of that great voice of the Scriptures, which everywhere calleth men to "repentance for the forgiveness of sins?"

That comparative allusion, of the leper under the law, wherewith the Synod of Dort, it seems, much pleased themselves, and others also since, of the same judgment with them, reacheth not the case, nor administers any relief at all to their cause, against the Scripture in hand. "The leper," say they, "among the Jews, was enforced for a time," meaning, whilst his leprosy was upon him, "to want his house; but yet he did not, in this time, lose the right of title which he had to this house, because, upon his healing, or cleansing, he might again possess it." This comparison, I say, squares not with the business in hand. For, 1. The reason why the person leprously affected did not lose the right he had to his house before he was leprous, by his becoming a leper, was, because there was no law by which any man's right or title to his house was disabled or made void by leprosy: whereas, in the case of apostasy, there is a plain law, or, rather, many laws, established and declared by the great Lawgiver of heaven, by which backsliders from ways of righteousness into ways of sin and abomination, are, without repentance, cut off from all right of title or claim to the inheritance of heaven. "For this ye know," saith the apostle, as we heard lately, "that no whoremonger, or unclean person, nor covetous man, (who is an idolater,) hath any inheritance," i. e. any right of inheritance, or to inherit; for otherwise no righteous person, yet living in the flesh, hath any actual inheritance, "in the kingdom of Christ and of God," Eph. v. 5. To object, that this law or decree of heaven holds good against such sinners in every kind, whoremongers, covetous, &c., who never were righteous; not against such, who have been righteous, though now lapsed into these ways of abomination, is not only to declare a law without the sense or authority of the lawmaker, but against that declaration which he hath made of it; who still declareth those the worst and greatest of sinners, who, with the lapsed angels, which we call devils, revolt from his service and ways, to walk in ways that are an abomination to him, "Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid: be ye very desolate, saith the Lord." Why? what is it that causeth the glorious God to appear in such an ecstacy of passion? "For my people," saith he, "have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water," Jer. ii. 12, 13. The Scripture is full of such declarations from God, as this, against apostates. So that the Dort comparison palpably faulters in that circumstance, which should have rendered it apposite to their purpose.

2. The leprous person they speak of, was curable before his death, and so, as they say, being healed, might re-enter, and possess

* Leprosus siquidem apud Judæos, cogebatur pro tempore domo carere: non tamen jus ad domum amisit, quia sanatus potuit illam rursus possidere.-Dr. Prid. Lect. 6, De Persever. Sanct. p. 202.

his house again. But the revolter from righteousness, of whom Ezekiel speaks, is supposed, as we heard before, to die under the guilt of his revolt, without healing; and consequently to be without all possibility of cure, being dead. Therefore, as the leprous person they speak of, though, whilst he lived, had a right to his house, (no law, as was said, depriving him of this,) yet, during his leprosy upon him, he had no right to enter, take possession, or dwell in his house, the law disabling him hereunto, in respect of his leprosy; and in case he had been leprous until his death, he should have had no more power or right to possess his house, than if his title to it had been wholly lost: in like manner, should it be granted or supposed, that the spiritual leper, of whom Ezekiel speaks, had a right to the kingdom of heaven during his leprosy, yet supposing the cleaving of this leprosy to him until death, (which is the prophet's supposition,) he could never, according to the terms of the comparison, have any right to enter, or to be admitted thereunto; and consequently his leprosy, I mean, his apostasy, had been final, and so unto death. Therefore there is nothing gained to the Dort cause by this similitude, though it should be allowed a pre-eminence above similitudes, and permitted to run on all four. And whereas they say and grant, that a truly righteous man may, for a time, viz., from his turning aside into ways of wickedness, until his renewing by repentance, lose, though not jus, his right unto, yet aptitudinem, his fitness or meetness for, the kingdom of heaven, they argue quite besides the argument levied against them from the passage in hand. For in this reasoning they take it for granted, that their righteous man never dieth in those ways of wickedness, into which he turneth aside, but always cometh to be "renewed again by repentance," before his death; whereas Ezekiel, expressly, and in terminis, supposeth a possibility, at least, that his righteous man may die, in or under his apostasy from righteousness, and in his committing of iniquity. "When a righteous man," saith he, "turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and dieth in them, for his iniquity that he hath done, shall he die," Ezek. xviii. 26. Therefore all this while the prophet of God, and the Synod of Dort,

are two.

Nor is that distinction made choice of by Dr. Prideaux to arbitrate and umpire the difference between them, able to set them through or make them friends. "There is," saith he, "a double righteousness, one inherent, or of works, by which we are sanctified; another imputed, or of faith, whereby we are justified. A righteous man may turn aside from his own righteousness, viz. from his holiness, and fall into very heinous sins; but it doth not follow from hence that therefore he hath wholly shaken from him," or out of him, "the righteousness of Christ." But,

*Duplex enim est justitia, inhærens sive operum, quâ sanctificamur; et imputata Christi, seu fidei, quâ justificamur- -Quibus positis, ex scopo prophetæ respondeo: justum posse se avertere à justitiâ suâ, suâ nimirum sanctitate, et in atrocia incidere peccatatamen sequitur, illum, justiciam Christi, seu fidei, penitus excussisse.-Dr. Prid. Lect. 6, de Persever, Sanctorum.

-non inde

1. The Doctor here presents us with a piece of new divinity, in making sanctification and justification no more intimate friends than that one can live without the company and presence of the other. Doubtless, if a man's justification may stay behind when his holiness is departed, that assertion of the apostle will hardly stand-"Without holiness no man shall see the Lord," Heb. xii. 14. And if " they that are Christ's," i. e. who believe in Christ, and thereby are justified, "have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts," (another assertion of the same apostle,) how their relation unto Christ should stand, and yet their holiness sink and fall, I understand not. But I leave his friends to be his enemies in this.

:

2. He seems, by his word " penitus," wholly, thoroughly, or altogether, to be singular also in another strain of divinity, and to teach magis and minus in justification for in saying, that from a man's apostatising "from his own righteousness, it doth not follow that therefore he hath wholly or altogether shaken off the imputed righteousness of Christ," doth he not imply that a man may shake off some part of the righteousness of Christ from him, and yet keep another part of it upon him? or else, that by sinning he may come to wear the entire garment or clothing of it so loosely that it will be ready to drop or fall off from him every hour? and consequently, that the righteousness of Christ sits faster and closer upon some than upon others, yea, upon the same person at one time than another.

3, and lastly, Were it granted unto the Doctor, that from a man's turning aside from his own holiness, it doth not follow that therefore he hath wholly divested himself of the righteousness of Christ imputed; yet from God's determination, or pronouncing a man to be in an estate of condemnation and of death, it follows roundly, that therefore he is divested of the righteousness of Christ imputed, if ever he were invested with it before; because no man with that righteousness upon him can be in such an estate. Now, we have upon several grounds proved, that the righteous man under that apostasy wherein Ezekiel describes and presents him, is pronounced by God a child not of a temporal, but of eternal death and condemnation. This, indeed, the Doctor denies, but gives no reason of his denial, for which I blame him not: only I must crave leave to say, that the chair weigheth not so much as one good argument with me, much less as many. So that all this while, he that spake, and still speaks, unto the world by Ezekiel, is no friend to that doctrine which denieth the possibility of a righteous man's declining even unto death.

Notwithstanding some formerly, it seems, in favour of this doctrine, attempted an escape from that sword of Ezekiel lately drawn against it, by pretending that by the righteous man mentioned in the passages in hand, is not meant a person truly and really righteous, but a kind of formal hypocrite or outside professor of righteousness. But this shift had so little colour in the face of it, that it caused the after-patrons of the doctrine to blush and be

ashamed of it. The Synod of Dort itself, though it accepted of many helps in other cases of every whit as little strength as this, yet, judging itself better provided at that point where this was offered to relieve it, it was rejected by the members of this Synod, and that with some kind of disparagement put upon it; I will not say with any such intent or eye that they who thus rejected it might be looked upon as men who would own nothing but what was solid and substantial. The forementioned Doctor also rewards the Synod of Dort with his approbation for refusing to intrust their cause in the hand of such a sorry advocate as this: so that we shall not need to cause this interpretation to pass through the fire for the trial of it, inasmuch as it hath been publicly stigmatized for reprobate silver by the greatest masters of that cause for the maintenance whereof it was devised. And, indeed, the whole series and carriage of the context, from verse 20 to the end of the chapter, demonstratively evinceth, that by the righteous man all along is meant such a man as was or is truly righteous, and who, had he persevered in that way of righteousness wherein he sometimes walked, should have worn the crown of righteousness, and received the reward of a righteous man. As by the wicked man all along opposed to him, is meant not a person seemingly wicked, but truly and really so, as is acknowledged on all hands. So that the antithesis, or opposition between the righteous and the wicked, running so visibly quite through the body of the discourse, must needs be dissolved, if by the righteous man should be meant a person seemingly righteous only; he that is righteous in this sense being truly and really wicked. Yea, Calvin, writing upon the place, though he sets himself to manage it so that the cause of perseverance may not suffer damage by it, and in order hereunto turns many a stone to make the righteous man a man seemingly righteous only, yet now and then, by the force and power of the truth, is turned quite out of the way of his design, so as to make this righteous man righteous in such a sense that nothing should be wanting unto him but perseverance in his way to make him blessed; which clearly sounds an acknowledgment of true righteousness in the man styled righteous by the prophet; inasmuch as perseverance in a way of formality, or of a pretended and seeming righteousness only, is quite out of the way to any man's blessedness. To this we may add, that of Dr. Prideaux, in the forecited lecture: "But if the righteous man," saith he, "should turn himself away from his counterfeit and hypocritical righteousness, should he not rather live than die, inasmuch as he should put off the wolf to put on the lamb?"+

• Nunc autem terret eos, qui ad tempus professi fuerant se puros et sinceros esse Dei cultores, si deficiant in medio cursu-Cæterum colligimus ex hoc loco, quemadmodum Christus docet, solos esse beatos qui perseveraverint; quia nihil proderit temporalis justitia apostatis, qui postea se a Deo avertunt. Et paulo post; rursum ut in officio contineat eos, qui fecerunt aliquos progressus, et correctâ omni ignaviâ, eos ad solicitudinem adducat, minari nisi ad extremum usque prosequantur cursum sanctæ et piæ vitæ, justitiam superiorem pro nihilo fore, &c. + Quod si justus se averteret à justitia simulatâ et hypocriticâ, an non potius viveret, quàm moreretur? quia exuisset vulpem, ut agnum indueret.

Others have sought for a door of escape from that exposition of the place yet in hand, which we have asserted, in the hypothetical tenor and form of the words themselves. Ezekiel, say these, doth not affirm that a righteous man may turn aside from his righteousness, &c., or that he may die in his apostasy; but only speaks conditionally, or by way of supposition, viz. that if, or when, he shall turn away from his righteousness, &c., then he shall die, &c. and from such a conditional saying as this, nothing positive can be concluded. But this sanctuary also hath been profaned by some of the chief guardians themselves of that cause for the protection and safety whereof it was built. There needs no more be done, though much more might be done, yea, and hath been done by others, than what the learned Doctor, so lately named, hath done himself for demolishing it. Having propounded the argument from the place in Ezekiel according to the import of the interpretation asserted by us, "Some," saith he, "answer, that a condition proves nothing in being; which, how true soever it may be in respect of such hypotheticals, which are made use of only for the amplification of matters, and serve for the aggravating either of the difficulty or indignity of a thing, as, If I should climb up into heaven, thou art there,' Psal. cxxxix., it were ridiculous to infer, therefore a man may climb into heaven; yet such conditional sayings, upon which admonitions, promises, or threatenings are built, do at least suppose something in possibility, however by virtue of their tenor and form they suppose nothing in being. For no man seriously intending to encourage a student in his way would speak thus to him, If thou wilt get all the books in the university library by heart, thou shalt be Doctor this commencement. Besides, in the case in hand, he that had a mind to deride the prophet might readily come upon him thus: But a righteous man, according to the judgment of those that are orthodox, cannot turn away from his righteousness; therefore your threatening is in vain. Thus we see to how little purpose it is to seek for starting holes in such logic quirks as these."+ Thus far this great assertor of the Synod of Dort, and of the cause which they maintained, to show the vanity of such a sense or construction put upon the words now in debate, which shall render them merely conditional, and will not allow them to import so much as a possibility of any thing contained or expressed in them;

* Vid. Defens. Senten. Remonstr. circà art. v. de Persever. p. 220.

Respondent nonnulli, conditionem nil ponere in esse: quod utcunque verum sit de hypotheticis, quæ ad avžŋoiv solummodo, sive amplificationem adhibentur, et aggerandæ rei alicujus difficultati, vel indignitati inserviunt (ut si scanderem cœlos, ibi es, Psal. exxxix., ridiculum esset inferre, ergo potest aliquis cœlum scandere :) conditionales tamen, quibus commonefactiones, promissiones, vel comminationes superstruuntur, supponunt saltem aliquid in posse, licet nil ponant ex vi connexionis. Nemo enim serio aliquem ad progressum in studiis sic adhortaretur: Si omnes in publicâ bibliothecâ libros mandes memoriæ, eris Doctor hisce comitiis. Quid? quòd in præsenti negotio, irrisori in promptu esset, sic adversus prophetam subsumere: at justus secundum orthodoxorum thesin non potest se avertere; ergo in nihilum recidit tua interminatio. Videtis quàm parùm opus sit, in logicis hujusmodi tricis, diverticulum quærere.— Dr. Prid. lect. vi. de Perseverant. Sanct. p. 201.