works of the Spirit and Bloud of the Son All that he means by it is this that we shall have no sense of our Absolution by the Bloud of Christ till we actually believe nor be actually possessed of Eternal Life till we be renewed and sanctified all which Dr. Crisp will own and is consistent enough with our Justification or Absolution from Eternity since Faith and all other blessings are the effect of our antecedent Absolution in Christ as the Doctor confesses And this is all Mr. Ferguson means when he tells us That Christ's own discharge was an immediate consequent of his sufferings and they for whom he suffered had also immediately a fundamental right of being acquitted but their actual deliverance was to be in the way and order that he who had substituted himself in our room and he who had both admitted and been the Author of the substitution thought fit to appoint This is the necessary consequence of this Doctrine that if Christ acted as a Surety in the name
respect of that New Creature Divine Nature and spiritual being which he hath wrought in them but immediately also I would fain learn of him what he means by this immediate presence of the Spirit for if the Holy Spirit be a divine and infinite being which is present every where how can he be more immediately present in one place or in one person than in another but only by a more peculiar manifestation of himself in his effects and operations As God who fills all places with his presence is said to dwell in Heaven because there he manifests his glory in a more peculiar manner But I cannot without some indignation observe how our Author has prophaned this holy Union between Christ and Believers by comparing it with the impure mixtures of a man with a Harlot and representing the Apostle to argue at this rate The Apostle tells us That he who is joyned to the Lord is one spirit 1 Cor. 6. 17. Which I thus explained That herein consists our Union to Christ that we have the same temper of mind which he had wrought in us by the same Holy Spirit which animates both the Head and the Body and every member of it as I acknowledged before for there can be no Union between Souls and Spirits without this that they are acted by the same principles and love and chuse the same things c. Mr. Ferguson disproves this from that opposition which the Apostle as he says makes between the Union of a man to a Harlot and our Union to Christ Know ye not that he which is joyned to a Harlot is one body but he that is joyned to the Lord is one spirit From whence he argues If the Union betwixt a man and a Harlot in the virtue of which they are one body import more than meerly a likeness of temper and moral disposition as surely it doth for asmuch as there may be a similitude in sensual propensions and inclinations where the becoming one flesh through carnal conjunction interposeth not much more doth a Believer's being one spirit with the Lord imply a higher kind of Union than an affinity of dispositions What fine work might a prophane Wit make of this And indeed I would not have defiled my Paper with it but only to have vindicated our Apostle and Christianity together from such sordid and impure abuses And any one who consults the place will easily perceive that this prophane comparison is owing wholly to our Author and that the Apostle has nothing to do with it For in the fifteenth verse he disswades them from Fornication by this Argument Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ shall I take then the members of Christ and make them members of an Harlot God forbid The undecency of this is very evident that the members of Christ should be made the members of an Harlot and therefore the Apostle distinctly proves these two Propositions that our bodies as we are Christians are the members of Christ and that that body which is joyned to the Harlot becomes one flesh and body with her This last he proves from the primitive institution of Marriage Two saith he shall be one flesh For an Harlot is an uxor usuraria who unlawfully supplies the place of Wife and he proves the latter that our bodies also are the members of Christ from that intimate Union of Souls and Spirits betwixt Christ and Believers He that is joyned to the Lord is one Spirit and therefore his body too is a member of Christ for that intimate Union between the body and the soul will not admit a separation Christ first takes possession of our souls and then challenges an interest and propriety in our bodies which must be preserved holy and pure as the Temples of God But then thirdly I observed That there is a closer Union still which results from this which consists in a mutual and reciprocal love when we are transformed into the Image of Christ he loves us as being like to him and we love him too as partaking of his nature He loves us as the price of his bloud as his own workmanship created unto good works and we love him as our Redeemer and Saviour for which I produced Ioh. 14. 20. At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father and you in me and I in you Where by day Mr. Ferguson very wisely understands the glorified state this Union being such a Mystery as cannot be understood in this world whereas the Circumstances of the place determine it to our Saviours Resurrection and the descent of the Holy Spirit and he himself explains the meaning of this Union Vers. 21. He that hath my Commandments and keepeth them he it is that loveth me and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father and I will love him and manifest my self to him To the same purpose Christ prays for his Disciples Ioh. 17. 21. That they may be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be one in us These Scriptures are alleadged by Mr. Ferguson too but to prove he knows not what He acknowledges That it is not an oneness of Essence betwixt Christ and Believers that is here to be understood nor yet is it meerly an oneness of will and affection between the Father and the Son but it is an Essential Unity here meant Well Is there an Essential Unity then here meant betwixt Christ and Believers No that he rejected before What then Why though we plead not for the same kind of oneness between Christ and Believers as is between the Father and the Son yet we affirm that something more sublime than barely a Political Relation is adumbrated and shadowed forth to us Something more than External-Political Union I believe is intended by them but what sublime thing is that which is adumbrated and shadowed forth to us in these words which expressions argue that our Author is not very clear in it that he tells us that by alluding to that incomprehensible Idendity which is between the persons of the blessed Trinity through a numericalness of nature he would instruct us that the Union between Christ and those that are born of God is intimate great and Mysterious as well as true and real But Mr. Ferguson else-where tells us that all Unions are Mysterious and there are several sorts of intimate and great and true and real Unions so that we are never the wiser for this account of our Union to Christ. But our Saviours plain and obvious meaning is this that as there is a perfect harmony of will and affections and design and a perfect agreement in Doctrine between the Father and himself founded on the unity of nature so he prays that his Disciples may be one also among themselves and with God from their agreement in the same belief and participation of the same nature and a unity and harmony of Affections But then I observed