What num'rous texts from Paul, from ev'ry saint,
Might furnish our citations, did we want?
And could not see, that Righteousness, or Sin,
Arise not from without, but from within?
That imputation where they are not found,
Can reach no farther than an empty sound:
No farther than imputed health can reach
The cure of sickness, though a man should preach
With all the eloquence of zeal and tell,
How health imputed makes a sick man well.
indeed if sickness be imputed too,
Imputed remedy, no doubt may do;
Words may pour forth their entertaining store,
But things are just - as things were just before.
In so important a concern as that,
Which good Aspasio's care is pointed at;
A small mistake, which at the bottom lies,
May sap the building that shall thence arise;
Who would not wish that Architect, so skill'd,
On great mistakes might not persist to build;
But strictly search, and for sufficient while,
If the foundation could support a pile?
This Imputation, which he builds upon,
Has been the source of more mistakes than one:
Hence rose, to pass the intermediate train
Of growing errors, and observe the main,
That worse than pagan principle of fate,
Predestination's partial love and hate;
By which, not tied like fancied Jove to look,
In stronger Destiny's decreeing book;
The God of Christians is suppos'd to will
That some should come to good and some to ill:
And for no reason, but to shew in fine,
Th' extent of goodness, and of wrath divine.
Whose doctrine this? I quote no less a man,
Than the renowned Calvin for the plan;
Who having labour'd, with distinction's vain,
Mere Imputation only to maintain;
Maintains, when speaking on another head,
This horrid thought, to which the former led;
"Predestination here I call," (says he
Defining) "God's eternal, fix'd decree;
"Which having settl'd in his Will, he past,
What ev'ry man should come to at the last;"
And lest the terms should be conceiv'd to bear
A meaning less, than he propos'd, severe;
"For all mankind (he adds to definition),
Are not created on the same condition:"
Pari conditione - is the phrase,
If you can turn it any other ways;
"But life to some, eternal, is restrain'd,
To some, damnation endless pre-ordain'd."
