And here I would have one strange passage observed in very many Divines, that it may appear ⟨p. 322⟩how prejudice & studium partium, prevails in Mens Studies, and how much the Will can command the Understanding. When we plead that God doth in pardoning Sin for Christ's Sacrifice relax his Law, or dispense with it, and not properly execute it according to its sense, they stiffly deny it, and say that it is but an interpreting it [Greek or Hebrew] according to its reserved exception, and that Christ's suffering was the proper fulfilling of the Law, and the Reason they give is, because they think it of flat necessity that the Law be executed according to its sense, or else it should not be true; or at least God should not be just; (even Essenius himself forsakes Grotius in this point,) and yet these same Men will maintain either that God doth without any satisfaction at all so far relax the same Law to wicked men, as to give them all the mercies which they enjoy (viz. illumination, a taste of the good word of God, and the powers of the World to come, to be made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and believe for a time, and be sanctified by the blood of the Covenant, and loved of Christ, and clean escape from them that live in error, and to escape the World's pollutions, and be washed, &c.) or else that God doth this without relaxing his Law, and so, that by the rigorous Law of Works Sinners are not deprived of these Mercies. To the Non-Elect God relaxeth that Law without satisfaction, which to the Elect he doth not, yea cannot relax upon satisfaction. These things are harder to me than to be well digested.
And here I would have one strange passage observed in very many Divines, that it may appear ⟨p. 322⟩how prejudice & studium partium, prevails in Mens Studies, and how much the Will can command the Understanding. When we plead that God doth in pardoning Sin for Christ's Sacrifice relax his Law, or dispence with it, and not properly execute it according to its sense, they stifly deny it, and say that it is but an interpreting it 〈non-Latin alphabet〉 according to its reserved exception, and that Christ's suffering was the proper fulfilling of the Law, and the Reason they give is, because they think it of flat necessity that the Law be executed according to its sense, or else it should not be true; or at least God should not be just; (even Essenius himself forsakes Grotius in this point,) and yet these same Men will maintain either that God doth without any satisfaction at all so far relax the same Law to wicked men, as to give them all the mercies which they enjoy (viz. illumination, a tast of the good word of God, and the powers of the World to come, to be made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and believe for a time, and be sanctified by the blood of the Covenant, and loved of Christ, and clean escape from them that live in errour, and to escape the World's pollutions, and be washed, &c.) or else that God doth this without relaxing his Law, and so, that by the rigorous Law of Works Sinners are not deprived of these Mercies. To the Non-Elect God relaxeth that Law without satisfaction, which to the Elect he doth not, yea cannot relax upon satisfaction. These things are harder to me than to be well digested.
