all judgment is already committed to him is confessed; that it doth not hence follow that he died for all, hath been already declared, unless ye will affirm that he died for the devils also, because they also must be judged by him. Secondly, That all shall be judged by the gospel, even such as never heard word of it, is directly contrary to the gospel, for as many as have sined without the law, shall also perish without the law, and as many as have sinned in the law, shall be judged by the law;' Rom. ii. 12. Every man, doubtless, shall be judged according to the light and rule which he did or might have enjoyed, and not according to that whereof he was invincibly deprived. Thirdly, That Christ should be said to die only the first death, is neither an expression of the word, nor can be collected from thence; he died the death which was in the curse of the law, but of this only by the way. Fourthly, Ye intimate as though there were no truth in the gospel preached, unless Christ died for all, when indeed there is no assertion more opposite to the truth of the gospel; the places urged mention Christ being Lord of all, exalted above all, being Judge of all, judging men according to the gospel, that is, those men who enjoy it; but how they may be wrested to the end proposed I know not.

Proof 18. 'Believers are exhorted to contend for the faith of this common salvation which was once delivered to the saints, which some having heard oppose, and others turn the offers of it into wantonness; and through not heeding and not walking in the faith of this salvation already wrought by Christ for men, they deprive themselves of, and wind out themselves from, that salvation, which Christ by his Spirit, in application of the former, hath wrought in them, and so deprive themselves of the salvation to come; Jude 3—5.

'And every of these proofs be plain, and according to Scripture, and each of force, how much more altogether; still =justifying the sense, that 1 Tim. ii. 6. and Heb. ii. 9. importeth, and the truth of the proposition in the beginning?'

Ans. I can see nothing in this proof but only that the salvation purchased by Christ, is called common salvation, which if ye conclude from thence to be common to all, ye may as well conclude so of faith that it belongs to all, because it is called the common faith; Tit. i. 4. Though termed the faith of God's elect; ver. 1. Doubtless there is a

community of believers, and that is common amongst them, which is extended to the whole church of God; there is `totus mundus ex toto mundo, and that common salvation is that whereby they are all saved; without any colour of that strange common salvation, whereby no one is saved, maintained by this disputer. The remainder of this proof is a fulness of words, suitable to the persuasion of the author, but in no small part of them exceedingly unsuitable to the word of God and derogatory to the merits of Christ, making the salvation purchased by him to be in itself of no effect, but left to the will of sinful, corrupted, accursed men, to make available or to reject.

And these are the proofs which this author calls plain, and according to Scripture, being a recapitulation of almost all that he hath said in his whole book, at least for the argumentative part thereof, there is not any thing of weight omitted; and therefore this chapter I fixed on to return a full and punctual answer unto. Now whether the thing intended to be proved, viz. The paying of a ransom by Christ for all and every man, be plainly, clearly, and evidently from the Scripture confirmed, as he would bear us in hand; or whether all this heap of words, called arguments, reasons, and proofs, be not, for their manner of expression, obscure, uncouth, and oft-times unintelligible; for their way of inference, childish, weak, and ridiculous; in their allegations and interpretations of Scripture, perverse, violent, mistaken, through ignorance, heedlessness, and corruption of judgment, in direct opposition to the mind and will of God revealed therein, is left to the judgment of the Christian reader,that shall peruse them with the answers annexed.

CHAP. VII.

The removal of other remaining objections.

THE removal of some usual sophisms, and captious arguments of the Arminians, of late made common and vulgar, shall be the close of our treatise, and wind up the whole controversy, which hath drawn us with violence thus far; and in this performance I shall labour to be as brief as possible; partly because these things have been handled at

large by others, partly because all colour of opposition to the truth by us maintained from the Scriptures, being removed, all other objections will indeed naturally sink of themselves; yet because great boastings and swelling words of vanity, have been used concerning some that follow, it is necessary that something be said to shew the emptiness of such flourishes, that the weakest may not be entangled by them.

That which we shall begin withal, is an argument of as great fame, and as little merit, as any that in this cause, or indeed in any other controversy, hath been used of late days; and it is this: "That which every one is bound to believe is true; but every one is bound to believe that Jesus Christ died for him; therefore it is true, viz. that Jesus Christ died for every one.'

This is an argument which, to discover their conviction of the weakness of the rest of their arguments, the Arminians and their friends never use, but withal they add some notable encomium of it, with some terms of affront and threatening to their adversaries, insomuch as by consent on both sides it hath obtained the name of the Remonstrants' Achilles. Now truly for my part, as I shall not transcribe any thing hither out of the many full answers, given to it by our divines, by which this Achilles, or rather Goliah, hath been often cast to the ground; so I heartily wish, that the many operous prolix answers, which the boasting of our adversaries hath drawn forth, had not got this poor nothing more repute a thousand times than its own strength, or any addition of force from the managers of it, could have procured unto it. Supposing then, first, that the term believe, be used in the same sense in both propositions (for if otherwise the syllogism is false in the form of it). Secondly, That by believing is understood a saving application of Christ to the soul as held out in the promise, for to believe that Christ died for me in particular, as is asserted to be the duty of every one, can be nothing else but such a saving application. Thirdly, That believing that Christ died for any, according to the business in question, must be with reference to the purpose of the Father, and intention of Jesus Christ himself, for that is it which with regard to any universality is by us opposed. Fourthly, For the term every one, it must relate

unto all men as considered in an alike condition, for several respects and conditions of the same persons, may cause them to come under several obligations unto duties; now there is no one condition common unto all, but only the state of wrath and death; Eph. ii. 3. and therefore every man must be considered as in that condition: so that, in sum, the sense of the minor proposition is, all men in the world, as considered in a state of wrath and unregeneracy, are bound to believe, as before described, that it was the intention of God that Christ should die for every one of them in particular. Now not to say any thing to the major proposition, which yet is false, that which men are bound to believe in this sense being, as hath been observed by many, neither true nor false, but good, the assumption is absolutely false, and hath not the least colour of reason, or Scriptures to support it; and taking every man for every individual in the world, when our adversaries prove it, I engage myself to be their proselyte. For, first, then must some be bound to believe that which is false, which cannot be, every obligation to believe being from the God of truth; now it is false, that Christ died for all and every individual of human kind, as hath been before proved at large. Secondly, Then should men be bound immediately to believe that which is not revealed, though divine revelation be the object of all faith: for the Scriptures do not hold out any where, that Christ died for this or that particular man as such, but only for sinners indefinitely, specified oft-times antecedently by God's purpose; and consequently by their own purchased obedience: neither indeed is the intention and purpose of God, concerning which we now inquire, proposed as the object of the faith of any, but only his command, promises, and threatenings, the other being left to be collected, and assured to the soul, by an experience and sense of some sweet infallible issue and effect thereof in the heart, actually enjoyed. Nor, fourthly, can any command in the Scripture to believe be interpreted by the purpose and intention of God, as though the meaning of it should be, God intended that Christ should die for thee in particular: nor doth any promise contain that sense. Besides, fifthly, which of itself is enough to break the neck of this argument; all have not any such object of faith as Christ's death at all proposed to them. How can they believe unless they hear? Can they be

bound to believe that of which they never heard the least rumour? How many millions of infants, and others in barbarous nations, go to their own place, without hearing the least report of Jesus Christ, or his sufferings for them or others, even in these days of the gospel? How much more then before the coming of Christ in the flesh, when the means of grace were restrained to one small nation, with some few proselytes? Were all these, are they that remain, all and every one bound to believe that Christ died for them, all and every one in particular? Those that think so, are doubtless bound to go tell all of them so, I mean those that are yet in the land of the living: is not unbelief the great damning sin where faith is required? John iii. 30. and yet doth not Paul prove that many shall be condemned for sinning against the light of nature? Rom. ii. An evident demonstration that faith is not required of all, all are not bound to believe.

But perhaps our adversaries will except, as they must except, if they intend to have any colour or show of strength left unto this argument, that they mean it only in respect of them, who are called by the word, and so it is of force, to which end, let it be thus proposed.

That which every one called to by the word, to whom the gospel is preached, is bound to believe, is true.

But that Christ died for him in particular, every one so called is bound to believe; ergo,'

Ans. 1. Only the last exception foregoing is taken off by this reformed argument, all the rest stand in their full force which are sufficient to evert it. 2. Who seeth not that this very reforming of the argument, hath made it altogether useless to the cause in whose defence it was produced: for if any one, much more the greatest part of men, be excepted which are now excluded from the verge of this argument, the general ransom falls to the ground. From the innumerable multitudes of all, we are come to the many that are called, and doubt not but that we shall instantly descend to the few that are chosen. Unto the exception, that that which is true in respect of them to whom it is proposed, would also be true in respect of all, if it should be proposed to them; I answer by the way, first, that the argument is to be taken from the Scriptural obligation to believe, and can be ex