of Grace and Pardon which he committed to his Ministers to proclaim 2 Cor. 5. 19. But 2. on mans part it is not the knowledge and belief of this Iesus incarnate personally that was made necessary to all before his coming and therefore not to all after No man ever came to the Father but by the Son's Merit and Spirit nor without a consenting Belief and Affiance in God's redeeming or recovering pardoning saving Mercy and true Repentance and a sanctified Soul which is in love with God and goodness And whatever was absolutely necessary in the terms of the first Edition of the Covenant of Grace even to all the World before Christ's Incarnation But Christ never meant that no man before his Incarnation or since that heard not of him did come to the Father without believing that which the Apostles themselves long believed not after they followed Christ. § 27. The rest of the World were not bound to know so much of the Messiah as the Iews as having not the same Revelation § 28. 1. Having proved that it is a Law of Grace that all the World is to be ruled and judged by it remaineth to be enquired Whether any of them that have not the Gospel do keep the Conditions of this Law and so are justified by it and saved To which I answer 1. That being a matter of fact it is not of so great Importance for us to be certain of it as some imagine And who can be certain of the Affirmative unless the Scripture affirm it when if we knew all the World one man cannot be certain of anothers Sincerity And much less can any be certain of the Negative without Scripture Negation seeing no man can know every man in the World and every Heart § 29. 2. But it is exceeding probable at least That God would never govern many hundred parts of the World compared to the Iews before Christ's Incarnation and five sixth parts since his Incarnation by a Law of Grace which yet no person should ever have effectual Grace to keep as far as was necessary to his Salvation Every Law of God is a Means and appointeth the Subjects the use of much Means for their own Salvation These means they are bound to use and shall be condemned if they use them not and that none should ever use them savingly is an Assertion so unlikely that he that hath the boldness to affirm it should bring certain Proof of it which the Scripture I think doth not afford him § 30. But what numbers do perform the Condition and are saved no mortal man can tell But in general we know that God usually worketh in Congruity to his appointed means and consequently that far fewer are saved where less means is vouchsafed than among Christians who have herein the unvaluable pre-eminence above others § 31. For as the Jews had both the common Covenant of Grace and also the Covenant of Peculiarity setting them above all others so the Christian Church hath both the common Covenant of Grace and by the second edition of it a Covenant of Peculiarity both sealed by Baptism and the Lord's Supper as the Jews Covenant was by Circumcision and the Passover Yea our Covenant Privileges set us above the World incomparably higher than the Jâ—ws were § 32. Yet should we take warning by the example of the Jews Pride who were so confident that none were saved or beloved but themselves that they despised the rest of the World and provoked God to cut them off and call the Gentiles into higher privileges So some Christians so trust to their Gospel-Peculiarities as the Jews did to their Law that they despise all the World besides themselves and can easilier believe that God will damn a thousand millions that never heard the Gospel than one of them who have no more real Holiness than many of those whom they despise But it is our Duty to be thankful both for our excellent Peculiarities and also for the commoner Mercies unto others And I wish the impartial Reader to study Mal. 1. 10 11. whether even this be not the sence Nor will I accept an Offering at your hand for from the rising of the Sun to the going down of the same my name is great among the Gentiles and in every place Incense offered to my name and a pure Offering For my name is great among the Heathen saith the Lord of hosts but ye have polluted it Our Translators have as Expositors thrice at the least added the future Tense shall be But all the old Translations Syriack Caldeâ— Paraph. Greek Latin c. put it in the present Tense is great is offered I do but desire the Reader to study it It 's strange that all the ancient Churches should misunderstand it It seems more probable by the Context that the Hebrew Text understood the present Tense none being expressed § 33. If we might imitate our Father Abraham who yet saw Christ's day and rejoiced we should suppose the number of the saved through the world to be very considerable For as I said elsewhere though God had told him that Sodom was so much worse than the rest of the World that God would destroy it yet Abraham thought there might be fifty righteous persons there It 's like he thought not worse of the rest of the World § 34. Obj. You seem to make the rest of the World happier than the Iews for they had a Law that would justifie them and so had not the Iews Ans. The second assertion is false The Jews were under the Law of Grace which Paul calleth the Promise and might be justified by it and had greater helps to know and keep it than the rest of the World had But when they foolishly separated their Mosaical Law from the Promise or common Law of Grace Paul tells them by the Deeds of that Law no flesh could be justified § 35. Obj. Do you not thus confound the World and the Church Ans. No I ask you Did he confound them before Christ's Incarnation who thought that more than the Jews were saved Certainly no No more do I now § 36. The word Church is sometime taken so properly and strictly as to signifie only those that are under the Covenant of Peculiarity And so the Jews before Christ's Birth and Christians since make up the Church and some few perhaps before the Iews Covenant But sometimes it is taken more largely for the Kingdom of God For all that are in a state of Salvation under the several editions of the Law of Grace And so Iob and his Friends and Melchizedeck and many others before and all now that love God and Holiness sincerely are of the Church Accordingly by the World is meant either 1. All Men as under the Redeemer's Law of Grace antecedently to their Consent and so all the World belong to God's Kingdom as subditi obligati 2. Rebels that refuse Consent And so they are of the Kingdom by obligation but condemnable for Rebellion And
above all Vinc. le Blank yea and of moderate Papists Espencaeus Ferus Gerson Cassander and especially Erasmus And how harsh to the Lovers of Love and Peace are such Writings as spit Fire and Brimstone Reproach and bitter Censures against those that be not just of their Opinions it puts the wisest Divines hard to it how far they may pronounce Damnation on all those Heathens that live in Sincerity though not in Perfection according to that measure of the notification of God's Will which they are under that come to God in the belief that God is and that He is the Rewarder of them that diligently seek him and that in every Nation they that fear God and work Righteousness and are no worse than such Righteous men as Abraham thought even wicked Sodom had had fifty of are accepted of him And shall Christians damn curse and kill all that understand not a thousand Controversies which perhaps the destroyers as little understand and that know not an hundred things to be indifferent or lawful which the destroyers do but say are such § 7. It hath oft grieved me to read in Dr. Heylin's Life of Archbishop Laud how great a hand the Controversies then called Arminian or of the Five Articles had in the Divisions of the Church of England between those that he maketh Archbishop Abbot in England and Archbishop Usher in Ireland to Head on one part and the few that at first and many after that followed Archbishop Laud in England and Archbishop Bramhall in Ireland on the other part And to find what a stress the many Parliaments that feared Popery did lay on the thing that they called Arminianism And being carried down by the stream of many good mens Opinions and Fears I was my self some years confident that Arminianism was a character of an Enemy to the Soundness and Safety of the Church But when I had set my self throughly and impartially to study it I found that which so amazed me that I durst scarce believe what I could not deny even that from the beginning of the Quarrel between Augustine and Pelugius all the Voluminous Contentions of the Thomists or Dominicans and the Iesuites and Franciscans and between the Lutherans and Zuinglians herein and the Synodists and Arminians have been mostly about either unsearchable things which neither side understood or about ambiguous words which one Party taketh in one sence and the other in another or about the meer methodizing and ordering of the notions which both sides are agreed in and that indeed the most reach not the very point of the difficulty and controversie but talk before they understand as their Leaders have taught them And that when the matter is distinctly opened it is found that multitudes that write rail and plot against one another are really of one Opinion De rebus and did not know it And that the few remaining Controversies that are real and not only verbal are but of such small or dubious things as should break no Love nor Communion among Christians but all should with forbearance love each other in that liberty of judging which they cannot remedy The man that could cure all mens Errours and his own and will not is much to blame And he that would but cannot is little better if he will kill all that he cannot cure and no doubt hath greater than any of theirs uncured in himself And what Do I in all this take part with Ignorance Error Heresie or any Sin No! he that can cure it let him But is he a fit person to cure it that hath the Errours of Ungodliness Malice Lying and Bloodthirstiness in himself Or will killing men cure them The Charity of these men saith Burn hang or kill them leâ—t they infect others Ergo say others Kill these that far so because their Errours are the most pernicious lest they infect others with the Asps and Dragons killing Poyson Nature teacheth Man to hate and kill Wolves Kites Adders and all that live on the Blood of harmless Creatures and to protect Sheep Doves and such other Creatures as cannot protect themselves My nature grudgeth to live on the Flesh of these harmless Creatures though God hath given them to us but I little pity a Toad a Snake a Spider or a devouring Fox But regnante Diaâ—olo where the Devil ruleth he will have his Butchers and Shambles and as Brutes are killed for Men honest men shall be killed by these as for God And because God himself will not allow the murder of the Innocent and Just and Pious it is but calling them Rogues and Knaves and as Christ an Enemy to Caesar and as to Paul A Ring-leader of a Sect and Mover of Sedition among the People real crimes where there is real Guilt and then they may say of them and do to them what they will and by cheating History represent Saints as Villains to ignorant Posterity But O blessed be the final Just deciding Judge who is as at the door The Leech's Religion that cannot live without Blood is against the reliques of Humanity in Mankind so much that even they that for worldly interests comply with it do secretly suspect it to be indeed Diabolism § 8. But Satan told Christ that the Kingdoms of the World and the glory of them is delivered to him and their Power is his Gift which he giveth to whomsoever he will and that shall be to those that obey and worship him Luk. 4. 5 6. Though he be a Lyer too much of this is proved by the effects And doubtless where he reigns his work doth denote his Power and Government that is 1. Blind Ignorance Error Lying and Deceit 2. Malignant Hatred of good things and persons 3. Bloodthirsty and destructive wolvish ways And when he transformeth himself into an Angel of Light and his Ministers as into Ministers of Righteousness all this is done most successfully as for God and as by pretended Commission from Christ to kill the most conscionable and faithful Christians as odious Villains and that as for the Church and Christ and for Unity Order and Holy ends yea to kill them in meer Charity though they love not such charity to themselves Such is the Cainites and Cannibal Religion that will dye if it be not fed with Blood And yet is so impatient of its own name and to hear the recital of its own Exercise which hath maintained it a thousand years that it is a mortal crime to tell men that they do that which they openly do glory in Wonderful that it should be a necessary Virtue to do it and a capital Crime to say they do it To know what such do goeth for worse than doing it Inscius Acteon c. § 9. The effects of these Controversies have been and still are so dismal among Papists and Protestants that sure no man should be angry with a Reconciler that is not in love with Hatred and Destruction I confess they are very learned men of the Church
per se and independant for so none is good but God only And all this is the Effect of Grace § 45. 2. But saith Ian senius there is some grace which is not gratiâ— Christi the grace of Christ and such is all that cometh from meer fear without Love which is a kind of providential preparatory grace but not the grace of Christ. Ans. It is not that eminent and special grace of Christ But to think that it befalleth men without Christ's procurement and is not a commoner sort of Christ's grace when all Power in Heaven and Earth is put into his Hand and he is made Head over all things to the Church is below a Christian Divine to imagine and too injurious to Christ. But by all this it appeareth that even Iansenius differeth from others more about the Names of Good and Christ's Graces than about the Matter CHAP. XIV Of Mans Power and Free-will since the Fall § 1. SO much is said Chap. 9. of Mans natural Power and Free-will and so much now Chap. 13. of grace and the Power given by it as may allow me to be short in what is here to be added § 2. All that natural Power and Liberty which was essential to the Will remaineth in it since the Fall For Man is of the same Species § 3. The Will is still a self-determining Principle supposing 1. God's necessary Influx as he is the first Cause of Nature 2. And the Being and convenient Position of Objects 3. And the Perception of the Intellect 4. And the concourse of necessary concomitant second Causes § 4. The three Faculties of mans Soul are all vitiated by sin 1. The vital active Power is so far dead to God and Holiness as to need the cure of quickening and strengthening and exciting Grace 2. The Intellect is so far blinded as to need the cure of illuminating grace 3. And the Will is so far turned by Enmity from God to the inordinate Love of carnal self-interest and Creatures as to need the cure of converting sanctifying Grace § 5. Grace healeth the Will of this Enmity and vitious perverseness so far as it prevaileth which is 1. common Grace enableth it to common good and prepareth it for better 2. Special Grace causeth it actually and habitually to will and love special Good that is God as God and the Creature for God and Holiness as his Image 3. Perfecter Grace bringeth up the Will to perfecter holy Acts and Habits § 6. Nature it self is not in lapsed man divested of all moral or Divine Principles Abilities and Inclinations In the Intellect there are commen Notices of a Deity that is That there is one God who is infinitely powerful wise and good And in the Will there are some Inclinations still to good as good and therefore to God as far as he is truly conceived of as good and so far as that conception is not conquered by a cross Conception of some Enmity And so of other Good § 7. Nature and common Grace may cause a man to go as far in Love and Religion as those whom we call the highest Hypocrites or almost-Christians may do which our practical Preachers do frequently tell the People at large in Books and Sermons § 8. Such may have a common sort of Faith in Christ even formerly to the working of Miracles and of Repentance and Reformation and of good Desires and love to goodness and good Men yea to God himself § 9. For men are not so corrupt by Nature much less under the Effects of common grace as to hate all goodness or to hate all that is in God They may love God as he is the Almighty Creator Preserver and Natural-Orderer of the World and the Cause of its Being Motion Beauty Harmony and all natural Good And they may love him as he is the Giver of life and all natural Blessings to themselves and as he is the Preserver of them and their only Security and Help in Danger and not only as his Blessings gratifie their Senses but as all their Hope of everlasting Happiness is in his Power and Love They may love him as he doth this good to others also and is the common Benefactor to the World without whom it could not subsist a moment And they may love him as he maketh such Laws as preserve their lives and Properties and Rights from Fraud and Violence and by making other Men conscionable just and charitable to all do both gratifie themselves and tend to the common Order Peace and Welfare of Societies and of Mankind § 10. I am not able to confute or deny what Adrian afterwards Pope hath written in his Quodlibets That an unsanctified Man not in a state of Salvation may so far love God even above himself as to consent rather to die and be annihilated than were it possible God should be annihilated or not be God For a Heathen might consent to die for his Country And he is a Bâ—ast and no Man that would not rather be annihilated than all the World yea or all the Kingdom or all the City should be annihilated or than the Sun should cease to be or to shine And he that knoweth that if there were no God there could be no World no Being Motion Knowledge Goodness or Felicity in the World besides that which is worse the Cessation of the Infinite Good himself must be yet more unmanly if he would not rather be annihilated alone if per impossible you suppose he could live alone than all this greater Evil should come to pass He that tells men that they shall be saved if they would rather be annihilated than that there should be no God doth make them a promise which God hath not made § 11. But as the same Author observeth that which the unholy cannot do is to love God as God as the ultimate Object and most amiable Good to be known and by Love and Holiness enjoyed and pleased by a holy Soul and this above all sensual terrene Delights and to love him as the holy Ruler of the World who forbiddeth all sinful sensuality and all mens inordinate Conceits Desires Delights and Practices and requireth holiness and purity of Mind and Life and Sobriety and Temperance and Self-denial in all that will be saved And as he is a just Judge who will execute all these Laws and condemn the ungodly to endlers Misery They love not God as he is the holy Goâ—â—â—â—our and righteous Iudge of men that would restrain them from their sinful Wills and Pleasures and damn them if they will not be holy And consequently they love not his Laws and other means by which this is to be done Because loving the pleasure of their Lusts and being averse to things spiritual high and holy they love not that holiness and rectitude in themselves which God commandeth Rom. 8. 5 6 7 8 c. § 12. Though God as the Fountain of Nature continue the natural power and liberty of the Will yet its moral
these are the World in the worst sence 3. Consenting Subjects under the Common Law of Grace who yet were not Iews nor are not in the Covenant of Peculiarity And such are in a state of Salvation though not in the Church of the peculiar as the Subjects of Melchizedeck Sem c. and so are both in the Church and in the World in several sences § 37. Having delivered that in this great Question which seemeth to me agreeable to God's Word I advise those that use to assault such things with reproach which they find reproached by their Party to remember that God is Love and Christ is the Saviour of the World and the Pharisaical Appropriators of Mercy and Salvation do seldom know what spirit they are of CHAP. XVII Of the Necessity of Holiness and of Moral Uirtue § 1. HOLINESS is our Dedication Separation or Devotedness to God and alienation from all that stands in competition or contrariety to God § 2. It is our Separation to God as the Creator of our Nature and our Redeemer and the Author of Grace and our Felicity and the Cause of Glory As the first Efficient supreme Dirigent and ultimately final Cause § 3. It is our separation to God as our Owner by Resignation as our Ruler by Obedience and as our Benefactor and ultimate End by Thankfulness and Love in the acknowledgment of his infinite power wisdom and goodness as essential to himself and related to his works § 4. Holiness is our dispositive actual and relative separation to God 1. When our Souls are habitually inclined to God and to his Will 2. When we actually give up our selves to God and to his will by Consent first and Obedience and Love after 3. It signifieth the relation of the Person as thus habitually and actually separated A holy Priesthood 1 Pet. 2. 5 9 11. § 5. Holiness is the Habit and Act of all the three Faculties of the rational Soul viz. 1. Of the vitael Active Power by Quickening and Strength 2. Of the Intellect by Illumination 3. Of the Will by Conversion Love or Complacency § 6. The Soul as sensitive and the body it self are said to be sanctified so far as they are dispositively and actually subject and subservient to a holy Soul in Holiness and related accordingly as separate to God § 7. Our Holiness is no alienation from the Creature as a Creature in its due place and subordination to the Creator but contrarily containeth our Honour of and Love to all God's Creatures for his sake and impress and a devoting of all that is ours to his use But it containeth a renunciation of that which is against his Honour and Government and Love as such § 8. As God communicateth Holiness really and relatively to Man so holy persons communicate such Holiness to Creatures below them as consisteth in the use and relation of things separated to God by a due separation of them by their dedication and holy use and that in various degrees § 9. True Holiness is the Health the Rectitude the Honesty the Justice of man's Soul and therefore necessary as his Duty by God's Law even of Nature and to his Happiness both in the very nature of the thing and by the determination of God's Law It is a contradiction to be happy and unholy Rev. 20. 6. § 10. Holiness is the end or perfection of our Nature and God's chief Interest in man and is begun by Grace and perfected in Glory § 11. The Fear of God and his Iudgments and a Care of our own Souls and a Sorrow for Sin and a desire of Happiness may be not only Preparatives but lower parts of Holiness but the true formal specifying nature of it consisteth in a love of God's infinite goodness and a Will addicted to obey his Will or a Pleasedness in pleasing Him This is Holiness § 12. Because a man is denominated according to the predominant bent of his Will or Soul he is not to be called Holy who hath some slight inclination to please God and more to please his own carnal Appetite and Will or greater love to the Creature than to God § 13. Christ himself came into the World to recover sinful Man by Holiness to God and disdained not to be a means of Man's Sanctification and to make this the notable operation of his Holy Spirit on us § 14. Whatsoever Law Men are under before Christ or since Jew or Gentile Works or Grace no man can be saved and happy without Holiness that is unless they be devoted in Obedience and Love to GOD and Goodness § 15. No man can be damned that is holy while such nor can God hate and make miserable those that truly love him and his governing Will. § 16. Yet a person that is holy may deserve Damnation by deserving to be denied that help of the Holy Spirit by which his Holiness must be continued And as to be saved is to be perfectly sanctified so to deserve Hell is to deserve to be forsaken to the â—oâ—al loss of Holiness And so though it be hard for us to know whether Adam's first loss of Innocency was a total loss of Holiness yet if it were not it was a forfeiture of divine help and so a mediate loss of it And so a man that loveth God sincerely may by great Sin deserve to be deprived of the Spirit and therefore we must pray for the pardon of such desert for the sake of Christ though we cannot be damned or miserable while holy § 17. Obj. But how doth God love a holy Soul if he forsake him and with-hold his Spirit And if he be not loved of God he is miserable If he be loved he will not be forsaken Ans. Answer this your self as to the Case of the Angels and Adam God loved them and yet not so as to secure them from the loss of Grace But he so far loved them efficiently as to give them that grace by which they could persevere but not that by which they necessarily should persevere and he loved them complacentially according to the goodness which was in them and yet they lost it § 18. Obj. That is because they were left to their Free will and had but sufficient Grace and not efficacious determining Grace But it is now otherwise with all true Believers Ans. True Believers have not determining efficacious Grace to prevent all sin nor all such sin as Noah Lot David Peter did commit And that sin deserveth an answerable desertion of God it being a deserting him first so far And though God pardon it yet the desert is presupposed to the pardon for it is desert of punishment that is pardoned § 19. Quest. If a man were holy that is an obedient Lover of God and Goodness without Faith in Christ would that save him Answ. 1. The Covenants of Grace requireth various degrees of Faith according to its several editions and promulgations It is not the same degree of