An appendix upon occasion of a late book published by Mr Joshua Sprigge,1 containing erroneous doctrine.
Reader,
I do earnestly entreat thy serious perusal of this short appendix. The total finishing and printing, not only of the body of the discourse, but also the preface, before occasion was given to those thoughts which I now desire to communicate, is the rise of this ataxy. This, being irrecoverable, will admit of no farther apology. In the third division of this treatise there are sundry chapters, namely, vii.–ix., etc., about the satisfaction of Christ, in which the doctrine is cleared and vindicated from the objections of some. The first aim I had therein was, to show the inconsistency of that with the general ransom, principally now opposed. In handling of it my eye was chiefly on the Socinians, the noted known opposers of the person, grace, and merit of Christ, the most wretched prevaricators in Christian religion which any age ever yet produced. In the manner of asserting it, I looked not beside the scriptural proposal of it, nor turned to any controversials, but only for the remarking some παρορᾶματα and (I fear wilful) failings and mistakes of Grotius,2 in stating this business. His wretched apostasy into the very dregs of the error by himself (in the judgment of some) strongly opposed, sufficiently authorizeth any to lay open his treacherous dealing in his first undertaking. If any doubt of this, let him but compare the exposition of sundry texts of Scripture in that book against Socinus with those which the same person hath since given in his so much admired (indeed, in very many things, so much to be abhorred) Annotations on the Bible; and, by their inconsistency he will quickly perceive the steadfastness of that man to his first principles. Great as he was, he was not big enough to contend with truth. Moreover, I had it in my thoughts to endeavour the removal of (as I then thought) a scruple from the minds of some well-meaning persons, who weakly apprehend that the eternal love of God to his elect was inconsistent with the satisfaction of Christ, and therefore began to apprehend, and instantly to divulge abroad (for that is the manner of our days, for every one to cast upon others the crudities of their own stomach, and scatter abroad undigested conceptions, waiting for some to lick their deformed issues, and to see what other capricious brains can make of that which themselves know not how to improve) that Christ came only to declare the love of the Father, and to make it manifest to us, that we, in the apprehension thereof, might be drawn to him; so that as for satisfaction and merit, they are but empty names, obscuring the gospel, which holds out no such things. Now, concerning this I know, —
1. That this new-named free grace, this glorious height and attainment, this varnished deity, was at first in its original “truncus ficulnus,” — an old, rotten, overworn, Arminian objection, raised out of the obs. and sols. of the old schoolmen, to oppose the doctrine of effectual redemption by Christ, or else to overthrow the doctrine of eternal election; for they framed it to look both ways (either we are not so chosen, or not so redeemed), not caring which part of their work it did, so it were in any measure useful. This was the birth and rise of this glorious discovery.
2. That of its own accord it tends to the very bottom of Socinian folly, yea, indeed, is the very same opinion, for substance, with that whereby they have so long vexed the churches of God, and are themselves deservedly by them all esteemed accursed, for preaching another gospel. Doth not the sum of this discovery come hither, that there is no vindicative justice in God, no wrath or anger against sin, nothing requiring satisfaction for it; that Christ came to declare this, and to make known the way of going to the Father? And is not this that very Helena for which the Socinians have, with so much fraud and subtlety, with so many Sinonian arts, so long contended?
3. That it is extremely to the dishonour of Jesus Christ, destructive to the gospel faith and all solid consolation, and forces men either to a familistical contempt or sophistical corrupting of the word of God in its defence.
Upon these and the like considerations and apprehensions, I deemed it might not be in vain to disprove the main assertion, as also to manifest the miserable inconsequence, from the asserting of God’s eternal love to the denial of satisfaction; which in what manner the Lord enabled me to perform, you must know, reader, in the place above mentioned. At that time I had only had one conference with one about it; and for books I had only seen some few, and those so exceedingly inconsiderable, and so fully familistical, forced with so much contempt of the word, that I was not willing to cast away the least moment on them.