to this day § 8. God doth not impute Adam's Sin to us because he will do it without any real participation of ours no nor beyond our true natural participation but according to it Otherwise God should have made us sinners meerly because he â—ould do so and not Adam § 9. We receive our Original Guilt and Pravity immediately from our next Parents and but remotely from Adam It could never have come to us but through them from whom we receive our Nature from them we receive the guilt and pravity of our Nature § 10. Therefore thus far at least our next Parents communicate Guilt and Pravity to us and not Adam only In which we see that God's Imputation goeth along with real Natural Participation § 11. It seemeth to me a strange oversight in too many Divines who deny or observe not our Guilt of all the rest of our Parents Sins while we were in their Loins as well as of Adam's seeing 1. there is that same reason of both save what the change of the Covenant maketh of which after And 2. Scripture is so full and express about it § 12. 1st If I have a guilty and deprayed Soul from my Parents it is because I was once in them Virtually or Seminally as truly and naturally as I was in Adam And had not the Guilt been theirs it had never been miâ—e And if it be mine because it was theirs why not one part of theirs as well as another § 13. It will be said Because God so Covenanted with Adam that he should stand or fall for himself and his Posterity I Answer That there was any such Covenant that if he stood his Posterity should all stand or be Confirmed and Saved is more than ever I found in Scripture or can prove or do believe But that it would have been to the benefit of his Posterity I doubt not And that his fall was to the Guilt and Corruption of his Posterity I doubt not but as I said not without and beyond their natural Interest in him and Derivation from him as the reason of it And we were as much naturally in our next Parents And the Covenant of Innocency and the Covenant of Grace do not so far differ as to exempt us from the Guilt of our next Parents sins For the difference lieth not in this That the first only made Death the due reward of all Sin nor that the first did interest Children in the Guilt of their Parents sin But in this that the first made us Guilty without a Remedy But the second giveth us a Remedy presently for Pardon and Recovery and so our Guilt is not so full because it is but a half Obligation having the Pardon annexed The first Law said If thou sin thou shalt be filius mortis and so shall those that are Propagated of thee The second Covenant saith For thy Original and Actual Sin death is thy due but I give thee a Pardon and Remedying Grace procured by the Righteousness of Christ. But note That this Covenant pardoneth our Original Sin as from Adam And yet it followeth not that we had none because it is pardoned Even so it pardoneth our guilt of our next Parents sins and therefore we had it to be pardoned Both are pardonable to us therefore we had both § 14. 2. And the Scripture is more copious and as plain in making punishment due to Children for their next Parents sins as for Adam's though Adam's only was the Original of all Sin and Misery I have elsewhere proved it at large The Case of Cain's Posterity and Cham's and Ishmael's and Esau's and Achan's Family and Ahab's and many more do fully prove it And more fully the Second Commandment and God's declaration of his Name to Moses Exod. 34. and many a Threatning to the Seed of the Wicked and Christ's express Words in Matth. 23. 36. so that Scripture puts us out of doubt § 15. The common Objection is that their Guilt would be greater on us towards the End of the World than on them at the Beginning because all our Ancestours Guilt would be ours But I answer 1. If it were so it would be but many Obligations to the same Punishment when it amounteth to that which God seeth our Nature capable of For a Finite Worm is not capable of more Suffering than is proportioned to his Nature 2. And this Objection vainly supposeth that none of our Ancestours Sins were pardoned Whereas all are pardoned to the Faithful and their Seed and much Temporal Punishment is pardoned to many of the Unsanctified And God himself by limiting it to the third and fourth Generation seemeth to set bounds to his own Justice 3. And the Guilt of our Parents Sins being of a more Diminute Nature than that of our own Actual Sin Coeteris paribus it falleth not so fully on us as it did on the Committers themselves nor as our own do 4. And God offereth us the full pardon of our own and all together And as long as the Law which tells us of our desert of punishment doth also give us a free pardon we have no Cause to complain § 16. That we have all Original Sin is proved in that else Infants should be saved without a pardoning Saviour or a cleansing Sanctifier which cannot be § 17. He that seeth the universal inclination of Mankind to Evil even in their Childhood and their backwardness to Good even that Evil and that Good which Nature it self assureth us are such must needs believe Original Pravity or else think hardly of God's Work § 18. He that seeth still that Drunkenness Gluttony Lust c. do vitiate both the Soul and Bodily Temperament of the Sinner and how frequently a diseased distempered Body inclining Men to particular Vices and an extraordinarily vitiated Soul is in their Children the plain fruit of the Parents Sin may the easilier believe that we drew down Pravity from Adam also when we derive so much from nearest Parents § 19. And they that consider that Mans Soul being made Holy for God this unholiness is not only a Negation but a Privation not of Sensitive and Natural only but of Moral Rectitude will not deny but that the name of Sin or Moral Pravity belongeth to it § 20. And they that consider that Parents Cause not Children as an Artificer maketh an Engine but by Generation which is a Communication of their own Essence and what Natural Interest Parents and Children have in each other and that it is real Sin that is in both and that the Moral Privation in its Nature containeth much of Mans misery will easily grant that it is both a Sin and Punishment and a Moral Cause of further punishment properly enough so called § 21. They that lay that Reason of their denying Original Sin upon the difficulty of understanding whether Souls are new Created or Derived from Parents do too little suspect their frail understandings and their own â—deductions and too easily suspect the
so one man may have the relative Person of a King a Husband a Father a Captain General a Physician an Astronomer c. And though I hold not this Relative Personality is all that we are to acknowledge in the Trinity yet I see no reason but in the second place it is included that is 1. The Relations which the Divine Vitality Intellect and Will have to the substantiality and to each other 2. And the Relation which they have ad extra to Effects And whereas it may be objected that so God hath thousands of Relations to thousands of his Works I answer But he hath three grand Relations which comprehend all the rest as he is the God of Nature Grace and Clory Creator Redeemer and Perfecter As he hath the three grand Attributes which comprehend the rest But undoubtedly this Trinity of essential Attributes which are said to be related to the substantiality and to each other is here in the prime Conceptus § 25. He that placeth Personality in the Trinity in SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS leaveth us to enquire of him Q. 1. Whether it be by him presupposed or not that there are the three foresaid Attributes called Essentialities or Formalities in one Divine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we commonly call Substance or Spirit Q. 2. Whether Conscire being scire is not the proper Act of an Intellect and not of a Will or executive Power as such Q. 3. Self-perception indeed is a first and essential Act of every sensible Agent But doth not that among men only prove sensible Life which is in many Faculties and is as numerous as the Acts and not prove many persons seeing he must be first a Person who shall thus act By seeing I perceive that I see and by hearing that I hear and by tasting smelling touching that I taste smell and touch I know these by Intellection but I perceive them first by essential Sensation and so by understanding I immediately perceive that I understand and think And by willing I immediately not know but by a sort of eminent Sensation perceive that I will And by vital Action I perceive that I act Yet these are not distinct Persons but the acts of one Person Perception is essential to Vitality or Sense but not constitutive of Personality Q. 4. Is it knowing ones self or knowing another or another's knowing me that constituteth Personality I know not my self to be what I am in priâ—◠〈◊〉 I first perceive my acts and by the Acts I know that I have an active Power and by that I know that I am a Substance c. Which of these maketh me a Person 2. God knoweth the Acts of every Creature better than each knoweth his own yet that is not God's Personality as distinct from his Life And that the Creature doth not equally know God can be no privation of Personality to God whatever it be to the Creature And God's Personality was before there was any Creature Q. 5. To say That they are three Minds or Spirits or Substances that do invicem conscire is to say That they are three Gods And because every mental Substance hath its own active Power Intellect and Will it supposeth three Trinities instead of one Q. Though God be said to be purus Actus it is Actus entitâ—tivus including potentiam seâ— virtutem agendi and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Substantiality is a necessary prior fundamental Conception for it doth superare captum humanum to conceive of an Act that is not alicujus actus He that causeth all substantiality and existence is eminently existent Substance Many have made it a Dispute Whether the Creature have any Entity or be a Shadow but none whether God be so Obj. To be self-conscious proveth Personality and to be conscious of the act of another proveth one the same Person with the other Ans. To be self-perceptive is a good proof of a Vital Act and to be self-conscious is a proof of an Intellect Indeed in GOD the Substance and Act and so the Personality and Self-perception are not two things but the same But yet inadequate Conceptions must be orderly and so the act conceived as the act of a Power and of a Person And as is said every act or faculty that hath self-perception is not a Person 2. And God's consciousness of the acts of Iudas Herod Nero proveth him not to be the same person with each of them though he be infinitely more § 26. GOD being essential Life in â—ure Act without any passive Power meant by the word PERSON by the Orthodox may be better spoken of his Essential Acts the active Virtue included than of Mans. If it be the Essence why may not the proved Trinity of objective Conceptions as formal be called Persons or Hypostases Though many wise Men wish that a Name less liable to mistake had been used § 27. But though I am past doubt that in God is this Trinity of essential formal inadequate Conceptions or Primalities and that the impress of them is on the Soul of Man which is his image and on the whole frame of Nature and Grace yet far be it from me to say That nothing else is meant by the Trinity of Persons thus much we are sure of There may be more to constitute that personality than is to us comprehensible and I doubt not but there is more because thus much is so intelligible seeing the Divine Nature is so infinitely far above the Comprehension of us poor Worms But what we know not we cannot describe or notifie to others § 28. There are of late some of great Wit and Learning who have adventured upon another sort of Description of the Trinity Men whose parts I greatly value Peter Sterry Dr. H. More Mr. John Turner of St. Thomas Hospital and before them some in Germany went some such way They say that from the prime Being emaneth say some or is created say others the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the second Hypostasis or person and Matter which is the third and this caused Life and Matter the Son and Holy Ghost are one indivisible though distinguishable Being there being no Spirit saith Dr. M. save God that is not a Soul to some Body Some of them tell us not whether this first produced LIFE and MATTER be the Universal Matter of the World animated by an universal Soul or whether they mean only some prime Soul and Matter that was made or caused before the rest But others let us know that it is the universal that they mean And if so they must needs hold the World as to all its Spirit and Matter to be eternal though in Particles alterable and to be God himself The prime Entity the Life and the Matter being the Father Son and Spirit But they that hold not this universal Life and Matter do think that God by a most eminent Life and Spirit that was eternal did create all the rest as inferiour to them Dr. More 's Book of
Transubstantiation and Mr. Tho. Beverley's drew me to write some Animadversions on this Doctrine as moderating between Extreams but on further consideration I am very Ioth to be so venturous in a Case of such tremendous Mystery as to meddle for or against them left etiam vera dicere de Deo si incerta sit periculosum Though I doubt not but their exposition of Ioh. 6. is unsound while they make the Flesh and Blood of Christ which is Transubstantiated and eaten and drunk to be the eternal Flesh and Blood of Christ a Man from Eternity § 29. The difficulty of the Controversie which this leadeth to Whether the World be an eternal Effect of an eternal Cause or God from all Eternity till the forming of this lower World and Adam had no Being but Himself Doth deterr me from meddling with it lest I be blinded by presuming too nearly to gaze on the Light that should guide me and God that is Love should for my boldness be to me a Consuming Fire Things revealed only as for our search § 30. But the Conclusion which all this prepareth for is this That whatever else besides the Trinity of Primalities before described doth constitute the Trinity of Persons it is rendred altogether credible to an implicit Faith by the full Evidence and Certainty of the aforesaid Trinity of Faculties or Primalities which are God's Image on Man's Soul and the like imprinted on the whole Creation which certainly is not done in vain § 31. I pass by the rest because I have so largely handled it in Method Theolog. And among the numerous Authors there cited I desire the Reader especially to peruse the words of Guitmundus A. B. Aversanus Edmund Cantuariensis Richardi ad Bernard Pothonis Prumensis with whose words I will conclude cited pag. 103. There are three invisibles of God Power Wisdom and Benignity of which all things proceed in which all things subsist by which all things are ruled The Father is Power the Son is Wisdom the Holy Ghost is Benignity Power createth Wisdom governeth Benignity conserveth Power by Benignity wisely createth Wisdom by Power benignly governeth Benignity by Wisdom powerfully conserveth As the Image is seen in the Glass so in the state of the Soul by Humane Nature c. To this Similitude of God against Man approacheth nearly to whom God's Power giveth Power to Good and his Wisdom to Know and his Benignity â—iveth to Will This is the threefold Force of the Rational Soul posse scire velle to be able to know to will which co-operate to Faith Hope and Love or Charity § 32. Among all the Attempts that are published for our Conceptions of the Deity and Trinity I know of none that give us their Notions with greater Confidence and Pretence of Revelation than I. P. M. D. Dr. Pordage and his Leader Iacob Behmen Many other of the German Prophets going near the same way as C. Beckman describeth them I. P. his Mystica Theologia pretendeth to far greater discovery of the Deity and Trinity and the World than ever Christ Prophets or Apostles gave us First In his Globe of Eternity or the Divine Essential World pictured by 1. An Eye the Father 2. A Heart the Son 3. And the Effluvia or breathed Beams the Holy Ghost with the innumerable Progeny of such Eyes flowing from that pregnant Essence differing from it only as lesser from greater each an Individual yet making no Composition but Unity in the Deity Secondly In his Abyssal Nothing or World of Potentialities Thirdly In his Eternal Nature and the septenary included Worlds c. But 1. I consess there are many things in him and in Peter Sterry which Reason left to its conjectures would think plausible but short of Aristotle and Plato 2. And he is so high in his Description and Defence of Trine-Unity that even where I consent not I dare not call him therein unsound 3. But many Passages in his Description of Eternal Nature are apparently the effects of Ignorance and erroneous 4. And he goeth further in his making this Nature eternal and a World that is the Body of God than I dare do 5. And though I would not be too forward to contemn men that pretend to know such Mysteries by Vision and Revelation yet I resolve to take Christ for my sufficient and infallible Teacher and to pretend to know no more of the Deity and unseen World than he hath thought meet to reveal For no man hath seen the Father at any time but the only begotten Son nor doth any else know him but he and those to whom he revealeth him And what Christ hath not revealed of God I think it is because it is fittest for us to be yet ignorant of it as a necessary difference between our present and our future state To search for more will but confound and lose us and resting practically in what Christ hath revealed and for the rest trusting our selves fully in his Knowing for us his Love to us and his Promise for us may safely and sufficiently quiet the Mind that can be well quieted no other way CHAP. 3. Of the Incarnation and Hypostatical Union § 1. NO wonder that it seemeth hard to Man to understand how the Divine Nature assumeth the Humane into Union when it is so far beyond our reach to conceive how God is near to all his Works and how he operateth on every man Christ hath told us That we know not how a man is born of the Spirit no more than we know whence the Wind cometh and whither it goeth And can we easilier know how God became Man § 2. It is certain that God being infinite is as near to us as is possible our Souls can be no nearer to our Bodies nor perhaps to themselves And though Philosophers dispute Whether Spirits be in loco and whether God be in us or we in him and whether he be quasi locus spatium to the World yet it is past question that he is omnipresent and intimately proximus to all things § 3. It is not therefore his meer Presence or Proximity of being that is this Hypostatical Union else it would extend to all the World It is harder therefore to prove that God is not as nearly united to all than to prove that he is not so united to the Humane Nature of Christ. Which caused Peter Sterry and such others to hold That Christ hath three Natures that is That the Divine Nature first produced the prime superangelical emanant Nature by which he seemeth to mean an universal Soul to the Matter of the World and that this superangelical Nature did unite it self to all but eminently to the humane Nature of Christ which he calleth One top-Branch in the Tree of Beings Some say the superangelical Nature being Christ's only Soul assuming but a Body others that it assumed a Body and Soul § 4. The grand difficulty about God's Unity with the World and the World with God is how to
solve the difficulty that hath stalled the School-Doctors That if the Creature have no Entity distinct from God's it is either part of God or nothing But it is not nothing or no Substance though some call it a shadow And it is not a part of God for to be pars is to be imperfect and so to be no God And if it have a real Entity distinct from God's Entity then there would be more Entity in God and the Creature than GOD alone For two is numerally more than one and two Entia have more Entity than one how small soever the lesser be And then God should be put part of Universal Entity which is Imperfection To say that the Creature hath part of Created Entity but not of Divine Entity seemeth to yield that God is but part of Universal Entity To avoid which many Philosophers take up the Opinion that the whole being of all Worlds is GOD the material Part being his Body and the eternal Spirit the Soul What shall we say to this To silence it will not silence the Objectors And sure we must not grant them That the World is God or that it is part of God or that God is but a part of Real Substance or Entity or that to be so is no Imperfection Is there no other sounder way Though Divines say that Dei non sunt accidentiae and it 's true That God is all Essence and per essentiam operatur yet I dread to assert but humbly ask Whether rather than fall into any of the former Opinions it be not less dangerous to say That as God hath made his Works in his likeness and no Substance is without all Accidents so the World be not quasi accidens Dei And if so it is no Part of Him essential or integral And as its Substance is not univocally such as God's so such as it is it is so totally caused by and dependent on God's continual Creatingwill and Emanation that its Substance and Being is more GOD's though not GOD than its own and so is no Addition of Being to God's Being but contained in him and flowing from him A man's actual thought words or sensation is no Addition to a man's substance as such and yet they are not nothing A man's Hair and Nails that have no life but vegetative are substantial Accidents and yet no part of the man And yet are so wholly his own caused by his Soul as heat and moisture that we use not to call them any addition to the man's being § 5. Q. But wherein then lieth the Hypostatical Union if God be equally near to all things Ans. He doth not equally operate on all As the God of Nature he sustaineth and operateth on all his Creatures As the God of Grace he worketh Holiness on Believers Souls As the God of Glory he is present demonstratively and gloriously to the Blessed But he worketh on none as he did on the humane nature of Christ These three differences I conceive make this proper sort of Union 1. Some Works God doth though by essential Proximity yet not without the use and operation of second Causes But Christ's assuming the humane nature by the divine was by Conception by the Holy Ghost as the immediate Efficient without the Causality of Man or Angel the Mother affording Matter and Aliment to the foetus 2. Divine Operations being various the Divine Nature did that on the Humane Nature of Christ which it did not on any other Creature He having such Work to do as no other Creature was to do the divine nature fitted the humane for its part No Angel was to be Mediator between God and Man and to work Miracles as he did and in our nature to fulfill all Righteousness and be a Sacrifice for Sin and to rise from the Dead and to send down the Spirit and ascend to Glory and there to reign and to judge the World Therefore he was qualified for all this work 3. And so there is also a relative difference in that the Divine Nature by a fixed Decree and Will united it self for this work to this one humane nature even for all futurity It may be some that are wiser can better tell wherein the Hypostatical Union consisteth § 6. As to the Question Whether the divine and humane nature be two or one it is to ask Whether the nature of God and his Creatures be two or one They may be called one as we are one with Christ as conjunct related and consenting But not one and the same essential nature § 7. But the great difficulty is whether the two natures constitute one Person or two Nestorius is accused Derodon saith falsly citing his own plain words to have held That Christ was two Persons divine and humane But what is to be held the School-Doctors make a difficult question that is whether the humane nature be either a Person or any part of the Person of Christ. 1. They say that Christ was a divine Person from Eternity and therefore began not to be such at his Incarnation 2. That the divine nature cannot be pars personae for that would be to be imperfect and not divine Therefore that the humane nature is no part but an adjunct to the Person of Christ. And if the humane nature be an Accident to the divine in Christ why must we deny Creatures to be Accidents of God But most plain Christians would be starâ—lâ—d to hear a Preacher say that the Humanity is no part of the Person of Christ. § 8. I have no answer to the difficulty unless I may distinguish of the sence of the word PERSON and say that in the sence as it signifieth a Person in the Essence of God the humane nature is no part of it But as to a Relative Personality as a King a Priest a Prophet c. as a Husband a Father c. are Persons so there is one Mediator between GOD and Man the Man Christ Jesus And the humane is not here excluded But is the Divine a part of the Person of a Mediator I handle such things with fear The Lord pardon our weakness But we are called to handle them by men's Presumptions 1. As God is not a part of the World or universal Substance and yet is eminenter more than a part what if it be so answered here 2. But if as great Doctors now maintain Relations may be ascribed to God without any Composition because they have no proper reality but a meer objective comparability why may not the divine nature have a relative part in the Relation of Mediator as assuming and advancing the humane and operating in it without composition And as according to this ambiguity Christ may have two persons not univocally divine and mediatorial so the divine and humane may make one Mediator And in the one Person of a Mediator are contained many Relative Persons of Christ as King Priest Prophet Son of Mary c. The Lord pardon what is amiss in these
would not do all those must die for Obedience even to those commanded Tasks was then made necessary by God And as to temporal death it was not by that Law to be escaped but on the strict terms thereby required So that doing these things was necessary to life temporal and to eternal in sincerity And the driving on the People by temporal punishments to these externals was that Body of the Law which the mistaking Jews had separated from the Soul of it § 24. And he saith None could be justified by the Works of the Law because this written political Law and its externals were in this Dispute put in opposition to Christ and the Law taken for the meer Body of Moses's Law separated from the Law of Grace which was its Soul and no doubt 1. It is Faith in the Redeemer and Covenant of Grace which is the Condition of constituting Men Iust which they must have before any Obedience to their particular Laws could be sincere and acceptable and the faithful keeping of the Law of Grace which is made the Condition of salvation 2. And to dream that legal Strictness Ceremonies Sacrifices or other legal Works would justifie them without Christ and Faith in him or any otherwise than as Acts of Obedience to their Redeemer by which their fidelity to the Covenant of Grace was to be expressed while that Law was in force was contrary to the true meaning of their Law it self § 25. The rest of the World were not in the Covenant nor under the Law of Peculiarity or Jewish Policy And as such as is said it is now all abrogated even the Decalogue it self though its Matter be still in force as aforesaid SECT V. Of the Law or Covenant of Grace in the last Edition or the Gospel § 1. VVHether the Covenant of Grace in the first edition to Adam and this of the second edition by Christ shall be called One or Two the same or diveâ—s and the old Church and the Gospel-Church the same or not the same in specie are but needless questions about the bare Name of Oneness as long as we agree wherein they differ and wherein they differ not In some respects they may be called the same and in some not the same § 2. The Parties in the first Covenant of Grace were really but two GOD and Man unless you could prove that Christ had then such a superangelical Nature in which he mediated as some before mentioned hold But the Parties in the new Covenant of Grace are really Three viz. GOD as the absolutely Supreme who gave us a Mediator and Christ the Mediator as the supreme Subadministrator to whom all Power is given and Man the Subject to both § 3. The Benefits of the first Edition respected a future Saviour and his future Righteousness Sacrifice and Mâ—rits But the Benefits of the second Edition respect an existent Mediator and his merits and sacrifice already performed and accepted of God § 4. The revelation of life eternal and Man's spiritual felicity and duty is far clearer in the second Edition than in the first § 5. As there is more done for us so there are more full and excellent means provided for Man's information conversion sanctification and salvation in Apostles Scriptures Miracles spiritual Ordinances than under the first § 6. As the means excel so the Spirit is given in a greater measure answerable to the greater Revelation and means And is specially Christ's Witness and Agent in the World and the mark of his peculiar ones § 7. And as more is done for us so more is now to be believed by us Many necessary Articles are added to our Faith That this Iesus is the Messiah that he was conceived by the Holy Ghost born of the Virgin Mary suffered under P. Pilate was crucified dead and buried descended to Hades rose again the third day ascended to Heaven is there glorified in our Nature Head of all c. are all new Articles of our Faith which before were not required because not revealed or the matter extant § 8. This second Edition is both the Covenant of Grace and a Covenant of Peculiarity far excelling the Iewish Covenant of Peculiarity Believers are a holy Nation a royal Priesthood a peculiar People c. § 9. This Covenant supposeth the antecedent gifts of a Saviour to be incarnate and do his meritorious and sacrificing part and all such Preparatories and of Life Gospel and Opportunities given to the Sinner § 10. The parts of the Covenant are 1. The Conditional Gifts or Benefits 2. The Condition or Terms of Right 3. The Rule of Duty 4. The Penalty for violation or neglect of the Covenant § 11. 1. The Gifts are God the Father Son and Holy Ghost in their Covâ—nâ—nâ—-Relation to us and the love of the Father the Grace of the Son and the Communion of the Holy spirit Or as it is briefly expressed in 1 Ioh. 5. 10 11. Christ and life in him that is Pardon Iustification the Spirit Adoption and Glory at first in right and after in possession and all means and mercies which God seeth meet to bring us to it § 12. 2. The Condition of our first Right is 1. That of natural necessity viz. Repentance and Return to God 2. Of natural and instituted necessity Belief and Confidence in Christ and Covenant-Consent § 13. The Condition of our continued and consummate Right and full Possession is the former Faith and Consent continued Repentance renewed when we knowingly sin and sincere Obedience and Perseverance § 14. 3. Seeing sincere Obedience supposeth a Law we must know that more is in the Precept than in the Condition Therefore we distinguish of necessitas praecepâ—i medii The Precept requireth perfect Obedience as due But Sincerity is the Condition and will save without Perfection § 14. The Precepts or Law of Christ now contain 1. The Law of Nature for all Things and Iudgment are given up to him 2. The new peculiar Laws of Grace containing our special Faith in Christ and his special Institutions of Church-Order Ministery Worship c. § 15. The Penaelty of the Law of Grace in this Edition is as in the first 1. A Privation of its Benefits to Nonconsenters or Insidels with a greater dâ—gree of punishment for Ingratitude 2. And withdrawings of the Spirits help for our quenching and resisting it and abusing Mercy 3. And temporal castigatory Punishments to Believers for their saults § 16. The Sum of all essential to this Covenant is in Baptism and the Lords Supper which are therefore Sacraments and Symbols of it and Baptism was appointed by Christ himself to be the solemn Initiation Badge and Character of his Disciples and Church-Members § 17. The History of Christ's Life and Sufferings and of his Apostles Life and Preaching and all the â—est of holy Scripture is God's Word and his Doctrine belonging to the Gospel-Covenant But it is the Covenant it self or Law of Grace which all that are under it must
sufficiently taught to understand the Essentials of the Christian Religion which they nominally profess and therefore are really much in the case of common Heathens § 4. 2. They consider their impossibility of being saved For it is not only morally by Vice but naturally impossible to believe that which was never heard read or understood So that their Damnation seemeth unavoidable especially to such as live in the vast Countries of America and much of Africa and Asia that are quite out of the reach of any Instructions for the Christian Faith § 5. 3. And lastly they consider the goodness and mercifulness of God declared in his Word and in his great and manifold mercies to all the World and that he would have a righteous man to be merciful even to his Beast much more to the Bodies of Men and most of all to their Souls and that our Rule and Motive is Be merciful as your Heavenly Father is merciful § 6. And they think that the contrary-minded by over-doing are the greatest Hinderers of the Christian Faith and Promoters of Infidelity while they make it seem so contrary to God's own Attributes and to humane Interest and to be a Doctrine not of glad but of saddest tydings to Mankind viz. That none shall be saved that hear not the Gospel when it is few comparatively that ever heard it or can hear it § 7. On the other side it is thought a dangerous undermining of Christianity to say that it is not absolutely necessary to Salvation and that any besides Christians may be saved And it seemeth to them to be contrary to Christ's words that He that believeth not shall be damned and that He is the way the truth and the life and no man cometh to the Father but by him And how shall they call on him on whom they have not believed c. No man knoweth the Father but the Son and he to whom the Son will reveal him c. And it seemeth to confound the Church and the World to say That any are saved out of the Church § 8. In this great Controversie that which must satisfie us is to agree in so much as is certain and to leave that which is uncertain and unknown undetermined For we shall know it never the more for a confident pretending that we know it when we do not § 9. And here the first thing to be enquired after is What Law of God the World that heareth not of Christ is now under as the Rule of Duty and of Judgment And then 2. to enquire Whether they so keep that Law as to be saved by it We can say nothing to the second without the first § 10. And we have here nothing to doubt of but 1. Whether they are under any Law or none 2. If any Whether it be the Law of Innocency as made to Adam or the Law of Grace 3. And if the Law of Grace whether of the first or second Edition It must be one of these § 11. And 1st It is certain That they are under a Law and not only under a Physical Government as a Ship at Sea or Brutes are For else God were not their Ruler and they his Subjects so much as by Right and Obligation and then they were bound to no Duty nor in hope of any Reward nor in Danger of any Punishment for Disobedience For where there is no Law there is no Transgression § 12. It is certain That they are not under the Rule of the Covenant of Innocency made to Adam or the Law of Innocency as containing the Precept premiant and penal parts which is the same with the Covenant as offered This I proved before Though I was long ignorant how far that Covenant was repealed till Mr. Lawson's Papers which I laboured to confute did begin to enlighten me God now saith to no man I give thee life on condition thou be personally innocent and perfectly obedient Nor doth he say I command thee to be perfectly innocent sinless and obedient that thou maâ—st live For no man is a Subject capable of such a Command or Promise being already a Sinner § 13. If any should think that they are under the bare preceptive part of the Law of Innocency with the penal part without any Promise or premiant part or hope of life this is certainly a mistake Because 1. God hath no such Law nor never had which hath no Promise or premiant part and is not in a Covenant-form what he doth by the Devils belongeth not to our Question but as to Men they must be under a Covenant of Works or of Grace And it were a hard Conceit to think that the far greatest part of Mankind had never any means to use for their Salvation nor any thing to do for it but were under a meer Sentence of Despair and Damnation as the Devils are without any offer of Help or Hope and consequently that none of them all are guilty of refusing any such Mercy or neglecting any such Means and Duty 2. The very nature of Law and Government tell us That if God command any Duty it is that the Subject may be the better for it and he never saith to any obey me perfectly and thou shalt be never the better for it § 14. Besides the very Precept is not in force in that sence as it stood in the Law of Innocency for so it bound only innocent Man to keep his Innocency But God saith not Keep that which thou hast lost § 15. Obj. God is not bound to change his Law if man sin Ans. I answered this before That God is not the Changer But the Law will not continue to be a Law but by continuing to signifie God's governing Will And it cannot so signifie his governing Will when there is no Subject to be a capable terminus So that it ceased cessante capacitate subditi vel cessante termino To say That the Law still signifieth what God would have had man do while he was capable is true but that saith no more but that It was once a Law and now is none For so it may do by the dead yea were they annihilated even tell others what God would have had them do but this is not a ruling Act but Lex transit in sententiam And to say That at least the Law bindeth a Sinner to perfect Obedience for the time to come is to say That it binds not as the Law of Innocency but as some other Law of which we are enquiring § 16. And it is a clear Truth before proved That God brought all Mankind in Adam under a Law and Covenant of Grace founded in the Promise of the Victory of the Woman's Seed And his dealing with all men ever since doth fully confirm it And this Law made to Mankind in Adam and Noah was never repealed to the World but perfected by a perfecter Edition to those that have the Gospel Therefore we have two Questions here to consider 1. What Law the World
these are the World in the worst sence 3. Consenting Subjects under the Common Law of Grace who yet were not Iews nor are not in the Covenant of Peculiarity And such are in a state of Salvation though not in the Church of the peculiar as the Subjects of Melchizedeck Sem c. and so are both in the Church and in the World in several sences § 37. Having delivered that in this great Question which seemeth to me agreeable to God's Word I advise those that use to assault such things with reproach which they find reproached by their Party to remember that God is Love and Christ is the Saviour of the World and the Pharisaical Appropriators of Mercy and Salvation do seldom know what spirit they are of CHAP. XVII Of the Necessity of Holiness and of Moral Uirtue § 1. HOLINESS is our Dedication Separation or Devotedness to God and alienation from all that stands in competition or contrariety to God § 2. It is our Separation to God as the Creator of our Nature and our Redeemer and the Author of Grace and our Felicity and the Cause of Glory As the first Efficient supreme Dirigent and ultimately final Cause § 3. It is our separation to God as our Owner by Resignation as our Ruler by Obedience and as our Benefactor and ultimate End by Thankfulness and Love in the acknowledgment of his infinite power wisdom and goodness as essential to himself and related to his works § 4. Holiness is our dispositive actual and relative separation to God 1. When our Souls are habitually inclined to God and to his Will 2. When we actually give up our selves to God and to his will by Consent first and Obedience and Love after 3. It signifieth the relation of the Person as thus habitually and actually separated A holy Priesthood 1 Pet. 2. 5 9 11. § 5. Holiness is the Habit and Act of all the three Faculties of the rational Soul viz. 1. Of the vitael Active Power by Quickening and Strength 2. Of the Intellect by Illumination 3. Of the Will by Conversion Love or Complacency § 6. The Soul as sensitive and the body it self are said to be sanctified so far as they are dispositively and actually subject and subservient to a holy Soul in Holiness and related accordingly as separate to God § 7. Our Holiness is no alienation from the Creature as a Creature in its due place and subordination to the Creator but contrarily containeth our Honour of and Love to all God's Creatures for his sake and impress and a devoting of all that is ours to his use But it containeth a renunciation of that which is against his Honour and Government and Love as such § 8. As God communicateth Holiness really and relatively to Man so holy persons communicate such Holiness to Creatures below them as consisteth in the use and relation of things separated to God by a due separation of them by their dedication and holy use and that in various degrees § 9. True Holiness is the Health the Rectitude the Honesty the Justice of man's Soul and therefore necessary as his Duty by God's Law even of Nature and to his Happiness both in the very nature of the thing and by the determination of God's Law It is a contradiction to be happy and unholy Rev. 20. 6. § 10. Holiness is the end or perfection of our Nature and God's chief Interest in man and is begun by Grace and perfected in Glory § 11. The Fear of God and his Iudgments and a Care of our own Souls and a Sorrow for Sin and a desire of Happiness may be not only Preparatives but lower parts of Holiness but the true formal specifying nature of it consisteth in a love of God's infinite goodness and a Will addicted to obey his Will or a Pleasedness in pleasing Him This is Holiness § 12. Because a man is denominated according to the predominant bent of his Will or Soul he is not to be called Holy who hath some slight inclination to please God and more to please his own carnal Appetite and Will or greater love to the Creature than to God § 13. Christ himself came into the World to recover sinful Man by Holiness to God and disdained not to be a means of Man's Sanctification and to make this the notable operation of his Holy Spirit on us § 14. Whatsoever Law Men are under before Christ or since Jew or Gentile Works or Grace no man can be saved and happy without Holiness that is unless they be devoted in Obedience and Love to GOD and Goodness § 15. No man can be damned that is holy while such nor can God hate and make miserable those that truly love him and his governing Will. § 16. Yet a person that is holy may deserve Damnation by deserving to be denied that help of the Holy Spirit by which his Holiness must be continued And as to be saved is to be perfectly sanctified so to deserve Hell is to deserve to be forsaken to the â—oâ—al loss of Holiness And so though it be hard for us to know whether Adam's first loss of Innocency was a total loss of Holiness yet if it were not it was a forfeiture of divine help and so a mediate loss of it And so a man that loveth God sincerely may by great Sin deserve to be deprived of the Spirit and therefore we must pray for the pardon of such desert for the sake of Christ though we cannot be damned or miserable while holy § 17. Obj. But how doth God love a holy Soul if he forsake him and with-hold his Spirit And if he be not loved of God he is miserable If he be loved he will not be forsaken Ans. Answer this your self as to the Case of the Angels and Adam God loved them and yet not so as to secure them from the loss of Grace But he so far loved them efficiently as to give them that grace by which they could persevere but not that by which they necessarily should persevere and he loved them complacentially according to the goodness which was in them and yet they lost it § 18. Obj. That is because they were left to their Free will and had but sufficient Grace and not efficacious determining Grace But it is now otherwise with all true Believers Ans. True Believers have not determining efficacious Grace to prevent all sin nor all such sin as Noah Lot David Peter did commit And that sin deserveth an answerable desertion of God it being a deserting him first so far And though God pardon it yet the desert is presupposed to the pardon for it is desert of punishment that is pardoned § 19. Quest. If a man were holy that is an obedient Lover of God and Goodness without Faith in Christ would that save him Answ. 1. The Covenants of Grace requireth various degrees of Faith according to its several editions and promulgations It is not the same degree of