Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

the Son. 2. Our Saviour, Christ, says here, "He shall not speak of himself;" but he nowhere says, "He shall not impart of his own fulness," which is Mr B.'s addition. To "speak of himself” shows the original authority of him that speaks, whereby he speaks to be in himself; which, as to the words and works pointed to, is not in the Holy Ghost personally considered, and as in this dispensation. But to impart of his own fulness, is to give out of that which is eminently in himself; which the Holy Ghost doth, as hath been shown. 3. Christ, in the words insisted on, comforting his disciples with the promise of the presence of his Spirit when he should be bodily absent from them, acquaints them also with the works that he should do when he came to them and upon them, in that clear, eminent, and abundant manner which he had promised;-which is not any new work, nor any other than what he had already acquainted them with, nor the accomplishment of any thing but what he had laid the foundation of; yea, that all the mercy, grace, light, guidance, direction, consolation, peace, joy, gifts, that he should communicate to them and bless them withal, should be no other but what were procured and purchased for them by himself. These things is the Spirit said to hear and speak, to receive and communicate, as being the proper purchase and inheritance of another; and in so doing to glorify him whose they are, in that peculiar sense and manner. All that discourse which we have of the mission and sending of the Holy Ghost, and his proceeding or coming forth from the Father and Son for the ends specified, John xiv. 26, xv. 26, xvi. 7, 13, concerns not at all the eternal procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and Son, as to his distinct personality and subsistence, but belongs to that economy, or dispensation, or ministry, that the whole Trinity proceedeth in for the accomplishment of the work of our salvation.

The last query, by the heap of scriptures that is gathered in answer to it, seems to have most weight laid upon it; but it is indeed, of all the rest, most weakly sophistical. The words of it are, "Q. Do men receive the Holy Ghost while they are of the world and in their natural condition, to the end that they may become the children of God, may receive the word, may believe, may repent, may obey Christ; or after they are become the children of God, have received the word, do believe, do repent, do obey Christ?" The answer is as above. To the same purpose is that of the Racovian Catechism:

:

Ques. Is there not need of the internal gift of the Spirit, that we may believe the gospel?

Ans. By no means; for we do not read in the Scripture that that gift is conferred on any but him that believes the gospel.1

Remove the ambiguity of that expression, "Believe the gospel," 1 "Nonne ad credendum Evangelio S. S. interiore dono opus est ?-Nullo modo; non enim in Scripturis legimus, cuiquam id conferri donum, nisi credenti evangelio.' -Cap. vi. de promiss. S. S.

and these two questions perfectly fall in together. It may, then, be taken either for believing the doctrine of the gospel in opposition to the law, and in this sense it is not here inquired after; or for the power of believing in the subject, and in that sense it is here denied.

1. Now, the design of this question is, to deny the effectual operation of the Holy Ghost for and in the conversion, regeneration, and sanctification of the elect, and to vindicate the whole work of faith, holiness, quickening, etc., to ourselves. The way designed for the proof and establishment of this insinuation consists in producing sundry testimonies wherein it is affirmed that those who do believe and are the children of God do receive the Spirit for other ends and purposes than those here enumerated. The sum of his argument is this: "If they who do believe and are the children of God do receive the Spirit of God for their adoption, and the carrying on of the work of their sanctification, with the supply of new grace, and the confirmation and enlargement of what they have received, with joy, consolation, and peace, with other gifts that are necessary for any work or employment that they are called unto, then the Holy Spirit doth not quicken or regenerate them, nor work faith in them, nor make them the children of God, nor implant them into Christ." Now, when Mr. B. proves this consequence, I will confess him to be master of one art which he never learned at Oxford, unless it were his business to learn what he was taught to avoid.

2. But Mr B. hath one fetch of his skill more in this question. He asks whether men do receive the Holy Ghost when they are of the world; and for a confutation of any such apprehension produceth testimonies of Scripture that the world cannot receive the Holy Ghost, nor the natural man the things of God. But who told this gentleman that we say men whilst they are in and of the world do receive the Spirit of God, or the things of the Spirit, in the Scripture sense or use of that word "receiving?" The expression is metaphorical, yet always, in the case of the things of the gospel, denoting the acting of faith in them who are said to "receive" any thing from God. Now, if this gentleman could persuade us that we say that we receive the Spirit by faith, to the end that we may have faith, he might as easily lead us about whither he pleased as the Philistines did Samson when they had put out his eyes. A little, then, to instruct this catechist: I desire him to take notice, that properly the Spirit is received by faith to the ends and purposes by him mentioned, with many such others as might be added; but yet, before men's being enabled to receive it, that Spirit, by his power and the efficacy of his grace, quickeneth, regenerateth, and worketh faith in their hearts. In brief, the Spirit is considered and promised either as a Spirit of regeneration, with all the concomitants and essential consequents thereof, or as a Spirit of adoption, with the consequents

thereof. In the first sense he works in men in order of nature antecedent to their believing, faith being a fruit of the Spirit; in the latter, and for the ends and purposes thereof, he is received by faith, and given in order of nature upon believing.

3. That the world cannot receive the Spirit, nor the natural man the things of God, is from hence, that the Spirit hath not wrought in them that which is necessary to enable them thereunto; which is evident from what is affirmed of the impotency of the natural man as to his receiving the things of God: for if the reason why he cannot receive the things of God is because he is a natural man, then, unless there be some other power than what is in himself to translate him from that condition, it is impossible that he who is a natural man should ever be otherwise, for he can only alter that condition by that which he cannot do. But,

4. That the Spirit is given for and doth work regeneration and faith in men, I shall not now insist on the many testimonies whereby it is usually and invincibly confirmed. There is no one testimony given to our utter impotency to convert or regenerate ourselves, to believe, repent, and turn to God; no promise of the covenant to give a new heart, new obedience through Christ; no assertion of the grace of God and the efficacy of his power, which is exalted in the vocation and conversion of sinners,-but sufficiently evinces the truth thereof. That one eminent instance shall close our consideration of this chapter, which we have Titus iii. 5, 6, "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour."

Of the first head made by men professing the religion of Jesus Christ against the deity of the Spirit, attempting to rank him among the works of his own hand; of the peculiar espousing of an enmity against him by Macedonius, bishop of Constantinople, from whom the ensuing EUμaroμáxo took their name; of the novel inventions of Faustus Socinus and his followers, denying the personality of the Spirit, making him to be nothing but the efficacy of the power of God, or the power of God,-this is no place to treat. Besides, the truth is, until they will speak clearly what they mean by the "Spirit of God," and so assert something, as well as deny, they may justly be neglected. They tell us it is virtus Dei; but whether that virtus be substantia or accidens they will not tell us. It is, they say, potentia Dei. This we confess; but we say he is not potentia ἐνεργητική, but υποστατική, and that because we prove him to be God. What, then, hath been spoken of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, I shall shut up with that distich of Greg. Naz. Sanct. Spir. lib. i.

Πάντα μὲν αἰὲν ἄριστα θεοπρεπὲς ἔργα τελείσθω

Ἡ δὲ τριὰς πάντων ἐξοχά σοι μελέτω.

CHAPTER XVI.

Of salvation by Christ.

MR BIDDLE'S SIXTH CHAPTER CONSIDERED.

THIS is a short chapter, and will speedily receive its consideration. That Christ is a Saviour, and that he is so called in Scripture, is confessed on all hands. Mr Biddle's masters were the first who directly called into question amongst Christians on what account principally he is so called. Of his faith in this business and theirs we have the sum, with the reasons of it, in the book of their great apostle, "De Jesu Christo Servatore." This book is answered throughout with good success by Sibrandus Lubbertus; the nerves of it cut by Grotius, "De Satisfactione Christi;" and the reply of Crellius thereunto thoroughly removed by Essenius, in his "Triumphus Crucis." The whole argumentative part of it, summed up into five heads by Michael Gitichius, is answered by Ludovicus Lucius, and that answer vindicated from the reply of Gitichius. And generally those who have written upon the satisfaction of Christ have looked upon that book as the main master-piece of the adversaries, and have made it their business to remove its sophistry and unmask its pretensions.

Mr B. is very slight and overly in this business, being not able, in the method of procedure imposed on himself, so much as to deliver his mind significantly as to what he does intend. The denial and rejection of the satisfaction and merit of Christ is that which the man intends, as is evident from his preface, where he denies them, name and thing. This be attempts partly in this chapter, partly in that concerning the death of Christ, and also in that of justification. In this he would attempt the notion of salvation, and refer it only to deliverance from death by a glorious resurrection. Some brief animadversions may possibly rectify the man's mistakes. His first question we pass, as a principle in the terms of it on all sides confessed, namely, that "Christ is our Lord and Saviour." His second is:

Ques. Is Christ our Saviour originally and of himself, or because he was given, exalted, and raised up by another to be a Saviour?

Ans. Acts iv. 12, v. 31, xiii. 23.

The intendment of this query is to pursue the former insinuations of our catechist against the deity of Christ, as though his appointment to his office of mediation were inconsistent with his divine ature; the vanity of which pretence hath been sufficiently already discovered. In brief, Christ is considered either absolutely with reerect to his divine nature and person, as he is God in himself, and so he is a Saviour originally of himself; for "as for our Redeemer,

the LORD of hosts is his name, the Holy One of Israel," Isa. xlvii. 4. "Thy Maker is thine husband; the LORD of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel," chap. liv. 5. In this sense was Christ a Saviour originally and of himself. But as he took flesh, to accomplish the work of our redemption by tasting death for us, though his own merciful and gracious will did concur therein, yet was he eminently designed to that work and given, by his Father, in love and mercy, contriving the work of our salvation. And this latter is mentioned not only in the places cited by our catechist, but also in a hundred more, and yet not one of them lying in the least subserviency to Mr B.'s design. His last query is:

Q. How do the saints expect to be saved by Christ?
A. Rom. v. 10; Phil. iii. 20, 21.

The intendment of this question must be to answer the general proposal, in what sense Christ is our Saviour, and how his people are saved by him. Now, however that be true in itself which is here asserted, and is the exurgency of the question and answer as connected, the saints expecting salvation by Christ in the complete accomplishment of it by his power in heaven, yet as here proposed to give an account of the whole sense wherein Christ is our Saviour, [it] is most false and deceitful. Christ is a Saviour principally as he was promised, and came to "save his people from their sins," whence he had his name of Jesus, or a Saviour, Matt. i. 21,—and that by his death, Heb. ii. 14, 15, or laying down his life a ransom for us, Matt. xx. 28, and giving himself a price of redemption for us, 1 Tim. ii. 6, "in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins," Eph. i. 7, so saving or delivering us from the wrath that is to come, 1 Thess. i. 10. The salvation which we have by Christ, which this chapter in title pretends to discover, is from sin, the world, Satan, death, wrath, curse, the law, bearing of us unto acceptation with God, peace, reconciliation, and glory. But that the doctrines before mentioned, without which these things cannot once be apprehended, may be obscured or lost, are these wholly omitted. Of the sense of Rom. v. 10, and what is there intended by the "life of Christ," I shall farther treat when I come to speak about justification, and of the whole business under our consideration of the death of Christ.

CHAPTER XVII.

Of the mediation of Christ.

In his seventh chapter he proposeth two questions in general about the mediation of Christ, answering, first, that he is a "mediator," from 1 Tim. ii. 5; second, that he is the "mediator of the new covenant,"

« ZurückWeiter »