heated it so with conditions and qalifications of believing and repenting and humiliation and conversion and self-deniall and renunciation of all that men could not drink of it without sealding their mouths and it was no marvel therefore that the young man i went so heavy away from him Nor do I wonder now so much that Mr. Eaton in whose steps this man treads should make Christ a legal teacher and what should it greiv any servant of his to have that name given him that is given his Master either before him or with him k Christs Sermons saith he as the Prophets saith Mr. S. for the most part run all upon the perfect doctrine and works of the Law relating withall some of the above-mentioned passages And if such as this be no Gospel preaching nor such as wil stand with free grace then undoubtedly our Saviour never preached either Gospel or free grace If any shal object as this Autor doth that l Christ tels you in few words and his Apostle in as few As Moses lift up the Serpent in the wildernes so the Son of man must be lift up that whosoever believes on him should have life m John 6. and Paul tels you n If thou shalt confesse with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God raised him from the ded thou shalt be saved The answet is easie Our Saviour Christ in his preaching cannot cros or contradict himself what he saith in this latter place doth wel concur and consist with what he said in the former He propoundeth faith and mentioneth it only there not as if he reqired nothing els but faith of his followers or of those that shal have share in the salvation by him purchased for there is no exclusive in the text nor are his words les peremptory in those other passages then in this and altho o unto justification nothing but faith is reqired because faith hath a peculiar office in that work that no other grace hath yet there is more then faith reqired unto salvation nor was it needful that Christ should every where name whatsoever he reqired and sufficient it was for him sometime to name faith onely for that the faith which he there nameth and reqireth is such as without those other reqisites joyned with it cannot be sound and sincere As for the Apostles of Christ what the subject matter of their Sermons was and what method and manner of preaching they used how exactly treading in their Masters steps as himself did in the steps of John his forerunner how dissonant from that that this Autor propounds and commends how consonant to that he thus girds at and traduceth as a legall and no Gospel-like way wil plainly appear if we shall but briefly consider what John Baptist began with our Saviour himself seconded him in gave in charge to his Apostles and they constantly observed from the first to the last wherein we shal have a short breviari of the whole Gospel as in Scripture it is described John we know began with preaching of pardon of sin and salvation upon condition of faith and repentance and newnes of life For he called upon them to p repent and to q bring forth fruits beseeming repentance that is whereby the sincerity of their repentance might appear and be approoved withall telling them that for satisfaction to be made unto Gods justice for their sins they were to believe on Christ to rest and rely on him as r the Lambe of God who by his sufferings did take away their sins for s so the Apostle Paul tels us he preached and this Autor therefore spake not so exactly or warily in another Treatise of his where he saith that * John preached repentance Jesus Christ faith and repentance as if John had not preached as wel faith as repentance which the Apostle saith he did Now as our Saviour in his first Sermon went the very same way that John did He began to preach saying Å¿ Repent saith one Evangelist t Repent and believe the Gospel saith another so in sealing the Apostles his Disciples their commission he biddeth them u Go out into the wide world and preach the Gospel to every creature But what Gospel or what manner of Gospel was it that they were to preach the Gospel of life and salvation upon condition of faith and repentance and obedience that v whosoever believs and is baptised shall be saved whosoever believeth not shal be damned Yea but where have we repentance wil you say and obedience And that x repentance and remission of sins that is remission of sins upon repentance as before with John y repentance unto remission of sins be preached in his name and z teaching them saith he to do whatsoever I command and what he commands and requires of all his was before in part shewed And did not the Apostles think we keep to their commission or preached they any other Gospel then what Christ their Master had enjoyned them No other undoubtedly We may boldly say of them all as one of them of himself they had the grace a to be faithful but had not so been had they swarved from their charge Yea but saith this Autor b What did Peter preacht Cornelius or Philip to the Eunuch or Ananias to Paul or Paul to the Jaylor but Jesus Christ onely I answer 1. It is most certain they could lay c no other foundation for man to rest and rely on d for salvation but Christ onely But it followes not hence that they preached nothing els or that they offered and tendered salvation by Christ without any condition at all or otherwise then as Christ had himself propounded it and enjoyned them to preach it 2. We have e not their whole Sermons but some brief summaries or some principall heds of them 3. In these summaries of them we have those things preached and pressed for which this Autor taxeth his brethren as legalists repentance by Peter in his f first and g second Sermon and that in the former pressed upon those that were h pricked in heart already in the latter backt with i a return that is alteration of cours of life 4. In some they needed not to pres much what they found them wrought unto already Ananias needed not to pres Paul to prayer as k Peter doth Simon the sorcerer because he was l by God informed beforehand that he prayed nor Peter to pres holinesse of life upon Cornelius whom he found m moulded and wrought in that regard to his hand but to n acqaint him with the particularity of the Messias his person whom yet he had beleeved on and expected before and yet he preached more then Jesus Christ onely to him when in that Sermon he assured him that o in every Nation whosoever he were that feared God and lived righteously he was accepted
naturall birth so there is the seed of all grace sown together in mans soul at the very first instant of his spirituall new birth and that faith is a branch of sanctification as all other graces of the like nature are But to let that pas a man may qestion his faith and yet not qestion Christ for Christ may be Christ tho this or that party have no share in Christ or to use his description of faith be not perswaded more or les that Christ loves him a man tho he qestion not the foundation it self yet he may qestion whether he have built on it or beside it and so whether that be a foundation unto his building or no And I make no qestion but that many that pretend to believ yea that are perswaded they do so and wil not easily be beaten of from that their perswasion and stick not to compare for belief with the best yet had need to have their faith tried and may wel have it qestioned as wel by others as by themselves Yea we find in Scripture examples and instances of such as might wel have qestioned whether they beleeved aright or no and whether the faith they made profession of were tru or no g Simon the sorcerer sure might have done wel to qestion and try the truth of his faith nor might those resembled by h the seed sowen in the rockie ground but wel have done the like by theirs as also those i who tho they are said to believ in Christ yet Christ himself would not trust them and those vain k ones James speakes of that had a fruitles and baren faith Nor were this to aske the master of the feast whether his dainties were meer delusions or to make our blessed Saviour for he I suppose is the feast master he meaneth a sorcerer but to enqire whether we our selves have not been deluded when in some night vision such as the enthusiasts of our times too much hanker after we have with l Lucians sowter dreamed of a great feast and of such his dainties and of communion with him in them when as all hath been nothing but m a nightly delusion They did not qestion the truth of God that sought for wisdome whereby to discern between Gods messages brought by his Prophets and those n dreamers dotages who yet pretended to be sent by God as wel as the best and would not stick to demand of Gods Prophets o when the Spirit of God went from themselves to speak unto them Nor did the Apostle Paul when he called upon the Corinthians to p try their faith nor the Apostle John when he called on the faithful to q try the Spirits whether they were of God or no thereby incite them to qestion Christ the foundation of faith or to qestion Gods Spirit the worker of it but to be wise and wary in discerning between truth and falshood between sound and unsound between faith wel grounded and deceitful fancies and groundles presumptions between teachers delivering the doctrine of life and grace according to the word and such as warping from that rule yet pretended to have the Spirit Tru it is indeed that mans weaknes in the apprehension of the work of Gods Spirit in him may make the truly godly without ground or good cause sometime to qestion the truth of it in them but there is no ground or just cause for any thence to infer that no man ought to qestion whether he believe or no or whether his faith be tru or no every one otherwise should be bound to presume that he doth beleev and that his faith is tru faith For not to infist on that which we lately touched on that when the Apostle called upon some to try their faith he presumed that some such faith there was as would not go for currant but would proov r unsound when it came to the touch or the test and when he useth more then once that discriminating term of s faith not counterfeit or unfained he implies therein that there may be counterfeits and there are indeed not a few as of Christianity so of faith Not to insist hereon I say this Autor himself acknowledgeth that t there may be a kind of faith as in them that believed in the parable and in time of temptation fell away and yet not in the power of Christ nor in the life of the Spirit and that v such faith tho a ded faith may go far in resemblance carying the image of something like the new man and whether think we then is such faith to be questioned or no or wil this Autor say that for those that have such a faith to call their own faith in qestion is to qestion Christ himself But indeed according to this Autors ground there is no need for any man to qestion what manner of faith his faith is since that without any such ado whatsoever his faith be he may have interest in Christ For saith he 10. x For the way of comming by a right or purchasing an interest in this righteousnes or salvation wrought by Christ it is held forth without price or works onely for taking and receiving and believing on all being wrought to our hands so as this is as good a ground for one to belief on as another without exception y the covenant being such as was established with Noah Gen. 9. 11. nothing reqired on mans part and z this being a Scripture way he would upon these principles leav a soul Where to set aside his terms of purchase and price as if ought in that kind were by any of us attributed to faith or repentance or any work of ours and yet herein he contradicteth himself when he telleth us one while that salvation is held out a freely by the Prophet Esay in that phrase without price and yet an another while that b all the ministery of the Prophets did run in this strain as if Gods love were to be had in way of purchase by duty and doing Nor to resume again what hath been formerly said of believing and receiving another manner of matter then this man makes of them And that the like may be charged on him to that he chargeth upon the Legalists to wit c propounding to men the promises of the Gospel with such conditions of repentance d and sorrow for sin c. which because they are things that they e can not do f in steed of drawing a soul unto Christ put it further of from him for may it not as wel be objected to him as it is by him to them that he professeth indeed to make an offer of free grace and free promises but he propounds them so clogged with conditions of receiving and taking believing on that these being such as men are not able to do of themselves g they dare not meddle with them until they be prepared by
Christ Unles this Autor can or dare say that men may and can believ on Christ tho they cannot repent of their sins or be sorry for them and that the one is an easier work then the other or is not of h Gods gift and i a work of grace as wel as k the other But not to insist on these things If there be as good ground for any one without exception to believ as another that is as he defines faith to perswade himself that Christ loves him and he hath a share in the salvation purchased by him why did not Peter exhort Simon the sorcerer to perswade himself so but bad him l repent and pray for pardon yea why doth he himself make distinction of persons saying d I speak now to the weak and wounded believers for sins not to the earnall and unregenerate in sin Yea if the Covenant of the Gospel that is of life and salvation by Christ be as absolute without any condition on mans part as that e with Noah concerning the not drowning of the whole world again then it is all one whether men receav it and believ it or no the promise of life and salvation and the covenant made with Christ concerning it shal be made good unto them as wel as that made with Noah shal be made good unto men whether they know it and heare it and believ it or no so that his clause of onely for taking and receiving and believing on is here idle and frivolous the promise and covenant being as free and absolute in the one as in the other and nothing at all not so much or les then so in that other reqired This therefore is not onely no Scripture way tho he so term it but a cours directly cros and contradictory to Scripture tending to encourage men whether they be penitent or continu impenitent whether they come out of their sins or continu stil in them yet to perswade themselves or presume rather that they shal be saved by Christ and such unsound and rotten principles wil in the end proov like Egypt unto those that rely on them as f a bruised staf of reed or cane that is not onely unable to stay a man up and support him but wil run into his hand and with the shivers maim him that shal rest himself on it Wil you see then the sum of this mans Diviniti who complaineth so oft of and taxeth as g gros and carnall h the Divinity of former ages and these times The result of all the fore-mentioned assertions is in effect this The promises of the Gospel to wit of life and salvation by Christ belong to all without exception to sinners as sinners and to all consequently because all are sinners and all therefore are immediately bound to believ what but these promises which are not at all conditionall but absolute as absolute as that promise to Noah of never drowning the world again nor is any man in any wise to question his faith nor what ground he hath for such his belief And what followes from these premises but that men may be saved whether they repent or no tho they never turn to God or persist in a lewd and loose cours of life to the last I might wel have added whether they believ or no tho they never attain to tru faith For Christ he says may be ours without faith and if no condition at all be reqired on mans part as in that covenant with Noah then not so much as belief and he rejects therefore j the reformed and more generally received opinion as himself terms it of salvation in Christ by faith instrumentally intervening and k that none are partakers of free salvation but by faith as if he were directly bent to cros and contradict that of the Apostle l Ye are saved by grace through faith and m God hath elected you unto salvation by sanctification and n tru faith Which what is it but to teach men to believ a lie that God wil save such as indeed never shal be saved and to encourage them upon groundles perswasions and misapprehensions the more securely never qestioning how it stands with them to run on hoodwinked untill sodainly they fall headlong into hell I remember while I abode at Lincolns Inne to have visited sometime a religious Lady sister to a reverend Divine of speciall note in those daies whom I found somewhat perplexed the ground thereof arising from some conference that had newly passed between her and a grave Divine of great repute but in somethings warping a little the way that these men now run who qestioning with her about her estate upon delivery of such principles as she supposed to have good ground from Gods Word for the triall of her faith and interest thereby in Christ began to chide her and told her that she went needlesly about the bush when she had a neerer and readier way at hand Then being demanded what cours he would advise her to take he told her she must thus reason much after this Autors manner God will save sinners But I am a sinner Therefore God will save me To passe by what I farther spake either in confirmation of the way she was in or the confutation of this new one I told her not to trouble her with rules of Logike or Schole maximes to discover this fallacy she might with as good ground thus reason God wil damn sinners But I am a sinner Therefore God wil damn me And the conclusion I doubt not in this latter how ever it follow from the premises for twenty to one at least wil by woful experience proov the truer of the twain Howbeit if as the Apostle saith of some that o they are given up to strong delusions that believ some kind of lies I know not what to say or think of those that teach men to believ such lies as these are Yea but this way of trying our faith and estate by signes and marks it is but p a broken work q a narrow a weake r a puzling s a perplexing t a distracting u a gros a carnal way For with all these deterring and debasing terms is this Autor pleased to commend and adorn it Yet 1. some ye see have been needlesly puzzeld and perplexed by suggestions from such principles as this Autor here lays when they were quietly setled on good ground in the other way before by such as have disturbed them in it and sought to beat them out of it as this Autor throughout his whole discours here doth And as for his x experiment of a disquieted soul tossed to and fro by times for twelv yeers together among * those bungling or cheating Chirurgeons our Legal Teachers who either for want of skil could not or for their own ends would not give him any ease but powred in Wine or Vineger rather in stead of Oyl
had laid open their sin of shedding the blood of Christ were prickt to the heart for it and being inwardly troubled and wounded said Men and brethren what shall we do m Exhorted them to repent yet these Legal Preachers when they take the like cours n They run saith this Autor to the Law in their dealing with such souls for their thorow humiliation as they say or pretend for such sinister ends as before you heard and not to the Gospel and faith in Jesus Christ and who ever severs these and so o bring fier and not water to quench them but kindle them the more and setting the everlasting burnings of the Law before their souls put them all into a spirituall flame and vexation And that he may not pretend that this is spoken but by way of supposition if they do so and so which yet the whole drift of his discours wil easily unmaske he telleth us a litle after in expresse terms that p The Divinity of some former ages to these present times he knows it hath made up all their receipts for distempered souls of so much Law and so much Gospel and usually but a grain or dram of Gospel to a pound of Law not being cleer enough in judgement to unmingle things that Antichrist hath confounded and put together as the two Testaments and two Covenants and not rightly discerning Christs manner or way of preaching and the Apostles both in their holding out Law and Gospel Who belike then q making a miscelan and mixture of the Law and the Gospel as Mr. Eaton saith of these Legalists preached neither good Law nor good Gospel but a miscelan and marring of both And we do no other now then they did But thus saith this Autor r They would make the Law the ministery of life and of the Spirit being not of such a spiritual discerning as the Lord hath now reveiled Reveiled to whom think we but to himself and those of the Antinomian strain by some dream or enthusiasm sure it must be for not by the word which holds out that cours that the Legalists take pressing men upon repentance and sorrow for sin and humiliation which these men can not abide And I would gladly know of them whether of the two is s the streit gate and the narrow way that leads to life and few list to take ours or theirs But saith this man t Such put a soul upon a legall method of conversion or comming to Christ First they must be kept so long under the Law for humiliation and contrition and confession and then brought to the Gospell as many books and Teachers do Thus he describes the dealing of our Ministers with men for the bringing of them to repentance as if he were painting out some Popish Priest pressing men to shrift and putting them upon hard penance as ye shal anon heare him resembling their preaching remission of sins unto the penitent to the Popes giving out his pardons But that which follows is far wors u Who like some Chirurgians that keep their Patients from healing too soon that they may make the cure the more admired do accordingly keep such souls with their wounds open and if they pour in any thing it is rather Wine then Oyl rather something of the Law then of the Gospel so as they are not onely long in healing and getting peace through Jesus Christ but they carry a scar with them still and are as it were lame in their consciences a long time after like some poor Patients that have had as much of the sound flesh cut away as the rotten and so have been healed tho but to a bodily infirmity all their life time And what is all this indeed but meer Mountebank practise to tell men that the Physitians and Chirurgeons they have formerly made use of do but vex them by plying them with purges and pils and searching their sores and searing them and cutting them to the quick and with their causticks and corrosives put them poor souls to a world of needles pain and all this they do but to lengthen the cure and hold them long in their hands whereas they wil give them that that shal put them to no pain and yet shall perfectly heal them without all that ado But it may justly be feared that these new waies of cure that these men professe will in the end proov little better then such Qacksalvers receipts but stupifying pils or palliating remedies or topicall playsters which tho they may give some ease of pain for the present yet effect no sound cure leaving the root of the disease the same still that they found it But to free men from further trouble of daily craving pardon of their sins according to x our Saviours prescript he telleth them that y The consideration of the pardon of sin in this sense that our Divines have commonly taught and preached it not minding the spirituall analogy of the Word concerning the righteousnes of a believer breeds all this distraction while they deale out Christs blood as the Pope his pardons for one sin after another never stating a believer in the righteousnes of Christ and in a fully pardoned condition So that I wonder not now why your Antinomians should be charged and that with good proof brought of it to deliver that z A child of God need not nay ought not to aske pardon for sin and that it is no les then blasphemy for him so to do But I shall onely for the present demand of this Autor whether believers before Christs appearance in the flesh such as Abel Noah Abraham Moses David and the rest were stated in the righteousnes of Christ or no and whether it be not a profane scof unfit to come out of any Christian mans much more any Minister of the Gospels mouth to say that Nathan and other the Seers of those times dealt Christs blood out to David and other believers then overtaken with some sin as the Pope doth his pardons But any base comparison is scarce bad enough to spend upon these unchristian Legalists that a to exalt men cry down Christ Mean while as the Persian that was scuffling with the Magician in the dark b bad one that stood by with his weapon in his hand but forbearing to make use of it for fear of smiting the wrong party thrust at all adventure so he slew the Magician he cared not though it were thorough his own side so this man therein not unlike c others of the same strain litle regards how he asperse Gods Prophets and his dispensations by them so he may break some broad jest upon his Legall brethren their doctrine and dealings But all this and much more this man of peace that moves to have the name of Legalist laid down and yet not onely commonly so stiles them that are not of his strain but lays load on them as you see to make them