Edward Fisher · 56 of 56

Appendix · Part 4

angels that fell] this Son is given, and this Child is born, whose name is called

Wonderful, &c. (Isa 9:6).

We have a Scripture also to this purpose, (John 6:32), where Christ, speaking to a

promiscuous multitude, makes a comparison between himself and the manna that

fell about the tents of Israel in the wilderness, and says, "My Father giveth you

the true bread from heaven." As the simple raining of the manna about their camp

is called a giving of it, (verse 21), before it was tasted, or fed upon; so the very

revelation and offer of Christ is called [according to the judicious Calvin on the

place] a giving of him, ere he be received and believed on.

Of this giving of Christ to mankind lost, we read also, (1 John 5:11), "And this is

the record, that God hath given unto us eternal life, and this life is in his Son."

This giving in the text is not, we conceive, a giving in possession, in greater or

lesser measure, but a giving by way of grant and offer, whereupon one may

warrantably take possession, and the party to whom is not the election only, but

lost mankind; for the record of God here must be such a thing as warrants all to

believe on the Son of God. But it can be no such warrant to tell, "that God hath

given eternal life to the elect"; for the making of a gift to a certain select company

of persons, can never be a warrant for all men to receive or take possession of it.

This will be further evident, if we consider that the great sin of unbelief lies in not

believing this record of God,—"He that believes not hath made God a liar," says

the apostle, (verse 10), "because he believes not the record that God gave so his

Son"; and then it followeth, (verse 11), "And this is the record, that God hath

given to us eternal life," &c. Now, are we to think that the rejecting of the record

of God is a bare disbelieving of this proposition, "That God hath given eternal life

unto the elect?" No, surely; for the most desperate unbelievers, such as Judas and

others, believe this; and their belief of it adds to their anguish and torment. Or do

they, by believing this, set to their seal that God is true? No; they still continue,

notwithstanding of all this, to make him a liar, in "not believing this record of

God," that to lost mankind, and to themselves in particular, God hath given

eternal life, by way of grant, so as they, as well as others, are warranted and

welcome, and every one to whom it comes, on their peril, required by faith to

receive or take possession of it. By not receiving this gifted and offered remedy,

with application and appropriation, they fly in the face of God's record and

testimony; and therefore do justly and deservedly perish, seeing the righteousness,

salvation, and kingdom of God, was brought so near to them, in the free offer of

the gospel, and yet they would not take it. The great pinch and strait, we think, of

an awakened conscience, does not lie in believing that God hath given eternal life

to the elect, but in believing or receiving Christ, offered to us in the gospel, with

particular application to the man himself, in Scripture called "an eating the flesh,

and drinking the blood of the Son of man." And yet, till this difficulty be

surmounted, in greater or lesser measure, he can never be said to believe in

Christ, or receive and rest upon him for salvation. The very taking or receiving

must needs presuppose a giving of Christ; and this giving may be, and is, for the

most part, where there is no receiving; but there can be no receiving of Christ for

salvation where there is not revelation of Christ in the word of the gospel,

affording warrant to receive him, and then, by the effectual operation of the

Spirit, persuading and enabling the sinner to embrace him upon this warrant and

offer. "A man," says the Spirit of God, (John 3:27), "can receive nothing, except

it be given him from heaven." Hence Mr. Rutherford, in his "Christ Dying and

Drawing," &c., page 442, says that "reprobates have as fair a warrant to believe

as the elect have."

As to the second part of this question, i.e., "Is this grant made to all mankind by

sovereign grace? and, Whether is it absolute or conditional" we answer, that this

grant, made in common to lost mankind, is from sovereign grace only; and it

being ministers' warrant to offer Christ unto all, and people's warrant to receive

him, it cannot fail to be absolutely free; yet so as none can be possessed of Christ

and his benefits, till by faith they receive him.

QUERY XI.—Is the division of the law, as explained and applied in the

Marrow, to be justified, and which cannot be rejected without burying several

gospel truths?

Ans.—We humbly judge the tripartite division of the law, if rightly understood,

may be admitted as orthodox; yet, seeing that which we are concerned with, as

contained in our representation, is only the divisions of the law into the law of

works and the law of Christ, we say, that we are still of opinion, that this

distinction of the law is carefully to be maintained; in regard that by the law of

works we, according to the Scripture, understand the covenant of works, which

believers are wholly and altogether delivered from, although they are certainly

under the law of the ten commandments in the hand of a Mediator. And if this

distinction of the law, thus applied, be overthrown, and declared groundless,

several sweet gospel- truths must unavoidably fall in the ruins of it. For instance,

if there be no difference put between the law as a covenant, and the law as a rule

of life to believers, in the hand of Christ, it must needs follow, that the law still

retains its covenant-form with respect to believers, and that they are still under the

law in this formality, contrary to Scripture, (Rom 6:14, 7:1-3), and to the

Confession of Faith, chap. 19, sect. 6. It would also follow, that the sins of

believers are still to be looked upon as breaches of the covenant of works, and

consequently, that their sins not only deserve the wrath and curse of God, [which

is a most certain truth,] but also make them actually liable to the wrath of God,

and the pains of hell for ever, which is true only of them that are in a state of

black nature: Less. Cat. quest. 19, and contrary to Confess. of Faith, chap. 19,

sect. 1. It will likewise follow, that believers are still to eye God as a vindictive

and wrathful Judge, though his justice be fully satisfied in the death and blood of

their blessed Surety, apprehended by faith. These and many other sweet gospel

truths, we think, fall in the ruins of the foresaid distinction condemned as

groundless.

QUERY. XII.—Is the hope of heaven and fear of hell to be excluded from the

motives of the believer's obedience? And if not, how can the Marrow be

defended, that expressly excludes them, though it should allow of other motives?

Ans.—Here we are referred to the third particular head, wherein we think the

Marrow injured by the Assembly's act, which for brevity's sake we do not

transcribe: but agreeable both to our representation and the scope of the Marrow,

we answer, That taking heaven for a state of endless felicity in the enjoyment of

God in Christ, we are so far from thinking that this is to be excluded from being a

motive of the believer's obedience, that we think it the chief end of man, next to

the glory of God; (Psa 83:25), "Whom have I in heaven but thee?" &c. Heaven,

instead of being a reward to the believer, would be a desolate wilderness to him

without the enjoyment of a God in Christ. The Lord and the Lamb are the light of

that place. God himself is the portion of his people; he is their shield and

exceeding great reward. The very cope-stone of the happiness of heaven lies in

being "for ever with the Lord, and in beholding of his glory"; and this indeed the

believer is to have in his eye, as the recompense of reward, and a noble motive of

obedience. But to form conceptions of heaven as a place of pleasure and

happiness, without the former views of it, and to fancy that this heaven is to be

obtained by our own works and doings, is unworthy of a believer, a child of God,

in regard it is slavish, legal, mercenary, and carnal.

As for the fear of hell being a motive of the believer's obedience, we reckon it one

of the special branches of that glorious liberty wherewith Christ hath made his

people free, that they yield obedience to the Lord, not out of slavish fear of hell

and wrath, but out of a child-like love and willing mind, Confess, chap. 20, sect.

6. "Christ hath delivered us out of the hands of our enemies, that we might serve

him without fear, in holiness and righteousness, all the days of our lives," (Luke

1:74,75). A filial fear of God and of his fatherly displeasure, is worthy of the

believer, being a fruit of faith, and of the spirit of adoption; but a slavish fear of

hell and wrath, from which he is delivered by Christ, is not a fruit of faith, but of

unbelief. And in so far as a believer is not drawn with love, but driven on in his

obedience with a slavish fear of hell, we think him, in so far under a spirit of

bondage. And judging this to be the Marrow's sense of rewards and punishments

with respect to a believer, we think it may and ought to be defended.

And this doctrine, which we apprehend to be the truth, stands supported not only

by Scripture and our Confession of Faith, but also by the suffrages of some of

our soundest divines; for instance Mr. Rutherford:—"Believers," says he, "are to

be sad for their sins, as offensive to the authority of the Lawgiver and the love of

Christ, though they be not to fear the eternal punishment of them"; for sorrow for

sin, and fear for sin are most different to us. Again, says the same author, "Servile

obedience, under apprehension of legal terror, was never commanded in the

spiritual law of God to the Jews, more than to us." Durham, "The believer [says

he] being freed from the law as a covenant, his life depends not on the promise

annexed to the law, nor is he in danger by the threatenings adjoined to it, both

these to believers being made void through Christ." And to conclude, we are

clearly of Dr. Owen's mind anent the use of threatenings of everlasting wrath with

reference unto believers, who, though he owns them to be declarative of God's

hatred of sin, and his will to punish it, yet in regard the execution of them is

inconsistent with the covenant, and God's faithfulness therein, says, "The use of

them cannot be to beget in believers an anxious, doubting, solicitous fear about

the punishment threatened, grounded on a supposition that the person fearing

shall be overtaken with it, or a perplexing fear of hell-fire; which, though it

ofttimes be a consequence of some of God's dispensations toward us of our own

sins, or the weakness of our faith, is not any where prescribed unto us as a duty,

nor is the ingenerating of it in us the design of any of the threatenings of God."

His reasons, together with the nature of that fear, which the threatening of eternal

wrath ought to beget in believers, may be viewed among the rest of the

authorities.

These are some thoughts that have offered to us upon the queries, which we lay

before the Reverend Commission with all becoming deference, humbly craving,

that charity, which thinketh no evil, may procure a favourable construing of our

words, so as no sense may be put upon, nor inference drawn from, them which

we never intended. And in regard the tenor of our doctrine, and our aims in

conversation, have, though with a mixture of much sinful weakness, been

sincerely pointed at the honour of the Lord Jesus as our king as well as priest, as

our sanctification as well as our righteousness, we cannot but regret our being

aspersed, as turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and casting off the

obligation of the holy law of the ten commands; being persuaded that the

damnation of such as either do or teach so, is just and unavoidable, if mercy

prevent it not. But now if, after this plain and ingenuous declaration of our

principles, we must still lie under the same load of reproach, it is our comfort, that

we have the testimony of our conscience clearing us in that matter, and doubt not

the Lord will in due time bring forth our righteousness as the light, and our

judgment as the noon-day. We only add, that we adhere to our representation and

petition in all points; and so much the rather that we have already observed the

sad fruits, and bad improvement made of the Assembly's deed, therein

complained of.

These answers, contained in this and the preceding pages, [viz: of the manuscript

given in,] are subscribed at Edinburgh, March 12th, 1722, by us,

MESSRS. JAMES HOG, Carnock.

THOMAS BOSTON, Etterick.

JOHN WILLIAMSON, Inveresk.

JAMES KID, Queensferry.

GABRIEL WILSON, Maxton.

EBENEZR ERSKINE, Portmoack.

RALPH ERSKINE, Dunfermline.

JAMES WARDLAW, Dunfermline.

HENRY DAVIDSON, Galashiels.

JAMES BATHGATE, Orwel.

WILLIAM HUNTER, Lilliesleaf.

THE END.