their name; Christ, as the head of the elect, was set up from everlasting; and it is as plain, that the elect were chosen in him from everlasting; and the natural consequence is, that some were rejected, when the others were chosen; God hath appeared of old to the church in Christ, her head, saying, "Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love;" and it is as plain that some were rejected from the same date: they were of old ordained to this condemnation, Jude iv. God's rejection precedes Reprobate silver shall men call them, because the Lord hath rejected them." For my part, I wish that you would mind your farming, and let the word of God alone, unless you could submit to his tuition; or at least lay by preaching, till your understanding be enlightened; for you own that you are in an unjustified state; and if so you are yet in your sins, and God tells you not to meddle. "But unto the wicked God saith, what hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth; seeing thou hatest instruction and castest my words behind thee?" Thou art the man to whom God speaks; you hate instruction, and have cast the sublime doctrines of God's sovereignty, his uncontrollable will, his absolute choice of his people, his imputed righteousness, his promised strength in perseverance, and eternal life as his free gift, behind thy back; thou art the man that hast ridiculed these truths, and committed spiritual wickedness in high places, even in the church. of God, the city which he has set on a hill, and in the assumed character of a minister, the highest office in the church, and in the pulpit the highest place therein. You call God unjust! and a man that declares the whole council of God, and preaches the preaching that God bid him; that such preaching makes God unjust. You declare Christ died for all, and yet Ezekiel tells you there are numbers in hell already, and Christ says, "Broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many go in thereat." Christ by his death satisfied justice in the behalf of the elect, but you say such children of God may fall away, and be damned after all the satisfaction made by Christ; and after that satisfaction is made known, and applied to the elect by the Holy Ghost; though God has sworn that he will not be wroth with them, nor rebuke them; do not you make God both unjust and false by this your blasphemy? By your declaring that human merit is available in point of justification before God, do not you lessen the merit of Christ? and do not you give the testimony of all the servants of God, both prophets and apostles, the lie, who have all declared, that by the deeds of the law shall no flesh living be justified? do not you by this mitigate the severity of God's spiritual law? and by driving sinners to it for life, do not you render the gospel of the grace of God of none effect to poor sinners? While you are declaring that Christ died for all, you in effect declare that he died for none, because you affirm that the redeemed may fall away and be lost; and thus in preaching universal redemption to all, you leave all redemption as a matter of universal doubt, and make it sure to none. However, it is out of the abundance of your heart, that your mouth speaketh; you believe the doctrines of predestination and reprobation too, as firmly as the devil himself does; those doctrines gall you as well as he, or else neither he nor you would vent such malice against them, nor set men to fight with so high a hand against God for revealing them. "He that reproveth God, let him answer it." Wilt thou disannul God's judgments, wilt thou condemn God, that thou mayest be righteous? Job xl. 8. "Shall mortal man be more just than God, shall a man be more pure than his Maker?" Why dost thou strive against him, for he giveth no account of any of his matters: he is of one mind, and thou wilt never turn him. Submission well becomes a rebel, and thou must be brought to submission, if ever he saves thee. I desired you, when I answered your last, to trouble me no more with such stuff; but you are like the troubled sea that cannot rest, and therefore 'you are determined that others shall not rest. As to my publishing my last letter, it could be no offence, as I concealed your name; and I do intend to publish this also, for I am not ashamed of the doctrines of the Lord, though I am ashamed of your rebellion. However, if you can make a shift to creep into heaven by this new system of your own contriving, I have no objection; I could wish that all the human race might be saved; but my groundless wish will never turn the immutable mind of God, nor prevail against his irrevocable decree; and if I was to preach such lies in God's name, as you do, I should have no more success than you have; for God will never set the seal of his own Spirit to ratify a lie; but I see God sets his seal to my ministry daily; and when he first revealed the truth to me, his own Spirit sealed my soul up to the day of redemption at the same time and I am well persuaded that if I am right, you are wrong; and that if your road be the way to heaven, I can have no hope of getting there; for my road lies full south, and yours full north. However, I bless God, I have not a single doubt but the doctrines that I preach are the truths of God, nor have I a doubt of being saved in them; but as for your part, you own that you are in an unjustified state; and if so, then every curse in the law of God is levelled at your head. And for a condemned criminal in chains, to assume sovereignty, infallibility to himself, and become a dictator both to his sovereign, and his judge, is such a piece of insolence as never appeared in any court of judicature in the world. Your cavilling must be turned into praying; and your fighting against God, into fighting against yourself, |