live but understand not that they live are born to a great Inheritance but have no knowledge of it or present comfort in it 4. I will further grant That the Eye of a Christian may be too intently fixed upon his own gracious qualification and being wholly taken up in the reflex Acts of Faith may too much neglect the direct Acts of Faith upon Christ to the great detriment of his Soul But all this notwithstanding The examination of our Justification by our Sanctification is not only a lawful and possible but a very excellent and necessary work and duty 'T is the course that Christians have taken in all Ages And that which God hath abundantly blessed to the joy and encouragement of their Souls He hath furnished our Souls to this end with noble self-reflecting Powers and Abilities He hath answerably furnished his Word with variety of marks and signs for the same end and use Some of these marks are exclusive to detect and bar bold presumptuous Pretenders 1 Cor. 6. 9. Rev. 21. 8 27. Some are inclusive marks to measure the strength and growth of Grace by Rom. 4. 20. And others are positive signs flowing out of the very essence of Grace or the New-Creature 1 Iohn 4. 13. Hereby we know that we dwell in him and he in us because he hath given us of his Spirit He hath also expresly commanded us to examine and prove our selves upbraided the neglectors of that duty and enforced their duty upon them by a thundring Argument 2 Cor. 13. 5. Examine your selves whether ye be in the faith prove your own selves know ye not your own selves how that Iesus Christ is in you except ye be Reprobates In a word For this end and purpose amongst others were the Scriptures written 1 Iohn 5. 13. These things have I written to you that believe on the name of the Son of God that ye may know that ye have eternal life And therefore to neglect this duty is exceeding dangerous but to deny and deride it intolerable It may justly be feared such men will be drown'd in perdition who fall into the waters by making a bridge over them with their own shadows For my own part I verily believe that the sweetest hours Christians enjoy in this World is when they retire into their Closets and sit there concealed from all eyes but him that made them looking now into the Bible then into their own Hearts and then up to God closely following the grand Debate about their Interest in Christ till they have brought it to the happy desired issue And now Reader for a close of all I call the Searcher of Hearts to witness That I have not intermedled with these Controversies of Antipaedobaptism and Antinomianism our of any delight I take in Polemical Studies or an unpeaceable contradicting Humour but out of pure zeal for the Glory and Truths of God for the vindication and defence whereof I have been necessarily ingaged therein And having discharged my duty thus far I now resolve to return if God will permit me to my much sweeter and more agreeable Studies Still maintaining my Christian Charity for those whom I oppose not doubting but I shall meet those in Heaven from whom I am forced in lesser things to dissent and differ upon Earth FINIS GOSPEL-UNITY Recommended to the CHURCHES OF CHRIST IN A SERMON Preached by I. F. Author of the Foregoing DISCOURSE FROM I COR. I. 10. Now I beseech you brethren by the name of our Lord Iesus Christ That ye all speak the same thing and that there be no divisions among you but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment WHEN I consider this Healing and Uniting Text and the scandalous Divisions of the Congregations to which I recommend it I could chuse rather to comment thereon with Tears than Words 'T is just matter of lamentation to think what feeble influences such Divine and Pathetical Exhortations have upon the minds and hearts of professed Christians But it is not Lamentations but proper Counsels and convictions obey'd must do the work The Primitive and Purest Churches of Christ consisted of imperfect Members who notwithstanding they were knit together by the same internal bond of the Spirit and the same external bonds of common Profession and common Danger and enjoyed extraordinary helps for uniting in the Presence and Doctrine of the Apostles among them yet quickly discovered a Schismatical Spirit dividing both in Judgment and Affection to the great Injury of Religion and Grief of the Apostle's Spirits To check and heal this growing-Evil in the Church at Corinth the Apostle addresses his Pathetical Exhortation to them and to all future Churches of Christ whom it equally concerns in the words of my Text. Now I beseech you brethren c. Where note 1. The Duty exhorted to 2. The Arguments enforcing the Duty 1. The Duty exhorted to namely Unity the Beauty Strength and Glory as well as the Duty of a Church This Unity he describes two ways 1. As it is Exclusive of its opposite Schism or Division All Rents and rash Separations are contrary to it and destructive of it I beseech you brethren that there be no Divisions or Schisms among you 2. As it is inclusive of all that belongs to it namely the Harmony and Agreement of their Judgments Hearts and Language 1. That ye all speak the same thing 2. That ye be perfectly joined together in one Mind And 3. In the same Judgment This threefold Union in Judgment Affection and Language includes all that belongs to Christian Concord makes the Saints 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 men of one Heart and Soul the loveliest sight this World affords Acts 2. 46 47. 2. The Arguments enforcing this Duty upon them comes next under consideration And these are Three 1. I beseech you 2. I beesech you Brethren 3. I beseech you brethren by the name of our Lord Iesus Christ. These Arguments are not of equal Force and Efficacy The first is great The second greater The last the most efficacious and irresistible of all the rest But all together should come with such Power and irresistible Efficacy upon the Judgments Consciences and Hearts of Christians as should perfectly knit them together and defeat all the Designs of Satan and his Agents without them or of their own Corruptions within them to rend asunder their Affections or Communion And first he enforces the Duty of Unity by a solemn Apostolical Obsecration and Adjuration I beseech you saith he he had Power to command them to this Duty and threaten them for the neglect of it He had in readiness to revenge all Disobedience and might have shaken that Rod over them but he chuseth rather to intreat and beseech them Now I beseech you Brethren Here you have as it were the great Apostle upon his knees before them Meekly and Pathetically entreating them to be at perfect Unity among themselves 'T is the intreaty of their Spiritual
that are his mystically considered and is properly made with all Believers in Christ and therefore it is called their Covenant Zech. 9. 11. As for thee also by the blood of thy Covenant I have sent forth thy Prisoners out of the Pit wherein is no water So when God entred into the Covenant of Grace with Abraham Gen. 17. 7. I will establish my Covenant saith he between me and thee thy Seed after thee So when he took the People of Israel into this Covenant Ezek. 16. 8. I sware unto thee saith he and entred into a Covenant with thee and thou becamest mine This Covenant of Grace made with Believers in Christ is not the same nor must it be confounded with the Covenant of Redemption made with Christ before the World began They are two distinct Covenants for in the Covenant of Grace into which Believers are taken there is a Mediator and this Mediator is Christ himself but in the other Covenant of Redemption there neither was nor could be any Mediator which manifestly distinguishes them Besides In the Covenant of Grace Christ bequeaths manifold and rich Legacies as he is the Testator but no man gives a Legacy to himself This Covenant is really and properly made with every Believer as he is a Member of Jesus Christ the Head and they are truly and properly federates with God the Covenant binds them to their Duties and encourages them therein by promises of strength to be deriv'd from Christ to enable them thereunto 2. We thankfully acknowledge That the glory of the New Covenant is chiefly discovered in the Promises thereof upon the best Promises it is established And all the Promises are reducible to the Covenant They meet and center in it as the Rivers in the Sea or Beams in the Sun But yet we cannot say that nothing but Promises is contain'd in this Covenant for there are Duties required by it as well as Mercies promised in it Nor may we say That those Duties required by it are required only to be performed by Christ and not by us but they are required to be performed by us in his strength Nor is it Christ that repents and believes for us but we our selves are to believe and repent in the strength of his Grace And till we do so actually in our own persons we have no part or portion in the Blessings and Mercies of this Covenant If Christ by believing for us give us an actual Right and Title to the Promises and Blessings of the New Covenant then it will unavoidably follow 1. That men who never repented for one sin in all their lives may be nay certainly are pardoned as much as the greatest Penitents in the World because though they never repented themselves yet Christ repented for them expresly contrary to his own words Luke 13. 3. Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish And contrary to his own established Order Luke 29. 47. Acts 3. 19. 2. It will also follow That Unbelievers who never had union with Christ by one vital act of Faith in all their lives may be nay certainly shall be saved as well as those that are actual Believers because though they be Unbelievers in themselves yet Christ believed for them expresly contrary to Mark 16. 16. He that believeth not shall be damned John 3. 36. He that believeth not the Son shall not see life but the wrath of God abideth on him And Luke 12. 46. He will cut him in sunder and will appoint him his portion with unbelievers 3. It will also follow from hence That men may continue in a state of disobedience all their days and yet may be sav'd as well as the most obedient Souls in the World expresly contrary to Eph. 5. 6. Let no man deceive you with vain words for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the Children of disobedience And Rom. 2. 8. But unto them that are contentioâ—s and do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness indignation and wrath And 1 Pet. 4. 17. What shall the end of them be that obey not the Gospel of God! This Language sounds strange and harsh to the Ears of Christians a repenting Christ saving the impenitent Sinner A believing Christ saving Unbelievers An obeying Christ saving obstinate and disobedient Wretches Whither doth such Doctrine tend but to encourage and fix men in their impenitence unbelief and disobedience But the Lord grant no poor Sinner in the World may trust to this or build his hopes of Eternal Life upon such a loose sandy foundation as this is Reader All that Christ hath done without thee will not cannot be effectual to thy Salvation unless Repentance Faith and Obedience be wrought by the Spirit in thy Soul 'T is Christ in thee that is the hope of glory Col. 1. 27. Beware therefore on what ground thou buildest for Eternity Error X. They deny Sanctification to be the evidence of Iustification and deridingly tell us This is to light a Candle to the Sun and the darker our Sanctification is the brighter our Iustification is Refutation I am not at all surprized at this strange and absonous Language 'T is a false and dangerous Conclusion yet such as naturally results from and by a kind of necessity follows out of their other Errors For if the Elect be all justified from Eternity and that neither Repentance Faith or Obedience be required of us in the Covenant of Grace but were all required of and performed by Christ who repented believed and obeyed for us then indeed I cannot understand what relation our Sanctification hath to our Justification or how it should be an evidence mark or sign thereof or what regard is due from Christians to any Grace or Work of the Spirit wrought in them to clear up their Interest in Christ to them For we being in Christ and in state of Justification before we were naturally born we must necessarily be so before we be regenerated or new-born and consequently no work of Grace wrought in us or holy Duties performed by us can be evidential of that which from Eternity was done before them and without them 1. I grant indeed That many vain Professors do cheat and deceive themselves by false unscriptural signs and evidences as well as by true ones misapplied 2. I grant also That by reason of the deceitfulness of the Heart instability of the Thoughts similar works of common Grace in Hypocrites Distractions of the World Wiles of Satan weakness of Grace and prevalency of Corruptions the clearing up of our Justification by our Sanctification is a work that meets with great and manifold Difficulties which are the things that most Christians complain of 3. I also grant That the evidence of our Sanctification in this or any other method is not essential and absolutely necessary to the being of a Christian. A man may live in Christ and yet not know his interest in him or relation to him Isa. 50. 10. Some Christians like Children in the Cradle
a pure Adam's Covenant of Works but to prevent Mistakes in the Reader 2. It must be heedfully observed also that how free gracious and absolute soever the New Covenant be for God forbid that I should go about to eclipse the glory of Free-grace on which my Soul depends for Salvation yet that will never prove Abraham's Covenant to be an abolished Adam's Covenant of Works unless two things more be proved which I never expect to see viz. First That Abraham and his believing Posterity were bound by the very nature and act of Circumcision to keep the whole Law in their own persons in order to their Justification and Salvation as perfectly and perpetually and under the same penalty for the least failure as Adam was to keep the Law in Paradise Secondly It must be further proved That Abraham and all his believing Off-spring who stood with him under that Covenant whereof Circumcision was the initiating Sign were all saved in a different way from that in which Believers are now saved under the Gospel for so it must be if the addition of Circumcision made it unto them an Adam's Covenant of Works But this would be a direct contradiction to the words of the Apostle speaking of them who were under the Covenant of Circumcision Acts 15. 11. But we believe that through the grace of our Lord Iesus Christ we shall be saved even as they If he say they stood indeed under that Covenant as a pure Covenant of Works but were saved by another Covenant and so for many Ages the Church of God stood absolutely under the Covenant of Works and at the same time under the pure Covenant of Grace the one altogether absolute and free the other wholly conditional and though these two be in their own natures inconsistent and destructive of each other yet so it was that all the Saints for many Ages were absolutely under the one and yet purely under the other shall I be then censured for saying he speaks pure contradiction Possibly my Reader will be tempted to think I abuse him and that no man of common sense can be guilty of such an horrid Absurdity I must whatever respect I have for Mr. C. once more tell him before the World that this is not only his own Doctrine but that very Doctrine upon which he hath adventured the whole Cause and Controversie of Infants Baptism which I therefore say is hereby become a desperate Cause And this brings me to my first general Head viz. I. First That Mr. Cary hath not been able to free his Thesis from this borrid absurdity but by strugling to do it hath according to the nature of Errors entangled himself in more and greater ones Mr. Cary in p. 174 175. of his Solemn Call was by me reduced to this Absurdity which he there owns in express words That Moses and the whole body of the People of Israel were absolutely under without the exception of any the severest penalties of a dreadful Curse and that the Sinai Covenant could be no other than a Covenant of Works a ministration of death and condemnation and yet at the same time both Moses and all the Elect were under a pure Covenant of Gospel-grace And if these were two contrary Covenants in themselves and just opposite the one to the other as indeed they were we have nothing to say but with the Apostle O the depth c. This Reader is the Position which must be made good by Mr. Cary or his Cause is lost Deformed Issues do not look as if they had beautiful Truth for their Mother No false or absurd Conclusion can regularly follow from true Premisses But hence naturally and necessarily follows this Absurdity I. That Abraham Moses and all the Believers under the Old Testament by standing absolutely under Adam's Covenant of Works as a ministration of death and condemnation and at the same time purely under the Covenant of Grace as Mr. C. affirms they did must necessarily during their lives hang mid-way betwixt Life and Death Justification and Condemnation and after death midway betwixt Heaven and Hell During life they could neither be justified nor condemned Justified they could not be for Justification is the Soul 's passing from death to life 1 Iohn 3. 14. Iohn 5. 24. Upon a man's justification his Covenant and State are changed but the Covenant and State of no man can be so changed as long as he remains absolutely under the severest Penalties and condemnation of the Law as Mr. C. affirms they did Again Condemned they could not be seeing all that are under the pure Covenant of Grace as he saith they were at the same time are certainly in Christ and to such there is no condemnation Rom. 8. 1. nor ever shall be Ioh. 5. 24. He that believeth shall not come into condemnation but is passed from death unto life What remains then but that during life they could neither be perfectly justified nor perfectly condemned and yet being absolutely under the severest Penalties of Adam's Covenant they were perfectly condemned and again being under the pure Covenant of Grace they must be perfectly justified And then after death they must neither go to Heaven nor Hell but either be annihilated or stick mid-way in Limbo Patrum as the Papists fancy betwixt both No condemned Person goes to Heaven nor any justified Person to Hell His Position therefore which necessarily infers this gross Absurdity is justly renounced and detested by Learned and Orthodox Divines The Learned and Acute Turrettine the late famous Professor of Divinity at Geneva proving that the Sinai Law could not be a pure Covenant of Works brings this very Medium to prove it as a known truth allowed by all men The Israelites saith he with whom God covenanted were already under Abraham's Covenant which was a Covenant of Grace and were saved in Christ by it therefore they could not be under the Legal Covenant Nemo enim simul potest duoâ—us foederibus totâ specie distinctis subesse because no man can be under two Covenants specifically different at the same time as these two are That Great and Renowned Divine Mr. William Strong gives four irrefragable Arguments to prove that no man can stand under both these Covenants at the same time which in co-ordination actually destroy and make void each other If the First Covenant stand there is no place for the Second and if the Second stand the first is made void And this saith he will fully appear if we consider the direct contrariety in the terms of those two Covenants For 1. the Righteousness of the first Covenant is in our selves but the Righteousness of the Second is the Righteousness of another 1 Ioh. 5. 11. 12. 2. In the Covenant of Works acceptation is first of the Works and afterwards of the Person Gen. 4. 7. but in the Covenant of Grace the acceptation is first of the Person and then of the Work Gen. 4. 4. 3. The First Covenant was a Covenant
Mr. Woodbridge have also done But alas what evidence is sufficient to satisfy ignorant and obstinate Men Sir it pities me to see the lamentable confusion you are in You are forced by the evidence of truth to yield and own the substance of what I contend for You have yielded the Covenant to be consequently Conditional in p. 84. of your Reply You have also as plainly yielded that the Application of Pardoning Mercy unto our Souls is in order of nature consequent unto believing p. 31. of your Reply From both which concessions in your own words recited this Conclusion is evident and unavoidable viz. That no adult person notwithstanding God's Eternal Election and Christ's meritorious death and satisfaction according to the Constitution and Order of the New Covenant can either be justified in this World or saved in the World to come unless he first believe For if the Application of Pardoning Mercy unto our Souls is in order of Nature consequent unto believing as you truly affirm it to be then according to the Constitution and Order of the New Covenant no application of pardoning Mercy can be made to our Souls before we believe And if it be evident as you say it is p. 84. that unto a full and compleat enjoyment of all the Promises of the Covenant Faith on our part is required then as no Man can be actually justified in this World so neither can he be saved before or without Faith in the World to come And if you did but see the true suspending nature of Faith which you plainly yield in these two concessions you would quickly grant the conditional nature of it For what is the proper nature and true notion of a Condition but to suspend the benefits and grants of that Covenant in which it is so inserted And thus the Controversy betwixt us is fairly issued But I doubt you understand not what you have here written or are troubled with a very bad memory Because I find you in a far different note from this in p. 103. of your Reply where you say That if Iesus Christ fulfilled the Law and purchased Heaven and Happiness for Men as all true Protestants hitherto have taught then nothing can remain but to declare this to them to incline them to believe and accept it and to prescribe in what way and by what means they shall finally come to inherit Eternal Life To affirm therefore that Faith and Repentance are the Conditions of the New Covenant required of us in point of Duty antecedent to the benefit of the Promise doth necessarily suppose that Christ hath not done all for us nor purchased a right to Life for any but only made way that they may have it upon certain terms or as some say he hath merited that we might merit But the Conditions of the Covenant are not to be performed by the Head and Members both Gal. 4. 4. Christ therefore having in our stead performed the Conditions of Life there remains nothing but a Promise and the Obedience of Children as the fruit and effect thereof to them that believe in him together with means of obtaining the full possession which here we want Either these passages I have here cited and compared were fetched at a great distance of time out of Authors differing as much in judgment as you and I do and so the dissonancy of them is the meer effect of oblivion and incogitancy Or else your Intellectuals are more confused and weak than I am willing to suspect them to be For if the application of Pardoning Mercy to our Souls is in order of Nature consequent to Believing as you truly say it was then certainly notwithstanding Christ's fulfilling the Law and purchasing Heaven and Happiness for Men something else must remain to be done besides declaring this to them to incline them to believe and accept it or prescribing to them in what way they shall finally come to inherit Eternal Life For besides those declarations and prescriptions you talk of Faith it self must be wrought in the Souls of Men or else Pardoning Mercy is not in order of Nature consequent unto believing as you said it was For all the external Declarations and Prescriptions in the World are not Faith it self but only the means to beget it which may or may not become effectual to that end Secondly Whereas you say that this senseless notion is consequent upon the Doctrine of all true Protestants you therein grosly abuse them and make all the true Protestants in the World guilty of worse than Arminian or Antinomian dotage The Antinomian indeed makes our actual justification to be nothing else but the manifestation or declaration of our Justification from Eternity or the time of Christ's death And the Arminian tells us That the Declaration of the Gospel to Men is sufficient to bring them to Faith by the assisting Grace of the Spirit But your notion is worse than the very dregs of both and yet you tack it as a just consequent to the Doctrine of all true Protestants Thirdly You say That to affirm Faith and Repentance to be the Conditions of the New Covenant required of us in point of Duty antecedent to the benefit of the Promise doth necessarily suppose that Christ hath not done all for us nor purchased a right to Life for any but only made way that they may have it upon certain terms or merited that we might merit Here Sir you vilely abuse all those worthy Divines before mentioned who have made Faith the Condition of the New Covenant pinning upon them both Popery and Iudaism Popery yea the dregs of Popery in supposing their Doctrine necessarily implies that Christ hath merited that we might merit And Iudaism to the height in saying their Doctrine necessarily supposes that Christ hath not purchased a right of Life to any What can a Iew say more Ah Mr. C. can you read the words I have recited out of blessed Burroughs Owen Pemble Perkins Davenant Downame yea the whole Assembly of Reverend and Holy Divines with multitudes more who have all with one mouth asserted Faith to be the Condition of the New Covenant required on Man's part in point of Duty and that Men must believe before they can be justified which is the very same thing with what I say That it is antecedent to the benefit of the Promise and not tremble to think of the direful charges you here draw against them The Lord forgive your rash presumption Fourthly Whereas you say Christ hath in our stead performed the Conditions of life and that there remains nothing but a Promise c. you therein speak at the highest dialect of Antinomianism Hath not Christ by his Life and Death performed the Conditions of Life in our stead yet you your self confess that pardoning Mercy is in order of nature consequent to our believing certainly then there is something more to be done beside the mere making or being of a Promise there must be the effect
of the Promise in our hearts yea the effects of those absolute Promises of the first Grace Ezek. 36. Ier. 32. Or else notwithstanding Christ's performance of Redemption on his part we can neither be justified nor saved For I don't think you intend to lay the Conditions of Repentance or believing upon Christ who in the New Covenant hath laid them upon us tho in the same Covenant he graciously undertakes to work them in us and yet your words sound in that wild Antinomian Note But I suppose you take my Notion to be as self-repugnant as your own when I say Faith is an antecedent Condition to Justification because I also say this Grace is also supernaturally wrought in us and is not of our selves This staggers you and is the very stone you stumble at all along this Controversie for in your sense p. 34. every Condition is meritorious by condignity or congruity First What do I say more in all this than what those Worthies before-mentioned do expresly affirm Doth not Dr. Owen the man whom you deservedly value make Conditions both in Adam's Covenant and the New with this difference that Adam's Covenant required them but the New Covenant effects them in all the Foederates Sir We take it for no contradiction to assert That the planting of the Principle and the assisting and exciting of the Acts of Faith are the proper Works of the Spirit of God and are also contained in the absolute Promises of the New Covenant Ezek. 36. 26 27. Ier. 32. 39 40. And yet Faith notwithstanding this is truly and properly our work and duty and that upon our believing or not believing we have or have not an actual interest in Christ Righteousness and Life For though the Author of Faith be the Spirit of God yet believing is properly our Act and an Act required of us by a plain Command 1 Iohn 3. 23. This is the Command of God That ye believe And if its being wrought in God's strength makes it cease to be our Work I would fain know what Exposition you would give of that place Phil. 2. 12 13. Work out your own Salvation c. for it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do And as this Faith is truly and properly our work though wrought in God's strength for it is not God but we that do believe so it is wrought in us by him by your own confession before the application of pardoning Mercy which is consequent in order of nature thereunto and therefore hath the true nature of an antecedent Condition which is that I contend for and did you but understand your own words you would not contend against Oh but say you p. 34. every Condition is meritorious either by way of congruity or condignity This is your ignorance of the nature of a Condition with which I find you as unacquainted as with the nature of a Covenant A Condition whilst unperformed only suspends the act of the Law or Testament it being the will of the Testator Legislator or Donor that his Law or Testament should act or effect when the Condition is performed and not before but it is not essential to a Condition to be a meritorious or impulsive cause moving him to bestow the benefit for the sake thereof A man freely gives another out of his love and bounty such an Estate or Sum of Money which he shall enjoy if he live to such a year or day and not before is this quando dies veniet this appointed time the meritorious or impulsive cause of the gift surely no man will say it but that it is a causa sine quâ non or a Condition suspending the enjoyment of the gift no man will deny that knows what the nature of a Condition is An act meritorious by way of Congruity is that to which a reward is not due out of strict justice but out of decency or some kind of meetness Merit of condignity is a voluntary action for which a reward is due to a man out of justice and cannot be denied him without injustice Our Faith is truly the Condition of the New Covenant and yet we detest the meritoriousness of it in either sense But you object my words to me in my Method of Grace where I assert the impossibility of believing without the efficacy of supernatural Grace p. 102 103. Sir I own the words you quote and am bold to challenge the most envious Eye that shall read those lines to shew me the least repugnancy betwixt what I said there and what I have said in my Vindiciae Legis c. p. 9. of the Prolegomena and p. 61. of that Book You shew your good-will to make an advantagious thrust but your Weapon is too short and can draw no blood But leaving these weak and impertinent Cavils let us come to your Solution of my Arguments p. 98. by which I proved the Conditionality of the New Covenant My first Argument was this If we cannot be justified or saved till we believe and are justified when we believe Then Faith is the Condition on which those consequent Benefits are suspended c. The sum of your Answer without denying distinguishing or limiting one Proposition is this That here Faith is properly put into the room of perfect Obedience and is to do what perfect Obedience was to do under the Law whereas say you Faith is only appointed as an Instrument to receive and apply the Righteousness of Christ which is the alone matter of our Justification before God and Faith it self is not our Righteousness as it would be if it were a Condition p. 105 106. Not to note the weakness and impertinence of this Answer I shall only take notice of what you here allow and grant That Faith is appointed as an Instrument to receive and apply the Righteousness of Christ which is the alone matter of our Iustification before God Whence I infer three Conclusions First That we cannot be justified before God till we believe except you can prove that the unaccepted and unapplied Righteousness of Christ doth actually justify our persons before God Secondly That the justification of our persons before God is and must be suspended as by a non-performed Condition untill we actually believe Which two Conclusions yield up your Cause to my Argument which you here seem to oppose Thirdly That hereby you perfectly renounce and destroy your Antinomian Fancy before-mentioned That if Christ have fulfilled the Law and purchased Heaven for men nothing can remain but to declare this to them c. for it seems by this they must receive and apply Christ's Righteousness by Faith or they cannot be justified you say not declaratively in their own Consciences but before God And thus instead of answering you have confirmed and yielded my first Argument and only oppose your own Mistakes not the sense or force of my Arguments in all that you say to it or the Scriptures
produced to prove it To my second Argument recited p. 94. where I argued from God's Covenant with Abraham and proved it to be conditional and yet by you acknowledged to be a pure Gospel-covenant all that you say is That you have dispatched that before in your Discourse about the Covenant of Circumcision and therefore will say nothing to it here In saying nothing to it here you have said as much as you did before in the place you refer to and therefore finding nothing said here or there I conclude you can say nothing to it at all My third Argument was this If all the Promises of the Gospel be absolute and unconditional then they do not properly belong to the New Covenant That cannot properly and strictly be a Covenant which is not a mutual Compact and in which there is no restipulation nor reobligation 't is a naked Promise not a Covenant To this you answer three things In the first branch of your Answer you impudently beg the Question by saying That you have proved already in your Replies to my former Arguments that the New Covenant is wholly free and absolute Upon this absurd Petitio Principii you make bold to invert my Argument thus in your second Reply If all the Promises of the Gospel be wholly absolute and unconditional they do properly and truly belong to the New Covenant But so they are Therefore c. Oh rare Disputant In the last place in opposition to the Sequel of my Major Proposition you tell me you will oppose the Judgment of Dr. Owen on Heb. 8. 10. where he saith That a Covenant properly is a Compact or Agreement on certain terms stipulated by two or more Parties c. and that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there used it signifies a Covenant improperly c. If you call this an opposition to the Sequel of my Major either your Brains or mine do want Hellebore Doth he not say the very same thing I do that there must be a restipulation in â— proper Covenant And as for the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which he saith signifieth a Covenant improperly but propâ—rly is a Testamentary Disposition I fully concur with him therein But I hope a Testamentary Disposition may have a Condition in it to be sure such a one as I assert Faith here to be which is the free gift of God and in this sense I shewed you before where the Doctor yields Faith to be the Condition of the New Covenant My fourth Argument was this If all the Promises of the New Covenant be absolute and unconditional and have no respect nor relation to any grace wrought in us or duty done by us then the trial of our Interest in Christ by marks and signs of Grace is not our duty nor can we take comfort in Sanctification as it is an evidence of our Justification c. Your Answer is That at this rate I may prove quidlibet à quolibet for it doth not follow that because the New Covenant is absolute therefore it hath no respect nor relation to any Grace wrought in us nor Duty done by us or that we may not justly take comfort in Sanctification as an evidence of our Justification If I had a mind to learn the art of proving quidlibet à quolibet and make my self ridiculous to others by such foolish attempts I know no Book in the World fitter to instruct me therein than yours Certainly you have the knack of it and gave us an instance of it but now in confuting the Sequel of my Major by an Aldegation out of Dr. Owen which expresly confirms and establishes it But to the Point I would willingly know how it is possible for Sanctification to be a true and certain mark and sign of Justification when according to the Antinomian Principle which you here too much comprobate and espouse a man may be justified before he believe yea before he is a man even from the time of Christ's death and as others of them speak from eternity A true mark and sign must be proper to and inseparable from that which it signifies Now if that be true which you said before That after Christ's fulfilling of the Law in his own person c. nothing can remain but to declare this to men to incline them to believe and accept it and to prescribe in what way they shall come to inherit eternal life If this be all that can remain to us then nothing but the Declarations and Prescriptions of the Gospel which are things without us can remain to be marks and signs of Justification to us and consequently all those to whom those Declarations and Prescriptions are made and given have therein the marks and evidences of their Justification But I am truly weary of such stuff I am sure the Apostle places Vocation before Iustification Rom. 8. 30. Whom he called them he justified And without an immediate Testimony from Heaven I know not how to evidence and prove my Justification but from and by my faith and other parts of Sanctification whereby I apprehended and applied the Righteousness of Christ if you can prove it from the Declarations and Prescriptions of the Gospel I cannot My Fifth and last Argument ran thus If the Covenant of Grace be altogether absolute and unconditional requiring nothing to be done on our part to entitle us to its benefits then it cannot be man's duty in entring Covenant with God to deliberate the terms count the cost or give his consent by word or writing to the terms of this Covenant for where there are no terms at all as in absolute Promises there are none there can be none to deliberate But I shewed you this is man's duty from clear and undeniable Scriptures c. You say by way of answer hereunto that you must tell me that the Scriptures do make a plain distinction betwixt the New and Everlasting Covenant which God hath been pleased to make with Sinners in Jesus Christ and the return of that sincere and dutiful obedience which he requires of us by way of answer thereunto 2. You say there are many things which tho promised in the Covenant and wrought in us by the Grace of God are yet duties indispensably required of us in order to the participation of the full end of the Covenant in glory and in respect hereof we are indeed to deliberate the terms count the cost and give up our selves solemnly to him with sincere resolutions c. But then you thought I had understood there had been a vast difference betwixt God's Covenant with us and our Covenant with God citing Ezek. 16. 59 60 61. where God promiseth to give them their Sisters for Daughters but not by their Covenant And with this you compare Psal. 89. My Covenant will I not break where you say we find a plain distinction betwixt God's Covenant with them and their duty to God And lastly you say p. 105.
rage against my Book One while I thought it proceeded from want of discretion that you were not able to distinguish betwixt an Adversary in a Controversie and an Adversary to the Person but thought every blow that was given to your Error must needs be a mortal wound to your Reputation But Sir how close and smart soever my Discourses against your Errors be I 'm sure they are more full of civility and respect to you than such a Reply as you have made deserves And if in exposing your Errors your Reputation be expos'd you must blame them for occasioning it and not me Some times I thought it an effect of your Policy that when followed close and hard put to it you endeavoured an escape this way Camero speaking of this kind of subtilty in his Adversaries saith Faciunt quod quarundam ferarum ingenium est ut foetore graveolentiâ— defectae jam viribus ac fractae venatorem abigunt Some cunning Animals as Foxes c. when pursued at the heels drive away both Dogs and Huntsmen with their intolerable stench And Hierom long ago told Helvidius his Adversary Arbitror te veritate convictum ad maledicta converti being vanquished by Truth he betook himself to ill Language After the same manner you act here being no longer able to defend your self by solid and sober ratiocination you trust to your faculty in crimination Bad Causes only drive Men into such refuges In a word I am satisfied nothing but your extravagant zeal for your Idolized Opinion could have thrown you into such disingenuous Methods and Artifices as these The Ephesians were quiet enough till their Diana began to totter Your passionate Outcries signify to me something is touched to the quick which you are more fondly in love with than you ought When one told Luther what hideous Out-cries his Enemies made against him and how they reviled him in their Books I know by their roaring said he that I have hit them right You tell me in your Reply p. 24. That you perceive I have a mighty itch to find out your Absurdities I wish Sir you were no more troubled with the itch after them than I am after the discovery of them Had I affected such Employments I could easily have gathered three to one out of your Book more than I did And have represented those I gather'd much more odiously and yet justly than I did But Friendship constrain'd me to handle them because yours as gently as I could I might have justly charg'd you from what you say p. 174 175. of your Solemn Call where you place all the Believers on Earth without exception of any under the Covenant of Works as a ministration of Death and Condemnation and the severest Penalties of a dreadful Curse I might thereupon have justly charg'd you for presenting to the World such a monstrous Sight as was never seen before since the Creation viz. A whole Church of condemned and cursed Believers This I might as well have charged upon your Position and done it no wrong I could tell you from what you say p. 76. of your Reply That God doth indeed in the Covenant of Works make over himself to Sinners to be their God in a way of special Interest but it being upon such hard terms that it is utterly impossible that way to attain unto life c. I could justly have told you That these Passages of yours drop pure nonsense upon the Reader 's Understanding as if Salvation were impossible to be attain'd by the same Covenant wherein God becomes our God and makes over himself by way of special interest to us Had I had an itch to expose the Burlesque and ridiculous Stuff which lies obvious enough in your Book I should then have told your Reader That according to your Doctrine how opposite and inconsistent soever the two Covenants of Works and Grace be yet the same Subjects viz. Believers may at once not only stand under them both but that the same common Seal viz. Circumcision equally ratifies and confirms them both for you allow in your Call p. 205. That it sealed the Covenant of Grace to believing Abraham and yet was a Seal of the Covenant of Works yea the very condition of that Covenant as you frequently affirm it to be Vide p. 81. of your Reply and Passim I could as easily and justly have told you That the most malicious Papist could scarcely have invented a more horrid Reproach against our famous Orthodox Protestant Divines than you I dare not say maliciously but ignorantly have done when you charge such men as Mr. Francis Roberts Mr. Obadiah Sedgwick and indeed all that assert the Law complexly taken to be an obscurer Covenant of Grace that they comprize perfect doing with the consequent Curse for non-performance and believing in Christ unto life and salvation in one and the same Covenant This is an intolerable abuse of yours p. 5. of your Reply They generally assert the Law in that complex sense and latitude you take it to be a true Covenant of Grace though more obscurely administred and that the distinction of the Covenants into Old and New is no parallel distinction with that of Works and Grace or Christ's and Adam's Covenant Your publick recantation of the Injury you have done the very Protestant Cause herein is your unquestionable duty yet scarce a due reparation of the Injury In a word I cannot but look upon it as a discovery of your great weakness That when you meet with such a difficulty as poses your Understanding and you cannot possibly reconcile with your Notion as that of Paul's circumcising Timothy and you affirming that the very act of Circumcision did in its own nature oblige all on whom it pass'd to the perfect observation of the Law for Righteousness You will rather chuse to leave the blessed Apostle in a contradiction to his own Doctrine than to your vain Notion For what do you say p. 95. of your Reply That however the case stood in that respect this is certain c. It also argues weakness in you to insist upon aggravate jeer and reproach at that rate you do p. 83. of your Reply For the mistake and misplacing of one Figure viz. Gen. 12. for Gen. 17. as if the merit of the whole Cause depended on it The like I may say of your charging me with Nonsense for putting Gen. 17. 7 8. for Gen. 17. 9 10. when yet you your self p. 205. of your Call tell us That Circumcision was appointed as a Sign or Token of the Covenant Gen. 17. 7 8 9. What pitiful Trifles are these to raise such a mighty triumph upon When Dureus accused our famous Whitaker for one or two trivial verbal Mistakes Whitaker return'd him the same Answer I shall give you Benè habet his in rebus non vertuntur fortunae Ecclesiae 'T is well the Case of the Church depends not upon such Trifles For a Conclusion I do seriously wâ—rn all men to beware
among them do hold those Errors but speculatively whilst the Truth lies nearer their hearts and will not suffer them to reduce their own Opinions into practice Now as to their Errors about Justification the most that I have read do make Iustification to be an immanent and eternal act of God and do affirm the Elect were justified before themselves or the World had a being Others come lower and affirm the Elect were justified at the time of Christ's death With these Dr. Crisp harmonizes Error II. That Justification by Faith is no more but a manifestation to us of what was really done before we had a being Hence Mr. Saltmarsh thus defines Faith It is saith he a being perswaded more or less of Christ's love to us so that when we believe that which was hid before doth then appear God saith another cannot charge one sin upon that man who believes this truth That God laid his Iniquities upon Christ. Error III. That men ought not to doubt of their Faith or question Whether they believe or no. Nay That we ought no more to question our Faith than to question Christ. Saltm Of Free-grace p. 92 95. Error IV. That Believers are not bound to confess Sin mourn for it or pray for the forgiveness of it because it was pardoned before it was committed and pardoned Sin is no Sin See Eaton 's Honey-comb p. 446 447. Error V. They say that God sees no Sin in Believers whatsoever Sins they commit Some of them as Mr. Town and Mr. Eaton speak out and tell us That God can see no Adultery no Lying no Blasphemy no Cozening in Believers For though Believers do fall into such Enormities yet all their Sins being pardoned from Eternity they are no Sins in them Town 's Assertions 96 97 98. Eaton's Honey-comb chap. 7. p. 136 137. with others of a more pious Character than they Error VI. That God is not angry with the Elect nor doth he smite them for their Sins and to say that he doth so is an injurious Reflection upon the Justice of God This is avouched generally in all their Writings Error VII They tell us That by God's laying our Iniquities upon Christ he became as compleatly sinful as we and we as compleatly righteous as Christ. Vide Dr. Crisp p. 270. Error VIII Upon the same ground it is that they affirm That Believers need not fear either their own Sins or the Sins of others for that neither their own nor any other mens Sins can do them any hurt nor must they do any duty for their own Salvation Error IX They will not allow the New Covenant to be made properly with us but with Christ for us and that this Covenant is all of it a Promise having no Condition on our part They do not absolutely deny that Faith Repentance and Obedience are Conditions in the New Covenant but say They are not Conditions on our part but Christ's and that he repented believed and obeyed for us Saltmarsh of Free-grace p. 126 127. Error X. They speak very slightingly of trying our selves by marks and signs of Grace Saltmarsh often calls it a weak low carnal way but the New-England Antinomians or Libertines call it a fundamental Error to make Sanctification an evidence of Justification that it is to light a Candle to the Sun that it darkens our Justification and that the darker our Sanctification is the brighter our Justification is See their Book entitled Rise Reign Error 72. In this Breviate or summary Account of Antinomian Doctrines I have only singled out and touched some of their principal Mistakes and Error into which some of them run much farther than others But I look upon such Doctrines to be in themselves of a very dangerous nature and the malignity and contagion would certainly spread much farther into the World than it doth had not God provided two powerful Antidotes to resist the malignity Viz. 1. The scope and current of Scripture 2. The experience and practice of the Saints 1. These Doctrines run cross to the scope and current of the Scriptures which constantly speak of all unregenerate Persons without exception of the very Elect themselves during that state as Children of wrath even as others without Christ and under condemnation They frequently discover God's Anger and tell us his castigatory Rods of affliction are laid upon them for their Sins They represent Sin as the greatest Evil most opposite to the Glory of God and good of the Saints and are therefore filled with Cautions and Threatnings to prevent their sinning They call the Saint frequently and earnestly not only to mourn for their Sins before the Lord but to pray for the pardon or remission of them in the blood of Christ. They give us a far different account of saving Faith and do not place it in a persuasion more or less of Christ's love to us or a manifestation in our Consciences of the actual remission of our Sins before we had a being but in our receiving Christ as the Gospel offers him for righteousness and life They frequently call the People of God to the examination and trial of their Interest in Christ by marks and signs and accordingly furnish them with variety of such marks from the divers parts or branches of Sanctification in themselves They earnestly and every-where press Believers to strictness and constancy in the duties of Religion as the way wherein God would have them to walk They infer Duties from Privileges and therefore the Antinomian Dialect is a wild note which the generality of serious Christians do easily distinguish from the Scripture-stile and Language 2. The Experience and Practice of the Saints recorded in Scripture as well as our Contemporaries or those whose Lives are recorded for our imitation do greatly secure us from the spreading malignity of Antinomianism Converse with the living or read the Histories of dead Saints and you shall find That in their Addresses to God they still bless and praise him for that great and wonderful change of state which was made upon them when they first believed in Christ and on their believing passed from death to life freely acknowledging before God they were before their conversion equal in sin and misery with the vilest Wretches in the World They heartily mourn for their daily Sins fear nothing more than Sin no Afflictions in the World go so near their heart as Sin doth They mourn for the hardness of their hearts that they can mourn no more for Sin They acknowledge the Rods of God that are upon them are not only the evidences of his displeasure against them for their Sins but the fruits of their uneven walking with him And that the greatest of their Afflictions is less than the least of their Iniquities deserve They fall at their Father's feet as oft as they fall into sin humbly and earnestly suing for pardon through the Blood of Christ. They are not only sensible that God sees Sin in them but that he seeth such
saving benefits and privileges of the Children of God Iohn 1. 12. But as many as received him to them gave he power to become the sons of God even to them that believe on his name So that unless the Antinomians can prove that receiving of Christ and personal persuasion of pardon be one and the same thing and consequently that all Believers in the World are persuaded or assured that their sins are pardoned and reject from the number of Believers all tempted deserted dark and doubting Christians this persuasion they speak of is not nor can it be the act of Faith which justifies the person of a Sinner before God That which I think led our Antinomians into this Error was an unfound and unwary definition of Faith which in their youth they had imbibed from their Catechisms and other Systems passing without contradiction or scruple in those days which though it were a mistake and hath abundantly been proved to be so in latter days yet our Antinomians will not part with a notion so serviceable to the support of their darling Opinion of Eternal Justification Reason IV. A Man may be strongly persuaded of the Love of God to his Soul and of the pardon of his Sin and yet have no interest in Christ nor be in a pardoned State This was the Case of the Pharisees and others Luke 18. 9. Rev. 3. 17. Therefore this persuasion cannot be justifying Faith If a persuasion be that that justifies the persuaded person then the Pharisees and the Laodiceans were justified Oh! How common and easie is it for the worst of Men to be strongly persuaded of their good condition whilst humble serious Christians doubt and stagger I know not what such Doctrine as this is useful for but to beget and strengthen that sin of presumption which sends down multitudes to Hell out of the professing World For what is more common amongst the most carnal and unsanctified part of the World not only such as are meerly moral but even the most flagitious and prophane than to support themselves by false persuasions of their good estate When they are asked in order to their conviction what hopes of Salvation they have and how they are founded Their common answer is Christ died for Sinners and that they are persuaded that whatever he hath done for any other he hath done it for them as well as others But such a persuasion cometh not of him that called them and is of dangerous consequence Reason V. This Doctrine is certainly unfound because it confounds the distinction betwixt Dogmatical and Saving Faith and makes it all one to believe an Axiom or Proposition and to believe savingly in Christ to Eternal Life What is it to believe that God lay'd our iniquities upon Christ more than the mere assent of the understanding to a Scripture Axiom or Proposition without any consent of the will to receive Jesus Christ as the Gospel offers him And this is no more than what any unregenerated person may do yea the very Devils themselves assent to the truth of Scripture Axioms and Propositions as well as Men Iam. 2. 19. Thou believest there is one God thou doest well the Devils also believe and tremble What is this more than a Scripture-Axiom or Proposition God lay'd the iniquity of us all upon Christ Isa. 53. 6 And yet saith Dr. Crisp p. 296. God cannot charge one Sin upon that Man that believes this Truth That God lay'd his iniquities upon Christ. The assent of the understanding may be and often is given to a Scripture Proposition whil'st the Heart and Will remain carnal and utterly averse to Jesus Christ. I may believe Dogmatically that the iniquities of Men were lay'd upon Christ and persuade my self presumptively that mine as well as other Mens were lay'd upon him and yet remain a perfect Stranger to all saving Union and Communion with him Reason VI. This Opinion cannot be true because it takes away the only support that bears up the Soul of a Believer in times of temptation and desertion For how will you comfort such a distressed Soul that saith and saith truly I have no persuasion that Christ is mine or that my sins are pardoned but I am heartily willing to cast my poor sin-burthened Soul upon him that he may be mine I do not certainly know that he died intentionally for me but I lye at his feet cleave to him wait at the door of hope I stay and trust upon him though I walk in darkness and have no light Now let such Doctrine as this be Preached to a Soul in this condition and we may be sure 't is the condition of many thousands belonging to Christ I say bring this Doctrine to them and tell them That unless they be persuaded of the Love of God and that God lay'd their iniquities on Christ except they have some manifestation that their persons were justified from eternity their accepting of Christ consent of their Wills waiting at his Feet c. signifies nothing if they believe not that their particular sins were lay'd upon Christ and are pardoned to them by him they are still unbelievers and have no part or portion in him Whatever pretences of spiritual comfort and relief the Antinomian Doctrine makes you see by this it really deprives a very great if not the greatest number of God's people of their best and sweetest relief in days of darkness and spiritual distress So that this Doctrine which makes manifestation and assurance the very essence of justifying faith appears hereby to be both a false and very dangerous Doctrine And yet there is as much or more danger to the Souls of Men in their III. Error That Men ought not to doubt of their Faith or question whether they believe or no. Nay That they ought no more to question their Faith than to question Christ. Refutation What an easie way to Heaven is the Antinomian way Were it but as true and safe to the Soul as it is easie and pleasing to the Flesh who would not embrace it What a charm of the Devil is prepared in these two Propositions Be but persuaded more or less of Christ's Love to thy Soul saith Mr. Saltmarsh and that 's justifying Faith Here 's a snare of the Devil lay'd for the Souls of Men. And then 2. to make it fast and sure upon the Soul and effectually to prevent the discovery of their Error tell them they need no more to doubt or question their Faith than to question Christ and the work is done to all intents Now that this is an Error and a very dangerous one will appear by the following Reasons Reason I. The questioning and examining of our Faith is a commanded Scripture-duty 2 Cor. 13. 5. Examine your selves whether ye be in the faith prove your own selves c. And 2 Pet. 1. 10. Give diligence to make your calling and election sure Let him that â—nketh he standeth take heed lest he fall 1 Cor. 10. 12. The second Epistle of
The orderly gathering and filling of particular Churches is of great influence unto the peace and tranquillity of those Churches and therefore it greatly concerns all that are interested therein especially such as are vested with Office-power to beware whom they receive into their Communion The Scriptures do plainly discover to us that Church-members ought to be visible Saints 1 Cor. 1. 2. 2 Cor. 1. 1 2. Acts 2. 41 to the end Ephes. 2. 7. 1 Thes. 1. 2 3. Rom. 1. 7. Col. 1. 2. Hence particular Churches are called the Churches of the Saints 1 Cor. 14. 33. If admissions belax and negligent so much heterogeneous matter fills the Church that it can never be quiet Christians and Christians may live together harmoniously and coalesce in one orderly and comfortable Society as having one and the same Head one Spirit the same general Design and End but godly and ungodly spiritual and carnal are acted by contrary Principles pursue opposite Designs and can never heartily coalesce There is a spirit of discerning a judgment of discretion in the Saints and it is especially desirable in a more eminent degree in those that have Office-power in the Church to judge of mens fit qualifications for Church-communion We all allow that gross ignorance and prophaneness are just bars to mens admission and to deny this were to take all power from the Church to preserve the purity of God's Ordinances or to cast out notorious Offenders None ought to be admitted into Church-communion but such as do appear to the judgment of Charity comparing their Professions and Conversations to be Christians indeed that is men fearing God and working Righteousness And I make no doubt but some Opinions as well as practices render men unmeet for Church-communion Tit. 3. 10. 2 Iohn 10. All Opinions which overthrow Doctrines necessary to be believed which the Apostle comprehends under the name of Faith and all such Opinions as are inconsistent with an holy Life and overthrow the power of Godliness which the Apostle comprehends under the name of a good Conscience 1 Tim. 1. 19 20. whosoever shall hold or maintain any such Opinions as these he is either to be kept out if not admitted or cast out if he be in Church-fellowship In receiving such you receive but Spies and Incendiaries among you What a Fire-brand did Arius prove not only in the Church of Constantinople but even to the whole World Men of graceless Hearts and erroneous Heads will give a continual exercise to the patience of Sober Christians I deny not but out of the purest Churches men may arise speaking perverse things and yet the Officers and Members of those Churches be blameless in their admission But if they can be discerned before they be admitted a little preventive care would be of singular and seasonable use to the tranquillity of Church-Societies Direction II. Let all Officers and Members of Church study their Duties and keep themselves within the bounds of their proper places Ordinate Motions are quiet Motions 1 Thes. 4. 11. Study to be quiet and do your own business and work with your own hands as we commanded you In which words he condemns two vices which disturb and distract the Churches of Christ viz. Curiosity in matters which pertain not to us and Idleness in the Duties of our particular Callings Two things I will drop by way of Caution 1. Let it be for Caution to Ministers that they mind their proper work study the Peace of the Church impartially dispense their respects to the Saints committed to their charge not siding with a Party There be few Schisms in Churches in which Ministers have not some hand Ierome upon those words Hosea 9. 8. hath this memorable note Veteres scrutans historias invenire non possum scidisse Ecclesiam praeter eos qui Sacerdotes a Deo positi fuerunt Searching the Ancient Histories saith he I can find none that hath more rent the Church of God than those that sustain the Office of Ministers This is a sad charge and 't is too justly laid upon many of that Order Oh what a Blessing is a Prudent Patient Peaceable Minister to the Flock over which he watches 2. Let the People keep their places and study their proper Duties There be in most Congregations some idle people who having little to do at home are employed upon Satan's Errands to run from house to house carrying tales to exasperate on Christian against another These the Apostle particularly marks and warns the Churches of 1 Tim. 5. 13. And withal they learn to be idle wandring about from house to house and not only idle but tatlers also and busie-bodies speaking things which they ought not If that one rule of Christ Matth. 18. 15 16. were conscientiously and strictly attended to to tell a trespassing Brother his sault privately then with one or two more if obstinacy make it necessary and not to expose him to the whole Church and much less to the whole World without a plain necessity How many thousand Ruptures would be prevented in Christian Societies But instead of regularly admonishing and reproving those irregular and idle Tatlers as the Apostle calls them who make it their business to sow jealousies to make and widen breaches amongst brethren Direction III. Let all Christians govern their tongues and keep them under the command of the law of kindness in their mutual converses with one another A soft answer saith Solomon Prov. 15. 1. turneth away wrath but grievous words stir up anger Hard to hard will never do well How easily did Abigail disarm angry David by a gentle Apology What more boisterous than the wind Yet a gentle Rain will allay it It may be strongly presumed that a meek and gentle answer will more easily allay the Passions of a godly man than of one that is both ungodly and full of Enmity towards us and yet sometimes it hath done the latter A company of vain wicked men having inflamed their Blood in a Tavern at Boston in New-England and seeing that Reverend Meek and Holy Minister of Christ Mr. Cotton coming along the street one of them tells his companions I 'le go saith he and put a trick upon the old Cotton down he goes and crossing his way whispers these words into his ear Cotton said he thou art an old fool Mr. Cotton replied I confess I am so the Lord make both me and thee wiser than we are even wise to salvation He relates this passage to his wicked companions which cast a great damp upon their spirits in the midst of a frolick What peaceful Societies should we have if our lips transgressed not the laws of love and kindness Direction IV. Respectful Deportments to those that are beneath us in Gifts or Estates is an excellent conservative of Church-Peace Lofty and Contemptuous carriages towards those that are beneath us in either respect is a frequent occasion of bitter Jars and Animosities The Apostle chargeth it upon the Corinthians That no one
Grave and learnned Gataker hath learnedly and industriously vindicated that Scripture from this abuse of it by Antinomians in his Treatise upon that Text entitled God's Eye upon his Israel where after a learned and critical search of the Text he telleth us it soundeth word for word thus from the Original He hath not beheld wrong against Jacob nor hath he seen grievance against Israel So that the meaning is not That God did not see sin in Israel but that he beheld not with approbation the wrongs and injuries done by others against his Israel and shews at large by divers solid Reasons why the Antinomian sense cannot be the proper sense of that place it being cross to the main tenour of the Story and truth of God's Word which shews that God often complained of their Sins often threatned to avenge them yea did actually avenge them by destroying them in the Wilderness nay Balaam himself who uttered these words unto Balak did not so understand them as appears by the advice he gave to Balak to draw them into sin that thereby God might be provoked to withdraw his protection from them And for Ier. 50. 20. it makes nothing to their purpose Many expound the sin there sought after and not found to be the Sin of Idolatry which Israel should be purged from by their Captivity according to Isa. 27. 9. But the generality of sound Expositors are agreed That by the not finding of Israel's and Iudah's Sin is meant no more but his not finding those Bonds or Obligations against them to eternal punishment which their Sins had put them under 4. In a word This Opinion clashes with their other Principles For they say That though there was pardon and remission under the Old Covenant which they allowed to be a Covenant of Grace yet it was but gradatim and successively as they offered Sacrifices If a man had sinned ignorantly until he brought a Sacrifice his sin lay upon him it may be a week a months distance between before they could have their pardon Vide Dr. Crisp of the two Covenants p. 256 257. Now I demand If this were the state and case of all God's Israel under the Old Testament Why do these men affirm that God can see no sin in a Believer and why do they expound the words of Balaam so contradictorily to this their other Opinion For they will not deny but God sees unpardoned Sins in all and here is a week or month or more time allowed between the commission and remission of their Sin And so much of the 5th Antinomian Error Error VI. That God is not angry with the Elect nor doth he smite them for their Sins and to say that he doth so is an injurious reflection upon the Iustice of God who hath received full satisfaction for all their Sins from the hand of Christ. There are several Mistakes and Errors in these Assertions and I suppose our Antinomians were led into them 1. By their abhorrence of the Popish Doctrine which errs more dangerously in the other extream for they wickedly assert our Sufferings to be satisfactory for our Sins which is the ground of Popish Penances and voluntary Self-castigations 2. From a groundless apprehension That God's Corrections of us for our Sins are inconsistent with the fulness of Christ's satisfaction for them Christ having paid all our Debts and dissolved our Obligations to all punishment it cannot consist with the Justice of God to lay any Rod upon us for our Sins after Christ hath born all that our Sins deserved This mistake of the end of Christ's death occasions them to stumble into the other Mistakes they imagine that Christ's Satisfaction abolished God's hatred of Sin in Believers But this cannot be God's antipathy to Sin can never be taken away by the Satisfaction of Christ though his hatred to the Persons of the redeemed be for the hatred of Sin is founded in the unchangeable Nature of God and he can as soon cease to be holy as cease to hate Sin Hab. 1. 13. Nor was Christ's death ever designed to this end though Christ hath satisfied for the Sins of Believers God still hates Sin in Believers His hatred to their Sins and love to their Persons are not inconsistent As a man may love his Leg or Arm as they are Members of his own Body and notwithstanding that love hate the Gangrene which hath taken them and lance or use painful corrosives for the cure of them Neither do our Antinomians distinguish as they ought betwixt vindictive Punishments from God the pure issues and effects of his Justice and Wrath against the Wicked and his Paternal Castigations the pure issues of the Care and Love of a displeased Father Great and manifold are the differences betwixt his vindictive Wrath upon his Enemies and the rebukes of the Rod upon his Children Those are Legal these Evangelical Those out of wrath and hatred these out of love Those unsanctified but these blessed and sanctified to happy ends and purposes to his People Those for destruction these for salvation To narrow the matter in Controversy as much as we can I shall lay down three Concessions about God's Corrections of his People Concession I. We chearfully and thankfully acknowledge the perfection and fulness of the satisfaction of Christ for all the Sins of Believers and with thankfulness do own that if God should cast all or any of them into an ocean of temporal Troubles and Distresses in all that sea of Sorrow there would not be found one drop of vindictive Wrath. Christ hath drunk the last drop of that Cup and left nothing for Believers to suffer by way of satisfaction Concession II. We grant also That all the Sufferings of Believers in this World are not for their Sins but some of them are for the prevention of Sin 2 Cor. 12. 7. some for the tryal of their Graces Iam. 1. 2 3. some for a confirming testimony to his Truths Act. 5. 41. Such Sufferings as these have much heavenly comfort concomitant with them Concession III. We do not say That God's displeasure with his People for Sin evidenced against them in the smartest rebukes of the Rod is any argument that God's love is turned into hatred against their Persons no no his love to his People is unchangeable Having loved his own he loved them to the end Iohn 13. 1. yet notwithstanding all this three things are undeniably clear and being throughly apprehended will end this Controversy 1. That God lays his correcting Rod in this World on the Persons of Believers 2. That this Rod of God is sometimes laid on them for their Sins 3. That these Fatherly Corrections of them for their Sins are reconcileable to and fully consistent with his Justice compleatly satisfied by the Blood of Christ for all their Sins 1. That God lays his correcting Rod in this World upon the persons of Believers This no man can have the face to deny that believes the Scriptures to be the Word of
God or that the Troubles of good men in this life fall not out by casualty but by the counsel and direction of Divine Providence He that denies the hand of God to be upon the Persons of Believers in this life in the way of painful Chastisements and Sufferings must either ignorantly or wilfully overlook that Scripture Heb. 7. 8. What Son is he whom the Father chasteneth not but if ye be without chastisement whereof all are partakers then are ye Bastards and not Sons Nor will any sober Christian deny these Troubles of Believers to be the effects of God's governing-Providence in the World or once imagine or affirm them to be mere Casualties and Contingences for affliction cometh not forth of the dust neither doth trouble spring out of the ground Job 5. 6. In what Eutopia doth that good man live upon Earth that feels not the painful Rod of God upon himself nor hears the sad laments and moans of other Christians under it This sure is undeniable that the Rod of God is every-where upon the Persons and Tabernacles of the Righteous and if any doubt it his own sense and feeling may in a little time give him a painful demonstration of it 2. And for the second That this Rod of God is sometimes laid upon Believers for their Sins methinks no sober modest Christian in the World should doubt or deny it when he considers That 1. God himself hath so declared it 2. The Saints in all Ages have freely confessed it to be so 1. God himself hath fully and plainly declared it to be so 2 Sam. 12. 9 10 11 12 13 14. Wherefore hast thou despised the Commandment of the Lord to do evil in his sight now therefore the Sword shall never depart from thy House c. Here 's the Sword a terrible and painful Evil upon David's House a man after God's own heart and that expresly for his Sin in the matter of Vriah So Moses one of the greatest Favourites of Heaven for his sinful shifting of the Lord's Work Exod. 4. 13 14. The anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses For the multitude of thine iniquities because thy sins were encreased I have done these things unto thee saith God to his own Israel Ier. 30. 15. To instance in all the Declarations made by God himself in this case were to transcribe a great part of both Testaments 2. And as God hath declared the Sins of his People to be the provoking causes of his rods upon them so they have freely and ingenuously confessed and acknowledged the same Lam. 3. 39 40. Wherefore doth the living man complain a man for the punishment of his Sins Let us search and try our ways and turn again to the Lord. This was spoken by Ieremy in the name of the whole captive Church So Psal. 38. 3 5. There is no soundness in my flesh saith David because of thine anger neither is there any rest in my bones because of my Sin My wounds stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness And were it not an hideous and unaccountable thing to hear any Child of God under his Rod to stand upon his own justification and say Lord my Sins have not deserved this at thy hand nor is it justice in thee thus to chastise me after thou hast received satisfaction for all my Sins from the hand of Christ. Would it not look like an horrid Blasphemy to hear the best man in the World disputing and denying the Justice of God in the troubles he lays him under For my own part let the Lord lay on as smartly as he will upon me I desire to follow the holy Patterns and Presidents recorded in Scripture for my imitation and to say with the People of God Ezr. 9. 13. Thou hast punished me less than mine iniquities deserve And Mica 7. 9. I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him And he that refuses so to do gives little evidence of the Spirit of Adoption in him but a very clear evidence of the pride and ignorance of his own heart Iob indeed stifly stood upon his own vindication but that was when he had to do with men who falsly charged him laying those Sins as the causes of his trouble which he was innocent of Iob 22. 5 6. But when he had to do with God he disputes no more but saith Behold I am vile what shall I answer thee I will lay my hand upon my mouth q. d. I have done Father I have done Whether these Chastisements be for my Sins or no sure I am my Sin not only deserves all this but Hell it self Thou art holy but I am vile 3. Nor can it at all be doubted but that these Fatherly Corrections of the Saints for their Sins are reconcileable to and fully consistent with his Justice satisfied by the Blood of Christ for all their Sins For 1. If it were not so the just and righteous God would never have inserted such a clause of reservation in his gracious Covenant with his People to chasten them as he saw need after he had taken them into the Covenant Psal. 89. 30 31 32 33. If they transgress he will visit their Transgressions with a Rod and their Iniquity with Stripes nevertheless saith he my loving-kindness will I not take away That Nevertheless clearly proves the consistency of his stripes for sin with his loving-kindness to his People and with Christ's satisfaction for their Sins 2. If this were not consistent with the Justice of God to be sure he would never single them out to spend his Rods upon rather than others 'T is most certain the holiest men have most lashes in this life Asaph said Psal. 73. 12 14. The ungodly prosper in the World but he was chastned every morning And vers 5. The Wicked are not in trouble as other men 1 Pet. 4. 17. Iudgment must begin at the House of God and if Piety would give men an exemption from all troubles pains and chastisements then men might discern love or hatred by the things that are before them contrary to Eccl. 9. 1 2. Neither could those that are in Christ suffer the painful Agonies of Death because of sin expresly contrary to Paul Rom. 8. 10. And if Christ be in you the Body is dead because of sin 3. In a word As Christ never shed his Blood to extinguish or abolish God's displeasure against sin in whomsoever it be found so he never shed it to deprive his People of the manifold blessings and advantages that accrue to them by the Rods of God upon them It was never his intent to put us into a condition on Earth that would have been so much to our loss So then if the hand of God be upon his People for sin and consistently enough with his Justice it must be an Error to say God smites not Believers for their sins and it would be injustice in him so to do which is their 6th Error Error VII