The same truth was confirmed also by Zarnovitius, who first wrote against Socinus' book ; as also by Otto Casmannus, who engaged in the same work ; and by Abraham Salinarius. Upon the same foundation do proceed Para>us, Piscator, Lubbertus, Lucius, Camero, Voetius, Amyraldus, Placseus, Rivetus, Walaeus, Thysius, Altingius, Maresius, Essenius, Arnoldus, Turretinus, Baxter, with many others. The Lutherans who have managed these controversies, as Tarnovius, Meisn'erus, Calovius, Stegmannus, Martinius, Franzius, with all others of their way, have constantly maintained the same great fundamental principle of this doctrine of the satisfaction of Christ ; and it hath well and solidly been of late asserted among ourselves on the same foundation. And as many of these authors do expressly blame some of the schoolmen, as Aquinas, Durandus, Biel, Tataretus, for granting a possibility of pardon without satisfaction, as opening a way to the Socinian error in this matter ; so also they fear not to affirm, that the foregoing of this principle of God's vindictive justice indispensably requiring the punishment of sin, doth not only weaken the cause of the truth, but indeed leave it indefensible. However, I suppose men ought to be wary how they censure the authors men- tioned, as such who expose the cause they undertook to defend unto contempt ; for greater, more able, and learned defenders, this truth hath not as yet found, nor doth stand in need of.
J. O.
VOL. IL 24
THE PREFACE.
The disciples of oiu* Lord Jesus Chi-ist having made that great confession of him, in distinction and opposition unto them who accounted him only as a prophet, '• Thou art the Christ, tlie Son of the living God," Matt. xvi. 14, 10, he doth, on the occasion thereof, give out unto them that great charter of the church's stability and continuance, " Upon this rock I will l)uild my church ; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it," verse 18. He is himself the rock upon which his church is built, — as God is called the rock of his people, on the account of his eternal power and immutability, Deut. xxxii. 4, 18, 31, Isa. xxvi. 4; and himself the spiritii<il rock which gave out supplies of mercy and assistance to the people in the wilderness, 1 Cor. x, 4.
The relation of the p^'ofesslng church unto this rock consists in the faith of this confession, that he is " the Christ, the Son of the living God." This our Lord Jesus Christ hath promised to secure against all attempts; yet so as plainly to declare, that there should be great and severe opposition made thereunto. For whereas the frevalcncy of the gates of hell in an enmity unto this confession is denied, a great and vigorous attempt to prevail therein is no less cevtamXy foretold. Neither hath it otherwise fallen out. In all ages, from the first solemn foundation of the church of the New Testament, it hath,, one Avay or other, been fiercely attempted by the " gates of hell." For some time after the resurrection of Christ from the dead, the principal endeavours of Satan, and men acting under him, or acted by him, were pointed against the very foundation of the church, as laid in the expression before mentioned. Almost all the errors and heresies wherewith for three or four centuries of years it was perplexed, were principally against the person of Christ himself; and, consequently, the nature and being of the holy and blessed Trinity. But being disappointed in his design herein, through the watch- ful care of the Lord Christ over his promise, in the following ages Satan turned his craft and violence against sundry parts of the superstructure, and, by the assistance of the Papacy, cast them into confusion, — nothing, as it were, remain- ing firm, stable, and in order, but only this one confession, which in a particular manner the Lord Christ hath taken upon himself to secure.
In these latter ages of the world, the power and care of Jesus Christ reviving towards his church, in the reformation of it, even the ruined heaps of its building have been again reduced into some tolerable order and beauty. The old enemy of its peace and welfiire faUing hereby under a disappointment, and finding his travail and labour for many generations in a great part frustrate, he is returned again to his old work of attacking the foundation itself; as he is unweary and • restless, and can be quiet neither conqueror nor conquered, — nor will be so, until he is bound and cast into the lake that burneth with fire. For no sooner had the reformation of religion firmed itself in some of the European provinces, but imme- diately, in a proportion of distance not unanswerable unto what fell out from the first foundation of the church, sundry persons, by the instigation of Satan, at-
372 THE rilEFACE.
tempted the disturbance and ruin of it, hy the very same errors and heresies about the Trinity, the person of Christ and his offices, the person of the Holy Ghost and his grace, wherewith its first trouble and ruin was endeavoured. And hereof we have of late an instance given among ourselves, and that so notoriously known, through a mixture of imprudence and impudence in the managers of it, that a very brief I'cflection upon it will suffice unto our present design.