(269) not Decreed to us, or by Decree given us Abfolutely, but on con- ditionof Chrifts Merits ; I AnIW. i. Take heedof making con- ditional Decrees,fo as that any thing be a condition,ofDecreeing. 2. If our 7 ad Rembe but conditional, then aetually it is none. 3. If (.hrifts death be no condition of the Decree, it can be no condition of the conjuna effea, which is eternal too, if we have a Right from eternity. 4. Or if you judge that we have a Right toLife from Eternity, without any procurement of Chrifts Me- rits, and that it is the Jsm in re only that his Merits are the con- dition of ; yet remember thefe things. i. That you fuppofe a condition mull tendere ad incertum, and therefore that with God there can be no proper Conditions ; How then canChrifts death or Merits be a condition ? how can God make a grant of fuch Right to us, on this condition of Obedience, as you before ex preft ? 2. We hope Chrifts .deathwas not a meer condition, but a meritorious caufe : And how it can be fo on your grounds,is pail my reach to know. 3. And what need it, or can it caufe ? The Right to Lifewe are conceited to have before (by many at leafti) the Right in life needs,no more but art veniat dies to caufe it,ifwe had it Abfolutelyfro terming, And was this it that Chrift dyed for, to procure us a Right to that whichwe had Right to before ? UponChrifts dying it is dill but 71,15 at Rem, till the term come and then our firit Right would turn to a 7us in re, when we have the thing it felf. If you fay that Godwho Decreed the end, De- creed the means, and though he gave us the Right to Life by De- cree, yet he Decreed that Chriils death fhould interpofe as the means to the Jus in re ; An/vv. What means is it '? To inter- pofe is but to comein fuch an order ; but what cloth it to the effeet 1 Condition it can be none, if there be no condition with God, aufe it can be none of that which wants no caufe but time to its produetion. Nor do I fee, according toyou , how it can caufetneritorioufly, if it eaglenot with God from whom it Meriteth. You did therefore more cauteloufly then fatisfa &orily take upwith a word that will bear many interpretations , laying ,rifetteth Gods Juilitiam Regiminis, and there you place its pro- curing efficacy; which words I like well, if theywere cleared, and well reconciled with the refl., But you grant it as an old Rule,That the Decreegives not being anti extfience to the thugs concerningWhich it is, demandthen Did mn3 0
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