will, it had not been ours. To make this fill more evident, let it be noted that in every fin of commiffion, there is required not only the will of the Creator forbidding that action, but alfo the will of the creature choofing to do what is forbid. den; but in this supposed original fin, there is no will of ours choofing this forbidden action more than any other fin of Adam; it was not therefore upon that account our fin; it remains then that it was only fo by the will of the Creator. If it be replied, that the action and will of Adam was ours alfo, I afk whether it was fo by its own nature, or only by the free decree and will of God? If only by the latter, it clearly follows that his actions are made and accounted ours by the Diler mere will of God, and fo that only renders it our fin; ifn. from its own nature, then all his other finful wills and actions must be ours alfo; for what agrees to the will and actions of Adam, from the nature of them, muft agree to every action of Adam at all times: Now this being confeffedly falfe, it remains that it is folely from the arbitrary will of God that we are guilty of this, and not of any other fin of Adam.

will and

Laftly. The compact they have forged betwixt God and Adam, to juftify this imputation of his fin to his pofterity, and the decrees enfuing upon that imputation, as it is forged out of their own brain, fo it is a compact exceeding cruel, and plainly inconfiftent with the juftice, wifdom and goodness of our gracious God. For furely, a good God, in all his compacts with the fons of men designs their good, or their advantage; for fo it is with all the other compacts God ever made with man; but God could not defign the good of man by that compact upon the forefeen event, of which he had before made his abfolute decrees of election and réprobation.

2dly. As for the other part of this compact, that Adam continuing innocent, fhould have begot children in his own likenefs, that is, partakers of his own original righteousness, that could produce no proportionable advantage to his pofterity; for his righteoufnels being defectible, he could have only derived upon them a defectible righteoufnefs, which muft have left them fill as liable to fall as he himself was; and then their pofterity must have been in the fame fad cafe in which Adam's fall had placed his pofterity. And 2dly.His fin, had he fallen after he had begotten ten children, muft have involved all the reft in this fad doom; fo that his whole righteous life could have only procured to his pofterity a defectible righteoufrefs, liable, continually to interruption by the fin of any one of his pofterity; and that throughout all times and ages of the world; whereas, one fingle tranfgreffion of his, was, by this compact, to render his whole race

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obnoxious to eternal mifery, and by this eternal decree of reprobation, upon this forefeen fall, to render the far greatest part of them inevitably fubject to that mifery.

Again, this compact plainly feems to have been invented to excufe God from cruelty, in fubjecting myriads of men and infants to the moft direful and lafting torments; which with out this imaginary pact, he could not with the leaft pretence of justice do. Moreover, did not God know, before this compact, it would only tend by the fall of Adam to the una voidable ruin of myriads of fouls, which otherwife would have contracted no fuch guilt, and therefore would have been obnoxious to no fuch mifery, had not this compact and decree been made? What therefore did he, by making this decree, but fubject fo many precious fouls to an inevitable ruin ?-How therefore could he contrive and make fuch a decree and compact, without being willing that fo many men and infants fhould be forever miferable by it? Since he who wills the caufe, wills alfo the effect, which certainly and inevitably, without their action, follows from it.

.t

t

If in favor of these imaginations it be faid, that the feripture, exprefsly teacheth that in Adam all have finned; and by the dif obedience of one, many were made finners: To this I have giv en a fufficient anfwer in the note upon thofe words, fhewing that these words may and must have a metonymical fenfe, becaufe of the abfurdities which follow from the formal acceptation of them. And, 2dly. Because the comparison made betwixt the first Adam, and the effects of his difobedience, and the fecond Adam, and the effects of his obedience to the death, require it; the Holy Ghoft ftill fpeaking of his fuffering for our fins in this metonymical fenfe; as it is, 1. When he is faid to bear our fins, only because he bore the punishment due to them. 2dly. When he is faid to be made Jin for us; he being made fin for us, not by contracting the guilt of it, but only fuffering punishment for it in our stead. 3dly. When he is faid (n) to appear a fecond time xwpis alaprias, without fin, i, e. without another facrifice, in which he was to fuffer for it; and (o) that by fin, i. e. by what he fuffered when he made himfelf a facrifice for it. He condemned, An in the flesh. And 4thly. When he is faid to be (p) made a curfe for us; he being only fo by fuffering that death which the law ftyled accurfed, and not as being fo, in the fight of God. And 3dly. Because the oppofite phrafe, díxam natat καθήσονται, required that the words ἁμαρτωλοὶ κατεςάθησαν, Should be used in this fenfe; for when the Apoftle faith, by the

(*) 2 Cor. v. 20.-Heb. ix. 28.) Rom. viii. 2.(p) Gal.

ül. 33.

abedience of one fhall many be made righteous, it is evident in itfelf, and proved by three arguments, that he fpeaks not of Chrift's active, but of his paffive obedience, or fuffering death for us; now by this paffive obedience we cannot be made formally righteous, but only metonymically, by being made partakers of that freedom from condemnation and the guilt of fin, and the reconciliation which Chrift purchased by his meritorious death and paffion.

SECTION III-Argument 3.-3dly. This decree is falfe both in the parts, and the end of it. The parts of it are these two:

ft. That God hath from eternity elected a certain number of perfons to falvation, leaving the rest under an abfolute decree of reprobation or preterition, and that of this election or reprobation there can be no other caufe but God's own free will; for predeftination, fay they, being an immanent act of the di vine understanding cannot be conceived as dependent upon any Forefeen acts of man's will, and therefore his forefeen faith, repentance and perfeverance cannot, in any good fenfe, be imagin ed antecedent caufes, conditions or motives to the divine predeftination; and that is Metaphyfics, and the jargon of the Schoolmen, entirely ignorant of the true fenfe of fcripture, made to countenance a decree reflecting fo unworthily upon the honor of our gracious God, that it is not eafy to conceive what could more vifibly tend to the difhonor of his glorious name and attributes.

adly. That in order to the accomplishing the falvation of his elect, he hath decreed to afford them that grace, which shall infallibly and infruflrably bring them to falvation; whereas they who are comprifed under the decree of reprobation, are left, fay they, infallibly to fail of eternal life, and fo are left to fail of means which may bring them to eternal life, or to escape everlasting death; for they can only infallibly fail of the end, by failing of the means which may produce it; for fince he that hath means by which he may be faved, may be faved; and he that hath means by which he may escape damnation, may efcape damnation; he who by God's decree of reprobation, is left infallibly to fail of falvation, and confequently to be damned, muft as infallibly be left without the means by which he may obtain falvation or escape damnation.

3dly. In the abfolute election of thofe whom God hath thus appointed to falvation, he decreed (q) fay they, to glorify his mercy; and in the reprobation and the preterition of the reft, he decreed to glorify his fovereignty and juflice in their damnation; the manifeftation, therefore, of his grace and mercy in the falvation of the one, and of his juftice and fovereignty

(q) Bishop Davenant, p. 27, 28.

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in the damnation of the other, must be the two great ends of God in these decrees.

Now the falfehood of thefe two decrees, touching the abfolute election of fome perfons to falvation, is fufficiently argued in the fifth Difcourfe. ft. From God's command to all chriftians to make their calling and election fure. 2dly. From his frequent exhortations directed to them to continue stedfaft in the faith, and to keep themselves in the love of God, and to work out their falvation with fear and trembling. 3dly. From the cautions directed to good chriftians, not to fall from grace, or from their own ftedfaftness. 4thly. From threats denounced against the righteous man who turneth away from his rightcoufnefs, and the juft man who living by faith draweth back,

adly. As they respect those that are fuppofed to lie under an abfolute decree of reprobation; the falfehood of them hath been fully proved in the fecond Difcourfe. ft. From God's ferious and earnest invitations of them to repentance. 2dly, From his vehement defires of their reformation and obedience. 3dly. From his declarations that he had done for them what was fufficient to produce it. 4thly. From his promises to excite them to it; his longfuffering defigned for that very end; and from his dreadful threats intended to deter them from perfifting in their evil ways. And, laftly, From the manifold demonftrations he hath afforded us in holy fcripture, that he doth not look upon wicked men as under an utter difability of being reformed by his judgments, or his mercies, or of hearkening to his calls and invitations to return and live.

And, 2dly. Such a decree as this being a fecret of God's counfel, no man can know that God hath made it, but from the exprefs, and the clear revelation of the holy fcripture; and fo no perfon can have any reason to affert it on any other account. Now as I have fhown already, that the fcripture hath faid nothing of these decrees; so will this be more evident by a reflection on every part of them.

ft. The decree of election fay they, is abfolute, and withbut respect to man's faith, repentance or perfeverance. Now the feripture faith exprefsly, (r) he that believeth fhall be faved() he that endureth to the end fhall be faved (t) repent, and be converted, and your fins fhall be blotted out; (u) to them who by patient continuance in welldoing, look for glory, God will give eternal life. So that they who speak thus, fpeak the conftant language of the holy fcriptures; whereas they who affirm that he hath abfolutely decreed eternal life to any, without respect to any act of man's will, or any condition to

(r) Mark xvi, 16. -() Matth. xxiv. 13.—(t) Acts iii. 19.f) Rom. ii. 7.

be performed on his part, speak that which hath not the leaft foundation in the word of God. Chrift faith indeed, that (v) it is his Father's good pleafure to give the kingdom to his lit tle flock; but then this flock confifteth only of believers, who have already heard Chrift's voice, and followed him, and of thofe (w) whom the father had given to him; but then he informs us, that (x) Judas, a fon of perdition, was one of them. He faith again, (y) All that the father giveth me shall come unto me, but fpeaks not one word of their being given to him by an abfolute eternal decree of election to falvation, without refpect to any thing to be in time performed by them.

2dly. The fcripture hath not one fyllable to prove that the object of this election is a certain number of fingular persons. Thofe words, the Lord knoweth who are his, do no more prove this, than those words of Chrift, I know my Sheep; and those of the Pfalmift, the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, prove that there is a certain number of fingular perfons who are Chrift's fheep, and who only can be righteous. The fcrip ture often speaketh, as hath been fully fhewed, of churches, and nations elected to be his church and people, but nothing of any fingle perfon elected from eternity to falvation, much less of any certain number of them.

3dly. That God hath abfolutely ordained one fingle perfon to faith, repentance and perfeverance to the end, is no where written. And hence it clearly follows, that there can be no fuch abfolute reprobation revealed in the fcriptures, as thefe decrees hold forth; for as electio non eft, fine reprobatione, there is no election without a reprobation of the nonelected, fo can there be no reprobation where there is no previous eléc tion.

Again, to fay that election or predeftination being an imma nent, eternal act of God's understanding, or rather of his will, for that alone decrees, can have no dependence on, or respect to any act of man's will by way of motive or condition, is to fay things contrary to fcripture and to common sense. For,

1. Did not God decree from all eternity, to pardon the penitent, to justify him that believeth in Jefus, to fave the obedient, and that they who fuffer for, and with Chrift, fhall be glo rified together with him? And must not these immanent eternal acts have refpect to the temporal faith, repentance, obediance and patient fufferings of men?

2dly. Did not God from all eternity, decree to judge all men according to their works, and that all men fhould receive rewards and punishments according as their works shall be;

(v) Luke xii. 32.—(w) John xvii. 6.- -(x) Ver. 12John vi. 37.