Thirdly, The other scriptures urged have not so much as any colour that should give advantage to consider them, as with any re- ference to the business in hand. That of Jonah ii. 8 is concerning such as forsake the true God to follow idols, so forfeiting the mercies, temporal and spiritual, which from the true God they had before received. Pom. ii. 5 speaks of the Gentiles who had the works of God to teach them, and the patience of God to wait upon them, yet made no other use of them both than, by vile rebellions, to add new degrees of farther hardness upon their own hearts. That of men's losing their souls. Matt. xvi. 26, and destroying themselves (Hos. xiii. 9) by sin, is of equal force with what went before.
But, fourthly, The close of this reason seems to intimate a farther view of the author, which at the first view doth not appear, — namely, that all men are in a restored condition by Christ; not a door of
398 THE DEATH OF DEATH. [BOOK TV.
mercy opened for them all, but that they are all actually restored into grace and favour, from which if they do not fall, they shall surely be saved. And the argument whereby he proves this is, be- cause, being lost in Adam, they could not be said to lose themselves unless they were restored by Christ ; being darkness and hardness in him, unless all were enlightened and mollified by Christ, they could not be said to love darkness nor to harden themselves. Now, if this be his intention (as it is too apparent that so it is), I must say something, — first, To the argument ; secondly. To the thing itself. And, —
First, For the argument, it i&this: — Because by original sin men are guilty of death and damnation, therefore they cannot by actual sins make sure of and aggravate that condemnation, and so bring upon themselves a death unto death : or, Because there is a native, inbred hardness of heart in man, therefore, none can add farther degi-ees of contracted hardness and induration by actual rebellions; that because men are blind, therefore they cannot undervalue light (when indeed the reason why they do so is because they are blind) ; that men who have time, and opportunity, and means, to save their souls, cannot be said to lose them, that is, to be condemned, unless their souls were in a saved condition before. Now, this is one of the proofs which, in the close, is called "plain, and according to Scripture ;" when, indeed, nothing can be more contrary to reason. Scripture, and the principles of the oracles of God, than this and some other of them are. I shall add no more, knowing that no reader can be so weak as to conceive that the refusing of a proposed remedy, accom- panied with infinite other despites done to the Lord, is not sufficient to make men guilty of their own condemnation. I speak of those that enjoy the preaching of the gospel.
Secondly, For the thing itself, or an actual restoration of all men by Christ into such a state (as is intimated) as they had at the first in Adam (I mean in respect of covenant, not innocency), Avhich I take to be the meaning of the author, and that because in another place he positively affirms that it is so, and that all are justified by Christ, though how it should be so he is not able to declare. To this, then, I say, — 1. That there is nothing in the Scripture that should give the least colour to this gross error, nor can any thing be produced so much as probably sounding that way. 2, It is con- trary,— (1.) To very many places, affirming that we are "dead in trespasses and sins," Eph. ii. 1 ; that "except we be born again, we cannot see the kingdom of God," John iii. 3 ; that until we come by faith to Christ, "the wrath of God abideth on us," chap. iii. 36; with those innumerable places which discover the universal aliena- tion of all men from God, until actual peace and reconciliation be made through Christ. (2.) To the very nature and essence of the
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new covenant of grace, proceeding from the free mercy of God to his elect, carried along with distinguishing promises from the first to the last of them, putting a difference between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, as well in the members as in the Head ; being effective and really working every good thing it promised in and towards all to whom it doth belong (which cer- tainly it doth not in all), and being everywhere said to be made with the people of God, or those whom he will own, in opposition to the world ; — of all which, and divers other things, so plentifully affirmed of it in the Scripture, not one can be true if all men receive a re- storation by Christ into covenant. (3.) To the eternal purpose of God in election and reprobation; of which the latter is a resolution to leave men in their fallen condition, without any reparation by Christ. (4.) It is attended with very many strange, absurd, ground- less consequences ; as, —