Presbyterian Society to fall so much below himself as to use such Terms as are very indecent in small Matters but much more in so weighty a Matter as the Debate was about viz. The Justification of Sinners and the Satisfaction of our Lord Jesus O whither will the gratifying of a fluent Wit transport a Man that is in love with himself when the luscious Humour of advancing it is a float However his Juvenile Strains of Wit might be pleasant yea laudable in a Protestant Almanack they are not at all palatable but distastful in a grave Divine especially when treating of the greatest Points of God's Glory in Man's Salvation by our Lord Jesus O that he and I could often mind that blessed Advice of our Lord Learn of me for I am meek and lowly who when he was reviled reviled not again §. III. From this blustering Porch let us see if we may find better Weather in the House though some Men find the worst Storms within doors I come therefore to Page the 5th of the Rebuke where he saith the Reporter has left out New Obedience and Good Works out of the account he gives of the Substance of the Gospel and then by way of a smiling Banter he saith the Reporter said The Substance of the Gospel lyes in what Christ suffered for them This he seems to disallow which I look on with a sad Eye For if what Christ hath done for us all his Life as well as his Death being his Suffering if this be not the Substance of the Gospel what will become of us If the Rebuker consults Luke 2.10 he will find that our New Obedience and Good Works are not the Substance of the Gospel but that to us is born a Saviour The Angel tells the Substance of the Gospel there I evangelize to you great Joy which shall be to all People for to you is born this day a Saviour Christ the Lord. Evangelizomai I Gospelize this to you Here we see what the Gospel is it is glad Tidings And what is this glad Tidings It is that Christ a Saviour was born Here 's not one word of New Obedience or our Good Works to be part of the Substance of the Gospel they come in as Fruits of the Spirit upon receiving the Gospel but are no more the Substance of the Gospel than the Holy Law of God is the Substance of the Gospel But the Law came by Moses and Grace and Truth by Jesus Christ Surely the Spirit of God knew better how to give an account of the Gospel what it is than any he calls We poor Presbyterians And for any to jeer at Christ's Sufferings for us for its being called the Substance of the Gospel it may trouble their Consciences one day when they shall be forc'd to fly to that as their tutissimum est as Bellarmine did though some think too late O! how should we have a Care that our Wit do not put us on jesting with the Gospel which in its discovering Christ to be all in all to us our Wisdom Righteousness Sanctification and Redemption is the Power of God to Salvation We should consider what the Apostle counted the Substance of the Gospel when he said I determined to know nothing among you but Christ and him crucified This was his great Study Christ and his Sufferings so it should be ours §. IV. In Page 6. he saith Give me my Bible again This Jest may be returned with seriousness It is well he call'd for his Bible again for he had spoke without Book sadly before in saying Good Works are to come in in the Substance of the Gospel This 't is for Men to speak without the Bible which alone by the Spirit makes wise to Salvation But I fear some sad use he will make of his Bible for it soon follows in the same Page that which I grieve at viz. his making a Jest of Christ's putting himself into our Place State and Condition which he jeers with the Socinian Retort If so then saith he Christ was destitute of a Righteousness and we too to intitle us to Eternal Life For Answer If Christ was not in our Place State and Condition what 's become of the Gospel We have lost it if the Just did not suffer for the Unjust if the Lord did not lay on him the Iniquity of us all if he was not the Man of Sorrows that bare our Griefs Was he not in our Place State and Condition in all this And to say that then he was destitute of a Righteousness is to deny his being God-Man or not to distinguish between his being Perfect in himself and so holy harmless separate from Sinners and his being made Sin and a Curse for us as being our Representative Methinks those that call themselves Poor Presbyterians should not so coalesce with the Socinians to enforce such a Consequence from Christs being our Surety as the Socinians do to say That if Christ stood in our Place then he wanted a Righteousness in himself You may as well say that Christ was not made Righteousness to us if he was made Sin for us how could he be both Very well He was made our Righteousness as we having his compleat God-like yea God's Righteousness as it was his Righteousness the Son of God imputed to us so he was made Righteousness to us and he was made Sin for us by the Lord 's imputing and laying our Sins on him and yet he though made Sin was still the most holy Son of God without Sin in him §. V. In the next Assault he insults over the Reporter for saying we are Sin What though that very word is not in the Text What is it less to be sinful to be sold under Sin conceived in Sin yea to be a Body of Sin But the fling is against the Change Christ's being made Sin and a Curse and we thereby delivered from Sin and the Curse Suppose Man is not said in Scripture to be Sin Sin it self and that that is a debasing Man below being born in Sin and having a Body of Sin will you find fault with him or any for lessening of Man so whereas Christ is far more lessened For it is said positively God made him to be Sin for us and that no Man can have the Face to deny that owns Revealed Religion But many will so mince his being made Sin for us that at last it shall be like some Minc'd Pyes that shall not taste a jot of the Meat in them They say in words he was made Sin but they distinguish away every bit of the Sin and say Christ only bore the Punishment due to Sin As if God should be so Unjust as to punish Christ for Sin when no Sin was upon him If Christ our Lord in being made Sin for us had not our very Sins laid on him by God and borne by himself on the Tree why was he punished Will you make God Unrighteous to lay Sin upon him to bruise him for our
So that when the Peoples Sins were laid by God's appointment on the Beast then the Beast was by God called the Sin as Christ was called Sin or made by God Sin for us by our Sins being laid on him and yet notwithstanding that the Goat had the Sins of the People laid on him and therefore called Sin yet at the same time it is most Holy or Holiness of Holinesses Kodesh Kadashim In answer to which when God made Christ to be Sin he saith of him That he knew no Sin he being most Holy Holiness of Holinesses untainted undefiled with our Sins he was at the same time the Lamb of God without Spot in himself and need there was for it for if he had not been Holy to the Extremity of Holiness in his own Nature and Person he had not been fit to be made a Sin offering for us If he had had the least speck of Sin in him or could have been tainted with our Sin he had not then been a meet Sacrifice to take away our sin Though he was made sin yet it was our sin he was made sin for us Was the poor Beast made sin in it self or for it self when the sins of the People were laid typically on it No sure for if it were the Scape-goat could not have been led into the Wilderness but the sin would have sunk it down dead immediately The sin it was made was the Peoples sin as the sin Christ was made was our sin §. CLVII This may possibly be the better understood and the more readily assented to by seriously considering the Infinite Perfection of the Holy Nature of the Blessed Son of God which was and is the same in the Man Christ Jesus as in the Godhead of the Father he and the Father being one in Essence and in all the glorious Perfections of the Godhead This Consideration may by the Operation of the Holy Spirit reconcile our Thoughts to this Truth That though Christ was made Sin for us and a Curse for us by having our Sins laid on him and by his hanging on the Tree for us yet his Holy Immaculate Person was not in the least tainted or defiled thereby nay God so ordered it that his holy Flesh when dead should not see the least Corruption This appears clear because the Infinite Holiness of the Godhead in the Man Christ Jesus was of such Infinite Perfection in him that the Sins of Men falling on him they being but Finite must of necessity be evacuated exinanitiated expiated and purged away by Infinite Perfection As a little for Illustration Suppose a small drop of Water out of a Smith's Trough should fall on a glowing red-hot large piece of Iron Can this defile or hurt the Iron No 't is immediately evaporated in Smoak 'T is true the Humanity of our Lord Jesus might be and was affected with our sins so as to cry out My Soul is troubled but he was not in the least infected with them his Humanity being made perfectly Holy by Union and Oneness with the Divine Nature in an ineffable manner at his very first Conception his Humane Nature being called that holy thing Luke 1.35 so that he was untainted by our sins being laid on him which he purged away by the offering up of himself in the Fire of God's Wrath upon him for sin §. CLVIII We will suppose again That all the Gold in the World should be put into a vast Cauldron and Ten hundred thousand load of Charcoal under it and about it melting the Gold and while this vast Fire is glowing with an unconceivable heat the Refiner should cast a small drop of Poyson into the Furnace where this boyling Gold is Would not this drop of Poyson be consumed at its first falling into the Furnace without defiling the Gold So the sins of the Elect though they deserve Hell Fire to all Eternity on the guilty Sinners yet these sins when laid on the Person of God-Man Jesus Christ who hath infinitely more Holiness than our sins have of Deliquity or Malignity in them When these sins were laid on our Lord Jesus they could no more taint our Lord Jesus than the drop of Poyson could taint all the Gold in the Furnace Wherefore it is said by the Holy Spirit when he is giving an account of the glorious Perfection of the Divine Nature of Christ in Heb. 1.3 calling him the Brightness the Effulgency of the Father's Glory the express Image of his Person the Upholder of all things by the Word of his Power The very first and next effect of all this glorious Excellency in the Person of Christ is when he had by himself purged our Sins As much as to say this great Character that is here given to Jesus Christ which mortifies the Socinians is given for this very purpose to shew us how he by himself by his own glorious Perfection as the Brightness of the Father's Glory when our sins were laid on him he by himself without any assistance or Cooperation of us or any Man or Angel he by himself saith the Holy Ghost purged our sins he made a perfect Expiation of them the glowing Holiness of the Divine Nature purged them clear away so as never to be remembred more and that without any taint to himself that being impossible he being the brightness of the Father's Glory so pure and Holy is our blessed Lord God the Lord Jesus Christ God blessed for ever to whom be glory for ever §. CLIX. By this I hope we may see that the Consideration of the most adorable Holiness in our Lord Jesus may reconcile us to such Passages as we find in the Scripture of his bearing our sins and his being made Sin and a Curse for us without any ground of charging it with such bad Consequences as the Bishop intimates That this tends to lessen our Reverence of the Divine Perfections whereas nothing can heighten our Reverence more for this shews that his Divine Perfections were so Infinite that by bearing our Sins in his Body on the Tree and by offering himself with our Sins on him a Sacrifice to God for Sin he thereby expiated and purged all the Sins of all the Elect one of which by reason of the infinitely Holy Nature and Law of God would have sunk all the Angels in Heaven to Hell if by God laid on them Therefore instead of diminishing our Esteem of the Divine Perfections because Christ hath borne away our Sins for ever freely without any Conditions or Works of ours to induce him Let us by all means endeavour to magnifie them and for the Riches of the Grace of God and our Lord Jesus therein Let us fall down and adore him that sits on the Throne and the Lamb in the midst of the Throne for that he of his free Grace hath loved us and washed us from our Sins in his Blood and sing with the four Beasts and 24 Elders with the People in the four parts of the World and with
I have loved thee with an Everlasting Love Which Everlasting Love all agree is as well from Eternity past as to Eternity to come and if loved from Eternity what is that short of being then justified For God loved them as he saw them in Christ undertaken for to be justified by his Righteousness But that which goes higher they were the Delight of Christ from all Eternity Prov. 8.26 30 31. While as yet he had not made the Earth I was by him as one brought up with him I was dayly his Delights and my Delights were with the Sons of Men. Here was the high Effect of Eternal Love Jesus Christ the Wisdom of the Father he from all Eternity and in all Eternity he was the Delights of the Father and during the same Eternity the Son's Delights were with or in the Elect given him of the Father Thine they were and thou gavest them me So that there was an Eternal Complacency in the Lord Jesus in and to all that he was to redeem by laying down his Life and if so did not he delight in them as having Grace given to them in Christ before the World was And so he looks on them as Redeemed as Justified and as Sanctified by him though it was not actually accomplished in their Persons yet it was actually concluded between the Father and Son in the Council of Peace Zach. 6.13 and God thereupon took Christ's Word or Covenant for it as if it were actually done upon which account Abraham and all the Old Testament Believers were justified and saved before Christ had actually paid the Ransome for many Thus being undertaken for by Christ from Eternity they were lookt on by God as having a representative being in Christ from all Eternity when chosen in him and Grace given them in him from all Eternity in 2 Tim. 1.9 And this our Representative being from all Eternity in Christ even Mr. Clark himself in his Notes on the Bible was forc d to allow Therefore to renounce absolutely that the Elect are justified in the sight of God before their effectual calling is to bear hard on those Scriptures that declare God's Everlasting Love to them and Christ's Delight in them from all Eternity and Grace given them in Christ before they are effectually called of which see Mr. Pemble and Dr. Twiss by and by §. XIX I cannot pass without a Remark on the different Epithets the Rebuker gives to Socinianism and his Crispian Antinomianism How softly doth he tread on the Graves of Horrid Socinians and how ruffly he deals with the Independants for that which he calls in them Antinomianism It is in fol. 25 where Socinianism he calls but an Error but Antinomianism is Heresie thus The Vnited Brethren had given demonstration against all Socinian Errors They did try these Dissenting Brethren Mr. Griffith Cole Mathers whether they were sound in the Faith in opposition to the Antinomian Heresies of which he gives a Catalogue of 21. So that with them it is but an Error or a small Peccadillo a little Trip to deny the Deity and Satisfaction of our Lord Jesus with the Socinians but it is an Heresie a damning Heresie to say That an Elect Person is in the sight of God justified before effectually called or to say A Believer works from Life and not for Life with those he counts Antinomians O Kratiste Theophile so I call the Rebuker now where is your Zeal for our Lord Jesus to be so favourable to the Socinians as to call it only an Error in them to deny our Lord Christ's Deity §. XX. I cannot but stand in admiration and can scarce believe my Eyes when I look on this Catalogue or Bed-roll of 21 Antinomian Heresies my Dear Kratiste hath loaded his Brethren with for dissenting from Mr. Williams his Gospel-Truth stated a-mis I hope it may not be unprofitable to my self and some others to spend a few Thoughts by searching what the Scriptures of Truth say about them for which I implore the Holy Spirit 's assistance that he would bring to remembrance the blessed Truths therein relating hereunto §. XXI The first is That a Gospel Threat if not a Katachresis is a Bull. This methinks is ridiculously called a Heresie to say a Gospel Threat is a Bull. What of Heresie can you make this But let us see what the Spirit saith concerning the Gospel what it is He saith by the Angel Behold I bring you glad Tidings a Saviour is born or I Gospelize this to you that Christ is born And what is it but a Bull or a Calf like a Bull to put a Threatning to Glad Tidings and call that Gospel One may as well say that Cursed is every one that continues not in all things written in the Law is Gospel as any other Threat But if Curses because written in the New Testament are the Gospel then our Neonomians have done their Business effectually and we have a new Thing a Curse for what they call Gospel besides the Lord Christ's Gospel which is that he Jesus is come to save his People from their Sins not but that the Threat is made use of in the hand of Christ in publishing the Gospel of Salvation by him but to say that the Threat is the Gospel is the same as to say that Condemnation is a Pardon which whether Bull or Calf matters not but to be sure it is very near to a Contradiction and my Dear Kratiste must strain hard to make the saying so to be an Antinomian Heresie But here he marshals it as the Captain-General of the 21 how formidable then must the following 20 be if this Man of Straw must lead the Van that 't is an Heresie to say a Gospel-Threat is a Bull. But leaving this Moon calf §. XXII His second Heresie is That Pardon is rather the Condition of Faith than Faith is of Pardon That is to say That Faith rather flows from Pardon than Pardon from Faith and for any to say so is with him an Antinomian Heresie which is a strange Strain for the Scripture saith We are justified freely by his Grace which Justification includes Pardon then we are Pardoned freely by his Grace not of Works lest any boast if so then we are not pardoned upon account of Faith as a Condition of it but upon account of Christ's Blood washing away our Sins which is called the Righteousness of God and this is received by Faith but Christ with this Righteousness of his first receives or apprehends us and then being apprehended by him we by his Spirit are enabled to apprehend him by Faith and so the Righteousness of God is revealed from Faith to Faith The Apostle doth not say the Righteousness of God wherein our Pardon is included that this is made ours by Faith or that Faith is the Condition of our having it but Faith is that whereto it is revealed to us It was given to us before when Christ first apprehended us but it is Revealed made manifest to
Perfection in himself in that he owns all the Sins of Believers to be his Sins as in Psal 40.7 compared with the 12th Verse he saith Lo I come to do thy will O God Then it follows Mine Iniquities have taken hold of me so that I am not able to look up They are more than the hairs of mine head This is spoken by our Lord Jesus as is plain in Heb. 10.9 here he owns they are his Iniquities How were they his but as he sustained the Persons of all the Elect and so was a reputed Criminal in their stead and their Sins being by the Lord laid on him he takes them on himself as his own Iniquities and saith They are more than the Hairs of his Head And again in Psal 69.4 5. Christ saith Then I restored that which I took not away O God thou knowest my Foolishness and my Sins are not hid from thee Then it follows The Zeal of thine House hath eaten me up Which is plain of Christ So that our Foolishness and Sins being laid on him he calls them his and saith right for they were really his though but by Imputation as a Debt is really a Sureties though he be but a Surety yet that 's enough and so our Lord Jesus found it when he was in his Agony Sweating clodders of Blood and on the Cross crying My God why c. sure he did not cry out so terribly for faultless Sin but as a reputed Criminal for real Sin laid on him §. XXV The Fourth Heresie as he calls it is As to the Elect there never was any Guilt upon them in respect of the Righteous Judgment of God in foro Dei but that which accompanied the Letter of the Law setting in with Conscience Where he pick'd up this Offensive passage he shews not but that it goes among his abominable Doctrines this he declares Now how far this is Heresie we will at present only consult Famous Twiss who was no Antinomian and see what he says of Pardon in the sight of God before Faith nay from Eternity as it was an Immanent Act of God Twiss de Electione Sect. 25. Fol. 294. he proves Forgiveness to be before Faith even at Christ's Death nay from Eternity His words are these Quanam erit illa peccatorum remissio quae fidem consequitur This is his Question then he answers as follows Remissio enim peccatorum si Quidditatem inspicias nihil aliud est quam aut punitionis negatio aut volitionis puniendi negatio sit ergo peccata remittere nihil aliud quam nolle punire at hoc nolle punire ut actus immanens in Deo fuit ab aeterno nec fidem consequitur nec Spiritus Sancti operatione in nobis terminare deprehenditur Quod vero operatione Spiritus Sancti nobis hac parte per fidem contingit aliud esse non poterat quam SENSVS Gratiae Dei Ex quibus conficitur non potentialem tantum sed actualem peccatorum remissionem Christum morte suâ à Patre impetrasse nobis paucis concludimus immediatam mortis Christi effectionem esse expiationem Peccatorum Sive pro peccatis plenariam Satisfactionem quae quidem nobis non innotescit nisi per Fidem Spiritus Sancti operationem Which is to this purpose What is that Forgiveness of Sins which follows Faith Which he answers thus Forgiveness of Sins if you consider the Quiddity or Essence of it is nothing else but either a denying of Punishment or denying a Will to punish Therefore to remit or forgive Sins is nothing else but not to will to punish Now this not to will to punish as it is an immanent Act in God it was from Eternity neither doth it follow Faith neither is it held to terminate by the Operation of the Holy Spirit in us but what belongs to us by the Operation of the Holy Spirit in this matter can be nothing else but a SENSE of the Grace of God from which it is gathered not a Potential only but also an Actual Remission of Sins Christ obtained of the Father for us at his Death In short We conclude the immediate Effect of Christ's Death to be Expiation of Sins or a full Satisfaction for Sins which truly is not made known to us but by Faith and the Operation of the Holy Spirit Here you see this Famous Doctor evacuates your charging it to be an Antinomian Heresie to say in foro Dei there never was Guilt on the Elect in respect of God's Righteous Judgment and to make good your Charge I hope you will not call him an Heterodox Apochryphal Antinomian §. XXVI His fifth Heresie he charges as Antinomian is that Vnion to Christ is before Faith at least Naturâ and we partake of the Spirit by vertue of that Vnion It is to admiration that this firm solid Truth should be called Heresie Can any thing be more clear than that Faith is a Fruit of Union to Christ unless it be a dead Faith Can a Branch bring out Grapes before it is united to the Vine Christ Jesus Doth he not say Without me you can do nothing I would ask whence can a living Faith come but from Vnion to Jesus Christ Can it spring out of corrupt Nature and so bring us to Christ A dead Branch may be tyed to the Vine but a living Branch grows out of the Vine The Apostle was of the mind that Christ first takes hold of us before we can by Faith take hold of him according to Phil. 3.12 I follow after if that I may apprehend that for which I am also apprehended of Christ Jesus Here he was first apprehended of Christ as Dr. Manton told us well at Pinners-Hall and from thence infer'd as well he might that all that partake of Christ are first apprehended of him and so he unites himself to them before they can act Faith on him which is their apprehending him They must make Christians to be Monsters that make them to live as Members of Christ by Faith before they are united to him How can a Man possibly that is dead in Sins by Nature come to believe in Christ unless Christ comes first and quickens him by uniting himself to the Soul Hence the Apostle said It pleased God to reveal his Son in me Gal. 1.16 Till then he was a zealous persecuting Pharisee and could have not only called all Christ's Disciples Antinomians but have slaughtered them too as some now slay their Names but when Christ took hold of him and God revealed his Son in him then he conferred not with Flesh and Blood but in the way that they counted Heresie he worshipped the God of his Fathers believing what is written Acts 24.14 The second Adam is the quickening Spirit and quickens all his Seed before they can live You who were dead in Sins hath he quickned Sure here was Union of Christ to them thereby quickening them when dead in Sins before they could put forth any living Act of
Hereticks that fill with equal Astonishment and Indignation as of late we see in the froth of my Dear Kratiste §. CXIII I now must write in Tears this next Paragraph and O that my Head were Waters and mine Eyes a Fountain of Tears over my Dear Kratiste to see that a Good Man and Eminent should be guilty of the following Passage which I fear hath been tragical and bloody O what is poor Man when the Lord leaves him to the exercise of his meer Wit and Reason The Rebuker turns quick and plays at sharp with the Manuscriptor and accosts him for saying What a Negative of the same import with an Affirmative Whereby the Manuscriptor reflected on Mr. Williams for his former asserting no Change of Persons between Christ and Believers and saying afterwards that he meant this No Change doth allow that he was for a Change on which the Manuscriptor saith What a Negative of the same import with an Affirmative Upon which the Rebuker lets fly and fastens his Talons on him with this Answer I make no question but he had heard of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Marriage and no Marriage grating on his tender Conscience Here we must take the word tender to be Ironically spoken by the Rebuker O! how can he look on this Passage without blushing and a few Tears if the Lord graciously give a due Sense of the Uncharitableness of it when he sees the direful Consequence of it the Lord 's taking the blessed holy Servant of his this object of your boasting over a repented of miscarriage from this World to himself And who knows but such a Reflection as this of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 might hasten his Death to be wounded so in the House of his Friends by a Brother in the Presbyterian Ministry If the Righteous fall seven times a day how can you look God in the Face with Peace while you insult in 〈…〉 â—ner over one you cannot but own God had raised up aâ—â—er his â—ail and raised to a higher pitch of Zeal for the Glory of God and for the publishing his Free Grace in the Gospel through our Lord Jesus Christ Is such a Retort like the moving of the Spirit of God in a Christian who should in love gentleness and meekness do every Thing especially when writing a Tract relating to the great and glorious Truths of the Gospel to the Glory of God in the Name of the Lord Jesus Was this in the Name of Jesus who when reviled reviled not again to criminate a Servant of the Lord Jesus in the Ministry of the Gospel We have heard of a Cham that discovered what he should have concealed and of the Brand yea black Curse that is upon all his Seed to this day if the black Ethiopians be his Seed as is most probable O blessed Lord let not the like be on the Seed of my Kratiste The Apostle tells us Ye have heard of the Patience of Job but draws a Vail over his Passion and saith farther upon it and the end of the Lord that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender Mercy O that the Rebuker were like him But the tender Mercies of some are cruel What would and it may be thereby kill a Man whom God had both wounded and healed The Lord give a due sense and forgive §. CXIV Again We have heard of the mocking of Ishmael Gen. 21. of which the Apostle saith He that was born after the Flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit Gal. 4. So that in God's sight a mocking fleering jibing taunting Spirit though done with the smartest Wit is accounted Persecution and if it be to those born after the Spirit it may issue in great Judgment The Dragon was cast into a bottomless Pit that cast water out of his Mouth to swallow the Woman Rev. 12. 20.3 I beseech the Lord that such mocking may not be laid to the Charge of the Rebuker in the great day of the Lord when he cometh to convince not only the ungodly of their ungodly Deeds but of their hard Speeches O that he might lay it to his own Soul now that it may not be laid to his Charge then God hath taken this aspersed Servant from the malevolent Aspersion of Man and I hope the Blood of Jesus applyed to by Faith with Repentance may prevent this Man's Blood from crying for Vengeance Which I pray his Adversaries may flee for to the hope set before them and that they take heed how they secretly Joab like stab by vituperation any of the Servants of the Lord for the time to come O! how ill might it look if any should return a worse Reflection than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 on some that lift up their Heads very high being held up by the Chin by mighty swimmers But the Lord rebuke their uncharitable Spirit is the best return I can make §. CXV I am amazed or as in a Dream to see the prevaricating of the Rebuker in Page 61 where speaking of Mr. Williams's gospel-Gospel-Truth stated c. he saith Reader thou hast heard much noise about that Book and of the Subscription to it by some Ministers I could wish thou wouldst be so just to the Subscribers as to view with thine own Eyes how far the Subscription extended It was no more than this They judged that he had in all that was material fully and rightly stated the Truths and Errors therein mentioned I viewed this over and over never suspecting a plain untruth in the Rebuker but took it for granted that this was all that he had subscribed to That he judged that Mr. Williams had in all that was material done as there is declared But being provoked to be just to him and see with my own Eyes I turned to the Subscription and to my amazement found the old saying useful 'T is good to tell Money after ones Father for he fell far short of saying the Truth and the whole Truth of the Subscription for it extended far beyond what he saith it extended to For there to set off the Book he stiles Mr. Williams our Reverend Brother and such a Character to the Book is no small extolling it that he is by Forty Nine Divines called our Reverend Brother whereof my Dear Kratiste is one of the first three But looking forward with mine own Eyes I found he went ten times farther in celebrating the excellency of that Piece which made such a Noise a Noise that hath sounded into the Low Countries to indamage the Truth as I have heard and that is this We do account say the Forty Nine that he hath done considerable Service to the Church of Christ And what could they say more of Calvin Melancthon Luther Nay very little more of St. Paul's Epistles I wish they said as much of some passages therein Christ made Sin and made a Curse §. CXVI But with mine own Eyes with the help of Free Grace Spectacles not Arminian ones I find
his Subscription extends yet far higher and is got near the Third Heavens for to their Commendations of a Reverend Brother and their celebrations of doing Service they add their Supplications with expectations saying Adding our Prayers that these Labours of his may as we hope they will be a means for the reclaiming of those that have been mislead Is not here a plain demonstration of a great abuse put upon his Reader and an open untruth in matter of fact to say that the Subscription was no more than this They judged that he had in all that was material fully and rightly stated the Truths and Errors therein mentioned Was his doing considerable Service to the Church nothing Were their Prayers for the Success of the Book nothing Is this a Faithful Rebuke to a False Report Is it not rather a very False Report of his own Fact What then may be expected of his Report concerning others O how could he say it is NO MORE when 't is visibly three times more Proh Dolor §. CXVII It calls to my mind that dear Equivocation of Saphira to Peter Acts 5. when he ask'd her whether she sold the Field for so much she answered Yea for so much This was not downright for no more Upon this Peter charges her to have tempted the Spirit of the Lord and saith Behold the feet of them that have buried thy Husband Then she fell down strait-way-at his feet and yielded up the ghost There might have been some plea by a Sophister in her behalf he might with an Arminian Wit have said what Saphira said was true she answered Yea for so much so it was but she did not say it was for no more and yet she tempted the Holy Spirit which cost her at least her Natural Life But he must be a Gigantick Sophister that can remove the Block our Rebuker has laid in the way of a true Relater I don't see what Invention can save his Expression from being a solemn Untruth for him to say it was no more when it was much more a great deal and so much more had they subscribed in commendation of Mr. Williams's Book as might well make his Head giddy and turn round to be carried I will not say by what Spirit to so high a Mount yea to the Pinacle of the Temple as to have so many Ministers avouch to the World That he had fully and rightly stated Truths and Errors so as to do considerable Service to the Church of Christ §. CXVIII My Heart is troubled for exposing the Rebuker thus in this particular but how should I be faithful to him in his Remarks or better invalidate his supporting Mr. Williams's Errors if I should not shew what shifts some are driven to that will justifie him or themselves for being his upholder And though this failure be discovered in one accounted a great Master in our Israel yet the Apostle advises that when some Men sin they should be rebuked before all that others may fear 1 Tim. 5.20 When the whole World must be told in Print so great an Untruth 't is necessary they should be undeceived that the Author may retract it and own himself to have erred The Lord grant we may all learn by this fall to fear and tremble lest being left by the Spirit of God when we go to vindicate what we ought not we fall before all O that my Dear Kratiste might here see the fruit of a towring Spirit §. CXIX I would gladly contrive some Figure in speaking or writing to salve the Veracity of the Faithful Rebuke in saying the Subscription was no more when in Truth it was abundantly more I can find nothing but a far stretch'd Synecdoche of a part for the whole will do the feat and so I may say it was no more that is no more to be owned to the World when we see how many Exceptions are against the Book we subscribed to So a Man that owes him 100 l. may come to him and say Sir I have brought you 20 l. and I owe you no more How no more than 20 l. is not here your Bond for 100 l. That 's true but I owe you no more but 20 l. because I intend to pay you no more So the Subscription was no more because we intend now to own no more But if his Apocryphal Tobias had been guilty of making such Figures he would have been branded justly with a wild monstrous Sense of Change of Persons But my Kratiste may possibly be excused for haste and I wish this were the greatest Fault in his Rebuke §. CXX One word to the trite and tart Conclusion he saith If these contenders go on to exact so much and yield so little for the sake of Vnion they sell their own Innocency and the Churches Peace for nothing This is smart and quick pretty biting for a Conclusion What nothing less than selling Innocency for nothing and Peace for nothing Is the Truth nothing Half an Eye may see that 't is Truth is contended for When Hezekiah had a Sentence of Death sent him his Answer was Isa 39.8 Good is the Word of the Lord for there shall be Peace and Truth in my days He was not for a pretended Union and a formal Peace without the great Pillar of Truth to support the Building Do not the Papists argue at the same rate for Peace They are all for submitting to the dictates of their Antichristian State for the sake of Peace and Unity but the Apostle exhorts to contend for the Faith and saith We gave not place no not for an hour that the TRVTH of the Gospel might continue When the Truth is opposed oppugned undermined by bringing in Evangelical Obedience to a Law that aâ—ows some Sin and this Obedience of ours to have some share in our acceptance with God and when the vindicating the Truth shall shake the Foundations of a patch'd up Peace we are not long to question which is to be preferred the holding fast the Truth or keeping such a Peace But how can contending for the Truth be said to sell Peace for nothing Is the Change of Persons between us and Christ nothing whereby he was made Sin for us and we the Righteousness of God in him I think this is something though Mr. Williams once absolutely denyed it Is the bringing in a New Law that admits of Sin in our Obedience nothing Is denying that Christ suffered the Idem of the Law for us nothing Is Mr. Williams's denying our Redemption in a way of Justice nothing As he does Fol. 15 of his Man made Righteous I suppose those that see the Infinite Concernment of their Souls in these Points will say they are something yea Things of more value than the Peace that all the Plenipotentiaries made at Ryswick for that Peace is but finite but these Truths are of infinite duration The Wise Man bids us buy the Truth and sell it not And if not sell it at all then not for Peace
But we are to contend earnestly for the Faith once delivered to the Saints which Faith seems to be taking wing and leaving us under that sad word of our Lord When the Son of Man cometh shall he find Faith on the Earth There being very little of it now what with open Enemies scoffing at all Revealed Religion on one side and seeming Friends though as bad Enemies on the other side that joyn Man's Obedience with Christ's Righteousness as concurrent causes or means of our Justification and Salvation and so bringing in our Gospel-Holiness as co-partner with our Lord Jesus the Alpha and Omega the First and the Last the Author and Finisher of our Salvation To whom with the Father and Blessed Spirit even to him that sits on the Throne and to the Lamb that was slain and is alive in the midst of the Throne and to the seven Spirits before the Throne be Honour Glory and Praise for ever §. CXXI Now that these plain Remarks on some of the great Truths of the Gospel which have been struck at may be beneficial to the humble Peruser to settle him on our Lord Jesus the only Foundation in order to be built up in the most holy Faith by him who buildeth all Things who is God Heb. 3.4 is the fervent Prayer of the unworthiest I say of the unworthiest in his own Eyes of any that sincerely desires to cast in his Mite to the Treasury of the Testimony of Jesus God blessed for ever §. CXXII Having taken the freedom out of love to the Truth and zeal for the Glory of God's Grace therein manifest to be a little plain with my Dear Kratiste hoping for a Blessing of the Lord thereby on his and others Souls I find my self ingaged to make some Remarks on the Reporter the first occasioner of this thus-handled Debate And first I must and do own that I humbly judge that he hath done great and good Service to the Truth by delivering his Report with much plainness and perspicuity however it be censured by the Adversary and I take it that he deserves Thanks of Thousands besides my self who make the Truths of the Everlasting Gospel their daily Study for his ingenious Vindication of his Report from the Slander of its being called false by the Rebuker §. CXXIII But two Things wherein I take him to have exceeded I hope may be rectified that is his hard pressure on my Dear Kratiste and his tart Passages on Dr. Crisp As for the Rebuker was it not enough when the Reported had sufficiently foiled him nay and had laid him so flat on his Back as to be for ever unable to stand upright again in that Cause by clearing his Report from being false But when he had him down sure he should not have prest him to Death or worse by his Printing such a Letter as tax'd him not only with Buffoonry but with being by fits delirous and to charge him with denying Christ's Satisfaction for our Sins §. CXXIV As for the first I that have known him above Twenty Years never heard before or saw the least Tendency to those unhappy Fits Though upon inquiry of the ground of such a Charge 't is said The Writer knew well what he said But however this I take to be too severe a Reprimand for his Rebuke considering how terrible a blemish it is to so eminent a Person 's Ministry to be tax'd with being delirous O how few can be free if every Transport shall lay a Man under such a Censure Therefore this I would advise the Reporter to be humbled before the Lord for considering how in many things we offend all §. CXXV As for the Reporter's Argument That the Rebuker denies Christ's Satisfaction for Sin because he saith Christ's Death was for our good and it was impossible it should be more and that therein he Justâ—fies the Socinians I answer this Conclusion That he denies Christ s Satisfaction hereby looks like a strain upon the words beyond the meaning of the Rebuker for it seems apparent in this Rebuke especialâ—y in his other Writings That he expresly owns Christ's Satisfaction for Sin Though in that Expression of his in Fol. 37. he hath unhappily gratified the Socinians too far by saying It is impossible that Christ's dying in our place and stead should signifie any more than for our Good God forbid that my dear Kratiste should mean by that word only for our Good as the Socinians do That Christ's dying was only for our good as an Example or to confirm his good Doctrine only No He means I hope That Christ by his Death took away the Sins of all the Elect That he bare their Sins and bare them away into a Land of Forgetfulness never to be remembred more as our Scape goat That he suffered for their Sins That he wash'd them from their Sins in his Blood And so he died for our Good that we should have the Good and Benefit of his taking away our Sins and of his becoming a Propitiation for us a Sin-offering for us a Ransom to the Father for us and also himself to be ours the Lord our Righteousness for which let us ascribe Honour and Glory to him continually for that he hath loved us and washed us from our Sins in his Blood §. CXXVI Then for the Reporter's Tartness against Dr. Crisp I am Amazed so florid a Person should so far blemish his Discourses be so Dis-ingenious to the Doctor as to say He believes there is somewhat Dangerous in the Doctor 's Writings in Page 87. of his Vindication and not to give one Instance of it His words being these If there is any thing Dangerous in the Doctor 's Writings as I believe there is It would have been fair to have given one dangerous Passage at least but for want of that I turned to some of the most severe Passages of Mr. Williams's against the Doctor and to Dr Chancy's Apology for the Doctor to see what was so dangerous and I found in P. 37. of Gospel Truth Mr. Williams had loaded the Doctor thus Reader how horrid a sound must it have to a Christian Ear to say A Christ odious to God abhorred by the Father Here Mr. Williams speaks as if Dr. Crisp had said these words A Christ odious to God abhorred by the Father But Mr. Williams deals unjustly herein for as to the word A Christ odious there is not such an Expression in the Doctor and as for abhorred by the Father the Doctor s words are Christ is as it were abhorred by the Father But suppose it were as Mr. Williams brings it in How much more Horrid a Sound is it to say Christ is odious to God than to say Christ is made Sin by God himself If we had due Thoughts of the Horridness of Sin and that Christ was made Sin that is by Imputation we should think it as much a Debasing of our Lord Jesus to be made Sin by God as to be accounted Odious or Abhorred
and Arminianism through the great Mercy of God to this Nation hath been kept alive and warm in all Parliaments since 1628 even in the Reign of King James the Second and there is no doubt of losing it in this Reign wherein His Majesty hath given good Proof that he is neither Papist nor Arminian nor inclining thereto Now whether the Quotations in this Treatise do not shew that some mentioned therein go against the Orthodox Church judge ye and the Lord give you VVisdom to withstand Thus hoping for a favourable Construction of my Endeavour pro modulo si non pro voto to vindicate the Truths of the Gospel I beg the Lord's Blessing on you and am Your Humble Servant Hananiel Philalethes 28 July 1698. To my Dear Kratiste the Author of the Rebuke and Vilifier of Dr. Crisp SIR I Cannot but be troubled that in your declining days you should inflame the Reckoning as you have done in your Rebuke to the Grief of your best Friends among whom my self am particularly concerned that you should so violently let fly against those Truths of the Gospel which have solaced the Souls of Thousands as held forth by the Doctor whom you have very ungravely treated as an Heterodox wild Monster to the Eternal Infamy of his Name and Family what in you lay I hope e're this God hath caused you often to mourn over your intemperate Management of your Rebuke and lest you should come short therein that I may provoke you seriously thereto I think it necessary to lay before you the Character I had lately from a Worthy Minister of the Gospel and Friend of yours concerning him you have so unmercifully traduced which was given by one that sometimes in the height of his Zeal was as bitter as any against Dr. Crisp except your self that is by Mr. Richard Baxter upon his Death-Bed but two days before he dyed as this Friend of yours assured me once and again that Mr. Baxter told him and he related it to you very lately as thus that Mr. Baxter said to your Friend There has been a great deal of Talk about Dr. Crisp but I look upon him to have been a Godly Holy Man and that he was Sound and Orthodox and that he brought in more Souls to Christ than any of us but this was his Fault said Mr. Baxter that being a Popular Man and mightily flock'd after he would preach Extempore Sermons which exposed him to deliver Things undigested which needed to be corrected but for the main he was Sound and Orthodox For which Testimony I thanking the Relater desired him to give me it in Writing in ipsissimis Verbis but being prudent he desired Excuse and repeated the same again to me and afterwards to others I told him as to the Extempore Sermons that was a great Mistake to my knowledge and I was glad God had convinced so great an Enemy to the Doctor Now if this be true as there is not the least grain of ground to doubt it coming from a Faithful Holy Minister then surely Dr. Crisp was not such an one as my Kratiste hath blackned him to be God having provided for the embalming his Memory with sweet Odours even from his gain-sayers when launching into Eternity to give an account of their hard Speeches unrepented of I hope it may please the Lord by his Holy Spirit striking in with this and other Occurrences to lower the top-sails of my good Friend before he brings you to the brink of Eternity when your Natural Parts will signifie nothing and that you may have more Time than Mr. B had to testifie to the World your high prizing the Free Grace of God in Christ as held out by many besides Dr. Crisp as in the ensuing Treatise and that you may testifie to the World also that your Father in Law Mr. King mistook in his Prophesie saying as I am told That his Son in Law your self had good Parts but his Pride would undo him But I hope and pray the contrary viz. That God would undo him only of Natural self and do him up again by the renewing of the Spirit To his Grace I commend you and am Your real Friend a Happy tho' Vnworthy Branch of the Doctor Hananiel Philalethes 28 July 1698. To all that love our Lord Jesus in Sincerity Grace Mercy and Peace with Growth therein while they peruse a few Remarks on a Rebuke to a Report concerning some Differences between the Congregational Ministers and Presbyterian wherein the Rebuker to Vindicate Mr. Williams hath bespattered not only Dr. Crisp and others he calls Antinomians but some great Doctrines of the Gospel which are Establish'd by Law in the Homilies and which by Act of Parliament are to be Read in Parish Churches when there is no Sermon SECTION I. I Who account my self a Happy though Unworthy Branch of the said Doctor finding in the abovesaid Rebuke that the Author has flown into frothy and bitter Invectives against the Reporter Mr. Lob for a very Modest Account he had given of the Differences among some Ministers and that the Rebuker hath branded Dr. Crisp and his Sermons with Crispian Heresies c. though mostly consonant with the Scripture and the Judgment of Thousands of serious Christians but chiefly I finding the great Doctrine of the Free Grace of God in Christ as asserted by the great Reformers to be in the said Rebuke obscured whereby Socinianism and Arminianism gets ground and being incouraged by Augustine in Antisozzo his saying That all Men that can handle a Pen are obliged to say somewhat against the Enemies to the Free Effectual Grace of God I therefore think it my Duty for the Honour of our Lord Jesus to spend a few Hours in some necessary Remarks on the said Rebuke and though but in a mean manner yet humbly to offer this Mite of my Testimony to the Truth so far as the Lord shall guide me which I humbly implore his assistance in by detecting several Blemishes cast on the Truth in the said Rebuke which I premise with that saying of our Lord Jesus Wisdom is justified of her Children §. II. So I desire these Remarks may be which begin with noteing the Sarcasms or Taunts the Rebuker casts on Mr. Lob for his Report which first entrance shews with what an unbeseeming Spirit he manages his Design To which I may say Do Men gather Grapes of Thorns or Figs of Thistles By their Fruits you shall know them Can any expect our Lord Jesus should be honoured in such a Discourse which begins with treating a Reverend Minister with such opprobrious Language as in the two first Pages to cast these Eleven Reflections on him As Prevaricating Partial A Learned Divine In a Jeer. Insolent Scribler A Huff Little Fooleries Fire-balls So he calls his Papers Poyson Pedantick Great Wit In a Scoff To which I Remark That doleful is the Consideration that God should suffer an Eminent Person a Reverend Divine of the First Rate in the
Faith in him or else we must feign that a Believer hath a Spiritual Life in him that is not from Christ if he have Faith before he is united to Christ as some pretend and so there would be two Spiritual Lives in a Believer one before Union to Christ which works Faith and the other from Christ upon acting our Faith But this Ass of our own Spiritual Life and the Oxe of Christ's Life in us will not draw well together So that I think I may safely conclude this is no Heresie to say that Union to Christ is before Faith much less is that which follows an Heresie to say that we partake of the Spirit by vertue of that Vnion This is brought in as part of the fifth Heresie Whence do the Branches partake of the Sap of the Vine but from the Root by Vertue of Union to the Vine 'T is strange to admiration that this should be question'd by those who like Peter seem to be Pillars in the Church to call it an Antinomian Heresie to say We partake of the Spirit by vertue of Vnion to Christ If the Spirit be not in us before Faith how can he convince of Sin in not believing and thereby work Faith Doth not the Scripture say plainly 1 Cor. 12.8 9. To one is given by the Spirit the word of Wisdom to another Faith by the same Spirit Doth the Spirit give Faith and is he not then in the Soul to work Faith before it is wrought Is not the Former before the Thing formed If so then sure my Dear Kratiste was in a great Mistake and has sadly imposed on those that profess Faith in our Lord Jesus to rank this for a Heresie That we partake of the Spirit by vertue of our Vnion to Christ which in Naturâ is before Faith The sixth as being much akin to the former I pass only with the naming of it 'T is Heresie he saith to say Justification in regard of Application must be before Believing Whose Saying this is or whence it is taken I know not If the meaning be that God applies it to us or reckons it to us before our Believing that we are Justified This is so far from Heresie that I think the contrary is a Contradiction Or 't is Nonsense for me to believe a Thing is mine before it is given me or applyed to me and so made mine And in that Sense the Application of Justification by God's Spirit to my Conscience that God hath loved me and given his Son for me this must first be applyed to me before I can believe it or else my Believing is but Presumption But if by Application of Justification before Believing he means that the Soul doth apply it to himself before his Believing I think he is to seek for any that hold that Tenet §. XXVII His seventh Heresie is this That the first Application ordine Naturae saltem is to an Vngodly Man eo nomine that he may believe That this is a blessed Gospel-Truth and no Heresie appears by what our Blessed Lord Jesus saith That he came not to call the Righteous but Sinners And his immediate Call made them follow him as Levi from being a Publican to be a believing Disciple Nay saith our Lord Publicans and Harlots enter into the Kingdom of God before you Ye believed not but the Publicans and Harlots believed Matth. 21.31 32. Here was Application to ungodly Wretches eo nomine that they might believe and when Publicans and Harlots they did believe and so came off from their Ungodliness Yea the Dog Syrophenaecian as Christ called her she had Faith given her while she was a Dog even to the Admiration of Christ himself who said O Woman great is thy Faith And saith the Apostle for a full Proof that the Application is to an ungodly Man eo nomine While we were Enemies we were reconciled to God by the Death of his Son Nay as God will have it the very word ungodly which they oppose as Heresie is asserted in the Scripture that the first Application of Christ is to an ungodly Man in Rom. 4.5 To him that believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly his Faith is counted for Righteousness If the Blessed Apostle saith God justifieth the ungodly I trow this is no Heresie in him but if Heterodox Dr. Crisp say the same words then 't is an Antinomian Heterodoxy Now there 's a great out-cry what do you make God to be Is God such a Friend to Sin as to justifie the Vngodly Doth it become the Holiness of God to justifie an ungodly Man This is the way to vindicate all licentious Antinomianism That God justifies the Vngodly and that while he is an Enemy he is reconciled to God O out upon such profane Antinomians We can allow the Apostle Paul to use such Language because we can distinguish this into he doth not justifie the Vngodly that the Apostle means so whatever he saith but we cannot bear it that Apochryphal Tobias should say so nor that Mysterious Nonsense say so as Mr. Williams called Mr. Cole we cannot bear it in him for this is to open a gap to Profaneness to say God justifieth the Vngodly §. XXVIII The eighth Heresie is to assert That we believe that we may be justified declaratively The Case I take to be thus The Apostle saith in Gal. 2.16 We believe that we may be justified by the Faith of Jesus from whence the Neonomians conclude that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere our Act of Faith is that very Thing which justifies us or that we are justified by our Work of Faith if not by Works of Faith and Holiness which sometimes they joyn yet at least by a Work by our Act of Believing Whereas the Orthodox according to the Homilies and Doctrine of the Church of England from plain Scripture put Faith it self from us as that Act that justifies and say Faith justifies only declaratively as it manifests to the Conscience our being justified by Christ's Blood Rom. 5.9 and freely by his Grace not our Grace of Faith through the Redemption that is in Jesus Rom. 3.24 Titus 3.7 It is still ascribed to his Grace not any Grace in us our Grace of Faith being only the Instrument or Hand given us of God to receive Christ and all in him If Justification be as they would have it from any Act of ours as the Ground or Cause of it then we are not freely justified by his Grace but by our Work of Believing which if not a Popish is an Arminian Tenet to blemish the Free Grace of God in Jesus Christ So that it may be safely concluded that it is no Heresie to say our Justification by Faith is declarative in as much as the Essence of Justification is by the Blood of Jesus and the Grace of God imputing it to us is the form of our Justification which being received by Faith is thereby manifested or declared to the Conscience by the Illumination of the Holy
in Sins and Trespasses and there must be an Almighty Power put forth to quicken them besides the bare Call Turn ye turn ye It is God that must work both the Will and the Deed for without me saith Christ you can do nothing If so what is the Call to turn without the Spirit of God effecting the turn but a manifestation of God's Right to command which you may call the triumph of the Law You will not say that God hath lost his Right to command us to turn to him though we are dead and are not able to turn till there goes forth from God with his Call an Almighty saving Power of turning us to him and on this account the Church prays Turn thou me and I shall be turned Jer. 31.18 And till then the Call is but God's triumphing in his Sovereignty in the Law over poor dead Sinners §. XLIII The eighteenth is a very weak Heresie though a long one and in truth no more a Heresie than 't is Heresie to say Christ took not the Nature of Angels but the Seed of Abraham but however this comes in the Bed-roll to fill up the number and 't is thus The Eternal Life in which the Angels were created and confirmed by Christ differs from that Eternal Life which Believers have in Christ The one is a Creature Life or a created Life the other is the Eternal Life of God communicated in time This though not of the Essence of Christianity or a Fundamental may be a little explained and so it will appear that it is no Heresie But some Persons are glad of a small Occasion to quarrel The only Ground for quarrelling at this Expression is That the Life of a Believer is the Eternal Life of God by which I suppose is meant of God-Man the Lord Jesus Christ Now take it in that Sense then Christ being the Life of every Believer they have the Eternal Life of God-Man in them so as the Angels have not Christ took not their Nature they are not Members of his Body of his Flesh and of his Bones and Believers are Eph. 5.30 He is not their Resurrection and Life as he is the Believers Is it not a great Truth that by Vertue of their Union to Christ by Faith in his Flesh and Blood the Flesh and Blood of him who is the Eternal Son of God they have that Eternal Life in them from him which the Angels have not As to the Eternal Life which the Angels have and shall enjoy what is it but a created Life Whereas the Life of Christ in his Saints and with them to all Eternity is their participation of his Life as he is more than a meer Creature as he is God-Man and they one with him partaking of the Divine Nature as the Branches partake of the very Nature of the Vine not that they are Godded with Christ God-Man but in an ineffable manner they partake of his Divine Nature being made one Body incorporated into him and so one with him which must comprehend an Eternal Life being in them which is more than meerly created they being filled with all the fulness of God Eph. 3.19 That is as they have Christ in them the hope of Glory in whom dwells the fulness of the Godhead Bodily but in Believers he dwells only Spiritually §. XLIV The nineteenth they make a great one viz. That Believers are as Righteous as Christ I mean not in a way of Similitude but in a way of Equality Here is high Disingenuity to quote part of a Sentence For Mr. Mather from whom this is taken though he said somewhat to this purpose at Pinners-Hall yet he put in several Qualifications of the Expression whereof one was That they were as Righteous as Christ as they did partake of his Mediatorial Righteousness and of that part only of that Righteousness which was wrought out for them To this there may be more said when I answer the Rebuker's saying That Mr. Williams had denyed his Redeemer if he had not denyed Dr. Crisp's Assertion of a change of Persons In the mean time I leave this Scripture to be pondered That we might be made the Righteousness of God in him Christ 1 Cor. 5.21 §. XLV The twentieth is That Christ's Incarnation was no part of his Humiliation This is brought in I suppose to insult over the Grave of Mr. Mather who could doubtless have so explained his meaning as it needed not have put Mr. Williams on shewing his great Parts and Learning to go to confute it for an Antinomian Heresie in interpreting 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by a new English word well enough agreeing with the Neonomian Doctrine calling 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exaninition which he might as well call exany-thing or to make it chime his next Interpretation of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exinanition instead of his calling it exany-nition it may be exany-wigeon or any thing else as his mighty Learning may coyn for it If Mr. Mather in that Expression meant it of meer Incarnation without respect to Mediation for Sinners how was his Incarnation any Humiliation more than God the Father his dwelling in the Heart of the Humble and Contrite is his Humiliation May not God the Father or God the Son assume what shape they please as well as the Holy Spirit assumed the shape of a Dove and yet that no Degradation or Humiliation It is true God is said to humble himself to behold things in Heaven but that is spoken Figuratively as his Eyes behold his Eye-lids try the Children of Men but to say God is humbled by it is harsh and so to say that Christ's meer Incarnation was his Humiliation is to deny him the liberty to assume what form he pleases or to make it a diminution of his Glory is what I suppose cannot well be maintained I am sure his Incarnation was a Glorious Exaltation of our Humane Nature and would it not be harsh to say he could not exalt our Nature without depressing his own God is able of Stones to raise up Children to Abraham much more is Christ able to take our Nature when made Sinless and not thereby degrade his own But let Mr. Williams run away with his Triumphs over Mr. Mather calling him Blow-flame and make an exaninition or an exany-thing of him when all is done this Expression among wise Christians will hardly pass for an Heresie to say Christ's meer Incarnation was not a part of his Humiliation though his Incarnation as Mediator was §. XLVI The last the one and twentieth is We coalesce upon believing into one Mystical Person with Christ which is distinguish'd from Legal Vnion which is before Faith Whose Expression this is I am to seek but methinks 't is very harmonious with the Gospel and if this deserves the Name of Heresie we must seek a New Gospel What can be more coalescing than that of Christ You in me and I in you Or that of the Apostle We are Members of his Body c.
Eph. 5.30 And he that is joyned to the Lord is one Spirit Is not this one Spirit one Person Is the blessed Holy Spirit the Third Person in the Trinity Is he a Person and are not Christ and his believing Members becoming one Spirit are they not become thereby one Person Why else are they called Christ 1 Cor. 12.12 Is this novel uncooth and unintelligible to my Dear Kratiste a Master in Israel Need Christ and they go into his Mothers Womb to become one Person §. XLVII As for Legal Vnion before Faith I know of none unless he means a faederal Union such as Children of believing Parents have or bare nominal Christians have Sure these may be distinguish'd without Offence from such as have a Mystical Union by Faith without any Heresie attending it Thus we conclude the 21 Antinomian Heresies which have met with a Presbyterian Lash as the Great Apostle Paul did with the like from the Jews They appear not so formidable as the Neonomians would make them but rather some of them shine forth with brighter clearness for great Gospel-Truths by their being so set forth This I am comfortably satisfied in that God hath by the late Abuse put on Evangelical Truths held out by the branded Dr. Crisp Mr. Cole and many others he hath inlightened many Souls thereby and I wait in assured hope that God will in his blessed time which is hastening make the Light of the Sun of Righteousness shining in the Gospel to be as the Light of seven Days when Men will not put Light for Darkness and Darkness for Light Which the Good Lord for the sake of thy dying and interceding Son our Lord Jesus do thou hasten §. XLVIII In the mean time to our grave Rebuker I say Kratiste Theophile most excellent Sir take heed you be not a Theomaikos a Fighter against God while you design to justifie a Man whom you cannot vindicate with Honour till he renounce some Expressions in his Books which fight directly against the Gospel especially that Soul-endangering one in his Preface to Gospel-Truth stated which is this I affirm that the Righteousness of God Phil. 3.9 principally intends the Gospel-Holiness of a Person justified by Christ's Righteousness Which is an Interpretation that is directly opposite to all sound Protestants Judgments From such Interpreters of a Gospel-Truth the Lord in Mercy deliver all his People and from being a Champion for such an Interpreter the Lord deliver the Rebuker and all his 49 Vouchers §. XLIX In Page 27 he bewails the Case and saith And thus the Breach became beyond the Vnited Brethrens making up He means I suppose beyond their Power of making up that is because these Antinomian Heresies were not recanted And no wonder that it was beyond their Power to make up the breach that these Points made for how can Truth and Error coalesce If the Poor Presbyterians as he calls them do insist on the renouncing these 21 Doctrines as Heresies which have much of the Marrow of the Gospel in them as appears from plain Scripture and sound Authors already quoted they may enjoy their Repose in their own benighted Sentiments but may not imagine that they who are clearlyer inlightened in the Mysteries of the Gospel having tasted the good old Wine of God's Everlasting Love of Electing them in Christ that they will come to the new Wine of a pretended New Law given them by Christ That we performing Gospel-Obedience with our sincere indeavours to fulfil that New Law of Faith Love Repentance Holiness and perseverance therein this though imperfect in its self shall be accepted instead of perfect by Vertue of the Righteousness and Merits of our Lord Jesus Which in effect is to say that we are not saved by Grace but Christ hath merited that we should save our selves §. L. That this is their meaning appears by what Mr. Williams who seems to be their general Mouth has said in his Preface to Man made Righteous by Christ's Obedience Where he rebukes his Antinomians for owning no Law of God that admitted of faulty Obedience and by way of Contempt to Mr. Cole c. he saith They own no Law but the Law of Works which admitted nothing short of perfect sinless Obedience So that he looks on it as an horrid Error to hold that no Law is given by God that admitted of Obedience that had Sin in it Which shews plainly that they hold that God has set up a Law in the room of the Moral Law and that this their New Law which they have invented for God and wretchedly impute to God it doth admit of Sin in the Obedience to it than which there cannot be a more horrid Affront offered to the Holy God viz. That God should set up a Law that allows Sin Now if contradicting such Doctrine as this is accounted Antinomianism then to be freed from their Slanders we must rob God of his Honour nay deny him to be God to comply with their Doctrine of charging on God his making a Law that allows Sin in our Obedience to it For I dare be bold to say in Contradiction to such an Assertion and in Zeal to the pure Holy Nature of God God never did nay never can and that 's a bold word but true if God be God and Holiness his Nature he never can make a Law that admits of any thing but Sinless Obedience For God saith he cannot behold Iniquity and for any Man or number of Men or for any Angels of Heaven to talk at that rate for God to make a Law that admits of Sin let him be accursed To talk of a Law that admits of Sin is to make the Maker of such a wooden Law to be little better than a wooden God It is enough to make ones Flesh to tremble and Spirit rise into a rage against the bold strokes of some Ungodly Pens that corrupt the Gospel and Minds of Men to talk of a Law of the Holy God that admits any thing of Sin Mr. Williams and his Justifiers have subscribed to the Assemblies Confession of Faith and they say upon the Head of Repentance There is no Sin so small but it deserves Damnation and they justifie it by that Scripture The Wages of Sin is Death But our Neonomians our New-Law Men bring in God making a Law that admits of Faulty Obedience or Obedience that is not Sinless which is all one with Faulty Obedience Now my Dear Kratiste this Man's Champion pray where is this accounted for And if not how can it be expected that the Breach between the Orthodox and these should be made up Offences will come but woe to that Man by whom they come To such a Man as would impose a Law allowing Sinning Obedience And if Sinning then it hath Sin in it and if so and that the Assembly say right from the Wages of Sin being Death the least Sin never so small deserves Damnation then they will bring in God making a Law in complying with
for he deserves it more than the Doctor you are so displeased with Luther saying We may apply to Christs that whole 27. Deut. For as Christ is Innocent in this General Law touching his own Person so he is also in all the rest and as he is guilty in this General Law in that he is made a Curse for us and hanged on the Cross as a Wicked Man a Blasphemer a Murderer a Traytor so he is guilty in all others For all the Curses of the Law are heaped together and laid upon him He was therefore not only accursed but made a Curse for us And a little above he said That he putting off his Innocency and Holiness and taking thy sinful Person on him might bear thy Sin thy Death thy Curse Why is not this criminated for the Dregs of Antinomianism Being read with Arminian Spectacles it may pass for such but if read by the Light of the Holy Spirit in the Glass of the Word it will be found pure clear Water of Life flowing from the Fountain of Israel the Rock that followed them our Lord Jesus Christ Whom for our Everlasting Comfort God made Sin for us though he knew no Sin that we might be made the Righteousness of God in him I must confess I am amazed at the Uncharitableness of some Men in charging the Doctor with making Christ a Murderer c. as if he meant any otherwise than all sound Orthodox Christians do that is that he was only a Sinner by Imputation And let my Dear Kratiste but examine his Conscience on consulting the Doctor 's Sermons when his fierce Anger is allayed and he will say there is as Great and as Adorable a Sense of the Glorious Excellency of our Lord Jesus in his own Person in those Discourses as he can find in any writings he most applauds and that notwithstanding it must be still asserted or we must all be damned That for the sake of poor Sinners he was made Sin and a Curse for us And it is well known that the Doctor meant and so exprest himself that he was so only by Imputation §. LV. The next is a very unbeseeming and dreadful Charge against the Doctor in Page 38 where the Rebuker saith The Doctor had affirmed a wild monstrous Sense of Change of Person between Christ and the Elect for which he quotes Mr. Williams citing Dr. Crisp in these words pa. 31 of Gospel-Truth Mark it well saith the Doctor Christ himself is not so compleatly Righteous but we are as Righteous as he nor we so compleatly Sinful but Christ became being made Sin as compleatly Sinful as we Nay more we are the same Righteousness for we are made the Righteousness of God that very Sinfulness that we were Christ is made the very Sinfulness So that here is a direct Change Christ takes our Person and Condition and stands in our stead we take Christ's Person and Condition and stand in his stead So that if you reckon well you must always reckon your selves in anothers Person and that other in your Person This is the monstrous Sense of the Doctor upon which the Rebuker makes this dreadful following Comment And now you have it that Change of Persons which the Doctor affirms and Mr. Williams denies which had he not he had denyed his Redeemer and betrayed the Gospel So then the Doctor hath in these words in his Judgment denyed his Redeemer and betrayed the Gospel Cujus contrarium For upon search of Scripture and keeping to it it will be found that the Doctor hath said nothing but plain Scripture or clear Scripture consequence And if so it will appear that the casting this Dirt on the Doctor is not on him but on the Scripture and the Spirit of God in the Scripture Wherefore it is good to consider that word Acts 5.39 If it be of God ye cannot overcome it lest haply ye be found even to fight against God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Our Rebuker and Mr. Williams think to blast the Doctor but if his Assertions be clear deductions from the Word of God then their calling this a wild Monster may prove them to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 §. LVI It matters not much how the Doctor is traduced but his plain Scripture Assertions to be called Antinomian Heresies will prove dangerous and to call them a wild Monster may make such fall under the character of fighters against God therefore to the Law and to the Testimony I pass by Luther who in the Doctor 's Sense saith Christ was the greatest Sinner in the World that is by imputation of Sins to him I say no more of Famous Dr. Harris Christ sustained the Person of Sinners how else could God punish him But the Word of God must be our Shield and I will oppose those two Scriptures The Lord laid on him the Iniquity of us all and God made him to be Sin for us with those other two He shall be called the Lord our Righteousness as well as He shall be called the Lord of Righteousness the 33. 23. Jer. with We are made the Righteousness of God in him These I oppose against all the Assaults of the Enemies of the Truth or Mis-staters of this Gospel-Truth of the Change of Persons §. LVII Did Dr. Crisp say Christ himself is not so compleatly Righteous but we are as Righteous as he And did he not say in the same Breath We are made the Righteousness of God which is plain Scripture Now I pray what difference is there between our being as Righteous as Christ and our being the Righteousness of God God goes higher in his Expression of our being Righteous in saying We are the Righteousness of God than if he had said We are as Righteous as Christ And God may well be allowed to speak after the manner of Men to declare his own Mind in higher Terms than it is meet for Man to do Then let us turn the Tables and say If God had said in Scripture by the Apostle Paul that Christ himself is not so compleatly Righteous but we are as Righteous as he and if the Doctor had inferred from thence that we are made the Righteousness of God we that are poor Sinful Creatures in our selves we are made the very Righteousness of God in the abstract of it that is by imputation then there might have been some Ground for Dirt to be cast on the Doctor but when he goes a degree lower than the very words of Scripture and instead of saying We are made the Righteousness of God saith We are as Righteous as Christ The opposing this must be accounted fighting against the Truth not the Doctor Pray what will Men make of this Righteousness of God which is the Righteousness of God-Man Jesus Christ the Mediator his Righteousness made ours imputed to us he being made of God to us Righteousness Do they make to be made this Righteousness is less than to be compleatly Righteous as Christ Sure they will not so
lessen Christ to make his Righteousness to be ours to be our being less Righteous than himself If not then this Righteousness made ours makes us by Imputation compleatly Righteous as he is Righteous which is the same as is his Name The Lord our Righteousness And I will presume these Opposers will not be so base as to pretend the Doctor meant any other way of our being compleatly Righteous as Christ than by his Righteousness made theirs and imputed to them whereupon he saith Thou art all fair my Love there is no spot in thee And if so where is the wild Monster that he is so ungenteely if not invidiously charged with §. LVIII It may be they will shew the Monster in the next Passage of the Doctor Nor we so compleatly Sinful but Christ became being made Sin mark this is Scripture being made Sin as compleatly Sinful as we Here without doubt is the Monster But if the Spirit of God looks stedfastly in the Face of him that makes this to be a wild Monster that Christ being made Sin became as compleatly Sinful as we if the Spirit look with dazling Light on him from this Scripture I suppose it may terrifie him for casting Contempt on plain Scripture to call it wild and monstrous And what can be more plain If Christ was made Sin by his having our Sins laid on him and imputed to him than that thereby he became by Imputation as compleatly Sinful as we and that in the same way as by Imputation we become the Righteousness of God and so are compleatly Righteous as Christ still by Imputation §. LIX This daring Contempt cast upon plain Scripture Consequence with my hopes that the Spirit of God will cast Beams of Conviction on the Consciences of those that expose it as wild and monstrous by his Glorious Irradiation into their Hearts of the Power of the Blessed Word that Christ was by God made Sin for us that we might be made the Righteousness of God This puts me in mind of an amazing Conviction that I lately had assurance of from an extraordinary credible Hand it was of one Allen a Stage-Player About Eighty Years ago he the said Allen was acting the part of Dr. Faustus conjuring up the Devil and he performed it so intently and effectually that the Appearance of the Devil came before him in a dreadful Shape with Noise and Stinks that so terrified him that he resolved never to Act on the Stage more Nay 't is said that he repented so mightily that he vowed all his Estate to the glorifying God and in pursuit thereof he builded Dullidge College Four Miles from London and endowed it so as to maintain a great number of the Name of Allen with a Minister of the same Name to preach to them Which I would apply thus That it may please God when Men will indeavour to evacuate plain Scripture and call genuine Consequences from it a wild monstrous Sense he may cause their Consciences to stare them in the Face as a wild Monster and terrifie them for so doing which may be in great Mercy for it is not good to kick against the Pricks to load the Divine Truth that Christ was made Sin with being monstrous because the short Line of our Reason cannot fathom it And to say the Truth it is a Deep unfathomable for our weak Understandings to conceive of by our Reason that the most Holy Harmless Innocent God-Man Jesus should be made Sin for us or that we Wretched Vile Miserable Sinners should be made the Righteousness of God in him But that which Reason cannot comprehend we must beg of God Faith may receive and live upon For the Just do live by Faith not by Sight or Reason §. LX. The Doctor knew when he preach'd he had Enemies lay at the Catch so he saith and therefore guarded himself so strongly with that clear Scripture as clear as possible to justifie his Assertion and saith Christ being made Sin became as Sinful as we If he had said and not God That God made Christ Sin and if God had only said what he said Christ became as compleatly Sinful as we he had spoken presumptuously for he would by it have said more of Christ's being Sinful than God had laid But he sheltering under God's Word of God's making Christ to be Sin he from thence infers only that Christ was as Sinful as we which of necessity must be taken for his being so by Imputation only that is by the Lord 's laying on him the Iniquity of us all and this being Sinful as we is less derogatory to Christ than to say he was made Sin For my Dear and Learned Kratiste will grant to be made Sin must be more dreadful than to be Sinful §. LXI But our New Law Men have an evasion for Christ's being made Sin and make it no more than that Christ bore only the Punishment of Sin and some go farther that he bore the Guilt but for the Sin it self they utterly deny it though by it they evacuate or exinanitiate many Texts of Scripture and come very near one I may call a Prince of a Quaker their Head and Glory Mr. William Pen a Gentleman beyond any of them but to his dreadful Shame has told the World in Print that Christ's Sufferings were only the Facile Representations of what was to be accomplish'd in Man Thus he brings it in in opposition to John Faldo in his Rejoynder page 336 and 337 It is strange saith W. P. that those Transactions of Christ who dyed as a Malefactor c. should be counted most difficult that were by the Divine Wisdom of God ordained as so many Facile Representations of what was to be accomplish'd in Man How much short of this shameful Doctrine is it for Men to deny Christ's bearing our very Sins and put it off with his bare bearing Punishment due for Sin which is Ten Thousand Millions of Times less than his bearing their Sins Methinks these Men should not dare to teach God how to utter the Truth and his Mind concerning our Sins being borne by Christ God saith he made Christ to be Sâ—n Man saith No not Sin not very Sin God saith he bare our Sins Man saith prodigiously shamefully God ordain'd Christ's Sufferings to be Facile Representations Yea saith Mr. Williams in â—eâ—minis he bare our Sins not our very Sins which is the same as Mr. Penn's Facile Representations which in plain English is to say O thou Holy Blessed Spirit of God who hast inspired Holy Men to write the Holy Scriptures thou tellest us an Untruth in saying Christ bare our Sins in his Body on the Tree I William Penn say they were Facile Representations I Daniel Williams say he did not bear our very Sins But I pray what difference between bearing our Sins and bearing our very Sins It looks as if he meant he bare our Sins that is the Shadow of them the Facile Representations of them the outside Shell of them and
the Punishment of them but for the very Sin which deserved the Punishment Christ bare it not And so they would make God Unjust to punish him for Sin when the Sin was made none of his This is the Fruit of his denying the Change of Persons to make God Unrighteous to punish his Holy dearly Beloved Son without having our Sin made his by God's Imputation and his own voluntary Acceptation that poor Sinners might go free Once again let us try how the Scripture will run in Mr Williams's Language He was once offered to bear the Sins of many that is with Mr. Williams to bear their Sins but not their very Sins Again He shall save his People from their Sins but not from their very Sins He hath by himself purged our Sins ay saith Mr. Williams but not our very Sins He was manifested to take away our Sins but not our very Sins This is a bold Attempt to teach the Spirit of God to speak and all to cast Dirt on Dr. Crisp and Free Grace Preachers as Antinomians which in truth is casting Dirt and a wild monstrous Sense on what the Spirit of God speaks of God's making Christ to be Sin which they make not very Sin and so leave Sin to be borne by the Sinner But if one Glare of Sin should stare in its hideous hue in the Sinners View and Conscience O! what frightful work would it make If Sin on Christ made him in that Agony and cry out my Soul is exceedingly troubled what would it make a poor sinful Wretch do I never heard any Man set it out like Excellent Mr. Christopher Fowler O saith he if God should let one flash of Sin in its true Nature fly in the Face of a Sinner there would be such yelling screeking and roaring and tearing themselves that this great Room the Meeting-place by Three Cranes would not hold them they would make away themselves immediately if possible And yet Mr. Williams and the Socinians whom he follows will not grant that Christ bore our very Sins but hath left them on the Sinner and so David's Murder and Adultery must be upon David to all Eternity notwithstanding Christ's bearing the Punishment and Guâ—lt thereof and this though God hath said Their Sins and Iniquities I will remember no more their Sins shall be sought for and not be found O that this Socinian Divinity that our very Sins were not borne by Christ were cast by the great Angel into the bottomless Pit and chained up there the Thousand Years that it might deceive the Nations no more And in the mean time let all the maintainers of such Doctrine know that thereby they contradict the Spirit of God and will be found 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 §. LXII But it may be he means this to be Dr. Crisp's Monster his saying We are the same Righteousness for we are made the Righteousness of God I Answer To call this a monstrous Sense of Change of Persons is very strange for it is plain Scripture that we might be made the Righteousness of God 2 Cor. 5.21 And is there any difference between our being the same Righteousness of Christ and our being made the Righteousness of God Sure not any in an unprejudiced Mind §. LXIII But the Doctor said That very sinfulness which we were Christ is made that very sinfulness Answer If Christ was made Sin it was not his own Sin but our Sin And if made Sin it was very Sin And if made very Sin and our Sin then for him to say Christ was made the very sinfulness that we were is the same as to say he was made Sin Do but grant that God made Christ to be Sin when he laid on him the Iniquity of us all or you must deny plain Scripture and that on which our Salvation depends I say grant this and you grant all that the Doctor hath said in as much as to be made Sin is as much if not more than to be made Sinfulness §. LXIV The Doctor proceeds saying So that here is a direct Change Is this the wild Monster I am sure it had been an hideous Monster to say Christ was made Sin any otherwise than being made our Sin or our Sinfulness And if he was made our Sin then sure this is a direct Change But if you will not allow the Change then Christ was made his own Sin which is horrid Blasphemy And at whose door will the wild Monster lye now Therefore let me a poor Worm advise you to have a care of disallowing the Change of Persons between Christ and us when he was made Sin for us lest haply you be found not only a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not only a fighter against God but a murderer of our Lord Jesus Christ which I know my Dear Kratiste will be aware of and I will pray that his Friend Mr. Williams may escape from being so §. LXV But it may be he is gravel'd at this that follows in the Doctor Christ takes our Person and Condition and stands in our stead If he allows loco nostro how can this taking our Person and Condition confound him as uncouth novel and non-sense Whereas in our stead is brought in to explain what he means by taking our Person and Condition Most Men know what a Surety in a Bond of 1000 l. is he sustains the Person of the Debitor and is he not in his Condition when he lyes in Goal for him and payes his Debt for him If the Rebuker had felt the smart of that he might better understand this Christ's taking our Person and Condition than to call it unintelligible Nonsense When our Lord Jesus was sweating clodders of Blood in his Agony in the Garden and when nail'd to the Cross did he sweat Blood for himself and pour out his Soul in extream Anguish for himself or did he then sustain the Persons of the Elect Sinners Were they his own Sins or the Sins of the Elect that he cryed out of My Sins are more than the Hairs of my Head Psal 40. Surely not his own but the Sins of those given him of the Father from all Eternity whose Persons he sustained or stood in the place of which is all one and so accounted before my Dear Kratiste could handle a Pen by Men of great Integrity and Sense §. LXVI Well but what shall we think of this part of the Monster We take Christ's Person and Condition and stand in his stead I hope it is no Monster to say Thou art all fair my Love there is no spot in thee as our Lord Jesus saith of his Spouse who was fair through his Comeliness put on her Ezek. 16.14 though she in the sense of her Sins said of her self Look not on me because I am Black Did not she appear as in the Person of Christ cloathed with his Righteousness Nay was she not joyned to him when thus all fair and so being joyned to the Lord became one
Exchange of Person for Person which is the surest Exchange in War or Captivity when nothing but one Person will be taken in the room of another §. LXXIV One would wonder how it should happen that my Dear Kratiste and his Friends should be ignorant of such Passages as these so as he should speak as if this Term was never dream'd of before when the Great Luther is so precise in the Term and other Excellent Men. Therefore I beseech you be not too confident of your grasping all Things in all Councils Synods and Assemblies lest you lose all O how much better is it to say with the Apostle He that thinketh he knoweth any thing knoweth nothing as he ought to know it and with Agur I have not the Vnderstanding of a Man than to Challenge all the World with what is said in all Councils General and Provincial The humble he will teach and the mock he will gâ—â—â—â— in Judgment Which the Lord grant to us all and that we may be ever learning of our Blessed Lord and Master to be meek and lowly §. LXXV My Dear Kratiste goes farther in Bontering the Phrases of Christ's taking our Person and we his Person and spares not to call them Apocryphal Phrases though they are such as many Holy Men have made use of to clear up the great and comfortable Doctrine of Christ's being our Surety and making Satisfaction for us Well may he call Tobias Apocryphal if he calls his great Teacher under Christ the Apostle Paul Apocryphal as I shall shew by and by He is pleased to come forth in great State in Page 49 as my Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer with his Quo Warranto against the Commutation of Persons and thus Harangues the World Quo Warranto Why must all the World be Hereticated that dare not subscribe to these Apocryphal Phrases which neither Scripture nor Antient Fathers nor General nor Particular Councils nor Synods nor Assemblies nor single Churches ever brought into their Creeds c. What a scampering flourish is here over all Councils Fathers c. circuating the Universe as if our Author were the Magazine of all Learning and had fortified himself on every side against this Change of Persons and Christ's sustaining our Person as if the Phrase were intollerably uncooth I shall only attack one Fort which is the first Out-Fort the Scripture and if that be taken he must yield all the rest The Scripture is the Pillar and Ground of Truth We will see if that doth not bring into our Creed this Term of Christ's bearing our Person and we his Person or that which is plainly tantamount doth not the Apostle say Col. 2.6 7. As ye have received the Lord Jesus Christ so walk in him Rooted and built up in him What is this but to be in his Person by Faith joined to the Lord and so he coming one Spirit as the Apostle saith which is the same as to be one Person But as if God would at once by one stroke quell all the Quarrels and Exceptions against the Truth and calling it unintelligible Nonsense as in Truth it is to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Philosophers he condescends to the very Term of our being in the person of Christ and saith in 2 Cor. 2.10 by the Apostle Paul If I forgave any thing for your sakes forgave I it in the Person of Christ What thinks my Dear Kratiste now Is this Term so novel as never to be brought into our Creed by Scripture Councils or Fathers O how good is it to be humble and not to tower to the top of all Learning denying this phrase to be in Scripture Fathers or Councils when at the very threshold we see one may fall For here the very express Scripture uses the phrase of the Apostles being in the Person of Christ and forgiving an offending Brother in the Person of Christ And so I hope we shall all learn to forgive one another and not to rebuke with immoderate strains as our Rebuker hath very unwarrantably done in charging the Doctor with wild monstrous Sense and Apocryphal Phrases when he speaks the Apostle Paul's Language §. LXXVI I hope you will allow the Apostle to bring this Term of our sustaining Christ's person into our Credenda or Things to be believed though the Doctor whom for it you charge with Antinomian Heresie may not use the word without a severe Lash Is this to learn of our Lord Jesus who would excuse his Disciples under failings and not presently bring them to the block much less would he tax them with a wild monstrous Sense of Things when they spake only the Sense of the Scriptures But why this Expression should be Heresie in the Doctor though Orthodox in the Apostle I can quickly tell It being I reckon from his having some Mens persons in admiration Our Kratiste having some time since prest hard on the Conscience of Mr. Williams he is now raising up his Reputation which he might suppose this a proper way for by loading the Doctor with the Title of a Dreggy Apocryphal Heretick because Mr. Williams had written so much against him in his Gospel-Truth stated and so the Rebuker here seconding Mr. Williams in aspersing the Doctor would redintegrate the said Mr. Williams into the good esteem of those who had occasion given them for low Thoughts of him upon account of what the Rebuker had reflected on Now to make him amends if Mr. Williams hath criminated the Doctor the Rebuker must do so also or how can Mr. Williams stand Rectus in Curia or in statu quo with those who had taken some Offence at those Things he was charged with So that Things being thus Mr. Williams being to be redintegrated into publick applause now if Mr. Williams say I deny a Change Kratiste can do no less than say The term of a Change is novel and unintelligible If Mr. Williams say This is Dr. Crisp ' s Error or Mistake Kratiste will exemplifie enlarge and perfect the Crimination and call it Heresie Which how Christian like it is or the contrary I hope the Lord will one day convince him §. LXXVII In Page 51 he offers us a moot Point worthy to be taken notice of thus I would propound a moot Point whether the Socinians who have blasphemously degraded the Person of Christ into a God by Office though a meer Man by Nature or the Antinomians who own him to be a God by Nature yet affirm him to have been a Sinner the greatest of Sinners nay Sinfulness it self do more derogate from the Honour of our Redeemer For Answer This is so far from being a moot Point that it is no point at all unless you can find any of your Antinomians that assert what you here say they affirm You cannot but know your Antinomians own and assert strenuously That the Lord Jesus was ever holy harmless separate from Sin a Lamb without spot in his own person being perfect God and perfect Man nay they
A Pins head stolen damning in it self § 78 The Potters power over the Clay § 80 A Pother about Conditionality § 81 Proper satisfaction denied by the Rebuker § 82 The Parliament against jesting with Christ as the Rebuker § 89 Paulting Mr. Williams in the Pillery with rotten Eggs § 98 Paper to be saved saith the Rebuker to avoid the great point § 99 Pelagius to be writ against by all § 1 110 Peace not to be purchased with loss of Truth § 120 When Perish'd we are saved without our Works Homilies § 147 Poyson spit at the Sun don't defile it § 154 The Perfections of God illustrated by Allegory § 157 Poyson on Gold not defile it § 158 Christ by himself purged our sins § 158 Q. Quickened by Christ when dead § 26 Christ a Quickning Spirit § 26 R. The Righteousness of Christ only to be mentioned § 16 194 Our Representative being in Christ from Eternity Clark § 18 Christ Reputed a Criminnl he calls Heresie § 24 Reconciliation before Faith Pemble § 29 The Rebuker saying Christ's death made God placable § 33 We are Righteous as Christ How § 44 57 62 Raised in Christ shews he sustained us § 72 Redintegration of the Rebuker to Mr. Williams occasion'd his Rebuke against Dr. Crisp § 76 A Rigid satisfaction denied by Mr. A § 82 Christ a Ransom paid all § 82 So owned in the Homilies § 85 150 Rebuke before all some that offend openly § 118 S. Sarcasms on Mr. Lob by Mr. A § 2 Substance of the Gospel that Christ came c. § 3 6 Socinus as the Rebuker saith Christ destitute of Righteousness if c. § 4 Sin Christ was made for us all over and § 4 Subscribing the Articles not sufficient § 16 Socinianism called but an Error by Mr. A § 19 Sinless Sin Christ bare if he bare not the Fault § 23 Our Sins owned by Christ to be his Psal 40. § 24 The Spirit in us before Faith no Heresie § 26 Sin cast into the Sea to shew God sees it not § 37 Sin lessens not God's Love to Believers Pemble § 39 All not of Faith is Sin § 40 Sinning Obedience allow'd by God's Law Williams § 50 78 Sin the smallest is Damning the Assembly § 50 Satisfaction own'd by Williams and soon spoil'd § 51 Very Sin not laid on Christ Williams § 51 61 How Christ as Sinful as we § 58 Sin Glareing what Terrour it makes § 61 Christ made our Sinfulness if made our Sin § 63 Christ as Surety sustains us a Surety slighted § 65 82 The Spirit himself in us denied by the Rebuker § 72 Synods never dreamt of this Change Mr. A § 72 Stone in New England against Neonomians § 73 Scampering over Fathers Councils c. by the Rebuker § 75 Christ could not cannot Sin § 77 Socinians and Neonomians compar'd in allowing Sin § 78 Sins little past by of Course they say § 78 Stealing a Pins head is Sin and Damning § 78 Scotch Church saith Christ paid thy Debt § 85 We Sustained in Christ by doing the Law in him Homilies § 86 A Stage-player Christ is if he bare us saith the Rebukes § 89 We are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Co-body with Christ § 90 A strange Strain of the Rebuker's Wrath § 93 Servant of the Lord not to strive as Rebuker § 97 Saphiras Equivocation exceeded by Rebuker § 117 Selling Innocency and Peace for nothing Rebuker § 120 Satisfaction once owned by Antisozzo § 125 Scriptures to prove Christ bare our Sin § 142 Salvation by Grace a Spur to Sanctity § 153 The Sun not defiled by Poyson spit at it so our Sin did not defile Christ § 154 The Serpent a Type of Christ § 155 The Sacrifices called Sin as Christ was § 156 T. Dr. Twiss Forgiveness before Faith at Christ's death § 25 Turn why dye called the Triumph of the Law § 42 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 how the Rebuker so § 48 55 God a Tyrant say Arminians § 80 Tobias Canonical with a Crown § 91 he had not a barking Dog § 91 Translation of Sin to Christ Calvin § 102 Tears over Kratiste about the Marriage § 113 The Towering Spirit of the Rebuker § 118 Truth to be sought as well as Peace § 120 U. Vnintelligible to the Rebuker for Christ to take our Persons § 8 Vnion before Faith call'd an Heresie § 26 The Vngodly Justified § 27 Vnconverted Justified at Christ's death Pemble § 30 Very Sins not laid on Christ saith Mr. Williams § 51 61 A Vizor Christ wears if beare us Rebuker § 89 The Vnpardonable Sin against Dr. Crisp an Abuse § 93 The Vntruth of the Rebuker to say no more subscribed to § 115 W. Wisdom Justified of her Children § 2 Mr. Williams for Non-elect to be saved § 33 for a Law that admits Sin § 50 denies our very Sins on Christ § 51 denies and undenies a Change § 139 Works before Faith Sin § 40 Our best Works defiled the Assembly § 41 A Wooden God only for a Wooden Law to Sin § 50 Vessels of Wrath § 80 The Wish of the Rebuker answered § 85 Works necessary saith Dr. Crisp § 94 Whaffling Whelps the Rebuker calls his Opposers § 95 Good Works our Foundation for Salvation Mr. Williams § 98 Waving the Doctrine of Justification by the Rebuker § 99 Wrath of God borne by Christ § 102 FINIS
Spirit concurring with our Spirits therein See the Assemblies Catechism §. XXIX The like sort of Heresie to this last we find well spoken to by Famous Pemble in his Treatise of Grace and Faith in fol. 22 to prove God's being reconciled to the Elect before they believe and so to take off the Clamour from Dr. Crisp as if it were Antinomian Heresie to say we believe that we may be justified declaratively Mr. Pemble argues solidly thus Now that God doth actually love the Elect before they are regenerate or can actually believe may appear thus 1. Where God is actually reconciled he actually loves but with the Elect before they actually believe God is actually reconciled therefore he loves them before their Faith The Minor is evident because before they are born a full Satisfaction and Atonement is made by Christ and accepted on God's part whereon actual Reconciliation must needs follow He was the Lamb slain from the beginning of the World 2. If God did actually love the Elect before Christ's time when an actual Reconciliation was not made then much more may he actually love the Elect after the Atonement is really made by Christ's Death even before they do believe it The former is true by the Salvation of the Patriarchs therefore the latter may not well be denyed 3. Election Vocation and Faith are Fruits of God's Love to the Elect which Graces he bestows on them because he loves them Now I argue If God loved his Elect from Eternity and this Love neither increaseth nor diminisheth as in God as Mr. Pemble saith anon then it is plain that in the Righteous Judgment of God foro Dei there was never any Guilt on them after they were delighted in by Christ For God doth not take a Sinner by the Hand that is the same as he may be said not to love guilty Souls but he doth take the Elect by the Hand from Eternity As they are chosen in Christ from Eternity so they were delighted in by Christ from Eternity therefore the Elect as Elect are not guilty in the sight of God For if they were how should they be delighted in from Eternity as having Grace given them in Christ by the Father from Eternity 2 Tim. 1.9 and Prov. 8. §. XXX And now my hand is in with Mr. Pemble and because the Rebuker and others may if the Lord please see their Mistake in their hard Censure on Dr. Crisp and others to say 't is Heretical for them to say That Justification is before Faith I shall a little inlarge on this eighth Heresie 'T is well known Mr. Pemble was no Antinomian yet he saith in concurrence with Dr. Twiss and Dr. Crisp thus In foro Divino in God's sight Justification goeth before our Sanctification for even whilst the Elect are unconverted they are then actually justified and freed from all Sin by the Death of Christ and God having accepted of that Satisfaction is actually reconciled to them 2. There is Justification in foro Conscientiae in our sense which is but the revelation and certain declaration of God's former secret Act of accepting Christ's Righteousness to our Justification And why is not the out-cry of Heresie against this Good Man who asserts so plainly the actual Justification in God's sight before the Conversion of the Elect and that the Justification in our Consciences is but the revelation and declaration of the former secret Justification before God §. XXXI To the like purpose is the Confession of the Assembly at Westminster on the Article of Justification which saith Christ by his Obedience and Death did fully discharge the Debt of all those that are justified Here our Sins are called a Debt which our Rebuker makes a dangerous word and here this Debt is fully discharged when even at Christ's Death And if so then I argue with the Apostle if the Debt was discharged then Who can lay any thing to the charge of God's Elect either of Sin or Guilt It is Christ that dyed yea rather that is risen again Sure this was no Antinomian Assembly yet they make the Debt discharged at Christ's Death §. XXXII But Mr. Pemble goes farther in this Point and saith That Faith doth not precede Participation with Christ appears 1 Our Sanctification wrought by the Spirit conveys Life and Grace into our Souls when we are void of Faith and before 't is ask'd 2. Our Justification in God's sight which was long before we were born is purchas'd for us by Christ 'T is vain to think with the Armenian That Christ's Merits only made God PLACABILEM not Placatum no the Ransom is paid and accepted all the Sins are actually pardoned this grand Transaction between God and the Mediator Jesus Christ was dispatch'd in Heaven before we had a Being yet the Benefit of it was ours and belonged to us at that time though we never knew so much till after that by Faith we apprehended it As Lands may be settled on an Infant though he knew nothing of it till he come of Age. O! what clear Testimony is here to convince the Neonomians that besides express Scripture those that the Rebuker calls Antinomians have very good Company going with them §. XXXIII Here I cannot omit from the word Placabilem to reflect on what one of the Deserters of Pinners-hall Lecture well known to the Rebuker said there about April 1693 not without great Trouble to some of the Auditory That Christ's Death was to make God PLACABLE As rank Arminianism as can be which was well answered there the sixth of June 1693 by Worthy Mr. Lawrence though the same Person was never answered there as I heard to a worse piece of Arminianism that he uttered there to the Scandal of Pinners-Hall viz. That Adam ' s first Sin was not ours or We did not Sin that first Sin that Sin only corrupted our Nature Which is clean contrary to the Apostles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in whom all Sinned Rom. 5.12 Now we may no longer wonder to see such Persons Symbolize with and be Champions for unsound Mr. Williams who holds That more than the Elect may be Saved Witness these words of his by way of Scorn to his Opposers in his Appendix to Gospel Truth stated It is not enough saith Mr. Williams that we own that Christ absolutely redeemed the Elect so as to purchase saving Graces as well as Benefits to be infallibly theirs unless we add that all others are in state of Devils as having no real offers of Life on Gospel terms Nor is their Salvation possible if they will Repent and Believe Here he holds it possible that others besides the Elect may Repent and Believe and so their Salvation is possible Nay herein Antisozzo whom my Dear Kratiste hath a great value for doth partly coalesce in Page 103 saying When God gave the Promise to the common Parent of Mankind there was a possibility in the thing that that means of Salvation might have been derived to all those Rivulets