calling of the Church hee that was no Minister before become such properly and imediatly Secondly a man is to be baptized but once and God adding to the outward washing with water that which is inward and by his spirit sanctifies the former and covers many faylings in the manner of administring it but a man may on the contrary upon occasion be called divers times to a Ministery in divers Churches one after another Thirdly the Ministery is the Churches and depends upon it as the adjunct upon the subject so as if the Church dissolue the Ministerie ceaseth which the same Church also that giues it may take away and make him that was a Minister no Minister Besides that in the mean while his Ministery is bounded within the precincts of that Church wherof he is an officer But in the ordinance of Baptism the case is clean otherwise For neither can the Church which hath given it take it from him neither ceaseth he to remain a baptized person though alone and without either Church or other Christian in the world with him neither is he in any Church where he comes to bee barred from the priviledges of his Baptism or use of any thing depending upon it ADVERSARIES FOR the justifying of the manner of their rebaptizing and to proue that the Disciples of Christ though no Pastors they must add nor having any Church-calling may baptize their first instance is from Iohn Baptist who was no Pastor and yet baptized DEFENCE WEE grant it No more was Christ himselfe a Pastor in our sense nor his Apostles But we say Iohn as they had an immediate and extraordinary calling not onely to exercise but also to introduce the ordinance of Baptism being expresly prophesyed of before by Esay and Malachy promised to his father Zachary by an Angell of the Lord and filled with the Holy Ghost from his mothers womb Will these men compare their conceited gift of converting with Iohns divine and extraordinary charter and endowments We say with Christ our Lord that Iohn was a Prophet and more then a Prophet They answer us that the least disciple or that hath Iohns doctrine in the Kingdom of God is greater then he But we reply that Christ doth not there mean the least disciple but the least able Minister of the new Testament wherof these Ana-baptizers are none When Christ asked the Iews if they went out to see a Prophet Think we he meant of any ordinary Iew having a poor gift of expounding the Scriptures like these mens Or not rather of some both of singular abilities and speciall calling So by the least in the Kingdom of heaven he means the least Minister of the new Testament furnished with speciall abilities and calling Besides his meaning is not that the least Minister no nor the greatest neither was greater then Iohn the Baptist in respect of power of ministring Baptism for none was comparable to him this way being under God the instituter of it and the Baptist which neither Peter nor Paul was But the greatnesse here is in regard onely of the more full knowledg of Christ not onely come in the flesh and entred upon his Ministery as in Iohns time but having finished his work upon earth and being dead for our sins and risen again and ascended into the heavens whence he did and doth most graciously and powerfully administer his Kingdom amongst men Is it not enough for Iohn Murton and his consorts to be equall with Iohn Baptist in the power of baptizing but they will needs perck aboue him therein and bee greater then he But it is no new thing for the bramble to advance it selfe aboue all the trees even the vine oliue and fig-tree But such pride will haue a fall The Lord grant it may be by or with repentance to prevent the down-fall to perdition To their instancing the disciples of Christ and Ananias his baptizing what shall I say more then I haue done in the very writing which they undertake to answer Wherein I haue proved that these instances are so far from helping them as that they make plainly against them as the Reader that will may see To my proofs they answer nothing at all nor confirm their own tenent further by any circumstance of the Text. Onely they tell us in the generall that these things were written for our learning We grant it and therewith affirm that amongst other things we are to learn this from them that such as are to baptize are to be furnished with besides and aboue the gift of teaching a speciall warrant and calling from Christ either extraordinary and immediate as had these disciples and Ananias or ordinary and mediate by the Church which alone is delegated by Christ the Lord with authority to call men to the ministering of his solemn Ordinances wherof Baptism is one and not the use of a gift as bare teaching is In opening Math. 28 Goe teach all Nations c. they shew a strange streyn of wit in gathering from thence that any disciple of Christ may baptize from whence all others of learning or judgment of all Sects doe gather the contrary and that none but such as haue speciall calling to teach may baptize Let us examine things particularly And first I affirm that the Lord in that place giues an Apostolicall commission properly which I thus proue First because he bids them Goe or goe forth and teach all Nations opposing the Apostles going forth and teaching all Nations then to the Prophets tarrying and teaching that one Nation of the Iews formerly Doe or can these men though their feet abide not in the house Prov. 7. 11 goe to and teach all Nations Their answer is frivilous that every Disciple is to doe this according to his best abilitie seeing the Lord calls none to a state or work but such as he furnisheth with answerable abilities By such answers the calling of any how unfit soever to any place or state how excellent soever might be justified Secondly if not in this place I would know when and where Christ gaue the commission properly Apostolicall Where they add that the Apostles haue left their power wholly behind them and that nothing is dead but their persons they erre not a little For not onely their persons are dead but their office also is ceased If any now haue the power of Apostles they haue then the office of Apostles first from which the power is and in which it is to be exercised If they say they are Apostles they are not but are easily found lyars by plain direction of the Scriptures Besides they expresly contradict themselvs in the same place in saying The commission was given to such as whose persons remains to the end of the world If their persons be dead how remain they But they add as their corner stone that this commission was given to the succeeders of the Apostles in their doctrine from time to time with whom
the punishing of sin and mercy for the pardoning of it except withall man become actually changed and sinfull Can there be use of justice for punishing or of mercy for foregiuenesse of sin but where sin is Their reason therfore if it bear weight proues not onely that man might possibly but that he must sin necessarily Which I lay down and apply formally thus That without which the Attributes of Gods justice to punish sinne and of his mercy to pardon it had been utterly without use towards men that must necessarily be but without mans sinning the attributes of Gods justice to punish and of his mercy to pardon had been utterly without use towards men ergo man must necessarily sin by just consequence upon their antecedent Their reasons thus answered I will plainly proue that God could if it had so pleased him haue kept Adam unchangeably good as the Angels and soules of men are and bodies shall be at the resurrection unchangeably immortall And first the Scriptures teach us to giue this honour to the power of God as to beleeue that our God in the heaven doth and therefore can doe whatsoever pleaseth him and so could had it pleased him and been his will haue preserved Adam from sinning against him Of their distinction of Gods will we shall speak by and by If in the mean while they except that God could not so will I would know the reason of their such presumption If they say there are some things which God cannot doe as to lie to deny himselfe to make the same thing to be and not to be at the same time and the like inferring either impotence in the Creatour or contradiction in the creature I demand what had there been herein against the nature either of the Creator or creature if God by his grace had kept the understanding of Adam from being overclowded with errour or false opinion and therewith his will and affections in the integrity of obedience This had not been as some imagine to destroy but to perfect his nature Hath not God so kept the elect Angels without all change from their primitiue purity Was not the Lord Iesus in his Manhood so kept upon earth And shall not all the elect be so kept for ever in heaven These are were and shall be unchangeably righteous and yet were not nor are nor shall be made Gods They themselues confesse that the devils are unchangeable in evill And why then might not both Angels and men be unchangeable in good that is so kept by the power of God as they never turn from their goodnes Or what barre would these men haue put against the power of God if his will had been so to haue preserved and kept Adam I demand whether the Apostles in their time could possibly preach any thing but the truth being immediately and infallibly guided by the Holy Ghost All these instances serue to proue that it is possible to God if it please him so to assist and confirm by his Spirit a reasonable creature though of a changeable nature in its selfe as that in regard of the same divine assistance it is not possible it should be changed from good to evill or sin against God Lastly if God could not haue so made and ordered Adam as that he could not haue sinned then God did not so much as suffer him to sinne seeing none can be said properly to suffer a thing to be done saue he that could hinder it if he would It were absurdly said that I suffer the wind to blow or sea to swell though I hinder them not seeing it is not in my power to hinder them ADVERSARIES THey add from Ezech. 18 33 Gods asseveration that as he liues he would haue no man transgresse and so come under the exequution of his justice making withall a short description of the will of God as they call it and ever confounding these two things necessity and compulsion and Gods not decreeing with his forcing men to sinne DEFENCE FOr better answering and understanding of the answer unto these things it must be considered first that the will of God though simple and one in its nature yet exerciseth it selfe diversly in regard of divers objects The first and weakest degree of Gods willing to speak of God as man is able to conceiu of him is that by which he wills the permission or suffering of sin as sin For if God suffer it he suffers it willingly seeing he both takes knowledge of it and could hinder it by his omnipotent power if he pleased The second degree of Gods willing is that by which he commands a thing to be done and approues of it if it be done The third and last degree is that according to which he workes all things by his omnipotent power And if a man whose will is finite yet can will things according to those degrees how much more both possible and easie is it to Gods infinite will to exercise it selfe more intensly or remisly according to those degrees I may be willing in cases to suffer that in another which I approue not of so may I command my servant or child to doe a thing and approu of it if it be done and yet not so will it as to use all the power that possibly I can to haue it done Some things again there are that I so will as that I doe or am bound to use all my possible skill and power to haue them effected These things are much more rightly said of God considering the infinite largenesse of his will compared with my straitnesse The same may be said of the Spirit of God which is one for there is one Spirit whose operation yet is divers and the same sometimes more and sometimes lesse forcible as we see in the knowledge of an Apostle compared with the knowledge of an ordinary Minister or Christâ—an and many other waies And these differences of the will of God in the exercising of itselfe towards the creature I desire the Reader here carefully to obseru for after use Their short definition as they unskilfully call it of Gods will by which he either wils what man is to doe or what he will doe in himselfe is short indeed as cutting off all that God will doe and doth out of himselfe and in the creature as are all his workes ad extra as they are called It remaines that in the next place we shew the difference between necessity and compulsion and Gods decreeing in our sense and his forcing of things which our Adversaries with great errour confound as the same and withall that things may after a sort be done necessarily and freely too Freely yea contingently also in regard of men and necessarily in regard of Gods work of providence according to his decree I mention Gods work according to his decree because to speak properly Gods decree or will works not things but his power according to his will There is indeed
haue not known them The Heathens therfore if we will giue credit to the word of God had not the knowledg of Gods word so not of the Gospel which is most hidden as being of supernatural revelation onely Of the same Gentiles the Apostle testifieth that God in times past suffered them all to walk in their own wayes that is did not manifest Christ unto them for faith in his bloud and repentance through him but onely his power and God-head giving them rain from heaven and other bodily blessings to witnesse the same With this accords that elswhere The times of this ignorance which had been amongst the Gentiles before Christ God regarded not or winked at but now commandeth all men every where as well Gentiles as Iewes to repent The Apostle opposeth the time now in which he preached to the former times and shews that God now and not in times past called all to repentance by the preaching of the word To conclude the same Apostle expresly teacheth that there is no salvation but by beleeving in the name of the Lord Iesus by the preaching of the word and Gospell by preachers sent of God for that end But now for any to say that every particular person in the world hath had or hath the word of the Gospell preached unto him by a preacher sent of God for that purpose were an assertion of him whose impudencie better deserved a club then any grounds that possibly he could lay a refutation considering both the infallible experience of all ages and testimony of scripture to the contrary and that there were places even in the latter end of the last Apostles time where Christ had not been named nor spoken of Next follows to be examined their exposition upon Rom. 9 in the introduction whereunto they mingle truth with errour They deal craftily in bearing the Reader in hand that the disputation of Paul herein is hard and the matter darkly handled that so they may turn the thoughts of the Reader from it or at least dim them with prejudice against that plain and evident truth of Gods free election and reprobation joyned therewith Both which things he sets down most clearly though the reason of the Lords different dealing towards them that are in themselves alike he makes unsearchable and determines in the free purpose of his will if men did not trouble the pure and cleare water of Gods sanctuary with the foul feet of their corrupt glosse They also erre in makeing this one of the places in Pauls Epistles of which the Apostle Peter speaketh 2. Pet. 3. 16. Peter doth not say neither wil the Greek text beare it that there are things hard in Pauls Epistles but that in those matters in his Epistles to wit about the day of the Lords comming and the dissolution of the heavens and elements and the new heavens and new earth promised were things hard to understand c. Their perverting of the Scriptures which they lay to the charge of others both in the Epistles of Peter and Paul and every where else wee haue formerly disclosed Neither do we affirm as they here charge us that God reprobates either the greatest number or any as they understand and elsewhere expound themselves that is predestinates them to condemnation without any condition Hee predestinates none to condemnation or which is all one purpose to condemne none but for sin freely by them to be practised as the fore-going condâ—tion and onely deserving cause of condemnation Neither say we as they slander us that God denieth means of salvation to men because he would haue them perish but as the Apostle reacheth that he hardens by that and other his holy dispensations whom he will that he might shew his wrath and make his power known upon the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction ADVERSARIES LEt us now come to their exposition The scope say thâ—y as of the whole Epistle so of this chapter is that not the Law but the Gospell is the power of God to salvation and that we are not justified by the workes of the Law but by faith even that faith which Abraham had DEFENCE AS the proper and particular scope of divers parts of this Epistle is divers so do they misse of the drift of this particular chapter which is not as they conceive to prove justification not to be by the workes of the Law but by the faith of Christ in the Gospell But to shew that the first and highest cause why of all mankinde faln in Adam one is cleared and another not is onely the good pleasure and free wil of God and not mans deservings and yet that God in so choosing or electing one before another doth nothing unjustly as shall appeare in the particulars hereafter to bee explained and may in the mean while be gathered by these three generall reasons First for the Apostle when of purpose he handles the matter of justification by faith chap. 3. 4. doth so oft and againe iterate and inculcate the terms of Faith and Iustification almost in every verse whereas here he never so much as once mentions either of them in the disputation it selfe which is to the end of vers 24. where he descends from the matter of election to the calling of the elected both of Iewes and Gentiles Secondly it is unreasonable to conceive that the Apostle having in the third and fourth chapter so fully handled and so expresly concluded that matter of Iustification by faith and not by works and chap. 7. the effect and end thereof Peace with God and perseverance to salvation and chap. 6. the matter of sanctification and chap. 7. the imperfection of that sanctification in this life and chap. 8. the afflictions of the faithfull and their perseverance notwithstanding to the death should now again without any occasion and against all order return to the same matter of justification so fully handled and ended before This might wel agree with these mens wandrings in this their treatise but agrees not with the wisdom either divine or humane wherewith the Apostle was furnished Much more absurd is it to imagine that having formerly handled that subject matter of justification so plainly as he hath done chap. 3 and 4. he should returne to handle the same matter so darkly and obscurely as all the adversaries to the truth and fautors of this conceit are compelled to confesse he hath done in this place Thirdly if this were the Apostles proper drift what needed he to have made such deep protestation of his hearty sorrow for the Iewes as he did more in this place then in the former where he handled that matter more clearly then here It was in truth no other thing that moved the man of God to these sad and sorrowfull protestations then to remov the offence which might be taken at the Iews rejection and calling of the Gentiles in their stead of which and the highest cause thereof hee was now to
sheep I haue which are not of this fold whom also I must bring c hee means the elect amongst the Heathens destinated to that one Sheep-fold under him that one Shepheard and by his voyce to be brought therto This is yet more plain v. 15 where he saith I giue my life for my sheep Christ dyed for the ungodly Rom. 5. 6. 8. By his sheep therfore in this place are meant the elect from eternity for whom he dyed the fruit of which election of God and death of Christ sheweth forth it selfe in their timeous faith and obedience Further note we for the thing in hand that Christ giues unto his sheep that hears his voyce and obey him eternall life as elsewhere also he saith He that beleeveth on the Son hath everlasting life If this life which they haue given them and haue in the beginnings of it even in this life be eternall and everlasting how can it be broken off afterwards Or if it can be interrupted and broken off how is it everlasting and eternall Lastly if none be able to pluck Christs sheep out of his and his Fathers hand then no sinfull person or temptation no malice of Satan can turn them from God for if they can then they can pluck them out of Gods hand Is not the destroying and corrupting of mens faith and obedience the plucking them out of the hand of God V. 12 the same word is used the wolfe catcheth and scattreth the sheep that is corrupteth them as Math. 7. 10 Act. 20. 29 where the same word is used also As they are elsewhere too prodigall of Christs benefits to all the goats in the world so are they here too niggardly of them to his own sheep Although in truth they grant though unawares as much as we plead for in saying that those sheep so long as they continue his sheep haue spirituall peace and safety c. Spirituall peace and safety is against all assaults of all spirituall enemies labouring to subvert the spirituall state of Gods people To the Scriptures here alledged by them for their purpose the answers formerly given touching conditional threatnings and Gods people in appearance must be applyed Of the former of the two Scriptures following which is Ioh. 13. 1 Whom he loveth he loveth to the end they speak as the thing is of Gods loue but as loath to be too much beholden to him for it and desirous Pharisaically to justifie themselvs they pull down what they formerly built in saying that the question is not of Gods and Christs loue unto his but of the continuance of our loue unto him wherein they both gainsay themselvs in this whole Treatise and the Scriptures throughout They put the question themselvs of Gods election and of the promise of election And is election and the promise of election a work of our loue to God or of Gods to us The Scriptures also ascribe the whole work of our salvation as election redemption by the bloud of Christ vocation revelation of heavenly things justification sanctification adoption faith repentance and the giving of the Spirit issue out of temptations and continuing blamelesse to the comming of the Lord unto the good pleasure and loue of God alone It is true that we must also loue God as they say But we must know withall that this our loue of God depends upon his loue of us first and the same shead abroad into our hearts by his Spirit which giues testimony therof to our spirits which as it were forceth loue again from us to God and the continuance of it the continuance of our loue according to that of the Apostle The loue of Christ constraineth us For as the beams of the Sun shed into the bosome of the earth first heat it and so cause it to reflect heat again towards heaven so by the loue of God shead into our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given us our hearts are most effectually drawn and perswaded to loue God againe and men for and according to him Which I further also manifest thus Our loue whether to God or man ariseth from faith unfeyned Faith stands in the assured perswasion of the heart by the Holy Ghost of Gods loue to us Wherupon I conclude that our salvation depending immediately upon our faith loue and obedience as conditions requisite by Gods ordination and they upon Gods loue and the same known to us and so the continuance of them upon the continuance of it the question is properly and principally of the loue of God to us and the unchangeablenesse therof For Rom. 11. 29 they dream waking that the meaning is that God will never repent of saving all persons at all times in all places that seek salvation by faith in Christ and continue therin If this were all what needed the Apostle v. 33 to break out into that admiration of the riches of the wisedom and knowledge of God and of the unsearchablenes of his judgments What strange thing is it that God should not repent of so gracious a purpose and promise as is that of saving such as beleev in his Sonne Secondly it is more then evident that he speake not here of saving all at all times but of the saving of some at sometimes namely of the Israelites in their time and of the Gentiles in theirs Thirdly the Apostle speaks not of saving them that beleev but of giving the election to obtain mercy to beleev Lastly the words are a reason of that which goes before the Israelites touching election are beloved for the Fathers sake v. 28. For or because the gifts and calling of God are without repentance as if he should haue said though for the present the body of the Israelites be enemies for the Gospell that is in not beleeving it till the fulnesse of the Gentiles be come in yet the election such as are that Israel according to election and Gods people which he foreknew v. 2 them he loues in his decree unchangeably for their father Abraham Isaak and Iakobs sake and without repentance and so will in their time make them actually partakers of his most gracious gift and calling They here add certain Scriptures and may doe many moe proving that God denies the effect to conditionall promises men breaking the conditions first But as the Scriptures cited by them speak not all of salvation in Christ so neither doe any other shew that God ever alters purpose or promise of saving any whom he once loved in Christ whether in decree or application of loue The last place which they labor to elude is 1 Ioh. 2. 19. They went out of us but they were not of us for if they had been of us they would no doubt haue continued with us but they went out that they might be manifest that they were not all of us And here in stead of answering directly to the place they make out-leaps as their manner is making us to affirm that