being translated into the English tongue for fear the Bakers and Plawmen not understanding some passages should be disheartned from or miscarry in their callings things without any great shew of weight worth other answering then Mr. Latimer gave to Hubberdine That in some places we are to take the Scripture as it lies none that are sober doubt Now if this objection suit not to the Scriptures in general but only to some places then who shall tell us what they are in which it suits not Sure the Apostles speak plainly in laying the foundation truths that are propounded to bring men to believe for if the language there be strange who shall understand what it is that is said if the trumpet there give an uncertain sound who shall prepare himself to battel Now this point we speak of namely the death of Christ and for whom it is is fundamental and the propositions that the Apostle the Teacher of the Gentiles lays down as the Testimony he Preached in the other parts of them are very plain and perspicuous And that this only that he gave himself a ransom for all should be obscure is a groundless evasion of them that do not believe the truth seeing in their preachings of the Gospel he himself tels us they put no vaile over their faces in their ministration but manifested the truth to every ones conscience which sure they did not if they spake so figuratively that many might mistake and few could perceive their meaning as is pretended It s true the Gospel is a mystery but yet a mystery now revealed many things hard to be understood says Peter speaking of Pauls writings but that 's spoken particularly in the things of Christs second coming the word is in the Original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in which things not in which writings Again the speeches that are figurative are generally conspicuous by the maner of speaking as plain as Latimers Fox preaching in a Monkes Cowle and sometimes expresly called parables but no such thing is conspicuous in those places except in the allusive words of ransom and propitiation nor will the places bear such limitations as they speak of as the following Treatise proveth As for that inference of transubstantiation we deny it or the rest proveable upon that supposal No one Scripture saying that either Christ called the bread his body or the cup he took in his hand his blood more then that he said to the Jews destroy the Temple that he was walking in John 2. but by this he might mean and indeed point to his present body and by this Cup his present instant sufferings that he was about to undergo which the Scripture and himself also cals a Cup and the Cup that his Father gave him much less say they that the one or other was turned into his natural body or blood nor is the parallel fair between the doctrines of the Gospel preached as the first principles of faith and these Sacramental and more mysterious speeches Gen. 17.14 15. with ver 2 3 21. As inept it is almost as to make the Every fowl and beast that entered into the Ark to be a fit exposition of the Every man that Christ dyed for whereas the Scripture there expresly limits them to seavens and to two and two of every kinde and excludes the rest and there is no such limitation to any sums numbers qualities or conditions about Christs death they would hiss at men that should produce such places to parallel and limit the All and Every that shall arise or give an account of themselves to God by which shews them to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 absurd and foolish men in these their reasonings for want of faith These and such like rubs are sorry Remoraes to any that are capable of understanding reason and will Judg impartially in this controversie 3. For free will we say that God deales not with men as with stocks and stones and so much all generally grant us But what other I pray are men if their wils have no power or freedome given it of God to act this or that but as external powers carry them if they can only go quò fata trahunt whether they are necessitated can avoid no evil that they commit or do no good that they neglect And yet good reader mistake me not I believe man hath no power but what is given him of God either in naturalls or in spiritualls nor any power or liberty to spiritual acts till some spiritual force or power come to him from God That men are naturally dead in sins and trespasses and wholly strangers to the life of God cannot come to Christ except God draw them and when they are brought to him they cannot of themselves as of themselves think any good thought that 's right and approveable without the grace of God But I believe that God in naturals hath given men as more understanding so also more liberty of choice then the bruit beasts to them more then to insensitive creatures and in reference to spiritual life he hath and doth afford means to the natural man suited to his liberty and power to make choice or refuse to make use of as to read the Scriptures hear the word look upon and view his works c. and we conceive that though those things have no natural ability in them to to save or spirituallize such as use them nor the acts of men in using them can do any more thereto then the blinde mans washing in cold water to open his eyes Yet in as much as God useth to work in them as mediums and sends forth his Spirit with them to inlighten and draw men they are justly guilty of their own destruction that neglect those things when God affords them Yea further I understand and believe that God by his goodness and with and in those means prevents men and wroks in them manifesting his truth in them and giving them a discerning apprehension of it with convincing or drawing power and that he then gives them ability to do what they could not before as to acknowledg the folly he shews them confess the truth and goodness he makes evident to them strive against the ways they see harm them c. though yet these are not spiritual acts of divine and Christ like life they springing from self-love and desire of their own proper good not out of love to God But they that when they are so prevented and in such preventions reproved called allured to listen further to God in the means afforded do stop their ears close their eyes harden their hearts imprison the truth they see and neglect to use the power given them in these strivings of Gods truth with them are justly guilty of their own destruction should God there leave them and strive no longer with them and they that turn at such reproofs and listen yet to the truth that speaks to them and do not slothfully
down their weapons upon which they should be received into his favour and that for assurance thereof and incouragement to the submission required he grants them pardon and an act of oblivion for all past they should come with an after-pretended proclamation and declaration pretending that they are of the Kings privy Councel and know his minde better then in that proclamation to which he had set his hand and seal was declared and telling those Rebels that they know his meaning in those general expressions to be that only here and there a man of them are included in the Princes satisfaction and toward them only the King bears good will the greatest part of them he so hates that he excluded them the satisfaction and act of oblivion for that that 's past by which meanes they should strengthen them in their rebellion it being evident to none of them who are of the one or of the other and so who hath cause to rely upon the satisfaction given and act of oblivion granted Now for the honour of God and of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ I here defend the Apostical against their counter Commission accusing their innovation of it as false and fained and of evil consequence and all the pretenders in it to be therein guilty of high Treason against the Crown Royalty love goodness and soveraignty of the Son of God in altering changing and contradicting his proclamation putting in another in stead thereof of their own devising to the great obscuring and dishonouring of his name and prejudice to the sons of men as is before hinted And whereas one Master Owen amongst the rest hath lately put out a Treatise impleading the true Commission and proclamation of the Gospel and pleading for this other of mans devising my intention is here in this insuing Treatise to defend and bear witness to the old Apostolical Gospel against him and to that end to examine and bring to Tryall all his arguments that he pretends against it and for his opinion according to the good hand of God with me refelling and laying open the vanity and falshood of them and their ground lesness from those Scriptures that he abuseth to countenance them Now the God and Father of lights and fountain of spirits be pleased to shew forth his strength in my weakness vindicate his truth denyed and darkened guiding me so to examine and answer his Arguments and Assertions as glory may be brought to his holy name and nothing but his truth may be maintained by me In His name and strength go I forth in this busines beginning orderly with his First book and Chapter On Master Owens first Book CHAP. I. A view of and answer to his first Chapter with part of the third Chapter of his second Book MAster Owen in his first Chapter propoundeth a consideration of the end of the Death of Christ though in his prosecution of it he takes in the whole business of his coming as well in ministration as in meditation as the Scriptures quoted by him if duly considered make it to appear in which he looks upon it generally both as Intended by the Father and Christ and also as that which was effectually fulfilled and accomplished by it As intended by God and Christ so he shews out of the Scriptures that it was to save that which was lost to save sinners c. in which he speaketh the truth though not the whole truth that Scripture in other places also taken in speaks about this matter as after we shall see But to proceed upon inquiry who these sinners are he tells us from Math. 20.28 that they are many he came to give his life a ransom for which in other places he tells us are Called Vs Believers distinguished from the world Gal. 1.4 His Church Eph. 5.25.26 c. But herein Master Owen dealeth not fairly in that he tells us not at least by Scripture proveth not that those Many for whom he gave himself a ransome be bounded up in those other expressions of Vs Believers the Church so as that Many comprehends no more then in those other expressions are included Sure I am the Apostles no where tell us that those their expressions are interpretations of the full latitude of that Many spoken of by our Saviour nor have they any where put a restrictive to those expressions as Vs only I finde the contrary not for ours only 1 John 2.2 or for Believers only for I finde also that he died for the unjust and ungodly and bought the false Teachers Rom. 5.6 1 Pet. 3.18 and 2 Pet. 2.1 or for his Church only but also for all men 1 Tim. 2.5.6 therefore Master Owen hath not delt candidly in that he hath not given us a full expression of those sinners for whom Christ is said to give himself or to come to save I think Christ himself intimates that he came to save the World both of believers and not believers else I see not the clear reason of that in John 12.47 If any man hear my words and believe not I Judg him not for I came not to Judg the world but to save the world How his coming not to Judg the world but save it if by World he mean only believers should be given as the reason of his not Judging him that believes not passes my reason to conceive therefore sure that word World there must be of a larger capacity He hath not then given a full answer to his query in that he limits the Many spoken of to narrower bounds then the Scripture ever limits it to If he doth not interpret that many by those expressions of Vs and Believers exclusively as to others he saith nothing But it s evident he doth both by his expression Distinguished from the World and yet Christ saith He came to save the World not a part distinct from it only as also by what he saith to this word Many in lib. 2. cap. 3. p. 77. where he tells us that though the Word Many is not in it self sufficient to restrain the Object of Christs Death unto some because it s placed absolutely for All Rom. 5.19 yet those Many being described in other places to be such as its certain All are not so it s a full and evident restriction of it But good Sir where are those places that so describe the Many that Christ gave himself a ransome for and dyed for I hope you think not the words unjust ungodly sinners c. are such restrictive words and yet these are the most usual descriptions of those for whom he dyed No but he sayes those Many are the sheep of Christ the Children of God scattered abroad the children that God gave him the sheep whereof he was shepherd his Elect his People his Church those with whom he made a Covenant c. but as I said before Doth any Scripture say that this is the full and adaequate description of those Many or doth Scripture restrain it unto such I
object of his death is as great an inconsequence as any can be Let it be considered by this like reasoning God stiles himself the Creator of Israel and their King Isa 43.11 Isa 43.15 but many places of Scripture witness that All are not Israel therefore he did not Create all men nor is King of all the earth contrary to Acts 17.24 25 26. Psal 47.7 So again in Jer. 14.7 God is stiled the Saviour of Israel in the time of trouble but All are not Israel Therefore he is not the Saviour of All men contrary to 1 Tim. 4.10 Or like this God Created the Smith that blows in the fire and that brings forth the instrument for his work and the waster to destroy but all are not such Ergo God created not All Isa 45.16 What rational man much less a Scholar would call these undeniable consequences but let us observe what strong proofs he brings to back it He tels us that in that very place Christ presently adds that some are not of his sheep which if it be not equivalent to his sheep only he knows not what is Now that presently is in ver 26. and the other ver 15. so that there are eleven verses distance between them and in the interim there is a Chafma a breaking off that discourse in vers 15. and the following verses See ver 19 20 21. and a new occasion of the following discourse mentioned in ver 22 23 24. so that the latter in vers 26. might be spoken at another time many hours or dayes after the former but however suppose them spoken within two or three verses distance what doth that prove that he dyed for his sheep only just as much as Gods mentioning the Babilonians and Caldeans in Isa 43.14 the verse next before his saying I am the Creator of Israel proves that he created not the Babilonians What wilde reasoning is this It shews indeed that which we deny not there he speaks of no more then his sheep not that therefore he dyed for no more then his sheep especially as the propitiation there he saith not he died for all not there he denies that he dyed for All. As when Paul saith He loved me and gave himself for me he speaks but of himself there but it follows not from thence that he denied his loving any but him c. I might retort here his own language in lin 24.25 of pag. 81. but I have enough to do beside I pray God help him to see that the beam is in his own eye while he cries out of the mote in his brothers Let any but rationally compare what is objected against him pag. 81. and his answers to it pag. 82. and he may well admire the answers For whereas it s objected That our Saviour did not in John 10. set forth any difference between such as he died for and such as he died not for He answers that there is there an evident distinction and that he called them he died for his Sheep just as God calls them he created Israel those that he would give eternal life to c. Now I would Mr. Owen would shew us the other part of the distinction where Christ in any part of the Chapter saies But some there are that I will not die for and they are such and such There Mr. Owen fails In the first discourse Christ onely tells us how he loved his sheep more then other Shepheards that are hirelings and who are his sheep but not a word that he died onely for them sheep by way of ransom and propitiation Nor indeed speaks he there of dying at least not meerly in that consideration but as a shepheard opposed to other shepheards that are hirelings who will not lay down their lives for the flocks committed to them but flee Were they hired think we to ransom or be a propitiation for the sheep and are any faulted for running away and not doing that Surely God never required that of any but Christ nor faulted any for declining it But they were hired to teach lead stand by support and go before their flocks in witnessing the truth against ravenous Wolves and Persecutors not to run away in times of danger and leave their flocks to shift for themselves for not dying for the sheep in this sense he faults the hirelings and in that properly he there opposes himself to them in laying down his life for witnessing the Truth preached and strengthning them for sufferings So that he not onely limits not the ransom here to his sheep but speaks of his laying down his life also to a quite other purpose then Mr. Owen produceth it to prove What follows in him is not pertinent to prove that either he speaks there of dying for them by way of propitiation or much less that he so died onely for them Indeed he tells us intimately that all those for whom he died he died for them in the same manner and to the same end and that he died for none but those that shall be brought in by the Ministration of the Gospel But these are things often spoken but never proved and often disproved He tells us also that the Primary difference there is not between believers and not believers but between sheep and not sheep in which he also mistaketh For though in his after discourse he puts a difference between sheep and not sheep believers and not believers yet in that former discourse in which he speaks of laying down his life there is no difference aimed at between sheep and not sheep but between shepheard and shepheards the good shepheard and the hireling in their entrance to the care of the flock and deportment toward them Let that be but warily considered and it will give further light to our understanding of the place and clearly cut off that exception He sayes again That the question is not at all to what end Christ mentions his Death But there he is out too for it pertains much to the question for if he mentions it as an example to other shepheards under him then he mentions it not as the propitiation for in that we are not to follow him nor can we But he saith His intention is to declare his giving his life a ransom ver 18. but that saith not any such thing but onely that he laid down his life and took it up again And though he should include the business of Ransom and propitiation in that 18 verse yet taking in the other thing too viz. the Testimony-bearing to his Doctrine and so the preservation of his sheep in the faith it makes the thing impertinent to our purpose For our controversy is not whom he died to establish in the faith but whom he died for to ransom them from the sentence upon them in Adam Again Though he say not that he laid down his life to give us example yet speaking of it as done by him as a shepheard over the flock with opposition to
not with the word Men but the men being as bruitish as such creatures speak evil of things they understand not He compares them to the beasts that are made for such ends in regard of their absurd irrationall carriages as by the parallel place in Jude 10. appears and Master Owen would make men believe contrary to the originall which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the Apostle applies those words Made to be taken and destroyed to the men compared to them He tels us also that some are appointed to wrath 1 Thess 5.9 the Apostle says not some as faln in Adam or muchless as created were appointed to condemnation and that Christ should not dy for them We deny not that believers are not appointed to wrath and that 's all the Apostle there says nor that unbelievers are appointed to condemnation as they remain unbelievers not believing in him whom they had so good ground to have believed in he having done so much for them and having such a name of salvation as is reported to them John 3.18 but this comes not up to Mr. Owens intention His last quotation is Act. 1.25 To go to his own place which I conceive is rather applicable to the Apostle to be chosen and so the words to be read thus That he may take the lot of this ministration and Apostleship Compare Acts 1.20 with Psal 109.4 5 8. to go to his own place and the words From which Judas fell are only put in by a parenthesis but take it as it s usually understood yet then it shews but that such as requite Christ hatred for his love and betray him after the knowledg of the truth received loose whatever honor in the Gospel they had before attained and have for their own place hell and destruction and what doth this make against Christs having loved and come forth to ransom him as faln in Adam that he so highly abusing that love had a place fell to him amongst the Divel and his Angels What follows in his p. 93.94 95. is party impertinent and partly spoken to He tels of several ways that men go in to make out their conceptions in this point and I could also shew such differences amongst those that oppose the extent of Christs death some more fully opposing it then others some denying that there is any Gospel sent to any but to the Elect as Doct. Laighton Mr. How c. some that the Gospel is sent indeed to All and to be preached to All so the most of them Some that Christ dyed to purchase all into his dispose but yet bare not any sin of theirs nor did ransom them from any foregoing sentence upon them Some that he hath not bought them or dyed for them at all onely seemed to buy them others that he dyed to buy many good things for them but not to buy them c. but to what purpose doth he repeat or I recriminate such things which shew but that we have not attained to unity of faith in perfection or that there are imperfections in our apprehensions of truth not that this or that is the truth I doubt not but Veritas magna est praevalebit As truth shines forth more brightly so the many oppositions against it by them and the many swarvings from it in some conceptions that may be amongst us will all vanish and be scatterred nor shall its abettors need such distinctions as are not founded in the Scriptures nor such expressions as there finde no footing as many of Mr. Owens are as we shall see as what he gives us as the summ of the truth in this matter viz. That god out of his infinite love to his Elect sent his dear Son in the fulness of time to dy and pay a ransome of infinite value and dignity for the purchasing eternal redemption and bringing unto himself all and every one of those whom he had before ordained to eternal life for the praise of his grace Not that we deny that God sent his Son to dy and pay such a ransom or that he purchased eternal Redemption or will bring to himself all those that he fore-ordained to eternal life c. But that the Elect was the sole object of Gods love or that it was love to them only and none but them as he after concludes that moved God to send his Son Our Saviour himself expressed not himself so He saith not God so loved his Elect that he gave his only begotten Son that every one that believes should not perish c. but God so loved the World Mr. Owen confounds the Elect and the World together and makes as if Christ had said that every one of the Elect that believes should not perish Besides I would have Mr. Owen shew me that any persons were considered as Elect before the consideration of Christs dying for men and how they are said then to be Elect in Christ and not in Adam rather if men looked upon either as in Massâ purâ or as in Massâ corruptâ were the object of Election and not rather as Christ was eyed intervening between God and them What he says about the value and dignity of the ransom and price which Christ paid viz. That it was infinite and fit for the accomplishing of any end and procuring any good for all and every one for whom it was intended had they been millions of men more then ever were created we shall meet with it again in li. 4. ca. 1. and therefore I shal onely say this to it here That it fairly intimates that Christ hath merited more by it then ever shal be applyed the desert or merit of it being immeasurable for extent but the application of it bounded and so if strictly looked into he grants such difference between the meriting of it and its application as he faults his adversaries for nay and makes a great yea an infinite part of its merit to be to no purpose His following Assertions are things again and again affirmed but never as yet proved by Scripture viz. Either that the whole adaequate intention of God in giving Christ was the bringing many sons to glory or that all the things procured by Christs death are to be bestowed on All that Christ dyed for I conceive my expressions laid down in the beginning of this Chapter are cleerer and less cloudy yea and more consonant to the Scripture expressions then what he hath given us as the Sum of the Truth in this business CHAP. IIII. A view of what is further said by Mr. Owen to this matter in his fifth Chapter HIs next Chapter is spent in Arguments against that Distinction of Impetration and Application as he had expressed it in the Arminian sense which differing from mine I might pass over yet I shall speak to diverse passages in it which somewhat intrench upon what I have laid down in my second observation about Impetration As In the entrance he hath an Assertion without proof viz. That for
do fall we have but discovered a hypocrite and parted with him and discern that Christ never died for him Is this to expound the Scripture or to pervert and elude it But why did he but seem to be a brother Surely hypocrites use-rather to boast themselves of strength and seem to be strong then to appear weak they use not to dissimble and counterfeit the lowest places or least strength as we may see in Jehu But we are brethren onely by Faith That 's untrue In a Church-Fellowship Faith and Confession make brethren with professed agreement in joynt worshiping And such also as have true illuminations and some measure of saith in believing the truth and seeking God therein may and do turn aside as the Scriptures witness As the Galathians did run well not hypocritically but well and yet some of them Paul greatly scared for they were turned away from him that called them And others put away a good conscience making shipwrack of faith 1 Tim. 1.20 Sure a counterfeit profession never makes a good conscience Weak believers not yet setled and rooted nor so far prevailed with as to be brought to commit their souls to Christ nor made one with Christ and his chosen ones in spirit throughness of heart are in danger of falling off by corrupt doctrines and temptations if they take not diligent heed to Christ and his doctrine Thence the Apostles were especially earnest in watching over admonishing such And yet that faith truth confession goodness of way and walking they had might truly denominate theÌ„ brethren And such the Apostle speaks of here as had had some illuminations and their hearts closing with the truth yea the truth so powerful in them as to pull them out of the worlds way and fellowships and made them attend amongst the Church for further knowledg and divine teachings yet being not established and so throughly united to them in Spirit they might be shaken and turned away again by offensive carriages But that the Apostle should mean him thou countest a brother and Christ to have died for or wish him onely to avoid endeavouring his perishing is a meer perverting of the Apostles saying The Apostle uses not to speak things contrary to truth to suit with seeming appearances to men as we noted above As for his making us draw an universal Conclusion from this or the other Scripture viz. That therefore he died for all Reprobates it s none of ours but this Therefore the after perishing of men proves not that Christ died not for them as they use to argue nor did he dye for the Elect onely as they say 3. The third place is 2 Pet. 2.1 Denying the Lord that bought them and bring upon themselves swift destruction In which he questions every thing As 1. Whether by Lord be meant Christ as Mediator 2. Whether by buying be meant an eternal Redemption by the blood of Christ 3. Whether it be spoken according to Reality or appearance To the first he says It rather signifies God the Father because the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is every where given to him To which I answer 1. Christ calls himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is all one with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Matt. 10.25 alibi 2. Jude in his Epistle which is almost word for word the same with this Chapter tells us speaking of these men that they deny 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the onely Master God and Lord Jesus Christ where a Vnicus articulas omnibus istis epithetis communis omnino declarat Christum esse Herum illum unicum Vid. Bez. in locum Beza strongly contends that all those Epithites are given to Christ there being no pause between them and but one Article prefixed before them All blaming Erasmus much for otherwise rendring it Nay He tells us That one ancient Greek Copy Codex Complutensis reads it thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And sure if that b Vide etiam Zâ—nch in Jud 4. Qui Deitatem Christi inde arguens haec habet Petrus verò à quo Judas desumpsitsua docet Jesum Christum esse hunc 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quem falsi doctores negant Etiam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inquit Petrus qui illos mercatus est abnegantes quis mercatus nos est nisi Christus suo sanguine c. Et Paulò post Confirmat Judas Christum esse hunc 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nostrum Deum Illà enim omnia praedicata de uno subjecto Jesu Christo praedicantur cum unus tantùm sit articulus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 communis omnibus ille praedicatis Zanch. de trib Elohim par 1. lib. 6. 5. place that answers this so exactly ascribe that title to him it s not to be denied that this doth it too But he says It s not a proper word for our Saviour in that work of Redemption because its such a Lord and Master as refers to servants and subjection but the end of Christs purchase is always exprest in words of more indearment But this is frivolous for in 2 Cor. 5.15 He died for all that they might live to him expresses subjection and to be as his servants as the end of his death So in 1 Cor. 7.22 23. upon this ground that Christ bought us with a price it s said He that is called being free is the Lords servant and so in Rom. 147 8 9. Thence the Apostles through redeemed by Christ I trow stile themselves the servants of Christ To say nothing that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used to denote as much reference to subjection as this can and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 used over all in the house Elect and others See Matth. 15. â—7 27 and 18.25.32 Joh. 15.15 Matth. 20.1.16 2. Was not such a word as argued their duty of a subjection fittest to aggravate their sin of denying subjection Whereas he says God only in the following verses is named and not Christ That 's not so for in ver 20. where he speaks again to this Apostacy of theirs they are said to have escaped the pollutions of the world through the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ But 3. Suppose it be meant of God Is not Christ as Mediator God too And is not God said to purchase his Church with his blood Acts 20.28 Doth he buy any into his Church but by the Death and bloodshed of Jesus Christ He says Yes and that 's the second thing to be spoken to in which he says 2. its uncertain whether this buying was made with the ransom of his blood or by the goodness of God delivering them by the knowledg of the truth from Idolatry To which I answer By both The goodness of God is not extended to faln man but by Christs death The Declaration of which as so testified is the truth that God makes forcible for drawing men to himself from their Idolatry Tit. 3.4 5. 1 Cor. 15.2 3. That there must be a price is evident and
which is the thing the Apostle brings it to prove but that he hated either of them from Eternity and before they had done either good or evil or that he so hated the greater part of mankinde that God loved only his elect and chosen that he is only their Saviour that Christ died only for them and gave himself a ransom only for his sheep and Church and did not die for the greatest part of men nor hath any fitness or sufficiency as a mediator for them to save them that God did make the greatest part of men with intention to destroy them and never bare any good will to them that they perish for ever for the sin of Adam and that their condemnation is aggravated by their after sins for their neglecting that that was never for them and for not repenting and believing on him though there was neither object meet for them to believe on nor any power vouchsafed to them from God by which in attending to God in the meanes propounded they might have been brought to repent and believe that all that Christ died for shall be saved eternally and none of them shall perish these and the like positions maintained by them we finde no Scripture asserting and so have no divine ground of believing but to maintain them they rely on their reasons adding to and detracting from the Scripture-expressions as they please yea plainly contradicting them making particular affirmative propositions in Scripture equipollent to universal affirmatives as We or the Church are sanctified by his Death ergo All that he died for and particular Affirmatives to be repugnant and contradictory to universal Affirmatives as He gave himself for us ergo Not for all gave his life as a shepherd for his sheep ergo he gave not himself a ransome for all men and many such inept and unscholarlike inferences their wisdomes make to maintain and strengthen their devised Assertions drawing conclusions by them openly contradictory to the Scripture-expressions as ergo He died not for all and every one God would not that all men should be saved c. I would Master Owen and the rest of his minde would be content that God should be true and reason be judged absurd and vain where it opposes him that he may have but that glory of his mercy goodness truth and Justice that he in the Scriptures asserts to himself we should willingly hold us to that bargain with them But alas how injurious they are to the truth of God too and how unbelieving of and contradictory to the Scriptures thou mayst see by this litle tast here given and more fully I hope by the treatise itself here presented to thee as an answer to him but yet I have not set before thee all the good and usefulness of the truth here defended nor all the evil of theirs opposed For 3. This truth is profitable too for men both in respect of themselves and others in both which regards too their counter-positions are injurious First In respect of mens selves to whom its propounded who are to believe and receive it its profitable for them to hear and receive it because it presents to them an object for their faith a motive to repent believe serve and love God and matter of comfort to them that lye in sadness and distress for want of seeing ground to hope in him for this presents God as loving and gracious to them and what can be a greater motive to a man to listen to God then that his Doctrine comes in love and good will and brings good to him or what so powerful as love to break a man off from evils against him a loving carriage in David toward Saul melts him into tears and brings him from seeking to harm him to confess his evil and give good language to him how much more shall the love of God preached to men and believed by them work upon them Rom. 2.4 5. Psal 36.7 8. or else they shall be left the more excuseless and God shall be the more glorified in their destruction It is not commands to repent but love and goodness in him that is offended that indeed leads and brings in the heart to true repentance So what will so effectually draw a soul to trust in God as when it hears and believes the goodness of God Mansheart is so conscious of its own evil that neither commands or promises especially being so uncertain whether they appertain to us or no will draw us in to betrust our selves with God 1 John 4.19 except we perceive some real Testimonies of his love first towards us And what so strong a cord to love and service of him as to see his love preventing us Love seen and believed in him Tit. 3.4 5. begets love and service in us to him We love him because he loved us first Such our contrariety to God in our selves and such our apprehensions of his contrariety to us that till our hearts be purged from both by the demonstrations of his love and goodness we will not love and serve him not serve him in love without which our service is not acceptable and delightful to him so that from this love of God preached and believed springs true obedience and the hearty keeping of Gods Comandmments Yea herein it is that men see their sins most exactly odious and are abased in the sight of them True the Law saies what is good and evil righteous and sinful but the Gospel shews most lively the hainousness of that sin while it presents it not otherwise to be expiated then by the bloud of Gods own Son and shews otherway no remission yea this love and goodness at once both humbles for sin against God and leads to hope in and expect good from God yea and while it speaks not of an absolute certainty of life and happiness for all for whom Christ died but these things to be certainly obtained in submission to him believing on him and yielding up to his Spirit it leads the soul to serve the Lord with an holy fear and to rejoyce in him with trembling through which holy fear the heart is preserved from departing from him So that this doctrine from the very word and Oracle of God discovers to thee or any man while yet not sinning that great sin to death an object meet to look upon and admire God meet to be turned to sought after hoped in and served yea is a motive to and a ground foundation and spring of true comfort and godliness of all which the contrary position deprives a man No man by that beeing able as from the word of God to see good and right ground of loving hoping in and serving God till he see that he do love hope in and serve him there being nothing that bears witness of God to any particular soul in their doctrine that he loves and hath good will towards it untill it see the discriminating and distinguishing electing love of God towards
neglect the power and liberty therein given them may meet yea are in the way to meet with further operations of the truth to convert and heal them to give life yea divine principles of life hope in God and faith in God to them he having said that such as turn at his reproofs shall have the Spirit poured upon them and his words made known to them and they that listen to him though dead shall live c. and that meerly out of his grace and good will toward them not out of either merits of Congruity or Condignity found in them Though that God passes by many rebellions in such cases and out of more abundant love where he pleases draws more prevailingly even those that have more rebelled many times passes by those that have less may be easily proved And wherein this or any thing in this either contradicteth or jarreth with the Scriptures I as yet see not That men may exercise or use their inatural faculties in the things in which God useth to shine in light to men as well as in others as to hear the word as well as to hear other discourses I see no ground of denying though they cannot hear with such pleasure and delight as they do other things till something there heard doth take them yet hear they may and mens negligence in such things is called slothfulness which stands not in a man 's not doing what he cannot but in not assaying to do according to liberty and might and rebellion when joyned with wilfulness Now whereas it s said that should men do to the utmost what they can by that light and power given yet that their doing would not save them To that I answer that it s not material for first as to the business in hand it s enough that they have power and liberty from God to do more then they do 2. It s granted that no act that God gives any man power to do can save him by its self It s not of him that willeth or of him that runneth Rom. 9.6 but of God that sheweth mercy but is not he that bids them listen to him and gives them light to see and discern such truths and motion to own and follow them able to save them or doth he any where give any intimation that upon their acting forth in these his workings in and with them according to the power and liberty he gives he will refuse to do any thing more for them by which they should be brought nearer to him so as they might be saved If they have then indeed they may well be slothful and say I had as good stay where I am and stifle what I see for yeelding up to it will not save me nor will God do any thing to that purpose further for me and so their slothfulness and rebellion may finde some excuse If not then it appertaines to them to hear his voice and as Caleb said in another case only not to rebel nor be slothful and let God alone with what pertains further to their eternal welfare which if they refuse to do they have no excuse in as much as for ought they know and that God hath said to the contrary nay rather by what he says he would have done for others had they harkened to his voice they might hopefully conceive that he would have revealed greater things to them Psal â—1 14 15. Isa 48.17 18. and put forth greater acts of power about them and so have saved them So that they cannot excuse themselves with pleading as the evil slothful servant and as many teach men to plead that God is a hard Master gathering where he strawed not and reaping where he sowed not they cannot say he refused to give them faith and further grace or knowledg of himself requisite to save them seeing they were unfaithful in that talent he gave them which had they improved as he willed and inabled them they might have had more for ought they or any know given them That such are Gods dealings with men as are above declared many Scriptures intimate as that he manifests his truth in them and they say to him Depart from us c. His goodness leads men to repentance they shut their eyes and close their ears least they should see hear understand and be converted and so God should heal them for which things God also many times in just judgment blindes deafs and hardens them too and seals them up to their destruction but he first strives with men and reproves them bids them turn at his reproofs and he will pour out his spirit upon them and tells them when he gives them up it was because they would none of him would not hear him would not chuse his fear liked not to have the knowledg of him and sayes had they hearkened to him their peace had been as the Rivers and their righteousness as the waves of the sea and he would have done thus and thus for them with many such like expressions but that any Scripture says that as men are naturally dead in sins and trespasses so he manifests no truth to them or gives no power with that truth manifested by which they might grope after him would not did they walk out in what he gives them give any more knowledg of Himself or Son unto them and would not bring them to believe c. We are yet to learn or that ever any did so and were there left by him notwithstanding and were condemned by him These things I say we neither finde plainly expressed in Scripture nor darklier intimated And that this derogates at all from Gods glory or liberty to shew more mercy as and where he pleases I would fain have any man to demonstrate to me Yea I appeale to any equal Judg whether this clears not the equity of Gods way far more and suits not better with the Scripture expressions then to say he gives them no such power or liberty and yet condemns them for not doing what they no waies might have done and doing what was no waies to be avoided by them requiring of men to act out all that strength that in Adam was given and punishing them as they fail in that Surely by the rule Jew and Gentile should both alike be punished they both equally by nature being destitute of that righteousnes and strength and not one more then another according to more or less now vouchsafed to them So that this Objection about free will is a meer rub cast in thy way too no such conclusion being provable by Scripture as that God gives to many men no power or liberty to do any thing that he requiers of them or that did they constantly act forth according to what he gives them yet he would do nothing more to them that would lead them to salvation or that Christ dyed only for such as he gives liberty to so as to bring them in actually and effectually to believe on him and
see no one place that proves that His answer then is still as unsatisfactory as if to this who shall rise again I should answer they are many that sleep in the dust of the earth Dan. 12.3 and then quote that in 1 Cor. 15.27 first Christ then they that are Christs at his coming and that Rom. 8.11 if the spirit of Christ dwell in you he that raised up Jesus will also quicken our mortal bodies and 1 Cor. 6.14 He hath raised up the Lord and will also raise Vs up by his power and then say that these are a description of those many that shall rise again should I be thought substantially to prove that Many limited only to them And yet if such an answer would not be fair then neither is his If it be Objected That other Scriptures say that some shall rise to condemnation I answer that other scriptures suppose a possibility of his perishing for whom Christ died 1 Cor. 8.11 and say that the false Teachers were bought by the Lord and yet pull upon themselves swift destruction for denying him that bought them 2 Pet. 2.1 so that the arguments are alike as is evident to any judicious impartial reader We have nothing but Master Owens word that those forecited epithites and sentences are the full description of that Many for whom Christ gave himself a ransome and that 's too weak a ground to build our faith upon That they are included in that Many we grant that they are all that Many that he died for we deny and he hath not proved Now not to recriminate and fling back upon himself that froth of wit which in his coming to answer what is objected to his argument from the word Many he casts upon a godly though less learned writer I shall view his confirmations of his argument or evasions from objections made against it The Objection mainly insisted on is that the word Many is used for All and aequivalently to All as in Dan. 12.3 compared with John 5.29 and Rom. 5.19 To which he sayes 1. That if the proof was taken from the word Many meerly and not from the description of those Many annexed with a presupposed distinction of all men into several sorts by the purpose of God that exception would bear some colour So that he leans more upon his description then upon the word Many but now that description being a partial description and no where in Scripture averred to be the adaequate description of those Many for whom Christ dyed this argument will ex confesso fall to nothing with a following simile which runs not parallel with the argument for that distinction of men into several sorts that he mentions here we shall view it hereafter 2. To Dan. 12.3 he sayes that there a distribution of the word to the several parts of it must be allowed as thus the dead shall rise Many to life and Many to shame which is a meer evasion crossing the text for the word Many is the Totum congregatum and there are distributive particles of that whole following in the Text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these to life and those to shame or some to life and some to shame besides which he adds a gross mistake of the Apostle as if it might be said Many shall rise because the Apostle sayes All shall not dye Whereas the Apostle no where hath such a saying It s not all shall not dye but all shall not sleep which signifies a resting in death not a dying simply in that sudden change opposed to sleeping there is a death and resurrection though not a sleeping in death and resurrection from the grave Besides though that were granted that All dye not yet I hope the Many that sleep in the grave that shall thence rise Iohn 5.29 are the same with All that are in their graves shall come forth All that are in their graves have dyed and all them are called Dan. 12.2 Many that sleep in the dust 3 To that in Rom. 5.19 he sayes Many seems there to be all but not spoken with an intent to denote all with an amplification because no comparison there instituted between the numbers c. But neither is there any strength in that for 1. though here he mince the matter with seems to be All yet p. 77. he confesseth the word Many to be placed absolutely for All and instances this place and that 's enough to my purpose 2. It s plain that a comparison is there instituted between Number and Number thus far that both numbers are Many yea and verse 18. the Apostle is as strict in the words of number as in any thing else As by one offence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so by one obedience 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All men to all men and so in verse 19. Many to many the comparison is in this that both have their effects upon many as well as in the effects themselves Yea and the word Many is clearly a word of amplification of both parts The All made sinners are truly Many exceeding Many and that Many All for producing other places in which the word Many is All though it be a trivial business in which only the Author that he bends himself against is challenged yet because he is confident that there is no other I shall with the Authors leave and his propound one or two to consideration as that in Numb 6.36 Return O Lord to the many thousands in Israel is to All the thousands of Israel and not to many of those thousands only so Mic. 4.4 He shall Judg among many Nations is among all Nations for other Scriptures say The Lord shall be one and his name one in All the earth and he shall judge the World in Righteousnes and All Nation shall glorify him But to return to the first Chapter in which those expressions of the end of Christs coming that is to save sinners c. are good and approved by us as the word of God But how he understands this word Saved or how this phrase of Coming to save he doth not fully express to supply which defect I shall consider them a little And 1. For the word Save it s of a large signification in Scripture when it s attributed to God and Christ as 1. It signifies to preserve or keep life yea when it is forfeited by our sin and God might justly deprive us of it to keep out of perishing as in Luke 9.56 The Son of Man came not to destroy mens lives 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but to save them Truly I conceive that in the day that Adam sinned he forfeited his soul or life and in his own ours also who were vertually in him and had God strictly taken the forfeiture of him He and we all in him had in that very day forthwith perished but Christ who was fore ordained to this business stept in between God and man and by way of ingagement became the dead Man the Lamb slain for us
gives a good answer by his resurrection that is by it as not only acted in Christ but as discovered to us in the word and as its that medium by which we behold Gods goodness toward us Rom. 3.25 and 5.1 And so the bloud of Christ Justifies us by faith in it as by vertue of the satisfaction made by it Christ presents us righteous being brought into him through the faith of it and so for sanctification it 's by his bloud sprinkled on us and through the power of the spirit working powerfully in us That place in Heb. 9.14 quoted by him p. 64. to prove sanctification to be an immediate product of his death is horribly mistake for it speaks not of his Death simply assuffered or his blood as presented by him to God but as sprinkled upon the conscience and therefore it s brought to answer the type of the red heifer Numb 19. which not by its death and oblation immediately sanctified the people but the ashes of it being reserved and after mixed with clean water and sprinkled on the unclean then Sanctified to the purifying of the flesh and not otherwise so also he hath misapplyed 2 Cor. 5.19 in his first chapter p. 2. bringing it to prove Reconciliation accomplished in the Death of Christ When the Apostle speaks but of it in fieri not in facto its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Reconciling to the accomplishment of which in them he exhorts them in ver 20. Be ye reconciled unto God so in pag. 3. he hath to wrong purpose quoted Heb. 9.12 and 1 Pet. 2.24 as speaking of redemption or justification as accomplished upon men when they so far as he quotes them speak but of Christs finding or obtaining it of the father in himself or into his hand nor is it there expressed for whom or for how many he obtained it the words for us being not in the Text. Again he there misquotes Rom. 3.25 rendring it We have all sinned and are justified as if it were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereas it is indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All have sinned being justifyed c. But I pass from these things His drift in all this he afterward in pag. 4. and more plainly chap. 3. lib. 2. discovers to us It s to beat down a spreading perswasion as he calls it of Christs giving himself aransome for all and every one a perswasion which the Teacher of the Gentiles in truth and verity broached in those very expressions 1. Tim. 2.5 6 7. Heb. 2.9 a sad time when men of parts study to oppose his doctrine totidem verbis in the very tearms that he delivered it in But Hic labor hoc opus est To this purpose the aforesaid considerations were laid down to be the foundation and Basis of an argument or two as to that purpose he hath inlarged them also lib. 2 cap. 3. producing more scriptures tending to the same thing to which those above mentioned were produced as That he shall save his people from their sins shall see his seed and carry on the pleasure of the Lord Sanctified himself that they may be Sanctified through the truth gave himself for us that he might deliver us from this present evil world was made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him most or all of which we shall after meet with and speak more particularly to from all which he draws this argument That which the Father and Son intend to accomplish in and towards all those for whom Christ died by his death that is most certainly effected But the Father and Son intended by the Death of Christ to redeem purge sanctifie purifie deliver from Death Satan the curse of the Law to quit of all sin to make righteousness in Christ all those for whom he dyed Therefore He dyed for all and only those in and towards whom all those things recounted are effected and so not for All. This is a main pillar of his edifice let us by Gods assistance assay to shake and evert it And first not to speak to the form how the conclusion should have been inferred for the major if taken in this sense What the Father and Son did intend purpose and wholly take upon themselves absolutely to do by his death that was and shall be thereby effected His determinate purpose shall not fail so it s granted But if by intended we understand what he propoundeth as an end intended in which there may be something suspended in the proposition upon some condition in that way I say what ever is propounded as his intent may not be fulfilled and accomplished in All for whom he dyed But I know he intends it in the former sense and therefore 2. I shall deny the Minor and desire his proof for it namely that the Father and Son intended that is absolutely purposed and wholly took upon themselves without condition to redeem purge sanctify c. all for whom Christ died For 1. This is beside the scripture that saith He dyed for all but never that he so intended to purge sanctifie set free and save All. 2. It s against that intimation in Rom. 14.15 and 2 Cor. 8.11 that one for whom Christ dyed may possibly perish and makes a meer scare-Crow of the Apostles reasoning as if he would deter them from evils by propounding impossible consequences of it and suppositions quite contrary to the faith to say nothing that it thwarteth that too in 2 Pet. 2.1 3. None of all the Places quoted prove what is affirmed for either they say not that the object named is all that Christ died for but some specially distinguished from others by the intervention of faith either in the eye of God or in real existence in them as his people 1 Pet. 2.10 them that believe on him the Church that is a people called out of the world Vs who were then actually believers them that were given him out of the World had received his words believed were sent into the world by him to preach the Gospel to say nothing of his begging the question that by sanctifying himself he meanes his dying or setting himself apart to dye in Joh. 17.19 so that that Minor is peccant in that it wants proof none of those Scriptures saying that those things he aymed at in all he dyed for To illustrate the business the proof is like this It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe and he called you by the Gospel to the obtaining of the Glory of the Lord Jesus Ergo All to whom it pleased God that the Gospel should be preached shall be saved and obtain eternal Glory To propound as a truth that God intended to redeem purge and save All for whom Christ dyed and then to prove it by telling us he intended to do so to Vs that believe to his Church and people is as lame a proof as if I should propound for truth that God intended to
his Intercession as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Advocate in this assertion so I believe he will not prove it by Scripture And yet no need of saying he refused to do it for them it will be difficult I suppose for him to prove that the wisdom of God did see it meet to impose that upon him so to intercede for all that he dyed for And if it was not propounded to him though he do it not yet may he not be said either to refuse or omit it It becomes us to believe what God hath declared not to deliver for truths or impositions of God what our fancies conceive he must have imposed where he hath declared no such imposition he hath said Christ dyed for all but where he saith he makes intercession for all or for all he dyed for I leave to Mr. Owen to finde and I would he would remember his own language in the Preface To honor God and Christ in his own language or else be for ever silent and that our inventions be they never so splendid and I add rational too in our eyes yet to him they are abomination God doth not act alwayes according to our rules do the lesser where he hath done the greater but may suspend the lesser upon condition if it so please him as he doth not alway supply with bread and keep from perishing by famine him that he hath given life to though the life be more then food and a man that believes and walks in Gods ways may reason affirmatively as our Saviour instructs us Math. 6.25 but let us view his pretended proofes of it from Scripture The first is Psal 2.8 Ask of me and I will give thee the Heathen for thine inheritance and the utmost parts of the earth for thy possession c. But doth that say That Christ should make intercession for all he died for no such matter nor is there a word about inerceding for any but that they should be given him as his inheritance and possession and if that be his intercession there then it s extended to all elect and others the Nations and the utmost parts of the earth not an elect people onely but even those that he should rule with an iron rod and break in pieces as a Potters vessel I hope Mr. Owen thinks not at least will not prove that God rules his Church Tam duro imperio so as to break them in pieces as a Potters vessel make them unprofitable or that he rules them onely so nor I suppose upon second thoughts will he say that the next place that he quotes viz. Joh. 14.2 I go to prepare a place for you is either a good exposition of that in Psal 2.8 as if his going to prepare a place for his Disciples was asking them for his inheritance to rule them with an iron rod or proves that he went to entercede for all he died for nor doth Heb. 9.7 say any thing to that purpose but that the high Priest went into the second Tabernacle once a year with the blood that he offered for the ignorances of the people nor sayes ver 24. That Christ appears in the presence of God to intercede for All that he died for much less as an Advocate and as the Apostles speak of his intercession with reference to believers The 1 Joh. 2.1 2. which he nextly quotes extends his Propitiation beyond his Advocation and doth not speak of the one as largely as the other Minde the words We have an advocate and he is the propitiation for our sins I hope the Our there is as large as the We of whom he had said We have an advocate that Our being a repetition of and so the same with the former We but now see his Propitiation expresly extended further And not for our sins onely but also for the whole worlds so that that makes more against his Assertion then for it It s true that his Advocation as he saies is founded upon his propitiation and may be found in exercise for the same persons as there is proved We have an Advocate who is the propitiation for our sins but that the Advocation must therefore extend to all the same persons that the propitiation reaches to is a fond inference like this A Prince by his favor with a King and by his own great cost and charge mediating for twenty men condemned forfelony gets a pardon for them all therefore when afterwards ten of them love and honor him yet have their failings and the other ten openly rebell against him still and reject his love he must keep them all still in the Kings special favor if he keep any of them therein The roof of the house and every particular Chamber of it is built upon and upheld by the foundation therefore every Chamber must be every way as large as it so that hitherto this Assertion wants proof of Scripture That of John 17.9 proves it not neither for that saies I pray not for the world but the Scripture saies God was in him reconciling the world and that he came to save the world and indeed good reason for his not praying as there for the world whether the Elect in purpose and fore-knowledg or not for his requests there are onely for things consequent to faith as Union Preservation in Faith Sanctification and Glorification and therefore meet to be put up for none but men called out or viewed as called out of the state and fellowship of the world that in ver 20. though its for persons as then of the world yet as such they are not there the object of his prayer but as supposed in an after-believing state even as when a King grants to the Mayor of a Corporation the honor of having a Sword or the like born before him and saies neither give I this honor to thee onely but to all succeeding Mayors of this Corporation also and to none else the subject of that Grant is a Mayor as a Mayor of that Corporation though in saying such as shall be Mayors its plain the Grant reaches to persons as are then that not so perhaps then not born and yet the expression is true that it s given to none but the Mayor of that Corporation for they that after shall be Mayors and now are not are not the subject of that Grant as now unborn or unfree but as after they come to be made Mayors so here they that are of the world now may come to be such persons as there are prayed for and yet the world as and while the world wholly excluded from being the subject to whom those postulataes are desired to be given And to Mr. Owens saying that the world there is opposite to the Elect except by Elect he mean men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is gathered out of the world as the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifie is yet to prove and his Assertion too looses by the bargaine Though yet
which is a preaching of Christ and offering him to men And then to bless us as if he spake of the believers whereas he saith to bless you in turning every one of you from your iniquities Which place duly weighed shews the vanity of his arguing from such speeches that mention the end of Christs sending For though there he is said to be sent to bless them in turning every one of them there spoken to from their iniquities by which he presses his exhortation to them for Repenting yet it no where appeareth nor can he prove it that all them people were ever so blessed and turned away from their iniquities onely there Christ was held forth to them as authorised of God and ready to do it in their listening to him the perception of which perhaps made him so cleverly to change the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into us and us But I leave that to his better consideration But the chief thing considerable in this Chapter is what he propounds about the Oblation and Intercession of Christ Propos to the same purpose as before in his fourth as That they are not in any respect to be separated or divided as if the one should have any respect to any persons or any thing that the other doth not in its kinde equally respect also Reas 1 they being 1. both alike intended for the obtaining the same end proposed Reas 2 the effectual bringing of many sons to glory and 2. what persons soever the one respecteth in the good things it obtaineth the same and none else doth the other respect in applying the good things so obtained Reas 3 and 3. The oblation being the foundation of the Intercession c. Which things are before spoken to in the precedent Chapter and being here again only propounded not proved especially the main proposition with the first and second reasons of it that place Rom. 4.25 which he brings for proof neither shewing what or how many persons were the adaequate object of his Death nor expressing any thing of his Intercession much less saying that it hath the same extent to persons and things as his Death and that other place of Joh. 17.19 being but a begging the question and impertinent as hath been shewed in that it extends but to those that Christ says he sent into the world as also the main proofs of it being reserved to the following Chapters we shall procede to view them only premising this that 1. Should we grant these things they would not prejudice our Cause as hath in part been shewed on chapter fourth He might offer himself to ransom men and to provide for means of grace and patience to be extended to them in attention to which they might meet with his power to Save them Luk. 13.7 8. and Intercede for those things too for them and yet many abusing the grace procured by both as is supposed in the parable of the barren fig-tree they might not be eternally saved So that his after-conclusion in this Chapter would not thence follow viz. That every one for whom he died must actually have applyed to him all the good things purchased by his Death except he can first prove that whoever Christ Intercedes for he Intercedes for all those good things for them which he procured by his Death Which I am confident he cannot prove For to speak in his own Dialect He saith that the Death of Christ purchased the Spirit and the whole confluence of the grace of God I would ask him then if it purchased not Apostleship and the gift of prophecy c. If no then are some good things conferred upon some that were not purchased by his Death contrary to his Assertion pag. 33. line 5. If yea then I demand whether every one for whom he dyed have the gift of Apostleship and prophecy conferred upon them if he say yes then he contradicts the Apostle 1 Cor. 12.28 if no then his Conclusion is proved false If it be replied that he means but of things essentially necessary to every one for eternall life then yet 2. We desire his proof for this That whoever Christ dyed for or that he intercedes for them he intercedes for eternall life or makes such intercession for them as the Apostle tels us he makes for them that come unto God by him which because he promises in effect in the next Chapter I now thither follow him to view his Arguments or Reasons which are as followeth His first Argument is taken from a powerful Vnion that the Scripture makes of both those On Chap. 7. Arg. almost alwayes joyning them together and so manifesting those things to be inseparable which are looked upon as the distinct fruits and effects of them Before I answer to his Arguments I shall repeat again the main proposition undertaken by him which is this that the Oblation and Intercession of Christ have not only the same persons for their Object but that they have also all the same good things for each person and all and only the same Which I oppose but as in the word Intercession he aimes at the prime exercise of it for that he intercedes for the most special favors for persons for whom he dyed I deny not but that he doth it for all those for whom he dyed that I desire to have proved His first Argument for which put into a form runs thus What things the Scripture almost always couples together they have the same adequate objects and their distinct fruits and effects are inseparable and extend to all the same persons joyntly but the Scripture almost always couples Christs Oblation and Intercession together Ergo c. The major proposition here is false as may be seen in many instances as the bringing the Israelites out of Egypt and possessing them of Canaan are very frequently joyned together as often at least as Christs Death and Intercession and yet had not the same adequate object though both means of performing Gods Covenant and promise to Abraham and his seed See for the proof of this Deut. 4.37 38. Exod. 3.8 6.68 Deut. 6.33 26.7 8. Psal 105.43 44. cum multis aliis Again the Scripture frequently mentions Christs preaching to the people and healing their diseases together as Math. 4 27. 9.35 Acts 10.36 38. Luk. 5.15 6.17 and both tended to glorifie his Father and make known his name But I suppose that none will say therefore that both had the same adequate object and that he preached to no more then were healed by him The like I might say for teaching or preaching and baptising both ordained to the same saving end and often mentioned together and yet not both of equal latitude the latter not done to All for and to whom the other was vouchsafed So that that Proposition hath no truth and it and therefore the Argument is invalid Nor doth he prove the Minor that Oblation and Intercession are almost always
not as large an us as that in Act. 17.27 not far from any one of us for in him we live or as that our in those expressions Jesus Christ our Lord. Again I go to my father to prepare a place for you Ergo to mediate for nothing for any but you only So he ever lives to make Intercession for all that come to God by him therefore he mediates for nothing for any else Contrary to Isa 53.12 He excluded the world from his prayers for conferring such and such priviledges on believers not desiring His Father to confer them on the world or any of it while such Therefore he never prayed for any of the world while and considered as such contrary to Luk. 23.34 These are Mr. Owens reasonings which whether they be inconsequent yea or no and whether the * T. Moore Answerer that he opposes or himself that pretends to far more learning be more to be admired for their strange inferences I leave to the impartial Reader soberly to judge He Objects against his in consequent reasoning upon 1 Tim. 2 5. Between God and man Therefore for All men Are not the Elect men c. But in this he mistakes we reason it not meerly from that as barely so expressed but from that as laid down for a demonstration of Gods good will to All his willing all men to be saved and as the foundation of our praying for All and from that that the Apostle addes he gave himself a Ransom for All which I conceive to be an act of mediation Our reasoning then runs thus That which argues the good will of God to All pertains to All But Christs being a Mediator between God and men is an argument of his love and good will to All Therefore it pertains to all The major leans upon this proposition That which holds forth love but to some cannot be an Argument of love to All That that argues love to All must concern all The minor is the coherence of the fourth and fifth verses Again thus That which Christ hath acted in for All pertains to All but Christ hath acted in his mediation for All c. This arises from the fifth coupled with the sixth verse Again thus If the mediation of Christ be a good foundation for our praying for All or any men then it self must concern All But so it is as it s laid down by the Apostle in that place compared with vers 1 2 3. Our prayers are groundless for any that he is not appointed as mediator for therefore to incourage us to pray for all he shews us a mediator that hath acted for All. His conceit on 1 Tim. 4.10 we have seen and spoken to before in Chap. 3. and shewed it to be a vain conceit that God as the object of the Apostles trust in all his labor and sufferings should be considered but as a Saviour out of Christ for the word Saviour is but once used there and if it signifie at all a Saviour without Christs mediation then it doth so to both branches besides that neither he nor any of them can prove God a Saviour to sinners as all men are without the interposition of a mediator I would ask how he deals with men in that saving them whether according to the Covenant of works which curseth according to deserts If so then no room for saving them from the death deserved by them no not for a moment If not then I ask according to what he saves and what it is that procures that he deals not with them in that severe way of their deserts The case of beasts instanced in Psal 36. admits of a twofold exception 1. That they have not sinned nor is there a law imposed upon them the transgression of which needs a mediator for their saving as the case of man is 2. That as they partook of vanity for mans sins sake so why may not their preservation for and to men be looked upon as a mercy safed to man by vertue of Christs mediation for the sin of man which laid them open to destruction for the punishment of man as far wide is his instancing 2 Cor. 1.9 10. the Apostles trusting in God that raises the dead as if he would tels that God as he acts in raising the dead acts not through Christs mediation or through Jesus Christ and so that 's false that As by man came Death so also by man came the resurrection of the Dead for he intimates that he raises the Dead without eyeing the interposition or mediation of man the man Christ As vain is that that the place fore-quoted speakes of God the Father as if Christ was excluded from being the object of the Apostles faith for preservation and as if God the Father wrought without Christ contrary to John 5.20 and were a Saviour to sinners in any way out of Christ and not through him all which are postulata's no way proveable For his wonder that Christ should be a Saviour of them that are not saved it s no greater then that God should purge some that yet were not purged and yet the Scripture plainly affirms that Ezek. 24.13 or made a Feast for them that never eat of it Mat. 22.4 Luk. 14.24 to say nothing that in some acts of saving they are saved and might in more did they not by observing lying vanities forsake their own mercies But we shall say more to this in Chap. 2. Lib. 2 where it is further urged O but he never gives grace to some to believe I believe he gives to All more then they improve or well like of and would give them more did they not smother what he gives them and that 's all I shall say to it here for we shall meet with it in fitter place as also with that other absurdity as he thinks that he should be a Saviour to them that never hear one word of saving If they have the thing in any sense it s not material that they never hear of its name God did gird Cyrus though Cyrus knew him not Isa 45.5 and many may have real good by that whose right name they never heard of I hope Mr. Owen is so charitable that if one of his children should dy in infancy he would think it might be saved by Christ though it never heard or understood a syllable of Christ or of a Saviour He things it absurd too that Christ should be a Saviour in a twofold sense for all and for believers But I hope he doth what the Father doth Josh 5.19 but the Father is the Saviour of All and especially of believers as himself grants and Christ saith he came to save the lives of men Luk 9.56 whether he do no more to believers then is there spoken of I leave to his consideration He is the Saviour of the World 1 John 4.14 and the Saviour of his body the Church Ephes 5.25 26. whether the world be his Church and body I leave to him also
had it but that they were all after converted and saved that he proves not Many of them were that he proves but not all He cannot prove one Ruler of them converted He brings Acts 6.7 to prove it but that sayes but the Priests not the chief or high Priests much less Rulers and yet much less that those Priests were of the number of his Crucifiers Priests and Rulers in the Scriptures are spoken of as distinct parties Luke 23.13 and 24.20 Besides were any of the Priests Rulers It s probable they were then called the chief Priests but it s not said many or any of them believed However this yet concludes that Christ there interceded for men in and of the world ut supra But he hath besides all these Objections a pretty conceit not worth the answering such a one as we might as well put upon the 17. of John viz. of praying as a private man not as Mediator and so we might say he prayed there as a private man for his friends not as the Saviour of the world for he supposes That Christ as a private man might intercede for things that were never granted but not as Mediator as if as a private man subject to the Law he would act contrary to his Acts of Mediation take in whom that rejected and that in an act of Mediation too For its evident there he put himself between God and the people for forgiveness Was it ever before heard that acts of Mediation were excluded the Office of Mediatorship and looked upon in a Mediator as no acts of his Office Or can it be supposed that Christ in any thing he though but as subject to the Law requested of God was not heard of him Did ever a righteous man guided by the Spirit ask according to the will of God and he denied him and did Christ ask otherwise there Or was he denied what was so asked by him I might use his own words Apage has nugas He goes on to the instance of John 17.21 23. In which he saies nothing but what we have spoken to before except this That a conviction of men that Christ is not what they formerly thought him and so that his people are a people in whom God is and whom God loves is not for any good of the world Which is a very false saying For it s to the end that they might submit to him and love his that they might chuse the right way that they might see their light and glorifie God And is that no good to have the right way evidenced and put into their reach and to have means of glorifying of God afforded to them Yea Suppose none but the compelled chuse aright upon this discovery which yet cannot be proved shall we say it was not for the others good because they abuse it to their harm Shall Gods goodness and Christs love be blasphemed or despised and vilified because men abuse it Is not this it the Apostle faults Rom. 2.4 5. Despisest thou the riches of Gods goodness forbearance and long-suffering not knowing that his goodness leads thee to repentance because men are not led by it but sin against it hardening their hearts and treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath shall we despise it too and make a tush of it and say it was not afforded for any good to them Is it not a good to lead men to Repentance O let not those that undertake to call men to Repentance so lightly speak of nay speak so evilly of that they should commend to them as if themselves too and their calling them were not for their good speaking the very language of ungracious hearts that say if God would have given me grace I would have done better when they willingly despised and smothered that which God gave them Might not the Israelites by this be justified in their saying that God did little or nothing for them nay he brought them out to destroy them because that did actually befall them for their refusing to follow him The Lord set it home to mens consideration that they believe not Satan nor nurse up in their hearts slighty esteems of that goodness that heeded by them would do infinite great good to them Whereas the Answerer also alledged Matth. 5.15 16. and Joh. 1.9 as I conceive onely to prove that Christ would have his people useful to the world for convincement intimated in this expression Ye are the salt of the earth and for drawing in convinced men intimated in that experssion Ye are the light of the world agreable to the end of Christs prayer for his called ones in Joh. 17.21 23. and to shew that he doth so intercede and put in for others then Believers that he doth in some measure inlighten every man c. Mr. Owen not perceiving his drift in the former proof speaks impertinently about it and on the latter blusters a little too high and too causlesly asking in what measure how far into what degree by whom and by what means c as if he would be angry with the expression of Scripture for that he inlightneth every man that comes into the world is the Scripture saying a more certain and full expression then that which he suborns in the room of it viz. He inlightneth every man that is inlightned which gives an uncertain sound and may signifie All or Some or almost None only T. Moore put in the words in some sort to signifie that all are not in the same measure inlightned by him nor in the same manner which the Scripture also fully proveth Psal 147.19 20. Now to ask a man in what measure degree c is to put a man to search into the secrets of God and of every mans heart to see how far the word insinuates it self into men I mean Christ the word who was in the world and it knew him not and came to his own even before his being made flesh actually and they received him not What understanding of God with motions to seek him in by his works and oracles this word or divine light gave or gives to every man who can disclose but he whose all seeing eye knows all things and he will discover that it beamed in so much light by one means or other as that all men when they come to be judged by him shall be left without excuse and they that have submitted to him shall glorifie his goodness toward them in the day of the Lord Jesus The sum of what the Answerer further said to the fore-propounded Objection amounts to this That as Priest he offered up himself to death and through death as a sacrifice to God in which he respected diverse things had several nearer ends subordinate to the ultimate Heb 9.9 26. Joh. 1.29 1 Joh 2.2 Heb. 9.14 15. Matt. â—6 2â— the glory of God as he did it to ransom men faln into Death from the power of that sentence upon them and to be the propitiation that
26.26 1 Pet. 2.21 22. But that that was his end that Mr. Owen propounds towards the conclusion of his 1. Chap viz. That All and every one of them for whom Christ dyed should have All those things conferred upon him that he procured for any or that they All should certainly be brought to God and to eternal glory I deny and leave for him to prove which there he doth not But let us see if he disprove none of the ends laid down by me He tels us Chap. 2. that it was not meerly his own Good he aimed at in his death That it was not meerly his own is without doubt but that it was also his own glory to be manifested is as evident and therefore also he prays the Father for that Iohn 17.4 5. but he says further While he was in the way he merited nothing for himself Whereas the holy ones of God have deemed him worthy to receive honor and glory power and riches Rev. 5.9 wisdom and strength for that his suffering c. and I think God judged him so too for as a reward of his sufferings he hath given it him and that Christ had no eye at that in regard of his humanity as he insinuates is not to be believed seeing the Apostle expresses he had Rom. 14 9. Heb. 12.2 he procured the exaltation of his humane nature and the manifestation of his glory as the word of God more brightly by his sufferings and that God predestinated it to that glory otherwise then by sufferings I no where finde nor I think he neither It s true that was not the onely thing nor perhaps the main thing in his eye He aimed more at the glorifying of his Father and that the world through him might be saved but that That was not in his eye nor procured meritoriously by him and so no end aimed at by him in making satisfaction for sin seem strange positions and yet these are Mr. Owens Conceptions and Conclusions quite cross to that of Rom. 14.9 before mentioned Sure if he procured any thing meritoriously of the Father he procured his own exaltation in the humane nature especially that glory of it to be the habitation and storehouse of that fulness that he hath for us which to me is more plain then that it may be denied in that Psal 68.18 He led captivity captive and received gifts in the man and in Rev. 5. its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he prevailed to open the Book and unloose the seals which was his honor as well as our commodity ver 4 5. whence that after-confession 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thou art worthy to take the Book and open the seals c. ver 7 8. He errs again when he saith The Dominion he hath over All is not founded on his Death for the Scripture saith expresly to this end he died 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he might have Dominion and for this cause God highly exalted him because he humbled himself and bare the sins of many Isai 53.12 Phil. 2.10 11. But Mr. Owen seems here to leap over hedge and ditch to his own purposes not considering how full the Scriptures are against him And indeed how can we expect a concurrence of Scripture to disprove a Scripture Assertion But let us see how he confirms his opinion He indeavors it from Heb. 1.3 He was appointed heir of all things But what then In what nature was he so appointed Sure he needed no appointment or constitution for his Divine Nature seeing Dominion over all was essential to that If in the Humane Nature united to the Divine then through what way was he appointed to become heir was it not the same in which he was begotten to be his Son and is it not said of him upon his Resurrection in that regard Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee then he was begotten in the Humane Nature to possession of the Divine Glory Besides may it not as well follow that therefore he purchased no glory for his Elect for they were appointed preordained to it too before the foundation of the world So that this is proofless to that particular His next is Heb. 2.7 8. God hath put all things under his feet But doth he not speak of that as a consequent to his abasement Thou madest him little lower then the Angels thou crownedst him with glory and honor c And expresly in ver 9. We see Jesus for the suffering of Death crowned with glory and honor I marvel what could make him quote this place of all the rest it being rather full against him He asks if Christ died for all those things that are subject to him Sed quid hoc ad Rhombum It s enough that he died that he might have such dominion over them which he hath partly by dying for them as in men and partly by conquest over them as in the devils and partly by gift as a reward of his service performed by him to his Father as in all things Phil. 2.10 11. Again He asks if he have not dominion over the Angels Yes and what then But he died not for them True but what then Did he not die that through death his Humane nature might be taken up into glory transcending theirs But he sayes All things are rather given him out of the Immediate love of the Father What he means here by Immediate I well know not if that without consideration of his death and sufferings the forecited Scriptures say enough against him If he mean onely that that was the bottom-fountain of his giving all to him Then doth he not see how by that manner of reasoning he also overthrows the effect of Christs death that he pleads for in procuring grace and glory for his chosen for by the same reason he purchased not that neither nor eyed it they flowing from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the good pleasure and love of God as is declared at large Ephes 1.4 5 6 7. and 2.4 5. c. Certainly in all this Argument he hath horribly mistaken But yet at length he sayes Suppose this be true What proof follows from thence of the general Ransom seeing this Dominion is a power of condemning as well as saving and it s not reasonable to assert that Christ died to Redeem them that he might have power to condemn them nay if he died to Redeem them then he aimed not at any such power to condemn them To this I onely say 1. We ground not our Assertion of the generality of the Ransom upon this bottom meerly but upon plainer testimonies also onely we assert this end 2. We say at the power of saving or condemning them he aimed though not at their condemnation And that Rom. 14.9 proves He had not power over them to save them nor were there any just ground for their looking to him for salvation as the case stood he not dying to ransom them from the power of that condemnation that was already
that deliverance from the death that they should have dyed which by his dying he procured for them to All. So that here we have a groundless proofeless Argument though he saith it neeeds no proof yet I think it needs more proof then he can bring for it in every particular Object But this makes but Christ at most an half Mediator Ans But why so If a man undertake to mediate for another to have his life spared and obtains what he undertakes shall that be imputed an injury in him because in so doing he did not also undertake he should never sustain any anger for any after-folly If Christ do his work he undertook in Mediation and that to satisfaction to the justice and will of God who shall dare to call him but a half-Mediator because many a man refusing to make use of his Mediation in higher things that is to come to God by him deprive themselves of the further acts of it which he tels them they shall have if they will be ruled by him A King and some Subjects are at difference they are attached condemned and must dy A third between them comes and procures that the sentence shall be reversed and favor shewed them from the King and then goes to them and tels them if they will follow his counsel and be ruled by him as he hath procured their release from that sentence so he will also bring them to be favorites and familiars some listen to him and are ruled by him and he performs his word to them to the utmost others reject all his counsels will not be beholden either to him or the King being spared break out into new insolencies against them both and for that are again condemned and executed Shall their wickedness be cast as an imputation upon him and make him be stiled but an half-Mediator because they refuse the better half of the benefit they might have had by him If this be rational let rational men Judg. I might illustrate it by the case of Moses mediating for the Israelites and yet refusing to pray for nay praying against the Rebels in Numb 16. But I leave it the matter being so evident CHAP. IIII. An Answer to his eighth Argument in which is considered whether Christ purchased faith for those he dyed for HIs eight Argument is thus If Christs blood doth wash purge Argu. 8 cleanse and sanctifie them for whom it was shed then certainly he shed his blood only for them that in the event are purged cleansed and sanctified But All are not in the event washed purged cleansed and sanctified Ergo He dyed not for All. The consequence of the major that he conceives undeniable is undeniably vitious nor is it any way proved by him The proposition being reduced is thus They whom Christ dyed for are or shall be sanctified and purged by his blood And so it being indefinite it s to be construed Particularly or Vniversally if Particular its peccant in this that the major in the second figure in which this syllogisme thus reduced is ought all to be Vniversal If construed Vniversally as he must needs intend it or else he says nothing then I deny it and he no where proves it that All that Christ dyed for are or shall be parged by his blood The consequence is like this If they that came out of Egypt entred into Canaan by the river Jordan Then they only came out of Egypt that passed over the river Jordan But let us view the proofs of his major as Vniversally taken He assays to do it first by viewing the types and then secondly by plain expressions but first he halts in laying down his probandum for in stead of this That all that Christ dyed for are or shall be so purged he propounds to prove that The blood of Christ is effectual for all those things washing purging sanctifying which I will grant him where it is received by faith but I say that comes no more up to the thing to be proved then if a man should affirm That all that God brought out of Egypt were preserved and kept till they injoyed Canaan and then for proof produce some Scriptures that shew that those that followed God in his leadings of them and believed in him were so preserved c. But let us see his proofes And first From the types he says That the Apostle says that the expiation-sacrifice legally sanctified the unclean as is exprest Heb. 9.13 But by his leave the Apostle saith not It sanctified them all for whom it was a sacrifice but them whom it sprinkled the words are sprinkling the unclean sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh not Being offered for the unclean sanctifies c. But Mr. Owen says These are never divided though distinguished but I see no word to disprove their being divided though he says he was about it Let us see if we can find any thing for proof of it we will then appeal to the Law of the expiation-offering in Numb 19. There we first finde a Commandment to take a red heifer and offer her up and then gather the ashes and keep them and it s said they shall be for The Congregation of the children Israel for a water of purification the sacrifice then was for a preparation of a purifying water for the Congregation here is no exception or exclusion of any in that That pertained to the Congregation and then he tels them how they should purifie themselves with it and in what cases but now mark what he says in vers 20. The man that shall be unclean and shall not purifie himself with it that sould shall be cut off from the Congregation It seems then God supposed the application divisible from the preparation of it and appoints a punishment for those that refuse its application Cutting off from the Congregation It seems he was of it before and ought to have been sprinkled and sanctified with it the refusal of which and presuming to approach to God without it was to be punished with cutting off from the Congregation To which the Apostle I conceive alludes in Heb. 12.24 25. Ye are come to the blood of sprinkling take heed that ye refuse not him that speaketh 2 Pet. 1.2 as in another place the believers are said to be chosen to the obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Now unbelievers are disobedient and in what but in not yielding up themselves to God and Christ to be sanctified and cleansed by his blood So that Mr. Owen hath got nothing by that legal typicall expiation his after exception about the Antitype to this we shall speak to in its due place Let us now see the express sayings His first is that in Rom 6.5 6. If we have been planted together with him into the similitude of his Death we shall be also in the similitude of his resurrection knowing that our old man is crucified with him that the body of sin might be destroyed that henceforth we
acting in that power it still remains in Gods Power onely to give it the promised efficacy the soul in believing onely puts it self into such a posture as in which it becomes the object of Gods Promise to make the death of Christ effectual to it As suppose I promise an alms to a poor man if he will come to my house for it though it be in his power to â—ome yet it s not in his power to make my promise effectual that appertains to me and is onely in my power still From this that 's said his following conclusion viz. That this being the absolute necessity of faith the cause of that must needs be the prime and principal cause of salvation as being the cause of that without which the whole would not be and by which the whole is and is effectual nothing harms us we making God the prime Cause our faith and the Will be its freedom what it will but instumental and no instrumental subordinate cause as the Will of man however considered must needs be the whole man and his Will being the Workmanship of God though a causa sine quâ non per quam totum can be said to be the prime cause As to instance that in Acts 27.31 Except the Shipmen abide in the ship the passengers could not have been preserved Their abiding in the ship was a cause of their preservation such a one as without which they could not have been preserved and upon which they were preserved and yet I hope no man will be so graceless as to conclude that they or the souldiers that caused them to stay were the prime and principal cause of their preservation So a poor mans asking an alms may be a cause of his receiving an alms and yet when anothers bounty propounding an alms to him upon that condition incourageth him to ask and gives him when he asks though his Will be never so free in asking yet it cannot be looked upon as the prime cause of his receiving So that this premise too as it tends to conclude the act of the Will from the former premises to be the principal cause of our salvation though specious is but fallacious and erronius 3. After both these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as one that forgot what he undertook to prove instead of performing his task He puts it to our option to chuse whether we will answer directly and Categorically whether Christ by his Death and Intercession merited and procured faith for us or no. To this I say as before that except Christ had died for us there had neither been a fit object for us sinners to believe on nor an instrument fit to beget it by nor a power to work with that instrument to inable us thereunto So that in that sense he did by his death procure it for us that is removed that which hindred us from having any of those yet there too that he obliged God to give Vs individually faith that is to make us act faith in that object according to the power given us in the medium or instrument so as that if God had not given Vs that in our individual persons he must have dealt injuriously with Christ that I leave for him to prove In the Interim That he obliged him to give it to All he dyed for that is to cause them All to believe unto life eternall I Categorically deny and expect his proof of it before which he seems to me to contradict his first premise while he denies That the granting a way of salvation by bringing life and immortality to light by the Gospel in Christ which passage he ascribes to T. More p. 35. was procured for us by Christ To say nothing that I finde no such passage in the place pointed to why may we not say this way was procured for us by Christ Did not he procure the bringing life and immortality to light by the Gospel Sure then not all benefits bestowed upon us for that is one and none of the least which the Apostle also ascribes to him in 2 Tim. 2.10 and then neither did he procure faith for us for he that procures a thing must procure all requisites to the working of that thing or else he doth not procure that thing Now if he procure not the bringing life and immortality to light then he procured not that we should have that by which faith is effected for that 's it that begets faith the appearing of light and immortality in the Gospel faith I say according to the present plainness of the Gospel and so he hath overthrown the thing he fights for Ah but it s a strange Contradictory Assertion that he should procure a way to life in himself But why so because he is the chiefest part of this way and sure procured not himself by his own Death c. But by that reason he procured few things freely bestowed on us in and by Christ for then neither did he procure us Wisdom Righteousness Holiness nor Redemption for all these he is called himself as much as he is called the Way See 1 Cor. 1.30 then he procured not our peace for he is our peace Ephes 2.14 He procured not our life for he is our life Col 3.4 But is it such a strange thing to say such a man got or procured himself to be made protector to such a people or to have the favor of admitting to or keeping out any from the Kings ear by such and such services and carriages Surely no And why then is it so to say that Christ procured himself to be the Way to life for sinners by suffering for them Was he the way to life to us without his sufferings and death I suppose not and if not then he obtained that power and title by his sufferings Heb. 5.9 through that way he became our way to life by sufferings he was perfected and so became the Author of salvation eternall to all that obey him And is this such a strange Assertion Sure I cannot but think it a just hand of God upon men as is prophesied Zech. 11.13 Isa 29.9 10 13 14. Jer. 8.8 9. that because they slight Gods Word the plain testimonies of Scripture God smites their eye that they cannot see reason But to return to our purpose I deny I say that Christ procured that is ingaged or obliged God that all should be brought to believe on him for whom he dyed though we deny not that he opened a passage for the grace of God to display and glorifie it self so that He presents himself to men as good and powerful an object meet to be looked to and stayed on as in John 5.8 9 10 11. especially in the Gospel as now published since the Appearance of Christ in the Flesh which presentation of himself to men as good grations powerful c. is the medium and instrument for begetting faith according to the degree and measure of the Revelation as Rahab believed to
CHAP. V. An Answer to his fifth Chapter In which is considered How Christ gave himself a ransom for All. HAving done with those Arguments we follow him now to Arguments taken from words used in this matter which he saith Disagree in their genuine signification from the Opinion that extends to all the matter spoken of in them Arg. 10 And first He lays down his Argument generally thus That Doctrine that will not by any means suit which and be conformable to the thing signified by it but contradicts the expressions literal and deductive whereby in Scripture it s held out to us cannot possibly be sound and sincere But such is the perswasion of Vniversal Redemption or General Ransom Ergo It s unsound And this strange Argument that grants the Doctrine held forth in Scripture expressions Instance 1. and yet contradicts those Scriptures he labors to prove by Induction and first from the word A 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dransom or price of Redemption He argues thus That the thing signified in it agrees not to all therefore the word is not to be so applied Which is in substance Paul spake unadvisedly when he made so general an expression this is not to believe the Scripture but to judge and deny it to be right VVell let us see what the word signifies It signifies a price for Redemption Now saith Mr. Owen If Christ pay a price for Redemption his aim is their deliverance for whom it s paid to that end he satisfies the Judge and conquers the Jaylor but this agrees not to All All are not ransomed Shall we believe Mr. Owen or the Apostle here who also tells us in Rom. 5.18 That by one mans Righteousness to all men to Justification of life And again in 1 Cor. 15 22. As in Adam All die so in Christ all shall be made alive But Mr. Owen says Why are not all saved then I might say Nay but O man who art thou that repliest against God But I have answered before From the first death they are from the second they are not because many are disobedient against their Saviour As all Israel were saved out of Egypt Jude 5. Its the Apostle Judes expression But why then not all preserved into Canaan He tells us He afterwards destroyed them that believed not So here he afterward in a second death destroyes all those that know like or approve not God and all that disobey the Gospel of Christ 2 Thes 1.7 8. All were in thrall to the sentence of death and so to the execution of vengeance from God upon them all in Adam in an utter ruine and again for slighting and sinning against Light and Goodness afforded deserve destruction to come suddenly upon them in plagues famines c. The bond that held them in the former was their sin in Adam and to the latter many sins against Gods goodness now exposes them VVhat price pays Christ Himself to bear that blow for them and be the propitiation for their sin Now in that the sentence passed not or rather lyes not upon men Men are not debarred reaccess to God for that folly the sentence of banishment is reversed and the banished called home again here is a Redemption made from that thraldom And whereas many times they are liable to destruction again in their persons Christ Mediating and Interposing himself as the Propitiation preserves them And on this ground we are to pray for All and make Intercession with thanksgiving for All as in 2 Tim. 1.2 6. But I suppose he thinks All not ransomed because many remain thralled in their corruption To which I might say but as Prosper Ad capit Gallor Sanguis Christi est totius mundi pretium pro omnium redemptione verè persolutum and that 's as much as 1 Tim. 2.6 says sed illi homines ab eo pretio extranei sunt qui aut captivitate delectati redimi noluerunt aut post redemptionem ad eandem servitutem sunt reversi and again Omnes rectè dicantur redempti sed non ownes a captivitate eruti But to clear it I shall propound these following considerations 1. That men in sinning fell under a double bondage 1. To death to be inflicted from God according to his sentence In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt die the death and death came on all in that all sinned 2. To corruption or sinfulness of Nature in themselves and the delusions of Satan Ephe. 2.1 Dead in sins and trespasses conceived in sin and born in iniquity 2. The latter of these thraldoms was not the curse or death inflicted as the punishment of the fall but the proper consequence of it That it was not its punishment nor any essential part of it appears in this that every essential part of the punishment of it Christ was to bear by way of satisfaction and so he bare anguish in body and soul death of body and separation from Gods presence but he bare not the inherency of sin for us nor inability for serving his Father nor was he subject to the deceits of Satan as if it had been an essential part of that punishment he must have done for it appertains to and spreads over the whole nature But the first was the punishment to which we were subjected and which had we abid never so pure in our natures must have been executed for the fault committed because the word was not If thou becomest so polluted but In the day thou eatest thou shalt die and therefore Christ also suffered that becoming a ransom for us though innocent 3. In the latter the Justice of God did not detain us but as man being debarred from any new grace without that could not do what he should but we ought that notwithstanding to do our best to serve him we had his permission to it if such a thing might be supposed that we might have lived under that sentence unsuffered for us He neither put sin into us nor kept it in us But the former came directly from God upon us and his Justice detained us in our Mediator in it till his sentence was satisfied 4. That first was the death of which Satan had power and the fear of which though but now a carkass detains men in their spirits in bondage Heb. 2.14 Men fear not but love the other their corruptions now Christ conquered Satan when he brake his snare and got victory over that death that should else have swallowed us up for ever So that Satan could not as else he would have done play the Executioner upon us 5. God neither putting men into corruption nor corruption into them nor his Justice standing against our doing better he would that they should come out of it if they could the price was not given to God properly as the price of Redemption from that but onely as the ransoming them from the death inflicted makes a passage for means also to be afforded to them for their recovery and setting free from
say much to these places quoted by him to hold forth the thing meant by the word Merit viz. Isai 53.5 Heb. 9.12 Acts 20.28 save that they prove not any obligation put upon God to do those things there mentioned to all that he died for but onely that God was pleased to do such things upon such considerations or by such mediums Onely the latter place of Acts 20.28 seems least to the business for it speaks not of Christs meriting of God but Gods procuring acquiring or obtaining as the 〈◊〉 most usually signifies a people to be a Church by that way of his blood the sufferings of Christ But to pass those things Let this be observed which himself grants lib 4. cap. 1. That however pretious and valuable the sufferings of Christ be yet they oblige and binde God to nothing but according to his own appointment and free ingagement Having noted that we come to his Argument which is this That Christ did merit and purchase by his death for all those for whom he died all those things which in the Scriptures are assigned to be the fruits and effects of his death But all have not all those effects and fruits Ergo he died not for All. Ans If by his Major he means He procured them into himself as into Gods Treasury to be free for them all to look after and come to him for and to be dispensed to all that do look after him and come to him Then it nothing hurts us But then his Minor assumes not rightly as it doth not however for it should be thus That Christ hath not purchased all those things for All and not as it is That all have them not But if in his Major he means as he seems to do that he obliged the Father to bestow upon All for whom he died and bring them to enjoy all those things which his Death either as presented to God or as believed by us is said to effect as his after-enumeration of its effects argue him to mean then I deny it and desire his proof of it which because he brings not his Argument falls to the ground and needs no further answering Onely I shall minde the Reader that the effects enumerated by him are such for the most part as it produceth in us by believing on it such as the Delivering us from the hand power of all our enemies which we are not till called nay till raised from the dead from wrath to come which we are not till justified by faith as is evident by his own confession against the Socinians The works of the Devil which are overcome and destroyed by him in being believed on Ephes 6.13.16 the curse of the Law which he says we are subject to till believers Cap. 8. Sect. 6. from our vain conversation the present evil world the earth and from men all which he doth by his blood and sufferings as being accepted of God they are made known to us and withall the Covenant ratified by it held forth to us By letting us see such love in God towards us and such good-will in Christ with such perfection to save us and so great promises ratified to believers he moves and perswades us to let go our vain conversations renounce the world its fellowships vanities and wickedness to cease cleaving to the earth and earthy men and having our confidence in them and reliance on them for teaching worship satisfaction delight c. Thus God is said to have bought Israel to himself Deut. 32.6 in that he by so great things done for them purchased or gained them in to own and follow him And so in Hos 3.2 Gods buying Israel to be a people for himself is compared to Hoseahs buying an harlot off from other lovers to be his wise for a certain consideration or Sum given her So Christ buys men unto God from other things by setting before us his great sufferings for us and profering to us the great glory he will thereby bring vs to if we will renounce all for him But this note is over and above what was needful for shewing the invalidity of the Argument All his other quotations too are impertinent and none of them prove either that God is obliged by the Death of Christ and ought to grant to and possess all for whom he died of those good things that he mentions or that he was or is bound thereby otherwise then as he freely ingaged himself to do them to any They say That by his Death we are reconciled as we may say By Joabs Mediation Absolom was recalled from banishment and brought into Davids favor Which speech proves not that the inward worth of his Mediation bound David to that So He is our Propitiatory through Faith in his blood and God hath set him forth to be so that proves not that he obliged God to forgive the sins of All he died for The like I might say for Peace-making and salvation Believing on him we are at peace with God and shall be saved by him but no place sayes All that he died for shall be saved or that God ought to make them all believe and so save them as was before shewed For his next Instance from the Phrases 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Inst 6. For All and for Many and Interrogatory Whether Christ died in the stead of All It s answered in those Chapters that speak about Satisfaction with all the Queries he propounds upon it Onely I shall spake to one of them viz. Whether Christ hung upon the Cross for Reprobates I say I conceive as they were men faln in Adam he did but not as besides that Reprobated also It s like that The Gospel was preached to the dead 1 Pet. 4.6 and the Spirits in prison Was the Gospel preached to dead men and men in hell Yes To them that are now dead and in hell But not when and as dead and in hell Men were not Reprobates as they were the Objects of Christs Death but as they are considered and actually found guilty of sinning wilfully and pertinaciously against the truth discovered and benefits afforded to them through his Death If we will speak of things according to the Scripture If otherwise Eâdem facilitate rejicitur quâ asseritur The Scriptures say men that corrupt themselves and notwithstanding the means of purging used to them which sure are all consequent in order of Nature to the death of Christ for men there being nothing affordable to men towards purging according to the demerit of Adams sin but All were forthwith to have perished stand out and remain in their corruptions are the reprobate silver men rejected of God Jer. 6.30 And for such obstinacy against God in lower or higher means the Scripture often tells us that God reprobates or rejects men as is to be seen in Rom. 1.19 20 21 28. Gen. 6.3 Psa 81.9 10 11 12. Pro. 1.22 23 24 25. Matth. 13.15 16. Acts 28.27 2 Thess 2.10 11 12. And no
other ways do I finde Reprobation befalling any one Now that that is done for the sinning against a mercy afforded and the fruits of it presupposes that mercy to have extended to them and not the contrary CHAP. IX An Answer to his last General Argument drawn from sundry Texts of Scripture HIs last general Argument is from divers Texts of Scripture Argu. 11 which he pretends to hold out That Christ died onely for the Elect but never a one of them concludes it I wonder how quick-sighted men are to spie out conceptions where no such Phrase or Expression as they conceive is held forth and yet cannot see plain expressions Scrip. 1. But let us view those Scriptures The first is Gen. 3.15 I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between her seed and thy seed He shall break thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel I will not call this as he doth a better one Argumentum a baculo ad Angulum but sure this place says not whom and how many Christ died for or that he should die at all It says but that the seed of the woman and them that are born of Satan granting that by the Serpent Satan is meant shall have enmity between themselves and the womans seed shall conquer Satan How the Elect should be the seed of the woman more then others I finde no reason much less proof for it And how it follows That if Christ brake the head of Satan then he died not for All I see as little Again I finde not that any man as he is born into the world is called a childe of Satan one of the Serpents seed And we have shewed That Christ might die for All as faln in Adam and yet destroy all such as after that and the goodness extended to them thereby should rebel against him though the Verse speak not of destroying any but the Serpent himself He shall break thy head So that this Argument concludeth nothing He neither proving the Serpent to be the Devil and so that the Devil goes upon his belly and eats dust nor the seed of the woman to be the Elect onely nor that any till they rebel against Christ are the seed of the Serpent nor that Christ was promised to the seed of the woman there is no such passage in it That I will give the womans seed one to die for them At the most it amounts but to this That Christ in himself and those that believe in him shall get the better of Satan and all that do oppose them Which we grant His second place is Matth. 7.23 Scrip. 2. I profess unto you I never knew you But Christ says he saith expresly he knows his own whom he died for Joh. 10.14 17. Surely he knows whom and what he hath bought c. This is fallacious reasoning To shew the vanity of which we are to minde That to know in Scripture is sometime to apprehend understand or discern a thing what it is and of what nature So Christ knew what was in man and knows all things But oftentimes to know is to own approve and acquaint ones self with so God is said to know the way of the righteous And in both these senses Christ is in some measure known of his and he knows his sheep But in the latter sense we say He knows not that is approves not of all he died for Though buying them they are his own yet he skils not of many of them in their states and ways so as to own them for his friends and acquaint himself with them as the word here signifies It s as much as You went without my Mission however without my liking in all your ways His Argument that He hints thus Christ knows them He died for But he knows not All Ergo Died not for All is fallacious The Minor is Negative in the third Figure and the Major a particular Affirmative or a falsity For we deny take knowing for owning approving and countenancing as there it signifies that Christ so knows all that he died for though he doth his sheep It s like this Israel that came out of Egypt was planted by God in Canaan But all Israel that passed over the red Sea was not so planted Ergo they all came not out of Egypt We grant that Christ knew whom and what he bought even all of them Simplici cognitione as knowledg signifies in the former of the senses above mentioned But that he owns them all in their way and frame we deny It s like this A Prince ransoms an hundred slaves some of them under pretence of honoring him do wicked acts to his dishonor and then being brought to an account they plead what they have done to honor him how they have spoken for him c. He bids them be gone for he approved none of their actions never owned them in what they say they did for him they secretly carrying on a Trayterous design against him And as such people pleading his ransoming of them and the cost he was at for them and the pains he took to do them good would but plead against themselves and he could easily answer them that they were the more ingaged to have loved him sought his glory and served his designs and not to have counterfeited with him secretly seeking to betray him under pretences of love So will Christ * Aug. Ser. 67. De ultimo Judicio Christum impios gratiae suae abusores ita redarguentem judicantem inducit Gravior inquiet Christus peccatorum tuorum crux est in quâ invitus pendeâ— quam illa quam tui misertus mortem tuam occisurus ascendi Impassibilis cum essem pro te pati dignatus sum sed tu despexisti in homine Deum in infirmo salutem in viâ reditum in judice veniam in cruce vitam in suppliciâ—s medicinam quia omnia tua mala ad medicamenta poenitentiae confugere noluisti ab auditu male non mereberis liberari c. say to those that their Destruction shal be the greater and the less excuse there is for their wickedness for that he having been at such cost to buy them and being so gracious a Lord to them yet they would deny him and work iniquity against him Nor will that advantage them to say as Mr. Owen suggests Is it not because thou dyedst it for thine Elect that none can lay any thing to their charge and why should we be charged if thou dyedst for us he can easily say to them My Death indeed was efficacious to them to salvation from all such charges for mine Elect were such as loved and served me and walked in my spirit and if at any time they stept away Matth. 25.35 36. Heb. 10.29 2 Pet. 2.1 yet they returned again at my reproofes unto me and I improved the vertue of my blood with my Father to the utmost for their good and protection But so hath not your way been before
the other If David venture his life for All the Israelites alike and after that he coming to have Power and Government one is by that knit to him and loves him again as Jonathan did and he enters into Covenant with him to be his choise friend and another regards him not for this but churlishly requites him as Nabal did and for that he destroyes him shall we say now That David loved Nabal as much as Jonathan because he acted the same highest act of love for them both formerly would not that be a notorious falshood And is not this then a notorious fallacy in Mr. Owen 2. He infers That for whomsoever he hath given his Son to them also he will assuredly freely give all things But I deny that the Apostle sayes any such thing But thus That having given his Son for us all he will surely give us all things with him Vs that is such as believe on him Vs that are in Christ that are called according to purpose c. Jonathan or Abigal making this Inference If David spared not himself but put his life in his hand for us all when we were strangers to him will not he that had so much love to us then give us Vs his federates and dear friends with himself having also given himself to us by Covenant whatever is in his power to the half of his Kingdom Will it follow from such a speech that Therefore whomsoever David loved so well as to venture his life for them against the Philistin to them he will give any good thing that 's desirable of him yea though many of them are his arch-enemies and do rebel against him Who sees not this to be a false Inference and yet such is this of Mr. Owens The believer doth or may expect all good things from Christ that died for them even upon that consideration that he died for them and shall have them therefore whosoever he died for shall have all good things too Thence also that Faith is not in the number of that All things spoken of appears because the parties thus speaking and of whom this is spoken are actuall believers before the making of this Inference That conception is like this He that was at such cost as to make a great Feast for us who are brought in to it already and are at it with thankful acceptance how shall he not give Vs to eat any dainty that is provided therefore it s from this speech inferable That he that was at such cost to make such a feast will make all that he invited to come and eat every dainty of it Whereas he saith His description of those persons there spoken of to be Elect not All but those chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world confirms the restraint of the Death of Christ to them alone 1. He proves not nor I am perswaded can he That any man yet uncalled hath that denomination of Elect in Scripture 2. We may see the vanity of his Argument by this insuing Similitude David venturing his life and conquering the Philistin and obtaining the Kingdom Shall he not stand by his friends familiars and kindred He that did that for them when mean will he suffer any enemy to vex and spoil them being invested with the power of the Kingdom Ergo David hazarded his life onely for his friends familiars and kindred and not for any that were his enemies or that afterward dealt injuriously and rebelliously against him Is this a good inference The Elect of God be they what they will shall be preserved by the Death Resurrection and Intercession of Christ from perdition which is all the Apostle there says he sayes not they are the adequate object of Christs Death Therefore Christ died for no more then they nor desired any good thing to be granted to any other but to them Who that understands Reason would not hiss out such arguments So from these words of the Apostle concerning the Elect Who is he that condemns its Christ that died doth this Inference fairly follow That whosoever he died for shall not be condemned more then from this If David's brother or good Subjects had said Who is he that accuses us It s David the King that ventured his life for our good and now raings to defend us from harm it would follow Ergo None that he ventured his life for against Goliah shall be put to death for any after-carriage toward him It doth but undeniably appear to me from all this that Mr. Owen understands not the drift of the Apostle nor sees the maner of his reasoning but no whit evident That Christ died onely for the Elect as he sayes He next Allegation is Eph. 1 7. We have redemption in him Scrip. 6. That is still we that are brought to him made accepted in him translated into his Kingdom as Col. 1.14 and as himself grants in his Chapter against the Socinians where he denies any of the Elect to be freed from wrath till regenerate we have that is injoy or possess Redemption that is remission of our sins clearing freeing us from all our bonds c. Therefore all that he died for or Therefore he died onely for us Is this right reasoning put it into form and then judg of it it s thus If the believer hath redemption in Christ Then all that he died for But the believer hath c. I deny the Consequence of his Major Proposition and leave him to prove it And it in what sense All have release and in what not we have said before There is redemption in Christ for All to seek after and so remission with him preached or predicable to all that they might look after it but All for whom he died I say have it not that is have not received it and so injoy it not How also they may be comparatively to what their case should have been blessed and how not blessed in that sense spoken of Rom. 4.6 7. we have shewed in Chap. 7. His next is Scrip. 7. 2 Cor. 5.21 He made him to be sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him that is in believing on him Thence he infers All that He was made sin for are made the righteousness of God in him It s like that He brought them into Canaan that they might keep his Statutes Ergo All that were brought into Canaan kept his Statutes as we noted at the beginning So by his stripes we we believers are healed Ergo All that he died for shall though they never submit to have the playster applied David by hazzarding his life brought us his friends to honor Ergo He ventured his life for no more but them that come to honor As weak is that from Joh. 15 13. Greater love than this hath no man If he acted the greatest Why not all the rest In which there is nothing but Reason exalting it self against the Word of God David put his life in
the freedom for all or any to look after that benefit and through Faith to obtain it Now in this Mr. Owen differs from us That he notes the world to signifie lost men of all sorts both Jews Gentiles peculiarly loved and that love to be an unchangeable act or purpose of Will concerning their salvation intending absolutely the salvation of all this world to whom he gave him that whosoever believeth not to be a distributive of that general the world but the very self-same with the word World Before he confirm his own he labors to evert the other and 1. Against that pity or propensity to be affirmed to be in God to the good of the creature he says thus If there be no natural affection in God whereby he is necessarily carried to any thing without himself then no such pity or affection to their good as is here intended I deny the Consequence for though there be no such thing as necessarily is so carried yet there is that 's voluntarily and freely carried so Gods Will that is in him to do this or that is not necessarily carried to do this or that but freely but being freely carried to this or that it s necessarily carried in a way suteable to his holy good Nature Now that there is that in God that carries him to desire or approve freely the good of man appears in that he is said to be Love 1 Joh. 4.8 Now Love freely seeks the good of things So again he swears that he delights not in the death of the wicked but rather that they should turn live Yea and saith of him that dieth That he hath no pleasure in his death Eze. 33.11 18. ult And bewails those that had miscarried through their folly and deprived themselves of his mercy Psal 81.11.14 Isai 48.17 18. And so our Saviour the express Image of God wept over and pitied the folly and misery of Jerusalem Luke 19.41 But then he says This intimates imperfection in God But he is not imperfect I answer no the imperfection is in our conception this in him is highest perfection As Moses saith He is perfect though he says He took the Isaelites out of Egypt to bring them into Canaan and many came not in that might seem an imperfection in God and that he failed of his expressed purpose but the imperfection is in our apprehension So he said of Elies house He would establish it but afterwards said otherwise But we are to believe what he says though it seem to us who want ability to comprehend him to argue imperfection The rest of his Reasonings are meer carnal he brings no patch of Scripture to prove that God hath not such good will to man but vainly pries and inquires Why doth not God ingage his power to accomplish it and how comes it hindered Which are brutish reasonings against Gods Assertions When he says Hadst thou done thus I would have done so and so And O that thou hadst done so And I delight rather he should live Then to say why doth not God effect it then Nay rather Who is vain brutish man dust and ashes to dispute against God and reject his Words upon his shallow Reason Will man propound to God what shall be Wisdom to him Doth not he indeed say That his Wisdom is foolishness to men And doth not Mr. Owen here make it good and say It s brutish wisdom amongst men But know O vain Earth-worm That the Wisdom of God is indeed foolishness to men and they cannot comprehend it and the wisdom of men is foolishness to God 1 Cor. 1.19.22.23 24. It s wisdom O vain man to give credit to the Word and Oath of God and say Amen to it That he delights not in the death of the wicked but rather that they shall turn and live how ever foolish it seems to man and whatever absurdities his wisdom findes in it For the foolishness of God is wiser then the wisdom of man and that weakness and imperfection that appears in Gods wayes is stronger then the strength of men His ways are unsearchable his judgments past finding out Not to be measured by the shallow models our Reason but his Words are all Words of Truth and he that will understand his Wayes must believe them and be willing to deny the wisdom of the flesh which is enmity to God and which God will destroy and become a fool that he may be wise The Scriptures we see in Psal 81.14 Isai 48.17 18. Ezek. 33.11 and 18.32 1 Tim. 2.4 hold forth what I speak of The Nature of God which is Love acting forth it self in expressions of good Will to men yea men in general and such as miscarry His other exception with its confirmations being onely against his acting necessarily are all vain and invalid For conformation of his own Exposition That by Love is meant an unchangeable purpose or act of his Will to save them He gives this Reason Because its the most eminent and transcendent love that ever God bare or shewed towards any miserable creature Well Let us first reade it according to his Exposition and see what it will help him It will run thus God so Loved that is unchangeably purposed the salvation of the world That he gave his onely begotten Son that whosever believeth in him should not perish c. Which is in effect that he so unchangeably purposed the salvation of lost mankinde as that he provided the most eminent transcendent medium for it to be saved by upon condition of believing And so it will be an unchangeable conditional purpose to the world and an unchangeable absolute purpose to believers that have that condition And may it not consist or rather spring from his pity and compassion to faln man so to will and purpose Yea and may not the word Love rather signifie that pity in which he so purposed then that purpose that sprung therefrom seeing its the more prime moving cause of his sending Christ that is here spoken of Or will this Exposition content him No though this is as much as the words will bear with the following expressions in the Text yet this is not it he aims at but this That his Love signifies an absolute unchangeable purpose of saving every one for whom he gave Christ and so of giving and causing them all effectually to receive whatsoever is needful to their salvation But the Text speaks not up to this conception for then it should rather have been thus God so loved the world that he gave his onely begotten Son and will make it believe in him so that it shall never perish c. But neither such not to that purpose is our Saviours expression Such an expression indeed would have represented God as propounding the salvation of the world as an end undertaken by himself to accomplish and bring about with all the mediums conducing thereunto without condition on our part whereas our Saviour speaks of it as an
in him shall not abide in darkness But Mr. Owen says By the World are meant the Elect scattered abroad in the World opposed to the Nation of the Jews that this last clause is untrue appears by this that he was speaking this to a Jew to draw him to believe and therefore the Word World must not be opposed to them as excluding them but let us see how he refutes ours and confirms his own opinion Against our latter observation from the reading of the Words He so loved the Elect that all of them that believe should not perish viz. that it would seem by that as if some of them might not believe he replies why Because he sent his Son that they might not perish To that I answer No but because the phrase is Distributive not that it believing as supposing that all that VVorld that Christ was given for shall believe but that whosoever or every one that believes as supposing that though there is ground for all the VVorld to believe yet all would not So that the place holds not forth that Christ must and will keep from perishing All for whom he was given as Mr. Owen suggests but all whosoever and whatsoever that believe in him But he answers again That God designs the salvation of all them in express words for whom he sent his Son To that I reply that by designing c. meaning his purposing to bring them All to eternal salvation its openly untrue for he says no such thing there that he loved the world and gave his Son that every one of it should be made to believe and be saved as I appeal to the Text it self but if he mean as he doth not that salvation might be propounded to it and it have a way by which it might in believing come to be saved then I deny it not but so it s said of unbelievers John 5.34 40. VVhereas we say that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is divisive and partitive as to that Totum the word world going before to this he says that If it be so then it restrains Gods love to some and not to others I answer No but it it shews by whom and by what way the utmost end of this love or most choise blessing of it is to be injoyed Gods love in providing a Medium through which men might look for and meet with salvation respects the world in generall nor doth that saying that whosoever believes put a bar against any of the world as if they might not in looking up to Christ be saved but it implies that the world as simply such or as in that state of sin and blindness in which God out of pity sent his Son for it is not the object of Gods absolute intention to give eternall life but those of it that believe and the word Whosoever is both an incouragement for all or any to believe and carries in it a supposition that the whole VVorld likely might not believe As the setting up the brazen Serpent to whom Christ is compared ver 14. was an act of love to all the strange Israelites though the benefit of healing was to be obtained in their looking up to it and by none of them that refused to look up so was the gift of Christ to the world though the unbeliever not receiving him is not saved But then 2. He denies that that phrase is restrictive but only declarative of his end how it s not restrictive I have even now said but that its Distinctive not taking in the whole world as the certain Object or subject of eternall life is shewed also and is very evident I conceive to all that have but common judgment and so that it s not only Declarative of his end but declarative of it in such a way or expression as implies that the Object that injoyes that end may at least be fewer then the object of giving him to such an end It s not that all the world shall not perish but that whosoever believeth perish not c. Besides no other Scripture says that the whole world for whom Christ was given did or shall believe on him but expresly to the contrary that some to whom God gave Him as the true bread saw and believed not Iohn 6.32 36. and that many to whom he came received him not He came to his own things amongst which his own Nation was and his own Nation or people received him not So that for his exposition we have nothing but his bare saying and that offering violence to the Text too as if it had been said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it should believe and be saved c. indeed he after adds some reasons we shall weigh them also 1. His first is From what he said before about that love wherewith he loved it which was such a love as cannot be extended to All which being refuted before needs no further Answer See before Li. 3. Ca. 9. The world of mankinde share in this great act of Gods love the sending forth of Christ and yet not all attaine the utmost intention of it 2. His second is from vers 17. Giving a reason of this that he says it was an act of his love to the world whereof he gives a double proofe one Negative he sent him not to condemne the world the other affirmative but that the world through him might be saved he says the word World there must needs signifie believers and Elect because it s said that the World through him might be saved which if it be understood of any but believers God must needs fail of his end This is answered before in the first Chapter of the first Book where he have shewed 1. That the word saved is sometimes used in a lower sense then the having eternal life as the deliverance out of that condemnation fore-come upon us and so the world may be said to be saved and the grace of God saving to All men Tit. 2.11 Rom. 5.18 1 Tim. 2.6 2. That such speeches do not always declare the intention of God which he will bring about but an end propounded to men which they in attending to the means set before them ought to press after and might attain to and that its his good will they should look after it and in looking after it attain to it See the Instances thereof Acts 17.26 27. Joh. 1.7 Psal 105.44 45. Like to which is this He sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved that is That he being filled with authority power and sufficiency to save them they might have him as a Saviour or way to salvation to look and listen to and in walking in his Light and Truth might attain salvation Which end set before them they many of them miss by despising him who is the way to it Therefore our Saviour distributing the world in two parts in the next verse tells us not who might have been saved
ever that were broken off might and did miss of by observing lying vanities forsaking their own mercies Jonas 2.8 either by unbelief or negligence in a vain cursory receit of the Ordinances and grace of Reconciliation therein tendered So that neither doth that conclude the thing intended namely that by the word world is there meant only Gods Elect and Chosen His proof from Colos 1.6 Lib. 3. ca. 6. We have before spoken to in Chap. 1. That of 2 Cor. 5.19 We have also spoken to largely before in the Chapter about Reconciliation Onely I shall add here that the word world cannot there mean the Elect onely for then no need of fearing that any toward whom that grace was vouchsafed should receive it in vain as is intimately feared by the Apostle Chap. 6.1.2 As for the Argument used from the Non-imputation there spoken of we have shewed it to be weak also God reckoned not the sins of the world to it in that he winked at them and did not demand satisfaction at their hands for them but preached forgiveness to them which indeed was a very great blessing but it comes to life and happiness onely upon them that receive it and believe as the Apostle says Rom. 4.6 7 9. His reasons why the Elect should be called the world as they are especially the three first very slender ones so they do all fall to the ground except it can be first proved that it is so called 4. His fourth Reason is like Nicodemus's How can these things be Why doth not God give the Gospel to all then who do any perish c. He might as well say If God brought Israel out of Egypt that they might go to Canaan why did he not make them all trust in him and carry them all thither This is not to believe the VVord of God that says Christ is the Propitiation for the sins of the whole world c. But to set our Reason against it though we could say God hath told us more about his revealing Christ then he doth believe viz. That He is the true Light that inlightneth every man that comesin to the world But hewil there say too as the manner of our darkness and unbelief is at every truth of God that it cannotcomprehend Durus est hic sermo How can this be for he will scarce conceive that the Word can sparkle through the Humanity united to it into the hearts of every man except the Manhood too be plainly declared or that that divine being that the Gentiles are led to see in the VVorks of God is no other then the VVord that was incarnate and is the true God this may seem as strange to him as that to the Jews Before Abraham was I Am and may meet with as many stones about it For Truth is full of Paradoxes to the wisdom of the Flesh though plain to him that findes understanding Besides God hath sent his Gospel to All Nations and Peoples though many have put the light from them and chosen darkness rather even whole Countries and Peoples and therefore shall be justly condemned not for that they had it not but because when God sent it they received it not but have from age to age slighted and rejected it 5. He heaps up another nest of absurdities upon us As 1. That we cannot understand this to be All and Every man except we grant some to be loved hated from eternity But how our granting that should depend upon that large extent of the Word it will pose Reason it self to conceive and Scripture too Sure he meant Except we deny it as we do if by hatred he mean a purpose not to send his Son for them without their disobedience to his Son and the light extended through him to condemn and destroy them 2. He says We must make the Love of God toward innumerable to be fruitless and vain We deny that too For there-through they injoy their lives liberties patience bounty goodness hints of truth to their mindes some more some less as he sees fit in his wisdom and God shall receive much glory Though its true and no absurdity to say that some do reject much grace or receive it in vain in regard of many further fruits it would effect yea and turn that that was for their welfare into a snare Turning that grace and goodness into wantonness that should lead them to repentance 3. That then the Son of God is given to them that never hear word of him nor have any power to believe Answer It s not said He gave him to the world but gave him simply out of love to the world and give him he might for them to whom so properly he may not be said to give him I suppose you think he was given for if not also to some children that die in infancy and yet they never hear of him and so many former Jews might never hear of him distinctly as that he should be crucified and yet they had good by that they heard not of Death came in upon All through Adam though many never heard of him and so may and doth much mercy by Christ to such as never hear distinctly of him And did men in that mercy grope after God as the Apostles say they might haply finde him What power God gives to men to yield up to the light that comes from him I cannot say for others I am not in their bosoms but for my self I am sure more then I have acted forth and followed him in And that God gives no power to believe or at least soberly to attend to God that they might be helpt to believe but onely where men indeed do believe is as inevident as that God gave not power to Adam to forbear eating the forbidden fruit because he did not forbear I cannot see into those secrets how far God acts or acts not upon others but the not seeing such secrets shall be no reason to me to wave what is revealed if not plainly in this yet in other Scriptures of larger expression If Mr. Owen see into mens spirits and can tell us what God doth to all and how far he deals with them or finds the Scripture expressing it let him demonstrate to us that God doth give no power to any to attend to him in the ways wherein he useth to beget faith according to the means vouchsafed but onely to them that are actually brought to faith and I shall listen to him 4. He says Then God is mutable in his Love Answer That follows not for so far as he says he loved it he acted and never altered it he did give his Son and never reversed it that whosoever believes should not perish c. And yet we being mutable and corrupting our selves God may say to us as well as to Ephraim Hos 9.15 I will love them no more and yet the alteration in us onely not in him The effects of the same act may be different to an object without
souls and dâ—wb them up with morter not duly tempered To tell them that either Christ dyed for them or not If he did they are sure to be safe they cannot out-sin the efficacy of his bloud upon them nor fail of the inheritance sure our way to comfort souls is not by such words as the Scripture warrants not But while we comfort souls by minding them what God hath done for them in Christ and what he is ready to do further we are also to let them know that its in his way in attending to his word looking to his son abiding in him c. that they shall meet with all the efficacy of Christs bloud to eternall salvation so it will cleanse them from all their sins and present them righteous and obtain the dispensation of Spirit to them to abide in them for ever But if they neglect and slight him they cannot escape his chastisements which negligences too upon confession of them and turning from them it is ordered to wash away but abidden in they shall for them be cut off from him and I think this is according to the Apostles manner of preaching See Rom. 8.1.13 1 Ioh 1.7 8 9. Joh. 15.2 4 5 6 7 10. c. 14 15 16 17. But other wayes of comforting from it we know none And if to speak of it as the Holy Ghost speaks of it be to vilifie and count it a common thing I know not wherein truly to magnifie it we must stick to his speaking however any censure us for so doing And yet we account the bloud of Christ truly precious as being the bloud of God the bloud of the Covenant and as such not common to All much lesse prophane and of little vertue We judge it of infinite esteem with God so that it obtains what ever according to the agreement between Christ and him it requireth and being obeyed and the sprinkling of it received it speaks peace purges the conscience cleanses from sin keeps off punishment yea abid in it leads up the soul that 's sanctified by it to all perfection yea so vertuous we judge it and of such value with God that he most severely revenges mens slighting and contemning it not believing on it or not abiding in it yea to utter destruction according to the intimations of these Scriptures that we come to speak to That which he makes an Argument of our slighting it that we make an Argument of our prizing it and counting it precious in the sight of God even that he so severely punishes and destroyes them that having it shed for them propounded to them would not trust it but rebelled against him that shed it I think it springs from the preciousness excellency of Christ Psa 2.10 11. Ioh. 3 36. both in himself with God that God so severely punishes those that believe not on him that refuse to Kiss him It nothing hindred the preciousness of the Feast Mat. 21.4 6 7. that they that were bidden were so severely destroyed for refusing it Rom. 2.4 5. Iude 4.13 nor is it an undervaluing of Gods goodness that men for hardning their hearts against it treasure up wrath against themselves or of the grace of God that some turning it into wantonnesse procure to themselves the blackness of darkness The better a thing is that God propounds to us and cals us to the greater is his displeasure against its rejectors Heb. 2.3 c. 10.29 they shall lesse escape and be more punished that neglect the salvation preached by Christ then they that neglected what was preached by Moses Gods speaking in a way of grace to people and calling to the bloud of the Covenant as they are greater encouragements to hear him and hope in him then when he spake from Mount Sinai in terror So shal the slighting such a way as affords such encouragements be more severely punished Heb. 12.18 22 24 25. We esteem not a Plaister lesse precious because men that will not apply it or not let it lye on are not healed by it but if it cure every wound to which its applyed and on which its permitted to lye we highly esteem it M. Owen should remember that himself granted that the innate worth and vertue of a thing and its efficacie as to persons are very different and that not to be measured by this therefore these are but Sophistical flourishes to scare souls from receiving the truth or leading to a negligence in attending to it while they carry in them this intimation that if a man can but find an act of Faith in him at any time though perhaps that 's but his conceit too the bloud of Christ belongs to him and he is suâ—e enough from falling no matter for abiding in Gods wayes and taking heed to his Word he may hear any Doctrine do any thing the vertue of Christs bloud will preserve him from finall miscarrying and to say it will not is to dishonour it Truth will fling off many such foolish flourishes as these which yet I meet with taken up and used sometimes with great confidence in Pulpits but I confesse I pity them that so do The Word of the Lord is a reproach to them and they cannot bear it they will not give that honour to Christs bloud that God gives it in the Scripture but yet will plead for an honour of their own framing like the old Pharisees that honoured the Sepulchers of the Prophets and in the mean time believed not their witness and killed their successors I shall shut up this point with M. Owens own words in his Preface If we maintain the vertue of Christs bloud let us do it in his own language or be for ever silent that is preciousnesse in it that God ascribes to it our inventions though never so splendid in our own eyes are unto him an abomination The places oppugned by him in their native intimations and significations are Rom. 14.15 1 Cor. 8.11 2 Pet. 2.1 Heb. 10.29 which we do not bring to prove as he suggests that Christ dyed for All and every man in the world but to prove that he dyed for more then the Elect and so use not so directly for the proof of the extent of it to its fulnesse as to disprove their limitation of it to the Elect and Believers Let us view what he sayes to them 1. The First is Rom. 14.15 Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ dyed We say thence that the Apostle intimates that one may perish for whom Christ dyed else his admonition was altogether groundlesse as empty and superfluous as if he had bidden them not to make Christs bloud by his Father to be abhorred or not to pull the stars out of the Firmament c. To this M. Owen ut nodum quem solvere nequit gladio dissecet denies that there is any such intimation he might as well have said these words are not written onely sayes he others are commanded not to do that that
world by the knowledge of him do keep themselves such unspotted Virgins and walk constantly after Christ nor that they shal All be saved Not a syllable to that purpose It says those 144000. did keep themselves Virgins pure and chaste to him and that they overcame and triumphed according to the promises set before the Churches in general But these false Teachers did not so but returned back again to their pollutions and therefore though bought yea the rather for that they should be destroyed I wonder that men have no more fear of God before them then to say the Scripture expresses such things as are not expressed in it and in the mean time tell us they are but appearances like seeming dreams that are expressed 3. How this is a peculiar aggravation of their sin may be seen by what is said above viz. in that it hath more in it then meerly a dying for them yea more then is common to every one especially in the degree of their being bought As also further in that all do not so disserve him that bought them no not all of them that perish as these that by false doctrine should deny him and lead many others into the transgression with themselves 4. The last place is Heb. 10.29 of how much sorer punishment shall he be thought worthy who counts the blood of the Covenanted a common thing c. He should have done well to have taken in ver 26. also If we sin willingly after the knowledg of the Truth received there remains no more sacrifice for sin c. And told us whether such a one as so sins had any sacrifice before his so sinning or not and so whether they deprived themselves of any benefit they might have otherwise had by Christs Sacrifice I have asked one or two that question from whom I could never yet get answer to it But let us view what he says to that other verse He tells us It s an argument to perswade to continuance in the Gospel-Doctrine taken ab incommodo and that 1. He speaks here onely of professors of the Gospel and so it cannot be applied to All that 's granted nor do we so apply it but to prove that mens perishing for whom Christ died is a thing that the Apostles supposed and so that Doctrine that confines Christs Death to them onely that shall be eternally saved is erroneous 2. That the Apostle asserts not what is or may be but onely adds a commination upon a supposition to deter from a thing impossible he should have said but if the Apostles speech doth not imply a possibility for one that is sanctified by the blood of Christ to count it a common thing and so to fall into condemnation yea if this doth not sometime fall out how is it that men generally make use of this place to describe the sin against the holy Ghost that is unpardonable Is there not such a sin as that or do they take incompatible and impossible expressions to describe it Certainly if the description be of impossibilities and things that never fall out then the thing defined is of that nature too Again will any say that its never found that any man tramples Christ under his feet that is despises and scorns him or that none ever despite the Spirit of Grace I suppose all will agree that these things sometimes at least are committed And why then shall we think that the expressions of either side are suppositions of things that may be and sometimes are and onely think otherwise of this that lies between them and is as much supposed as either of them Either let us say they are none of them possible or else say they are all so or shew some weighty ground to the contrary He tells us Paul supposed that if the Marriners left the Ship Acts 27. they could not be saved and yet it was not possible that they should not be drowned because God had told him he had given him all that were in the ship with him But first that concludes not this supposition to be of a thing impossible at least no more then it doth the other too that before it and that after it or then it doth any other supposition in Scripture it being to another business Secondly That saying of God might not hold forth to Paul that it was impossible they should any of them be drowned For Paul was not unacquainted that God oftentimes in such speeches intimates a condition As when he told David that Saul would come to Keilah and the men of Keilah deliver him up 1 Sam. 25.11 12. and yet neither of them came to pass because there was intimately ver 13. this condition in his Answers viz. if David staid there So he told Ely that his house and the house of his Father should walk before him for ever yet he after tells him it should not be so because he had not hearkned to him 1 Sam. 2.30 so he said by Jonas Yet forty days and Niniveh shall be destroyed and yet there being a condition implyed in it they were not destroyed Jonah 3. and 4. So Paul knew how to interpret Gods Sayings that they held forth a certainty of the event upon submission to him by them to whom they were spoken in the use of such means as he sets before men but yet include a possibility of missing upon tempting him or rebelling against him and so he might well say Except these men abide in the ship ye cannot have Gods Promise accomplished ye cannot be saved God doth not so promise us an end that 's that to be attained though we tempt him and reject the means as clearly appears by multitudes of the rebellious Israelites failing of the promised Canaan Yea the words I have given to thee all that are in the ship with thee might signifie a giving their lives into his hand so that he using the means propounded of God to him they should be preserved but his neglect of them might have been a willing throwing away or letting go what God had given him Again thirdly the case is different in this That there Paul had a promise of all their lives but I know no one word that says none of them that Christ died for or that are sanctified in any degree by his blood can or shall perish That they that believe in him hear his voyce and follow him shall not it s confest but in those speeches there is intimated an abiding and perseverance for else it s an evident case they would not But that all that do at any time in any measure or degree believe or that at any time hear his voyce shall alwayes do so or that they that in any degree are sanctified shall persevere therein to the end and cannot neglect Gods Salvation and by willing neglects fall away I finde no Scripture that affirms it but much to the contrary That he hath for ever perfected by his Sacrifice those that are sanctified is true if either
the Kingdom of God extends to them only to whom he speaketh Ver. 25. So because it s said Hear now O house of Israel therefore the extent of the Proposition ver 11. is but this He delights not in the death of the house of Israel as Mr. Owen makes it as if the wicked and the house of Israel were convertible tearms and equipollent and of equal latitude Is not this fallacious arguing The medium brought to prove a Conclusion is not of greater extent then the Conclusion or the Minor Proposition must be the measure of the Majors quantity as if because going to prove a lye to be avoided the Minor is but this A lye is a sin therefore the Major viz. that sin is to be avoided extends no further then to the sin of lying Who knows not that its usuall with the Prophets and Apostles from indefinite and universal propositions of truth to infer particular instructions and reprehensions c. As from this God gives liberally to All to infer If any of you want wisdom ask it of God Jam. 1.5 The man is blessed that trusts in God therefore taste ye and see how good he is Psal 34.8 And such is the Prophets way here The people despair because of Gods judgments threatned or repine at his chastisements God indefinitely by his Prophet lays open his good-will towards men and thence exhorts them to take heart to seek and turn to him Thus God delights not in the death of the wicked but that they rather turn and live therefore not in your death therefore turn and live that that is Gods way in general may make for your instruction and incouragement in particular Now 2. Whereas he asks what will that is that God wills not the death of the wicked in I answer as before his Will of welpleasedness as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies It s not desirable or approveable that wicked men go on in sinful ways and dye but rather turn and live And this may be true even of those that have not such express commands and Revelations of his minde as others God would not have them smother what truth they have but glorifie him according to what they know of him and be thankful seek him as Rom. 1.18 19.21 Act. 17.26 27. 3. He tells us We miserably mistake the meaning of the Prophet because he speaks but about temporal judgements upon their land c. I answer That he speaks about them is true but that he speaks but about them and that the word death holds forth there no more but temporal death and the word live but a natural earthy life and prosperity as if he might have pleasure in their eternal death though not in their temporal and as if he delighted not to give them eternal life upon their repentance or as if the Proposition is but true of the outward because applied to comfort them in that also these things I say are untrue and I deny them Did the putting away their evils and turning to God and making them new hearts respect only their avoiding temporal judgements and living in outward happiness when the Scripture often tels us That it pleases God many times to confer outward happiness upon and keep off temporal judgments from those that never think of turning but live in all wickedness See Psal 73.1 3 4 5 6. Jer. 12.1 Job 20.7 8.9 13. Surely from Gods not delighting in the death of sinners any way may be argued that he desires not their destruction from this life as from Gods wrath coming upon the children of disobedience that then the believers disobeying should be sorely chastened and yet sore chastisements here not be all that 's contained in the word wrath as affirmed to come on the children of disobedience these are frothy arguments and not beseeming Mr. Owen It s more frothy to limit an indefinite Proposition to some few particulars where nothing inforces it as to draw from thence a Conclusion general Nay indefinite propositions are most usually of general signification as might easily be shewed in the Scriptures but I leave that to the observation of the Readers Only minding them that this is by the Apostles Paul Peter affirmed in the general as in 1 Tim. 2.4 2 Pet. 3 9. So that Mr. Owen here hath said nothing to purpose He says p. 283. That the ends of the earth Isa 45.22 are they that look up to God A strange Collection he might as well say from Isai 55.7 8. Let the wicked forsake his ways That the wicked are they that forsake their ways and turn to God If the persons exhorted are always the performers of what they are exhorted to that would be wonderfull And yet he says that his glosse is beyond denyall and again That onely Elect and Believers are there and in Isai 49.6 clearly intimated I marvell by what Argument he can demonstrate it that we may not deny it Sure his ipse Dico is not enough for it and yet that 's all he brings to prove it He tels us p. 287. That its most certain that the Lord Jesus sends not his servants with a lye to offer that to all that belongs but to some and asks what is thence concluded I answer That M. O. is in an error then in saying The Death of Christ is onely for the Elect For if the Lord Christ sent not his Servants to offer that to All that belongs only to a few and yet he sent the Gospel with the Contents thereof to be offered to All then it follows that that that is therein offered pertains not onely to some few For otherwise he grants they that so offer it are sent with a lye That its offered to All he grants partly here and partly in Chap. 1. where he said The Gospel is to be preached to All Nations and hath a right to be preached to every creature Therefore unlesse they that are to Preach it should preach a lye the Contents of it pertain not onely to some but to All. Quod erat probandum Whereas he says We are to prove that Christ dyed for All aswell them that never heard the Gospel as for them that do I Answer That pertains not to us but to believe what Christ by his servants hath delivered to us that he dyed for All and every one and is the Propitiation for the sins of the whole world which is proof and ground enough for our believing that he dyed for them also the phrases being sufficiently comprehensive If any will bring in that limitation to the Apostles expression they must shew us just warrant for so doing It s enough to us to believe the generality and Universality of it that the Scripture never excludeth any from it but in generall Universall phrases affirmeth it In pag. 288. he speaks as if T. M. affirmed that we are bound to pray for every singular man that he may be saved and supposed that there is nothing else that we are to
pray for men but that they may be saved by Christ Which to give the mildest language are more mistakes of him for as he affirmed neither of them in his proof to which M.O. Answers as any that read it may see so it suffices that we pray for all in generall that God would reveal the knowledge of his truth unto them and spread abroad his Gospel amongst them and afford them such testimonies of his goodness as may lead them to Repentance and for what other things may concern their welfare here the lesse is no whit excluded by praying for the greater Though indeed I know no warrant we have in all the Scripture to pray God to save eternally that is to give the priviledges proper to believers to them that have not yet believed How Act. 8.22 24. proves it false that an assurance of Christ dying for men in particular is not our ground of praying for them as M.O. says I am yet to learn except he can prove that Peter was not assured that Christ dyed for Simon Magus which he that extracts out of that place must be somewhat more skilfull in Chymestry then I am Whereas pag. 290. he says we turn the most intense and incomparable love of God towards his Elect into a common desire wishing and affection of his Nature opposite to his Nature and fayling of its end It s a great mistake as to us at least and to the party he there opposeth We grant Gods love as intense and incomparable to his Elect as he by any Scripture proof can make it and far more incomparable then here he imputes to us Whereas he says that in Tit. 2.11 12. is not a common love he begs that Assertion for the words are the grace of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saving to All men hath appeared And if saving to All men be not common I know not what expression can argue it common And yet that then it must save All men in eternall life as he implies this grace doth All them to whom it is extended is in my view as as great an inconsequence as that If the Lords mighty power was a saving power to all the Isralites out of Egypt then it must certainsave them all all the way into Canaan That the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 too spoken of â—it 3.5 was such as that the believers therein and therethrough received the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost is granted but that therefore All that were comprehended in it do and shall receive them is another inconsequence not yet proved no more then Caleb and Joshuahs being by the power of God and his presence with them in the Cloud the Manna c. prevailed with to believe and so were preserved and brought into Canaan would enforce that all that he put forth his power toward and vouchsafed his presence among and gave his Manna to and the Pillar of a Cloud to lead them c. they were so prevailed with to beleive and brought into Canaan also Hujus modi inconsequentiis illius scatet liber P. 292. He faults T. M. for rendring they love darkness rather then light to be a choosing darkness rather then light which is a meer trifle for he that loves one thing rather then another prefers that thing and choses it before the other And whereas he adds that there is no comparison instituted between their loving light and loving darknesse as if they had loved both but one more then the other that nothing overthrows his saying For where one thing is loved and not another there is choice also as well as when two things are loved one above another And yet his denyall of their loving both is not true in all men that love darknesse Many a man loves the truth in many things and approves it that yet loves his lusts more and so prefers them before it as those that Joh. 12.42 Loved the praise of men more then the praise of God There is no question but they honored desired the praise of God but yet so as that to have it they would not loose the praise of men So Herod reverenced Iohn and bare good will to him but yet preferred his Herodias before him But whereas from that phrase Ioh. 3.19 T. M. inferred surely there was light for them M.O. trifles again about that and says He durst not say that it was the counsel of God that they should receive it To which I say Sure it was his councell to them to receive it and they rejected the counsel of God against themselves Luk. 7.30 Pro. 1.23 25 29 30. Indeed what he councels or purposes to do himself or cause to be done that shall stand and so much that in Isa 46.10 saith But what he councels us to do is not always done by us though onely in his counsels obeyed there is standing safety for us But by for them there was light it s evident T.M. meant it was presented to them as that that they had right to look upon and receive yea ought of duty to have received And not onely it was a common stock as light in the Sun for blind men as M.O. speaketh for these men see the light and something in it that crossed them in their purposes and designs else would they not have hated it Blind men take not delight in one colour more then in another seeing they discern no difference whereas there and in p. 293. he says that these places of Ioh. 2.8 Mat. 16.26 Rom. 2.5 Hos 13.9 make nothing against his position nor for the extent of Christs Death he is much mistaken or will not acknowledge what is presented to him He says Jonas 2.8 tels us that they that forsake God forfeit their mercies temporall and spiritual which they had before received But can any man be said to receive a reall mercy from God who have nothing from him but in hatred with a tendency to aggravate their misery as is necessarily implyed by M.O. opinion which tels us that God hated many from eternity whom Christ dyed not for and yet will judge them the more severely for the abuse of every thing they have though given in that hatred Count you that a mercy to choak men with Gold or to hang wedges of it about their necks and throw them into the Sea to drown them have they any Spirituall mercies from God for whom Christ dyed not and did he so in his opinion for Idolators and Back-sliders from God Besides he speaks not out all the truth for men not onely through observing lying vanities forsake what they have but much that they might have had as is plain Psal 81.14 15. Luk. 19.41 there are things pertaining to their peace that they miss off and how could they had any such things if Christ never dyed for them or was not Mediator for them If it be said that our Saviour speaks thus of outward peace and mercies besides that that 's too scanty an exposition
for him To make good which denyall he sayes 1 That no man is bound to believe that that 's false but that he dyed for every man is false and he hath proved it so before This is Petitio Principii and contrary to the Scripture He is no competent Judge in his own cause and any that reads my Answers may see his proofs have all failed 2. Then he says men should be bound to believe immediately that that is not revealed though Divine Revelation be the Object of all Faith I deny this consequence from the Minor either as laid down by me or stated by him in the second way And whereas he says That the Scriptures do not hold out any where that Christ died for this or that particular as such but indefinitely as sinners specified of times antecedently by Gods purpose and consequently by their owne purchased obedience To the first of these passages I say that the Scriptures holding out an Universall proposition of truth are though not immediately yet mediately the Object of Divine Faith to any one particular for himself that 's included in the generall As when it s said All have sinned To believe thence that I have sinned is a Faith closing with and springing from that that is revealed though not immediately in the expression yet by undeniable intimation and consequence And so in the case of the Resurrection and Judgement in closing with this divine Revelation that all shall rise and be judged I necessarily upon the same divine Revelation believe that I shal rise and be judged also Yea unlesse I believe for my self I do not believe the Divine Revelation as concerning All. So is the case here God having revealed that Christ dyed for every one and all men c. In believing that Divine Truth I believe that he hath done so for me for that Divine Revelation includeth me as a man and one of the world And if it be not so I deny that any particular mans Faith in that particular can be proved to be grounded on the the word of God or that he hath any right to believe on the Mediator or that there is a Mediator for him To the latter passage about the Scriptures holding it forth only for sinners indefinitely often so and so specified I answer 1. That 's untrue It s held out also for the world universally 1 Ioh. 2.2 and for men generally 1 Tim. 2.4 6. Heb. 2.9 Again 2 He contradicts himself for if Scriptures specifie those Sinners for whom Christ dyed to be such or such then it holds not out his Death for sinners indefinitely Scripture holds forth nothing in any place but as it agrees with the truth of other places and indefinitely and boundedly are contradictions when spoken of the same subject Sinners unlimitedly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and limitedly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are incompetible expressions 3. I deny that the Objectum totale the full Object of the Death of Christ is any where specified either by the purpose of God to save them eternally or the consequent obedience found in them which denyall we have managed throughout this discourse 3. He saith The purpose of God and his intention is not propounded as the Object of the Faith of any but only his commands promises and threatnings the latter clause of which is not full enough for neither are his commands properly the Object of Faith but of Obedience nor are those things mentioned the onely object of Faith sure his Declarations may have a share therein too 2. His purpose and intention that he should die for this or that man is necessarily involved in the object of Faith propounding that he died for All men But his purpose or intention of bringing this or that man absolutely to eternal life is not revealed as the object of Faith to any not united to Christ by Faith and the inhabitation of the Spirit But that 's beyond our question not intended at all in the Argument as either way produced and so it s impertinently here mentioned by Mr. Owen In this also is answered his fourth Exception viz. That no command in Scripture to believe is to be measured by Gods purpose and intention His fifth onely answering to the Minor as disowned by me I have nothing to say to it But then he says That the not owning the Argument as in the first way propounded makes it useless as to the cause defended To which I answer That for Christs dying for every man in the world we have more divine proofs then that can come to but as altered into the second form it proves that Tenent untrue that Christ died onely for Gods Elect and them that shall for ever be saved against which I own it Besides this being granted it will follow That the Gospel being proposeable to All the world and that obedience of Faith also requireable thereupon of All there is the same truth in the matter of the Gospel concerning Christs Death for them all also it being otherwise not proposeable nor the obedience of Faith requirable of them His answer to this That it s no safe disputing of what should or would be if things were not as God hath appointed them satisfies not For as 1. We need not such disputings were men contented to be so far fools as to believe Doctrines as God propounds them And 2 As such suppositive Conclusions may be as strong and undeniable upon such supposed principles as positive conclusions 〈◊〉 positive premises yea and may illustrate positive truths too at lest they are as lawful for us to use as for them that oppose us So 3. This is not onely suppositive but positive that the Gospel is predicable to All and therefore the commission runs to preach it to All and I say it s in this positive truth implied that the truth therein declared as true before mens faith is true for All for otherwise there would not be in it a predicability unto All and ground for requiring Belief and Obedience of All we have opportunity and that we might preach it unto upon such preaching it But he excepts That if the Gospel were preached to All the world and All in the world yet this is all the will of God that could in general be signified by it to them viz. That he that believes shall be saved and he that believes not shall be damned and so that God hath concatinated these two together Faith and Salvation Which that its untrue we have shewed before in Chap. 1. The Gospel declares good will to All That God would have all men saved and come to know the truth c. ut supra It argues mens wisdom have too much blinded them from seeing into or understanding the Gospel when they finde nothing in it for sinners and men in general but that they that believe shall be saved and can shew them no good reason that any of them have to believe in God more then the Law can shew that says he
be one of them for ought I know 4.5 The promise of life upon believing and the assured salvation of all believers without exception These two are of the same nature with the former only the soul hath this to except It s not every believer for many fall away in time of temptation having no root in them as my faith cannot have if I know not that Christ dyed for me and so grow not upon Gods love therein evidenced to me The soul cannot so believe as to love God and so but with a dead faith unless it believe his love first It may see all its endeavors to believe and to rest on God to be but fleshly strivings out of self principles and at the best it argues Gods love but from its own believing which it may justly question the heart being deceitfull and he a fool that trusts for it for evidencing his condition This is but a promise and an assurance of thriving to all that eat duely of a meat which it knows not whether it may or can duely eat or not for to eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ and so to believe on them is when the soul beholding the love of God and Christ in his Death and sacrifice commended to it doth gather boldness and incouragement to love and cast it self upon God and so grows up into the full assurance of peculiar love to him even to eternall life without the knowledge of love to the soul first it can but at highest come to this It may be I am one that God loves and perhaps not well I will leave thinking about it and tyring my self with thoughts if I can and let it alone I must submit when all is done to be disposed to Heaven or Hell by him which indeed is a condition most sit and needfull for the Gospell to be preached to but is far from faith in God which works by Love and is justifying These things The call to believe the command threatning promise c. are good evidences that the ransome is given and accepted for All and there is good provision in Christ for them God never using to call men to any ordinance that he appointed not for them and coming with this they may incourage thee to believe on and love him that gave his Son for thee to believe on And this implyed by them is that declaration that good tidings to sinners that indeed draws them into believe through the spirits working in them or else if they turn their backs upon it renders them throughly guilty when they shall say in their hearts O what did God for me and what cause had I to believe and to have stayed upon him but I refused it As the Israelites in Egypt were indeed sinners for not believing when God had done so much for them to ingage them to it His conclusion then under this head is false viz. That those are enough to remove all doubts and fears much less which I would rather urge against it are they sufficient to incourage and imbolden the heart and frame it to believe but more especially is that false that follows in him viz. That those are All that the Scripture holds out to that purpose It holds out others as we have noted from Acts 3.26 13 37. 1 Tim. 2.4 5 6. but of this he can take no notice they are nothing for his purpose I could give him back here some of his own expressions as that in pag. 283. That if pride and error had not taken too much possession of mens minds they could not so far deny what they reade in plain texts of Scripture as if they had never seen them to maintain their corrupt and false opinions But he answers further 4. That that perswasion which asserts the certainty of the Death of Christ to All believers and 2. That affirms the command of God and call of Christ to be infallibly declarative of that duty which is required of the person commanded and called which if it be performed will be assuredly acceptable to God 3. That holds out purchased free grace to all distressed burthened consciences whatsoever and 4. Discovers a fountain of blood alsufficient to purge all the sin of every man in the World that will use the appointed means for coming unto it that doctrine cannot possibly be the canse of any doubt or scruple in the hearts of convinced burthened sinners whether they ought to believe or no. I answer that this is in a manner the same with the former and there answered I will adde this touching the second particular that its ambiguous whether by the person called he mean by man in the preaching of the Gospell or by God effectually for many are of that mind that God cals not nor holds forth Gospell to all that the Ministers declare it to but only to the Elect if he be of that mind too it s not so undoubtedly true to the hearer as he would make it that God requires what the Minister doth because they may be divided the command and call may be intended only to some that the hearer knows not whether he be one of or not though the Preacher out of ignorance direct it to all and this may beget much doubting in the hearer whether its Gods voice to or him no. Again he supposeth more in this Doctrine he pleads for in two last particulars then is in it as that it holds forth purchased free grace to all distressed burthened consciences there are many among the Heathen have their consciences accusing them yea sometimes like furies burthening them there are many that profess Christ conscious of heinous sins and are ready to despaire and make away themselves for them there are many burthened that they can no more walk up to the righteousness and labor to stablish righteousness to themselves and cannot be setled Will Master Owen say that their doctrine holds forth purchased free grace to all these that I deny for it says he purchased free grace only for the Elect and that all such are Elected I suppose he will be put to it to prove seeing many such go on in their sins notwithstanding their burthens and many seek to put them off and sometimes do stifle them by worldly imployments and vanities and many actually despair and make away themselves If he say he means not such the matter is where it was the distressed conscience may yet doubt and is apt so to do whether it may not be one of those in the issue As for that in the fourth that there is an alsufficiency in the blood of Christ for all that will use the appointed means c. I will not stand to tell him though I might that his speech here is like one of them that in us he uses to tax with-holding Free-will which seeing he declaims against I hope he will be so charitable as to allow us the like liberty of speaking without fastening upon us that Odium But I say
will he busy himself to prevent impossibilities or about them that God hath hated from eternity What follows about Christs merit are but Rhetoricall disparagements of the grace of God as Universall in which he frequently puts the ly or brat of our own brain or some such like language upon Gods and his Apostles declarations for such are these That Christ dyed for All and is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world c. To which we shall give no other Answer they being not Arguments but frothy flourishes but remembring him that brought no railing accusations refer it to the Lord to rebuke Sathan the adversary of Gods free-grace and goodness He applands afterward his own opinion and casts dust upon the truth representing his own in these four following propositions 1. That Christ dyed only for the Elect. 2. That all those for whom Christ dyed are eternally saved 3. That Christ purchased all saving grace from them he means for All that so as to be effectually made over to All for whom he dyed 4. Christ sends the means and reveals the wayes of life to all those for whom he died I suppose he means in the declaration of the Gospell to them in this their life time If M. Owen can prove any one of these to be true from Scripture for in all this his book he hath failed of it then I will be bound to give up the cause to him and say that he hath done more then all his brethren could yet attaine to The Assertions he lays down as ours are diverse of them meer slanders as that we say 1. Most of them for whom Christ dyed are damned which is more then we know or dare determine not knowing what a numerous increase there may be of believers in the last Ages of Christs reigne nor being able fully to comprehend those sayings 1 Pet. 3.19 4.6 2. That he purchased not any saving grace for them that he dyed for 3. That he ratified and sealed not any Covenant of grace with any federates 4. Hath no intention to redeem his Church c. as if he had learned to practise that evill principle Calumniare andacter haerebit aliquid His last disquisition is about Gospel-consolation Whether perswasion gives the most before which he propounds some considerations as 1. That all true Evangelicall consolation belongs only to believers but I think this at first dash is unsound for I hope poor sad souls that sit in distress and through the sight of their sins dare not believe nay prehaps are in despaire have nothing in the Gospell to comfort them and induce them to believe 2. That to make out consolation to them to whom it is not due is as great a crime as to withhold it from them to whom it is I grant that both are crimes 3. That T. M. attempt to set forth the Death of Christ so as All might be comforted is a proud attempt I can say this for him of my own hearing from his mouth that he is cleer in that for I heard him say long since that the title was not of his appointing but the Printers or some other above for him 4. That Doctrine that holds out consolation to unbelievers from the Death of Christ is a crying Peace peace where God says there is no peace That 's true if by unbelievers he means men as such and so persisting otherwise it may not be true as is noted to the first we endeavor not to comfort unbelievers in their unbelief further then to let them see there is ground for their repentance but as the Gospel was first preached to Abraham and his Family before the Law so we preach the Death of Christ for all as a medium to their better convincement of their unbelief and impenitence and an argument to perswade them to Faith For how shall they indeed be convinced that its their sin not to believe or be perswaded to believe except they have God set forth as a meet Object for them to believe on And if they persist in their disobedience we have in the Gospel-Declaration Acts 10.36 Luke 10.5 6.9.11 12. that that will strike terror and amazement into them for their unbelief It was the preaching of Christ and so of his Apostles whom we desire to follow first to preach peace to the world and exhort them not to rest without it and in so doing we preach peace to none but whom it s to be preached to God first hangs out a white Flag of Reconciliation and Peace in Christ before he holds out his red of Judgement and Indignation which follows where that peace is despised Mat. 10.12 13 14 15. Having premised these things he lays down these four Conclusions 1. That the extending the Death of Christ to an universality in Object cannot give the lest ground of consolation to them whom God would have to be comforted by the Gospel 2. That the denying the efficacy of the Death of Christ towards them for whom he died cuts the nerves and sinews of all strong consolation such as is proper for the believer to receive and the Gospel to give 3. That there is nothing in the restraining Christs Death to the Elect that in the least measure debars consolation from them to whom it is due 4. That the Doctrine of the effectual Redemption of the sheep of Christ by the blood of the Covenant is the true solid foundation of all durable consolation 1. To confirm the first He premises That all Gospel-Consolation belongs onely to believers which I have before shewed to be untrue The Gospel propounds comfort also to souls ready to despair utterly that they might believe And the best way to comfort such is to let them know that Christ died for them and that by opening to them according to the Scripture-affirmation the extent of Christs Death and of Gods goodness therein Having propounded that he nextly argues against its being of use to believers as that 1. No Scripture so propounds it Which is untrue also for that in 1 Joh. 2.2 doth as we have seen for Mr. Owen confesses his business there is to comfort believers and the Apostle to that propounds Christ as a Propitiation for the sins of the whole world and not onely of us the believers to be comforted See what I have said to it largelier cap. 3. lib. 4. He says further 2. That no comfort can accrue to them from that which is common to those 1. That shall perish to eternity Isa 51.13 Psa 100.2 1 Pet. 4 19. Ps 31.15 and 103.18.22 c. 2. That God would not have comforted And 3. that stand in open rebellion against Christ And 4. That hear not of Christ This also is disproved De facto from the forementioned place as was shewed before upon it Besides The Creation is common to them All that he mentions and yet that 's of Consolation to the believer and so Gods Governing all things the Resurrection Judgement c.
sins against his mediation and the fruits of it extended to them as considered in a condition consequent thereto as refusing the light and abusing the power and liberty given them in the strivings and operations of his grace and spirit a turning away from him that did so much for them a denying him that bought them not believing on his name c. But then he says further If this unbelief be a sin then Christ underwent the punishment of it or not if he did then why must that hinder more then other sins c. To which I answer that though properly and most directly those sins and evils came upon him into which the fall of Adam plunged us sins not against him as Mediator or God as giving a Mediator and dealing with us there-through which was consequent to the fall and to mans sinning yet inasmuch as God knew that which they would do against his Mediating for them he not only laid upon him that sin previous to it with its proper operations in that way but also provided in that his Death against other sins that would follow so as that he might be perfectly able to save to the utmost any that should come to God by him And so he did so much in that one Death and offering as by virtue thereof patience and forbearance might be afforded for some space to the Rebellious while God is striving with them by his Spirit and leading them to Repentance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And it s said there is forgiveness with the Lord that he might be feared and with him is plenteous Redemption Psal 130.4 6. with him before it be with us or before we have it made ours before we fear him for it s provided with him and he exercises patience answerably with Declarations of it that he might be feared and this held forth to such as yet are supposed may despise and perish Acts 13.37.40.41 And thence in urging the wicked to Repentance it s added as the motive for he is gracious and will multiply pardon He hath received so much satisfaction for any wicked man whoever short of that unpardonable sin that he hath power and readiness of forgiveness for them with him Matth. 22.3 4 7. and desires not their ruine but that they might turn and live such a Caution hath Christ put in with his Father for them and not onely so but also he so far fore-provided that upon submission of any of them to him all their sins against his light goodness and Mediation during the time of Gods calling findes Remission from him Isa 55.7 and the after-follies to that his own Called-Ones run into are provided against 1 Joh 1.9 remission is in him for them and upon their confession and returning they have it dispensed to them and for them he hath provided that they shall not fail of seasonable operations of Spirit with due chastisements Ephes 5.26 27. whereby they may be sanctifyed and made pure in his sight and for the sanctified he hath provided for their utmost perfection and all this in one sacrifice But all this power of pardoning obtained by his Death is deposited in his hand and the pardon not immediately passed over from God to us or any he died for as if Christ bare all the Curse and Death and then for his sake we have Remission blessing and life presently confer'd upon us but as Christ bare all our evil God-ward so he hath received and is the treasury of Gods fulness of blessing Man-ward and men receive it from him and with him it being Gods Ordinance that he and life go together so as that we have not life till we have him nor Redemption till translated into his Kingdom who then sets us free by revealing his Truth to and in us Iohn 8.32 36. Col. 1.13 14. 1 Corinth 1.30 But the persisting in obstinacy and Rebellion till the space of Grace be expired deprives men of that Mercy and Salvation they might have found in submission to him Jon. 2.8 Psalm 81.10 11 12. Luke 19.41 42 c. And so unbelief Condemns not onely as it deserves Condemnation for in that regard he hath power to forgive it but as its necessary operation is the keeping a soul at a distance from him in whom is all Salvation and Remission and without whom we cannot have whatever of that nature is given to us all being intailed upon and bound up in him 1 Joh. 5.11 So that in a word he hath born all the sins of all men as in their first transgression and as considered precedaneous to his mediation and hath obtained such power against all other sins of all or any man that he hath made them all pardonable except that blasphemy against the Holy Ghost that upon repentance he can and will pardon any of them though yet we say not that he bare upon himself all the sins of all men as considered sinning against his mediation CHAP. III. A Veiw of his fourth Chapter with Answer thereto IN his fourth Chapter he tels us how Christ was Agent in the work of Redemption by voluntary susception of the office imposed on him and so was incarnate and offered up himself a sacrifice to God which we affirme also only some of the Scriptures that he quotes for this though they intimate his suffering and offering yet speak to a further business as the washing us in his blood Rev. 1.5 is in the sprinkling his blood upon our consciences compare it with Heb. 10.22 1 Cor. 6.11 Ephes 5.26 so the sanctifying himself Joh. 17.19 is not his yeelding up himself to death fure or not that only that they might be yeelded up to death by his death but the devoting himself to God to receive and make known the knowledg of God to them that they might be sanctified and set apart through the truth to that ministration to which he sent them for neither speaks he there of all the Elect except Mr. Owen think that all the Elect are sent to minister to the world Psal 18. as Christ was but of those actual believers whom he sent into the world verse 4. for he makes this prayer as one that had finished the work that God gave him to do on earth and as one committing the business of the Father toward the world in point of ministration unto others fitted for it even as Paul prayed for the Elders of Ephesus when he was leaving them and the flock of God to them Asts. 20. but to passe that Besides those other two acts of his undertaking Incarnation and Oblation he mentions also a third viz. Intercession which we grant also but whereas he says It s for all and every one of those for whom he gave himself as an oblation he did not suffer and then refuse to intercede for them do the greater and omit the less that position though I will not peremptorily deny it yet as Mr. Owen by Intercession means and takes in
thing I know not what is CHAP. II. On the latter part of his third Chapter lib. 2. in which he urges the phrases For many and for the sheep and pretends to answer what T. Moore hath observed about them HE proceeds in the next place to application and to demonstrate this Assertion That Jesus Christ according to the Councel and will of his Father did offer himself on the cross to the procurement of eternal salvation with all the branches and means of it and makes continual Intercession with this intent and purpose that all the good things so procured by his death might be actually and infallibly bestowed on and applyed to All and every one for whom he dyed according to the will and counsel of God A position manifestly false for then we must all be Apostles Prophets Evangelists Pastors and Teachers nay have a name above every name c. for these things Christ procured by his death But to pass that He endeavors to make good this by a threefold consideration 1. From Scriptures holding out the intention and counsel of God 2. From Scriptures laying down the actual accomplishment or effect of his oblation 3. From those that point out the persons for whom Christ dyed His prevarications and weakness in the pointing out and arguing from each of which we sufficiently shewed in our answer to the first Chapter of his first Book and therefore here shall add only this That his arguments run but to this purpose Some one subordinate end of Christs death only agrees to some therefore he dyed only for those and with no respect to the supream end dyed for any other and so by consequence God hath no glory brought to him by the death of Jesus Christ but only in and from the Elect and Christ hath got no glory from any other but them he leaving them as he found them and doing nothing in his mediation for them Truly God and Christ are not beholding to Mr. Owen for his arguing So again Believers have had such and such effects in and by the death of Christ believed in by them therefore he dyed only for them like this such as go to a feast are well refreshed by eating it therefore it was made for no more then them that go to it or this Such prisoners being ransomed and following the Prince that ransomed them met with such bounty from him Therefore he ransomed none but them And again Many were ransomed Ergo not All. God made Israel Therefore he made no body else c. but no more to them arguments only there are diverse passages in the latter part of this Chapter from p. 79. that we have not spoken to and therefore shall take them in here As He denies that the death of Christ in any place of Scripture is said to be for all men For Answer to which I desire the Reader to turn to 1 Tim. 2.5 6. Heb. 2.9 Rom. 5.18 I know his objection is elswhere that the word Men is not in the original To which I answer first That by the same reason he may say that in Rom. 5.12 It s not affirmed that All men sinned seeing its but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word Men is not expressed and the like in 1 Cor. 15.22 that All men dyed not in Adam But 2. The word Men is expresly in Rom. 5.18 And 3. The word Men is the substantive clearly to be supplyed because the whole precedent speech was about men All men to be prayed for 1 Tim. 2.1 and expresly verse 4. that God would have All men to be saved 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. and that demonstrated by this that there is but one God and one Mediator between God and men the Man Christ Jesus who gave himself a ransom for All. For All what must it not needs be men between whom and God he is a Mediator and whom he tels us God would have to be saved All men and so in Heb. 2.9 was not the Apostle admiring Gods goodness to man Lord what is man and the Son of man exalting man above all his works which is now verified in one Man Jesus that dyed for every one What can it be referred to as before spoken about but man or the sons of men But of this we shall have cause to speak further hereafter That there are more ends of the death of Jesus Christ then what is the immediate fruit of it by way of ransome and propitiation before faith in it we have shewed in the conclusion of the first Book and upon his first Chapter of the second Some fruits there are of it from God towards men before faith and while in state of unbelief as the opening the door for entrance and for exhortations to strive to enter a feast prepared in Christ and a way of participating of it made and invitations vouchsafed as in Matth. 22.4 Prov. 9.3 4 5. Luk. 13.24 and those for and to more then enter and eat other fruits there are of it that flow in upon faith as satisfaction justification sanctification the contents of the new Testament c. And he that cannot see these to be distinct fruits and produced for or upon diverse objects and objects diversly considered is blinde and cannot see afar off nor into the things evidently held forth in the Gospel And what the ransome either immediately with God and for men or mediately upon and in men produceth were subordinate ends and aimes that Christ had in his eye upon his death as Mr. Owen himself also implies when he makes the ends of Christs death to be coincident with its effects His following observation objected against that that where the word many is used there are more ends of Christs death mentioned I shall pass it being not material and in some passages at least doubtful But in page 80. To this exception of ours Christs death is not limited to many and to his sheep c. as the ransome and propitiation as if he dyed for them only he tels us 1. That Christ saying he dyed for his sheep and Church and Scripture witnessing that all are not his sheep they conclude and argue by undeniable consequence that he dyed not for those that are not so At which assertion I can but wonder when first I heard of Mr. Owens Book he was so commended to me for a disputant that I could not expect any such lame arguments from him If we must take his saying of a thing to be an infallible proof that it s so then we have done with him but sure no Logick rule or good reason that I have ever met with can prove this assertion Had he said Christ saying he dyed for his sheep and the Scripture saying all are not his sheep it argues that in that saying he extended not the speech there about his Death to All he had spoken reason but to argue that because he mentions no more there as the object of his Death therefore he had no greater