Ans. 1. That obedience to the moral law is not a preparative to faith, or an excellent and necessary qualification to the right understanding of the gospel I have proved.
2. That to be a Jewish proselyte was to live in the faith of Messias to come, is the strain of all the scriptures that have to deal with them.
3. But that ordaining men to eternal life respects an act of the Jews, or that the Jews did dispense with the Gentile proselytes, in their casting off all their laws, but the seven precepts of Noah.
4. Or that God counted this a fit, or forerunning qualification to faith in Jesus Christ, neither stands with the word of God, nor the zeal of that people.
5. Besides, the words presently following seem to me to insinuate more, viz. That the Jews and religious proselytes that adhered to Paul at his first sermon (v 43), did contradict and blaspheme at his second (v 45), and moreover, that it was they that raised persecution upon him, and expelled him out of their coasts (v 50). When the Gentiles, even those that were more barbarously ignorant at his coming, when they heard that by Christ there was offered to them the forgiveness of sins, they believed (v 48), and glorified the word of the Lord: The wisdom of heaven so disposing such of their hearts, that were before by HIM, not by Jews ordained to life. 'And as many as were ordained to eternal life, believed.'
But you come again, in p. 269 to the scripture first urged by you, 'If any man will do his will,' &c. and you tell us, that this must also needs be implied, he shall rightly understand the doctrine too; which word (understand) you so carry, as may best help you in case you should meet with an adversary. As if any should thus object, that here you have granted that the words make promise of an understanding of the gospel; yea require in it the very first act of the will; then you readily shift it by saying, That this is implied only, suggesting that obedience to morals is expressed, and therefore must first be thought on and done. But if one of your brotherhood stop here, and make the objection; then you add, 'It is knowledge, at least, in all the necessary points thereof, absolutely necessary and essential parts, from among which you long since did cast out, "Coming to God by Jesus Christ."' Yea you add, 'That by [that which you call] the design of the gospel, it may be presumed, that whosoever considereth it, with a design of being so, [that is, of living up to human principles, and that desireth to be possessed again of the holiness he hath lost, for that is it for the proof of which you have written above 300 pages] he must needs believe the gospel to have come from God, and also be enlightened in the true knowledge of at least the necessary points of it,' viz. All moral duties contained therein, which are never a one of them as such an essential of the gospel, but are such duties as are consequential to the belief thereof.
Wherefore, although you feign it, 'this honest temper,' as you call it, will not help you, 1. To judge of the gospel without prejudice; nor 2. To evidence it with satisfaction; nor 3. Secure those in whom it is from error and delusion; no man being more brutish or heathenish, nor so void of satisfaction about it, nor more involved in error concerning it, than yourself; being truly what you charge upon others; 1. Grossly ignorant; 2. Too highly opinionate; 3. Proud in affectation; 4. Liquorish; 5. A self-lover; 6. And for your blasphemy under the just judgment of God. 'If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine into them' (2 Cor 4:3,4).
['For me to live is Christ' includes in it more than good habits or holy frames of soul.]
I am come now to your last chapter, which tells us wherein the essence and life of Christianity consisteth, viz. In a good state and habit of mind, in a holy frame and temper of soul (p. 282).
Ans. 1. It consisteth in a life of faith, when I live in the belief of this, that Christ loved me, and gave himself for me. 'The life that I now live in the flesh [saith Paul] I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.'