4 with his intention to die only for them whom fhould actually be faved. SECTION III.-3dly. Hence it must follow that none of thofe to whom God never intended falvation by Chrift, or who fhall not be actually, faved by him, are bound to believe, in him; for had not this Savior come into the world they could not have been obliged to believe in him, and is not it to them all one to have no Savior come at all, and none come for them? Moreover, if he died not for them, they cannot believe in his death; if there be no falvation for them in Chrift, they cannot believe he is their Savior; fhould they believe, must not their faith be in vain, feeing it cannot alter the intentions of God in delivering his Son up to the death, or of Chrift in dying for the elect only, and why then do the minifters of the gofpel promise falvation to all men provided they believe, when no falvation is provided for all? And fo none can be tendered by them to all on any condition whatfoever? Since God himfelf never intended falvation fhould be obtainable by all, and therefore never could give them commiffion to tender it to all on any condition whatso ever, why doth Chrift fay to all the Jews that came to him ()this is the command of God that ye believe in the name of the Son of God; fince this command must be a declaration of God's will that they fhould all believe, and his intention that the generality of the Jews fhould not have falvation by Christ, fhews his contrary will? And, laftly, why doth he promise falvation to all if they believe, by faying, (w) he that believeth fhall be faved: (x) whofoever believeth in him fhall have everlafting life; and then inquire thus, if I fay the truth, why do you not believe me; feeing he died not with an intention to purchase falvation to many of them whom he would not actually fave ? 4thly. Hence it clearly follows that no man can be condemned hereafter for final impenitency and unbelief, feeing he tranfgreffeth no law of God by his unbelief; for furely God commandeth no man to believe in Chrift for falvation, for whom he never intended falvation by Chrift, or to repent for falvation whom he intended not to fave by Chrift; fince therefore where there is no tranfgreffion there can be no condemnation; why doth Chrift threaten to the Jews, (y) that if they did not believe he was the Chrift, i. e. the Savior of the world, they fhould die in their fins? Why doth he declare them who believe not in him (z) inexcufeable and without all cloak for their fins, and why doth the apostle fay, how shall (v) John vi. 29. (w) Mark xvi. 16.- -(x) John vi. 40. viii. 46.(y) John viii. 24. −(≈) John xv, 22, 24. we efcape if we neglect fo great falvation? Since that can be no falvation at all to them for whom it never was intended, and it must be all one to them to neglect and ufe the greatest diligence about it. In a word, either it was poffible for them who die in their impenitence and unbelief to believe and repent to falvation, or it was not fo; if it were poffible, then either Chrift muft have died for them, or it must be poffible for them to be faved without a Savior; if it was not, they either muft not be obliged at all to believe and repent, or they must be obliged to do what it was impoffible for them to do; yea, feeing this impoffibility arifeth only from God's denial of that grace to them which he vouchsafes to his elect (for had they the fame grace, it would or might have the fame effect upon them) it follows that God mult both will they fhould repent and believe, because he commands and obliges them fo to do, and yet will they fhould neither repent nor believe, because he wills the denial of that grace without which it is impoffible they fhould do fo. SECTION V.-5thly. Hence it will follow that neither the elect, nor nonelect, can rationally be exhorted to believe; not they who are not elected, because Chrift died not for them; not the elect, for he that knows himfelf to be one of that number hath believed and repented already; if he do not know this, he cannot know that Chrift died for him, and fo` he cannot know it is his duty to believe in him for falvation. Whereas if you affert Chrift died for all, then may you ra tionally exhort all men to believe, fince every one must know that he who died for all, died for him alfo, and therefore that it is his duty to believe in him for falvation. SECTION 6.-6thly. Hence it must follow that God hath not vouchfafed fufficient means of falvation to all to whom the gospel is revealed; for seeing there is no pardon, no juftification, no peace with God, no deliverance from the wrath to come, to be obtained but through faith in him, no (a) oth-' er name given by which we can be faved; they who have no intereft in his death can have no means of obtaining pardon and falvation. Now as all were not Ifrael who were of Ifrael, fo all are not of the number of the elect to whom the gospel is revealed; fo that if falvation by Chrift can be obtained only by the elect, the refidue of thofe to whom the gospel is revealed can have no means fufficient for falvation. But this is contrary ft. To the whole tenor of the gofpel which is, faith the apoftle, (b) the power of God through faith to the falvation of every one that believeth; (c) the word of grace which is a (a) Aas iv, 12.—(b) Rom. i. 16. ~(6) Acts xx. 32. ble to build us up, and give us an inheritance among thofe that are fanctified: (d) The faving grace of God which hath appeared to all men; thofe fcriptures which are able to make us wife unto falvation that gofpel which was written that we might believe that Jefus is the Chrift, and believing might have life through his name. John xx. 39, adly. If men have not fufficient means to be faved by the covenant of grace, then have they only means given them to increase their condemnation, yea, fuch means which they cannot but ufe to their greater and more heavy punishment; fince (e) he who knows his master's will, as all to whom the gofpel is revealed may do, and doth it not, fhall be beaten with more stripes; and fo it had been better for them not to have known the way of life, or to have had no covenant of grace tendered to them. For if they be not able by the affiftance of that grace which God is willing to vouchsafe them, to repent and believe the gofpel, they muft lie under a neceffity of being damned for not receiving the truth in the love of it, and of that neglect of this falvation, which renders it impoffible they fhould efcape the wrath of God, and under a neceffity of perifhing, for (f) if we repent, not we must all perifh and this impenitency and unbelief must be more crimi nal for being committed under the gofpel difpenfation, than, otherwise it would have been; fo that the revelation of the gofpel must be the foreft judgment to them, feeing it muft-increafe their damnation without a poffibility in them who want ed means fufficient to procure pardon and falvation, or of obtaining any bleffings by it; whereas it is certain, that this Father of Spirits cannot be fo unnatural to his own immediate offspring, as to defign their greater mifery by his moft gracious difpenfations; fince, as our Savior argues, (g) if earth. ly parents being epil, will not be fo unnatural to their chil dren, much lefs will our heavenly Father be fo to his; and: that this lover of fouls, who hath declared his ways cannot be unequal to them because (h) all fouls are his, can defign nothing, much lefs act any thing on purpose to increase their condemnation, and their inevitable ruin. adly. If all men under the gofpel have not means fufficient. to repent and believe, fo as they may be faved, vouchsafed by God, then must he ftill withhold fomething from them, with out which they cannot repent and believe to falvation, viz. fpecial grace, fo called, because it is peculiarly granted to the elect; an irrefiftable impulfe, with which the converfion of the finner, faith and repentance will certainly be produced, and with (d) Tit. ii. 11 (e) Luke xii. 47. Mat vii. 11. (b) Ezek. xviii. 4. -(f) Luke xiii. 3. -(8) - out which they neither will nor can be wrought in us; a divine energy, or an almighty power like that which God exerts in the creation, or the railing of the dead, we being by it made new creatures, and raised from a death in fin, to a life of right eau/nefs. Now if the want of all, or any of the things be the reason why so many, who live under the gofpel difpenfation, do not believe and repent to falvation; and upon this account it is that they continue in their impenitence and unbelief, becaufe they want this fpecial grace, and divine energy to do fo; thefe great abfurdities will follow. 1. That God condemns them to deftruction for that which is no fin; for fure it is no fin in the creature not to do that which can alone be done by the almighty power of God, and which cannot be done without that proper act of God he never would afford to them; for then it must be the fin of man not to be God; if therefore God should punish men for not doing that which therefore is not in their power to do, be caufe it requires a divine energy which he will not exert on their behalf, he muft punish them for not being equal in power with God himfelf. + 2dly. Then mult every impenitent and unbelieving person have a juft excufe, and a fufficient plea, why he thould not be punished, or condemned for his infidelity and unbelief, and they might cry to God as did the officers of the Jews to Pharaoh, (1) wherefore dealeft thou thus with thy feruants? There is no straw given to us, and thou fayeft to us, make bricks; no fpecial grace, no divine energy afforded us, and thou fayeft to us, do that, which can no more be done without it, than men can make bricks without ftraw, and thy fervants are beaten, but the fault is in him who denies us flraw, and yet requires. bricks; yea, who requires that faith, and that repentance. which he never would afford us means fufficient to perform; for the plea of infufficiency, or want of ftrength for the doing that which is commanded, is an excufe fufficient in the judg ment of all mankind where it is truly pleaded; I could not help, or I could not avoid it; I had no means, and no ability to do it, is an apology fufficient in the mouths of all men, nor fcarcely can a man be found fo barbarous as to condemn and punish, when he is affured this is indeed the cafe; and fhall we then afcribe greater feverity to a righteous God! If not, it must be certain men cannot appear inexcufable for their impenitence and unbelief, unlefs God had vouchfafed them means fufficient to repent and believe. SECTION VII-Reply. He it is faid we all had ftrength fufficient to believe in our firft parent Adam, and therefore (i) Exod. v. 15, 15. may be dealt with as if we had it ftill. To this lamentable pretence, fo weak, faith the judicious Dr. Claget, that nothing but a defperate caufe fhould force any man to take shelter in it, I answer, ft. That it owns the truth of the objection, viz. that to require of men what was ever impoffible for them to do under the highest penalties, and to punish and condemn them for not doing it, is evidently unjuft and cruel. 2dly. It is evidently falfe that Adam in the ftate of innocency, that is, before he had finned, had power to repent of his iniquity, and to believe in a favior not yet revealed for the remiffion of fins; thefe are the powers of a lapfed finner only, and therefore could only agree to Adam in his lapfed ftate, or when he was as impotent as we now are; fo that if he then, who was become as one of us, was able to repent and believe without fpecial grace, fo was his pofterity; if he had no abil ity, in cafe he fhould fall, to rife again by faith and repentance, we could have no fuch power in him. 2dly. They who then were not, were not in Adam, for Non entis nulla funt pradicata, and that which is not, hath no power, that being always in a fubject, and a confequent of the effence, for Poteftates fequuntur effentiam. To fay our nature was in Adam, and fo our power and our will might alfo be in him, is alfo falfe; for Adam was a particular man, an Individuum, and therefore could have only an individual and particular nature, and therefore only a particular will and power. To fay he had a nature like to that of ours derived from him, is to fay he had not the fame numerical or individual nature, for Nullum fimile eft idem. Hence, whereas that which is faid of human nature in common, agrees to every human nature; many things may be faid of the human nature of Adam, which agree to the human nature of none of his pofterity, viz. that it was the first human nature that was in the world; that it was entirely and immediately created by God, and came not into the world by generation; that it was free from fin, and made upright; that it was able to perform perfect obedience; that it dwelt in paradife, and was caft out thence for eating the forbidden fruit; and laftly, the nature of Adam had a power to continue innocent, and without fin, whereas it is certain our nature never had fo; for we could never hinder the fin of our nature, nor the influence which the fin of Adam had upon it to make us finners. In a word, the queftion is not concerning the juftice of condemning the nature of Adam, but concerning the juftice of condemning our erfons to eternal punishment for not doing that which it was always impoffible for them to do. |