It hath been the constant practice of all persons, in all ages, who have made it their design to beget and propagate a belief of any doctrine contrary to the form of wholesome words, to begin with, and insist mainly upon, those parts of theii* be- loved conception and offspi-ing which seem to be most beautiful and taking, for the turning aside of poor, weak, unlearned, and unstable souls; knowing full well that their judgments and attention being once engaged, such is the frame of men's spirits under delusion, they will choose rather to swallow down all that follows than to discharge themselves of what they have already received. Upon this
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account, those who of late days have themselves drunk large draughts of the very dregs of Pelagianism, do hold out at first only a desire to be pledged in a taste of the universality of the merit of Christ for the redemption (or rather something else, well I wot not what) of all and every man. Finding this rendered plausible from some general expressions in the word seeming to cast an eye of favour that way, in the light wherein they stand, as also to be a fit subject for them to varnish over and deck up, with loose, ambiguous, rhetoi-ical expressions, they attempt with all their might to get entertainment for it, knowing that those who shall receive it may well call it Gad, being sent before only to take up quarters for the troop that follows.
To obviate this evil, which, being thus planted and watered tlirough other subtleties and advantages, hath received no small increase, I have once and again' cast in my mite into the treasury of that wch provision which the Lord hath enabled many men of eminent learning and piety to draw forth from the inex- haustible storehouse of divine truth, and to prepare it for the use of the saints.
In one^ of those treatises, having at large handled the several concernments of the death of Christ, as to the satisfaction and merit thereof, in their nature and tendency, as well as their object and extent, and finding some opposition made to sundry truths therein delivered, I have attempted, through the assistance of grace, to vindicate them from that opposition in this ensuing discourse, as also taken occasion to hold forth sundry other things of weight and importance; of all which you have an account given in the first chapters thereof, whither I remit the reader.
For the present, there are some few things which. Christian reader, I desire to acquaint thee withal in particular, which something nearly concern the business we have in hand.
Since not only the complete finishing of this treatise under my hand, Avhich is now about five months ago, but also the printing of some part of it, the two dis- sertations of Dr Davenant, of the Death of Christ, and of Predestination and Re- prol)ation, were set forth; in both which, esj^ecially the former, there are sundry assertions, positions, and theses, differing from what is delivered in the ensuing treatise, and, as I suppose, repugnant unto truth itself. The whole of those per- suasions, I confess, which he -endeavoureth in them to maintain, is suited to the expi'essions of sundi'y learned men, as Austin, Hilary, Fulgentius, Prosper, who in their generations deserved exceeding well of the church of God ; but that it is free from opposition to the Scripture, or indeed self-contradiction, is not so apparent. Yea, through the patience and goodness of God, I undertake to demonstrate that the main foundation of his whole dissertation about the death of Christ, with many inferences from thence, are neither found in, nor foimded on the word; but that the several parts thereof are mutually conflicting and destructive of each other, to the great prejudice of the truth therein contained.
It is a thing of the saddest consideration possible, that wise and learned men should once suppose, by tempering the truths of God so that they may be suited to the self-indulgency of unsubdued carnal affections, to give any lustre to them, or in the least to remove that scandal and offence which the fleshly-minded' doth take continually at those ways of God which are far above out of his sight. That this is the grand design of such undertakings as that of the learned bishop now mentioned, even to force the mysteries of the gospel to a condescension and suit- ableness unto the unpurged relics of the wisdom of nature, when all other thoughts ought to be captivated to the obedience thereof, is to me most apparent. Whence else should it proceed that so many unscriptural distinctions of the various inten- tions of God in the business of redenqition, with the holding out, for the confirma- tion of one part of their opinion, — namely, " That Christ died for all and every I Pisplay of Armlnianism; Sulus Elcctorum, Sanguis Jesu. ■ Salus Elect. 8 Horn. viii. 7.
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one in such a sense," — those very arguments which the most that own the truth of their inferences do employ merely against the hitter part of their opinion, — namely, "In some sense he died only for the elect," — with sundry inextricable entanglements, should fill up both the pages of their discourses ?
It is no way clear to me ^^'hat glory redoundeth to the grace of God, what ex- altation is given to the death of Christ,^ what encouragement to sinners in the things of God, by maintaining that our Saviour, in the intention and the designment of his Father, died for the redemption of millions for whom he purchased not one dram of saving grace, and concerning whom it was the purpose of God from eter- nity not to make out unto them effectually any of those means for a participation in the fruits of his death, without which it is imjiossible but it should be useless and unprofitable unto them ; and yet this is the main design of that Dissertation concerning the Death of Christ. Wliat in that and the ensuing discourse is argued and contended for according to the mind of God we thankfully accept ; and had it not been condited with the unsavoui-y salt of human wisdom, it had been exceeding acceptable, especially at this time : for that there are some more than ordinary endeavours for the supportment and re-enforcing of the almost conclamated cause of Arminianism^ ready to be handed unto public view is commonly reported and believed; concerning which, also, many swelling words (of which there lies great abundance on every side) are daily vented, as of some unparalleled product of truth and industry, as though " Nil oriturum alias, nil ortum tale," for the most part by such as are utterly ignorant how far these controversies have been sifted, and to what issue they have been driven long ago.