A treatise of the nature of a minister in all its offices to which is annexed an answer to Doctor Forbes concerning the necessity of bishops to ordain, which is an answer to a question, proposed in these late unhappy times, to the author, What is a minister?

SECT. VII. Rom. 8. 17. Answered.

IT may be Objected once again, that the baptized are by that made the Sons of God, and if Sons, then Heirs, as St. Paul disputes the Case, Rom. 8. 17. But these Apostates cannot be accounted Heirs of Heaven, therefore they lose their filiation and their Sonship by such wickedness, and so may all those other con∣sequences of the Adoption of that Covenant.

This Question is fully handled by our Saviour, Luke 15. in the Story of the prodigall Son: there is no Apostate can do more than that dissolute young man did, but only perseverance, and yet when he returned was not begot anew, that cannot be, but admitted into his former estate of a Son. Take it therefore lo∣gically, by way of Answer; He that is a Son, quatenus, as a Son, he is by that title an Heir, but yet he may so dispose of himself, like the Prodigall, like Esau, that he may aliene and sell his Birthright, and in that state he is not Heir, though a Son: So that a Son, non ponenti obicem, if he alien not his Birthright, in himself is an Heir, but if he do, he hath no Inheritance, though an Heir, he loseth his Birthright. But how then, may one say, is St. Pauls saying true, If a Son, then an Heir? Thus; because by being a Son, he hath a title to the reversion of his Fathers estate, but he may aliene it, which he could not do, unless he had title to it: And yet we may say, that although he is by his Adoption the right Heir, yet he is by his lewdness disinherited. So that as the prodigall Son, so long as he lived in that dissolute and prodigall estate, received no favour from his Father, nor any relief from his estate, yet when he returned, he was resto∣red to all again. So it is with a Christian; a baptized Christian once adopted the Son of God, hath Heaven so entayled, that he cannot aliene it without a power of revocation, which power it then acted, when with true repentance and humiliation he shall prostrate himself before the Throne of grace for mercy, when he shall with the prodigall Son have a sence of his misery, by living in that dissolute condition, and longing after the bles∣sings

of his Fathers house, shall creep to him, confessing his sins and begging his favour, with a, Father I have sinned against Heaven, and before thee, &c. This is the state of every baptized man, who by that is adopted a Son of God. I will not enter in∣to those large and tedious discourses of Gods hardening mens hearts, by dereliction of them, or of that which is termed the sin against the holy Ghost, how these may devest a man of his Inheritance. It is enough for my purpose that any baptized man hath such an interest in God, as when he repents he is sure of ad∣mission; and therefore though many Laws have been severe in punishing Delinquents, as enjoyning penances for many years, sometimes more or less, as sins were adjudged greater or less, and of later times, and at this present in the Church of Rome, there are Casus reservati, reserved Cases not to be pardoned, some not by the Parochian, some not by the Bishop of the Dio∣cess, some reserved only for the Pope, yet in case of death all these Ecclesiastick Constitutions are adjudged dissolvable by the best Casuists, and the Parochian hath power to absolve and re∣mit them. So that, for Answer to this Argument, I may justly say that these baptized Apostates are still Heirs of Heaven, but such as have aliened their estate, with a power of revocation upon certain conditions, which when they perform, the estate is theirs again: and agreeing to this will the Answer be to another place, which is much insisted upon by the Antinomians, and many others symbolizing with them.