all and others he is pleased to take their Reason from them after they have had it witness Nebuchadnezzar and our Bethlem Now then seeing God is one and his Truth is one and the same yesterday to day and for ever What an unreasonable Reason doth the short Accountant give for his Faith in his 3d. page Where he with seeming Triumph tells us that he therefore believes what God reveals because he hath reason so to do And what if this Gentleman had no Reason must God's Word cease to be Truth because he hath no reason to be believe it And what if he had some Reason but not so much as now he pretends to and what if some have a great deal more than he as I have some Reason to believe there are that have Is it reasonable to say God's Word is true or false right or wrong according to the Measure of Reason that God hath given to every Man If this be not unreasonable Nonsence I know not what is Thus is the Word of Truth fulfill'd He that leaneth to his own Vnderstanding is a Fool That there is Reason to believe what God reveals is certain and to believe what God reveals because he reveals it is to make God's Truth and Power the Reason and Foundation of our Faith but to believe what God reveals only because it is agreeable to our reason is both irrational and absurd For thereby we make our foolish Reason the Rule and Standard of God's Truth and not only so but of the very Being of God himself so that if God doth reveal that the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost is one God and that this one God is the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost this Gentleman will not believe it because his Reason doth not comprehend it So that because he cannot find out the Almighty to Perfection therefore he will not believe him to be what he saith he is Thus when the Light shineth in Darkness and the Darkness comprehendeth it not then the Light must cease to be Light because the Darkness cannot comprehend it These are our Doctors of Reason or rather our Unreasonable Doctors who professing themselves wise are become Fools Rom. 1. 22. If you tell me that you cannot believe except you have Reason so to do because then your Faith would be unreasonable and unreasonable Men and faithless Men are joyned together in Scripture 2 Thes 3. 2. I answer the Unreasonableness of Unbelief lies in this That it makes God a Liar who is Truth it self and that Men following the Dictates of their own Reason cannot comprehend nor will their Wills submit to God's Will Hence it is that Carnal Reason is Enmity against God and whereas you tell us page 6. Colume 2. of your Divine Vnity asserted That the Reason you plead for is not Carnal or Corrupt Reason it being right Reason you plead for Yet it is evident enough that you are wrong notwithstanding all your Pretensions to right Reason for you confine Carnal Reason to the inordinate Appetites of the flesh such as drunkenness and the like which the Reason of the Heathens did see plain enough was very unreasonable Now in this you are not right for the World by Wisdom knew not God 1 Cor 1. 21. Now the World never accounted these Immoralities their Wisdom at least the wise Men of the World never did And I have reason to believe Panl had as good a stock of this Reason you plead for before his Conversion as your self Sir or any of the other six Wise Masters of Reason For as touching the Law he tells you he was blameless and doth not the Law forbid Drunkenness Uncleanness and the like and yet at this time a day he was much about as great an Enemy to Christ and the way of Salvation by him as your self Sir For he verily thought he ought to do many things against the Name of Jesus God grant you may be as great a Friend to our Lord Jesus Christ before you dye as Paul was And it is very reasonable indeed Sir that you consider what was the grand Error and Mistake not only of Paul but of the whole Body of the Jews who continued in Unbelief they could not believe that that same Jesus was the Lord of Life For Paul tells you that had they known it they would not have crucified him they could see that he was Man plain enough and a Holy Man too but their Reason would not let them see that he was more than Man except such as God was pleased to reveal his Son unto as in Paul But my Author in his Divine Vnity asserted tells us in page 5. Colume 2. that these Lights which he had before mentioned namely Sense Reason and Revelation must not contradict each other and saith Our Sense is given as a ground to work upon and our Reason as a means to assist and compleat the Knowledge we receive by Sensation and Revelation can't be receiv'd but by Means of these two former 'Till now No nor yet neither do I understand that Sense is a Foundation for Faith nor that Divine Revelation is confin'd to our Reason nay the contrary is Evident and to say or think that it is so is to make God like our selves but such Fools God himself will reprove Psal 50. 21. Nor is our Reason till truly rectified by the Spirit of God a means to receive the revealed Will of God nay it is the main thing that opposeth the great Mystery of God's revealed Will in the Gospel For the Carnal Mind is Enmity against God and cannot be Subject to the Law nor reveal'd Will of God and that not only the Reason of the Drunkard as before mentioned but that which Men call true Reason though it be far enough from being so Nay our Author goes on in the greatness of his Reason or rather in the madness of his Folly and saith We cannot without the greatest Folly suppose a thing can be reveal'd to us contrary to our Sense or Reason and thinks he hath sufficiently prov'd it by saying God cannot tell us White is black or that two and one is not three or that a Debt that is freely forgiven is fully paid Now in this you are not Wise for I will show you that God is greater than Man Job 33. 12. and there is nothing more true and certain than this truth that the God of truth cannot Lye and there is nothing more true and self Evident than that God calls that White which the Wise Men of this World call Black opposing their Reason against the revealed Will of God still setting themselves against God so that what God reveals to be Good proud foolish Man will call Evil. Ay Sir and as great Doctors of Reason as your self or else how come the Wise Men and Scribes to have a hand in our Lords Death and to think they did God good Service when they kill'd his Disciples Doubtless their Reason such as it was and
had contradicted himself and his Argument would have been meer Nonsence and would have run thus a Man humbled himself and took on him the form and fashion of a Man Besides it is a Contradiction in the Nature of the thing it self and is no better Sence than to say a Man made himself a Man It may seem strange that Men should be so blind but how can it be otherwise when they will needs war against him who is the Light and Life of Men. I always thought that my Author was endu'd with a considerable stock of Learning only it look'd like a Jewel set in Lead for want of sound Reason and Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ to manage it until I met with his reconciling Faculty in his aforesaid 18th page and that brought to my Mind what the Apostle Peter saith 2 Pet. 3. 15 16. where speaking of some of Paul's Epistles of which this to the Philippians and that to the Hebrews are some He saith There are some things hard to be understood which the unlearned and unstable wrest as they do also other Scriptures to their own Destruction And when I read these things I cannot for my Life forbear thinking on my Nameless Author For besides the flat Contradiction he gives the Holy Ghost it is directly contrary to the Scope of the Apostle which was to move them to Humility and Condescension one to another from Christ's Example But if he were a Man only to say nothing of the Nonsence that there is in saying a Man humbled himself to become a Man the Man Jesus considered as a Man only was highly honoured in his being conceived and brought forth of a Virgin in such a Miracnlous Manner So that consider the Text which way you will either with respect to the Words themselves or with respect to the Context we are bound to believe the Truth as it is revealed that He thought it no Robbery to be equal with God There is nothing more material in my Author which I have not taken Notice of and shewed how unreasonable it is especially where he pretends Scripture for his cunningly devised Fables And the Truth is those Gentlemen would make much surer Work in their Babel Building if they could but race out the Scriptures from among us than ever they will be able to do by wresting them one by one to speak according to their foolish Reason And indeed the Considerator in his Answer to his Grace the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury bids fair for it for though he had tryed in vain by false and absurd Glosses to make the first Chapter of John and many other Texts mentioned by his Lordship to speak according to his own and his Master Socinus his foolish Reason or rather corrupt Mind Yet he flies at first to his best shift though for Subtilty sake somewhat indirectly to except against the Gospel of St. John the three Epistles and the Revelations and would impose upon us that they were counterfeited by one Cerinthus in John's Name And therein he hath not only secur'd his own Cause but greatly oblig'd the Papists a piece of Wickedness they never had the Impudence to attempt though they kept them lock'd up in an Unknown Tongue Yes but the Considerator tells us that the Revelations of St. John were denied and writ against by some of the Papists as being no part of Divine Writ Well be it so every Body knows for what Cause we have it recorded in Acts 6. 10. because they were not able to resist the Holy Ghost that speaks therein and at the same time others of them are striving with all the might they have to ward off the Blow that the Spirit gives to that Interest in wresting it to any sence that may secure their Popish and Foppish Cause In like manner doth the Considerator not only with the Revelations but with the Gospel of St. John and his three Epistles and scarce any Text that is urg'd against them but they say either it is not right translated or it is no Scripture or else they manifestly wrest it from the plain Sence and Meaning of the Holy Ghost There in one Instance among many we have in the Gospel of John Chap. 8. v. 58. where our Lord saith Before Abraham was I am Considerator pag. 57. colume 1. that is saith he In the Decree and Counsel of God Why good Mr. Considerator what a great Secret have you found out now are not all God's Works known to him from Eternity were not you and I and all the Men that shall be in the World to the end thereof in the Counsel and Decree of God from Eternity Surely God is not like Man to determine and purpose one thing yesterday and another to day But pray Sir be pleased to take a View of your own Learned Countenance in your 6th page colume 1st and 2d There you give several Arguments to prove a thing cannot be possess'd before it is in being and in particular you instance the Day of Judgment which is not yet come and therefore not possess'd I hope you will not say it is not or that it was not in the Decree of God when and before he made the World Therefore your Saying after Grotius that a Man descending from Abraham could not be any otherwise before Abraham than in Divine Purpose and Decree is very true and turns the Argument against you Besides Abraham was in the Decree of God as soon as any Man Therefore you must own that our Lord did exist before he was born of the Virgin or that he spoke Nonsence for they themselves knew that the Decrees of God were Eternal and our Lord had not given them an Answer to their Question which was whether he had seen Abraham he being not fifty years old Besides our Lord had told a plain direct Lye if he had said he was in the Decree of God before Abraham For Abraham was in God's Decree as soon as Adam and therefore no Man descending from Abraham could be in God's Decree before him But the Considerator goes a little further and saith our Lord did exist in the Promise of God before Abraham which is very true also for he was promised the same day of the Fall but neither will this do the Business nor discharge our Considerator from charging our Lord with Folly or Nonsence or both For it was promised presently after the Flood long before Abraham that God should perswade Japhet to dwell in the Tents of Shem and yet the Gentiles the Seed of Japhet did not receive the Gospel till since our Lord 's coming in the Flesh So likewise was it prophesied of Josiah an hundred years before he was born could he therefore say before I was born I am Nay is not Mr. Considerator himself and the rest of his Learned Brethren prophesied of by Name in 2 Pet. 2. 1. where the Holy Ghost tells us there shall be false Teachers among Christians who privily shall bring in damnable Heresies denying
they might have as good a Stock of it as your self Sir for ought I know I say their Reason thought it reasonable so to do and it is not long since one of your Doctors of Reason told us if I am not mis-informed there was no God in his Leviathan and for ought I know to the contrary he might have as good Reason so to do as you have to deny our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to be God But our Author goes hobbling on according to that little blind Reason he hath and can any Man think it strange that he stumbles when he kicks at the very Fountain of Light and Life OUr Author is like one of Jeremiahs conceited Lords spoken of Jeremiah 2. 31. and therefore he will not come to him in whom are hid all the Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge Colos 2. 3. No he is so far from that that he will tell God to his Face that a Debt freely Forgiven and yet fully Paid is a contradiction For what doth it signifie for God to reveal himself to be a God pardoning iniquity forgiving transgression and sin and yet a God that will by no means clear the guilty This is a contradiction in this Gentlemans Reason and therefore cannot be true by Revelation Short Accountant Page the Third Reason the Third Yet least our short Accountant should Charge me with being too short in given up his Account of his Reasons for his denying the Lord Jesus Christ to be over All God blessed for every more I must step back to his 2d Page where after he hath given some Account of the unkind and if all be as he relates it unjustisible carriage of Bishop R. S. and the Church under his Care towards him He begins to lay down his Reasons which I shall consider without taking any notice of their Relative Neglects one to another I having nothing to do with either the Bishop R. S. or the Church over which he is Overseer I not knowing this short Accountant nor B. R. S. nor any of his Congregation that I know of no not so much as by Sight or Name till since I see R. S. on this Subject and upon inquiring after that I have been told his Name To begin therefore with the Account he gives of himself he saith As to his Life and Conversation he doth not know that any hath blamed him for it nor that he hath been charged with Immorality which is so far very well and is his Mercy that God hath not left him so far to himself as to run with many others into the same excess of Riot But he was not as he saith Able to bear the hearing that Jesus Christ who was born of the Virgin was God by Nature Co-equal Coeternal with the Father And here I cannot but observe the dark ingenuity of the Gentleman who foreseeing that any Christian would be ready to grant that the humanity of Christ which was Born of the Virgin was not God for then he had not been Man but God only and so we should have been at a loss for a Mediator For there is one Mediator between God and Man theresore he saith He was not able to bear the Notion of a Compound of part God and part Man to make up one Person I do not find the word part God and part Man in Scripture but the Scriptures do plain enough declare that our Mediator is true God and true Man But now I shall consider my short Accountants Reasons why he cannot believe him to be so His first Reason is because God is represented in Thousand of Places of Scripture to be One single Person or Being and in some few mistaken and dark places that seem to infer a plurality of Persons in the Divine Being Now saith our short Accountant page 3. and our Nameless Author pag. 7. colume 2. We must not oppose a few Texts against many nor dark ones agaiust clear ones Very true and for the same Reason we must not oppose many against a few nor clear ones against dark ones and here any reasonable unbyast man may see how those Gentlemen contradict themselves Our Author saith page 4. colume 1. That if a thing does not appear clear to him he hath no good cause to affirm it And by the same rule if a thing appears dark to him it is presumptuous Folly in him to deny it for a Man to deny that to be true which he doth not know or understand to be so by an infallible Rule And I hope this Gentleman will not say his Reason is infallible in the things of a Man much less in the things of God such a Man is guilty of equal Folly with him that affirms a thing to be true though he do not know it to be so but upon Hear-say or by the Dictates of his own weak and erring Reason So my Author and I are agreed in this that Scripture cannot contradict it self But I proceed to my short Accountants Second Reason which is this That this Revelation of God as one single Being or Person is agreeing to the Notion taat I have of God in my Mind by my Reason as most High Best and the like Now tho' I do not pretend to any great stock much less to be Master of infallible Reason yet I must own that according to that measure of Reason that God hath given me this Argument seems most unreasonable and absurd and it is to believe a Man's Notions are true because they are his Notions what reasonable Proofs are these For though I never saw Hobbs's Leviathan yet I make no doubt but he had as good Reason as this to deny the Being of God for what is this more or less than for the Fool to say in his heart there is no God and then to introduce this Saying or Notion of his and produce it as an Argument or Reason to prove that there is no God I must needs say that I have reason to believe that the Scripture doth not say in vain that as the Fool walketh by the way his Wisdom faileth him and he saith to every one that he is a Fool Eccles 10. 3. And what if I had not reason enough to see this Truth of God would the Truth of God be ever the less vailed for my Ignorance I see my short Accountant falls much too short in giving a true reasonable Account of his Faith But I shall pass to his Third Reason and see if there be any more truth in that than in his two former and here he tells us What is not true in Reason cannot be true by Revelation For saith he pray mark the reason of the Gentleman's Argument What is above my Capacity to understand or contradictory to my understanding cannot be revealed to me Surely if our Accountant were not blinded with being wise in his own Eyes he would have seen his Ignorance in this Argument quick enough Why good Sir is your Capacity solarge and your Understanding so great that
and only moving Cause of God's sending his Son into the World and therefore all that he did in the World could not be the Cause nor so much as a Means ro procure his Mercy consider'd without respect to Justice John 3. 16. For God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life Mercy and Love in God as the truly Rational and Heavenly Dr. Owen hath observed being no less than God's willing good to the Creature and whoever God wills Good to they must have that Good willed to them For God's Will in this Sence must infallibly be done both in Heaven and in Earth But God will not convey Good to any Creature in a way that shall destroy a greater Good then the Salvation of all the Men and Angels in Heaven and Earth will amount unto But such is the Manifestation of the Glory of God's Justice therefore though God's loving Kindness and Mercy was from everlasting and therefore needed not a Sacrifice in time to procure it much less a propitiatory one to appease it which is a Contradiction with a Witness but this is not to be taken Notice of in Men that have ingross'd all contradiction to themselves under the specious pretence of Reason for 't is below the pretended Wits of our Day the Great Vain glorious Freemen of the Common-Wealth of Wit and Learning to prove themselves little Fools But I say Mercy will never be extended in a way that in the least derogates from the Justice and Truth of God No Justice and Truth must be equally exalted with Mercy where-ever it is extended Therefore when God proclaims his Name in Exod. 34. 6 7. he proclaims himself to be a God that will shew Mercy and yet will by no means clear the guilty This you Men of Reason are pleased to contradict and do in so many words tell us that a Debt fully paid and yet freely for given is a contradiction Nameless Author page 6. col 1. And Mr. Considerator calls it a Mock Payment pag. 13. col 1. But we know the things of God useth to be accounted Foolishness with Men but Thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ we do as well know that God hath made foolish the Wisdom of this World and that the foolishness of God is Wiser then Men 1 Cor. 1. 20 21 25 26 27. But in the aforesaid Exod. 34. The Lord proclaims himself to be the Lord God merciful and Gracious long suffering and abundant in goodness and Truth Pray observe goodness and Truth must go together and without Truth Goodness would cease to be so And in verse 7. He saith Keeping Mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity Transgression and sin and that will by no means clear theguilty Now Gentlemen are you not ashamed if you are not you may be to say a Debt fully paid and yet Freely forgiven is a Contradiction for do you not thereby Contradict God himself and Charge him with Folly and Falshood who saith he will pardon iniquity and forgive sin and yet will by no means clear the guilty Surely God is true and can no more Lye then he can dye or deny himself therefore his infinite wisdom hath contrived that which his Almighty Power hath effected a way to pardon sin and yet by no means clear the guilty This could not be done by offering up a Sacrifice to the Mercy of God nor was there any need of such a thing Mercy being the first moving Cause of setting infinite Wisdom to Work to find out a way to save the sinner and yet not clear the guilty and at the same time to save the Honour of Gods Law and to vindicate the immutability of his Truth to shew Mercy to the sinner and yet at the same time to magnifie his Law and make it Honourable Isa 44. 21. to magnifie his Mercy and yet at the same time and by the same way and means and with respect to the very same Persons to exalt his Justice This was a Work becoming God because no Created being had Wisdom and Power to do so and as it is wonderful in its own Nature so likewise should it be to us and Humbly and thankfully closed up with It is not to be quarrelled with but if you will reject the Counsel of God against your selves because it is Foolishness with you yet know you that to them that believe Christ is the Wisdom of God and the Power of God and they do receive this Truth with all manner of Acceptation And although it may seem to be foolishness to you wise Grecians yet to them that believe both Jews and Greeks Christ is the Wisdom of God and the Power of God hence it comes to pass that the Lord is well pleased for his Righteousness sake he thereby magnifying his Law and making it Honorable this answers the end of God both in Creation and Redemption The end of God was to manifie his own glory but for which he would not have descended into the Work of Creation nor Redemption For he bath made all things for himself even the wicked for the day of evil Prov. 16. 4. And we are Redeemed and Called for this very end that we may be to the Praise of the Glory of his Grace in Christ Jesus Eph. 1. 6 12. Yet so as that the Glory of his Justice might shine forth with equal Luster with his Mercy Rom. 3. 25 26. Whom God hath set forth to be a Propitiation through Faith in his blood to declare his Righteousness for the Remison of sins that are past through the forbearance of God ver 26. To declare I say at this time his Righteousness that he might be just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus God doth all things becoming himself and Gods glory being the chiefest good and the manifestation thereof the Highest end God could have no Lower end than the manifestation of his own Glory as the first and chief end in the Work of our Redemption and our Salvation next thereunto A wise Man will not do great and Noble things for a base and low End how much less will God save sinners in a way that advances the Glory of one attribute to the abasement or in the least Ecclipsiing the Glory of another This would reflect on his Wisdom and Power but God will not God cannot extend Mercy in a way that may reflect on his Justice and Truth If the King pardon a Convicted Traytor he thereby extends his Mercy and shews a great deal of Pitty and Compassion and good Will to the Person of the Traytor But he cannot with respect to that Person but stop the Execution of Justice and the Law in that particular Falls to the Ground and that because he is Man and not God but not one jot nor Title of Gods Law shall Fall to the Ground neither shall Justice be in the least stopt or Suspended by Gods extending Mercy