admirable and to be placed amongst the wonders of the New-Divinity that God should enter into a Covenant with all the World to Pardon and save them upon condition of Faith Obedience and yet not let many of them know a syllable of it Nay that he should expresly countermand the promulgating of the Gospel to them And yet so has God done even by the preaching of the true Covenant of Grace Acts 16. 6 7. Now when they had gone throughout all Phrygia and the Region of Galatia and were forbidden by the Holy Ghost to Preach the word in Asia After they were come to Mylia they assayed to go into Bithynia but the Spirit suffered them not 2. Let us now briefly consider his Assertion That the Covenant of Grace such a one as he has made for us is owing to the Sacrifice of Christ's death and the Righteousness of his Life That God being pleased with these for Christ's sake entred into a New Covenant with Mankind I must tell the Reader that I have narrowly pryed into this Section wherein I find frequent assertions of this Doctrine That the Covenant of Grace is owing to procured by founded on the Obedience of Christ's Life and the Sacrifice of his Death and yet so unhappy have I been in my search that I cannot find any Proof or any attempt to prove it and therefore till I see evidence to the contrary I shall take it for granted that the Covenant of Grace is owing to founded on and given forth by that free Grace of God from whence it is justly denominated A Covenant of Grace though the intervention of a Mediator such a Mediator was absolutely necessary to put us into the Actual possession of those rich mercies designed for us by God in that Covevenant which Mediator himself is owing to founded on that Covenant of Grace and therefore the Covenant of Grace is not founded upon him but indeed for that Covenant which he is pleased to call a New-Covenant and a Covenant of Grace it 's no great matter where 't is founded and therefore let him dispose of his own Creature as he pleases 3. He supposes that Christ's Obedience and Sacrifice had no other influence upon our acceptance with God but that for his sake he entred into such a Covevenant with Mankind This is all however that he can find But this is a most miserable All and either is just nothing or very near it For § 1. Let him of Courtesy Answer one Question more since he is so good at it Whether God was ever at any time unwilling to pardon sin and give Eternal Life to those who did believe his Promises and obey his Precepts If he was unwilling Then let him shew how Christ's Obedience and Sacrifice did operate upon God to alter his will and of unwilling to make him willing what could there be in the Sacrifice of Christ's Death or the Righteousness of his Life that should make God more in Love with Faith and Obedience than he had been before But if God was willing and that without respect to Christ then how does he give the Pardon of sin and Eternal Life to them who Believe and Obey for Christ's sake I am sure of our Authors good-Nature in this point he will say he has said it That some that many were saved without respect to Christ The mercy and Grace of God it seems accepting their Belief of particular Revelations and their sincere Obedience to his Commands Repentance supplying the defects and shortness of their Conformity to the Law Now if God did all this without regard to Christ how does he do it for the sake of Christ But there 's an Answer to this that lies Dormant in the word Promise God did indeed Pardon sin and give Eternal Life to those who believed his Revelations and obeyed his Commandements but he never promised he would do it But now he has drawn out his Grace and good-will into a Promise to pardon sin and give Eternal Life upon the terms aforesaid and this he has done for Christ's sake And let us Audit the Account and all the influence that Christ's Obedience and Sacrifice bath upon our acceptation with God is that we have got a promise from God to do that which he would have done before to give us that he would have given us before only he would not promise to do it for us to give it to us Two things I shall briefly return 1. That God under the Old-Testament made explicite promises of the pardon of Sin and Eternal Life and if under that Dispensation I am sure our Author will say without respect to Christ that this was the Doctrine of the Old-Testament the Apostle asserts Act. 13. 40. To him give all the Prophets witness that through his Name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins 2 Sam. 7. 14. I will be his Father and he shall be my Son and there 's enough in that to secure a promise of pardon to a repenting Child Mal. 3. 17. They shall be mine and I will spare them as a Father spares his own son that serves him but it it is added If he sin against me I will chasten him with the Rod of Men but my Mercy shall not depart from him Ps. 99. 8. Thou answeredst them O Lord our God thou wast a God that forgavest them though thou tookest vengeance on their inventions And as the pardoning Grace that was in God's Nature was revealed to them as the foundation of their Faith and obedience Ps. 130. 4. There is forgiveness with thee that thou mayst be feared So it is drawn out into a promise v. 8. He shall redeem Israel from all his Iniquities which without the pardon of them is simply impossible As for the Promises of Eternal Lise we find good old Iacob now giving up the Ghost and having no hope in this Life expressing his Faith thus Gen. 49. 18. I have waited for thy Salvation O Lord Which doubtless was Eternal Salvation beyond the Verge of that short time of his Life which he knew was expired Ps. 73. 24. Thou shalt guide me with thy Counsel in my pilgrimage and afterwards receive me to glory but a more convenient place will offer it self for the discussing of this matter 2. If then this be all that the Obedience of Christ's Life and the Sacrifice of his Death do contribute to our acceptance with God that for Christ's sake we have got a Promise or a more explicite Promise of the pardon of sin and Eternal Life than before then I must be of the same mind still that it contributes just nothing to the acceptance of our Obedience with God Let me have Liberty to put the Case of two Persons v. g. David and Paul let us suppose these two equally obedient to God's commands the former without such an express and explicite promise of Reward the other encouraged by stronger Arguments of clear and numerous Promises of Pardon and Eternal Life Which
are by the Bread and Wine And the Liturgy in the Office of the Supper expresses not onely a Communication of reall Nourishment from Christ to our Souls but a mutual communication of our Praise and Thanksgiving to God for Christ and to Christ for his Flesh and Blood which compleats the Communion The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for Thee preserve thy Body and Soul into Everlasting Life and Take and Eat this in remembrance that Christ dyed for thee and feed on him in thy Heart by Faith and be Thankfull But to put this out of doubt That all Communion is grounded upon Union I will quote our Author to our Author for Nothing cuts the Diamond like it self God says he entertains us at his Table as his own children Why then let it be referred to the Man that comes next Whether sitting at Gods Table does not presuppose us to be Children Surely we are not therefore Children because we sit at the Table but we therefore sit at the Table because we are Children Again p. 152. Our Author whose word ought to go far with himself assures us That Baptism is the Sacrament of our Admission into the Church There 's our Union then however and the Lords Supper finding us already united affords us a communion or a participation of those Priviledges which flow from that Union So that whether our Union to Christ consist in our Union to the Church or no yet still there must be an Union to the Church before we can hold Communion with it in those Mercies and Blessings which Christ has entailed upon it And thus has our Author made a quick dispatch of Communion with Christ in the Lords Supper could he but as fairly dispatch it out of all other Exercises of Religion he might seriously Triumph that he had cut off the Neck of all Religion at one Blow Well success waits upon the Bold Undertaker and there 's no hurt in a daring Attempt Prayer says he and Meditation and such like Acts of Devotion are no where called Communion with God Our Author is just now turning Quaker Thou man where dost thou read that the People of God put off their Hats or wore Ribbands and Lace But to satisfie him Prayer and Meditation are not called nor are they Communion with God but Means whereby and Wayes of Gods appointment wherein we hold Communion with him In these and other Ordinances we communicate to him the Actings of our Faith Fear Love delight Praise c. and by these he communicates to us of his Grace Strength Favour Mercy to help us in the time of our Need. In Prayer we pour out our hearts before him Psal. 62. 8. In Prayer and Meditation We lift up our Souls to the Lord Psal. 25. 1. Hence that frequent Expression of the Ancient Christians Sursum Corda continued in the Liturgy Lift up your hearts Ans. We lift them up to the Lord But a few dribling Objections he has against this also 1 Object Communion does not consist in Transient Acts. Ans. 1. Communion does consist in those permanent Effects conveyed by transient Acts the Effect of Prayer abides when the Act is over 2. The Lords Supper is a Transient Act both in opposition to Permanent and Immanent and yet there is a real Communion between Christ and Believers therein 2 Object You will not say a poor Man has Communion with his Prince when he puts up a Petition to him to begg his Charity Ans. It 's more than our Author can tell whether we will say so or no. If a Prince commands his Subjects to make their Addresses to him in all their streights promising that the great distance between them shall not prejudice their Supplications and shall appoint a Person near and dear to himself to receive from them and present to him all their Petitions that in his Name they may find Acceptation and Answer if now his poor Subjects shall give faith to his Promises make use of his Indulgence own their Relation to him and improve the Mediation of that Master of Requests and upon the Relief of their Wants Redress of their Grievances shall return their humble and hearty thanks and learn to love their Prince more to serve him better to become more loyal Subjects methinks here 's that which may be called Communion grounded upon Union 3 Obj. To Pray to God is an Act of Homage which we owe to him as our Creator and Father Ans. I looked every moment when he should Confute himself for now he will not deny that Relation to God as our Creator and Father precedes this Communion It 's a Duty says he that results from Relation Therefore say I It 's not the Relation it self And therefore I shall still conclude that Communion does properly denote the Communication of good things bottom'd upon that Union and Relation we have to and with each other and that our Author has most wretchedly abused his Time and his Reader in a weak Endeavour to prove That Communion consists in Union and has merited the Character of Hanno the Carthaginian given him by the great Historian That he was a Person very skilfull in the Art of seeming Reverend SECT 2. Of our Union to the Person of Christ. THis Section may well be called Our Author's Lamentations wherein he most passionately bewails how some men have obscured Plain things to his no small trouble I assure you to vindicate them to their Primitive Clearness We who are not privy to his Nocturnal Elucubrations do little think what pains it cost him to scowre off all that Rust which in so long a tract of time as Sixteen hundred years through the Sleepinâ—…ss of the Ancient Fathers and the Sluttishness of all the Christian Churches Religion had contracted to the day of the date of his Reformation But there are others too that whisper out their Complaints How Christ in the beginning of his Gospel bequeathed to us a Religion Decent but not Gawdy Plain but yet Powerful not courting Proselytes with Meretricious Gallantry but Matron-like Modesty Whose Attire was indeed more coarse and home-spun yet withall very warm and fitted to its end But now-a-days all is trim'd up with Ribbands and Lace and set off with Fan and Feather It was a Complaint as old as Austin That men loaded Religion with servile Burdens which God in mercy would have left free So that the condition of the Jews was mâ—…re tolrable that were subject to Legal Sacraments and n t to the Presumptions of men Thus evâ—…ry one coâ—…plains of faults but very few that I can fee will mond ny I suppose our Author will be content that the Reformation of Worship be committed to the Churches care but for reducing the Doctrine that 's a Burden he has reserved for his own shoulders And methinks I see him like the sign of the Atlas supporting the Globe chearfully heaving at the weight and yet never so much as once crinkle in the Hams God says
his Mediation or to Trust in his Blood but you must â—…o Nomine doe it in Contradiction to the Terms of the Covenant sealed therewith or which is all one it 's impossible but that things subordinate should be opposite The blood of Christ and the Covenant of Christ are perfectly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Person of the Mediator and his Mediatory work cannot be conceived but they involve the thoughts in a thousand Contradictions Positio unius est Remotio Alterius Nay soft sayes he I onely mean in case they understand any more by these things than expecting to be saved according to the Terms of the Gospel-Covenant I do not think they doe And as our Author gave his word for those that are suspected to make Christs Person useless if my word would go as far as his I would readily engage it for them who are suspected to make his Laws useless And so once again all is Husht and still and the fearfull skirmish that was towards is at present stinted Pulveris exigui jactû Let me therefore in the Close give our Author one wholsome Caution That he would not be too rash and peremptory in drawing or wracking Conclusions from other mens Expressions Some will think he has mistaken in his own and may with more ease in others Principles and the Conclusions from thence A Ladder of Deductions and Inferences forty Rounds long is not easily master'd A Sorites or Climax may quickly impose upon us we are never sooner cheated than in a Chain of many links the smallest interruption may secrâ—…tly and insensibly discompose the whole series and concatenation of Dependencies wherein we fancy an infallible Connexion I would not anticipate 〈◊〉 Hericano ill weather comes unsent for and is alwayes too soon and unwelcome when it comes the latest let us therefore keep our selves well whilest we are well Thus smoothly we conclude and say Here ends your Worships Chapter for the Day CHAP. III. Section 1. Of the Knowledge of Christ. THis Section allures the Eye of the Reader with the specious Frontispiece of the knowledge of Christ but proves a mere MockBeggar-Hall and Fools Expectation like a Fair Porch to no House or a great Mountain without a Mouse just like the Guilded Titles of Apothecaries Boxes which pretend to Lodge the rich Drugs of Pontus and both the Indies but are Inhabited often by the Poysonous Spider and Hung with Cobweb-Tapistry Spun out of her own Bowels and Woven with her curious Fingers Or like those gawdy Signs which Encounter us upon the Road whose promising Motto first Invites the Traveller with Hopes of Horse-meat and Mans-meat and then Baffles his hopes with Entertainment that would sterve a Dog To see our Author heaving for a far-fetcht Blow you would verily think he Design'd to Knock the Business stone-dead for ever whilst he does but Imitate the Black-smith that would needs Use the great Sledge Hammer to Kill a Flie on his Childs Fore-head and very Discreetly dasht out the poor Infants Brains Leave we him therefore to the Satisfaction of his own private Thoughts a while and let ours give the Readers Patience a small Exercise The Happiness of Man consists in the Knowing and Enjoying the True God blessed for ever and therefore He who is never wanting to his own Glory nor to His Creatures Happiness in such ways as best Comply with His own Unsearchable Wisdom first Created Man and then gave him an Understanding to Know a Heart to Love and Enjoy His Creator Admirably proportioning his Faculties to his Employment and as he made it his Work and Wages to Love and Serve he furnisht him with a Soul qualifi'd to Love and Serve his God But when Man had sinned and thereby lost his Fitness for that blessed Service it pleas'd God to enter into a New and better Covenant with him Establisht upon that Promise Gen. 3. 15. The Seed of the Woman shall bruise the Serpents Head God would not suffer Satan to rejoyce too much in his success and glory in his greater hopes that he should sweep the World before him and draw the rational Creation into the same Ruine into which he found himself Irrecoverably Plunged The Father had Divided to the Redeemer a Portion with the Great and Promised He should Divide the Spoyl with the strong and Wrest out of his hands that Advantage he had gotten over Man by sin and the Curse inseparably annext to it In the Faith of this Promise had guilty Man encouragement to Return to God and not sinck down in black Despaire to which the Reflexions he must needs make upon that Cursed state he had so cheaply brought himself into could not but Expose him And though the Generality of the Sons of Men through their own sinful Negâ—…ect Lost the Faith of that first and precious Promise yet the Gracious God took Effectual Care that his Service and Worship should be carried down in a chosen Seed and holy Line from our first Parents by righteous Abel heavenly Enoch upright Noah and others to believing Abraham to whom he was Graciously pleas'd to vouchsafe a more Distinct and Explicit Revelation of the Promised Seed And whereas before all Families of the Earth might equally pretend to the hopes of it Now God Clears and Secures it to his Faith that in his Seed by the Line of Isaac should all the Nations of the Earth be Blessed In pursuance of this Promise and the glorious Design managed thereupon he Renews in a more Solemn Ample and full Manner the Covenant of Grace with him the Epitome and Abstract whereof was this Gen. 17. 7. I will be thy God And for the greater Security adds Circumcision a Seal of the Righteousness of Faith Rom. 4. 11. As the Family of Abraham was branched out into two so we observe how the vigilant Eye of Providence Traces that Line by which He had fore-appointed to Conveigh so Rich a Mercy as a Redeemer down to the following Generations And accordingly he Hedges it about with special Care Waters it with extraordinary Blessings Impales it from the Common and Wild of the World by distinguishing Ordinances that it might get a fixed Root in the Earth Hence was Ishmael waved and Isaac taken into special Protection Esau excluded and Jacob comes under the peculiar Cognizance of God just as the Stream and Current of the Promise found its proper Channel and the other Old ones grew either Shallow and Inconsiderable or quite Dried up For the better Securing and more prosperous Managing this great Project God was also pleased to cast the Posterity of Iacob into a visible Church-frame and Political Model appointing to them a Ceremonial Law as an Appendice to the former and the Iudicial Law as an Appendice to the latter Table of the Moral Law accommodating so the whole that all might lead to Him who was indeed the whole life and Soul of that Administration An High-priest and other inferiour ones he also instituted with great variety of
of the Incarnation of the Son of God Understand the mystery of the Incarnation I assure you it 's fair if it be well believed I have not met with many not with any that understand the mystery of it to this day It 's more adviseable for our Author to secure his own Faith in this point than Abraham's Understanding Abraham was a Believer and received his Religion upon the Authority of the Revealer but our Author will own none but what approves it self to his Reason and whether the Incarnation of Christ have had that happiness with him I cannot tell and therefore to deal plainly with him I have some Conjectures that may weigh against his Prejudices which incline me to choose Abraham's Faith even in this particular before his own But however that be the Scripture assures us that Abraham was justified the same way that New-Testament-Believers are One God one Lord Iesus Christ one Holy Spirit yesterday to day and the same for ever and if his poor prejudices must controul divine Revelations I cannot help it An Atheist would believe there iâ—… a God but that he cannot get over all Objections and our Author would believe the Gospel-report of the way of Abraham's Justification but that he cannot weather all the Prejudices which he first creates and then pleads 5. He must understand the nature of Faith and of rowling the Soul on Christ for Salvation and renouncing all Righteousness of his own Answ. I question not but the Father of the Faithful one so much in the exercise of Faith understood very well the nature of it and that he would hardly have lighted his Candle at our Author's Torch but it 's grown the Mode for junior Understandings to vilifie the grey Heads of the Fathers and to count them all Blâ—…ck heads that think not to a hairs breadth with them Abraham knew that Faith consisted in a firm belief that what God had promised was true and that the things of the Promise were exceeding good and so to him He gave a full assent and consent to both with their special Reasons he embraced the mercy of the Promise with thankfulness and joy and credited the veracity of him that made the Promise with security of mind and he felt by experience that quiet and satisfaction of Soul that arises from an interest in him that gave and that Redeemer that was given in the Promise And if he must be jeered for rowling himself on God and on his Christ for ought I know he must bear his burden 5. And now conformable to his old awkward humour our Author will attempt the deciding the Controversie Which way Abraham was justified from Heb. 11. And this I say is a perverse and awkward way of proceeding to wave the proper places Rom. 4. Gal. 3. where the Apostle professedly disputes the point and fix upon one where he disputes it not Two things he would perswade us to believe him in 1. That the Apostle in this Chapter discourses of a justifying Faith To which I answer That the Apostle does indeed Treat of a Faith that justifies but not of Faith as it justifies A justifying Faith has many excellent and admirable uses does a Christian noble service besides that of justifying him before God It teaches him to trust God in all the ways and methods of his Providences to depend on him for all the good things of this life as well as those of a better It deals with the Promises of the life that now is and those of that to come It encourages us to pray Give us this day our daily bread as well as Forgive us our trespasses It instructs us to commit our concerns to his fatherly love and care to wrestle vigourously with all the oppositions we meet with in the Profession of Christianity to walk comfortably chearfully conscientiously in our particular Callings to despise the things that are seen which are but temponal in comparison of those which are not seen and are eternal It taught Abel to offer Sacrifice to God whereby he had the witness that he was righteous God testifying of his gifts And if our Author can see no difference between being made Righteous and having the witness of it in his Conscience he needs a Collyrium which I cannot help him to It taught Enoch also to walk with God from whence he had the same testimony that he pleased God The same Faith that justified him procured him a testimony of his Justification but not as it justified him The Direct Act of Faith is one thing and the Reflecting Act of Faith another It taught Noah also to take Gods warning of the approaching Deluge and to prepare an Ark to escape the danger Whereby he condemned the World and became heir of the Righteousness which is by Faith that is he had more full assurance of his Acceptation with God According to a common Rule Multa tunâ—… fieri dicuntur quando facta esse manifestantur 2. He would perswade us into his Notion of a justifying Faith This justifying Faith says he is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen But the Apostle does not here intend to give us a strict Definition of a justifying Faith but a Description of its most noble effects A justifying Faith produces these effects but not at all times nor in all persons justified it 's Faith in its vigour not in its essence that is here described By this Faith the Elders obtained a good report before men and their own Consciences yet was it not this Act of Faith that justified them before God though it was the same Faith that produced this Act by which they were justified Whereas therefore he would oblige us yet more by his critical skill in the Gr. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a firm and confident expectation of those things we hope forâ—… and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Argument of the Being of those things we do not see For my part I am not much edified and therefore let him make merry with his own Talents That which follows will be more for our Information for he will now speak to the Act the Object and the several kinds of Faith 1. For the Act of Faith It is as he says such a firm and stedfast perswasion of the truth of those things that are not evident to sense as makes us confidently hope for them But this seems to me to be a hungry description of the Act of justifying Faith The Scripture has other apprehensions of this matter which describes the Act of faith by receiving John 1. 12. To as many as received him to them he gave power to become the sons of God even to them that believe on his name Where if the Evangelist may be trusted to make his own Exegesis Receiving of Christ and Believing on his name do mutually interpret each other It 's not enough that the Understanding be engaged in this work which may be found in the worst of men and