THE PRECEDING DISCOURSE. 339
timony. For there is none of thena of any note but have attempted by various artifices to shield their opinion, in denying the assumption of our human nature into personal union with the Son of God, and therewithal his pre- existence unto his nativity of the blessed Virgin, from the divine evidence given against it in that place of Heb. ii. 16; which yet, if this author may be believed, doth make no more against them than Gen. i. 1. Wherefore, this severe censure, together with the modesty of the expression, wherein Christ making peace between God and man is compared to the parting of a fray or scuffle, may pass at the same rate and value with those which are gone before. His ensuing pages are taken up, for the most part, with the tran- scription of passages out of my discourse, raked together from several places at his pleasure. I shall not impose the needless labour on the reader of a third perusal of them: nor shall I take the pains to re- store the several passages to their proper place and coherence, which he hath rent them from, to try his skill and strength upon them separately and apart; for I see not that they stand in need of using the least of their own circumstantial evidence in their vindication. I shall therefore only take notice of his exceptions against them. And, p. 207, whereas I had said on some occasion, that on such a supposition we could have supplies of grace only in a moral way, it falls under his derision in his parenthesis; and that is a very pitiful way indeed. But I must yet tell him, by the way, that if he allow of no supplies of grace but in a moral way, he is a Pelagian, and as such, stands condemned by the catholic church. And when his occasions will permit it, I desire he would answer what is written by myself in another discourse, in the refutation of this sole moral ope- ration of grace, and the assertion of another .way of the communica- tion of it unto us. Leave fooling, and " the unhappiest man in expressing himself that ever I met with" will not do it; he must betake himself to another course, if he intend to engage into the handling of things of this nature. He adds, whereas I had said, " ' The grace of the promises' (of the person of Christ you mean) :" I know well enough what I mean ; but the truth is, I know not well what he means; nor whether it be out of ignorance that he doth indeed fancy an opposition between Christ and the promises, that what is ascribed unto the one must needs be derogated from the other, when the promise is but the means and instrument of convey- ing the grace of Christ unto us; or whether it proceeds from a real dislike that the person of Christ — that is, Jesus Christ himself — should be esteemed of any use or consideration in religion, that he talks at this rate. But from whence ever it proceeds, this cavilling humour is unworthy of any man of ingenuity or learning. By his following parenthesis ("a world of sin is something") I suppose I have some-
540 A VINDICATION OF
where used that expression, whence it is reflected on ; but he quotes not the place, and I cannot find it. 1 shall therefore only at present tell him, as (if I remember ai-ight) I have done already, that I will not come to him nor any of his companions to learn to express my- self in these things ; and, moreover, that I despise their censures. The discourses he is carping at in particular in this place are neither doctrinal nor argumentative, but consist in the application of truths before proved unto the minds and affections of men. And, as I said, I will not come to him nor his fraternity to learn how to manage such a subject, much less a logical and argumentative way of reason- ing ; nor have I any inducement thereunto from any thing that as yet I have seen in their writings. It also troubles him, p. 208, that whereas I knoAV how unsuited tlie best and most accurate of our ex- pressions are unto the true nature and being of divine things, as they are in themselves, and what need we have to make use of allusions, and sometimes less proper expressions, to convey a sense of them unto the minds and affections of men, I had once or twice used that BTavopQojsig, " if I may so say ;" which yet if he had not known used in other good authors, treating of things of the same nature, he knew I could take protection against his severity under the examiDle of the apostle, using words to the same purpose upon an alike occasion, Heb. viL But at length he intends to be serious, and from those words of mine, " Hfere is mercy enough for the greatest, the oldest, the stubborn est transgressor;" he adds, "Enough, in all reason, this: what a comfort is it to sinners to have such a God for their Saviour, whose grace is boundless and bottomless, and exceeds the largest dimensions of their sins, though there be a world of sin in them. But what, now, if the divine nature itself have not such an endless, boundless, bottomless grace and compassion as the doctor now talks of? For at other times, when it serves his turn better, Ave can hear nothing from him but the ' naturalness of God's vindictive justice.' Though God be rich in mercy, he never told us that his mercy was so boundless and bottomless ; he had given a great many demonstra- tions of the severity of his anger against sinners, who could not be much worse than the ' greatest, the oldest, and the stubbornest trans- gressors.' "