To All Those Humble-Hearted Readers,
TO ALL THOSE HUMBLE-HEARTED READERS,
WHO SEE ANY NEED TO LEARN EITHER TO KNOW THEMSELVES, OR GOD IN CHRIST.
LOVING CHRISTIANS,
Consider, I ask you, that as the first Adam, as a person common to men, entered into covenant with God for all mankind and broke it: whereby they became sinful and guilty of everlasting death and damnation; even so Jesus Christ, the second Adam, as a person common to men, entered into covenant with God his Father for all the elect, that is to say, for all those that have or shall believe on his name, and kept it for them: whereby they become righteous, and heirs of everlasting life and salvation. Therefore it is our great wisdom, and ought to be our great care and endeavour, to come out of and from the first Adam, unto and into the second Adam, so that we “may have life through his name,” John 20.31.
And yet, alas! There is no point in all practical divinity that we are so naturally averse and backward to, as we are to this; nor does Satan strive to hinder us so much from doing anything else as this. This is why all of us are naturally apt to abide and continue in that sinful and miserable state that the first Adam plunged us into, without either taking any notice of it, or being at all affected by it, and so far from coming out of it. And if the Lord is pleased by any means to open our eyes to see our misery, and thereupon we begin to step out of it, yet, alas! we are rather prone to go backwards towards the first Adam’s pure state, in striving and struggling to leave sin, and perform duties, and do good works; hoping thereby to make ourselves so righteous and holy, that God will let us into paradise again, to eat of the tree of life, and live forever. And we do this until we see the “flaming sword at Eden’s gate turning every way to keep the way of the tree of life,” Gen. 3.24. Is it not ordinary, when the Lord convinces a man of his sin (either by means of his word or his rod) to cry in this manner: ‘Oh! I am a sinful man! for I have lived a very wicked life, and therefore surely the Lord is angry with me, and will damn me in hell! Oh! What shall I do to save my soul?’ And is there not at hand some ignorant, miserable comforter, ready to say. Do not despair, man, but repent of your sins, and ask God’s forgiveness, and reform your life, and do not doubt that he will be merciful to you; for he has promised, you know, “that at whatever time a sinner repents of his sins, he will forgive him.”’
And does he not comfort himself with this, and say in his heart at least, Oh! If the Lord will only spare my life, and lengthen my days, I will become a new man! I am very sorry that I have lived such a sinful life; but I will never do as I have done for all the world! Oh! You shall see a great change in me! Does he not believe it?
And upon this he applies himself to a new course of life; and it may be that he becomes a zealous professor of religion, performing all the Christian exercises, both public and private, and leaves his old companions, and keeps company with religious men; and so it may be that he goes on till his dying day, and thinks himself sure of heaven and eternal happiness; and yet it may be that all this while he is ignorant of Christ and his righteousness, and therefore he establishes his own.
Where is the man, or where is the woman, who has truly come to Christ, that has not had some experience in themselves of such a disposition as this? If there are any that have reformed their lives, and have become professors of religion, and have not taken notice of this in themselves more or less, I wish they may have gone beyond being a legal professor, or one that is still under the Covenant of Works.
No indeed, where is the man or woman that is truly in Christ, that does not find in themselves a tendency to withdraw their hearts from Christ, and to put some confidence in their own works and doings? If there are any that do not find it, I wish their hearts may not deceive them.
Let me confess ingenuously, I was a professor of religion at least a dozen years before I knew any other way to eternal life, than to be sorry for my sins, and to ask forgiveness, and strive and endeavour to fulfil the law, and keep the commandments, as Mr. Dod and other godly men had expounded them; and truly, I remember I hoped I would at last attain to perfectly fulfilling them; and in the meantime, I conceived that God would accept the will for the deed; or that what I could not do, Christ had done for me.
And though at last, by means of conferring with Mr. Thomas Hooker in private, the Lord was pleased to convince me that I was yet but a proud Pharisee, and to show me the way of faith and salvation by Christ alone, and to give me, I hope, a heart to embrace it in some measure; yet, alas! through the weakness of my faith, I have been, and am still apt to turn aside to the Covenant of Works; and therefore I have not attained that joy and peace in believing, nor that measure of love to Christ, and to man for Christ’s sake, as I am confident many of God’s saints do attain in this life. The Lord be merciful to me, and increase my faith!
And are there not others, though I hope but few, who being enlightened to see their misery by reason of the guilt of sin, though not by reason of the filth of sin, and hearing of justification freely by grace, through the redemption which is in Jesus Christ, applaud and magnify that doctrine. They follow those who most preach and press it, seeming to be, as it were, ravished with the hearing of it, out of a conceit that by Christ they are freely justified from the guilt of sin, though still they retain the filth of sin? These are the ones who content themselves with a knowledge of the gospel, with mere notions in the head, but not in the heart; they glory and rejoice in free grace and in justification by faith alone; they profess faith in Christ, and yet they are not possessed by Christ; these are the ones who can talk like believers, and yet do not walk like believers; these are the ones who have language like saints, and yet conduct themselves like devils; these are the ones who are not obedient to the Law of Christ, and therefore they are justly called Antinomians.
Now, both these paths leading from Christ, have been justly judged as erroneous; and to my knowledge, it is not only a matter of eighteen or twenty years ago, but also within these last three or four years, there has been much ado by preaching, writing, and disputing, both to remove men out of these paths, and to keep them from them; and there have been hot contentions on both sides; and all, I fear, to little purpose. For has not the strict professor according to the law, in striving to remove loose professors of the gospel out of the Antinomian path, faster entangled both himself and others “in the yoke of bondage?” Galatians 5.1. And has not the loose professor of the gospel, in striving to remove the strict professor of the law out of the legal path “by promising them liberty from the law, taught others, and been himself the servant of corruption?” 2Peter 2.19.
For this reason, though I am nothing, I have by the grace of God endeavoured in this Dialogue to walk as a middle man between them both, in showing to each of them his erroneous path, with the middle path (which is Jesus Christ received truly, and walked in accountably) as a means to bring them both to him, and make them both one in him. Oh! That the Lord would be pleased to so bless it to them, that it might be a means to produce that effect!
I have, as you may see, gathered much of it out of known and approved authors; and yet I have wronged no man in this, for I have restored it to the right owner again. My manuscripts have afforded me some of it; and of the rest I hope I may say, as Jacob said of his venison, Gen. 27.20, “the Lord has brought it to me.” Let me say without boasting, that I have endeavoured in this to imitate the laborious bee, who out of diverse flowers gathers honey and wax, and makes one comb of it. If any souls sense any sweetness in it, let them praise God, and pray for me, who am weak in faith, and cold in love.
E. F.