mankind, who are not to be faved by him; they from thence ART. conclude, that all thofe for whom he died are certainly faved XVII. by him. Perhaps with relation to fome fubaltern bleffings, w which are through him communicated, if not to all mankind, yet to all Chriftians, he may be faid to have died for all but as to eternal falvation, they believe his defign went no farther than the fecret purpofe and election of God, and this they think is implied in these words, all that are given me of my Father thine they were, and thou gavest them me. He alfo limits his intercenon to thofe only; I pray not for the world, but for thofe that thou hast given me; for they are thine, and all thine are mine, and mine are thine. They believe that he also limited to them the extent of his death, and of that facrifice which he offered in it.

John xvii.

9, 10.

It is true, the Chriftian religion being to be diftinguished from the Jewish in this main point, that whereas the Jewish was restrained to Abraham's pofterity, and confined within one race and nation, the Chriftian was to be preached to every creature; universal words are used concerning the death of Chrift: but as the words, preaching to every creature, and to Mark xvi. all the world, are not to be understood in the utmost extent, 15. for then they have never been verified; fince the Gospel has never yet, for aught that appears to us, been preached to every nation under heaven; but only are to be explained generally of a commiffion not limited to one or more nations; none being excluded from it: the Apoftles were to execute it in going from city to city, as they fhould be inwardly moved to it by the Holy Ghoft: fo they think that thofe large words, that are applied to the death of Christ, are to be understood in the fame qualified manner; that no nation or fort of men are excluded from it, and that fome of all kinds and forts shall be faved by him. And this is to be carried no farther, without an imputation on the juftice of God: for if he has received a fufficient oblation and fatisfaction for the fins of the whole world, it is not reconcileable to justice, that all should not be faved by it, or should not at least have the offer and promulgation of it made them; that fo a trial may be made whether they will accept of it or not.

The grace of God is fet forth in Scripture by fuch figures and expreffions as do plainly intimate its efficacy; and that it does not depend upon us to use it, or not to use it at pleasure. It is faid to be a creation; we are created unto good works, and Eph. ii. 10. we become new creatures: it is called a regeneration, or a new 2 Cor. v. 17. Phil. ii. 13. birth; it is called a quickening and a refurrection; as our Pf. cx. 3. former ftate is compared to a feeblenefs, a blindness, and a Jer. xxxi. death. God is faid to work in us both to will and to do: His 33, 34. Ezek.xxxvi. people fhall be willing in the day of his power: He will write 26, 27. his Rom. ix.21.

XVII.

ART. his laws in their hearts, and make them to walk in them. Mankind is compared to a mass of clay in the hand of the pot ter, who of the fame lump makes at his pleasure vessels of honour or of dishonour. These paffages, this laft in particular, do infinuate an abfolute and a conquering power in grace; and that the love of God conftrains us, as St. Paul speaks expressly.

All outward co-action is contrary to the nature of liberty, and all those inward impreffions that drove on the Prophets, fo that they had not the free use of their faculties, but felt themselves carried they knew not how, are inconfiftent with it; yet when a man feels that his faculties go in their method, and that he affents or chooses from a thread of inward conviction and ratiocination, he ftill acts frecly, that is, by an internal principle of reafon and thought. A man acts as much according to his faculties, when he affents to a truth, as when he chooses what he is to do: and if his mind were fo enlightened, that he faw as clearly the good of moral things, as he perceives fpeculative truths, fo that he felt himfelf as little able to refift the one as the other, he would be no less a free and a rational creature, than if he were left to a more unlimited range: nay, the more evidently that he faw the true good of things, and the more that he were determined by it, he should then act more fuitably to his faculties, and to the excellence of his nature. For though the faints in heaven being made perfect in glory, are no more capable of farther rewards, yet it cannot be denied but they act with a more accomplished liberty, because they see all things in a true light, Pf. xxxvi.9. according to that, in thy light we shall fee light: and therefore they conclude that fuch an overcoming degree of grace, by which a man is made willing through the illumination of his understanding, and not by any blind or violent impulse, is no way contrary to the true notion of liberty.

After all, they think, that if a debate falls to be between the fovereignty of God, his acts and his purposes, and the freedom of man's will, it is modeft and decent rather to make the abatement on man's part than on God's; but they think there is no need of this. They infer, that befides the outward enlightening of a man by knowledge, there is an inward.enlightening of the mind, and a fecret forcible conviction ftampt on it; otherwife what can be meant by the prayer of St. Paul for the Ephefians, who had already heard the Gofpel preached, and Eph. i. 17, were inftructed in it; that the eyes of their understanding being enlightened, they might know what was the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the faints, and what was the exceeding greatness of his power towards them that believed. This feems to be fomewhat that is both internal and efficacious.

18, 19.

Chrift compares the union and influence, that he communicates A r T. to believers, to that union of a head with the members, and of XVII. a root with the branches, which imports an internal, a vital," and an efficacious influence. And though the outward means that are offered, may be, and always are rejected, when not accompanied with this overcoming grace, yet this never returns empty: these outward means coming from God, the refifting of them is faid to be the refifting God, the grieving or quenching his Actsvii. 57. Spirit; and fo in that fenfe we refift the grace or favour of God: Eph. iv. 30. but we can never withstand him when he intends to overcome us.

As for perfeverance, it is a necessary confequence of absolute decrees, and of efficacious grace: for fince all depends upon God, and that as of his own will he begat us, fo with him there Jam. i. 17, is neither variableness nor fhadow of turning whom he loves he 18. loves to the end; and he has promifed, that he will never leave John xiii.I. nor forfake thofe to whom he becomes a God: we must from' thence conclude, that the purpose and calling of God is with- Heb. xiii. 5. out repentance. And therefore though good men may fall into grievous fins, to keep them from which there are dreadful things faid in Scripture, against their falling away, or apoftafy; yet God does fo uphold them, that though he fuffers them often to feel the weight of their natures, yet of all that are given by the Father to the Son to be faved by him, none are loft.

Upon the whole matter, they believe that God did in himself and for his own glory foreknow fuch a determinate number, whom he pitched upon, to be the persons in whom he would be both fanctified and glorified: that having thus foreknown them, he predeftinated them to be holy, conformable to the image of his Son: that these were to be called not by a general calling in the sense of these words, many are called, but few are Mat. xx.16. chofen; but to be called according to his purpose: and thofe he Rom. viii. juftified upon their obeying that calling; and he will in conclu- 29, 30. fion glorify them. Nor are these words only to be limited to the fufferings of good men, they are to be extended to all the effects of the love of God, according to that which follows, that nothing can feparate us from the love of God in Chrift. The whole reafoning in the 9th of the Romans does fo plain- Rom. ix. 15, ly refolve all the acts of God's mercy and juftice, his hardening as well as his pardoning, into an abfolute freedom, and an unsearchable depth, that more exprefs words to that effect can hardly be imagined.

It is in general faid, that the children being yet unborn, nei- Ver. 11. ther having done good, or evil; that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth; Facob was loved, and Efau bated: that God raised up Pharaoh, Ver. 17. that he might few his power in him; and when an objection is fuggefted against all this, inftead of anfwering it, it is filenced

Ver. 20.

48.

28.

xi. 10

xxi.27.

ART. with this, Who art thou, O man, that repliest against God? And XVII.all is illuftrated with the figure of the potter: and concluded with this folemn question, What if God, willing to fhew his wrath, Rom.ix.22, and to make his power known, endured with much long-juffering, the veffels of wrath fitted to deftruction? This carries the reader to confider what is fo often repeated in the book of Exodus, Exod.iv.21. concerning God's hardening the heart of Pharaoh, fo that he x: 20. would not let his people go. It is faid, that God has made the xiv. 8. wicked man for the day of evil; as it is written on the other Prov. xvi. 4. hand, that as many believed the Gospel, as were appointed to eterActs xiii. nal life. Some are faid to be written in the book of life, of the Rev. xiii. 8. Lamb, flain before the foundation of the world, or according to God's iii. 5. purpose before the world began. Ungodly men are faid to be of xx. 12 old ordained to condemnation, and to be given up by God unto vile Rom. i. 26, affections, and to be given over by him to a reprobate mind. Therefore they think that reprobation is an abfolute and free act of God, as well as election, to manifeft his holiness and juftice in them who are under it, as well as his love and mercy is manifefted in the elect. Nor can they think with the Sublapfarians, that reprobation is only God's paffing by thofe whom he does not elect; this is an act unworthy of God, as if he forgot them, which does clearly imply imperfection. And as for that which is faid concerning their being fallen in Adam, they argue, that either Adam's fin, and the connection of all mankind to him as their head and reprefentative, was abfolutely decreed, or it was not: if it was, then all is abfolute; Adam's fin and the fall of mankind were decreed, and by confequence all from the beginning to the end are under a continued chain of abfolute decrees; and then the Supralapfarian and the Sublapfarian hypothefis will be one and the fame, only varioufly exprefled. But if Adam's fin was only forefeen and permitted, then a conditionate decree founded upon prescience is once admitted, fo that all that follows turns upon it; and then all the arguments either against the perfection of fuch acts, or the certainty of fuch a prefcience, turn against this; for if they are admitted in any one inftance, then they may be admitted in others as well as in that.

The Sublapfarians do always avoid to anfwer this; and it feems they do rather incline to think that Adam was under an abfolute decree; and if fo, then though their doctrine may seem to thefe, who do not examine things nicely, to look more plaufible; yet really it amounts to the fame thing with the other. For it is all one to fay, that God decreed that Adam fhould fin, and that all mankind, fhould fall in him, and that then God fhould choose out of mankind, thus fallen by his decree, fuch as he would fave, and leave the rest in that lapsed state to perish in it; as it is to fay, that God intending to fave fome, and to

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damn others, did, in order to the carrying this on in a method of AR T. juftice, decree Adam's fall, and the fall of mankind in him, XVII. in order to the faving of his elect, and the damning of the reft. All that the Sublapfarians fay in this particular for themfelves is, that the Scripture has not declared any thing concerning the fall of Adam, in fuch formal terms, that they can affirm any thing concerning it. A liberty of another kind feems to have been then in man, when he was made after the image of God, and before he was corrupted by fin. And therefore though it is not easy to clear all difficulties in fo intricate a matter, yet it feems reasonable to think, that man in a state of innocency was a purer and a freer creature to good, than now he is. But after all, this feems to be only a fleeing from the difficulty, to a lefs offenfive way of talking of it; for if the prefcience of future contingents cannot be certain, unless they are decreed, then God could not certainly foreknow Adam's fin, without he had made an abfolute decree about it; and that, as was just now faid, is the fame thing with the Supralapfarian hypothefis; of which I fhall fay no more, having now laid together in a finall compafs, the full ftrength of this argument. 1 go next to fet out with the fame fidelity and exactness the Remonftrants arguments.

They begin with this, that God is juft, holy, and merciful: that, in fpeaking of himself in the Scripture with relation to thofe attributes, he is pleafed to make appeals to men, to call them to reafon with him: thus his Prophets did often befpeak the Jewish nation; the meaning of which is, that God. acts fo, that men, according to the notions that they have of those attributes, may examine them, and will be forced to juftify and approve them. Nay, in thefe God propofes himself to us, as our pattern; we ought to imitate him in them, and by confequence we may frame juft notions of them. We are required to be holy and merciful as he is merciful. What then can we think of a juftice that fhall condemn us for a fact that we never committed, and that was done many years before we were born? as also that defigns first of all to be glorified by our being eternally miferable, and that decrees that we fhall commit fins, to justify the previous decree of our reprobation? If thofe decrees are thus originally defigned by God, and are certainly effectuated, then it is inconceivable how there fhould be a juftice in punifhing that which God himflf appointed by an antecedent and irreversible decrce fhould be done : fo this feems to lie hard upon juftice. It is no lefs hard upon infinite holinefs, to imagine that a Being of purer eyes than Hab. i. 13. that it can behold iniquity, fhould by an antecedent decree fix our committing fo many fins, in fuch a manner that it is

not