versation, nor a living holily, but it is the principle and spiritual ability produced in believers by the power and grace of the Holy Ghost, enabling them to walk in newness of life and holiness of conversation. And this principle being bestowed on us, wrought in us, for that very end, it is necessary for us, unless we will neglect and despise the grace which we have received, that we walk in holiness, and abound in the fruits of righteousness, whereunto it leads and tends. Let him answer this if he can, and when he hath done so, answer the apostle in like manner, or scoff not only at me but at him also.

The last passage I shall remark upon in this section is what he gives us as the sum of the whole, p. 135. The sum of all is, that to know Christ is not to be thus acquainted with his person, but to understand his gospel in its full latitude and extent; it is not the person but the gospel of Christ which is the way, the truth, and the life, which directs us in the way to life and happiness. And again, this acquaintance with Christ's person, which these men pretend to is only a work of fancy, and teaches men the arts of hypocrisy,' &c.

I do not know that ever I met with any thing thus crudely asserted among the Quakers in contempt of the person of Christ; for whereas he says of himself expressly, I am the way, the truth, and the life,' to say he is not so (for Jesus Christ is his person and nothing else), carries in it a bold contradiction, both parts of which cannot be true. When the subject of a proposition is owned, there may be great controversy about the sense of the predicate; as when Christ says he is the vine: there may be so also about the subject of a proposition, when the expression is of a third thing, and dubious; as where Christ says 'this is my body:' but when the person speaking is the subject, and speaks of himself, to deny what he says, is to give him the lie. 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life,' saith Christ; he is not saith our author, but the gospel is so. If he had allowed our Lord Jesus Christ to have spoken the truth, but only to have added, though he was so, yet he was so no otherwise but by the gospel, there had been somewhat of modesty in the expression; but this saying that the person of Christ is not, the gospel is so, is intolerable. It is so however, that this

young man without consulting, or despising the exposition of all divines ancient or modern, and the common sense of all Christians should dare to obtrude his crude and indigested conceptions, upon so great a word of Christ himself, countenanced only by the corrupt and false glosses of some obscure Socinians, which some or other may possibly in due time mind him of; I have other work to do.

But according to his exposition of this heavenly oracle, what shall any one imagine to be the sense of the context, where 'I' and 'me' spoken of Christ do so often occur. Suppose that the words of that whole verse, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life, no man cometh to the Father but by me,' have this sense; not Christ himself is the way, truth, and the life, but the gospel; no man cometh to the Father but by me, that is, not by me, but by the gospel; must not all the expressions of the same nature in the context have the same exposition? as namely, ver. 1. 'Ye believe in God believe also in me;' that is, not in me but in the gospel: 'I go to prepare a place for you;' that is, not I do so but the gospel: ver. 3. 'I will come again and receive you to myself; that is, not I but the gospel will do so. And so of all other things which Christ in that place seems to speak of himself. If this be his way of interpreting Scripture, I wonder not that he blames others for their defect and miscarriages therein.

When I first considered these two last sections, I did not suspect but that he had at least truly represented my words which he thought meet to reflect upon and scoff at; as knowing how easy it was for any one whose conscience would give him a dispensation for such an undertaking, to pick out sayings and expressions from the most innocent discourse, and odiously to propose them as cut off from their proper coherence; and under a concealment of the end and the principal sense designed in them. Wherefore I did not so much as read over the discourse excepted against, only once or twice observing my words as quoted by him not directly to comply with what I knew to be my sense and intention I turned unto the particular places to discover his prevarication. But having gone through this ungrateful task, I took the pains to read over the whole digression in my book which his exceptions are

levelled against; and upon my review of it, my admiration of his dealing was not a little increased; I cannot therefore, but desire of the most partial adherers unto this censurer of other men's labours, judgments, and expressions, but once to read over that discourse, and if they own themselves to be Christians, I shall submit the whole of it, with the consideration of his reflections upon it, unto their judgments. If they refuse so to do, I let them know I despise their censures, and do look on the satisfaction they take in this man's scoffing reflections, as the laughter of fools, or the crackling of thorns under a pot. For those who will be at so much pains to undeceive themselves, they will find that that expression of the person of Christ is but once or twice used in all that long discourse, and that occasionally, which by the outcries here made against it, any one would suppose to have filled up almost all the pages of it. He will find also that I have owned and declared the revelation that God hath made of himself, the properties of his nature, and his will in his works of creation and providence in its full extent and efficacy; and that by the knowledge of God in Christ which I so much insist upon, I openly, plainly, and declaredly, intend nothing but the declaration that God hath made of himself in Jesus Christ by the gospel, whereof the knowledge of his person, the great mystery of godliness, God manifested in the flesh, with what he did and suffered, as the Mediator between God and man, is the chiefest instance; in which knowledge consisteth all our wisdom of living unto God. Hereon I have no more to add, but that he by whom these things are denied or derided, doth openly renounce his Christianity. And that I do not lay this unto the charge of this doughty writer, is because I am satisfied that he hath not done it out of any such design, but partly out of ignorance of the things which he undertakes to write about, and partly to satisfy the malevolence of himself and some others against my person, which sort of depraved affections where men give up themselves unto their prevalency, will blind the eyes, and pervert the judgments of persons as wise as he.

In the first section of his fourth chapter I am not particularly concerned, and whilst he only vents his own conceits, be they never so idle or atheological, I shall never

trouble myself either with their examination or confutation. So many as he can persuade to be of his mind, that we have no union with Christ but by virtue of union with the church, the contrary whereof is absolutely true; that Christ is so a head of rule and government unto the church, as that he is not a head of influence and supplies of spiritual life, con-, trary to the faith of the Catholic church in all ages; that these assertions of his have any countenance from antiquity, or the least from the passages quoted out of Chrysostom by himself; that his glosses upon many texts of Scripture, which have an admirable coincidence with those of two other persons whom I shall name when occasion requires it, are sufficient to affix upon them the sense which he pleads for, with many other things of an equal falsehood and impertinency wherewith this section is stuffed, shall, without any farther trouble from me, be left to follow their own inclinations. But yet, notwithstanding all the great pains he hath taken to instruct us in the nature of the union between Christ and believers; I shall take leave to prefer that given by Mr. Hooker before it, not only as more true and agreeable unto the Scripture, but also as better expressing the doctrine of the church of England in this matter. And if these things please the present rulers of the church, wherein upon the matter Christ is shuffled off, and the whole of our spiritual union is resolved into the doctrine of the gospel, and the rule of the church by bishops and pastors, let it imply what contradiction it will, as it doth the highest, seeing it is by the doctrine of the gospel that we are taught our union with Christ, and his rule of the church by his laws and Spirit, I have only the advantage to know somewhat more than I did formerly, though not much to my satisfaction.

But he that shall consider what reflections are cast in this discourse, on the necessity of satisfaction to be made unto divine justice, and from whom they are borrowed; the miserable weak attempt that is made therein, to reduce all Christ's mediatory actings unto his kingly office, and in particular his intercession; the faint mention that is made of the satisfaction of Christ, clogged with the addition of ignorance of the philosophy of it, as it is called, well enough complying with them who grant that the Lord Christ did 2 D

VOL. X.

what God was satisfied withal, with sundry other things of the like nature; will not be to seek whence these things come, nor whither they are going, nor to whom our author is beholden for most of his rare notions, which it is an easy thing at any time to acquaint him withal.

The second section of this chapter is filled principally with exceptions against my discourse, about the personal excellencies of Christ as mediator, if I may not rather say, with the reflections on the glory of Christ himself. For my own discourse upon it I acknowledge to be weak, and not only inconceivably beneath the dignity and merit of the subject, but also far short of what is taught and delivered by many ancient writers of the church unto that purpose; and for his exceptions, they are such a composition of ignorance and spite, as is hardly to be paralleled. His entrance upon his work is, p. 200. as followeth: 'Secondly, Let us inquire what they mean by the person of Christ, to which believers must be united. And here they have outdone all the metaphysical subtleties of Suarez, and have found out a person for Christ distinct from his Godhead and manhood; for there can be no other sense made of what Dr. Owen tells us, that by the graces of his person he doth not mean the glorious excellencies of his Deity considered in itself, abstracting from the office which for us as God and man he undertook, nor the outward appearance of his human nature when he conversed here on earth, nor yet as now exalted in glory, but the graces of the person of Christ, as he is vested with the office of mediation; his spiritual eminency, comeliness, beauty, as appointed and anointed by the Father unto that great work of bringing home all his elect into his bosom. Now unless the person of Christ as mediator, be distinct from his person as God-man, all this is idle talk; for what personal graces are there in Christ as mediator, which do not belong to him either as God or man? There are some things indeed which our Saviour did and suffered, which he was not obliged to, either as God or man, but as mediator; but surely he will not call the peculiar duties and actions of an office personal graces.'

I have now learned not to trust unto the honesty and ingenuity of our author, as to his quotations out of my book, which I find that he hath here mangled and altered as in