ANIMADVERSIONS ON THE Late very REVEREND Mr. CORBET's Remains, and Humble Endeavour.  
As also, Concerning JUSTIFICATION, Against the late Worthy Mr. GIBBONS, Mr. TRUMAN, and Dr. own.  
By J. Y.  
LONDON, Printed by J. A. for Joseph Collier at the Golden Bible on London-Bridge, under the Gate, 1685.   

TO THE READER.  
Reader,  
THough this be a time in which it specially concerns all to be studious of Peace, yet it is to be in conjunction with Truth and holy Principles. And it is not without approved example to writ against the published errors of deceased Authors. For though the Authors be dead, yet by their published works they do yet speak, Heb. 11.4. And the more eminent the Author, the greater danger of being ensnared by his error. I have observed some able and godly Writers to choose rather to writ against the published errors of the dead than of the living, though the errors were the same; out of zeal for Peace. But if any in honour to the dead shall think good to vindicate their Name, and therewith what they suppose to be truth; so the Truth prevail, I have my end.   

Of the Church; against sundry Mistakes of the late very Reverend, Mr. John Corbet, in his Remains.  
§. 1. WHether the Church, or the Ministry, be first in Nature, is to be considered; that for the more orderly hadling of both, we may know which of them to begin with. And it appears, that them Ministry was first instituted, or at least, that it was first in existence. p. 1. Answ. 
Dr. Field of the Church. b. 1. c. 4.  Regenerate Adam and Eve were the first Church: upon the increase of new Converts, more were added to the Church. As, when an Infant is born into the World, 
Act 2.47  there is then one more added to the Society of Mankind. The Apostles Commission was not, to make a new Church, but to preserve that which was in being; and by Apostolical Preaching and Endeavours, to enlarge, and add to it: Isa. 54.2. Eadem fides, 
August. cont. 2 Ep. Pelag. l. 3. c. 4.  & in illis qui nondum nomine, said reipsa fuerunt antea Christiani,& in illis qui non solum sunt said& vocamur,& in utrisque eadem gratia per Spiritum Sanctum. Both Papists and Protestants do vehemently disavow, 
Mr. Baxter's Dis. pull. of Right to Sacraments. p. 415.  that there are two Churches specifically distinct: So that it seems clear, that the Church was before the Ministry; unless it shall be said, that penitent Adam was Pastor to himself and his Wile. Moreover, were not the Apostles themselves Christians, Believers, and Members of the Church, before they were Apostles and Ministers? And may not the same be said of all true Ministers? Ministers regularly should be Christians, 
Ames de Conscient. l. 4. c. 25.  and more; they should be supra fidelium vulgus, above the vulgar sort of the Faithful; 2 Tim. 2.2.  
§ 2. The Church is a Society distinct from the Common Wealth: p. 3. Answ. The Common-wealth, as such, is not a Church: But a Christian Common-wealth as such, is a Church, both name and thing. What in Exod. 19.6. is called a Holy Nation, 
The whole Duty of Nations. p. 43, 44.47.  and the Common-wealth of Israel; Eph. 2.12. is called the Church in the Wilderness, Act. 7.38. The Church, as Militant in this World, is so far from being distinct from the Common-wealth, that rather, as Christ says of John Baptist, A Prophet, yea and more than a Prophet; so the Church is the Common-wealth, and more: It is the Common-wealth, as holy, and devoted to God; it is the best and soundest part of the Common-wealth. None so good Neighbours, so good and useful in the Family, so orderly in the Common-wealth, and serviceable to the State, and Loyal to Sovereign Power, as good and holy Christians and Church Members.  
§ 3. None become Cives, or Members of the Common-wealth, merely as Members of the Church; and they that are deprived of the Rights of the Common-wealth, may still enjoy the privileges of the Church: p. 4. Answ. Every Member of the Church, as such, hath a Soul; and every Soul is to be subject to the higher Powers: Rom. 13.1. And if the higher Powers cut one off by Death, as they may; he can enjoy no church-privileges on Earth Or if they shall imprison one, and deny all access to him; the Church may indeed pray for him, and supplicate Authority on is behalf; but the Church cannot usurp the Sword, or break open the Prison, to administer to him church-privileges. As Homo includeth Animal, so Church-Membership includeth Civil and Political Society as conversant in this World.  
§. 4. When the Common-wealth fails, the Church may still subsist. The Common-wealth of the Jews, that was a Theocracy, suffered an Intercision during the Babylonish Captivity; yet their Church then remained: thô it were greatly wounded, it was not extinct: p. 5. Answ. If there be no men, there can be no holy men; and no holy men, no Church: And certainly, where are none who difference themselves from Brutes by civil Life on Earth, there are no Men. The Common-wealth of the Jews ceased not to be a Common-wealth in Babylon. Indeed they remained not the same kind of Common-wealth with what they had used to be in their own Land, under Kings and Governours of their own: But they had the Species of a true and real Common-wealth, even while they were Captives in Babylon: Jer. 29.4, 5, 6, 7. Though the Church be but one, for Kind and Substance she same in all Ages; yet there are divers sorts of Political Government, and forms of Common-wealth Society.  
§. 5. There is one visible catholic Church: p. 7, 8. Answ. If Mr. C. do not mean, that there is one Universal visible Church, as distinct from all particular Churches, I understand him not: If so he mean, as needs he must, it cannot possibly hold. For the Universal, as distinct from all the Individuals and Particulars, is a mere Notion, as all will grant. 
Baxter. Method is, par. 1. p. 311. Mr. Baxter's Disput. of Right to Sacram. p. 478.  Neque Genus, neque Species omnino existit, nisi in individuo. It is well known, that our elder Reformers use to pled against the Papists, that particular Churches are visible, but that the catholic or universal is invisible. Singulae Exxlesiae visibiles sunt. 
Whitaker. cont. Duraeum. l. 9. s. 6.& l. 3. s. 11.  — At unum ex his omnibus visibile Corpus colligi nunquam omnino potest, quousque sunt particulares visibiles Ecclesiae. We see those Men and Women who do outwardly constitute the Church in this World; but that which makes themn a Church we see not, but believe. The catholic Church is an Article of Faith; and Faith is of things not seen: Heb. 11.1. Mr. Corbet asserts p. 16. We cannot tell what the catholic Church is, but by the holy Scriptures. Now the Scriptures do not evidence the catholic Church without Faith. As it would be brutish, and contrary to Humanity, to say, that because of some things, common Men and Brutes are one visible universal Society: so it is no less contrary to Faith and Piety, to say, that because of some things, Common Saints and Hypocrites be one universal visible Society. There is a greater difference, with respect to Eternal Happiness, between a Saint and an Hypocrite, than there is between a Man and a Brute. And therefore the Title of one of worthy Mr. Baxter's Books, is, A Saint, or a Brute. Christ, who is the Head of the catholic Church, being invisible, the catholic Church, which is his Body, cannot be visible. Christ, as God, 
1 Tim. 6.16.  no man hath seen, nor can see: As mere Man, he is not Christ; as Christ, and sole Head of the Church, he is invisible: We do not now see him, but believe; 1 Pet. 1.8. and he was believed on when he was in the World, by those who saw his Manhood and bodily Presence; Joh. 14.1. and 9.35, 36, 37, 38. 1 Tim. 3.16. Christ did not converse on Earth as a temporal Monarch, whose Kingdom is of this World; but as the Lord from Heaven, whose Kingdom is in the Conscience by Faith. The catholic Church is glorious as the Sun at Noon-day; but not to such as are blind, and wilfully shut their eyes, and will not see: But it is glorious to such only as believe, and by supernatural Illumination are enabled to discern Spiritual Objects, and the invisible things of God. Some say, this is but a controversy of mere words among Protestants. They might with as good reason add the word visible to all other the Articles of our Faith, and make God himself to be worldly and visible, and Faith to be Sight; and so destroy our whole Faith, and think to excuse the matter with saying, it is only lis de Nomine. But Articles of Faith are not so to be treated. We are to contend for the Faith earnestly, judas 3. Qui fingit nova verba, nova gignit dogmata.  
§. 6 Men are Christians in order of Nature, before they are Members of a particular Church. p. 10. Answ. To be a Christian is to be a Church Member, and to be a Church-member is to be a Christian, with no difference: If there be a Church wehre a man is made a Christian, he is necessary a member thereof, or he is Schismatical; if there be none, he is instar Ecclesiae, instead of a Church to himself, For God is with him, and God is all: 
Ubi sides, ibi Ecclesia, ibi Sacerdos, ibi Baptismus, ibi Christianus. Chrysostom. as cited by Dr. Favour in his Antiquity, c. 4.  Like as Adam and Eve after their fall being sincerely penitent, were the first Church, and Joseph in Potiphars Family, Elias in the Wilderness, Daniel in the Lions den, all these were instar Ecclesiae, the same thing as a Church.  
§. 7. There are some things respecting Church-government, determined by Christ in genere, but not in specie, but are left to human determination, p. 11, 31. Answ. God hath not in specie determined the forms of Civil government, but hath left those under the general Rules of Government to human determination: But though there be a thousand Particulars in Christian conversation, and Church-Order and Unity, left to Christian prudence and discretion, yet is Christian prudence and discretion itself determined by God, and is not accepted of God unless it be of Faith, for Whatsoever is not of Faith is sin: 
Rom. 14.23.  And Faith is supernatural and divine, Christ is the Author and Finisher of it, it is certainly above man and all human wisdom and authority to make points of Faith. If there be any thing in specie, respecting the glory of God, and either the being or well-being of the Church, or any the least tittle or circumstance respecting the Order and Unity of the Church, which is not unchangeably determined by God in specie, it will necessary infer the whole of Faith and Piety to be undertermined by God: For cadem est ratio partium& totius; and so it shall be wholly at the courtesy of man, and of sin and Satan in man, whether there shall be a Church or no. All special determination is by Grace, and Grace is supernatural or it it is not Grace, but the same with nature, which is Pelagianism, and tends to Infidelity.  
§. 8. Each particular Church is a distinct political Society, consisting of a governing part, and a governed part, Pastor and People, p. 19, 20, 21, 22. Answ. This being an universal Affirmative, if it fail in any one instance, that is enough to render it utterly false. Now 1. The Church Triumphant is a particular Church, it is not the Church universal; for that compriseth the Church both militant and triumphant: But none will say, that the Church triumphant is governed by a human Pastor or Bishop. 2. The Church militant and triumphant do not differ essentially and specifically, but only gradually, as an Infant and a grown Man, and not as a Man and a Brute. If then there be no human Pastor in Heaven, as an essential part, there can be none on earth to the Church militant. 3. The Church on earth is but a particular Church, it cannot be the universal, because there is the Church triumphant, which is the most noble part, and many of the elect be yet uncalled and unborn, who in time will be added to the Church: So that questionless the present Church on earth is not the whole or universal Church, but only a part. But if this Church on earth be not a Church without a human Pastor as the governing part, then of necessity there must be a Pope, and the Popes sentence will hold good against all that be not duly subject to him as head of the Church on earth under Christ: 
Bonif. 8. in Extrav. de mayor.& ob. Catech. Rom. in h. Artic. num. 10, 11, 13.  Subesse Romano Pontifici omni humanae creaturae, declaramus& definimus omnino esse de necessitate Salutis: It is altogether of necessity to the Salvation of every man that he be a Papist. 4. All Writers, both Christian and Pagan, distinguish between economics and politics; See the Title-Page of worthy Mr. Baxter's Christian Directory; but there could be no political Society when there were none but Adam and Eve, Husband and Wife, taking Political in this strict and ordinary acception as distinct from economical; certainly a Family as such, is not a City, nor is the Husband as such, Political governor of his Wife: Yet it is certain de fide that Adam and Eve after their Fall were regenerate, and so were a true particular Church, and the first Church on Earth; or else we shall not know where to fix, and be unable to prove ourselves a Church, and that God hath any Church in the World. For holy Faith is the same for kind in all Ages: 
Dr. Abbot's Counterproof against Bishops. c. 4. Heb. 11. Eph. 4.5. 2 Cor. 4.13.  Outward modes and variations according to the Divine Will do not vary the Essence and Unity of Faith. Faith is unchangeably one, or it is not Faith. Regenerate Adam, Eve and Abel, were the first Believers; and Christians in dead, though not in name: And it is Faith by which the Church consisteth, and is to the whole and every part its specifying Form, what the Soul is to the Man; Primum in unoquoque genere est mensura sequentium. 
Mar. 18.20.  5. Where two or three are gathered together in Christ's name, there is he in the midst of them, although there be no human Pastor: And where is Christ the Head, and Saints his Members met together in his name, there is a Church, 
Ambros. l. 2. de Jacob. c. 7.  both name and thing. Ibi Ecclesia, in quae apparet Deus,& loquitur cum Sanctis suis. 6. If Pastor and People make a Church, then Heathens be a Church: For Heathens be People, they are not Brutes; and they have Political Rulers st over them by God, who are a sort of Shepherds and Pastors: Cyrus my Shepherd, Isa. 44.28. And the Learned know, how that in Homer Agamemnon is frequently called Pastor Populi. David, as King, was Political Shepherd over Israel, Psal. 78.70, 71, 72. But certainly Heathens are not a Church; for the Church is holy: It is Coetus Fidelium, the Company of Believers, and not of Infidels. 7. If the Pastor be Political Head and governor of the Church, then the supreme Magistrate is not. But it is certain, that the supreme Magistrate is under God political governor over all the Souls in his Dominion. The contrary Opinion is against the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy, and tendeth to Sedition. 8. If the Pastor be unregenerate, as but too many are, and visibly so; then, according to this new Doctrine, there is no Church particular; one Essential is wanting: It being granted by Mr. Corbet, p. 6. and proved at large by worthy Mr. Baxter, in his fifth Disputation of Right to Sacraments, that it is only the Regenerate who are the Church Univocally; Hypocrites are but Church-Members Equivocally, having a name to live, and are dead; Rev. 3.1. They are but as a wooden Leg, or glass Eyes, or artificial Teeth, or as Tares among the Wheat. Nihil est verè& formaliter tale cum termino diminuente. The Church is not to be defined by Equivocation. There is no relying upon terms equivocal in Points fundamental, such as is the Essence and Unity of the Church. He that is no Member of the Church, certainly cannot be Head. An unholy Man may be a valid Minister, and have authentic and valid Commission to Preach, Baptize, give the Lords Supper; and his Office and Calling may edify the Church: but himself is unholy; and no unholy Man is a Member of the Church univocally. A dead man is no man. There is many a true Church of God on Earth, whose Pastor is Graceless, and the great grief of his Flock. 9. If the Pastor be the governing Part of the Church particular Essentially, then he is Head of the Church: But the Church can have but one Head. Two Heads to one Body is monstrous, like as two Husbands to one Wife is Adultery. As a subordinate Husband is none at all, but an Adulterer; so a subordinate Head of the Church is plainly none; but a Rebel against Christ, and an Underminer of the Church. Christ gave some Apostles, 
Eph. 4.11. and 1. 22, 23. and 5.23.  and some Prophets, and some Evangelists, and some Pastors and Teachers; but no Head but himself. Pastors have an Office and Ministry which none may take on him without due Call; but still they are but Members, Christ is the sole Head. Only his voice is to be heard in the Church, which is a Heavenly School, wherein Christ is sole Master, and all be his Disciples, Pastors ad well as People; thô it is true that Christ doth guide and govern this School outwardly, while Militant in this World, by the Ministry of Pastors ordinarily. Christ only is sufficient for the whole Office of and Head to the whole Church, and every Member thereof, because he is God and Man, 
Mat. 28.20. and 18.20.  graciously present with all his unto the end of the World, to quicken, guide, sanctify, forgive, comfort, protect, and save his whole Body, and every Member thereof; but no mere Man can do the least part hereof: Could he do part, he could consequentially do all; and so Salvation by Christ would be wholly needless. 10. If the Pastor, as such, he an Essential Part of the Church, then when the Pastor dies, the Church dies with him, and is necessary extinct. But this is evidently false. 11. If the Pastor be an essential Part of the Church Particular, then the Universal and Particular Church differ Essentially, as Light and Darkness, Godly and Ungodly; and Cod shall be made the Author of two inconsistent and repugnant Churches; and so we make Him the Author of Sin and Confusion. It is before shewed, that all, both Protestants and Papists do vehemently disavow that there are two Churches specificaily distinct: And the worthy Mr. Baxter in his second Disputation of Right to Sacraments, hath no less than twenty Arguments to one Point; the last is the unanimous judgement of Christendom in all Ages, with no contradiction. The sum of all his Arguments comes to this Do but grant two Churches of Divine Institution differing in kind, 
Disput. of Right to Sacram. p. 193. Ecclesiastical Cases, quest. 56.  and it will infer infinite Proceeding, and so no Church at all How this will stand with the confident Opinion of a late Eminent Writer, who maintains, that there are two Churches of Christ's Institution unalterably, differing Essentially; the Universal Church headed by Christ alone, and Particular Churches headed by their respective Pastors, I see not. To me it seems dangerous contradiction; and yet the Author of it is so confident of his own conceit, that he thinks such as deny it to be tantum non no Men, extremely ignorant and mistaken. As it would be dangerous contradiction to say, our Sovereign Lord Charles the Second is sole King of all England, but the Constable or Maior of Dover is King of Dover; so it is no less dangerous contradiction to say, Christ is sole Head of the whole or Universal Church, but the Pastor of Dover is Head of the Church at Dover. This is the nature of things similar and homogeneous; that the whole Species or kind is in every part or individual: As a drop of Water is as truly Water as the whole Ocean, and one single Man hath as truly the nature of a Man in him as hath all Mankind. And thence it is that the catholic Church doth rightly hold against Pelagius and his followers, that all Mankind sinned in Adam. Quando omnes, 
Beda in Rom. 5.12. out of St. Augustine.  ille unus homo fuerunt. 12. If the Pastor be Political governor of the Church, then the Church is to be called after the Pastors Name. For, as worthy Mr. Baxter noteth, 
Ecclesiastical Cases, quest. 57. 1 Cor. 1.2. 2 Cor. 1.1.  The Body Political is informed and denominated from the governing part, or Head: And if so, then it cannot be said to be the Church of God at Corinth, but the Pastor's Church; not the Church of God at Ephesus, but Timothy's Church. He who gives the name, gives the thing imported by it. And thus the Church is made a mere worldly and human thing, and is denied to be what indeed it is; the Church of God in a heavenly, transcendent and supernatural sense. Ministers do not Baptize in their own Name, 
1 Cor. 1.13.  but in the Name of Christ. It was not Peter, nor Paul, nor Calvin, nor Luther, nor any mere Man that was Crucified for us, and that purchased the Church with his own Blood. 
Cont. Lucifer. prope finem.  If any where thou find men professing Christianity called after the particular names of Men; know them to be the Synagogue of Antichrist, and not the Church of Christ, saith St. Jerom. 13. Finally, It may not be said, that Christ himself is the governing part of the Church; for then he should be a mere Man, and not Christ. To be part, is to be imperfect; but Christ, as such, is not imperfect. As Christ, he is very God, though also Man; but God cannot be part. God is all; the whole Creation makes no addition to God: And tho God be governor of the Church, yet not in a Worldly and Political, but in a Heavenly, Divine, and Transcendent Sense: Not as a part and social Cause with Man, and only Mans Equal and Fellow; but as God, in and by Jesus Christ, infinitely above all Equality and Partnership with Man in causing the Church. It is Faith and Godly Sincerity which gives Name and Being to the Church: And this is not partly from God, and partly from Man; but the whole is from God, and the whole is from Man; but in different respects: From God as Sovereign Efficient, from Man as laudably Instrumental. Now if Christ be not the supreme and Principal Part, the Pastor who pretends to derive his Commission and Authority from him, and to be but a Deputy, cannot be less Principal, and Subordinate Part; for where is no Principal and supreme Part at all, there can be no Subordinate and inferior Part. Non partim gratia,& partim liberum arbitrium, said totum quidem hoc,& totum illa; said ut totum in illo fit,& totum ex illa. Tolle liberum arbitrium, non erit quod salvetur; tolle gratiam, non erit unde salvetur. Opus hoc sine duobus esse non potest, uno à quo fit, altero in quo vel cvi fit. Bernard. de liber. arbitr.& grat. Tutiores vivimus, si demus totum Deo, non autem nos illi ex parte& nobis ex parte committimus. August. de dono Persever. This one error being subverted, a whole Troop of errors issuing from it, tanquam ex equo Trojano, must needs fall with it, according to the old and true Saying; Grant one Absurdity, and a thousand follow. As, 1. That a particular Church by the Divine Law is to consist of no more than can ordinarily meet together in one place all at once, or by turns, for holy Worship, under the personal Inspection of one or more, as their proper Pastor or Pastors. 2. That where are no Bishops Diocesan, as distinct from Presbyters, there is no Church. 3. That Diocesan Episcopacy un-churcheth all the Parish Churches; or to use Mr. Corbet's own words, p. 26. Swallows hundreds of Political Churches that are of Christ's Institution. 4. That Parish-bounds, or which is the same, the bounds of particular Churches outwardly, are not mediately of Divine Institution. 5. That the supreme Civil Power is but an Accident to the Church. 6. That the parts of the Church be similar or dissimilar, more simplo or more compound. 7. That Baptism, as such, entereth into the Universal Church only, and not into a particular Church 8. That a man may be inwardly a Member of the Universal Church, and yet of no particular Church outwardly. 9. That a man duly cast out of the Church Particular, is not thereby cast out of the Church Universal. 10. That the Ministry is before the Church. 11. That there is one Visible Universal Church. 12. That the first Baptized Person was not baptized into a pre-existent Church. 13. That the same man may be a Teacher to Infidels, but not a Pastor. 14. That there can be no particular Church without a Church-covenant mutual between the Pastor and each Member, as distinct from the universal Church covenant by which we become Christians. 15. That Councils and Synods are for Concord, but not for Regiment and Authority. 16. That a Christian Nation or Kingdom, as such, is not a Church, or but so equivocally. 17. That it doth not belong to the People to choose a Minister, but it doth belong to them to choose or consent who shall be their Minister. 18. That the Church is specifically two; a Church which is so materially, but not formally; and a Church which is so both materially and formally: or in other words; that there is an organized and unorganized Church: The former is a Polity, and the other only a Community. 19. That a Pastor beareth no relation to Infidels. 20. That there are particular Churches distinct not only from one another, but from the whole or Universal; and scarce any but Seekers will deny it. 21. That a Minister of the Gospel is but like the Constable of a Town, or Maior of a City, who hath no Office out of his own bounds; out of his own Parish he is no Minister. 22. That Ordination is the same with popular Election, and may therefore be toties, quoties. 23. That such as refuse to join in the particular Combinational Church-covenant, or have not joined in it, though they be Godly, and dwellers in the Parish, may not themselves be admitted to adult particular Church privileges, nor their Infants to Baptism. 24. That it is equivocal speaking to say, e. g. The catholic Church at Hippo, at this or that place. All these, and many more gross errors, are owing to this one Capital error, as their Fountain; that every particular Church by the Divine Law doth consist of two distinct parts Essentially, a guiding and a guided part, as a Political Society. I shall not stand to confute them particularly, or name the Authors of them. error is a foul thing, and naturally we do not love to hear of our errors; so hard is it to be self-denying, and give Glory to God.  
§. 9. It hath been well observed, that the term catholic Church, hath been sometimes used of a particular Church, p. 7. Answ. 
Disput. of Right to Sacram. p. 478.  Worthy Mr. Baxter counts it ridiculous to distinguish between catholic and Universal, and doth not believe that ever one reputed wise and orthodox, did distinguish between them: I suppose himself and all that be of common understanding, at least all that be learned, will aclowledge that it is equally ridiculous to distinguish between whole and Universal, as also between whole and catholic: These three, The Whole, The catholic, The Universal, mean the same in different expressions; the first is English, the second is borrowed from the Greek, and the third from the Latin. Now the Scripture, Grammar, and universal approved Custom warrant it as most proper speaking to say, The whole Church at Jerusalem, Act. 15.22. The whole Church at Corinth, 1 Cor. 14.23. And consequently it must needs be equally proper to say, The Universal, or the catholic Church there. In St. Augustine's time, the common use throughout Christendom, 
De vera relic. c. 7.  was to call every true and Orthodox Church, not only a catholic Church, but the catholic Church at this or that place, and if a man had spoken otherwise he could not have been understood. Tenenda est nobis Christiana Religio& ejus Ecclesiae Communicatio, quae Catholiea est,& Catholica nominatur, non solum a suis, said etiam ab inimicis; velint enim nolintve, ipsi quoque Haeretici& Schismatum alumni quando non cum suis, said cum extraneis loquuntur, Catholicam nihil aliud quam Catholicam vocant: non enim possunt intelligi, nisi hoc eam nomine discernant, quo ab universo orb nuncupatur. If the Reader will be at so much pains, he may see in Dr. R. Abbot's Counter-proof against Dr. Bishop, c. 4. a multitude of citations out of the Ancients to this purpose: lo Papa Ecclesiae Catholicae urbis Romae. 
lo. Epist. 12 Sacrat. histor. l. 3. c. 13.  Constantinus Catholicae Alexandrinorum Ecclesiae; with many more. Sozomen relates, lib. 7. c. 4. that Theodosius the Emperour made a Law, ut illorum duntaxat Ecclesia diceretur Catholica, qui Trinitatem divinam aequali honore colerent; qui diversum sentirent haereticos appellandos, ignominia notandos esse,& supplicio afficiendos. Suppose we the particular Church at Corinth, or any other particular Church, this may be considered two ways: 1. As in itself, 
Mr. Abbot against Churchforsakers. §. 10.  and so it is a Church, and the Body of Christ, and is so called by the Holy Ghost, 1 Cor. 12.27. And being Christs body, it must needs be Whole, catholic, and Universal: for Christ cannot have a half-body, nor a dead body, nor any lifeless, rotten or putrid members. But all the Members of Christ have heavenly life in them, they be all holy in measure. 2. With reference to the rest of the Church, both militant and triumphant, and so it is but a part of the universal Church. But then it is a similar part, the nature whereof is that the whole species is in every individual. 
Sicut videmus, quod in uno bomine est una anima& unum Corpus,& tamen sunt diversa membra ipsius: ita Ecclesia Catholica est unum Corpus,& habet diversa membra, anima autem quae hoc corpus vivisicat, est Spiritus Sanctus: Aquin. in Expos. Symb. Apost.  One and the same thing cannot in the same respects be whole and part, one and many; but in different respects it may. There is one holy catholic or universal Church, comprising the Elect in all Ages, either as called or to be called. This universal Church is inwardly but one, outwardly it is not one but many. So that there is inwardly, mystically, and invisibly but one Church of God, part whereof is triumphant, and part is militant: but outwardly, locally, and visibly there are many distinct particular Churches; distinct I say from one another, but not from the whole or universal. For as where there are no parts there can be no whole, no members no body: so the whole as distinct from all the parts is a mere notion or chimera. And as all are not Israel that are of Israel; so all are not the Church which are of it. But it is only the Godly which are the Church and Spouse of Christ. In the natural and civil body there are dissimilar and similar parts, there is mixture and composition: but in the heavenly body of Christ, which is wholly supernatural, and consisteth by Faith, there is no dissimilitude, deceit, mixture, composition, and double-mindedness: 
Gal. 3.26, 27, 28. Col. 3.11.  but they be all one in Christ Jesus, they be all by Adoption Children of God, and be like unto him in Holiness, and have their conversation in Simplicity and godly Sincerity, 2 Cor. 1.12.  
§. 10. The same Church may be a true and á false Chnrch in different respects, p. 33. Answ. As the same Church cannot be both saved and damned, so it cannot be both true and false; if it be a true Church, it is in no respect false; if it be a false Church, 
Falsa Ecclesia falso dicitur Ecclefia, Chamier. Pa●strat. Cathol. tom. 5. l. 1. c. 2.§ 1.  it is not true in any respect. A true Church may have many Spots, errors, Desects and Deformities, and yet may not be said to be a false Church because of these. As a true and living man may not be said to be a Brute and no Man, because of some natural defects and deformities, or of Sickness and Distempers. And a salse Church may have many good things in it, and yet it may not be said to be a true Church in respect thereof; as a Corps may not be said to be a true man, though there be the outward Figure. Truth and falsehood, holiness and unholiness do mutually expel each other. Suppose a true Church, and you suppose it truly Godly, and so must needs be saved. And can the same be in other respects ungodly and damned?  
§. 11. I doubt not but a man may be truly godly, and yet ignorantly live in a course of idolatry, p. 208, 209. Answ. A godly Idolater is as very a contradiction and impossible as a loyal Traitor, or a chast Adulteress. There can no one instance be given in all the Scripture of a godly man who did live in the constant practise of the Sin of Idolatry, known or unknown, in any kind or degree. God's Word is plain; Idolaters so living and dying cannot be saved. Rev. 21.8.& 22.15. Eph. 5.5. Gal. 5.19, 20, 21. 1 Cor. 6.9, 10. Go a hairs breadth from this Standard, and we make a new Bible. Two things must be fast held, or Divinity is subverted: 1. That it will not stand with true Godliness to live in the ordinary practise of the least known Sin with love and allowance. 2. That it will not stand with true Godliness to live in the ordinary practise of Idolatry, though unknown. By Idolatry is meant, the Adoration, Love, Delight in, Fear, and Worship of that as God, which is not God; whether it be by the Heart inwardly, or by the Body outwardly. No degree of Idolatry, no kind of Idolatry can be in a Godly Man ordinarily, thô not known. The proof lies on their part which affirm it, which can never be made out from Scripture, and all other proof is too short, it is not proof but falsehood. There may be in a Godly Man much unperceived error and Superstition, but not Idolatry ordinarily. All Idolatry is Sin, but all Sin is not Idolatry. So all Idolatry is error and Superstition; but all error and Superstition is not Idolatry; this is giving Divine Honour to that which is not God, and is made a mark of God's vengeance and severity against the ungodly. 
Leydens Synops. pure. Theol. Disput. 19.§. 3.  Rom. 1.21, 22, 23, 24, 25. Non omnis superstitiosus est proprie idololatra, etsi omnis idololatra sit superstitiosus: I will make answer to the most principal Objections.  
Obj. 1. There is Covetousness in some degree in the Godly, and Covetousness is Idolatry.  
Answ. Covetousness known and loved is Idolatry, and Covetousness not known where it reigns and is joined with a course of impenitency is Idolatry; and so indeed is every sin, as joined with unholiness and impenitency Idolatry, and a breach of the first Commandment; and this is the state and case of all the ungodly. But in every godly man there is a sincere hatred of Covetousness and of all other sin, and a sincere love to God, and where is sincere Love to God and Hatred of Sin, there is no degree of Idolatry. Sin as in itself is the same, but as it is in the Godly, it is mortified, hated, abandoned, and detested sincerely, though but imperfectly: but in all the Ungodly sin is loved, unmortified and idolized, and so it differs not in degree but in kind from sin as it is in the godly. So that there is no tincture, or degree of idolatrous Covetousness in any Godly man ordinarily.  
Obj. 2. Many may be guilty of Idolatry of mere simplicity and ignorance; did they know, they would not do it.  
Answ. 
1 Tim. 1.13.  The same may be said of Paul before his Conversion, and of the Murderers of Christ; 
1 Cor. 2.8. Act. 3.17.19.  they did what they did ignorantly, had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory. And yet that is no excuse: It may excuse a tanto, a toto it cannot. Without doubt had they died without sound Conversion, they had perished. Where ignorance reigns it is damnable, and where is the ordinary practise of Idolatry, 
Isa. 27.11. Hos. 4.6. Luk. 12.48.  there ignorance reigns. The man doth things worthy of stripes, and therefore shall be beaten, though he did not known.  
Obj. 3. The Church of Rome is a Church in such sort as were the ten Tribes in the time of Elias.  
Answ. God had his seven thousand then which had not bowed the knee to Baal. That doth intimate that if they had bowed the knee to Baal, they had been Baalites indeed, and no sincere Worshippers of God. God may have his thousands in Popish Countries, but then they are not idolatrous Papists, but sincere detesters of Popish Idolatry, as good Obadiah in the Family of idolatrous Ahab and Jezabel, as good Abijah in the Family of his idolatrous Father Jerboam, as Lot in Sodom, and the Holy Worshippers in Israel, who neither kissed the Calves, nor bowed to Baal; but kept themselves pure from all Idolatry, though not from all error and defilement.  
Obj. 4. An adulterous Wife not divorced, may yet bring forth legitimate Children to her Husband.  
Answ. But not if she refuse to come at him, and live separate from him. What Children she bears then, are not legitimate but illegitimate, and born in adultery.  
Obj. 5. The Papists are guilty of Idolatry materially, but not formally, as Jacob was guily of Fornication in lying with Leah whom he thought to be Rachel, materially though not formally; and as many of the godly anciently were guilty of adultery materially, though not formally, in having many Wives.  
Answ. There is no such distincton of Sin materially and formally. There are many actions of wicked men materially good, but for want of holy Principles and Ends they are not adequately good. But there can be nothing truly sinful, but it is adequately sinful. For bonum non oritur nisi ex causis integris, malum ex quolibet defectu. mere matter and form as such is not sin. But all sin is deformity, and an abuse of matter. To say that sin is a material thing, is to make God the author of it. For every material thing is good for something, is useful and ferviceable to some good end, and so God must needs be author of it, because he is necessary though freely the author of all good. But sin is not at all good, it is not ordinable to any good end, it is no way eligible, it is worse than nothing. Thô God see it good to permit sin, yet it is with sincere abhorrence of it, and as knowing that no good can possibly come of sin as from itself. Those then who in excuse of the Papists or others make them to be guilty of Idolatry, Fornication, or other sin materially but not formally, do unavoidably lay these Sins at Gods door, by implying that Idolatry, Adultery, &c. are material and useful things, and then God must needs be author of them, which is to blaspheme. The utmost that can be made of Jacobs fact with Leah, and the custom in those times of having many Wives, is only this, that they finned therein. If this be admitted, it will no way warrant the Conclusion, That therefore a man may be godly, and yet live in the ordinary practise of Idolatry. Certainly all sin is not Idolatry, though all Idolatry be sin.  
Obj. 6. Papists may be saved as Christians, though not as Papists.  
Answ. But if they be damned as Papistical Idolaters, they then cannot be saved.  
Obj. 7. They hold the foundation directly, and do but overturn it by consequence.  
Answ. The Question is not how they overturn it, but whether they do at all overturn it? It mattereth not how a man murdered himself, if indeed he be murdered, and was murdered by himself: there is then no hope of his recovery to life, and he must needs be a murderer; whether he murdered himself directly or not, doth not alter the case. Suppose them Papists, and you suppose them to be Idolaters, and if the ordinary practise of Idolatry doth not overturn the foundation, nothing doth. The mongrels in the time of Elias did not directly deny the God of Israel, but they did halt between God and Baal. And so do Papists. We do not deny them the Name of a Church; but then they are an Idolatrous Church. An Adulterous Wise is not no Wife: but she is worse than a mere Harlot.  
Obj. 8. Their Baptism and Ministry is valid.  
Answ. That may be, and yet they may be ungodly. All that baptize and are baptized are not Godly. Hophni and Phineas were Priests of the Lord, and yet Sons of Belial. Judas was an Apostle and yet unholy, and called by Christ a Devil.  
Obj. 9. A Godly man may hold an error in itself against the Foundation.  
Answ. But he cannot make a God of his error, for then it is not error but a Lust or Idol set up in his heart against God, which is a transcendent 'vice, and where it is ordinary or frequent must needs expel all true Grace and Godliness.  
Obj. 10. There are degrees of Idolatry.  
Answ. The least degree hereof is Treason against God, a going a Whoring from him, and a breach of the first Commandment, and so is contrary to sincere Godliness, Repentance, and Mortification, where it is frequent and customary. Hos. 14.8. Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with Idols?  
Obj. 11. Protestants be as in a sound Ship well balanced and tackled, Papists be as in an old rotten Ship, full of Leaks.  
Answ. The Church and so the Ship is mystically but one. While Christ is in the Ship, all in it are safe and secure: but Christ can suffer no Idolatry in his Church. And therefore Papists are not in the Ship with Christ and his Holy catholic Church, but they have cast themselves out by Idolatry; and we cry to them, and offer them our best help for their escape, and they choose rather to drown and perish in their Idolatry, than come into the Ship by Repentance, and be one with Christ and the catholic Church.  
Obj. 12. Salvation may be with them, though more difficultly and rarely.  
Answ. Salvation is rare and difficult with us. Many are called, and but few chosen. To suppose Salvation an easy matter, is licentious Doctrine.  
Obj. 13. It is not simply easy with us, but comparatively it is more easy with us than with them.  
Answ. That cannot be more easy, which is wholly impossible without Christ, and is the most rare and precious thing in the world, and no difficulty may compare with it, because of mans weakness through Original Sin. The love of Christ cannot confist with the love of Sin ordinarily. And where is ordinarily Idolatry, there is ordinarily the love of Sin.  
Obj. 14. Our first Reformers did not make a new Church, but only reform the old.  
Answ. Our first Reformers in departing from Idolatry, of Ungodly became Godly. They did put away their Idolatrous and Unholy Hearts and Lives, and became new Creatures and Sincere Worshippers of God. But had there been no Idolatry in the Church of Rome, there had been no ground for their Reformation. Cum nulla sit consensio Templi Dei cum Idolis, 
Synops. pure. Theolog. Disput. 19.§. 32.  merito ab Ecclesia Roman● Secessionem fecerunt Orthodoxi, obtemperante● Patris mandato. 2 Cor. 6.16, 17. No Christian must pretend Holiness against Unity and Peace, and every tender Conscience should be as tender of Church-divisions and real Schisms, as of Drunkenness, Whoredom, or such other enormous Crimes. Mr. Baxter's Reas. of the Christian relic. p. 485. Of necessity there must be some Standard of Church-unity. There can be no Standard but this; Where is Christ graciously present with his People in holy Worship, and no Idolatry, no peril of Salvation, there is safety: To go from such a Church under pretence of more purity and Reformation, is to lay a foundation for infinite Proceeding, and endless Church-divisions and Desolations. We cannot be more holy than Christ; while he by Faith stays with a People, well may we. In going from the Unity of the Church, we go from Life Eternal.  
Obj. 15. Though there be no Idolatry, yet if any the least Sin be imposed, that is just ground of Separation.  
Ans. The imposing of the least known Sin is Idolatry on his part that imposeth it, and consent unto any the least known Sin is Idolatry on his part that knowingly consenteth. But set aside the Idolatry of the Church of Rome, and there is nothing in the Popish Worship but what is tolerable at least for Peace sake. There is not any Church on Earth so pure and reformed, but still it is capable of being more pure and reformed: for sinless perfection is not to be attained in this life. And do but suppose the Church of Rome to be free from Idolatry, and of necessity it is a true and godly Church of Christ, from which no man may separate. Separation from a true and godly Church of Christ, is contrary to Charity: and all Religion without Charity is nothing worth before God. 
1 Cor. 13.  If any shall think me uncharitable, I wish them to consider, that that is no Charity, which destroys itself and those whom it seeks to save. We by holding an Idolatrous Papist may be saved, are condemned out of our own mouth, as guilty of overturning two Articles of Faith, The Holy catholic Church, The Communion of Saints. In going from any one part of Christ's Church, we consequentially go from the whole, and so are Excommunicate from Christ the Head, and his whole Body Mystical the Church, by our own Schismatical and Saint-hating Spirit: as the Hand cut off from the Arm is cut off from the whole Body, and none but God the Author of Life can restore it. And the Papists by relying on our concession rely upon a broken Reed. I must confess that this is one thing which hath been a great stay to me against the Arguments of Non-conformists against the across, Surplice, and Kneeling; and the Commonprayer Service. If 〈◇〉 Arguments prove any thing,( I speak as to 〈◇〉 Communion) to my understanding they prove more than they would have them to prove; and that is, a constant course of Idolatry in all the comforming Ministers and People, from the time of King Edward the Sixth to this present moment; and if those who live in the constant practise of Idolatry can be truly godly; for my part it is beyond me, and I think beyond any other man to prove, that there is any difference between Godly and Ungodly. Let what will be said in excuse of Christian Idolaters, the same with advantage may be said for Heathen Idolaters.  
§. 12. The Papists do not take the Bread to be the Deity, nor to be he that is God, save only according to his human Body, into which they believe the Bread is changed, and so worship it as our Lord's Body; or to express it in the most favourable sense, they worship him as there present in his proper Body, and withal worship the Bread supposed to be that Body. p. 192. Answ. The intention of the Papists is not to worship the mere Body of Christ as in itself; for as so taken it is but a Creature, and to give divine Honour to it is Idolatry. But if they act according to their Principles, they do then suppose that after the words of Consecration, the Bread is not Bread, but Jesus Christ himself as present there in Body. And as Christ they adore it. They do not in the Mystery of Transubstantion perform any worship at all to Christ, but they worship the Bread as supposing it to be Christ himself there present in Body. They do not worship Christ as there present in Body; that only did the Apostles at the first Institution, when Christ himself as to his human Nature was present to their eyes. To worship Christ in his Body is but what all the Saints in Heaven and Earth do; but to imagine a false Christ, and worship that as Christ which really is not, is Idolatry. If the Bread be not Bread, but Christ himself there present in Body, then neither the Papists nor we be in error, but God only shall be in fault, as imposing the grossest delusion upon men, in obliging us to believe things contrary to common sense. We may and do believe things above sense, but no man can believe things contrary to sense, because sense is of God. So that if sense as such deceive, it is God, who is the Author of sense, upon whom the deceit must lye: and consequently, if the Papists Opinion should hold true, that the Bread is not Bread, all they gain by it is only this, that in the end God shall not be himself, but an omnipotent Satan and the grand Deceiver of all. But if indeed the Bread be very Bread, as it is infallibly certain that it is; then the Papists by their own confession are guilty of the greatest and vilest Idolatry that ever was. According to their own Principle they make their Maker, and then kill and eat him; they are also makers of Christ as Man, and Man-killers, and Man-eaters. So many places as this Mystery is acted in, there are so many false Christs. And so often as they do this abomination, so often they make and unmake Christ. And such a heap of Blasphemies, Idolatries, Contradictions, Absurdities, Impossibilities, and Impieties are contained in this one piece of darkness, that to be only lukewarm against them is to be abominable. But if they do not practise according to their Principle, they are then Hypocrites, and stand anathematized by their own Trent-Council, which accurseth all those who do not adore with supreme Worship what we believe, know, and are sure is Bread: Qui Sacramentum hoc latriae cultu, 
Sess. 3. Can. 6.  etiam externo, adorandum aut in Processionibus circumgestandum, aut publicè ut adoretur proponendum esse negant.  
§. 13. Our Faith doth not rest simply and finally, but mediately on Christ, as he is our Mediator God-man. Mediation is not necessary to the Godhead. Christ's Mediatory Power and Glory as God-man, is different from his natural and essential Power and Glory. And therefore he is worshipped with Divine Worship, not as Mediator, but as God: p. 198, 199. Answ. Christ is Mediator, and as Mediator he is God, though also Man: Yet as Mediator he is God, and therefore our Faith may and doth rest simply and finally upon him as Mediator. Ye believe in God, believe also in me. Joh. 14.1. He is not only the Way, but also the Truth, and the Life, v. 6. And what may we rest our Faith on, if not upon him who as Mediator is Truth itself, and cannot lye? Christ is the way to Christ, and God is the way to God. Christ as such is the first and the last, the beginning and the end; Rev. 22.13. In the Divine Being we may distinguish, 1. The Divine Essence. 2. The three Divine Persons. 3. The Divine Will as from Eternity purposed in time to create the World, to permit the Fall; that Christ the second Person in Trinity, shall become Man, and ransom all the Elect by his Blood, and be Head over all things to the Church. Now the two former are simply necessary, and had been for ever though the World had not been: but it was God's free pleasure to make the World, and had he so pleased, we had never been. But supposing the Divine Will from Everlasting so and so purposed, the work of Redemption cannot but be, and the Glory of Christ as Mediator is the Essential Glory of God as truly as is the divine Will of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Either the Mediator as such is God, or he is not: If yea, then Divine Honour must needs be due unto him, as he is Mediator. If not, then Christ is but a mere Man, which is Arrianism and Blasphemy. The Humanity of Christ is not a part of Christ; for that will infer his Deity to be the other part. But the Deity cannot be a part, for then God should be imperfect, and beholding to the Humanity for Perfection, which cannot be. The Humanity makes no addition to the Deity, yet is not Christ Mediator only as God, nor only as Man, but as Christ very God and Man. And I conceive it may truly be said, that the Flesh and Humanity of Christ is omnipresent to the Faith of his People, not as in itself, but as it is the Flesh of him who is very God, and is so apprehended by our Faith. So that it is not the bare hypostatical Union as such, nor the exalted Majesty of Christ as such, which renders the Flesh of Christ omnipresent and ubiquitary, but the hypostatical Union as apprehended by Faith to him who so apprehendeth. Christ is the same as in himself, but he is not the same to Infidels and to Believers. To the former he is made a Liar and not Christ through their own Unbelief. To the latter he is very Christ, 
1 Joh. 5.10  because of their Faith: and there being no parts in Christ, if I may so speak, both totus Christus, and totum Christi, is every where present to the Faith of the godly. The Lutherans( as they are called) do soundly aclowledge, 
Zanch. Indic. de dissid. in. coen. Dom. Dr. Field of the Church. b. 2. c. 35. Hooker's Ecclesiast. pol. b. 5. practise of Piety. p. 11.  that if an Infidel should receive the Lord's Supper, it would not be the Lord's Supper to him, nor would Christ's Flesh be really present to him. And the Calvinists( as they are called) do hold, that the Flesh of Christ is really and not imaginarily partaked of by the Faithful in the Sacrament, and is really present to all their Souls, and is heavenly and spiritual nourishment to them through Faith: which could not be if the Flesh of Christ were not really omnipresent to our Faith; so as it is not to Infidels. But I hearty wish this Doctrine of Mr. Corbet's may die and spread no further, that the Mediator is not to be worshipped with Divine Worship as Mediator, and that Mediation is not necessary to the God-head. For it is consequentially to make the Mediator as such a mere Man, and not God and Man: and it is also to say, It is not necessary that God be the Creator, the governor, and upholder of all things, the Portion of his People in Christ Eternally, and the Avenger of all Wickedness; and that the Divine Will be itself Eternally.  
§. 14. I hold it lawful and expedient, that the Elders or Pastors of a particular Church should statedly defer to one that is ablest among them, a guiding power over them, in Ordination and Discipline, and other Church affairs. I hold it not unfit that this person should for distinctions sake have the Title of Bishop given him, thô he be not of an essentially different Order from the rest of the Pastors, but only of a superior Degree in the same holy Order. p. 135. Answ. I do only argue ex Concessis: They who grant the Bishop to be a different degree from ordinary Presbyters, and to have a certain Office as Bishop distinct from that of Presbyters, cannot in reason deny him to be a different Order. For Order requires that each one keep him to his proper Office; and here the word Degree hath a special meaning, and is to be construed secundum subjectam materiam. The Deacons Office is called a Degree, 1 Tim. 3.13. yet all confess this to be a different Order from Presbyters. We are not to be determined by School-Divinity and human Sophistry, wherein consisteth the difference between an holy Order, and an holy Degree of men, in the Church. Gods Word, and Principles of Faith and Piety, and the evidence of the thing itself, do not suggest any such nice distinction between Order and Degree. As in Heraldry, an Esquire, a Knight, a Baronet, an Earl, a Duke be different Orders and Degrees of Honour; and as in military Affairs, the Office of a Lieutenant, a Captain, a mayor, a colonel, be different Degrees, places of trust, ad Orders of men in the Army; so in the Church the Deacon, the Presbyter, and the Bishop being granted to be three distinct Offices and degrees, I see not how they can be denied to be three distinct Orders. Finally, if Bishops and Presbyters be truly godly, self-denying, and Ensamples to the Flock, the Church will be in flourishing Condition: but if either be ungodly, and much more if both be so, it will be to the damage of the Church. Some may think the way of Church-government as in the foreign Churches where are no Bishops, to be best: and others may think the way by Bishops to be best. And both these may retain their different Opinions, and live in love and peace. But as for those on one hand which say, No Diocesan Bishops, no Church; and for those on the other hand which say, Where are Diocesan Bishops, there all the Parish-Churches are unchurched and swallowed: both these Principles seem to me to led to Infidelity. Did such men as Cranmer, Ridley, Hooper, Latimer, Farrar, Martyrs; and Jewel, Grindal, Abbot, Pilkington, Lake, Morton, Hall, Davenant, Brownrigg, Babington, Usher, Downam, &c. unchurch and swallow all the Parish-Churches, or particular Churches of Christs institution? No doubt but they were men, an● Children of Adam, as all are, and so the● must needs have their errors and impe● sections. But we have great reason to thin● they were godly men, and many of the●● eminently so. But if we suppose men eminently godly to live in the ordinary practic of such errors as do unchurch and swallow all the Churches of Christs institution, quantum in se, what more can we say of ungodly men, and those who are most ungodly yea of the Devil himself? He doth not, h● cannot devour all the Churches of Christ institution, it is not in his Power to do i● but quantum in se he doth it. 
1 Pet. 5.8.  And if good and holy men do so too, I cannot see wh●● difference there is between them and Sata● light and darkness, Christ and Belial? 〈◇〉 how dangerous a thing is Error, which lead● eth men of such eminent worth and pie●● into such Principles as unavoidably led 〈◇〉 Infidelity, and to contend for them as truth 〈◇〉 Certainly if Parish-bounds be not of divin● institution, there can be no such thing a Parish-Churches of divine institution; 〈◇〉 Parish-Churches no particular Churches no particular Churches as parts, no catholic or universal Church as whole; no C●● tholick Church no Creed, no Creed no God If God by Divine Institution hath set no ●ounds to the Ministry of this or that man, and is then a boundless man, thus every Pastor of a single or particular Church is made a Pope, the whole world is turned into one Parish or pastoral Charge, and all distinction of Churches outwardly is destroyed. And therefore the way of differencing Churches from one another( not by the universal Church covenant, which establisheth meet local limits and Church-bounds as necessary ex natura rei to the being and distinction of particular Churches in holy unity: but) by an human covenant, mutual between the Pastor and each member as distinct from the universal Church-covenant, and what is contained therein, is certainly in itself against the essence and unity of Christs Church, whatever by one or other shall be said in defence of it. But then it is to be adverted that parish-bounds are of divine institution not immediately, but mediately: and that as the Sabbath so parish-bounds were made for men, and not men for them; and that the health, prosperity, and Salvation of the Soul is the supreme law, unto which Parish-bounds and all human constitutions must give place.   

Of Grace and Free-will against some gre●● mistakes of the late very reverend M●● John Corbet.  
Sect. 1. I Will first set down what I take to b●● the plain Sum of the truth in these points, and it is this: That all good is from God, and all sin is from ourselves: Th●● there is in all men Free-will, which is sufficient to Silence them out of their own mou●●● and leave them without excuse; but is n● sufficient for faith and perseverance in a●● without supernatural grace: That nothing can come to pass in time, unless God sh●● omnipotently cause it if good; or permit and not prevent it if sinful: That God doth no● will sin; yet doth he willingly permit an● not hinder it: That of faith and perseverance the whole is from God, and the whole is from man, but in different respects; from God as sovereign efficient, from man as laudably instrumental: That what God is 〈◇〉 any one instant that he is eternally, in mercy to Abraham, Moses, and the rest of the elect in Christ through faith and perseverance, both which are the gift of God; and in severity to Cain, Judas, and the rest of the non-elect dying in their sins: That none can find out the Almighty unto perfection, yet so much as is needful to salvation is plainly contained in the Scripture to the Faith of Gods people, and is infallibly true. All this ●o my understanding Mr. Corbet doth own ●nd agree to, but he seems to pull it all down ●y inconsistent and contrary errors. Against which I writ, not against him, whom I make no doubt to be a blessed Saint in Hea●en. The amicable, sincere, and seasonable defence of the Truth against his or any other good mans mistakes, ought not to offend any. I shall next set down sundry things out of his Humble Endeavour, and adjoin brief Animadversions on them.  
Sect. 2. Surely it is too high presumption for man to say, that God cannot decree or firmly will that human act, which is in part suspended on mans will, and put under his undetermined liberty. pag. 2. Animad. It is sober Truth to say, that either he whole of the act is put under mans will, or no part. For there is the same reason of the parts and the whole. Repentance is not ●n part the work of God, and in part the work of man, but he whole of it from first to last ●s the work of man by gracious sovereign Causation and Efficiency from God. To ●scribe but part to God, and part to Man, ●s to render God imperfect, and man a social cause and equal with God. Miserentis est Dei, ut totum Deo detur. August. E● chir. c. 32. Nullatenus sinimus imo salub●● ter prohibemus, tam in nostra fide quam in 〈◇〉 stro opere tanquam nostrum nobis aliquid ve●● dicare. Fulgent. ad Mon. l. 1.  
Sect. 3. Gods decree is not necessary 〈◇〉 an event, by way of Causation. It is u● denyable, that God can certainly foreknow that a man will do that which he ha● power not to do, p. 2, 3. Animad. G● cannot decree a Sinful event, but his decr● is necessary to every holy and good even otherwise he should not be the Author 〈◇〉 all good, and all things would be ruled b● the Idol luck and chance. 
Armin adv. Perkins. p. 136.  Supposing God purpose to permit the fall of the Angel and Gods prescience thereof, their fall mu●● needs be infallibly future, and cannot but b● But this hindereth not but that with respect 〈◇〉 their will which was free, and lest to act with out constraint, their fall was evitable, and the● perseverance possible. God can indeed foreknow that a man will do that which he hat● power not to do: but he could not know it did he not know his own purpose to permit and not prevent the doing thereof. Dr. Field of the Church. b. 3. c. 23.  
Sect. 4. It is the perfection of the Divine will to choose all that is eligible, o● fittest to come to pass. p. 4. An. if so, then of necessity God must choose all both Angels and men, or none at all. For as in themselves they be all equal, no one is more eligible than another. But where all are chosen, and none are refused, there is no Election at all. This then hath in it the sum of Pelagianism, that we by our merits and goodness do first make ourselves eligible and lovely, and then God doth choose and love us. But Christ saith, Ye have not chosen me, bu I have chosen you, Joh. 15.16. Gratia non invenit, said efficit merita. Non eligit bonos, said quos elegit, facit bonos. Beda in loc. God hath chosen us in Christ before the Foundation of the World, not because we were Holy, but that we might be Holy, Eph. 1.4. Contra istam veritatis tam claram tubam quis homo sobriae vigilantisque fidei voces ullas admittat humanas? August. de dono persever. c. 7.  
Sect. 5. It is to be noted, 
Subtilis ista, inter non velle,& noll. distinctio& differentia prorsus est inanis, ac falsa: vel obscura. Danaeus in Lombard. lib. 1. Distinct. 46. ad cap. 14.  that God doth not Will whatsoever he doth not Nill. Between Volition and Nolition there is a middle thing, viz. Non-volition. p. 5. An. This will infer God to be Epicurean God, regardless and indifferent whether men be Holy or Unholy, saved or damned. Even as the learned Baronius in metaphies. p. 144. says flatly, that when God doth concur with man in Generation indifferents est tam ad producendam aquilam quam hominem. A horrible opinion!  
Sect. 6. God doth not simply Nill the existence of Sin. Ibid. An. God as Lawgiver must needs absolutely and simply hate and Nill all Sin, otherwise he is not Sincere. If he do but in part Nill it, then he must needs in part Will it, and as the worthy Mr. Baxter truly saith, What God wills he loves. Methodus, par. 3. p. 276. And if God do in part love Sin, he must needs wholly love it, for he can have no parts. If he do at all love Sin he is Unholy, and so not himself eternally. God doth simply nill all that he doth nill, and simply will all tht he doth will; otherwise there is deceit and composition in God, and it cannot be said that he is Truth itself, and in him is no falsehood at all; he is light, and in him is no darkness at all. 1 Joh. 1.5. Though God do not will sin, he simply wills his own permission of it.  
Sect. 7. To permit is not to act, and not to act is nothing, p. 6. An. Gods permission of Sin is a Truth and no lye, and Truth is not nothing. If Truth as such be nothing, then God is nothing, for he is Truth is self. Joh. 14.6. God doth permit Sin willingly and not by constraint, and Gods will must needs be eternally active, and in no instant idle and unactive. God is essentially purus actus& potentia semper agens. Baxter, Methodus, par. 1. p. 8. God doth permit Sin knowingly, and all Gods knowledge is active, 
Solus Deus simplex est, in quo nibil in potentia, said in actu omnia, imo ipse purus, primus, medius, ultimus actus. Scalig. Exer. 6. Sect. 2.  vital, and practical. He doth permit Sin in eternal Mercy to the Elect, and in eternal Severity to the Non-elect, both Angels and Men. But none will say, that eternal Mercy and Severity are nothing. Psal. 103.17. Rom. 11.22.& 9.11, 12, 13. 2 Tim. 1.9. Eph. 1.4.  
Sect. 8. God may be said to will or purpose a permission, as he wills or purposeth the limiting of his restraining agency, and as this will and purpose is also terminated on the consequents of the things permitted, and the disposal thereof by his Providence. p. 7. Anim. God is eternally a free agent, and can be under no restraint. Nor can his will be terminated on consequents without him. For that will infer a Creature without a Creator, and that the Creature which is but in time, is a rock and term for the divine Will which is from Everlasting, to rest and be terminated upon; and so the divine Will shall nor be independent, but dependant upon the Creature for his Name and being eternally, which to say is vel delirare vel blasphemare, Baxter. Methodus, par. 3. p. 313.  
Sect. 9. Though God decree no mans Sin, yet he may decree the effect of Sin. p. 7. Anim. God cannot decree the Effect, but he must needs decree the Cause. And if Sin be the cause, the effect cannot be good. For an evil Fountain cannot fend forth sweet Streams, and darkness can never produce light. No good can possibly come of Sin, as from itself: but what good doth ensue upon Sin is to be ascribed to Gods Grace, and not to Sin. No man may do evil, that good may come, Rom. 3.8. If we may not argue from the effect to the cause, it is then impossible to prove the being of God. Where Sin hath abounded God can make his Grace much more to abound, Rom. 5.20. But the inseparable effect of Sin itself is final impenitency and desperation, if Grace prevent not. And therefore if God decree the effect of Sin, he is necessary the omnipotent Author of Sin.  
Sect. 10. God decrees his own Concourse to the Act in its general nature, but not as morally specified. p. 7. Any Neque genus, neque species omnino existit nisi in individuo. Baxt. Methodus, par. 1. p. 311. If general and special be not from God, then nothing at all is from God, and there is no such thing as general and special, and consequently no difference between a Man and a Brute. A Man and a Brute are both Creatures in the general, in this is no difference: but then they are Creatures of a different kind. This is most plain and real truth; and if truth as such be not from God, then he is not Truth itself, and eternally self-existent.  
Sect. 11. Eternal Futurition is but ens rationis, and an extrinsic denomination of the divine Mind as conceiving it. p. 8. Anim. There can be no extrinsic denomination in God, but all in God is God, either the divine Essence, or a divine Person, or the divine Will as eternally relative in mercy to the Elect, and in severity to the Non-elect. Eternal Futurition is not ens rationis, but it is a ruth; and truth as such is matter of Faith, and is real as God is real. We believe and know the Truth, 1 Tim. 4.3. Futurity is not nothing, or only conceit, as a Man in the Moon; but it is the divine Being as eternally to come. Rev. 1.8. God is eternally past, eternally present, and eternally to come; and yet but one divine Essence, and one divine Eternity, distinctly conceived according to truth. What is future, as such, is not past, nor present, but future it is, otherwise Gods Prescience is a lye, and all the Articles of our Faith are made voided, because they all rest and lean upon this, the truth of God's Being. But God is not, if he be not Eternally future, the Portion of his People, and eternal Burnings against the wicked. Indeed Atheists, Iufidels and Epicures laugh at eternal futurity, as a Dream or Notion; Ede, bibe, lude, post mortem nulla voluptas. But to true Believers things eternally future are all in all: 2 Cor. 4.17. Mat. 25.46. 2 Thess. 1 10. Mr. Baxter's Divine Life, p. 30.  
Sect. 12. That a thing will be, sufficeth to the truth of its futurity, without consideration from what Cause it will be. p. 8. Anim. Then it is enough that God knows there will be Creatures in time, some animate, some inanimate; some rational, some irrational; some holy and saved, some unholy and damned; though he be ignorant and wholly unconcerned from what Cause they will be and come to pass. And thus God is stripped of his Wisdom, and the Counsel of his own Will eternally, and Fortune is set up in his room, cujus Numine omnia temerè fiant: Luther. de serve. Arbitr. c. 143.  
Sect. 13. It is most certain, that God doth terminate his efficient Power and Will on a qualified Subject: p. 10. Anim. The contrary is most certain. What qualification was there in the Creature antecedent to the efficient Power and Will of the Creator? Had God failed, had he wanted a sure term and bottom to rest and terminate himself upon, had he not made the World, had he prevented the entrance of Sin into the World, had he chosen Cain, and not Abel? Did Mr. Corbet by his Merits and good Qualities from Everlasting prevent God, and oblige God to create, redeem, sanctify, and glorify him of debt, and not of Grace? Laborant homines invenire in nostra voluntate, quid boni sit nostrum, quod nobis non sit ex Deo,& quomodo inveniri posset ignoro. August. de peccat. merit.& remiss. l. 2. c. 18.  
Sect. 14. mere Non-election is no Decree. p. 11. Anim. It is not a Decree distinct from another Divine Decree, for God's Decree is only one as himself is one. His Decree is his Will to convert Abel and not Cain, to choose Jacob and not Esau. So that there is the same Will of God in both, though not alike related to both. Where all are elected, and none rejected, there is no election at all.  
Sect. 15. There is no positive Decree that few shall be converted, only the Conversion of the greater number is not decreed. p. 12. Anim. There is no Decree in God's breast against the Conversion and Salvation of any. Nemini Deus correctionis adimit viam, nec quenquam boni possibilitate despoliat. Prosper. ad obj. Vinc respons. 15 But there is eternal Decree in God's breast willingly to permit the greater number to be the wilful causes of their own ruin, and to damn them eternally for their Sins, which had he so pleased he could by his omnipotency have prevented. God doth not make Salvation impossible to any: But he doth innocently suffer millions to render it impossible to themselves through their own Sin. There are not with God Parcarum Tabulae, tables of destiny. But there is with God infinite Counsel, omniscience, and omnipotent Will, and God cannot foresee and know any good in man or Angel but what is by his own omnipotent operation, nor any sin in man or Angel, but by his own free and omnipotent permission. And what God doth foreknow will be, whether by his omnipotent operation or permission, cannot but be. Yet is man the sole Author of his own sin, and the wilful procurer of his own misery by his own ungodliness. All things considered, there was an impossibility of any other event than what did befall the damned. Sts. Rest. pt. 3. c. 2. s. 7. And Mr. Corbet, p. 2. asserteth that the divine decree cannot consist with the contrary event.  
Sect. 16. God doth not decree the Salvation of men upon such conditions as make the salvation of most men impossible, but the conditions of being saved are such as do abundandly testify the goodness of God in the salvability of men in general. p. 12. An. God is good, yea goodness itself, and yet the greater number of men in all Ages perish. To deny either of these is to deny what is most plain, because we cannot attain to what is above us, and too wonderful for us. God is good, but not according to man's will and reason, but according to the Counsel of his own will. His ways and thoughts be far above ours. It is not good to sin that Grace may abound, 
August. Enchir. c. 11.  nor is it good in itself that sin be. But the holy, almighty, and good God sees it good to permit and not hinder Sin, in mercy to the Elect and saved, in judgement to the non-elect and damned. If an men may be saved if they will, then the Apostles words are false, It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy, Rom. 9.16. And then of necessity one of these three will follow, Either that all shall be alike saved, or that all shall be alike damned; or those who are saved shall have ground of glorying in themselves, and not in God; and to say, I thank God for making me a man, but I thank myself and not God for being a holy man. But all these three be desperate and intolerable Doctrine, which no Christian ear can bear to hear. It is then in God's power to save whom and so many as he pleaseth, but it cannot please him to save more or other than such as belong to the election of Grace, for his purpose cannot fail, and his will is unchangeable. And the elect in all Ages are much the smaller number, Christ's words are plain, universal experience seals to the truth of them, Many are called, but few are chosen. Mat. 22.14. 
Mat. 26.24.  And therefore what is said of Judas, holds good of all the non-elect, It had been good for them if they had not been been born. Without Faith it is impossible to please God, Heb. 11.6. Faith is God's gift, Eph. 2.8. Phil. 1.9. No man can have it unless God give it. And God is eternally purposed not to give it to the non-elect, in respect whereof their eternal damnation for their own sin and impenitency is infallibly future and cannot but be: Yet is not Salvation in itself impossible and unattainable. If all men and Devils too shall sincerely repent and love God, God will love them, and they shall be saved. For God cannot hate or damn man or Angel sincerely holy. Method. Theolog. per. Baxt. par. 3. p. 315. Esset salvus Diabolus, sicut nos omnes, si posset sincero cord dicere, Miserere mei Deus. Luther. loc. come. class. 2. loc. 25. God doth not force those in Hell to be unholy, he is no way the Author of their unholiness. It is their duty eternally to be holy, and do well. Let them be holy, and do well, and God will accept them, Gen. 4.7. Heb. 11.6. As Law-giver God doth unfeignedly will the holiness and Salvation of all. But if those in Hell have made Salvation impossible to themselves through their own Sin, they cannot say that his Law is not holy, just, and good in exacting of them what they justly owe, and laying upon them eternal punishment for their eternal wickedness. God doth not punish bare temporal wickedness with eternal damnation, for then his ways were not equal, and none of all the race of fallen man could be saved. But he punisheth endless wickedness with endless punishment, they do eternally love Sin, and hate God, and therefore they suffer eternally. Did they not love sin, they would love God. And they which love God, are loved and not damned by him, Pro. 8.17. Though ungodly ones on Earth be not in Hell, yet there is utterly no hope of them as left to themselves. They have will to be saved, but no power, as being under the power of Satan, Act. 26.18. All men would be happy, Vivere omnes beate volunt. Seneca de beata vita. c. 1. He is no man that can be willing to be in Hell. Sinners though they love Sin they do not love Hell. And if bare wishing and woulding would serve for holiness, all in Hell would be holy. But holy Will no man hath or can have save from God in Christ as a fruit of Election. Bare nature will serve men to do more good than they do, and to forbear more Sin than they do forbear, that is, they can if they will. But bare nature cannot do good and forbear Sin from supernatural Principles, and to supernatural ends. Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely, Rev. 22.17. But it saith not, 
Joh. 6.44, 65.  Whosoever will, may take the water of life, or can take it: but, let him. But no man can take it unless God enable him by his special grace. Bare universal Grace and Nature do but differ in word, or at most but in degree. Though all ungodly ones are not equally ungodly and guilty of the same particular Crimes, yet they be all ungodly, and in a graceless state for the present, and none of them can prevent God with their good merits, and evil merits deserve damnation. Without Christ we can do nothing, Joh. 15.5. He doth not say, you have physical or natural power, and by that you can be holy if you will without Christ. There is no such thing in the text, but it is a corrupt addition, and rendereth Salvation by Christ needless and unprofitable, a burden rather than a benefit, as Crutches to a man of perfect limbs, as Spectacles to clear eyes, as physic to the whole. Adam by his fall, etiam illa cogitandi quae ad Deum pertinent, amisit protinus facultatem. Fulgent. de Incar.& grat. c. 13. Dicendum non solum esse in nostra potestate male velle, said etiam been velle, said differenter. Nam absque speciali Dei adjutorio male velle possumus: been autem velle nisi illo specialiter adjuvant, non possumus. Arimineus. l. 2. dist. 28. If in any sort or meaning we can be holy without Christ, Christ is not Christ, but the veriest deceiver. 
Eph. 2.12. Joh. 1.11. Rom. 8.7, 9.  Now all unregenerate men are without Christ, and consequently there is in them power to be Unholy, but none to be Holy.  
Sect. 17. It is certain that God doth not simply and absolutely will the Event, that never comes to pass. Nor is it congruous to the government of men in their state of trial, in order to a future state of recompense, that he should absolutely will the event of all that he commands to be done. p. 13. Anim. The event that never comes to pass is no event, and so is nothing at all, and it would be a repugnancy to the divine Will to will nothing. But God as Law-giver may and certainly doth absolutely and simply will the Obedience of his holy and good Law by all. Otherwise as hath been said, there is deceit with God, and it cannot be said, This is the Will of God even your Sanctification, 1 Thes. 4.3. And it would be Sin in us to pray, Thy Will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. Gods Law is Holy, Just, and Good, Rom. 7.12. And this is truly the Will of God as manifested for the Rule for Men to walk by. Under this Law all the non-elect both Angels and Men, and the Elect also before conversion are, and not under grace. Rom. 6.14. It is Gods unfeigned will as Law-giver that all Men and Angels eternally be Holy: which if they be they shall be happy. It is also Gods will as he is debtor to none, to permit and not prevent the fall of Angels and Man, and being fallen it is his Will to leave the fallen Angels without all hope, and so many also of lost Mankind as do not belong to the Election of Grace. But who these are no Man or Angel can declare till the event manifest it. When once we are sincere converts and regenerate, we may thence infallibly conclude that we are elected, and shall by Grace persevere and be saved. But while in this world we know not but God may show mercy to this or that Man, 
Hoc inter malos homines distat& Damones, quod hominibus etiam valde malis superest, si Deus misereatur, reconciliatio: Daemonibus autem nulla est in aeternum servata conversio. Prosper. respons. ad artie. falso. August. imposit. l. 2. c. 6.  Family, City, Kingdom. And therefore all are to seek and use the means. Forbear to seek, and there is no hope of you, you are sure to die: seek and wait on God in the use of his means, and who can tell what God may do? perhaps you may live, you can but die. But when once in Hell there is utterly no hope, not because Salvation is a thing in itself impossible, and in Hell men cease to be men and to have no rational Will; but because they are eternally deserted of God, and left to themselves. What before lay hide as a secret in Gods bosom, by the event is made manifest, which is Gods purpose never to convert and save them, the consequence whereof must needs be inevitable despair. Still Gods Law remains in full force to those in Hell, Let them be sincerely Holy and they shall be Happy. This is Gods unfeigned will eternally. But God being above Law, and debtor to none, it is lawful for him as he sees good to make holy whom he pleases, and to permit whom he pleaseth by the abuse of their own free-will to be the Authors of their own Sin and Perseverance in Sin eternally, and thereby to deserve eternal Misery. God doth not create men to damn them, nor doth he ordain damnation as the end and sin as a means. But himself is the beginning, himself is the middle, himself is the end in all that he doth and permitteth, in Mercy to all the Elect through Faith of his mere gift in Christ Eternally, and in Severity to all the Non-elect dying in their Sins, eternally. That it is so is plain, but how it is so is above Men and Angels to find out to perfection.  
Sect. 18. Gods will of Command, Counsel, and persuasion is always effectual as to the making of duty, and to the unfeigned Signification of his Grace towards men, and of his simplo complacence in their Happiness. p. 13. An. Gods Law as such is no Signification of his Grace, but only of our debt and duty. To be under the Law is not to be under Grace, Rom. 6.14. The Law was given by Moses, but Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ, Joh. 1.17 Here the Law and Grace are clearly distinguished and opposed. Not that the Law and Grace be contrary, but it is mans unholiness which doth oppose them, and makes the Law to be to all the Graceless and Unregenerate a killing Letter, and the Ministration of Death and Condemnation. 2 Cor. 3. Rom. 7. All Grace is by Christ who as he is Jesus, very God and Man, the Redeemer of Souls by his Blood, so he is neither Law nor Law-maker, but is exalted of God to be a Prince and a Saviour, 
Acts 5.31.  to give Repentance to all the Elect People of God in all Ages, and forgiveness of Sins. His Work and Office is, not as Moses to give us bare extrinsic Laws, with Sanctions of rewards and punishments conditionally: but to purchase for us Faith, Repentance, and forgiveness of Sin, 
Heb. 8.10, 11, 12.  and by his Word and Spirit to writ his divine Laws, not as Moses in Tables of ston, but in the fleshly Tables of our Hearts, and so to rule us not by Law, but by Grace, and by the Spirit of Adoption, and by Faith working by love. There is Law in Hell, all the damned be under Law to God to be holy, but this is no Signification of Gods Grace to them, and complacence in their Happiness. 
Rev. 18.5, 6, 7, 20.  But rather he laugheth at their calamity, and hath delight in their damnation, not for it self, but as it is the demonstration of his just vengeance for Sin, and as by it his Grace and Mercy towards the Vessels of Mercy is made the more conspicuous, Prov. 1.26.  
Sect. 19. This is sure, that the way of Gods operation on man is agreeable to the nature of man, who is a free agent, p. 15. An. The contrary is most sure. God doth operate in conversion and perseverance, neither contrary to the nature of man, nor yet according to it, but above it. Grace doth not destroy the human will, for then gracious men should be no men but brutes. Nor doth Grace work in us according to nature, for then it should be the same with nature, and the Doctrine of Pelagius would hold, That Grace is given according to our merits, 
De peccat. merit.& remiss. l. 2. c. 18.  and that( as Augustine argues) bare will is from God, but Holy and Good will is from ourselves and not from God, quod absurdissimè dicitur. But God doth operate by his Grace according to the Counsel of his own will, Eph. 1.11. Unsearchably, self-evidencingly, invincibly, of naturally unwilling we are made supernaturally willing, and so nature is sanctified, cured, and saved, non potest non converti.  
Sect. 20. The natural liberty of the will during probation consisteth in indetermination between good and evil, and makes us capable of moral government by laws. p. 15. Anim. If liberty to sin be liberty, there is then no liberty in God, nor in the holy ones in heaven, for God is impeccable by nature, and all in heaven be impeccable by-grace. Peccandi potestas at Anselmus optima scribit, nec libertas, nec libertatis pars est: Ali●qui Deus liberum arbitrium non haberet( quo● dictu est absurdum& impium) quoniam peccare non potest. Fayi Enchir. Disp. 31.§. 21. All power is from God, but power to sin is not power but impotency, and so is from Satan and ourselves. God gave Adam good and holy power not to sin, but he by the abuse of his will in yielding to sin freely put away this power, and in the room thereof came power to sin, non posse non peccare, and so he became the bondslave of sin for ever, unless grace set him free. None can give that which he hath not, and what is in the effect must needs be eminently in in the cause. Consequently, if power to sin be from God, then God can sin if he will, and then he is not essentially holy and simply impeccable. To be undetermined, neutral, and indifferent between God and Baal, holiness and sin, is not liberty but slavery and damnable mediocrity. For further proo● hereof I commend to the diligent Reader, who is of Mr. Corbets opinion, to red the reverend Mr. Baxter's 12th Direction, in his excellent book of Directions and persuasions to a sound Conversion, p. 265. Where he will find practically, plainly, and powerfully opened how heinous and perilous a sin it is to be unresolved and undetermined for God and a holy life. In both good and evil actions the will is free and unconstrained, but with this difference: In sinful actions man is his own guide and chooser, God so permitting; in good actions the will is sweetly prevented by God, and under God its own guide and chooser. In sinful actions mans will is both horse and rider; but in good actions mans will is as the Horse, and Grace is as the Rider. Gods government over men is neither Physical nor moral, but divine, transcendent, and superphysical. The non elect eternally, and all the elect before Conversion he governeth by law, and a spirit of bondage, and not by grace: but all the godly he governeth by grace, and by the Spirit of Adoption, and so they serve God in newness of Spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter, 
Christian Directory, p. 191.  Rom. 7.6. extrinsic laws and motives are useful while we are in flesh, but faith working by love is the principal engine, and where is this there is no ungodly neutrality and undetermination between God and the world, but there is sincere though imperfect determination and resolvedness for God, and against all that is contrary to him, non posse non perseverare. The holy fear of apostasy is at once both an infallible pledge, and principal engine of perseverance, Jer. 32.40.  
Sect. 21. In Gods physical agency what there is between his essence and mans act, effected by the said agency, may be above the understanding of mortals. p. 16. An. There can be no such thing as physical agency with God in any of his works ad extra. For then he should be a Creature, and that an irrational one, acting not by counsel and freedom, but by natural necessity as the fire burns, and as the Sun moves, by the will of a superior. God worketh all things after the counsel of his own will, Eph. 1.11. which will is eternally operative in mercy to the elect, and in judgement to the non-elect, and can have no new successive acts. Nor can there be any such thing as transient actions with God. For in all transition there is necessary a change, there is a double term a quo and ad quem. Now if God in creation go from, he goes from himself, because he acteth not save by his will, and his will is himself as eternally related to his creatures, in time to be produced by him. So that God in making transition from, leaves himself and his own divine will, and ceases to be constant to himself eternally. And by making transition to another, that other is supposed independent, and God is made to depend upon the creature before the creature hath a being. Go from unity, and we can fix in nothing but infinite proceeding. Though the things effected by God be many, one after another by succession of time, and are not but in time; yet the divine, most holy, wise, omnipotent, and good will of God by which they are effected is but one, the same for ever, admitteth of no new acts, there is nothing afore and after in it but simplo eternity. By the same will that God doth will himself he wills us, but with this difference; he wills himself necessary, but us freely: himself cannot but be, but had he so pleased we had never been. An infinite agent cannot possibly deny or go out of himself in any thing that he doth. Men and Angels not having blessedness in themselves, go out of themselves by just self-denial and seek it in God, in whose will they rest and terminate. But God being self-existent and self-sufficient cannot deny or go out of himself, can be beholding and debtor to none. It is but his saying, let it be done, and it is done without any change or new act or extrinsic denomination in God. His saying, let it be done, is his omnipotent willing of it. Omnis actus vel actio divina est in aeterno. Baxter. Methodus, par. 3. p. 343. Actio qua Deus producit res extra se,& qua in eis operatur, a Dei essentia non differt.— Necesse est omnem Dei actionem, ex earum esse genere quae in ipso manent agent. Zanch. de natura Dei, l. 3. c. 1. qu. 11. God decrees to justify Peter in time, 
Joh. 3.18, 36.  but not without faith; but God decrees first to give him faith, and so to justify him. But without faith he is condemned already by God as Law-giver, and his wrath lieth on him, and should he so die were undone. Gods purpose is by his will, and Gods performance is by his will, which is from everlasting to everlasting relative and operative in mercy to all the elect, in judgement to all the non-elect.  
Sect. 22. God is the sole cause of his own act, but not of mans. p. 18. Anim. God cannot be the cause of his own act, because he acteth by himself, and himself cannot be both cause and effect. His own act hath no cause, but is itself the first cause, and a cause without a cause, and yet not without infinite counsel and wisdom. But he must needs be the sole sovereign independent cause of all good acts in us.  
Sect. 23. In the hatred of God, the physical entity of hatred is not Sin, but as it is unduly terminated on God. Sin is a relation, following the fundamentum by a resultancy. p. 20. An. Sin is no relation at all, but the transgression of Gods Law, and so is the destruction of all holy and comfortable relation between God and the Sinner, if Grace prevent not. All relation is good, and of God. Rom. 11.36. In sin a man is his own misguide. It doth not emerge by resultancy, but mans will is the author of it by departing from God. It hath no foundation to rest on, 
Mat. 7.26, 27.  but is as a house built upon the Sand, which either wholesome Repentance or Damnation will shortly level and throw down. In the hatred of God are two things, which Faith can well distinguish, but nature cannot. 1. The natural motion of the will, as it is a free and intelligent agent, and unto this God must needs concur; otherwise the human will could not subsist, and live, and move, and be in being. This is so plain, that even worthy Mr. Baxter is constrained to set it down as his own judgement, and the unanimous judgement of the Churches; 
Methodus, par. 1. p. 63.  Actus qua actus etiam malus est a Deo efficient, ideoque volente. 2. The sinfulness and impiety of the will, as it hateth God. This is wholly from ourselves, and is intrinsically evil. Here it cannot be said that a man doth terminate his hatred on God. For nothing sinful and abominable can be terminated on him. That were to make him the Author, Patron, and Upholder of all impiety. But in hating God a man doth most wickedly abuse his own will, using that as an instrument against God wherewith he ought to love and honour him. Sin doth not follow the foundation, but rather it is a going from God who is the sole foundation of Faith and Hope, and is as a building without a foundation framed by mans corrupt and self-deceiving heart.  
Sect. 24. The consequences that follow Physical Predetermination to all human acts be intolerable, p. 22. An. If by physical predetermination be meant only this, that nothing can come to pass in time but what God hath from eternity predetermined to effect if good, or to permit if evil, it is most wholesome and godly doctrine, and consented to by adversaries themselves, will they nill they, unless they shall deny the divine omniscience, and that God is the Author of all good, and so make him no God. Gods predetermination is by his will, his will is from everlasting immanent within his own breast and bosom eternally, and so must needs be out of the reach of Men and Angels to resist, further than God himself shall permit. I know none who hath writ more against physical predetermination than worthy Mr. Baxter, and yet he hath this plain and important passage: 
Saints Rest, par. 3. c. 2.§. 7.  Though all things considered, there was an impossibility of any other event than what did befall the damned, yet the thing in itself was possible, and their will was left to act without constraint. Do but stand to this, and the controversy is ended. Go from this, and we know not where to fix but in infinite proceeding and utter confusion of all things. The work of conversion is supposed divided into a hundred parts, ninety nine the Arminian Doctrine will be content to allow to God, but one must be left to man as Independent Lord and Master of his own will. So that it lieth not in Gods power to save and convert whom he pleases, but all is put in mans power. For when God hath done his utmost, upon the matter he hath done nothing. For unless man come with his one, all the rest signifies nothing. Positis omnibus operationibus gratiae, 
Corvinus contra Bogerm. p. 363. contra Tilen. p. 337.  quibus conversionem in nobis efficiendam Deus utitur, manet tamen ipsa conversio ita in nostra potestate libera, ut possumus, non converti, id est, nosmet-ipsos vel convertere vel non convertere. But he shall be none of my God who is not more mighty than me, and who must be beholding to me for my conversion and perseverance, if ever it be wrought. If the weakness of God be stronger than all the strength of men; 
1 Cor. 1.  sure the weakness of man cannot be stronger than the omnipotency of God. By ascribing unity to man and multiplicity to God, you ascribe perfection to man, and imperfection to God. For all perfection is in unity; but where are parts there is necessary imperfection. For if one would suffice two or more would not need. 
Rom. 11.36. Rev. 22.13.  If man be last in his own conversion, he is consequentially first, and he who is first and last is all, and so God is wholly excluded, and is supposed impotent and precarious, and Sin and Satan are made Lords and conquerors over God eternally.  
Sect. 25. The unregenerate while such sin necessary, by reason of their own vicious inclination. This necessity is not purely natural, but moral, which is also voluntary. p. 23. An. The whole race of men as fallen in Adam are sinful by a sort of necessity neither natural, nor moral, nor yet voluntary. 1. Not natural, for what is natural as such is from God, nature is God's work. 2. Not moral, for what is moral is virtuous and laudable, and so is from God. But necessity of sinning is not from God. 3. Nor is it voluntary, for then Infants would have no sin, because while mere Infants they cannot be said to be voluntary. And then also the godly would have no sin, because what sin is in them is involuntary. Though they sin in all they do, yet their desire is if it were possible on Earth, not to sin against God. The necessity then of sin which lies upon the whole race of Adam, good and bad while in this World, is by hereditary contagion through the Law, not as in itself, 
Rom. 3.20.& 4.15.& 5.12.  but as by it we are convinced of sin in all we do, and cannot but sin, sinless perfection being become impossible to us through Adam's fall, whereby human nature itself is so depraved, that sooner can we cease to be men, than by the mere strength of nature cease to be sinful. But then this is to be remembered, that in all the unregenerate sin reigns, but in none of the regenerate. Eph. 2.3. By nature all of us be Children of wrath, and by the same reason under the dominion of sin, Rom. 6.14. Nature as in itself is good and of God; but mans nature as corrupted in Adam is enmity against God. Nature now is not natural, and according to what God made it in Adam, but it is become faulty and vicious, vulnerata, sanciata, vexata, perdita est: vera confessione, non falsa defensione opus habet. August. de naturâ& grat. c. 53. Infidelitas rapuit fidem, captivitas abstulit libertatem, nec potuit illic ulla portio residere virtutum, quo tanta irruperat turma vitiorum. Prosper. cont. Collator. c. 21. Necessity as in itself is of God, but through man's faulty will he is become necessary vicious, not by any necessity in nature, but nature being at first holy and good, only not impeccable, Adam's free-will by consenting to sin hath brought himself and all his posterity under the yoke and dominion of sin, till supernatural Grace in Christ break the bonds of this vicious necessity, 
Mr. Allen's Alarm. p. 62.  which are so strong, that sooner may East and West meet together, and Brutes speak, and Trees walk, than a man unregenerate can by all the power within him mortify sin and make his Conscience holy. He can sooner die and cease to be a man, than cease to be unholy as left to himself. Sin is more connatural to an unholy man as he is unholy, than Reason is essential to him as he is a man. A man may be a man though he want natural wit and reason, as Infants, lunatics, Mad-men. But a man unholy while such cannot but sin. His nature is to sin. His nature as he is a man is not sinful, but by the unsearchable dispensation of God he is held so fast in the Chain of his own Iniquity, and in thraldom to sin, that an unregenerate man cannot be holy if he would, 
Rom. 7.18.  and a regenerate man cannot be sinless if he would, by that help only which they have, 
Rom. 8.1.  and yet the unregenerate man is damnably faulty and inexcusable, and the regenerate man is faulty and inexcusable, but not damnably. For there is no Condemnation to them which be in Christ. But it is matter of humiliation. So great is the misery of man upon him, that it must be confessed a more glorious instance of God's power, by the Grace which is in Christ Jesus to redeem lost and fallen Adam, from sin and Hell, by sound conversion and perseverance, than to create the World. For certainly the work of Redemption comparatively doth more excel that of Creation, than the glory of the Sun in its full strength at noonday doth go beyond that of Torches and Candles, and of the Moon and Stars by night. Creation in itself is glorious, but compared with Redemption, it is not glorious at all, 2 Cor. 3.10. Creation and permission of the fall as the less perfect goes before Redemption by Faith in Christ as the more perfect, as Infancy is before Manhood, and as the darkness of the night is before the morning-light, and the first appearance of the Sun is before its full strength and glory at noon-day. As if Adam had stood and not sinned he had not needed Redemption, so had it not been for the work of Redemption unsearchably foreseen, and fore-ordained of God from before the foundation of the World, as the standard and master-piece of all God's works, the World itself had never been. In Creation God of nothing makes us bare men, in new Creation of worse than nothing God makes us more than men, even holy and blessed men. In Creation there is nothing to oppose, nor foregoing sin to deserve the contrary: but in Conversion and new Creation by Christ there is much foregoing sin to merit damnation, and a Legion of ungodly Lusts, and the whole Kingdom of Satan in mens Souls, up in arms against redeeming and converting Grace, if it were possible, to hinder the Redemption and Salvation of the Elect themselves. Angels and men are the glory of Creation, but this their glory was defectible, the Angels fell and Adam fell, and became inglorious, and all mere created power could not help them. But the glory of Redemption makes advantage of the sin of Angels and men, and as to men, where sin abounded Grace much more abounded, the elect Angels have their confirmation, 
Zech. 13.7. Phil. 2.6.  and elect men their salvation, by that man who is God's equal and fellow, and this is an indefectible Glory, and remains for ever. If then we cannot of ourselves attain to that Glory which is defectible, sure we cannot of ourselves attain to that Glory which is indefectible. If we cannot of ourselves do the less glorious, much less can we of ourselves do the more glorious. But then consider Redemption in its latitude, not as compared with Creation, but as one entire frame, so it contains Creation, and is all in all. For all things are not only by Christ, 
Col. 1.16, 17. Rev. 22.13.  but for him, he is the first and the last in Divinity, and in all God's works, not barely as God, nor barely as man, but as the second Person in Trinity and so very God, from all eternity purposed to make the World, to permit the fall, to be incarnate, to redeem, convert, and save all the Elect, to confirm the elect Angels, and to leave all non-elect Angels and men to the freedom of their own will, to perish in the ways of their own choosing. So that to all the godly their very Beings be in eternal mercy, and nature is supernatural, not as in itself, but as it sloweth from a supernatural fountain, the love of God in Christ Jesus, and by faith in him is guided and advanced to supernatural Glory. And this shows the Blasphemy of the Arminian Doctrine, which supposes Christ to be only a Law-giver, and to have purchased no more but this conditional Law, 
Ames Anti-Synodalia. p. 169.  He that believeth shall be saved; and that though no one Soul had been saved, yet had Christ been a complete Redeemer, which is indeed to make him no Redeemer at all, but the greatest of Sinners and Deceivers, and needing one to redeem him, as having committed the greatest crime in undertaking the greatest work, and utterly failing in performance: and so his own words would justly recoil upon him with derision from all, 
Luk. 14.29, 30.  This man began to build, and was not able to finish: and so sin and Satan shall for ever insult over God. For Christ is God. And if Satan be too strong for God, he is no longer Satan, and God is no longer God. 
Homo priusquam peccet, liberum habet arbitrium utrum velit sub regno esse Diaboli, an non: cum autem se peccando tradiderit sub regno ipsius; jam non potest de potestate ejus exire. Chrysost. Serm. 1. de adventu.  The sum is this, that since the fall of Adam it cannot be said that men are naturally potent to holiness, but morally impotent. This is contradiction, and makes voided the Doctrine of Grace. But a● men are by nature Children of wrath, dead in sin, powerful to what is evil, and utterly impotent to Heavenly good. This they are not by any necessity in nature, but such is the nature of man's Will, that being created holy, none can force and have this his holines● from him against his will; but having once admitted sin into his Soul, and thereby expelled and put from him the holiness, the purity, the wisdom and goodness of his Will, he hath for ever partend with it, he can never recover it again by his own meerwill and strength but his Will becomes and remains necessary and yet inexcusably vicious, wholly blind in the things of God, and enmity against holiness, Yet are not all men alike unholy by nature, but nearer Parents may add, I do not say as some a secondary original sin( that is a contradiction) but a further degree of original sin; and by voluntary wickedness and custom in sin, much of which men might avoid if they would, they make themselves much worse. There is a great difference between a Trajan and a Nero, a Cato and a Sardanapalus, an unregenerate Christian and an unregenerate Infidel, some unholy ones and others, one that is almost a Christian and another wholly drowned in Sensuality, Epicurism and Irreligion. Though all the unregenerate be ungodly, yet they are not all Persecutors, Thieves, Murderers, Traitors, and outwardly worshippers of Idols. Now thó as to Salvation as good never a whit as never the better, yet the less evil they are and do in this World, the less torment they will have in hell, and for the good they do they shall not only have temporal reward here, but even in Hell their Conscience will acquit them as to all that was good in them, though the abuse of God's goodness cannot but breed them torment, and their not being sincerely godly.  
Sect. 26. The first saving operation of God to the renewing of the Soul, is not the first grace. p. 25. An. Every unrenewed Soul is certainly graceless, and so dying is undone, and remains for ever graceless.  
Sect. 27. There is objective and subjective grace. p. 26. An. Mr. Corbet himself afterward, p. 27. confutes this distinction. To a gracious man all is of grace: but to a graceless man nothing is grace, but the wrath of God abides on him, Joh. 3.36.  
Sect. 28. There is grace common and special. Ibid. An. Common grace is in itself grace, but not to him who by his graceless life doth abuse it. Unto him blessings are curses, Mal. 2.2. God is a liar, 1 Joh. 5.10. and his Word the savour of death unto death.  
Sect. 29. Some help of divine Grace is given to all. p. 28. An. If given to all, then it must needs be had and received by all, and then all are necessary gracious. Giving and receiving are relative, and do mutually infer each other. It is not true that divine grace is so much as offered and tendered to all. A great part of the world never had the Gospel, and without that there is no gracious offer, they are said to be without God and hope in the world, Eph. 2.12. and they who are without God, must needs be without Grace. And what help of divine Grace have millions of helpless Infants? But of those who have the Gospel outwardly, the greater number have no help of divine Grace at all given them. But all the non-elect are for ever graceless, and the elect also till Conversion. Divine Grace by the Gospel is tendered to them, but they being unregenerate and graceless resist, refuse and put it from them. Grace refused cannot be said to be given, offered it may, but given it is not. So that till Regeneration no help of divine Gra●● is given to any man since the fall.  
Sect. 30. I see no heresy in saying that God will not deny more help to him who doth what in him lies from the help already given. p. 28. An. I see no heresy in saying, if those in Hell shall sincerely love God, he will love them, and they shall not be in Hell. But it would be heresy therefore to say, that those in Hell are not quiter hopeless. Though ungodly ones on Earth be not in Hell, yet there is utterly no hope of them by the bare help already given them. For to them it is none, divine help is tendered to them and they wickedly refuse it, and so they are quiter hopeless and helpless without peculiar Grace, given to none but the Elect. Your words have this in them by necessary implication, that the unregenerate who are graceless and without Christ, can in this their graceless and Christless state do something, which is heresy, as being flat contrary to Joh. 15.5. Without me ye can do nothing. All the nonelect eternally, and all the Elect before Conversion are without Christ; and being without him they can do nothing at all. If they can do part without Christ, they can do all without him, for eadem est ratio partium& totius. Yield a jot to Pelagius, and yield all. sieve parum, sieve multum, sine illo fieri non potest, sine quo nihil fieri potest. Beda in Joh. 15.5. Nemo se palpet, de suo Satanas est: id unde beatus est a Deo habet. August. in Jo. Hom. 49. All unregenerate men be graceless, common Grace and help is in itself Grace and help, but not to the graceless abusers of it. But they do by their unholy, Will resist, expel, contemn, abuse, and put from them the Grace of God, and they can do no otherwise while graceless, and so they can do nothing, but with respect to Heaven and obtaining Salvation all they do is worse than nothing, and cannot without heresy and blasphemous contradiction be said to merit ought at the hands of God, but damnation. Their Bodies, their Souls, Understanding, Will, Reason, Morality, Civility, outward Helps, Conviction of Duty, all these are the good things of Christ, he is Lord and owner of them, but the unregenerate abuse them, this their abuse is from themselves, but all the rest is from Christ. We have nothing to glory in as our own, but all glory is due to Christ, whose is all the good in us, both natural and spiritual, common and special Our glory is to glory wholly in him. Psal. 115.1. But you suppose in unregenerate men preparatory Grace, which is a contradiction to the nature of Grace and heavenly Regeneration. The unregenerate are graceless, they are not in a state of preparation, but in a state of condemnation, Joh. 3.18. There can be no preparations to Grace in such as be graceless. God doth not work in us as Stones or Brutes, but as Men: But converting Grace finds no preparation or pre-disposition in us, but of unholy makes us holy, of dead in sin spiritually dive. Suppose this or that man half converted, almost regenerate, it is more than man or Angel can say, that ever he shall be converted, till the event manifest it. Because till he be a sincere convert he is ungodly, and a graceless opposer, resister and refuser of the Grace of God. Only God can convert him, but neither doth or can God convert him after the Counsel and Will of man, and secundum modum recipientis according to mans merits, preparatory Grace, and predisposing free-will: 
Eph. 1.11. 2 Tim. 1.9.  but according to the Counsel of his own will, and according to his own purpose and Grace given us in Christ before the world began. And what man knoweth this till the event declare it? And what preparatory Grace is in any man antecedent to Gods gracious Purpose from Everlasting? Holy despair in ourselves, is the first step to Salvation. 
Luk. 9.23.  He that will be saved must deny himself, and aclowledge that what in him is good is wholly from God, and that without regeneration he is graceless, and can deserve nothing at the hands of God but damnation, all his preparations prepare him for hell, if Gods grace shall not prevent. 
Alarm. p. 202.  God doth not, as holy Mr. Jos. Allein very erroneously supposeth, mock the unconverted, in denying them that grace which they by their graceless hearts and lives refuse, oppose, and put from them. But it is they who do by their mock-prayers and lifeless endeavours blaspheme God, and delude their own Souls.  
Sect. 31. I incline to believe that God will not by death cut off a person that continues endeavours, in some good measure answerable to his help, to advance towards Conversion, before he becomes a Convert, though his endeavours be mingled with some defects, p. 49. An. If this be not dangerous doctrine in itself, then Pelagianism is not. For, 1. It is here supposed that a man who is no sincere Convert may continue endeavours, in some good measure answerable to his help, and that there are some that do so. And what more do sincere Converts themselves? Not one jot. 2. It is also supposed that the unconverted by lingering endeavours may advance towards conversion, which is contrary to Scripture, common experience, sound reason, and the unanimous doctrine of all true Ministers; who agree in this, that by delay to turn to God the heart is more hardened, God is more provoked, sin is increased, Satan hath more power over us, and the work is rendered more hazardous. See worthy Mr. Baxters fifty awakening reasons and motives against delay to turn to God. 
Direct. and perswas. to a sound Conversion. p. 229.  3. It is here supposed, that the endeavours of ungodly men are but mingled with some defects. And is reigning ungodliness but some defects? While unconverted, saith Mr. Baxter, 
p. 233.  You are the drudges of sin, the slaves of the Devil, the enemies of God, the abusers of his Grace and Spirit, the despisers of Christ, the heirs of Hell. And are these but some defects? 4. Lastly, Mr. Corbet inclines to believe this. Now belief must have Gods Word for its ground in all such things as concern Salvation, or it is belief in Satan and not in God. But no word of God contains any such Doctrine, but it is long since cast out of all the Churches as heretical with una●imous consent, and was anathematized by Pelagius himself, for fear of being anathematized. Meritum congrui respectu primae gratiae jam olim explosum est; nec a probati●ibus Scholasticis, ut a Thomâ in summa,& posterioribus scriptis, ejusque sequacibus un●●am admissum. Stapleton. de peccato origin. l. 1. c. 4. August. de haeres. c. 88. Nullae indubie Ecclesiae eos posthac sustinebunt, in hae praesertìm luke relucentis Evangelii, qui ausint docere,& damnatam Concilio Sanctorum Episcoporum Palestino blasphemiam revocare, percipiendae gratiae Christi ulla ab homine merita, ullamve ad justificationem praeparationem praecedere posse: Anathematiz abunt queen hand gravate, cum id& Pelagius, nisi anathematizare ipse voluisset, fecerit, omnes cos, qui affirmaverint, hominem posse, faciendo quod in se est, remissionem peccatorum mereri. Bucer. de v●ra Ecclesiar. reconcil. p. 165. So many as belong to the election of grace God will certainly some time before death convert, not because of their merits and good preparations, but according to his own grace. But he that can assure Conversion to any more makes a new Gospel.  
Sect. 32. Gods command to use means for any end, contains an encouragement to use the famed in hope it shall not be in vain. p. 49. An. The sum of Gods commands to the unconverted is, that first and before all other things they be sincere Converts. Till they be this they be under the power of darkness, and in a state of rebellion against God, and all their doings and devotious in respect of their unholy hearts, principles and ends have more in them to provoke than to please God. Darkness will never introduce light, nor sin mortify sin.  
Sect. 33. Gods giving of outward means and inward helps of grace, seems to me necessary to imply, that they are in themselves improvable, and that we have power to improve them. p. 46. An. They are improvable by divine grace, but all the unregenerate are graceless, and to suppose a power in them to improve the means without grace, is to suppose a power in them to improve the means without the means. Set aside Grace and there are no means. It is before shewed, that God gives no gracious help to any before Conversion, but doth only offer help, and while unconverted they refuse it, and so are utterly helpless as in themselves.  
Sect. 34. An offer of mercy upon impossible terms, one would think is no mercy or no offer. p. 46. An. True, where the impossibility doth arise from the offerer, and is caused by him. But if the terms be not in themselves impossible, but the person to whom the offer is made makes them impossible to himself by his own ungodliness and folly, there the offer may be real and sincere, and it is mercy in itself, though not to him who finally contemneth and abuseth it.  
Sect. 35. That is sufficient grace, which gives a power adequate to the good which should be effected by it, although it be not effected. p. 29, 30, 31. An. This is evident contradiction, and is therefore contradicted by Mr. Corbet himself, p. 19. God giveth the very will and dead, in giving the power to will and to do. Consequently, if God gave to the Angels and Adam adequate power to persevere, he gave them perseverance itself, and then they had not fallen. And by like reason, if God give to unregenerate men sufficient power for regeneration, and men regenerate sufficient power to be sinless, all men must needs be sinless. More than enough is needless and a burden. It is the duty of all men to be sinless; but if we have sufficient power to be sinless, it is then a sin to pray for more, and to endeavour after more, and God does the world a great unkindness in giving Christ for a help. For he that hath sufficient and enough already, would be burdened and not benefited by more. Overmuch mars all.  
Sect. 36. It cannot be said that whatsoever is more than simply necessary to an effect is needless or superfluous. For God may delight, where he pleaseth, to facilitate the effect, and to give not only what is enough, but more abundant. p. 40. An. Gods abundance is more than we deserve, but not more than enough. More we cannot have than complete felicity for ever in Heaven, and less will not suffice. There cannot be infinite proceeding, we must stop somewhere; but where shall we find rest for the Soul save in God? But God is not God if he be not enough for himself and us too. But if there be a sort or degree of Grace beyond what is enough, there is then a sort or degree of Grace beyond God, and so there is Infinite proceeding. Your Doctrine here is the same with Pelagius's, as may be seen in August. de haeres. c. 88. And the Councils and Writers of those times against Pelagius; who held, that we can do Gods commands more difficultly without Christ, but more easily with him. As a man can go some miles on foot, but he can go more easily on horse-back. But this Doctrine was justly accursed, as contrary to Christianity. For Christ doth not say, you can do more difficultly without me; but without me you can do nothing. Joh. 15.5. Go a hairs breadth from this, and we infer the whole of Pelagianism, and render Christ needless, and worse than none at all, a very Deceiver.  
Sect. 37. Man is merely passive in Regeneration. p. 32. An. Man by Gods Grace is as truly active, concerned, and laudably instrumental in regeneration as in his perseverance, in holiness initial as in holiness progressive. These two do not differ in kind. The opposition is not between active and passive, but between active and idle or non-active. Christ upon the across and in his agony was sweetly active for God, and yet passive: so are the Martyr in the flames and suffering Saints. The damned are full of unholy activity, and ye● merely passive. The work is ours though by Gods preventing Grace. And unless go prevent us with his Grace in perseverance, we cannot persevere. Acti agimus,& mo●… movemus. Being turned we turn ourselves. Though the will as vicious be spiritually dead, yet doth it live the life of nature, and God by unsearchable facility of naturally unwilling makes us supernaturally willing, and so the whole is ours, and the whole is his, his as sovereign efficient, oun as laudably instrumental; and under God we convert and save ourselves. Gal. 6.4. Act. 2.40. 1 Tim. 4.16. Ezek. 18.31, 32. Luk. 7.50. In omni opere sancto prior est voluntas Dei, posterior liberi arbitrii. August. Hypogn. l. 3. c. 10. Non partim gratia& partim liberum arbitrium, said totum quidem hoc,& totum illa, said ut totum in illo fit,& totum ex illa. Bernard. de liber. arbitr.& grat.  
Sect. 38. I apprehended that the turning to God is before that holy habit or fixed principle which is called the new Nature, at least that it may be so, and that most ordinarily. Ib. An. Every gracious habit as it is gracions is necessary active, lively, and operative in some degree, ordinarily: and every gracious act as it is gracious is habitual, radicated, and permanent in some degree, ordinarily. So that gracious habits and acts be together and at once in the Soul, and cannot differ in kind. If you suppose a man without the new and divine nature, you suppose him graceless and ungodly. And if you suppose the new and divine nature in him, and in no degree active, practical and operative, you suppose a Non-ens, and make Grace itself to be graceless.  
Sect. 39. Effectual Grace takes away the moral, though not the physical power to the contrary. p. 40. An. There is then no effectual Grace in God, and in the holy ones in Heaven. For God is impeccable by nature, and all in Heaven be impeccable by Grace. An opinion which by necessary, clear, and undoubted consequence rendereth God himself and all his holy ones in Heaven eternally graceless and unholy, or eternally Brutes and voided of free will, is not to be name without holy horror.  
Sect. 40. Though the acts of repenting and believing be more and greater than to have power to the said acts; yet to give the whole power, which is God's part, is more and greater than both the power, and the consequent acts. p. 45. An. 1. To ascribe part only to God, is to ascribe imperfection to him. 2. If God give the whole power, he doth not then give but part, there is then nothing left to man but his whole Duty, and this he doth by gift from God. God cannot give the whole, but man must needs have the whole gift, and so there is no parting of the work between God and man as social Causes, but man doth all by free and gracious gift from God. 3. To say, the act is greater than the power, and yet God in giving only the power giveth more than both the power and the act, is plain contradiction, and the same with Pelagianism. 
August. de grat. Christi. l. 1. c. 4.  For Pelagius distinguisheth three things, the Power, the Will, the dead. The first he ascribed to God, the two latter to ourselves and not to God, contrary to express Scripture, Phil. 2.13. and catholic Piety.  
Sect. 41. God's expostulation, Isa. 5.4. supposeth all done by him that could be done by him for the Jews Salvation. p. 32. An. Consider God a Law-giver to the Jews, so he could have done no more for their Salvation, and the same may be said as to all others. As Law-giver and Judge of the World he dispenseth equal things to them that be equal, saveth no man in his sins, damneth no man but for sin. But consider him as above Law, and debtor to none, so had he so pleased he could have saved more or fewer, and have prevented sin from being at all. It is a rule that Schoolmen give, that in gratuitis acceptation of persons hath no place. Antonin. par. 2. Tit. 1. c. 20. Aquin. in Rom. 2.11.  
Sect. 42. It may seem by our Saviours words, Mat. 11.21. that some would certainly have been converted by that very help of Grace, if it had been given them which did not convert others to whom it was given. p. 51. An. This place may be expounded by other like places, Mat. 21.37. Exck. 3.6. And all of them are to be reduced to the standard of Faith, which layeth down this for a rule, that grammar is to give place to Divinity, and words are to serve things, and not things words. And therefore the Scripture in condescension to our weakness speaketh after the manner of men, but with no intention that its words shall be wrested to the countenance of heretical Doctrine. Should the Gospel be preached in power and purity in all parts of the Heathen World, we may well think that many would be converted; but certainly not without distinguishing Grace flowing from Election. God's not affording the necessary means is a sign he intends them no saving mercy. But where he affords the Gospel in power and purity, he doth use to make it effectual to some, and he seldom or never converts all.  
Sect. 43. The denomination of effectual Grace is not to be taken merely from the event. p. 40. An. It is in no other sense effectual. Till the event be produced it cannot be said to be effectual. This takes in the whole nature of it. God's Grace is ever effectual in those who embrace it to save them, in those who refuse it to judge and condemn them. Those who embrace it, it worketh in them to embrace it.   

Of Certainty and Infallibility, against the late very reverend Mr. John Corbet his Remains.  
§. 1. THere is objective and subjective certainty. p. 77. Answ. Mr. Corbet in his Humble Endeavour, p. 27. says, that objective grace without subjective grace is in vain. By the same reason it may be said, that objective certainty without subjective certainty is in vain. And here in his Remains he says, It must be supposed that our faculties are true and sound: otherwise the question of the nature of certainty is out of doors, there being no such thing in the World. What is this but to say, there is no such thing as certainty objective without subjective? The truth and soundness of the human faculty is its certainty in the things of God. A sound faculty certain of nothing is a contradiction. Certainty cannot be a thing in the clouds. If no one be certain there is then no certainty at all. If any one be certain, this distinction vanisheth. That one will infer the like certainty of all other who be of the same kind ordinarily. 
Baxter's Methodus, par. 1. p. 164.  Actus primus( unius cujusque potentiae) est sui ipsias intima& essentialis perceptio. Vivens vivendo percipit se vivere, &c. Idem actus hic ctiam sibi loco objecti est. This distinction can have no place in God, in whom there is infinite certainty and oneness. He cannot be certain by any thing without him, but all his certainty is by himself, and the infinite perfection of his own self-knowing will, act and object are in him the same divine effence eternally. The finite certainty which is in Angels and men is an imitation or image of the divine and infinite certainty that is in God; it is two-fold, common, special. Common finite certainty is the certainty which all men have as they are men, by which they are certain with natural certainty that they are men and not brutes. Such as deny this certainty, should not be confuted by arguments, but used as brutes. Special certainty is the certainty which only holy men have as they are holy through faith, which is its own evidence and perception in the breast of him that hath it ordinarily: otherwise there will be infinite proceeding, and so no assurance of faith at all, Heb. 10.22. and 11.1.  
§. 2. Very high degrees of probability commonly borrow the name of certainties, and the minds of men do ordinarily rest therein. p. 78. Answ. This may be true in worldly matters, for these uncertainty may suffice, we can have no certainty of them; because no man can be certain of living to another hour, or that the day of judgement shall not be this present hour, and put an end to the world. But as. for heavenly and eternal things nothing short of faith can suffice, it being impossible to please God without faith, Heb. 11.6. But probability and opinion is not faith. He that resteth in any thing short of faith for life eternal, is an Infidel. As good never a whit as never the better. That which may be may not be; but that which is cannot but be. He that cometh to God must not rest in anxiety, wavering, neutrality, probability, uncertainty, and doubtful conjecture; but he must believe that God is, and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him. If faith be not infallible, it is not faith, because it is in God, 
1 Pet. 1.21. Joh. 14.6.  who is Truth itself, and cannot lye. For such as would not cheat their Souls by resting in mere opinion, let them red worthy Mr. Baxter's Direction in his excellent book of Directions and persuasions to a sound Conversion. p. 195.  
§. 3. Supernatural certainty presupposeth two things. 1. The natural certainty of this principle, That God is immurably true. 2. A natural certainty that the supernatural discovery or revelation that is to be the ground of our assent, is from God. p. 82. Answ. Natural certainty as distinct from and opposite to superuatural, is not certainty, but infidelity and a lye, as making God a liar, 1 Joh. 5.10. But natural certainty as duly subservient to what is supernatural, is in a large and true sense supernatural and divine. To build supernatural upon natural, is to build light upon darkness, and the foundation upon the building, which is absurdity and confusion.  
§. 4. To sound Faith reason is always represupposed. p. 85. Answ. Faith doth indeed suppose us to be men, but as voided of faith to be withall unholy men, and to have no reason at all in us antecedently to faith, but what is under the power of Satan, very darkness in the things of God, and enmity against piety. 
Dr. Field of the Church. b. 4. c. 8.  Reason is not the premises, and faith the conclusion; but both premises and conclusion be of faith, not by way of syllogism and logical argumentation, nor yet contrary to it, but by way of heavenly taste, and inward experimental feeling and knowledge above all mere natural science and certainty.  
§. 5. human testimony as such, is not a ground of strict certainty. But there may go along with it such rational evidence as may make it a ground of strict certainty. p. 86. Answ. Bare human testimony accompanied with bare rational evidence is sufficient for condemnation, and to leave men without excuse, but is not sufficient for salvation without regeneration: and this is neither human nor rational, but supernatural, transcendent, and divine.  
§. 6. Every truth is equally impossible to be self. p. 91. Answ. Nothing is so true as truth itself, and that is God, compared with whom all men are liars, and the whole Creation less than nothing and vanity. Look as Christ saith, None is good but God; so it may be said none is true but God, that is, infinitely and essentially. He is more evident than evidence itself.  
§. 7. If it be supposed possible that any one person through the deception of the senses may be deceived, yet it is impossible that all men should be deceived. p. 87. Answ. If you suppose it possible for one man to be deceived through his senses, it will necessary follow, that then no man can be certain of any thing by certainty of sense; and if sense be destroyed faith cannot stand. Sense is of God, and God can deceive none. Men may deceive themselves, but then it is not sense which deceives them, but the pride of their heart, by which they abuse their senses. Obad. 3.  
§. 8. The Apostles and other first witnesses knew the Christian Doctrine infallibly themselves by their present sense and reason, with the concomitance of supernatural help in remembering and attesting it. p. 94. Answ. By bare sense and reason no man to this day hath known the Christian Doctrine, nor can it be known but by the Holy Ghost through faith, 1 Cor. 12.3. Nor can sense and reason know it, with the concomitance of supernatural help. For still sense and reason remain sense and reason notwithstanding such concomitant help: 1 Cor. 2.14. Natural sense and reason receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.  
§. 9. How can we apprehended any Doctrine, or the sense of any written word, but by our faculty of understanding? p. 97. Answ. Heavenly Doctrine we cannot understand save through Faith, Heb. 11.3. We believe and are sure, Joh. 6.69. We believe and know the truth. 1 Tim. 4.3. In natural science we first know and then believe: but in supernatural science we believe, and by believing we know and are sure we believe, as by living we know we live. Eleganter observat Alexand. Halaeus. in Logicis argumentum facit fidem: said in Theologicis fides facit argumentum. Ames, Bellarm. enervat. tom. 4. l. 5. c. 2.  
§. 10. God can give that assistance of his grace, whereby a mans will shall be inabied to make its choice according to prudence, though the Evidence be not infallible, if he see no sufficient evidence for the rejecting of it. p. 98. Answ. Gods Spirit cannot enable a man to make holy choice without Faith, nor can there be holy prudence without Faith. But Faith is not Faith if it be not infallible, because it is in God who is Truth itself and cannot lye. In worldly and common matters common prudence will incline men in doubtful cases to take the safer and more probable side, this they may do without any special help o● the Spirit. But in things pertaining to God and Life eternal nothing short of Faith can suffice, and this is not opinion or probability, but infallibly certain of the thing believed. He that can say in truth, I believe, Lord help thou my unbelief, is not without some degree of sound belief. Indeed he who holds the Scripture to be but probable, is concerned and obliged thereby to be holy and please God, and to prefer an uncertain eternity of future Joy before this transitory World. But withall he is under an impossibility of pleasing God, and attaining to true holiness while he resteth in probability. For this is not Faith, and without this he blasphemes God, and makes him a Liar, 1 Joh. 5.10. and cannot please him, Heb. 11.6. Jam. 1.6, 7, 8.  
§. 11. Only the mayor is of Faith, and the minor is known only by internal sense and experience. The Protestants mean no more. p. 99. Answ. Either the whole syllogism is of Faith, or no part: for there is the same reason of the whole and each part. If the mayor be of Faith without internal sense and experience, all such Faith is dead, and not the Faith of Gods Elect, which worketh by love, and purifieth the heart. And if the minor and Conclusion be of inward Sense and Experience voided of Faith, all such sense and experience is Sin and cannot please God, Rom. 14.23. Heb. 11.6. As there can be no holy Experience antecedent to and without Faith: so there can be no holy Faith without holy Experience intrinsically going along with it. It is not set down in Scripture in so many words that Mr. Corbet is a Man, is it therefore not of Faith that he is a Man? And may he be believed to be a Brute and no Man? What God doth infallibly testify we are bound to believe with holy belief: but Gods Spirit doth infallibly testify to the Conscience of the regenerate, that they are regenerate, and by heavenly adoption the Sons of God: Rom. 8.16. And therefore they are bound to believe their own adoption with holy belief. 
Life of faith, p. 148.  You may as well go about your bodily work without your eye-sight, as about your spiritual work without faith, saith worthy Mr. Baxter. Indeed there are some Protestants who deny the Minor and Conclusion to be of Faith, but therein they contradict themselves. For they hold them to be infallibly certain. And what difference between certainty of Faith, and certainty infallible? None at all save in word. And remarkable it is, that those very Protestants who deny the Minor and Conclusion to be of Faith, 
Preface to 2. p. of Saints Rest.  and thereby overturn all assurance of Faith, Heb. 10.22. do also deny the mayor to be of Faith primarily and properly, and so they leave us no Faith at all. Spiritual objects cannot be seen and perceived but by a spiritual eye, and that is Faith. Inward sincerity, faith, adoption, forgiveness of sin, all these be spiritual Objects, and of necessity to salvation: and it is faith and nothing but faith which being aided by the Holy Ghost, and taking along with it the Word of God, can led us into ourselves, and give us infallibly to perceive, and spiritually to discern and feel the things which he hath wrought in us, and the happy estate he hath brought us into.  
§. 12. Doubtless no sober Protestant will assert that the certainty which we have of the Conclusion, is a certainty of the same reason, with that which we have of an Article of Faith, either for firmness or necessity. p. 99. Answ. Mr. 
Saints Rest, p. 3. c. 3.§. 2.  Baxter is a sober Protestant, and he says: As true grounded faith is the Master-grace in the regenerate, and of the greatest use in the Kingdom of Christ: so is a false ungrounded faith the Master-vice in the unregenerate soul, and of greatest use in the Kingdom of Satan. How he will reconcile this with his other Doctrine, that the Minor and Conclusion be not of divine belief, I leave to him. From hence it is plain, that that which is contrary to false belief in the breast of the unregenerate of his own Salvation, must needs be holy and true belief in the breast of the regenerate of his own Salvation; and this holy and true belief of his own Salvation is evidently the Master-grace in the regenerate, and of greatest use in Christs Kingdom. And therefore their Doctrine which denies the Minor and Conclusion to be of Faith, doth subvert the Master-grace in the Godly, and that which is of greatest use in Christs Kingdom, and consequently overthrows all Faith and Piety. And therefore Luther had reason to say, 
In Gen. 41.  etiansi nihil praeterea peccatum esset in Dectrina Pontificia, justas habemus causas cur ab ecclesia infideli nos s●jungeremus: and he ought not to have been censured by any Protestant for it, as some unworthily have done, with no honour to their own Principles. There is common and saving faith. Mr. Corbet himself asserts that common faith is not faith univocally. p. 6. The Devils and all in Hell believe and tremble, this kind of Faith by which we believe in common with all in Earth and in Hell that there is a God, is in itself good, Jam. 2.19. But compared with holy and saving faith it is not faith at all, 
2 Thess. 3.2.  it is not to be name the same day with it. Common belief as distinct from and opposite to holy belief is not belief but a lye, and leads to desperation, if Grace prevent not. But common belief as duly subservient to holy belief is in a large and true sense holy belief and an essential part of it, as none can have holy belief but he must needs holily believe there is a God.  
§. 13. Certainty of Justification is not attained by all justified persons. p. 100. Answ. Mr. Baxter himself says, So long as a Christian hath his Graces in lively actien, 
Saints Rest, par. 3. c. 8.§. 9.  so long for the most part he is assured of them. How can you doubt whether you love God in the act of loving? Or whether you believe in the very act of believing? Now it is essential to true Grace ordinarily to be in some degree active and lively in the breast of him that hath it. Otherwise weak sincere Christians would nothing differ from Hypocrites, in whom is no spark of spiritual life. Again Mr. Baxter saith, 
Ib. c. 11.§. 6.  Ordinarily every man that hath faith knows he hath it, and it is impossible to believe, and not to know ordinarily we believe. Couple this with his fifth. Disputation of Right to Sacraments, where he at large shows, that it is only saving faith which is saith eminently and univocally, and that common Faith is but faith equivocally, as a dead man may be said to be a man. Again he saith, that every prime act of the Soul est sui ipsius intima& essemi●●es perceptio. 
Methodus. par. 1. p. 194.  As for cases not ordinary, they may well be left to a special judgement and determination by themselves as they happen in particular, and all things considered they will nothing weaken but rather fortify and confirm the general rule. An hearty and unfeigned desire to please God in all things, 
New Birth, p. 86. Neh. 1.11.  is the characteristical note of the sanctified, and th● most apparent distinction between him and the hypocrite, saith reverend Mr. Whately. Now I appeal to the faith and experience of all the godly touching this. Can there be in a man's breast such a thing as sincere desire in all things to please God, ordinarily; and yet he have no spiritual inkling, evidence, inward feeling, and perception of it in himself ordinarily? No doubt but doubts may be in a godly man, so also may unbelief. But neither the one nor the other can reign in him ordinarily. Mr. Corbet, p. 97. says, That a person may have some doubting of a matter, whereof he sees no just cause of doubting. This I agree to; but withall add, that a godly man cannot allow of such causeless and ungrounded doubts in his Soul. Sin may be in the godly, but no known sin with love and allowance; nor can any sin not known reign in them ordinarily. For a godly man to doubt of his own sincerity and Justification is sin, but it would be a contradiction to say that it reigns in him. Moreover, there is at least in all the godly sincere desire and longing after the assurance of God's favour. But how can a man lust after that which he hath no knowledge of? Ignoti nulla cupido. He that sin●erely desires assurance hath it, otherwise 〈◇〉 could not sincerely desire it. His very ●●cere desire is infallible proof that he hath ●●me measure of what he desires. And ●●rein supernatural science by faith differs from all other science. For in natural science no man judgeth that a sick man by the desire of health hath health, or that a ●eggar by the desire of riches hath riches. But now in Divinity it is far otherwise, ●ere God judgeth of men according to the ●●ward desires of their hearts. He that lusteth after a Woman, hath committed adul●ery with her already in his heart, Mat. 5.28. though not outwardly. He that desires ●o murder another hath already done it in ●●s heart, and is a murderer before God. ●n like manner the sincere desire of Grace 〈◇〉 Grace: and by like reason the sincere ●esire of assurance of God's favour in Christ 〈◇〉 some degree of attaimment. This sincere desire and longing argues two things: 1. A want or lack, for no man naturally longs for that which he hath already. 2. A ●aste and feeling of the good desired, of assurance. This gracious desire is a Cordial to the Soul, and keeps it from fainting; the more strong and vehement it is the more sweet and perceptible it is. It doth not evidence and assure itself to the Soul by way of natural reason, and logical Syllogism and argumentation, but by way of heavenly taste and intimate conjunction with the Soul. 
Mr. Pemble Vind. in 4th. p. 129.  That assertion of our Divines,[ That the true desire of Grace, is from true Grace, and a part of true Grace,] shall stand fast: as founded on Scripture and sound reason, when all Arminianism. shall lie in the dust. But then I conceive it is true in this sense, naturally sincere desire is not the thing desired, but mystically and theologically it is, this being the nature of Grace still to thirst after more, till we come to a state of perfect rest and satisfaction, admitting of no desires; because where are desires, there is indigency. But in Heaven there is all that heart can wish, no want of any good thing.  
§. 14. The certainty of Salvation is a different enquiry from certainty of being in a state of Grace, and depends on another question, touching the certainty of perseverance. p. 99. Answ. If regeneration be not an infallible pledge of perseverance and Salvation, then can there be no certainty of Salvation. But all both Papists and Protestants, Arminians and Anti-Arminians do unanimously hold, that there may be infallible certainty of ones own Salvation, and that some have attained to such certainty. Papists and Arminians grant there may be by faith extraordinary, and Protestants hold there may be by faith ordinary. Now from the Principles of both sides it will unavoidably follow, that he who is certain with holy certainty that he is truly godly, must needs be certain of his perseverance ordinarily; and that this is the common privilege of the godly, and not of some few only. The reason is for that extraordinary faith assureth no man of Salvation as it is extraordinary, but as it is faith, the same for kind in all godly men, differing only in degree. If strong and weak faith should differ in kind, they would then differ as light and darkness, as faith and infidelity, and so all faith is subverted. The distinction of objective and subjective certainty is before refured. Some, it is granted by all, have been certain of their Salvation by Faith. Now their faith being the very same for kind with the faith of all other godly ones since Adams fall, all the godly must needs have the same certainty of Salvation for kind, which any one Saint hath had.  
Obj. Common experience is to the contrary.  
Ansir. Common experience is not to the contrary. All the godly must needs have in them ordinarily godly hope of their Salvation. This godly hope of Salvation is n● conjectural, probable, fallible, uncertain and wavering, 
Heb. 6.19. Rom. 5.5. Heb. 11.1. 1 Pet. 1.21. Isa. 26.3. 1 Joh. 3.3.  but it is an Anchor of the Soul both sure and steadfast, it maketh no● ashamed, it is infallible as being hope in God who is truth itself and cannot lye o● fail such as hope in him: it produceth some measure of holy peace and security in God. But he who relieth upon fallible hope for Salvation, relieth upon man and not upon God, and so is accursed, Jer. 17.5, 7. there can be no purity in him, nor godly peace. Either he hath no hope at all, or his hope is false and vain. This godly hope hath ever with it godly faith, and what in one place is called assurance of faith, Heb. 10.22. in another place is called assurance of hope, Heb. 6.11.  
Obj. 2. The Angels and Adam before their fall were godly, and had godly peace. This proves that a man may be truly godly and have godly peace in his Soul, and yet not be infallibly sure of his perseverance, yea his apostasy may be infallibly future.  
Answ. There is no arguing from mere particulars to an universal in another kind or manner of consideration. All that can be inferred from the alleged case is only this, That all such as are by Creation sinless and perfectly hoy, may so continue if they will without a Redeemer, and they may not continue. But there hath been none crea●ed sinless since their fall, and so it coneludes nothing against the certain perseve●ance of all such as being by nature Children of wrath and heirs of Hell, by Grace are made the Children of God, and heirs of Heaven, through Faith in Christ. If the perseverance of every one such be not infallibly certain and future, I see not how there can be any such thing as godly hope of Salvation in any Child of Adam, or holy security and peace. If the case of the Angels and Adam prove any thing at all, it proves more than the objecters would have it to prove, and that is, that we may persevere without Christ if we will, which no Christian man will say.  
Obj. 3. God may give perseverance to some regenerate ones, and yet not to all.  
Answ. God may do with his own what he pleaseth, but it cannot please him to make voided the godly hope of any one Saint in Christ Jesus. There is but one hope, and one faith, as there is but one Lord, and one God, Eph. 4.4, 5. Of necessity then the perseverance of all in whom is found sincere faith and hope is infallibly future, or it cannot be said that godly faith and hope are but one.  
Obj. 4. Many godly and learned Divines have thought otherwise.  
Answ. If so, it was their error, and carried its confutation along with it in their own breasts. Where is godly hope of Salvation, there is a repugnancy to the Doctrine of the Saints apostasy. Godly men may have many errors, but no error can reign in them.  
Obj. 5. But if the godly cannot finally fall away, then they may be iecure and careless.  
Answ. Not so, but rather the holy fear of apostasy is at once both a sure sign and principal engine of perseverance. Jer. 32.40. There is a sweet consistency between Gods unchangeable decree to give perseverance, and mans watchfulness and holy endeavours; and it may and must be said to Saints themselves, Unless ye hold on to the end ye shall perish. Remarkable is that Concession of worthy Mr. Baxter in his Methodus, par. 1. p. 41. Si solum ut aeterni,& immensi actus divini sunt denominandi, lis omnis quae scholas diutius turbavit, de decretis divinis, tribus verbis statim d●rimitur;& de ordine decretorum nullus controvesiae erst locus. Now it is certain de fide that what God is in any one instant that he is eternally, in mercy to all the elect in Christ through faith of his free gift, and in severity to all the non-elect dying in their Sins. That it is so is beyond dispute; but how it is so, is above mortals to declare. And if it were not unsearchable and past all the wit and power of man to find out to perfection, we could not believe it. Nothing is matter of divine belief but what is above natural reason and understanding to find out. God is one, unity is his Nature, and he can have but one constant, eternal, and unchangeable act. Any more will infer infinite proceeding. Thence it is that regeneration is a sure pledge of election, and if any of the Elect fall away and perish, God is then Yea and Nay, there is no Truth in his Word and Promise, his Oath and Covenant sails, and he must needs be conscious to himself of impotency, and insincerity, in ruling the world by deceit, and failing the hope of his Saints, and yielding up the Government of Angels and Men into the hands of the Idol Chance and Fortune, and so all things to be in confusion eternally.   

Of Justification against the late reverend Mr. Gibbons, Mr. Truman, and Dr. own.  
§. 1. AS in Sanctification the change is absolute and inherent, so in Justification the change is relative and juridical; the former is wrought in the Sinners person, he becomes a new Creature; but this latter is wrought in his state, hè becomes absolved at the bar of Divine Justice. For Justification is a Law-state. Mr. Gibbons's Sermon of Justification in the Morning Exercise at Giles in the Fields, May 1659. p. 402. Answ. Justification is not a Law-state but a state of Grace. The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ, Joh. 1.17. Ye are not under the law, but under grace, Rom. 6.14. There is no opposition between relative and inherent; but there is as true and real relation between sanctifier and sanctied, Heb. 2.11. as between justifier and justified. As it is true that sanctification is inherent; so it is no less true, that justification is by faith, and faith is inherent. Justification cannot be a thing in the clouds, it must either be by faith in the Conscience, or no where. It is very fitly and truly said, that a godly man is in a stare of Justification and Sanctification: but to oppose the same man and his state, and say, his Person is sanctified, but his Person is not justified, but only his state as distinct from his person, this is absurd and untrue. When it is said, Old things are passed away, behold, all things are become new, 2 Cor. 5.17. This includeth justification and reconciliation with God, no less than sanctification. For unless the old state of condemnation be done away, and a state of justification come in the room thereof, it cannot be said, that all old things are done away, and that all things are become new. This stumble in the entrance is no good sign.  
§. 2. The process at Gods bar, in the Justification of a Sinner, will be best discovered by comparing it with that at mans. Mr. Gibbons, ib. p. 403. Answ. God's justification of a Sinner by faith is not contrary to human and civil justice, but it is above it, and is therefore its own evidence in the breast of him who hath it, Heb. 11.1. and is not to be reduced to human Judicature. Regenerate Adam and Eve after their fall, and righteous Abel, were justified by the same kind of faith, and the same way for substance that we now are. For there is for kind but one holy and saving faith, Eph. 4.5. But there could be no Courts of civil Justice, when there were only Adam and Eve, with Cain and Abel.  
§. 3. 'tis no favour to justify an innocent man, 'tis his due; he is not beholding to the Judge a jot, the exact rigour of the law acquits him. Id. ib. p. 404. Answ. It may be so with men, and in Civil Judicature, but cannot be so with God and in divine Judicature. Eternal Life is both a gift and a reward; it is a crown of righteousness which the Lord the righteous Judge shall give the godly at the great day, Rom. 6.23. 2 Tim. 4.8. As it is a gift, so it is free, and is not of debt and wages, 
Rom. 4.4. Heb. 6.10. 2 Thess. 1.6, 7. Rev. 3.4.  or of due desert, but of Grace. As it is a reward, so it is conferred in a way of righteousness upon none but the godly, who be evangelically worthy. The Saints who now be in Heaven are for ever spotless, innocent, and sinless: tho once they were sinners, yet now they are not, but by Grace are made impeccable. At the day of judgement they with the rest of their brethren, being all sinless, shall be solemnly acquitted by the righteous Judge. Yet no Christian man will deliberately say and maintain, that they are nothing beholding to God for their public solemn acquittal and justification at the great day before all the world. For though it be their right, Rev. 22.14. yet is it not of debt, but of Grace, given them in Christ before the world began, Rom. 4.4. compared with 2 Tim. 1.9.  
§. 4. We can never be justified at the bar of God by pleading not guilty. Mr. Gibbons, ib. p. 404. Answ. If indeed we be guilty, pleading not guilty is a lye, and makes us more guilty at the bar of God. But if we be innocent, we need not pled at all at the bar of God, where innocency itself is Judge. An innocent man may in worldly Judicature pled his own innocency, and make it out by just evidence to the satisfaction of the Judge and Jury, who are but men, and proceed according to human evidence. But God being omniscient is above all such legal procedings. And therefore if a godly man be charged at the bar of God to be ungodly, this is a false charge, God who is truth, and justice itself, must needs pronounce him innocent as to his fall charge. Sincere godliness is it's own justification against the charge of ungodliness, and perfect sinless innocency is its own justification, acquittal, and discharge against the charge of nocency and sin. Gen. 30.33. My righteousness shall answer for me. At the day of judgement all the Saints be eternally sinless and impeccable by Grace, not by nature and the deeds of the law. And the same Grace which hath washed them from all sin, 
Eph. 5●27.  and made them eternally pure without spot or wrinkle, must needs own them to be so, and solemnly acquit and pronounce them not guilty before all the world.  
§. 5. When a guilty person is discharged out of mercy, this is pure pardon, but no justification; for there shines not one beam of justice in such a discharge, mere mercy is all in all. Mr. Gibbons, p. 406. Answ. There is no opposition between mercy and justice, but the opposition is between mercy and severity, Rom. 11.22. from everlasting to everlasting God's mercy is on them that fear him, Psal. 103.17. and yet it is a righteous thing with God to give the kingdom of Heaven to all such. Rom. 6.23. 2 T●m. 4.8. 2 Thess. 1.6, 7. Heb. 6.10. Gen. 18.25. We are pardonned of God's mere Grace, and yet we are pardonned for Christ's sake, ●●m. 3.24. Eph. 1.7. and 4.32. Here is infinite mercy and infinite justice, equally 〈◇〉 and transcendently glorious. It is pure mercy in opposition to all merit and desert on our part; it is pure justice as it is a just and righteous thing with God to put a difference between the righteous and the wicked. For shall not the judge of all the earth do right? God is not only mercisul, but also faithful and just in forgiving sin to the penitent, Mic. 7.18. 1 Joh. 1.9. To say that forgiveness of sin, and justification by faith is not of God's mere Grace and mercy in Christ, is to say it is wholly or in part of debt and wages, and so Grace is destroyed. 
Rom. 4.4.  Eadem est ratio partium& totius. If it be in part of debt, it is wholly and altogether so. There is no mixture and composition in God. His pardon is pure and absolute pardon, his justification is pure justification. As law-giver he dispenseth equal things to equal persons, and so is just towards all; but as independent Lord of his own will and debtor to none, he hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.  
§. 6. God is more dishonoured by one sin, than honoured by an eternity of obedience. Mr. Gibbons, p. 407. Answ. Though sinless obedience be the debt of Angels and men eternally, and we can no way profit God, but the more we do for him, the more we are beholding to him, for of his own it is that we give him: Yet may it not be said, that God is more dishonoured by one sin, than honoured by an eternity of obedience. But rather the penitent thief, who upon the across repented him at his last gasp, and laid hold upon the promise of mercy in Christ, did thereby more honour God and the riches of his grace, than he had dishonoured God by all his former life of wickedness. Otherwise it would be dishonour in God freely to pardon sin to such as truly repent, and there could never be any pardon at all, because God can do nothing against his own glory and honour. One sin is but the breach of Gods Law; but an eternity of obedience is abundance of grace, and grace is above law, Rom. 5.20. Joh. 1.17.  
§. 7. At the Resurrection of Christ began his state of Exaitation. Mr. Gibbons, p. 408. Answ. So soon as by death the Soul of Christ was partend from his body, it was taken into Heaven, and was in a triumphant state. Outwardly and to sense his soul was extinct and gone, but mystistically and to the eye of faith it was translated from earth to heaven, and was in bliss and felicity, above all the Saints and Angels in Heaven; so that his state of exaltation to the eye of faith began immediately after his death and before his Resurrection, as to his Soul, which was the far more noble part of his manhood.  
§. 8. Neither man nor any mere Creature could satisfy offended Justice. Mr. Gibbons, p. 407. Answ. This is contradicted by what is said p. 406. A full satisfaction may be made by suffering the whole penalty due. Certainly they in Hell do suffer the whole penalty due, and that is, the vengeance of eternal fire, Jud. 7. And God is infinitely pleased and satisfied that so they suffer of due desert for their sins.  
§. 9. There is a wide difference between Gods threatening and his promise. God cannot but perform his Promise, but he may if he please dispense with his threatening upon honourable terms. Mr. Gibbons, p. 416. Mr. Truman's Great Propitiation, p. 5. Answ. There is the same truth and fidelity of God in his threatening as in his Promise. As he cannot but perform promise, so he cannot but perform his threatening truly meant. He doth not perform his promise because he is bound, but because he is God, and cannot deny himself. The sum of all his threatenings is, everlasting damnation to all that be finally impenitent. God cannot while he is himself but execute this threatening eternally. And he cannot hate and damn a man sincerely holy and penitent, while such. If God may dispense with his threatening truly meant, there is then no truth in his Word, he is no longer Yea and Amen, but Yea and Nay, and a gap is opened to all impiety. The Law is holy, and just, and good, Rom. 7.12. The divine threatening with reference to all the non-elect eternally, and to the elect before Conversion; is a part of this holy, just, and good law. And if God may dispense with, alter, and change what is holy, just, and good, how can it be said that he is not unholy, unjust, and wicked? The divine threatening is the divine will as manifested in time, to keep our first Parents from sin, to be useful for conversion of the unconverted; and perseverance of the converted. If God can in any wise go from, alter, and change his will, he is then wavering, inconstant, no trust can be put in him, he is not himself eternally. 
Mat. 5.18.& 24.35. 1 Pet. 1.25.  Not one jot or tittle of Gods Word, Law, and threatening truly meant can possibly sail. Faith is so far from making voided the Law, that with holy zeal the Apostle professeth it doth establish the Law, Rom. 3.31.  
§. 10. Gods threatening, the soul that sinneth, it shall die, is not executed, nor abrogated, but released, or dispensed with. Mr. Gibbons, p. 413. Answ. With worldly law-makers there may be a middle between execution and abrogation, because they do not see all things at once, they be imperfect, and act by successive moments and instants, and grow wiser by experience, and see a necessity of changing their thoughts and purposes. But it cannot be so with God, there is no shadow of change with him. Where his Curse is not eternally executed, it is eternally abrogated: where it is not eternally abrogated, it is eternally executed. Where it is executed in part, it is by necessary consequence executed in whole. For there is the same reason of the parts and the whole. From everlasting to everlasting the mercy of God is on such as fear him, Psal. 103.17. How then can any whit of the Curse lye upon such? Is everlasting mercy, curse, penalty, and suffering? Is David now in Heaven under the penalty of the Law, and doth God govern him by threatening? Or is he a loser by any of his sins on earth? Grace hath made advantage of them. For where sin abounded, grace did much more abound, Pom. 5.20. Nor is he a loser by his forrows and afflictions on earth. Quod fuit durum pati meminisse dulce. Death in itself is evil and penal, but as it is the gate of Heaven and passage to eternal life, it is rather life than death. Some say, this is by accident: But that is a great error: For it supposeth accidents in God, which all sound Divinity abhors. That death is so great a gain to the godly, is neither from itself, nor by accident, but it is from that grace and mercy of God in Christ, which is from everlasting to everlasting upon all the elect in him, through faith. And if Gods mercy from everlasting to everlasting be an accident; what may we think is substance, and who can prove God to be essentially holy, good, wise, merciful, gracious, powerful; if his goodness from everlasting to everlasting, be but an accident? It is true on the one hand, that sin is evil, and no man may do evil that grace may abound: it is true on the other hand that God doth permit all the sins of the elect in everlasting mercy to them. In which respect no whit of the divine Curse can lie upon them. And yet consider God as Law-giver, so his wrath lieth upon the elect themselves while they abide in unbelief. 
Joh. 3.36.   
§. 11. God having created man a rational creature, capable of moral government, is, by immediate resultancy, his King and Governor. Mr. Truman's great Propitiation, p. 4. Answ. There can be no such thing as relation by resultancy with God; but all Gods relation to man is by his own almighty, wise, holy, and good will, which will is from everlasting to everlasting the same, admitting of no new successive acts. Look what God is in any one instant, that he is eternally, in mercy to all the elect in Christ through faith, which is the gist of God, and in severity to all the non-elect dying in their sins. Gods government over men is not moral, but divine; it is not by resultancy, but by faith. Resultancy is a new notion, and serveth only to make plain things obscure.  
§. 12. Christs sufferings were not proper solution, a payment of the same; but a satisfaction: a refusable, though valuable consideration: not the idem, but the tantundem. Satisfactions are refusable payments. Mr. Truman's Great Propitiation, p. 30, 31, 89. Mr. Grbbons p. 424, 426. Answ. Solution is all that in rigour can be demanded, complete satisfaction is no less. If satisfaction be refusable, so and no less is payment. Idem and tantunaem do but differ in word or circumstance, as a shilling and twelve pence; and not in kind and substance, as unrefusable and refusable. Christs sufferings were neither payment nor satisfaction in a worldly, legal, and political sense: and they were both in a mystical, heavenly, tranicendent, and evangelical sense. Had God lest all mankind hopeless, as he did the fallen Angels, no man could have complained of wrong: but then God had been contrary to himself, and his own heart and conscience would have reproached him eternally as inconstant and mutable. For Christ was foreordained from before the foundation of the world, 
1 Pet. 1.21. 2 Tim. 1.9. Eph. 1.4.  though not manifest till after the fall. And Abel, Noah, Abraham, and the rest of the elect, were chosen before the world began. This supposed, the Redemption of the Elect by Christ could not but be. Creation and permission of the fall, do but prepare the way for the work of recemption by Christ, as the standard and master-piece of all Gods works eternally. God did not necessitate Adama fall, and yet he did omnipotently, freely, and unsearchably permit it; when had he so pleased, he could have prevented it. As it is true on one hand, if man had not fallen, there had needed no Redemption: so it is equally true on the other hand, had it not been for the Redemption of the world, unsearchably foreseen and foreordained of God from before the foundation of the world, as the chief and uniting center of all Gods works, and that wherein his Soul hath eternal delight and satisfaction, the world itself had never been. The satisfaction of Christ is no otherwise satisfaction, than as it is from everlasting to everlasting pleasing and delightful to God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and infallibly productive of the holiness and Salvation of all the elect through faith in him. And for God in one and the same eternal instant to be both pleased and not pleased, satisfied and not satisfied, is a contradiction, and makes voided our whole faith. For what assurance can we have of Gods being sartisfied, if in any one instant he be unsatisfied? He cannot be unsatisfied with himself and his own divine will, nor can he be satisfied by any thing without him; but all his satisfaction is in and from himself eternally, and what satisfaction, delight, and pleasure he hath in any of his works ad extra, they are no otherwise satisfactory and delightful to him, than as they are the issues and effects of his own good will and pleasure, which is the same eternally.  
§. 13. It seems harsh to affirm that the confirmation of the Angels, was from Christ as Mediator. It is virtually to say, they should not have had their confirmation except man had fallen, or else, that he should have been sent a Mediator without mans fall. Christ died for all those for whom he was Mediator, or merited any thing. Mr. Truman. Ib. p. 84, 85. Answ. Thô Christ died not for the Sinless Angels, it doth not therefore follow that they have not both their Creation and Confirmation by him. They have their Creation and Confirmation by the wist of him who is God manifest in the flesh. Though there be three divine Persons, yet is there but one God; and Christ is God, though also Man. But his being man adds nothing to his Godhead. He is not Mediator only as God, nor only as Man, but as God and Man, yet so as that the manhood adds no perfection to the Deiry; and it is sound Divinity to say, 
Zech. 13.7. Phil. 2.6.  that Christ is that Man who is Gods equal and fellow, and consequently is as truly the Creator and Conrirmer of the elect Angels, as are the Father and the Holy Ghost. Opera Trinitatis ad extra sunt indivisa. All things are by Christ and for him, and by him all things consist, Col. 1.16, 17. If so, of necessity the Angels both Creation and Confirmation must be by and from him. Adams fall was not necessitated by God, yet was it infallibly future.  
§. 14. If the Deviss should repent and return, they should not perish, because no satisfaction was made for them. Mr. Truman, p. 220. Answ. This is not true, but the truth is this. 1. If the Devils shall become sincerely holy and penitent, they shall not perish. 2. But then it is impossible that they should become holy and sincerely penitent, not through any defect in God, and the Lord 〈◇〉, but through themselves, who by their own sin and God's righteous severity for the same have made sincere repentance impossible to them. If Christ shall say, I know not the Father, he shall be a liar, Joh. 8.55. If Cain now in Hell shall do well, God will accept him, Gen. 4.7. If God in judgement shall put no difference between the righteous and the wicked, he is not righteous. Gen. 18.25. These and the like sayings are absolute truths, and of abfolute necessity in Divinity.  
§. 15. There is in this Justification by Christ, as it were, a twofold Righteousness or Justification, and the distinction of these two is so necessary to any competent measure of understanding this Doctrine of Justification, and would be so helpful to make us understand it, and speak intelligibly of it, that I desire you would never forget it: passive Justification, the effect of active, is our right. Against the accusation of being Sinners nothing can be pleaded but only Christ's death. It would be improper to pled faith and repentance. Against the accusation that we have no part in Christ's satisfaction, as wanting the conditions of faith, repentance, and new obedience, we must pled our own sincere faith, repentance, and obedience, or if we have not these we cannot be justified. Mr. Truman, p. 187, 188, 189, 190. Mr. Gibbons, p. 418, 419, 420, 421, 422, 423, 424. Answ. 1. Those words, as it were, contain an implication, that really and in truth there is no such distinction. Hoc est parum nimis dicere: quia sicut quasi contractus apud Jurisconsultos non est contractus propriè, sic quasi electio non est electio. Ames. Antisynodal. sup. art. 1. c. 1.§ 2. 2. If only Christ's death set us free from the accusation of being sinners without faith, then faith is wholly needless: and if faith be needless, then the whole Bible, and all the articles of our faith are made a lye, and all in Earth and in Hell must needs be saved. For do but suppose a man set free by God from the charge of being a sinner, and you suppose him to be an innocent and spotless man, and to have no fault in him. He needs no more discharges and justifications. This one is enough. To suppose the same man set free by the death of Christ from the charge of being a sinner, and yet to have no part in Christ's death, is plain contradiction. Generals have no existence save in the ●●●ividuals and particulars. If once we be set free by God from the charge of sin in general, who shall lay any thing to our charge? Rom. 8.33. 3. There is no such distinction as passive justification the effect of active. It serves only to make plain things obscure, and that's the least that can be said of it.  
§. 16. If a believer had the righteousness of the Law of works inherent in himself, he were not a sinner, but should be justified by that law. Mr. Gibbons, p. 419. Answ. The righteousness of the Law of works is only that righteousness which men have before conversion, differing in kind from heavenly righteousness. Compared with this it is not righteousness, but unrighteousness, and even as filthy rags. It is abomination to God, as proceeding from self-love and the spirit of bondage, and not from the love of God  shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost, and the Spirit of Adoption, and as opposite to the Law of Faith.  
§. 17. The first Covenant is released and dispensed with by super-inducing a new Covenant of Grace over it. Id. p. 414. Answ. The Apostle doth not say, If any man be in Christ he is but in part a new Creature, old things be only released and dispensed with, the old Covenant and the works thereof are not utterly abolished and put away. But he says, Old things are passed away, behold, all things are new, 2 Cor. 5.17. The old Covenant and its works are abolished and cast out of the Conscience, and in the room thereof comes the new Covenant of Life, of Peace, of Salvation, of Adoption, of Forgiveness through Faith in Christ. The first Covenant as distinct from and opposite to the new Covenant by Faith in Christ, is Antichristian, and to be abhorred: But the first Covenant as duly subservient to Faith in Christ, is in a large true sense an essential part of the new and second Covenant.  
§. 18. Christ's satisfaction in the very eye of the Law of works is an unexceptionably perfect, and an infinitely glorious Righteousness. Mr. Gibbons, p. 419. Answ. The Law of works hath no eye by which to see the Righteousness and Satisfaction of Christ. What eye it hath is barely natural, and the natural eye perceiveth not supernatural Mysteries, they are foolishness unto it, neither can it know them, because they are spiritually discerned, 1 Cor. 2.14. The Law of works is that Law which reigns in all the Devils and damned and non-elect eternally, and in all the Elect before Conversion; looking upon Christ through the glass of the Law of works, he seems to them a Deceiver, and as such they persecute and put him to death, and tread him under foot.  
§. 19. Christ's Satisfaction is our legal Righteousness. Id. p. 420. Answ. Legal Righteousness is but such Righteousness as all the non-elect have eternally, and all the Elect before Conversion. To make Christ's Satisfaction legal Righteousness is to make him a mere Creature, and not only so, but as Cain, Judas, and the rest of the graceless and ungodly world, a hater of God. For where is only a legal Spirit, and legal Righteousness, there is no sincere love to God. Christ's Satisfaction is in itself Satisfaction, and ever well-pleasing to God, as well in them that perish, as in them that are saved. But his Satisfaction is not Satisfaction to such as want heavenly Faith. To all such Christ and his Satisfaction be a ston of stumbling and rock of offence.  
§. 20. God justifieth in a proper sense as Legislator and Rector, and the Gospel justifieth qua lex lata, as it is the Law of Faith. Mr. Gibbons, p. 421. Mr. Truman, p. 88. Answ. If God do justify barely as Law-giver and governor, then he must needs justify all in Earth and in Hell. For he is governor over all, and all be under Law to him to be holy and sincerely obedient to his Commands. God by his Law enjoins all men to be holy, assuring them that if they be so, they shall be happy. But this by itself makes no man holy. The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ, Joh. 1.17. If Justification be by the Law, it is not then by Grace, and by Faith in Christ, Gal. 2.21. The Gospel indeed is a Law to all the non-elect eternally, and to all the Elect before Conversion, but it justifieth none before Conversion and of itself it can never work Conversion in any, without Christ.  
§. 21. Faith justifieth vi legis latae. A justified state emergeth actually, as soon as Faith, the Law-title thereunto emergeth as a necessary resultance by virtue of the tenor of the Gospel-law, which only justified virtually, potentially, and conditionally before every believer in general; but now actually, absolutely, and in particular it justifieth him as a believer when he is so. Mr. Gibbons, p. 421, 422. The Gospel-law suspends Justification upon believing. Ib. Answ. 1. We are justified by Faith through the Redemption which is in Christ, neither by the Law, nor contrary to the Law, but by Gospel grace and Righteousness above the Law. 2. There is none of this resultancy in the case, this is only mans dark wisdom set against the simplicity which is in Christ. 3. Justification by Faith is not a thing in title, but it is a thing in having and fruition. As truly as we have Faith, so truly we are justified, and our Faith hath fast hold of Justification. As it would be absurd to say, a true Believer hath no Faith but in title; so it is no less absurd to say, by believing we have no present real Justification, but only title to it. 4. A Justification of every believer in general as distinct from all the individuals and particulars, is a Non-cns. For generals have no existence but in the individuals and particulars. 5. Such as remain in unbelief their Justification is not suspended, but rather they are condemned already, and the wrath of God abideth on them. Joh. 3.18.36. 6. If conditional Justification be Justification, then all in Earth and in Hell have Justification. Let them be sincerely holy and penitent, and God will love and save them.  
§. 22. God justifieth in a proper sense as a Judge. Mr. Gibbons, p. 421. Mr. Truman, p. 107. Anse. 1. This is repugnant to the fore-going Position, that God doth justify as Law-maker. A Law-maker and a Judge are two distinct Offices and Relations. The King and Parliament only are Lawmakers, they are not ordinary Judges. If God justify as Law maker, he doth not then justify as Judge. And if he justify as Judge, he doth not justify as Law maker. 2. If God do justify as Judge, then either all shall be alike condemned or justified; for he is Judge of all, and all be alike by nature. 3. In Justification by Faith there is Remission of Sins: but it belongeth not to a Judge as such to remit Sins.  
§. 23. Faith justifieth us even at the bar of the Law of works, ratione objecti as it lays hold on Christs Satisfaction, which is our legal righteousness; it justifieth us at the bar of the Gospel, or law of Faith, formaliter,& ratione sui, as it is Covenant-keeping, or a fulfilling of the Gospel-law. Mr. Gibbons, p. 420. Answ. This implies that there are two Divine Laws, the law of Works, and the law of Faith, which cannot be while God is one. Two divine Laws will infer infinite proceeding, and so no law at all. Though the precepts of God be many, yet they are all reducible to the will of God, as manifested for the rule of our duty and obedience. The Law is holy, just, and good, Rom. 7.12. If you suppose another Divine Law, either it is the same with this, or contrary. If the same, then it is not another, the Law then is but one as God is one. If contrary, then it is unholy, unjust, and evil, which were to blaspheme the Divine Law. Indeed the Scripture makes mention of the Law of Works, and of the Law of Faith, Rom. 3.27. but how? not as two distinct Divine Laws. But the Law of Works as distinct from and opposite to the Law of Faith, is not Gods Law, but the Law of Sin, which reigns in all the graceless and unconverted, and is therefore cast out in sound conversion; and in the room of it comes the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ, 
Rom. 8.2.  setting free from the Law of Sin and Death. The Law of Works as distinct from and opposite to the Law of Faith, doth not exclude boasting, but makes us to glory in ourselves, and not in God, and so it is Antichristian and abominable. The Law and Faith, the Law and the Promise, the Law and the Gospel are distrinct, and by no means to be confounded. In Rom. 4.14. Gal. 3.17, 18, 19, 20. the Law and the Promise of Salvation through Faith in Christ are clearly distinguished. To be justified vi legis latae, as Mr. Gibbons expresseth we are, p. 421. is not to be justified by Christ. 
Gal. 2.21.  If Justification be by the Law, then Christ is in vain. Christ is not Law, nor as Christ is he a Law-giver; but he is exalted of God to be a Prince and a Saviour, to give Repentance to all the Elect people of God, and forgiveness of Sins. Act. 5.31. The Law as opposite to Christ is Idolatry, and Antichristian, and being trusted to leads to desperation, and worketh nothing but wrath, a spirit of bondage, hypocrisy, and mere forced obedience. But the Law as a Servant to Christ, and forgiveness of sin through Faith in him, is holy, just, and good, a sweet and easy yoke to the godly, they delight in it after the inward man, and make it their meditation all the day. One and the same thing is Law to the graceless, and Gospel to the gracious; the savour of death unto death to the one, and the savour of life unto life to the other. Let it be admitted de nomine that the Gospel is a Law, and that Christ is a Law-giver; the question then is, what sort of Law it is, and what kind of Law-giver Christ is? Either Christ is a Law-giver no otherwise than is Moses, or he is not. If yea, 
Joh. 1.17.  then he is not Christ, and then Socinus is in the right, and our whole faith is a lye. If not, then we are justified by faith, and by faith only, simply and nakedly as it apprehendeth and layeth hold upon the infinite merit, satisfaction, righteousness, and atonement which is in Christ, and is called the Righteousness of God without the Law, partaked by Faith for all heavenly uses to the Soul, Rom. 3.21, 22. So that the Law and the Works of the Law, and all that issueth from the law as an operative cause, are wholly excluded from having any hand at all in the Justification of a Sinner, and in the forgiveness of sin from first to last. Here the Law, and all such works as be produced by the law, so far as they seek to have any the least share in meriting forgiveness of Sin and Justification, or would be thought adjuvant causes to Christ, as though he were somewhat beholding to them for assistance in this matter; so far I say, they are ungodly, heretical, and Antichristian. But it is the sole merit and satisfaction of Christ, the piety and obedience of Jesus as he is very God and Man, this and no other is it which the Scripture calls the Righteousness of God without the Law; the office of Faith is to apprehended, embrace, rely, and rest upon this as an infinite, all sufficient, and eternal Righteousness; and faith as so apprehending, embracing, resting and relying is it which by the Gospel is imputed to us for righteousness, and is our justification from the charge of sin in general, and from all curse and condemnation for the same. And being forgiven all sin and set free from the curse and vengeance of the Law for sin, through Faith alone, we love God, and do all such good works as he hath appointed us to walk in. So that Justification is neither inherent within us as is faith, nor is it without us in the Clouds peeping forth or emerging by an imaginary resultancy, no man knows how or what. But Justification is by faith, and faith is divine evidence in the breast of him that hath it; God is he who justifieth by Conscience his agent or deputy in the breast of the regenerate Soul, through faith, according to the Gospel. Justification is a divine act and verity, appre●ended by Faith, and all act and verity is in●itely and transcendently in God, who for●veth sin as gracious, and as faithful and just, to the penitent Soul f●● Christs sake through o only, according to Gods Word.  
§. 24. As a most judicious pen expresseth it, the act of believing is as the Silver; but Gods authority in the Gospel-sanction, is the Kings coin or Image stamped upon it, which gives it all its value as to Justification. Without this stamp it could never have been currant; and if God had set this stamp on any other Grace as Love, that then would have been currant, and have justified us as Faith doth now. Mr. Gibbons, p. 421. Answ. I guess who this judicious pen was, but truly he was not over judicious ●n this. For Faith as stripped of Gods authority ●● not saith, but infidelity: it is not as the sil●er, and Gods authority as the stamp: but Faith as distinct from and voided of Gods anmority is disobedience and rebellion against God, and mere false coin. Rom. 4.16. Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace, to the end the promise might be sure. Mark here, it is not said that Justification by Faith is merely arbitrary, and had God so pleased it might have been some other way: but it is by Faith, that it might be by Grace, to the end the promise of Salvation might be sure. 1. Another way of Justification had been graceless, and where is no Grace there is n● love to God, there can be no piety. To 〈◇〉 graceless is to be unholy and abominabl● 2. Another way had left the Conscience un●●sured, full of perpetu●l doubtfulness and 〈◇〉 certainty. So that here are two main en● or reasons irrefragably proving, that Justi●●cation by Faith, is not as Sacrifice and bare ●●tual institutions, like the Rainbow or Circumcision, only good because ordained: but th● Faith by which we obtain Remission of Si● and Justification in intrinsically and eternall● good, and is therefore commanded and ordained of God. For by this only way God is exalted, and man is debased: all glory is give to God, and all possible comfort, assurance and solid quiet and security to man. Eph. 1.9. Nor of works, lest any man should boast And so Rom. 3.27. There can be no midd● or third way imagined, either it must be by Faith, or by Works. If by works, then there is place for boasting, God is more beholding to man than man is it God: I thank God for making me a man, but I thank myself and not God for being a good and holy man. This is execrable and blasphemous, and by consequence that doctrine which doth establish it Gal. 3.21. If there had been a Law given which could have given Life, verily Righteousness should have been by the Law. Hence it is plain, that there was no other way possible, because any other way had been defective, and so there would be infinite proceeding. For the law ●●keth nothing perfect, Heb. 7.19. But all perfection and stability is by faith in Christ, he is a sure rock ●t the Conscience to rest on. By this only way, the ●●w is established, and thereby boliness, love to God ●●d our neighbour, Rom. 3.31. But another way had ●●en Popery, Mahometism, Socinianism, Antinomia●sm, Pelagianism, Arminianism, Quakerism, Licen●ousness, Idolatry. Faith then is its own evidence, ●amp, and authority in the breast of him who hath it, is flowing from the abundant grace of God in Christ, ●either by the law, nor contrary to it, but above it.  
§. 25. If faith justify us not before God, but only at the bar of Conscience, then there will be no Justification at Gods bar at all once mentioned in Scripture. Mr. Gibbons, p. 423. Answ. Faith doth truly justify us at Gods bar, but then Gods bar is pla●ed in the Conscience by Faith. Conscience is sole Judge under God, the Law is its commission, the Court or judicature is the inward man, Faith is the eye by which Conscience doth see, and the general Organ or instrument by which the Conscience as regenerate doth act, God as Lord of his own will and debtor to none, doth by the Gospel freely tender remission of sins and justification as a free gift in Christ, to all that shall penitently, holily, joyfully, and thankfully accept and receive the same: And this doth Faith. Though Conscience barely as in itself is but a creature, and in that respect its judgement and sentence is but human, and little worth: Yet as it is regenerate, and is Gods agent and Deputy in the Soul, and is duly commissioned by him, and keepeth close to its Commission, so it is in a large and true sense divine and i● fallible, and its voice and sentence is no other than th● voice and sentence of God mediately by Conscien● his agent and Deputy in his name and by his authority.  
§. 26. Gods decrees are immanent acts, and 〈◇〉 nothing actually upon the Creature. Mr. Gibbon p. 423. Answ. Gods decree is eternally active, operative, and powerful. It is the divine will, and the ●●vine will cannot be asleep, idle, and indifferent whether Adam stand or fall, whether Peter be holy or unholy, saved or damned. Gods will is not to justify any man without faith; but Gods will eternally is to bestow faith upon all the elect, and thereby to justifiy them; and this without any change or transient act in God. All the change and transition is in us. Of unjustified we become justified through faith, of unholy we are made holy, by that good will of God in Christ Jesus, which is from everlasting to everlasting sweetly relative in mercy to all the elect.  
§. 27. To pluck up all the desperate Antinomian consequences by the root; there needs no more than a right understanding of the true and proper notion, and manner of Christs redeeming us; it is not by way of solution, but of satisfaction. Clearly thus, our case to God is not properly that of Debtors, but that of criminal Subjects, &c. Mr. Gibbons, p. 424. Answ. This is to consute a heap of desperate Antinomian errors by a heap of desperate Pelagian errors, and overturn darkness by darkness. For to say that all are not properly debtors to God, is desperate error, and subverteth grace. If Paul could say to Philemon, because he had been the instrument of his Conversion, Thou owest unto me even thine own self, Philem. 19. How such more did Philemon owe himself unto God as his creator, Upholder, Redeemer, Sanctifier, Adopter, ●… eward and Rewarder, his all in all? We may be ●ods Subjects and yet debtors to him. And God may and both Creditor and Rector, and Christ both Surety ●… d Mediator; but not in a worldly and legal sense, ●… t in a heavenly and evangelical sense, proper to faith.  
§. 28. There is no such thing as receiving Righteousness, or Justification, or Pardon. Mr. Truman's Great Propitiation, p. 258. Answ. A desperate er●our! and yet this is it which all must fly to that shall ●… iss of the truth in these points, when by dint of heavenly truth they are driven out of their holds and shifts. And what a miserable refuge is this! If there be no receiving of these divine and gracious blessings from God, ●hen they are not given by God, but are of debt and due desert, and we owe no thanks at all to God for them: but rather God is eternally debtor and beholding to us for some singular service that we have done him, by our own inherent natural strength, which is the very depth of Pelagianism, and most contrary to the grace of God.  
§. 29. Many make this their great strong hold. Repentance and sincere Obedience, are not receptive, receiving graces, as Faith is; and so cannot receive Justification and Righteousness. Now this falls; for, there is no act of receiving these. Justification, right to Heaven, Righteousness, cometh on men. Ib. Answ. It is granted that these divine blessings come on men: All the question is how they come on men? there are but two ways imaginable; of debt and due desert as wages for work, quid pro quo; or of grace and free gift. If the former, then grace is subverted and therewith all faith, hope, and piety. If the latter, then of necessity they must be received or they cannot be had. Now being spiritual gifts they must be spiritually discerned and received, or they cannot be had. But it is impossible and a contradiction to the nature of faith and spiritual gifts, that they should be spiritually apprehended, perceived, and received by any other way than by faith, and by this only. This then remains an invincible strong hold, against which the gates of hell cannot prevail, that God of his free grace doth tender to us remission of sins, Justification, Adoption, Salvation in Christ, as a free gift, and we by faith( which is the gift of God) do apprehended and perceive the same, and penitently, humbly, thankfully, holily, and gladly receive this blessed gift, and it becomes ours for all heavenly uses to the Soul. Being thus by faith( which is its own infallible evidence in the breast of him that hath it) made partakers of the choicest blessings that a man is capable of in this world, we cannot but love God, and live unto him in the delightful Obedience of his laws. And thus Justification by faith and Sanctification be distinct, and yet undivided and inseparable, the former being the spring and fountain of all our holy love to God and sincere Obedience. A holy sin-hating God, 
Life of Faith, p. 218, 219.  engaged in Justice to damn the Sinner, is not such an object, as a guilty soul can love: But it must be a loving and reconciled God that is willing to forgive, saith worthy Mr. Baxter.  
§. 30. As condemnation cometh upon men without any act of receiving it, it is a resultancy from the Law upon disobedience; so Justification, right to Heaven, is a resultancy from a Law promise( the condition being performed.) Mr. Truman, p. 259. Mr. Gibbons, p. 418 419. Answ. A law-promise is confusion, there is no such thing in Divinity. Condemnation cometh on men, as wages for work, of due desert for sin. The wages of sin is death; but eternal life is not the wages of obedience, 
Rom. 6.23.  but it is the gift of God through Christ, and yet given to none but such as be in a Gospel sense worthy of it. We deserve Hell for our Sins, but we do not deserve Heaven. This is freely given and freely received. But damnation is forced upon men, they may indeed be said to receive it, Mat. 23.14. Luk. 23.41. Heb. 2.2. but it is sore against their will. Sinners though they love Sin, yet they do not love Hell. Receiving is twofold. 1. Passive and involuntary; thus all the damned receive eternal punishment for their sins, sore against their will. 2. Active, joyful, and with all the heart; thus all the godly do by Faith, and by it only receive Pardon, Justification, and life eternal from God in Christ.  
§. 31. I know you may object that place, turning from darkness to light, that they may receive remission of Sins. But one of ordinary capacity may perceive it is a figurative expression( because in natural things, where there is giving, there is receiving.) Mr. Truman, p. 259. Answ. We red in Scripture of Gods giving his Son, Joh. 3.16. his Spirit, Luk. 11.13. Eternal Life, Joh. 10.28. Repentance and forgiveness of Sins, Act. 5.31. Faith, Eph. 2.8. Adoption, Joh. 1.12. all things pertaining to life and god liness, 2 Pet. 1.3. exceeding great and precious promises, v. 4. Grace and Glory, Psal. 84.11. all things with Christ, Rom. 8.32. Righteousness, Rom. 5.17. We also red of our receiving Christ, Joh. 1.2. the Spirit, Gal. 3.2. Salvation, 1 Pet. 1.9. the immovable Kingdom, Heb. 12.28. Strength, Heb. 11.11. the atonement, Rom. 5.11. abundance of grace, and of the gift of Righteousness, v. 17. remission of Sins, Act. 10.43. the promise, Gal. 3.14. the love of the Truth, 2 Thess. 2.10. mercy, 2 Cor. 4.1. every good thing, 1 Cor. 4.7. Now is all this improper speaking? Is it Antinomianism and folly to make the Scripture the sole standard in points of faith? Spiritual giving and receiving is of all other the most noble, this is index sui& obliqui to the faith of each godly man. The contrary doctrine leads to infidelity.  
§. 32. Aninstrument is essentially an efficient; and the act of the principal and instrument are essentially one and the same act, and both proper efficients of the same effect. If one strike with a Rod, he strikes, and the Rod stirikes, though less principally, yet both truly. Mr. Truman, p. 193. Answ. With respect to God, there is only one efficient of what is good. Of him, and through him, and to him are all things, Rom. 11.36. This is a point of Faith. God maketh use of instruments in his Heavenly Kingdom, but himself is sole efficient. The Word preached is instrumental for the begetting and nourishing of faith, Ministers who preach it are personally instrumental, and each godly man under God is laudably instrumental in his own Conversion, Faith, Perseverance, Adoption, Forgiveness, Justification, Salvation from first to last. But it is God alone in Jesus Christ who is the sole efficient of all heavenly good. In things natural the instrument and efficient are social causes, both are efficients, though both be not principally efficient. But in supernatural effects, God only is efficient, working all things after the counsel of his own will, which will is only one, 
Eph. 1.11.  and can have no new successive acts. Look what reason is to the Soul as rational, the general Organ or Instrument by which it doth put forth rational acts; that is faith to the Soul as heavenly and regenerate, the general Organ or Instrument by which it doth put forth gracious and supernatural acts, and is laudably instrumental in its own forgiveness and Salvation, by sovereign causation and efficiency from God. Rom. 6.13. Yield your Members as instruments of Righteousness unto God. Now if our members be instruments of Righteousness unto God, then our faith must needs be an instrument of Righteousness. God cannot while he is himself forgive sin to that man, who is not by faith laudably active and instrumental in the penitent and thankful receiving of forgiveness from God as a free gift in Christ. If Faith be not properly instrumental in our own Pardon, Adoption, and Salvation, wherein doth it differ from infidelity? Admit it be a condition, either we are laudably instrumental under God in performing this condition, or we are not. If yea, then in asserting it to be a condition they do not deny but rather affirm it to be a proper instrument. If not, then it is not Faith, but Infidelity, and so no condition.  
§. 33. Every condition is only a sine qua non. Mr. Truman, p. 164. Answ. A sine qua non doth most fitly agree to God in Christ, as is evident from Joh. 15.5. and Joh. 1.3. and the nature of the thing itself. Without Christ we can do nothing; without 〈…〉 nothing made that was made. I grant that sine qua non agreeth to every thing that is necessary, but a thing may be necessary, and yet not be God. Causa sine qua non, is the cause of causes, is no other than God in Christ. Faith is no cause of Justification, much less a causa sine qua non. But Justification being freely tendered, we cannot have it unless we receive it, and receive it we cannot save by faith. I say by faith, not as an holy work. For if forgiveness of sin be by faith as an holy work, then necessary it will follow that where is the most holiness there shall be the most forgiveness. For a quatenus& ad omne& ad gradum valet consequentia. And then God himself shall be reputed a Sinner and forgiven, because he is most holy: and next to him the man Jesus Christ, and all the holy ones in Heaven shall be the greatest sinners, and have the greatest pardon, as being next to God in holiness. It is plain that we are not justified and pardonned by Faith as an holy work, nor is any thing in us a cause of forgiveness and Justification. But pardon is freely tendered by the Gospel as a free gift in Christ, and we as needy, and lost, and undone Souls in ourselves, do by Grace put forth the naked hand or instrument of Faith, and penitently and galdly accept this blessed gift, and it becomes ours.  
§. 34. The immediate effect of Christs satisfaction is, that God might be just, though he should pardon Sinners. Mr. Truman, p. 86. Answ. The immediate effect of Christs satisfaction is reconciliation with God through faith in Christ, or the eternal Redemption of all the elect through faith in him, Heb. 9.12. God is essentially just, holy, true, and good, but not so to those who have no Faith. Wanting Faith they make God a liar, 1 Joh. 5.10. I say not that God had been just had he pardonned Sinners without ransom and atonement by Christ. But by the Ransom and Atonement of Christ, his Justice and his Mercy are rendered most sweet and lovely to all the Elect in Christ through Faith; and the same Justice and Mercy are consuming Fire and everlasting Burnings to all the graceless and unholy, through their own sin and folly.  
§. 35. Noxa Caput sequitur. Mr. Gibbons, p. 424. Ans. Naturally and according to legal Justice it is so; but Grace is above nature, and the Divine Justice is not legal, but infinitely above it. And therefore God may well lay all the iniquities of the elect upon Christ, and he who knew no sin was made Sin for them, that they might be made the Righteousness of God in him. 2 Cor. 5.21.  
§. 36. Punishment is the genus, and the whole nature of it is in every species, in every chastisement. Mr. Truman, p. 97. Answ. In every Chastisement of the Godly there is something painful and unpleasant to nature: but in no Chastisement of the godly is there everlasting Punishment. Set aside this, and all other Punishment is everlasting Mercy, not as in itself, but as sanctified, and as it is ordinated by, and most surely endeth in everlasting Mercy.  
§. 37. There is a twofold Condemnation, by the Law, and by the Sentence of the Judge. Mr. Truman, p. 107. Answ. It is so in Civil Judicature, but not in Divine Judicature. For in this, Conscience under God is a Law to itself, both act and object; 
Rom. 2.14.  it layeth before the Sinner his Duty, convicteth him of sin, passeth Sentence upon him, and executeth the Sentence, by self-tormenting anguish in the Sinners bosom eternally, if Grace prevent not: And all this by Commission from God the supreme Judge.  
§. 38. There are the same terms and conditions of Justification and Salvation. Mr. Truman, p. 152. Answ. As both are of free Grace and gift, so both are by Faith only, and not by works, lest any man should boast. Eph. 2.8, 9, 10. As Justification consisteth in Remission of S●●s, so it is by Faith only. As it is the Sentence of the supreme Judge at the great day, so it will be by sight, and not by Faith: And then it is no forgiveness of Sin, but the solemn clearing and acquitting of all the Saints, who once were Sinners, but at the day of judgement, and thenceforth for ever are sinless. And where is no Sin, there is no place for forgiveness. As Salvation importeth the same with future eternal Glorification after this life, so it will be by Vision, and we have now only right to it, Rev. 22.14. But we have not now right to forgiveness of Sin, but we are actually forgiven all sin through Faith, and we are actually justified from all Sin through Faith. And this forgiveness and Justification from Sin through Faith, is now perfect and complete, and admitteth of no degrees, though our Faith itself and Sanctification be imperfect. And though there be a necessity of Perseverance, yet is that infallibly future: And the holy fear of apostasy is at once both a sure pledge and principal Engine of Perseverance. And so much for Mr. Gibbons, and Mr. Truman, both whose writings worthy M. Baxter commendeth as extraordinary clear and sound in this point of Justification: and saith, that no man more clearly opened the Doctrine of Justification than Mr. Gibbons in his foresaid Sermon. Christian Directory, p. 924. and Treatise of Justifying Righteousness, p. 23.  
I have a word or two more with reference to the late worthy Dr. own, who in his Book entitled, Meditations and Discourses on the Glory of Christ, from pag. 323, to pag. 138. in my opinion runs into the contrary extreme of Antinomianism, yea and Pelagianism too.  
§. 39. There is a natural Union between Christ and his Church, such as is between man and man. Dr. own, ib. Answ. If so, then Christ is no more but a mere man, and then he is not Christ, and the Church is no longer itself. Christ as man is naturally related to all men, those in Hell not excepted. For it is a contradiction to be a man, and not naturally related to all the race of men. But as bare man he is not Christ, but the true Christ is God and man, and as such he is supernatural, and the Church quâ talis, is wholly mystical and supernatural; and there is no natural Union at all between Christ and the Church, but it is wholly by Faith, and Faith is supernatural. What is natural is common to all, 
2 Thess. 3.2.  but all men have not Faith That Scripture Heb. 2.11. doth not prove a natural Union between Christ and the Church, but the contrary.  
§. 40. There is as distinct from mystical, a soederal Conjunction between Christ and the Church. federal Conjunction is where one by the common consent of all that are concerned, undertakes to be a Sponsor or Surety for others, to do and answer what on their part is required of them for attaining the ends of the Covenant. So did the Lord Christ undertake to be Surety of the new Covenant in behalf of the Church Heb. 7.22. Answ. 1. This is contradicted by th● reverend Author himself, ib. p. 135. Amongst other● there neither is nor can be any thing of this nature. 〈◇〉 not this to say, that the federal Conjunction between Christ and the Church is wholly mystical? How the● can it be distinct from what is mystical? 2. All Angels and all men be eternally concerned in the Redemption of Christ. He is God, and all Angels and men beternally debtors to God, to love him sincerely, and to obey his Commandments universally. But did Christ by common consent of all Angels and men undertake to be a Sponsor or Surety for them, to do and answer what on their part is necessary to eternal happiness ● Christ was fore-ordained from before the the foundation of the World. 
1 Pet. 1.21.  Did we from Eternity and before we had a being ordain Christ? Or was there before the foundation o● the World a Parliament or Consultation, in which were present the Father, the Son, and the holy Ghost, and all the elect Angels and men, and all non-elect Angels and men; and by common consent of them all i● was voted and concluded that the Son of God should become incarnate, and become the sponsor and Surety of all Angels and men, and infallibly save them all ● What a heap of blasphemous and intolerable contradictions be comprised in this Doctrine, saving all due reverence to the name of the worthy Author now with God.  
§. 41. There is mystical Conjunction between Christ and the Church, which although it is not actually consummate without an actual participation of the Spirit of Christ, yet the Church of the Elect was designed antecedently unto all his Sufferings, to be his Spouse and Wife, so as that he might love her and suffer for her. Dr. own, ib. Answ. This implies, that antecedent to actual Participation of the Spirit of Christ, there is mystical Union between Christ and the Elect, though not actually consummate: but so soon as we are regenerate and actually partake of the Spirit of Christ, then mystical Union between Christ and us is actually consummate. But certainly this is not that Doctrine which is according to Godliness. Antecedent to Regeneration there is no mystical Union between Christ, and Peter and Paul and the rest of the Elect. But if we consider God as Law-giver, so the Elect themselves before and without Faith are condemned already, 
Joh. 3.18.36.  and the Wrath of God abideth on them, and should they so die they should perish eternally. Before Conversion we have no Union with Christ, but all our Union is with Satan, and with worldly and ungodly Lusts. And it is false, that so soon as we are regenerate and actually partake of the Spirit of Christ the Union between Christ and us is consummate. For we are but in part sanctified, and so long as there is any sin in us, and our Sanctification is imperfect for the degree, the Union between Christ and us is not consummate. Our Pardon and Justification is indeed perfect, and our perfect Sanctification and eternal Glorification is infallibly future, but what is barely future is not present. Christ is the Surety of the new Covenant, but not in a worldly, legal, and political sense; but in a heavenly, divine, transcendent and mystical sense, which profiteth no man without Faith. God's Decree doth no mo●● mystically unite the Elect to Christ before and without Faith, than it doth sanctify and glorify them.  
§. 42. Christ took on himself, and on his whol● Soul, the utmost of evil that God had ever threatened to Sin or Sinners. Dr. own, p. 104. Answ. Did Christ take on his whole Soul everlasting Damnation? Was he everlastingly hated of God? Was h●● Soul full of hellish despair and enmity against God? Christ as our Surety, and in our stead died for us, and by the Sacrifice of himself made full atonement to God for our Sins. But he did not, he could not take on himself, and on his whole Soul, the utmost of evil that God had ever threatened to Sin and Sinners. For then God must needs eternally hate and torment him, as he doth and will do those in Hell: and he also must needs be full of eternal hatred against God, and self-tormenting anguish and Despair. What Christ did endure did disfer in specie from everlasting hellish Despair and torment, and was neither idem nor tantundem. These two are the same, they do not differ in specie. The Death of Christ is truly a Price, and a Counter price for the Sin of the World; but not in a legal, but only in an evangelical sense, not to be understood but by Faith and the Inspiration of the Holy Ghost. Having thus refuted the errors and extremes about this sweet and precious Doctrine of Justification, I shall in a few words positively declare the sum of it.  
1. The Doctrine of the first and second Adam compriseth the substance, marrow, and kernel of Divinity, necessary to Salvation. As we are in the first Adam, all men by nature be Children of Wrath, and dead in sin, and there is in them the Law of Works gendering unto bondage, as opposite to the Law of Faith and the Spirit of Adoption.  
2. Jesus Christ very God and man is the only Saviour and Redeemer of lost man: Nothing may be joined as coordinate with him in this work.  
3. A false Charge is with God its own Condemnation, and thus Satan himself is capable of being justified, it being a sin to belie the Devil.  
4. Against the Charge of Sin in general and Condemnation for the same, no man since the Fall can while in this World be justified save by Faith in Jesus, and by Faith only, not as opposite to but as inseparably accompanied with, and the happy Instrument of Regeneration, and all holy Obedience from first to last. Being pardonned all Sin by Faith only for Christ's sake, we then love God, and do all good works. In order of nature Justification and forgiveness of Sin through Faith is first, and then Regeneration, Adoption, sincere Obedience, and universal Piety, but as to time they are together.  
5. Being acquitted from all Sin in the general, and Condemnation for the same by Faith, there is no need of further Justification in this World, nor can there be, with respect to God.  
6. Against the Charge of Ungodliness, Impenitency and Unbelief, nothing can be our Justification but Godliness, Repentance, and Faith, both before God and man.  
7. All the Sins of the Elect be permitted by God in eternal mercy to them, yet may no man sin that Grace may abound, and the Elect before Conversion be under the Curse of the Law, and when converted unless they persevere they shall perish.  
8. Faith is its own evidence in the breast of him that hath it, it may consist with doubts, but not with reigning and allowed doubts, ordinarily.  
9. There is no difference between the merit and atonement of Christ; the whole state of his Humiliation from his Incarnation to his Suffering, especially his dying for us, all of it is merit, and all of it is satisfaction, atonement, and ransom on our behalf, though eminently his Death: it is meritorious ransom, and all-sufficient merit, as it is the Piety, Humiliation, and Obedience of that same Jesus who is very God and man, which we apprehending and resting upon by Faith, as feeely wrought for us, and assured to us by the Gospel, this our Faith is imputed to us for Righteousness, all the Sin being pardonned.  
10. In renouncing all our own doings, Righteousness, and Merit, that we may by Faith have perfect Remission in Christ, we do not hereby reaounce our own renouncing.  
11. The Faith whereby we obtain forgiveness of Sin and Justification from the Curse of the Law, 
Heb. 11.8.33. Rom. 1.5.& 16.26.  from first to last is not Obedience; but by it we do obey and work righteousness; as needy Beggars we do penitently and thankfully receive all from God by Faith, and by it return all to God again in Love, Thankfulness, Obedience, and Praise.  
FINIS.