Chapter 13

CHAP. XIII.

Q. 13. What the unrenewed and the renewed can do in the respective dead condition at the use of means? 2. Influences work as God sets them on. 3. A gracious heart reflects upon itself. 4. We may do more by the habit of grace than we do. 5. Divers cases of renewed and unrenewed. 7. No promise is made to using of external means only, yet a sad threatening is made to the not using of them. 8. The opposition by unbelief that reprobates make to the Gospel.

It is a matter of difficulty to determine, because of the various cases, what we may here do in the using of means. 1. Unrenewed men and renewed both can do less in using of means, when two mountains and two rivers are in the way, than when one only is before them; an unrenewed having both his natural corruption and a strong temptation against him can do no less. So Naaman by his office being obliged to go to the house of the Idol-God Rimmon, and not yet converted, could more hardly abstain from that outward idolatry, than now when to natural corruption fear of offending his master the King of Assyria is added. No doubt Pilate naturally loathed and hated Christ, as Herod (Acts 12) did the Apostles and the Gospel, but when Pilate is afraid to offend the people, and to seem an enemy to Caesar, and Herod willing to pleasure the Jews, it's no wonder then both be not only weakened in using the means to believe in Christ, but also positively oppose Christ and the Gospel, and if both had been engaged in a profession of Christ, as many now are, they might have used means more largely to believe, and preferred Christ not in their heart and real estimation of mind to men pleasing, but in some externals also; but that should be no concludent argument that they really loved Christ, because a name may put men to hazard court, and means, and life, rather than deny Christ.

2. This seems a considerable difference, the earth cannot plow and sow wheat of itself, yet when it is plowed and laboured, and seeded, it can enliven and nourish the sown corn; but though we can do much more in the using of means than we do, yet means work upon us, if they be only external, by no necessity of nature, but according as he stirs, who has mercy on whom he will, though men run and will. Nor can we deny but the child of God, endued with a habit of grace, has actu primo, a power to draw life from the head, as the living members can draw nourishment from the stomach through the liver and veins; yet the Sun and heaven has influence in all actings of nature; the necessity of actual grace does not remove any of the virtue and power of the habit of grace. So does the renewed heart lie fair to a Gospel-command: and as actions vital are immanent, and received often on themselves, so here, the heart renewed can work upon the heart. Proverbs 23:19. Hear you my son and be wise, and guide your heart in the way: it's grace that guides the heart in the way, but the graced heart also guides itself, in its manner of working, in the way of God. 1 Timothy 5:22. Keep yourself pure. 2 Timothy 2:15. Study to show yourself approved to God. Jude v. 21. Keep yourselves in the love of God. So 1 John 3:3. Every man that has this hope purifies himself, even as he is pure. The sea purges itself of mire and dirt, and new wine casts out the scum and refuse, and gold melted separates and casts out its dross, and the superfluity of the metal; far more does the renewed heart keep itself by a lively power against every power contrary to itself. Only the heart cannot plow the heart, and remove its rockiness; the Lord by an omnipotent infusion of a new spirit does that. Ezekiel 36:26. I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.

Now 2. The renewed man does not so much as the renewed heart would carry him to do: it's clear saving wisdom, if David had improved it, should have kept him from adultery and murder. Psalm 51:6. Behold, you have delighted in truth in the reins, and in the hidden part, you make me to know wisdom. So is fornication against the price of redemption that Christ has given for us (1 Corinthians 6:19, 20).

3. The renewed man may and does forget that the habit of grace is given to him to trade withal, and for promoting of acts of sanctification; he thinks as Papists do, it's given to be his justification and pardon, and that it may compensate his other sins; this I may do because I am a renewed man; and the gifts and callings of God are without repentance; and God will dispense with it, I being in a state of grace. But the Scripture says (1 Kings 15:5), David did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite: and so David's being a man according to God's heart was no shelter to his shedding of innocent blood. Now grace is not given to the child of God as a piece of over-gilded copper to a child to play withal, as if he needed not to trade with it, nor to put it to the bank.

3. The unrenewed man is under the debt of Gospel-obedience to Christ: a deep habitual sleepiness on the sluggard frees him neither from an obligation to the duty of plowing, nor from that justice of God which clothes the sleeper with rags. Now the shift that the natural man has, is, No man can come to the Son except the Father of Christ draw him: it's true, and Scripture-truth of itself; but it's told, 1. By the proud and the lawless bankrupt as a shift. 2. It is told also by the humble and broken diver. In the former man's sense the meaning is, I cannot believe; I can do no more, he denies me grace, blame himself; hence he must keep his lusts.

But 1. Nature and acting of nature must be before the acting of grace; he has not denied to you the grace of using external means, to come to the assembly of the Saints, to lend the ear, and not to turn the ear away from the law, and this you refuse.

Proud fools would cashier both Law and Gospel: but that eminent preacher Mr. Will. Fenner, God will not help that man to go that has legs to go and will not. God is to be waited for in the way of his judgements (Isaiah 26:8), so you must not look to fetch God out of his walk, the means of grace and salvation. Heaven is an end, and an end can never be gotten without means. God will not set up another door to heaven for any man in the world — he'll never make another Bible; either be ruled by this or by none: the drunkard's way shall never be his; the worldling's way shall never be his. The truth is, the carnal man would be carried sleeping with his lusts and filthiness in Christ's bosom in heaven, as an eagle flies over a river and never wets one feather; he would be over word, reading, hearing of sermons, learning, knowledge, repenting, mortification, self-denial; there be no Bibles nor ordinances in heaven, and by a miracle he would be over all these: otherwise I hear, I pray, I whore not, but the way of doing I cannot reach; and if I cannot get this way chalked out, let me lie (says he) where I am; God can do this, and he will not, but he will have the Gospel, like a millstone, tied about every man's neck that shall be saved. Even among men this is no excuse, ah, you must pity him (say you) it's his natural temper; he is mad in a prevailing habit of malice, he is kind and loving otherwise: will you judge and law-absolve him from the guilt of manslaughter, and spare his life for that? Another acts a prank of covetousness, and goes along in an act of treason; ah, (say some) he is a simple man, and short-witted, but otherwise not wicked, in that he has been foolish; we say his other virtues satisfy not the Law; he has wit to act mischief, and is a greedy fool.

This same tale is said by the humbled man, Ah, I cannot believe, and I look upon this weakness as afflictive paining wickedness, and he weeps over his wounds, and weeps over his physician, and this complaining is good, and has good in it. But another doubt there is, there is no promise of rewarding natural acting with faith; true, what then? Will you go no farther than on nature's leading because there is no promise of grace made to nature's acting?

We are obliged to obey God in the covenant of works, and believe in Christ in the covenant of grace: suppose there had been no hire of life eternal in the one or the other; the Lord might stand on his points, and command as law-giver, and never come down as a covenanter, to hire and to bude us as children to embrace a great and large kingdom on a low condition, a poor farthing or halfpenny of faith.

There is no promise of a rich harvest made to all who plow painfully, but often the contrary; the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong (Ecclesiastes 9:10), nor have they ever riches who rise early and go late to bed, and eat the bread of sorrow (Psalm 127), and for that shall the husbandman hang up the plow, and till none? There is not a promise made that all that sail shall bring home rich ships full of gold; what then? Are all the merchants in the earth loosed from the duty of trading, and sailing cried down? Then all shipping must be laid aside.

There is not a promise made to using of means, but there is a sad threatning of wrath to such as use no means; he that plows none, but sleeps in Summer, shall be cloathed with rags: but there is no word that all who plow painfully shall be rich men, and cloathed in scarlet (Proverbs 28:7). He that turns away his ear from hearing the Law, even his prayer shall be abomination; but all that hear the Law are not converted; this shews that the Lord is provoked by the not using of means in natural men, as both the Lords plea with the wicked cleareth, and their sinful neglect of not putting God to it, to see if God will not do more, when they have done but a little of their duty; the Lord is at the pains to charm them, and does it wisely, they will be deaf as the adder; well then (Psalm 58), since they will keep the Serpents poison whether God, who useth means to the contrary, will or no. v. 4, 5, 6. Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth. 7. Let them melt away as waters which run continually. 8. As a snail which melteth, let every one of them pass away. So plagued and melted away sinners, you might have been charmed by God and would not, can you blame God? Jeremiah 51:9. We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed: well then, it follows, forsake her, let us go every one into his own Country, for her judgement is reached up to heaven, and is lifted up to the skies. So God is clear, and even Babylons refusing to be healed, and to hear the Prophets, and her neglecting means is justly plagued (Proverbs 1:20). What can wisdom do more but cry and utter her voice, and throw over the line to such as are in the kingdom of darkness, the promises? 22. Behold, I will pour out my spirit to you. But v. 24. You refused, no man regarded. 25. You set at nought all my counsel, and would have none of my reproof. 29. They hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord; and therefore the Lord laughs at their destruction, and mocks when their fear cometh. And Luke 14:16, 17, 18. many are bidden come to the Supper, and the Lord is cleared, an offer is made to them; they all with one consent refuse the use of other means, and the Lord says, none of them who were bidden shall taste of his Supper. So the Lords justice goes no farther then the obstinacy of men, who refuse to come in at the outer gate opposes him. Christ and reprobates so never come to wrestling, and to ay and no in the inner gate, or in the pains of the new birth: the sentence of a refused treaty with Christ, long e're it come to the out-breaking of the new birth cuts them off: green corn is frost-slain long e're it come to the blade; and it's not the rotting of a white and ripe harvest that is the loss of it; it's just providence in the Gardiner to cut down and throw over the hedge a plant that is withered while it is yet young, as it is right that he hew down a tree ready to bear fruit when it's barren and rotten. The Lord has not set down in his word the degrees of transgression against the Covenant of Works; some in Adam might have been more, some less grievous transgressors (should all have been saved or damned by that only covenant;) and since it cannot be denied that multitudes within the visible Church perish for their sin against the Law, or the externally proposed Covenant of Grace, and yet all these so perishing are not alike guilty; our Savior says some had greater guiltiness in his sufferings then Pilate had (John 19:11). Holy and spotless justice does cut off some in their sins for sinning against that covenant, whether it be the Covenant of Grace so called, or the Covenant of Works, who even are many mile distant from sinning against the actings of the regenerating spirit, and some come neerer to the strangling of the new birth, and are cut off by holy justice also. When our Savior says (John 3:18, 36), He that believeth not is condemned already, and the wrath of God abideth on him; his meaning shall not be, that all condemned within the visible Church perish, because the man coming to the nick of a gracious receiving of Christ, and having done all requisite to a professor until it come to the breaking forth of the new birth, he there only fails; for many sins and degrees of failing against that covenant (however it be called) go before that, by reason whereof men are said not to believe in the Son of God, and upon which account they remain under wrath, and are condemned for non-believing: he who will not hear of the Physitian, though he never come within reach of personal communing with him, dies of his disease deservedly, because he contemns the only Physitian who can cure him, as well as he who sees the Physitians face, hears his words, and beats back on his face the saving cup which would cure his disease.

Yet withal here we would beware of Mr. Baxter's order of setting repentance and works of new obedience before justification, which is indeed a new covenant of works, meriting the sprinkling of Christs blood and washing in justification, and this blood payeth them back again; for by the merit of Christs blood good works do justifie and save.

How clean walkers in new obedience must men be? Washed e're they come neer the fountain, redeemed before they be redeemed.

So must men sweat and repent of their life before they be justified compleatly, but of half or quarter remission and justification the Scripture is silent: it crushes joy, peace, hope, liberty spiritual, for if men earn not out their repentance, they may and do lose their labor and reward before the third part of the day be ended; nor does the man accept Christ as Lord in a naked intention to serve him; for so saving faith includes in its nature an intention of new obedience to God: but a man cannot be said to have his reward of pardon, because he has wrought his work, or reformed his life only in his intention, or because he intends to work his work, Scripture should here speak.

4. Why does not Mr. Baxter say right down, tacienti quod in se est Deus non denegat gratiam? The Lord has made the covenant of grace with all mankind, Americans, Brasilians, with these of Chinah, and it has these two halfs: 1. Do and live the life of grace and of faith. 2. Do and live the life of glory. So that the Gospel and pardon, and the life of grace are promised to the Americans, so they trade well with nature, or a general grace of Christ crucified, they know not whom, and they never heard of; shew such a covenant made in Scripture, and made with the Brasilians.

It's true, the Scripture says, repent for remission, and repent, that your sins may be blotted out (Acts 2:37, 38; Acts 3:19). But truth suffers here. Antinomians to exclude strict walking, make repentance to be nothing but faith. So Mr. Denne, Hobson. &c. Again, Socinians, and Mr. Baxter, a man of a strong wit, on the other extream to exclude the loose faith of many, make Gospel-faith to be nothing but repentance and new obedience. But the place Acts 2. can no more prove that repentance, and a fixed walk in good works, is such a part of the new Covenant, as this, do and live the life of faith, and be pardoned, then that Baptism, which is in the text joyned with repentance, is necessarily required before pardon; whereas both repentance, faith, baptism, new obedience, are the way to the possession of the crown; not causes, not the price, not the ransome of the right and title to the crown, and both as conditions of pardon and title to the crown and the place. Acts 3:19. speaks of repentance continued all the life (for such a repentance is commanded in both places, and all along in Scripture, Matthew 3:8, 11; Matthew 3:13; Acts 11:18; Acts 13:24; Acts 26:20; Ezekiel 14:6; Matthew 4:17; Mark 1:15; Mark 6:12; Acts 17:30; Revelation 2:7; Revelation 3:19. as a work not of a day, but of all the life) also the words should bear, that sins were not pardoned until the time of refreshment, that is, till the day of the eternal happiness and rest from our labours of this life, in which day sins are only blotted out declaratively, says Diodati. But let it stand, repent, that you may be pardoned; and that a turning to God is a condition and a way, and a means of remission of sins: it shall not hold up the fabrick of Mr. Baxters justification by inherent righteousness; for sure in concreto no man is pardoned who continues in his sinful way, but he that repents and so continues repenting that he may be pardoned to himself and to others, is the only justified man of all those that are adult and come to age. For the Apostles (Acts 2:3) and John Baptist (Matthew 3), having to do with loose professors and hypocrites, who sought righteousness by law-works, and yet slighted Law and all Law-works, do urge first repentance sincere; 2. Continuing to the end; 3. Visible to themselves and others; nor do we bid proud and whole Pharisees, and men going on securely, and workers of iniquity, as such, immediately lay hold on Christ as their Savior. And it's true, the motive of Gods abundant pardoning, and so the faith of pardoning mercy leads to repentance (Isaiah 55:6, 7), let the wicked return, for he will abundantly pardon; and therefore faith goeth before repentance as touching some acts. In these Matthew 6:14, 15. If you forgive not, your father will not forgive you. Christ speaks not of the order, as if we must first love our neighbor and our enemies as our selves before we be justified; nor is the holy Ghost upon order (1 John 1:19; Proverbs 28:13; Romans 10:8, 9, 10, 13), as if penitent confession of sin to Christ, forsaking of all sin, and sound and compleat repentance, must go before justification and forgiveness: but the Lord designs the persons pardoned, that they must be such as forgive their enemies, forsake their sins; because men are ready to sooth themselves, as if haters of their brethren might be (while they habitually continue in such a wicked way) justified before God.

Mr. Baxter in his confession, c. 5. sect. 1. concl. 6. page 101. I believe that by the new law of grace, or the promise, God has delivered all men (in the tenour of the promise the promulgation reaches not to all) from the guilt of sin, and as to the destructive punishment, on condition they will accept of Christ and life; and no man is accepted out of this promise (till they remediesly reject it) but it is so general, that whoever will have Christ, may have him (on his terms) though none will have him till Gods special grace make them willing, yet whoever will is called to drink of the water of life.

My doubts are shortly these, 1. What Scripture says that Christ has delivered all men, that is, Brasilians, Indians, all the race of man from the guilt of sin, as to the destructive punishment, or from hell, why not from their vain conversation (1 Peter 1:18)? the same ransome is payed to save from the one as well as the other.

2. How is it not a scenical and a poor delivery, and satisfaction and ransome paid to justice, if justice inflict eternal destructive punishment on all Brasilians, Indians: millions of this huge (all) must then be the covenanted people of God if they be saved conditionally; can a covenant-promise be made to all, if all be not the people of God by this covenant-promise?

3. Can a promise of God never promulgated, never by fame or sound of words reaching the ears of these to whom the promise is made, be either promise or obliging Law? The Lord's will to do good is but a meer decree, never a promise till it be spoken; was there such a thing from eternity as a promise of God to make the world? A decree there was, never a promise. God said never in Old or New Testament, if all the Brasilians, Indians, shall believe in Christ, they are saved: and to them come to age a promise conditional it cannot be; when not only never promulgated, but Apostles and others are expresly forbidden to promulgate it to the Gentiles (Matthew 10:5; Acts 16:6), as being no people of God, Lo-ammi, not obtained mercy in Christ (Hosea 1:10; 1 Peter 3:10; Romans 10:24, 25), and yet for all these Christ died, all these Christ saved conditionally; they are saved, and my people, and I promise to them life in my Son so they believe, but tell them not of it; what a Gospel is this?

How can the Brasilians be guilty of remedyless rejecting of a Christ they never heard of? For how shall they believe in him of whom they never heard (Romans 10:14)? How have they sin in hating Christ; for Christ came never to them, either in proper person, or the Gospel preached (John 15:22, 23)?

How can this promise be so wide and general, as none are excepted? For either Christ died not for Infants, and so no Infants are redeemed, nor washed in the blood of Christ, no Infants are part of the world or mankind, or Infants are condemned for not actual accepting of Christ and life, and for wilful and remedyless rejecting of Christ, because they will not come to Christ and drink; as (Revelation 22:17).

If whoever will have Christ may have him, Brasilians and Indians, and grace be universal, as says Mr. Baxter; Brasilians and all Mankind must be freeholders, and sovereigns of Heaven and Hell, of the Decrees of Election and Reprobation, of Effectual calling: it must then be in him that runs and wills, and not in God who shows mercy; nor does the Lord have mercy on whom he will. It's but a mock to say, that God's special grace does make men willing; for Americans and Brasilians are Lords, having in their power both general and special grace; except Mr. Baxter yield to us a grace which does predetermine or indec[illegible]inably bow, fix and set the free will the way the Lord decrees, and that the Lord must infuse a new supernatural power, and it is above us to have special saving grace, and that the Lord bestows on his chosen, because he has freely chosen them; and then the matter is not in their, may have, or may not have.

Mr. Baxter would have done well to have put one Scripture at least to this; for neither in that (John 7:37, 38) nor (Revelation 22:7) cries the Lord to Brasilians and Indians, Whoever will, let him come and drink of the water of life; for that promise is made only to those within the visible Church, who are the called of God, and do, and may hear it. But the Brasilians and millions of that kind are not the called of God.

A remedying Law we acknowledge in the new Covenant; but it is remedying to clear the justice of God, and to make these within the visible Church the refusers of the Gospel more inexcusable than Sodome (Matthew 10:15), than Tyrus and Sidon (Matthew 11:23, 21, 22, 23, 24), than a people of an unknown language (Ezekiel 3:5, 6, 7).

But first, it should be proved from Scripture by Mr. Baxter before he had asserted with Moses Amyrald and other Universalists, his new remedying Law, as remedying the justly deserved misery of Americans and Brasilians; for sure if Christ died for them, and has stricken with all the savages on earth, [illegible]ews, and Gentiles for whom he died, and with all generations of men, a new Gospel-covenant of the greatest love among men, in Christ's dying for them; and yet this Covenant is never revealed to them by either revelation made by preachers, nor by the works of Creation and Providence, nor by the Law of the Gospel written in the hearts of these men.

There is little remedy for clearing the glory of divine justice, to make their furnace hotter in Hell for a chimerical and imaginary sin of which their conscience cannot accuse them; for how can they be guilty in rejecting a Christ they never heard of, and by no superable providence could hear? In that the Gospel came neither by Angels, nor by Men gifted with tongues, nor by inspiration to their knowledge; and this darkens the glory of God's justice. It's true, Abimelech and Pharaoh and others may be plagued for sins they actually know not; but light of conscience teaches that adultery and oppression of innocent strangers deserve judgment. But read we ever that Brasilians, Indians, or the wisest of Heathen, Socrates, Plato, Cicero, and the most tender of them, die with any such challenge? Ah, we sinned against the blood of the Son of God shed for us! What, and shall the Lord write and speak to Israel in their hearing? I brought you out of Egypt, and yet he will not tell the millions of the Heathen Christ died for them, and saved them from the guilt of sin and everlasting wrath, as touching their everlasting destruction? which love yet he expressed not to them.

Though it ill becomes us to censure the wisdom of God; if the Lord rebuke those within the visible Church for refusing offered mercy; as (Jeremiah 3), (John 5:40), (John 8:21), how does he not reprove the Brasilians for rejecting a promise of so much love?

As no reprobate can be guilty of love of Election to glory from eternity (suppose such a love had been in the heart of God towards them) because it was never revealed to them: so if there be such a law of grace and Covenant-promise, the Law-giver, the Mediator God-man was never revealed to the Brasilians.

Where is this wide promise and Covenant to be found in Scripture? Who are the parties?

What is the nature of the Covenant? Whether is it a Covenant of works (do this and live) or a Covenant of grace (believe this, and you have the reward of the Gospel preached, to wit, the restored image of God) and where is this in Scripture?

4. A remedying Law must bring a remedy to men: the remedy is either real; and so some real help must be conferred upon fallen man: shew if there be one Brasilian healed and saved thereby: a real power of believing in Christ, and laying hold on the Gospel-promise remote or nearer, cannot be given to all in Christ, for any thing we read in Scripture, since the Brasilians are heirs of wrath, cannot receive the things of God (1 Corinthians 2:14), cannot believe or come to Christ (John 6:44), cannot submit their wisdom to the Law of God (Romans 8:7), cannot bring forth good fruit more than thistles or thorns can bring forth figs or wine grapes (Luke 6:43, 44; Matthew 7:16, 17), being dead in sins (Ephesians 2:2, 5), walking in the vanity of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness that is in their hearts (Ephesians 4:17, 18), enemies in their minds by wicked works (Colossians 1:21), foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers hearts (Titus 1:3), having a heart of stone (Ezekiel 36:26), uncircumcised (Deuteronomy 30:6; Jeremiah 9:26), deceitful above all things, desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9), every imagination of man's heart only evil every day (Genesis 6:5), from his youth (Genesis 8:21). So that a Brasilian must be born over again, or he cannot enter into the kingdom of God (John 3:3). Nor can flesh and blood, but the Father of Christ only cause us believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God (Matthew 16:16). Now this is but a moral work to Mr. Baxter, to cause a dead man live: and if there were no intrinsecal wound, impotency and deadness in the soul, but only moral dimness of mind, so as the literal, clear, external and objective proposal of the Gospel, which wakens the stupid will, as Pelagians and Arminians say, perfects the whole work of the new-birth, and grace is nothing but the letter of the Gospel; and the strongest operation of this grace is only moral persuasion and counsel: as if by rhetoric, and good words, the mid-wife could bring forth the birth; and this remedy that Christ brings to Brasilians, is at best, the raising of man dead and rotten in the grave, by blowing a trumpet beside him, and by making a persuasive oration over his dead corpse: if so, the man so raised was never dead. Nor is the remedying Law so much; for a preaching of the Gospel comes never to the ears of millions, with whom this remedying Covenant is made: and it were a strong inducement, as any can be, to move Brasilians, Americans, those of China and Turkey, to receive the Gospel, to shew them Christ by the blood of his cross has made peace between God and you: you are all of you, old and young, bought with a price, ransomed by the blood of God: you are not your own, Christ has taken away your sins, and does now begin upon a new score; God has expressed the greatest love imaginable, he has redeemed you his enemies: this in the Old or New Testament is never told them; for then the ministers of the Gospel should find all the Pagans a Church, bought with the blood of Christ, and the reality of a Church should be in all societies of the earth. But such glad news are preached to the chosen in the visible Church only; never to Brasilians: Paul preaches at Athens (Acts 17), creation, not one word of redemption: as also Aristotle, Plato, and others should beget over again to God Creator all their disciples, whom they find rude and ignorant, and infuse by moral persuasion and teaching a new life of learning: and all rude and ignorant men before they be taught Metaphysics, Mathematics, should be dead in ignorance, enemies in their heart to knowledge and philosophy: and the same ground should make ministers suppose there were no learning, and teaching of the Father in drawing of men to Christ, by that omnipotency, which raised Christ from the dead and created the world (John 6:44, 45; Ephesians 1:17, 18, 19; 2 Corinthians 4:4), as true real fathers of the new-birth, by only the letter of the Gospel, as Aristotle and Plato are fathers to beget philosophy in men. Now for any remedying Gospel-promise that is made to Brasilians to purchase by way of merit, we shall believe it, when Mr. Baxter shall prove that to Indians and Brasilians, who lived and died without the sound of the least notice, or rumour of the Gospel, Christ has purchased and merited grace to believe the Gospel.

2. That Christ by the blood of his cross has made peace between God and the Brasilians, who so lived and died without the Gospel; that Christ has satisfied upon the cross for their sins against the Law, and borne their sins in his own body on the tree; that Brasilians being dead to sins should live to righteousness, by whose stripes Brasilians are healed (1 Peter 2:24); that Christ suffered for Brasilians to bring them to God (1 Peter 3:18); that Christ bought Brasilians from their vain conversation with his blood (1 Peter 1:18); that Christ gave himself for wild Indians, that he might redeem them from all iniquity, and purify to himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works (Titus 2:14). And who so tell us of a general, dubious, and conditional intention in the Father giving his Son to death, and of the Son's giving himself to death for all these poor savages to whom he would never send the air of a rumour that he so loved them; and of a special intention going along with the free decree of election to glory, that so many only should live to righteousness, be redeemed from all iniquity, are holden to prove two such redemptions, two such loves of Christ dying, two such intentions and decrees, two such providences: one special redemption, one special greatest love, one special intention, one fatherly providence indeed toward the elect; we find John 10:10, 11; John 3:16; John 11:51, 52; 2 Corinthians 5:14, 15; Revelation 1:5, 6; Revelation 5:9, 10; 1 Peter 2:24; 1 Peter 3:18; 1 Peter 1:18; Titus 1:14; Galatians 1:4; John 15:13; Romans 8:32, 33; Isaiah 53:4, 5, 6; Revelation 14:4, all which places make the redeemed to be loved with the greatest love, sanctified, bought from their vain conversation, redeemed from among men, made kings and priests to God, delivered from this present evil world, redeemed from all iniquity, &c. We leave the other general, dubious love, intention, and reconciliation of Brasilians, to our adversaries to be made out by Scripture.

And Q. What is the grace of Christ's meritorious blood if it be shed for all and every one, if it put the nature and free will of all and every one in a better condition, and if his merit restore not the image of God into a more firm and excellent condition then we had in the first Adam? And what healing of nature, and the restoring of the image of God is made to the savages who eat men as we do beeves, kill their aged fathers, use wives promiscuously, and never heard one word of the Gospel?