For what should hinder Not all that are drawn come whether that be so or no may soon be known by considering other expressions of the same thing in that place John 6.37 All that the Father giveth shall come and v. 65. No man can come unto me except it were given unto him of my Father and v. 45. Every man that hath heard and learned cometh and v. 44. No man can come except the Father draw him To give and to draw and to teach are of the same import All that are given and all that are taught and likewise all that are drawn do come Your Masters have thought that they eluded this word of Drawing and fairly came off from all force of argument from thence when they found out that it was to be interpreted by teaching in the very next verse following they shall be all taught of God not remembring that Gods teaching is not like mens and that none teacheth like him No nor so much as considering how that it follows in that very verse Every man that hath heard and learned cometh Which as it wholly overthroweth that evasion of theirs manifestly also sheweth the falshood and absurditie of what you here say not all that are drawn come In your 8 Section you yield that Gods Grace doth remove infidelitie but not give faith unless thus explicated Faith or power to beleeve this I take to be all one with what some others say that He doth not give credere but onely posse credere and for this you quote Hos 11.4 I did take off the yoke on their jaws and laid meat before them This is spoken of the civil state of the Israelites and when you have made it appear that the yoke there mentioned is to be taken for a muzzel you are driven to betake your self to a vein of allegorizing for proof of your opinion when it is well known that many plain and direct places prove the contrary Your other texts shew what God doth outwardly to a Nation or Church visible but do not shew that he doth no more than so in the conversion of a particular person Sect. 9. Therefore he may think with himself if I be of the former I must be brought in take what course I will and if of the other I must perish take the best course I can Therefore I had as good take the present good things while I may have them and live as I list He must needs be a man absurd and unreasonable and for the time given over of God that shall in earnest speak in his heart after this manner And if ever he return to his right wits he will begin thus rather to argue with himself If God hath chosen me to be a Saint in heaven and doth intend to bring me to glory then I must out of all doubt beleeve and repent and amend my ways and continue in Gods holy laws to my lives end knowing that without holiness no man shall see the Lord. And although the book of election be now closed up and a seal set upon it yet there is an inscription upon that seal which I can easily see and read Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity But if God doth intend to condemn me to Death eternal it will be for my wickedness and for my rebellion and for being so graceless as to argue thus scornfully against Gods mercie and the dutie that I ow to him I will therefore with my utmost diligence apply my self to the faith and fear of his most sacred name and take heed while I live of such desperate and blasphemous thoughts knowing they proceed from none but the Devil who out of his endless malice to God and envie towards me would perswade me to be a more sot in things concerning life eternal than he dareth to perswade me to be in matters of this life and bodily health For if I knew assuredly that God did now purpose to prolong my life to such a term of years it were too gross a temptation to be put upon me to make me beleeve that it were well done of me henceforth to cast off all care of providing food and raiment and avoiding deadly dangers and not to call for a boat when I am to pass over the water and when I go into the field to battel to leave my armour behinde me In those things therefore that far more nearly concern me I will never be so vile an hypocrite or in effect so forlorn an atheist as to discourse and conclude in such a sort upon supposal of Gods foreknowledge and determination whatsoever some have told me I may do CHAP. XIII Whether all in Adam be pardoned THe Doctrine maintained by you in this chapter is That although all sins whatsoever springing from the sin of Adam be forgiven as of due debt through Gods mercie and the sacrifice of his Son Nevertheless by the manifestation of this his Death and Sacrifice and by occasion of this his goodness made known to men all their actual sins become new debts because they are done against Gods Grace and Truth shining upon all men In defence and explication of this detestable Doctrine You afford us a twofold distinction the first is this such sinning as doth arise from force of natural corruption is not charged upon men but onely sinning voluntarily and unnecessitatedly against the Truth striving to reclaim them pag. 63. The second distinction is so fine and of so great subtility that it flies quite away from all good sense You distinguish of sins considered before or without Christs coming from sins considered as before or without his coming and you ask pag. 68. if I cannot so abstract as to consider them as in the root and according to what they had onely by virtue of that from what they are as against Grace vouchsafed But what say you in the mean time to those sins that are both natural or in some sort necessitated by corruption of nature and voluntarie too as many sins if not the greatest part of them are Shall they be forgiven as natural and punished as voluntary Consider sins as before or without Christs coming they would yet have been against light the light of nature and should not they have been charged upon any man because they were not against the light of grace or the Gospel And know you not that to love darkness more than light resisting of the truth and hatred to be reformed and offending against mercy and goodness are all of them as necessarily derived from the root you speak of and are as truly parts and products of our hereditary pravitie as any sins are whatsoever you can name The chief place of Scripture you alledge is Joh. 15.22 24. If I had not come they had not had sin it had not been charged upon them You make a twofold coming of Christ of this sort One as he came spiritually in his light and truth into the world in all ages upon the
purpose of Election 1. ordaineth life eternal absolutely not whether we beleeve or no as is constantly and as I think unconscionably by some objected but without any such conditional proviso of beleeving because 2. it ordaineth â—aith and all other means infallibly conducing to eternal life So there is difference enough between the Doctrine of the Gospel and the Decree of Election though they be made all one by them that lay the grounds of the study in Divinitie in the modern systome of the Racovian Catechisme as may be seen there in pag. 231. but in doing so they attempt to break open the seal which the Apostle speaks of 2 Tim. 2. and to publish all that is contained and concealed under it Even this All men that beleeve shall be saved But enough hath been said of this chapter CHAP. XV. Election in beleeving Pag. 79. You interpret those words of the Apostle 2 Thess 2.13 from the beginning thus from the beginning of the Gospel preaching amongst them like as the same phrase is used 1 Joh. 2.24 let that abide in you which you have heard from the beginning But I pray you are these parallel places If you did intend to gather the meaning of the Scripture by conferring one place with another why did you not confer this with Ephes 1.4 he hath chosen us before the foundation of the world you should compare places that are alike and speak of the same thing as these two do and not finde out a place where the same word is used of quite another matter Or did the Apostle intend to free from the danger of defection those that beleeved at the first hearing more than those that beleeved a while after To be chosen out of the world I said is Vocation not Election This you say is a sorry shift Election is not so large as Vocation for many be the called few the chosen You will not rightly deliver the grounds of Divinitie if you cannot distinguish betwixt Vocation external Vocation internal Of the former it is said Many are the called few the chosen Of the other the Apostle speaketh to this effect Rom. 8. All that are called were elected are justified and shall be glorified He saith The Lord hath chosen him that is godly is to be understood of choice to office that is the kingdome Psal 4.3 a piteous evasion Chooses he godly men always to be kings But the Psalmist speaks but singularly so that you need not to extend it to all godly men In behalf of the exposition which I gave I have this authoritie Grotius Sanctum suum id est unctum Tremellius Ut Regem quem designavit statuat Lyra Fecit mirabilem vocando de gregibus ad regni jura Genebrard Celebrem reddidit me Davidem à se consecratum D. Hammond separated me to be his Vicegerent upon earth conferring with Psal 78.70 be chose David also his servant Ainsworth God had promised David the honour of the kingdome Calvin Communem sententiam sequi tutius judico â—uod Deus regem elegerit So that it is the common exposition which I gave so you may see how rash you are in censuring those that gave approbation to this which you call a piteous evasion If in Psal 65. Blessed is the man whom thou choosest be meant of choosing or admitting to the Church visible then Judas and the Pharisees were blessed men Yes they were blessed after such a manner as all the members of the Church visible are blessed Psal 84.5 Blessed are they that dwell in thy house Yet hypocrites may dwell in Gods house You must know therefore that blessedness in such like cases doth not signifie blessedness absolute but respective and particular and the intent is onely to speak well of or to commend the condition of them whom we call blessed Blessed are thy servants that stand before thee hear thy wisdome Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them Blessed are the barren Blessed art thou O Land when thy King is the son of Nobles You may finde it otherwise rendred Ecclus 25. Well is him that dwelleth with a wife of understanding Well is him that speaketh in the ears of him that will hear With whom it is well he is called blessed Thus may we say that Judas and the Pharisees were blessed men or happie men in hearing and conversing with Jesus Christ as Solomons servants were in standing before him not that they were absolutely blessed or happy persons Having thus bewrayed your ignorance and vulgar conceptions unbecoming a learned man nevertheless with these words you put an end to this chapter I may conclude he hath piteously cavill'd here and made sorrie and senslese evasions whether out of wilfulness or some hand of the Lord infatuating him I know not but me thinks that he himself and all that read him should be ashamed of it I heard that a Doctour and some reverend men in C. gave approbation to this piece of his I hope it is not so for if it be I greatly fear God hath infatuated the men of this generation because of their too long and stubborn opposition of the truth that they should commend things so sensless In your last leaf you charge my review with want of three things Logick Ethicks and Theologie Doubtless you had too little of something or other when you wrote after this manner for which your manner you deserve no other answer than this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that so you may accompanie Cyclops in the den But because you are pleased at the end in correction of the mis-printings to take notice of an ugly parenthesis as you call it and to put a deleatur upon it s iquid aliud ejusdem gener is inveniatur and upon any thing else that may be found like unto it if you be content we are agreed that these lines bear that parenthesis companie and be thrust in among the Errata of your own which you there distinguish from those of the press So proceed I to that which followeth CHAP. XVI Election in personal considerations Sect 1. IN Election to life we cannot be considered as fallen in Adam and be chosen in Christ one consideration destroys the other as he that gives another a cup of water as a disciple doth not give it him simply as to a thirsty man You may think you have got the start of me in crying on t weakly piteous sensless There is no great hurt done but who can otherwise think of this and a great deal the like of yours but as weak and worthless May not a cup of cold water be given to a Christian both because he is thirstie and wanteth relief and also because he is Christs disciple and in that regard claimeth relief at the verie same time that he is considered as a Christian he is also considered as thirstie else the gift were not worth the giving So may we be considered as fallen in Adam and needing help and withall as ordained
the Law of Moses were matters hard to be understood by the Jews and in which were many perplexities yet were plainly delivered by the Apostle The impossibility of Apostates repentance and renovation was plainly taught yet attended with difficulties and wrested by the Novatians So is the final period of the world foretold in holy Scripture yet are there many obscurities about it and many errours The Resurrection of the dead is fully and manifestly declared and confirmed yet because it was hard to be understood and beleeved it was wrested to this sense as if it were already past whether interpreted of rising from the death of sin or any other way These particular doctrines now by me named are by divers diversly conjectured to be intended by S. Peter as well as that doctrine to which you apply his words Gods gracious and free Election likewise final Perseverance are evidently taught by the Apostle Peter 1 Epist ch 1. ver 2 and 5. as well as by the Apostle Paul Rom. 8.29 30. and in the chief part of the ninth chapter And because these things are hard to be yeelded to and hard to be received and because there be many things belonging thereto that are secret and unfathomable let not therefore that which is plainly taught be either denied or in such a manner interpreted and perverted that it amounts to a denial You and yours have so gone to work that to an ordinarie capacitie the chapter spoken of is made scarce intelligible You say God decreed not to choose particular persons but to choose all such as beleeve the promises of the Gospel and to refuse all such as seek justification by works whereas certainly had there ever been any such decree made then Paul had never been chosen who was a law-worker as you call it So were many of the Jews and Pharisees who yet were brought to life eternal And whereas the Apostle teacheth Election and Salvation to be Not of man that worketh willeth er runneth but of God that sheweth mercy you have so wrested it that now it is Not of man that willeth or worketh but of man that beleeveth and continueth in Faith and Repentance to his lives end And indeed if Election be of such as such who persevere in Faith and Repentance then is Election of workers in respect of their works namely Beleeving and Repenting and Persevering which are works all of them belonging to Gods law And thus have you overthrown your own doctrine which you have devised wherewith to overthrow the doctrine of S. Paul Sect. 12. It is one thing to look boldly another that it may do so Humane frailties hinder not Christian boldness But he that saith I may look boldly doth there-withall and in so saying look boldly indeed Now you made your book look boldly whether it might do so or no when you taught it to say in the Preface that it might look your worst Adversaries boldly in the face And although he that hath humane frailties may look boldly yet his humane frailties may not and if he saith they may he doth then justifie his frailties And thus much for your Preface or first Chapter CHAP. II. The word Creatours I Shall put him in minde where he may read it in Ainsworth upon Psal 149. The Christian Churches never forbad us to read Eccles 12.1 in the Hebrew tongue or to turn it into English according to its proper force or Idiome You have helped me where to finde the word in our language but that it is found in our Church I cannot admit for you know that Ainsworth was a professed Separatist from the Church of England It was somewhat boldly done of him to turn it so who yet in his Title professed to explain the Hebrew words but it was far more boldly done of you to learn the children at the very first to speak so As you have helped me to the notice of one so will I in lieu of him help you to the notice of another whom perhaps you have not yet observed or if you have I dare say you never before took notice of one of his places which he hath added to yours and Ainsworths It is Th. Br. of N. in a small tract published last year His fourth instance is in these words Eph. 2.12 And ye were without Gods in the world so it is in the Greek plurally but it is falsty tran slated God singularly as if there were but one God in the Trinity I hope there is a mean on this side the Tridentine Restraint without such libertie as many men affect who are afraid that they shall not be known but pass in obscurity and not be counted more learned and judicious than others are if they do not mend and alter something or other though it be without exception generally received and of long continuance AEneas Sylvius before he was Pope or Cardinal or Bishop was Secretary to Frederick the Emperour and having indited some letters at his first coming to the employment he sent the copy to a Bishop then living at the Court who procured him that preferment desiring him to examine it and alter what he should finde needed alteration who soon after returned him again his copie in sundry places blotted but no way bettered having put out divers words here one and there another placing such in their stead as were no way so fit and proper and when the Secretarie asked him the reason and what he misliked in those words that he thus corrected Atqui said the Bishop non vidisse me scripta tua suspectare poteras si nihil immutatum reperisses you would have thought I never read or perused your writing had you received it again just such as you sent it to me I could wish that those men who are forward to show their diligence and their skill in the learned languages or perhaps their ignorance as it hapned in the instance I now gave you by mending the vulgar version would innovate in matters of less moment for these be indeed above any profanae vocum novitates I know it is one thing to teach that such a point of Faith is implyed in such an Hebrew Idiom another thing to teach children and common people to use the plural number upon pretence of drawing the Church to the Scripture Christian Churches forbid not to read Eccles 12.1 in Hebrew but they are against rendring every word just as it is in that language as their practice doth plainly witness And would you indeed that the English Bible should begin in the same manner and with the same pretence that you began your Catechisme withall The Gods created heaven and earth I hope you would not and yet you are in the way to it And though you teach your scholars at your fourth Question to answer There is but one God yet if they be wonted to read or hear that word in the plural and be used so to speak will they not go near to forget your Answer in your Catechisme and
have some certain qualitie which in this Metaphor of the book of life plainly is answerable to their proper names You who have gone so far with them or after them are in danger to go further What irreligious principles they that plead for their libertie of will are forced to maintain I know not That you might soon have seen by that which follows there By Their libertie I mean such libertie as they plead for and such as cannot stand with certaintie of Prescience Say they For any one to exhort another to do that which he knoweth before hand he will not do is to dissemble such libertie as must be free not onely from coaction or compulsion but from necessitie of infallibilitie as to the event which necessitie is incident to things contingent and fortuitous for events necessarie contingent chanceable are called so and differenced so in respect of their second causes not in respect of the first or supreme cause for Quicquid est quando est necessariò est any thing that is must needs be so then when it is so That Saul after he was wearied with seeking up and down the countrey for his fathers cattel should on such a day and such an hour of the day meet with the Prophet Samuel was to Saul then when it came to pass as certain as that the sun should set that night or did rise that day that is it was most certain because it was present But to God all things are certain and present that shall be as certain to him though future as to us though present Socinus therefore was driven and if he had not been driven and enforced to it he would never have done it to denie and impugne Divine Prescience and that in order to denial of Divine Decrees and to maintain Quod non est certum non est scibile nec futurum whatsoever comes to pass and doth not certainly come to pass is not capable of being known no more than factum infectum fieri is capable to be done And the Socinians in Compendiolo Negant admissa infallabili omnium futurorm Praescientiâ refelli posse dogma de Praedestinatione and whether they speak reason or no Ger. Vossius can tell whose words are these Hist Pelag. c. 6. Th. 15. Nisi negarc volumus Deum praescire quid homo pro quibusque circumstantiis sit acturus fateri etiam COGIMUR Deum certis hominibus Gratiam praeparâsse quâ certo infallibiliter salventur aliis verò hujusmodi Gratiam non praeparâsse that is Unless we will say that God doth not foreknow what man will do upon such and such circumstances we cannot but of necessitie confess that he hath for some certain men prepared such grace whereby they shall certainly and infallibly be saved and not prepared such grace for others If Faith be Gods gift and if he will give it to whom he will give it this is that predestination which you endeavour what you can to fright the world withall That therefore which you call in this chapter a horrible errour and I called an irreligious principle you must fall to and defend by rational consequence unless you give over your horrible and irreligious manner of reviling Gods decrees I fear this Gentleman is so far from thinking that God did not know before that he thinks he decreed necessitated Adam to sin Would I follow his course in fastening upon him the sayings and judgements of other men of his minde I might finde passages enough to that purpose in many of them to render him and his opinions odious but Mr P. hath done it so fully that I shall but actum agere do what is done already and therefore I shall leave the Reader for that to him Although I do think that you have more minde to slander than cause to fear yet I will now tell you 1. I do not beleeve God did decree sin but I think you beleeve that he did decree the permission of sin 2. In those things which are decreed to come to pass Gods decree inferreth no necessitie upon inferiour causes or agents because he decreeth all things to come to pass according to their kinde natural agents to act naturally voluntarie agents voluntarily So of necessary contingent and casual agents I pray suffer your self to be informed a little better by Dr. P. Baro pag. 321. in explication of this position Dei Decretum pravae voluntatis libertatem non tollit Therefore I shall leave you for that to him But if you have so much leasure as to trouble your self about others and what it is that they think and that you would not be afraid there where no fear is I pray let all your fear in this matter be for them that call it A gross solecism to imagine that there should be one cause of the act and another of the obliquitie or sinfulness of the act and that think it is as impossible to separate the wickedness of the act from the act that is wicked as it is to distinguish the roundness of the globe from the globe that is round So that he which is the Authour of the one must be the Authour of the other also yet the Apostle Paul said Acts 17.28 In him we live and move Let it be for them who tell you it must be a Metaphysical head that can determine how God should work by evil instruments and not be guiltie of the evil and yet the Apostle said Acts 3.18 He hath So fulfilled Let it be for them that think he who withholdeth a thing which being present would hinder an event is the cause of that event and in whose power it is that a thing be not done to him it is imputed when it is done and he that withdraweth the light is the cause of that which followeth for want of the light And yet no man that hath his reason left entire to him can imagine that the sun which is all light having no darkness in it can be the cause when it setteth of the shadow of the night It is an easie matter to make any opinions seem odious to those men that are full gorged with prejudice against them Every thing feeds according to the kinde and constitution Torva leaena alupum scquitur I can tell of some who in the doctrines of the Church of England wherein they have been educated have been verie much confirmed by the matter and the manner of some mens writings against them And as for those men that take such pains to make the opinions you speak of to be odious I do wish and if it might be I would advise them that they would at last forbear and not please themselves in so odious a practise whether these opinions be true or false is uncertain it is at least probable that they are the Truth and upon these reasons First it because very many of these men by their own confession were of the verie same minde in these points of doctrine and held that
children of the Resurrection shall be equal to the Angels Luke 20.36 and the bodie raised shall be not a natural but a spiritual bodie 1 Cor. 15.44 and therefore shall not need natural but spiritual refection and delight Sixthly Whereas the Church of God is either militant or triumphant either subject to temptations and exercised with crosses on earth or else crowned with victory and glory in heaven By this opinion the Church for so many years shall be neither or betwixt both out of heaven but reigning on earth without sin without ordinances And whereas the Church of God upon earth is a mixt societie of good and bad and is to continue such till the last the tares must grow with the wheat till the harvest which is the end of the world by this opinion the wheat shall grow alone without the tares the just reign without the unjust long before final consummation And Lastly According to the Millenarians new Creed the joy of the Saints in Gods presence and the pleasures at his right hand shall not be for evermore or perpetually continued but be broken asunder intermitted not with absolute misery but with happiness so far inferiour to that of heaven in degree and in kinde that it may well be interpreted and taken for a degree of unhappiness When Peter saw but a figure or glimpse of the celestial light he forgat all things would never by his good will have come down from the mount And can we think that the glorified Saints who are perfectly blessed with the sight of Gods face shall be rewarded with leaving heaven and coming down to enjoy the tastless pleasures of an earthly Paradise Had you observed your own rule you gave us before page 11. Contrary to things plain and fundamentall no difficult saying is to be enterpreted because it would be against the Analogie of Faith you would never have suffered your self to be carryed away with such a dream as this is A very learned Commentatour who telleth us he hestowed above thirtie years studie upon the book of the Revelation after all this saith he found it an easier matter to say what the thousand years are not than to say what they are or what is meant by them and yet there lyes your greatest strength of Chiliasm Saint Pauls Epistles are hard to be understood you could once alledge it to weaken the testimonie taken thence Is not S. Johns Revelation especially the twentieth Chapter much more hard In your first chapter you could spy a mote of Judaism where there was none but behold a beam here which you would not see while you interpret spiritual promises by a temporal kingdome which is the main and blinding errour of the Jews to this day Now I come to consider the Texts of Scripture upon which you ground this opinion 1 Cor. 15. 23. Every man shall rise in his own order and is that onely the just are they every man they that are Christs at his coming he says not then all men at his coming as men commonly say Elsewhere it is said All men good and bad shall rise at his coiming I named before joh 5.28 I name now Maith 25.31 When the Son of man cometh he shall separate one from another as the shepherd divideth the sheep from the goats must they not both be raised before they be separated 2 Thess 1. It is righteous to recompence rest to you who are troubled when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven taking vengeance of them that know not God 2 Tim. 4.1 Jesus Christ shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing if the quick and dead then the unjust and if they be judged they must be raised first And secondly whereas it is said Every man shall rise in his own order Unusquisque Every one extendeth no further than to Christ and his bodie mystical first Christ the Head and then those that beleeve in him not denoting any orderin beleevers as if one should rise before another much less doth it extend to unbeleevers or shew how they shall rise which is proved further because ver 22. To be made alive as I take it is never understood but of resurrection to life to which standeth in opposition resurrection to condemnation Why says Christ he that doth good shall be rewarded Luke 14.14 at the resurrection of the just if the just and unjust shall both rise together why speaks he of that as a distinct period He doth not speak of it as a distinct period of time but as of a distinct state Many things may differ very much which yet may come to pass together The prisoners that are innocent or that have obtained a pardon may call the Assizes the time of enlargement and delivery and yet upon the very judgement-day when they are acquitted and sent home other malefactours may be sent back to prison and execution 1 Cor. 15. 24. Then cometh the end when he shall have delivered up the kingdome to God the Father Now plain it is that he shall not deliver up the kingdome then when the just shall rise for they shall reign with him wherefore also it is said He shall judge the quick and the dead at his coming and in his kingdome 2 Tim. 4.1 that implyes that he shall not deliver up the kingdome at his coming but when he hath reigned with his Saints that here suffered with him If Death be put down at his coming where is his reign till that be put down You loose your self and all that follow you in your confusions while you choose rather to lead the ignorant than to tread in the steps of the learned that have gone before you There is a twofold kingdome of our Saviour Jesus Christ The first Natural Absolute and Essential to him as he is God equal with the Father with whom he reigneth from everlasting to everlasting of this kingdome shall be no end and as he never received it of any so shall he never surrender it The other is a Ministerial or Oeconomical Kingdome belonging to him as he is Mediatour having all power given him in heaven and earth for the good and salvation of his Church whereof he is the Head This kingdome consisteth in dispensing his gifts diversly for the edification of his people by his Spirit Word Ministerie and Ordinance and in subduing Sin Satan Death and all enemies of what kinde soever This kingdome he hath received of his Father and shall at last deliver it up As if a king should give authority and commission to his eldest son to go and reduce to due obedience a rebellious countrey lying at some distance which work being done the son returneth renders up his Commission delivers to his Father the possssion of a peaceable kingdome yet ceaseth not to be his Fathers son as he was before The text you bring out of 2 Tim. 4.1 and that of Rom. 8.17 and 2 Tim. 2.11 12. do speak of the first kinde of kingdome But that of
of They shall not plant and another eat they shall not plant a tree and then never live to taste of the fruit but they shall last as long as the tree so it follows in that verse They shall long enjoy the work of their hands as elsewhere the just is compared to a tree for growth and continuance so here he is compared to this tree here spoken of Now your Authour after the Septuagint readeth thus As the days of the tree of life so shall the days of my people be The days of the tree of life he understood to be a thousand years which Adam should have lived had he not transgressed the law given But eating of the other tree the tree of knowledge he could never attain to that age nor any of his posteritie But that he took to be the age that men should live to after the first Resurrection Thirdly In those words of his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 you are to know that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is restrictive he doth not say that all Christians held it but they that were in all things orthodox did hold it because he held it himself and therefore held that to be a part of orthodoxy But some who were orthodox but not in all things did not hold it for you may read a little before that he confisseth Multos verò qui purae piaeque sunt Christianorum sententiae hoc non agnoscere Many pious and right good Christians did not acknowledge so much not regarding what some thought who were called Christians but were impious Atheists and blasphemous 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every way or in all things And that learned writer who would without so much as pretending any copie insert a negative 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth make Justin speak to this effect some blasphemous Atheists are orthodox Christians but not in all things Not those that are in all things impious but those that are in some things orthodox must stand in opposition to that limitation in all things orthodox Tertullian held this opinion too but it was when he was not a man of the Church but had fallen to Montanism and this was a piece of his Montanism too as he saith in his third book against Marcion cap. 24. Novae prophetiae sermo testatur it was witnessed by the new prophesie but this we might not know because you were in hast Lactantius also was of this minde but his chief proofs were partly from the Sibyls with Virgils Eclogue and partly from the prophesies of the old Testament which he understood litâ—rally and marvelously whereas we be taught by the Apostle Peter Act. 2.16 and by the Apostle James Act. 15.15 to apply those prophesies to the time of the new Testament or Christs first not his second coming Now because you give this regard to ancient writers and the ages foregoing I will produce one argument of this kinde against your Millenarian belief and then conclude this chapter and it is this That opinion which was generally condemned by the Church of Christ and was afterwards upheld by none for above the space of a thousand years is no Catholick doctrine nor sound belief But this opinion that Christ Jesus should raise his Saints and reign with them upon earth for the space of a thousand years being condemned was not held by any for above the space of a thousand years Therefore it is no Catholick doctrine The Major I hope needeth no proof with you at this time but because it may seem not safe or good discretion to adventure much upon a Negative I desire leave to mollifie and interpret the Minor with this request that I may have libertie to think so untill you be able to produce some instance to the contrarie And the space I mean is that betwixt S. Hierom who opposed it and the Anabaptists who revived it And if there be any policie in the Papists coyning the lives of some of our Reformers to discredit their doctrine I am sure it is no credit to any opinion to claim parentage or resuscitation from the Anabaptists CHAP. XI How God had power enough to help man TO the Question What God had done for man when part of your Answer was That God had power enough to help him I noted that though your Answer was true yet it seemed to argue thus He can do it therefore he hath done it which I said is not safe And I suspected a dark insinuation of this that God had done all he could do to help man being fallen Hereupon in this Chapter although you are angrie with me for collecting any such thing so much as by way of intimation from your words And although secondly you charge the adverse partie with thinking so yet in the third place you own and acknowledge it to be true what I said might be darkly gathered from your Answer and you think it must pose me and all men else to tell What he could have done more as if you cared not what you say so you may revile and contradict It must be left to the Reader to compare the first of these with the third and to judge whether there be wrong offered to you or to your companion who would not beleeve but that God releeved the whole world when he had means and opportunity you needed not to except against me for saying That in things of this world we walk by sight and to say that it seems I walk so rather then by faith The Apostle Paul did walk by Faith and gives this the reason why he did so because he was absent from the Lord and saw him not but in things of this life he did walk by fight Be pleased therefore to know that in that saying of the Apostles 2 Cor. 5.7 We walk by faith not by sight the word Faith is taken in a proper and strict meaning as it stands opposed to sight and it is called the evidence of things not seen In things of this present world we walk by sight not by faith not by faith strictly taken yet by faith largely taken we may walk in this life and yet walk by sight too like as Thomas both saw and beleeved Augnst Enchirid. 8. Melius hanc appellamus Fidem quà m divina eloquia docuerunt éarum scilicet rerum quae non videntur It is best to call that by the name of Faith which is of things not seen as holy Scripture useth to speak You prove that your Adversaries hold God cannot help the most part of men because D r. K. said He can have no new immanent Act of will So then that onely which he hath willed be can do and our partie may answer He had not power enough for he cannot will anew concerning them and he had so willed already as to tie his hands You seem to speak both ignorantly and unreverently of Gods Attributes It is no wonder you should be jealous of our liberty who are afraid lest Gods Decrees should deprive him of his own
blessings a sure foundation to them that beleeve in him he abideth firm as a rock though we and all men that now cleave to him come to suffer shipwrack one after another Therefore that is no way likely to be the scope of the place Next is to be considered whether our Saviour Jesus Christ be chosen to salvation In the funeral sermon upon which you wrote your exercitations called them Essays when you met with that saying That there should be any one chosen was the infinite free mercy of God in Christ you would scarce admit it to pass under your approbation unless with this your interpretation It was Gods infinite mercie to choose and save one man even the man Christ Jesus which proposition of yours howsoever you may please your self therein hath little salt or savour in it For then is God mercifull when he helpeth his creatures out of miserie To save and mercie in saving these terms in all reason suppose a lost estate It was infinite mercie in God to send a Saviour but to save a Saviour comes too near the scoff of the Jews If thou be the king of Israel save thy self There is little hope of him being a Saviour that standeth in need himself to be saved What they said had thus much of truth in it He who needed a Saviour was not likely to save others Howbeit that Death from which they would have him save himself was the means to save us Was not Christ chosen to life and salvation as man could any part of the seed of David or Abraham have escaped death or been glorified in life had it not been chosen of God thereto and that by Christs dying Here you implie and teach plainly enough that Christ by his own dying escaped death and attained the life of glory and that he came to save himself as well as others And this were not so ill as it is if want of sense were the worst For death being the stipend of sin if Jesus Christ had need by reason of the common law and manner of men to save himself from Death then how could he be our high Priest holy and undefiled and separate from sinners and a spotless sacrifice offered on our behalf There is no Christian that hath learned his Creed and been well instructed in those words of the third Article conceived by the holy Ghost but must needs take check at what you have here written That which is born of the flesh is flesh The imputation and the pollution of Adams sin are conveyed to all his posteritie by natural or carnal generation But Jesus Christ as man was conceived supernaturally and that stream or flux of original sin which universally and uninterruptedly descended upon mankinde from the first Adam was cut off and stopped by the miraculous work of the holy Ghost so that Christs humane nature was not defiled thereby but was preserved free from all taint and touch of the flesh or sinfull corruption And because as he was man he had no father therefore is he said to be FACTUS Rom. 1.3 and Gal 4.4 not Genitus not begotten but made made of a woman or of the substance of his mother and because he was so and that by the holy Ghost Ideo quod nascetur sanctum Luke 1.35 Therefore that which was born of her was holy perfectly exempted from sin and the guilt of sin otherwise than as the took upon him the sin and guilt of others You quote two places for your purpose Zach. 9.9 Thy king cometh having salvation or saving himself you choose to take it passively with the Jews who take occasion hence to calumniate rather than actively with the most and best interpreters Christ was called Jesus because he saved his people not because he was saved or if it be said that he saved himself it was that he might not be swallowed up of Death after his passion The other text is Hebr. 5.7 He offered prayers to him that was able to save him from Death and was heard this is spoken of bodily Death which our Saviour did in some sort for a time shrink from praying that the cup might pass from him and he was saved from Death so as that he triumphed over Death or if you understand it of his prayer upon the cross what is that to salvation from Death eternal and the wrath of God in the world to come which salvation we stood in need of but he needed not Lastly We are to consider whether onely Christ and none else be personally chosen Now although this be your Doctrine plainly yet you will not allow me to gather it out of the Answer in your Catechism which in effect and in brief was this Election is that whereby God did choose Jesus Christ to be united to the Godhead and all that beleeve in him to blessing Here I observed thus All in general none in particular not any determinately Hereunto you make answer I thought the general had included the particulars not excluded them I am sure in stead of having new Doctrines he hath new Logick All in general therefore none in particular I answer first A General doth include every particular but All in general doth not include any one in particular And secondly the Generals where-ever they are include the particulars but where the generals are onely upon supposition it is possible the particulars may have no positive being Whosoever doth perfectly keep the law of God shall be saved This proposition is true in the general yet in particular no one person in the world shall be saved by keeping the law of God So when it is said whosoever beleeveth shall be saved this being the Election which you teach there may in the event be some particular person saved but as to the choice no one particular person is chosen before another because they are all without any difference beforehand Neither said I All in general Therefore none in particular It should be supplied thus nevertheless none in particular and I have told you who of your own partie held that though salvation be intended to all yet possibly to none particular it may befall And let me tell you now what you heard not yet from me that the second part of the Definition that you give of Election is a mock-answer as well as the first For as the first part is of the union of the two natures in one person that is the Incarnation So the second is concerning the Gospel but not at all concerning Election For what is the Gospel He that beleeveth shall be saved Mark 16.16 The preaching of Christ crucified to save them that beleeve 1 Cor. 1.21 And this is that very thing which you in words metaphorical others of your partie in words more proper do call Election both removing the old terms bounds and words faulting modern systemes to make way for new-coined opinions The Gospel proffers life upon condition of beleeving As the Law did upon condition of working Gods
or belyed Bellarmine Now though I will not say to you mentiris pro. Bellarmino and set you on work to compare this with your other two above yet any one may plainly see how you have run your self a ground and are gravelled more ways than one for Bellarmines sake who yet will con you no thank and if you had done him any service he might thank me because for my sake it was that you became his Advocate CHAP. XXIII The Remedie to be general Sect. 1. THe Son of God did offer a full perfect and sufficient oblation and and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world That is as much as I desire or assert If you may have leave to interpret the words of the Article or Liturgie according to your own meaning and Doctrine and contrarie to the known meaning of the Church it is as much as you need to desire But where doth the Church of England teach that all sins proceeding from the first Adam are forgiven of due debt to the impenitent without further and particular application of Christs Death Windeck a Papist who wrote largely of the efficacie of Christs Death and mustered up 286 arguments to prove that he died for all men yet called puccius Execrabile monstrum who held that Christs Death was actually efficacious to procure justification and restore life to all men whatsoever until by new wickedness they rejected that life and drew a second destruction upon themselves and his opinion he calleth stultum paganicum paradoxon a foolish and heathenish paradox praesentissimum venenum a poisonous Doctrine that dispatcheth presently and killeth outright those that take it in I pray you therefore learn to distinguish between that Redemption which is universal and that which is particular belonging onely to such whom God doth choose and to whom he vouchsafeth the gift of saving faith Had you done so now you would have contented your self with those places of Scripture that shew Christ died for all and not confusedly and dangerously have added those places which speak of the justification vevification and salvation of beleevers as namely these two Rom. 3.23 24. All have sinned being justified freely by his Grace All have sinned and all are justified by his Grace Answ If all absolutely that have sinned be justified why should he restrain it v. 22. to them that beleeve The scope of the Apostle is this to prove that the Jews who thought well of themselves in regard of their excellencies and priviledges above others have nevertheless no other way to be justified and saved but even as the Gentiles are saved and that is by beleeving For because they have sinned as well as others and have no righteousness of their own more than others have they must be justified as others are by the righteousness of another Because all have sinned therefore all that are justified must be justified by Grace and none can be justified otherwise So also is the extent to be taken Rom. 11.32 God hath concluded them all in unbelief that he might have mercie upon all that is each people Jew as well as Gentile Rom. 5.18 By the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men to justification of life Answ The meaning is that as all that sprang from the first Adam as their head or root were guiltie of Death so all that belong to the second Adam are partakers of life the very next verse before there is a restraint to them that receive the abundance of Grace Gal. 3.22 The Scripture hath concluded all under sin that the promise might be given to them that beleeve Is it not the constant Doctrine of the Bible that the benefit Christs Death as to life and justification and forgiveness is limited to them that hear and to them that come To them that eat and drink of him to them that beleeve and to them that obey will nothing serve with you to mitigate and mollifie the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the rigidum and the aridum of the letter but that against reason against so many Parallel places and the generally received Doctrine of Christians the universalitie of mankinde must be intended It may be you regard the testimonie of Conradus Vorstius more than you do some others hear his words in his Commentarie upon the Epistle to the Romanes ch 5. v. 18. Apparet eos graviter errare qui ex hoc loco colligere conantur omnes omnino homines per Christi gratiam actu regenerari justificari nec perinde quenquam perire posse nisi qui acceptam gratiam malitiosè suâque impaenitentiâ atque incredulitate novam Dei indignationem sibi attrahere velit Quae sententia haud dubie valde periculosa est That is It is evident that those men are in a grievous errour that from this place endeavour to gather that all men whosoever are by Christs grace actually regenerate and justified and that none do perish but such as wilfully reject this grace and through unbelief draw upon themselves a second time Gods wrath and indignation which opinion out of all doubt is very pernicious Yet this opinion you contend for with all your might as if it were as true as the Gospel as if it were the very Gospel and as if all that gainsay it were hinderers of the Gospel Concerning the equalitie of Gods love towards men you refer me to your Essays where you say thus pag. 20. He may take his own libertie to give more or less as he pleases and yet deal equally and graciously with all Which is either a manifest contradiction or a sophistical ambiguitie Gods ways are equal that is just whether he give more or less yet are they not equal that is is alike to all because he giveth to one more than to another CHAP. XXIV Reasons why the remedie should be general HOW doth it appear that such holders of it love others seeing they are my adversaries for holding it because I hold it not in all things as they do Is enmitie to a man because he is not of their minde a signe of love For he says not they be my dissenting brethren but my adversaries God grant their other frames be righter for not he that commends himself c. I intended not to commend my self nor all that are of my minde in these matters but spake indefinitely of your adversaries if but some if but a few it is sufficient And I hope you will never infect your own partie with that dangerous point as you count it of Pharisaisme to say Non sumus sicut caeteri though now you are readie to censure us for this and to suspect us for the rest But as not he that commends himself is always the best no more is he that is the forwardest to censure others There is difference betwixt an adversarie and an enemie howbeit you by vertue of your trope called confusion do make them all one May not a man wage law against his friend and yet
be his friend still they that plead the causes of other men are adversaries one to another and yet out of the court agree well enough among themselves May not one Christian Prince wage war against another Prince and yet be in Christian Charitie he may And what do you call them that call you adversarie You call them the pretended orthodox which is a term more censorious by far and more supercilious then adversarie which hath no hurt in it I am your advarsarie and you are mine and no man thinketh amiss of us for this unless perhaps he mislike the cause why we are so And thus much shall serve for this hungrie cavil and also for this chapter CHAP. XXV Signes of Gods love IN the second section you explain your self and what your meaning is when you usually teach that we should not gather Gods love to us by faith obedience new frames and repentance namely we may gather by these that the benefits of Christs passion are applied to us for our spiritual life but we must not gather by them that the Remedie is provided for us This will I beleeve to have some truth or at least some reason in it when I shall beleeve that there was ever any Christian that did search into his own heart and seek there for good desires and good affections and inclinations to the intent he might thence conclude and know assuredly that Jesus Christ died for all men in the world or when you can shew me who he was that ever yet taught any Christian to do so You made profession in your fourth page above That you armed the children against the dangers and deceits of the pretended orthodox as Antidotes are to be given against the present reigning diseases Now their doctrine is that a Christian person from the fruits of sanctification in his thoughts words and works and especially from the frame and disposition position of his heart may gather the love of God and the benefits of Christs death for his glorification in heaven This was the reigning disease this was the Doctrine against which you framed your Antidote and not against this that we should take heed how we conclude from fruits of holiness that the Son of God offered a sacrifice for the sins of all the world or that he is the Saviour of all men especially of them that beleeve I cannot imagine you spake against that which never any man did or was taught to do but against that rather which all good Christians do practise except those that are commonly called Antinomians There is a seal of Gods spirit which is in this life set upon those that are his and by which he will own them at the last and is not set upon those that are none of his This difference you cannot endure should be made or spoken of He is a Pharisee that is not as other men are but if he gives thanks to God that he is better than others better than this Publican or suppose then this malefactour or this traytour which he seeth or heareth to be executed This this is the poison that needeth the Antidote this is Pharisaisme that must be cried down this is the spirit that must cast out this must be followed upon all opportunities and occasions I noted before how you plied this point in one of your funeral sermons and in another which you preached the year before upon Prov. 14.32 pag. 12. your words are But thou wouldest have some signe or token of the truth of this as concerning thee from him in something to be done by him to thy soul then doest thou as that adulterous generation Mat. 12.39 which Christ reprooveth seeking signes and tokens and if thou shouldest persist in that way thou maist be given up to delusion to believe a lie But when the Apostle in the second Epistle to the Corinthians and the last chapter biddeth them Examine themselves whether they be in the faith and prove their own selves did he bid them do that for which our Saviour reprooved the Scribes and Pharisees Thus you teach but they are deluded that believe you You cōplain Brief Disc pag. 21. That too many of the Teachers love to slumber and content themselves with Dreams in stead of searching out the Truth and giving it forth to the people Is this the truth you have searched for and found it out at last to impart to the people or what shall we call a sick mans dream I will suppose that most of your Auditors had sormerly learned and could then remember that part of the Church-Catechisme wherein they were taught to professe and rehearse after this manner I believe in God the Father who hath made me and all the world and in God the Son who hath redeemed me and all mankind and in God the holy Ghost who sanctifieth me and all the elect people of God And I will suppose also that some good Christian well weighing these words with himself should not rest contented with the common love of God who created all things and hateth nothing that he hath made nor with that generall love of Christ whereby he redeemed all mankind but should endeavour further to finde that he is sanctified by the holy Ghost having heard that there is a seal of the Spirit and every seal is more than a signe but a signe it is having heard also of the fruits of the Spirit Gal. 5. If now this person should be perswaded by you and your Sermon that if he goeth on in this way he is descended of that wicked and adulterous generation of the Scribes and Pharisees that tempted God and provoked our Saviour by calling for signes I cannot think you have done any good service for his soule but rather that he forsakes the right way and gives over the truth to be abused by you When we look for fruits of Faith this is not to enquire whether Christ died for us or not for he dyed for all but whether the holy Ghost hath sanctified us or not because he sanctifieth only the elect people of God and consequently whether we have Christs death applyed to us according to his speciall intention If you had perceived any of your people so fond as to apply that reproof Mat. 12.39 for confirmation of the doctrine you elsewhere teach By the place and office you are in and by your skill and learning in Logick and Languages you should have informed them that a Signe there signifies a Miracle or a Wonder above the sphere and force of nature as Isa 7. Ask thee a signe aske it in the depth or in the height above And Mark 16. The Apostles confirmed the word with signes following much less ought you to have put such a conceit into their heads as if when they examined their own hearts as the Apostle biddeth them they were as blame-worthy as some Atheist or Epicurean who after all the Demonstration which he daily seeth should demand some miracle some signe or proof extraordinary