he hath enough manifested himself B. Some think that Faith may be some small low and impulsive cause but I will not give it so much though if it be made a Procatarctick objective cause Iâ— will not contend If he mean any other difference between the impulsive and the Procatartick objective cause besides that which is between the Generall and the Speciall it is past my skill to understand him or to comprehend what he denies and what he grants no doubt either he would not be understood or else he attributes to his righteousnesse of faith and good works an excitation but not an impulsion forsooth of the Grace of God actually to justifie those whom he beholdeth Schild Metaph li. 1. câ— 44. N. 24 25 40. fairly dressed therewith and so the beauty of the object enamors God to love and justifie And what more doe the Pâ—pists teach and so our justification as Gods act is but in posse till our righteousnesse as a sufficient cause brings it into esse or act Thus far of Mr. Baxters causes of Justification in which if he hath illustrated or confirmed any truth of God God is much beholden to him and Aristotle for it For distrusting the succour of the Scriptures he hath left them and brought nothing else but Logical and Metaphysical notions and reasons to prove all that which he hath said CHAP. XXVII Arg. Whether the sinner be justifyed only by the act not the habit of faith And whether it be not ordained to this use by reason of the usefull property which God hath infused into it to receive Christ Whether and in what sense a man may be said properly to be justifyed by faith In which also some things are intermixed about Mr. Baxters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Credere and conditions of Justification B. Thes 57. IT is the act of faith which justifyeth men at age and not the habit yet not as it is a good work or as it hath in it self any excellency above other graces but 1. In the neerest sense directly and properly as it is the fulfilling of the condition of the new Covenant 2. In the remote and more improper sense as it is the receiving of Christ and his satisfactory righteousnesse It is not for nothing that Mr. Baxter puts here a restriction upon justification by the Act of faith limiting it to men of age Are then elect infants that die before they attain age and strength of reason to put forth their faith into act justifyed only by the habit of faith It seemeth then that the hue and crie hath apprehended the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere as to them and laid it fast from justifying them Again if they are justifyed by the habit of faith as a habit of inherent grace though not such as he here denyeth to have an excellency above other graces what difference doth he put between Justification and Sanctification Doth he not speak the same things here with the Papists Yea in a higher dialect then any of them For they grant to Infants justification only by the washing of Christs bloud conferred upon them in Baptism without any qualification of their own But this man if he thus say justifies them by an inherent righteousnesse of their own But if Infants are justifyed without the act of faith and yet not by its habit how are they then Justifyed but by that which he calleth Christs own justification as a publick person at his resurrection which notwithstanding he utterly denyed Thes 42. and its Explication and if they are so justifyed will it not follow then that justification by the act of faith is Gods declaring and mans applying of his justification to his present comfort and full assurance which Mr. Baxter explodeth as an unsufferable conclusion But dying Infants are to have no use of this present comfort and full assurance therefore it sufficeth them to be justifyed in Christ though not in themselves Lastly or do they depart hence unjustifyed because without actuall beleeving and receiving of Christ and so shall be justifyed in the day of judgment because at the resurrection they shall actually beleeve What a crie do the poor souls in the interim then make in that Limbus insantum And why may not then according to Origen all the Devils and reprobates in hell be then justifyed and saved also because then they may actually beleeve and according to Mr. Baxter the condition of justification lasteth untill that day B. Explication That faith doth not properly justifie through any excellency that it hath above other graces or any more usefull property may appear thus To the excellency of faith above other graces I have nothing to say But to the reasons which he brings to deny the more usefull property of it I shall speak briefly B. 1. Then the praise would be due to faith No more then when God gives us meat the praise of our nutriment and life is due to our teeth because they have a more usefull property to grind and chew the meat then our eyes or ears B. 2. Then love would contend for a share if not a priority This is only said and not proved or declared upon what grounds love should contend B. 3. Then faith would justifie though it had not been made the condition of the Covenant 1. We denie faith to be the condition of the Covenant in Mr. Baxters sense If he would have spoken directly to them against whom he argueth he should have said Then faith would have justifyed though it had never been appointed and given of God as an instrument to receive Christ the justifyer And then we should answer 2. That it is so much as if he had said Then our teeth would have nourished and preserved life although God had never appointed and given them to us as instruments to chew the nourishing meat And thus the Caveat that he addeth becomes uselesse viz. B. Let those therefore take heed that make faith to justifie meerly because it apprehendeth Christ which is its naturall essentiall propertie For none affirmes faith to justifie meerly because it apprehendeth Christ without considering also Gods ordering and fitting it to this office together with his promise and the virtue laid up in Christ to justifie all that do by faith so apprehend him B. That it is faith in a proper sense that is said to justifie and not Christs righteousnesse onely which it receiveth may appear thus 1. From a necessity of a twofold righteousnesse which I have before proved in reference to the twofold Covenant 2. From the plain and constant phrase of Scripture which saith he that beleeveth shall be justifyed and that we are justifyed by faith and that faith is imputed for righteousnesse It had been as easie for the holy Ghost to have said that Christ only is imputed or his righteousnesse only or Christ only justifyeth c. if he had so meant He is the most excusable in an errour that is led into it by the constant
it so terme this 3. And of as little moment is that which he hath pag. 169. in the Explication of his Definition of Pardon calling iâ— a gracious Act where he blesseth and kisseth the image Tantundem set up by Grotius and polished by himselfe denying it to bee a pardon if it be not in some sort gratuitous or free and asserting that if Christ hath payd for us the idem or the proper debt then there is no place left for pardon and wee have nothing forgiven us For the Creditor saith he cannot refuse the proper debt nor deny an acquittance upon the receipt thereof c. A meer vanity of words without either ground or substance It doth not alway hold firm in trifling debts of money Suppose I have a sonne that having received his portion of my estate from me will forthwith come and pay it me for the debt of some bankrupt debtor that I have cast into prison if indeed it be so agreed upon between my self and my said Sonne and that to this end I gave him such a portion of my estate that he should so doe with it then it were not equity in me to refuse the payment so offered But yet Master Baxter wil not deny that this agreement or covenant between me and my sonne and my receiving of my own monyes in satisfaction for that Bankrupts debt though it be the same to the utmost farthing which hee owed is an act of grace or favour in mee to the said Debtor But in case â—here were no such covenant between me and my said sonne but that I gave him the said portion of my goods for other ends and uses and not to pay the Debts of Bankrupts I suppose then it is in my choice either to receive or refuse the full debt so offered me because he which offerrs it was not bound upon the Bond as Suretie or as Excecutor or Administrator to the Debtor nor is assigned by the Debtor to make payment in his stead What is there in this case binding me to receive the debt from such an hand or to give an acquittance to him that should pay it Much lesse will the case hold in point of Life and Death Suppose some Priest Jesuit or other Traytor were by the Law condemned to dye for Treason committed The day of Execution is at hand Master Baxter interposes and offereth to dye for him Is it not in the power of the chiefe Magistrates to refuse the accepting of the death of the Innocent for the Nocent Or if they doe accept the change is it not an Act of free grace to pardon the offendor accepting anothers sufferings for him Much more is it a gracious act in God to pardon us upon Christs suffering in our stead because hee sent his Sonne and gave him a body wherein to suffer for us Heb. 10. 5. And gives us acquittance having cast him into prison in our behalf untill he had payd the utmost farthing of our debts 4. What hee saith against the ignorant Antinomians in the end of page 169 and in page 170 hee hath sayd before and it hath been before examined and his pepper-corne being crushed hath been found too hot in smell and operation for a humble and selfe-denying Christian to meddle with in the point of Justification Therefore I conclude with him nor further to trouble the Reader with those sensless conceites which have onely a plausible shew of words but no footing in Scriptures or authority from Scriptures to establish them The rest of the Doctrine which hee delivereth in this page 170 and addeth page 171 and 172 I doe in part grant him and what I grant him not wee shall finde againe so involved in his dispute whether Justification bee an immanent or transient Act of God page 173 seq that it shall be more proper there then here to take it into examination In his 173 page Master Baxter enters upon a dispute of great moment whether Remission and Justification be immanent or transient Acts of God Before pag. 93 of this Tractate in a brave challenge of the Antinomians to produce one Scripture testifying Justification to be from eternity hee promised to shew or prove that Justification is not an immanent Act in God Here he addresseth himself to the accomplishment of what he there promised and in doing it he pretendedly draws the sword against the Antinomians as the sole assertors of the opinion which he here with much gallantry seeks to confute Two things then I conceive here to call for examination First how sound the reasons are which he brings to deny Pardon and Justification to be immanent and to prove them to bee meerly transient acts of God 2. What kind of Vermine these Antinomians are against whom Mr. Baxter hath already discharged so many Gun-shots before in this Treatise and findes them nevertheless yet alive and in a capacity to bear so many more shots from him in this and the following parts of this book Before my entrance upon either of these for an introduction to the former that the state of the question may the better appear I shall endeavour with as much fidelity and simplicity as in briefe I may to lay downe the judgements of our Protestant Divines whom he slanders here and every where almost with Antinomianism about this question before mentioned which Mr. Baxter here so much opposeth I mean such of these as hold not that all have taught it to be in some respect immanent in God 1. Then in their disputes against Bellarmine Arminius Socinus and their followers about remission of sinnes and justification they tell us that justification is taken sometimes actively for a judicial act of Gods grace sometimes passively or terminatively as it hath its termination upon beleevers In the former sense it is an act internal and immanent in God not transient upon an extraneous subject or in plain words it is secret abiding and hidden in God himselfe not declared or passing into the knowledg and conscience of man That it is of the same nature with the acts of election and reprobation having its complete being as these before the persons so elected justified and reprobated begin to have being life or faith in them or to doe good or evill But in its passive sense as it is terminated upon and made out to the conscience of a man so it is a transient act of God pronouncing and declaring home to the conscience of a man now living convinced of his sinnes and trembling at the sense and burthen thereof yet resting upon and cleaving to Christ by faith that his sinnes are forgiven for Christs sake and by this act and sentence of God in his conscience the poor sinner becomes sensible and apprehensive of his full discharge and absolution at Gods tribunal thorow Christs satisfaction made to justice for him 2. That justification as taken in the former sense is an Act of Gods supreme Lordship or dominion or else of his good pleasure to use
Covenant and that pretious Gospell promise He that beleeveth in the Son shall not come into condemnation but is passed from death to life so I affirm faith to be both Gods and Mans instrument Gods effective and mans receptive instrument in relation to justification as shall be beneath more fully explained First it is Gods instrument This justification is but Gods pronouncing and declaring a man to his own conscience to be just and discharged from sin and condemnation through Christ so that he perceives and apprehends himself absolved and doth acquiesce in this absolution One chief instrument by which God doth thus justifie or declare and manifest man to himself just and pardoned is faith This is Gods instrument in the same sense in which Mr. Baxter maketh the promise and grant of the new Covenant to be Gods instrument and that more fully as I in part shewed before For that grant doth but declare a possibility to a man as it is considered by it self to be justifyed promising forgivenesse and life to all that shall beleeve By this act alone no singular person is actually justifyed But now this grant premised when God is pleased to infuse faith into the soul of any singular person by it as by his instrument he declareth that person to himself just and acquitted from condemnation so that he can thenceforth plead out his own justification God hath pronounced them all just and pardoned which beleeve in his Son I so beleeve therefore I am pronounced and declared of God just and pardoned So this faith is the instrument of God for so Lawyers term Deeds and Grants in writing instruments yea instruments of him that makes the Deed or Grant And the promise of the new Covenant or the new Testament is called novum Instrumentum as it is his evidence written not without the man as that Gospell grant but by the finger of Gods Spirit in the hearts of the Elect so that they may read this instrument of Gods writing within their hearts evidencing and manifesting to themselves their justification from God And this is one principall instrument and evidence of God promised under the new Covenant Jer. 31. 31-35 recited as now fulfilled by the Apostle Heb. 8. 8-12 10. 16 17. I will write my Lawes in their hearts c. what Law but the rule doctrine and evidence of life and salvaâ—ion But what benefit by having it written within them more then if it were in writing without them Yes this They shall not need externall teaching to know the Lord for they shall all know me from the least to the greatest What knowledg of God was this whereupon they should not need teachers They shall know him to be their God their Justifyer their Saviour for so much intimate the next words For I will forgive their iniquities and remember their sins no more This was one chief part of the Law or will of God written in their hearts justification or everlasting remission of sins This they should not need to be taught from without the instrument of writing or evidence thereof should be within their own hearts apparent not to others but their own reading And what more principall evidence or instrument of writing within our hearts thus to assure us then our faith engraven by Gods own hand in us I appeal to Mr. Baxter himself whether I wrest this Scripture from its proper sense or if any shall except against me I doubt not but I shall make it good to be the minde of the holy Ghost which I have here given To the same purpose is it that Faith is called the Evidence of things not seen Heb. 11. 1. Whose evidence Gods evidence given us by which he declareth to us and manifesteth to our consciences the invisible things of our justification and salvation and when given then our evidence also by which we not only apprehend but also plead against all the accusations of the Law yea of sin and Satan our actuall justification And that it is called the witnesse of God in us or within us because God by this witnesse as his instrument declares and evidenceth us to our own consciences justifyed 1 Joh. 5. 10. Secondly It is mans instrument by which he applyeth to himself and without which he cannot applie to himself this justification and remission of the new Covenant to know and be sensible of it that he may rest and rejoyce in it being justifyed in himself i. e. in his own knowledge and conscience God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself not imputing to them their trespasses 2 Cor. 5. 19. Reconciliation and Justification as hath been shâ—wed are one and the same thing That we may receive it therefore from him in Christ he gives us as many as are his Elect this living faith as an instrument by which he may apply it and bring it home into our bosomes Therefore is the operation of the soul by faith set forth in the Scripture by a comparison of a mans working by the severall members of the body as by his instruments Calling Faith sometimes the eâ—e of man by which he looketh to Christ crucifyed as the Israelites to the brazen Serpent thence to obtain cure to the wounded and poysoned soul Joh. 3. 14 15. Sometimes the fooâ— of the soul by which it runs and comes to Christ for life and justification Joh. 5. 40. Sometimes the hand of the soul by which it apprehendeth Christ and the justification that is in and by him To as many as received him to them he gave power to become the sons of God even to as many as beleeve in his Name Joh. 1. 12. Sometimes the mouth of the soul by which it eateth and drinketh in Christ with the life that is in him both to justifie and sanctifie He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my bloud hath eternall life Joh. 6. 54. If ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious 1 Pet. 2. 3. Sometimes the armes of the soul by which it embraceth and holdeth in possession Christ with his life and righteousnesse He that hath the Son hath life he that hath not the Sâ—n hath not life 1 Joh. 5. 12. What doth all this imply lesse then that faith is instrumentall to our justification Yea given to us to be the sole instrument on our part by which to apply to our selves the justification offered by God in Christ Or what else is meant by the generall voice of the Gospell pronouncing us to be justifyed by faith but by faith Gods instrument and evidence to declare and manifest it to our souls and our instrument to apprehend and hold it fast and firm to our selves It remaineth now to examin Mr. Baxters reasons by which he assayeth to prove that it is neither mans nor Gods instrument First that it is not mans instrument he thus argueth B. Not mans instrument for he is not the principall efficient he doth not justifie himself Both this and all that which followeth in this his dispute
he hath out of Schiblers Mâ—taphysicks sound enough I acknowledge as Schibler proposeth it in Thesi but fallacious and misapplyed by this man to his Hypothesis Yet what ever it be though not the least portion of Gods word in it let us examine the strength of it It is the principall efficient of the act or effect that worketh by the instrument saith he but man is not the principall efficient therefore worketh not in this businesse by instruments or instrumentall helps I answer 1. not only in resevence to this but to that which also followeth in his Argumentation We are to distinguish between instruments that they are of two kinds effective or receptive Effective so is a knife the instrument of cutting Receptive so is the hand the instrument of receiving Mr. Baxters Arguments are applyed to the former only not at all to the latter For 1. Of an Effective instument it may be said the knife cuts and the Man cuts likewise But a Receptive instrument hath a double relation 1. To the giver 2. To the receiver As if a rich man give a great treasure to a poor man he receiveth it in his hand the receptive instrument of the poor mans inriching is his hand Now if a man should argue as Mr. Baxter doth the hand if it be an instrument it is an instrument either of the giver or receiver not of the receiver for he doth not inrich himself he is not the principall agent inriching not of the giver for he doth not receive any riches but the act of the hand is to receive therefore the instrument of neither nor at all an instrument Who sees not the vanity of such an Argument Yet such is this paralogism of Mr. Baxter I say therefore that the Canons of an instrument which he citeth out of Aquinas and Schibler hold only of effective not of receptive instruments Yet as faith is Gods effective instrument to justifie man and not himself as Mr. Baxter trifleth so these Canons hold of it also in the sense before specifyed 2. I deny the Assumption or Minor he proves it thus Man doth not justifie himself This is an equivocation and besides the question None ever made man the causa prima of his justification none I mean of all those whom Mr. Baxters disputes against Himself indeed and his followers asserting the perfection and merit of mans righteousnesse consisting in faith and good works and affirming that this righteousnesse of man and in man doth give him title to the righteousnesse which is by Christ cannot well be cleared from making man the first tause of his justification But we speak nothing tending to this purpose and in no other sense do we say that man acteth to his justification but by this apprehending and applying to himself the justification of God And in this respect man is not only the principall but also the sole efficient of apprehending or receiving Christ to justification and faith his alone receptive instrument therein by the instrumentall subsurviency of his faith in receiving Christ We make it not mans instrument of Christs satisfaction or of Gods acceptation or of his declaring but only of our applying it to our soules That it is not Gods instrument he hath these reasons to prove B. 2. Not of God for 1. It is not God that beleeveth though it 's true he is the first cause of all actions A meer bull with which he jeers and scoffes not only at all the Protestant Divines but also at Christ and his Apostles as poor sorry animals and asses unworthy to be answered with reasons but with absurd non-sense 1. Faith in one was never used or ordained to be an instrument of justifying another much lesse faith in God to justifie man 2. He can conclude nothing else hence but this God beleeveth not therefore God is not justifyed or discharged from condemnation by the new Covenant 3. He doth in the Magisteriall confidence of his heart implicitely accuse Christ his Apostles and faithfull Teachers in his Church to hold that God is the instrument of our justification that the Principall agent and the instrument are the same thing that the instrument must be in the Agent or cannot be his instrument so that faith must be Gâ—d himself for whatsoever is in God is God himself the immanent acts of God are Gods acting These are all but slanderings of the Lords servants to make odious the doctrine which they deliver 4. We make faith in man not in God Gods effective instrument which he infundendo creat creando infundit and having wrought it in the soul he doth put it also in acting thereby to evidence to man his justification As some great and munificent Lord having laid up a great treasure for one of his poorest and most abject servant in some secret place tels him first what he hath done bestowes it fully and freely upon him but the servant not finding it is never the richer because he hath not the possession of it At length the Lord lights a torch guides his servant to the secret place and by the light of the torch shewes him the treasure which before in the minde and purpose of the doner was wholly his bids him to see and possesse Here the torch is that Lords instrument by which he discovered to his servant the treasure and evidenced him to be indeed enriched So and much more compleatly is faith Gods instrument by which he justifies us to our selves i. e. declareth and evidenceth us to be just and justifyed B. 2. Man is the causa secunda between God and the action and so man should be still said to justifie himself Either I understand him not or he speaks words without matter or words that are nothing to the matter in hand He is speaking of justification as of a transient act of God upon man in time This act of God we acknowledge no other but Gods declaring and evidencing man to himself justifyed Gods manifestation or pronouncing his justification to his conscience How man in this act of God should be the causa secunda between God in the action he explaines not and I perceive not That man is the causa secunda between God in the application of justification so manifested I deny not But in this doth man no more justifie himself then is above expressed Or because it is faith in man which we pronounce to be Gods instrument of justifying is therefore man causa secunda or a self-justifyer nay faith even in man is Gods Creature and the same nothing of mans essence Not of our sâ—lves it is the gift of God Ephes 2. 8. May not God lay up his own instruments where it pleaseth his will and wisdome for his own use or ceaseth it to be Gods instrument or in Gods hand when it is laid up in the heart of man for his good Obj. But faith acts not in man without man as the second cause acting it and by such acting his faith man should justifie
himself Sol. We make not man a stone nor degrade him into a dead block we grant of him that actus agit He hath not lost his free-will but all possibility of being saved by it all the spiritualnesse of it that without a new reparation of it it can will nothing in matters of salvation concurrent and conforming with the will of God But all mans actings of his faith when he is so renewed and moved by the prime cause is but to the receiving and application of his justification evidencâ—d to him As it is Gods instrument and acted by God so it is Gods evidence to manifest to him his justification It is Mr. Baxtâ—r and his fellowes that by their doctrine make mâ—n self-justifyers Teaching that Gods justification is conditionall and the alone instrument of God therein viz. the Gospell holds forth the same universally to all no lesse effâ—ctually to them that reject it then to them that embrace it But that it is a mans faith and obedience begun and continued in untill the day of judgment that makes this justification to be the justification of each singular person that is to be justifyed and so Gods instrument of justification justifyeth but conditionally i. e. no one singular man actually and absolutely It 's man that by his faith and works makes Gods universall justification to be his proper justification and Gods conditionall justification to be his actually and absolutely It is God that justifyeth all with a common and conditionall justification but it is every mans task to make and his own act when he hath made this justification to be really and undoubtedly his Therefore he doth but gaze here to finde a moate in his brothers eies fastening the beam in his own B. 3. For as Aquinas the action of the Principall cause and of the instrument is one action and who dare say that faith is so Gods instrument 4. The instrument must have influx to the producing of the effect by a proper causality and who dare say that faith hath such an influx into our justification I couple these two together because they are as twins that shew no malignity in their faces but are by Mr. Baxter made to carry fire in their tails Who dares to say and who dare say What if we should say it must we expect a broken head from the Challenger Is it but a word and a blow with him Or doth he affright us with Gods judgments from saying it is it his meaning who hath so little fear or conscience towards God as to offend him and derogate from his glory in saying it O that there had been but a moytie of the reverence and conscience toward God to annihilate man and advance the glory of Gods grace in Mr. Baxter which aboundeth in many of those whom he here opposeth he then surely would have cast this pernicious pamphlet of his into hell-fire if it had been possible rather then published it to the nulling of Gods and deifying of mans righteousnesse But to the matter we dare and that in the fear and presence of God to aver 1. That the declaration of a man to his own conscience and evidencing to his soul that he is justifyed in Christ to be the one and same action of God the principall cause and of faith the instrument The declaration and manifestation of justification to the soul is here the action God as the principall cause doth it by faith his evidence and instrument faith as the instrument and evidence doth it from God as the principall cause in manner before expressed God healed Naaman of his Leprosie by the water of Jordan as his instrument did many wonders in Egypt and in the Sea and in the wildernesse by Moses his Rod as his instrument subverted the wals and Towers of Jericho by the instrumentall subserviency of mens voices and the sound or winde of Rams horns and Trumpets Christ gave sight to the blind man by a plaister of clay applyed to his eyes Will he not acknowledg all these wonders to be the actions both of God the principall cause and of these so feeble instruments also The despicablenesse of the instruments and means do not spoyl God of but visibly attribute unto God the whole glory of his grace and power which in the use of more noble instruments would not appear so sensibly unto some apprehensions much more is the same action the action both of God and faith his instrument and this without all seeming ground of contradiction when we attribute not to faith any instrumentality under God to the working or effecting but only to the declaring and evidencing to man his justification before effected and compleated in God and in Christ And 2. That faith as Gods instrument hath influx in its kinde to produce this effect the evidencing of mans justification to himself by a proper causality I mean not Mr. Baxter I thinke means not by a causality that is naturally its own and proper to it but by a proper causality which God hath given it in appointing and using it as his instrument to produce the effect Will deny any this to be true of the forementioned instruments He that made them his instruments begat in them a causality and power instrumentally by and under him to produce those effects Indeed to Mr. Baxter in respect of his principles that denies Justification as an immanent act in God constituting and accepting us righteous and will have this to be done only by a temporaneous and transient act of God by the grace of the new Covenant these assertions must seem to have some monstrosity upon their faces that faith should be so the instrument of God in justifying or making us just Yet such as he can easily swallow because on the other side his justification is but an universall conditionall justification i. e. a justification in a possibility or impossibility but not at all in being and that faith should be termed the conditionall instrument of God in producing a conditionall justification I see not why it should set the man in a chafe he puts the dare to it therefore I suppose to make it too hot for the swallowing of weak and fearfull Christians To them that know whosoever are justifyed in themselves that is declared to be such within their own consciences the same were justifyed in God in Christ from all eternity so that faiâ—t is Gods instrument only to evidence them to themselves and in themselves justifyed not to justifie them in Gods mind and will for there they are justifyed without instruments there is nothing formidable nor rough in these assertions The objection which he addes by which he pretends we seek to evade we own not neither have we need in the defence of truth to seek evasions Let him name some one of his some that have so objected a passive instrument of justification or else leave us to conclude that the objection is of his own head partly to take advantage thereby yet
further to take his pastime in his Logicall and Metaphysicall learning which may possibly please him but never justifie or save him and partly by shewing the weaknesse of the objection to gull his unwary reader with an opinion of the weaknesse of their cause who are forced with such Egyptian reeds for lack of better pillars to sustain it It is one of the Jesuits principles to fetch armes indifferently either from heaven or hell to storm the Church and truth of Christ and to promote the holy mother harlot of Rome But I am weary following him while he brings nothing but the Socinians right reason to be judge of the Mysterious doctrines of Christ and fear whether it be answerable before God to spend time in answering his babble with babble again for the truth of Christ doth neither stand nor fall by what can be said for it or against it out of the principles or learning of abused Aristotle Let Mr. Baxter call to minde what he hath read as elsewhere so in his adored Schibler in the second book of his Metaph. Cap. 3. in his interserted oration a little before the end of that book pa. 211. of the book printed at Oxford concerning the sophister convinced by an unlearned Confessour after his almost victorious disputes against all the Doctors of the Nicene councell many dayes together If he take it for a truth it may help to convince him that God is more effectually present in disputations about Evangelicall matters when they are totally confined to the Word then when they are handled after the rule and in the Predicament of carnall reason It argues that he undertakes a businesse not for God but against him else would he not cast away spirituall and take up fleshly arms to maintain it But fith Mr. Baxter is Mr. Baxter we shall crave leave to speak the lesse to him henceforth where we find him to have little of the word and reserve our selves to speak more largely where the man for his recreation vouchsafeth to abase himself so low as to meddle with Scriptures B. Quest But though faith be not the instrument of justification may it not be called the instrument of receiving Christ who justifyeth us Ans I do not so much stick at this speech as at the former yet is it no proper or fit exprâ—ssion neither For 1. The act of faith which is it that justifyeth is our actuall receiving of Christ and therefore cannot be the instrument of receiving To say our receiving is the instrument of our receiving is a hard saying 2. And the seed or habit of faith cannot fitly be called an instrument For 1. The sanctifyed faculty it self cannot be the souls instrument it being the soul it self and not any thing really distinct from the soul nor really distinct from each other as Scotus Dr. Orbellus Scaliger c. Dr. Jackson Mr. Pemble think and Mr. Ball questions 2. The holinesse of the faculties is not their instrument For 1. It is nothing but themselves rectifyed and not a being so distinct as may be called their instrument 2. Who ever calleth habits or dispositions the souls instruments The aptitude of a cause to produce its effect cannot be called the instrument of it You may as well call a mans life his instrument of acting or the sharpnesse of a knife the knives instrument as to call our holinesse or habituall faith the instrument of receiving Christ I have before expressed in what sense we make or at least hold faith to be mans instrument in applying Justification to himself And 2. have manifested the testimonies and authority of the Scripture herein so that Mr. Baxter if he list as it listeth him to cavill cavils not so much against all godly Protestant writers whom he opposeth as against the holy Ghost speaking by the mouth of Christ himself and his Apostles whom thorow the loins of those he smites at It is not the first time that he hath accused Christ and the holy Ghost in this manner of impropriety and unfitnesse of expressions in Scriptures And why because they speak not enough logically and in all probability never read thorow Aristotles Metaphysicks But let us hear what he can say here to prove the unpropernesse of that language which calleth faith an instrument of receiving Christ and justification in and by him His reasons are above in his own words rendered To the first I answer Mr. Baxter makes and layes his own principles of Religion and from them as from an impregnable mount he battereth Christ and his doctrine Should we grant him that faith is the receiving of Christ yet 1. How shall it appear otherwise then by Mr. Baxters own Magisteriall dictates that justifying faith is nothing else but the receiving of Christ 2. Why else doth he make it simply and only a quality or act of the soul without the adjection of its originall from above but to ingenerate into the minds of men an opinion that it hath its emanancy and rise from nature from freewill that every man may have and act it if and when he will and that it is not infused of God to be instrumentall by his appointment for the producing of any spirituall effect 3. How doth he prove that onely the act of faith justifyeth Yet 4. If all these dubious things were granted to him his own words therein tend to the confirmation rather then the infirming of the main conclusion which he opposeth that faith is the instrument of justification For if the act of faith be the receiving then must faith it self so acting be the receptrix or that by which we receive Christ but that by which man receiveth Christ is instrumentall to his receiving of justification for Christ is made of God to us righteousnesse he that hath Christ hath life specially this will follow upon Mr. Baxters principle of Christ and justification given to all universally to none in particular he must be made ours therefore by receiving him and if faith doth receive how doth it receive but as an instrument or whereas the well is deep and we have nothing of our own to draw with what shall be the instrument of drawing and receiving if faith be not it 5. And in this lyeth Mr. Baxters Sophism that he puts the act of faith for faith actuated Though the act of faith were the receiving of Christ yet faith actuated and acting is that by which we receive Christ and to say that by which we receive is the instrument of our receiving is not a hard but a proper saying The act of Mr. Baxters hand was the writing of these lines To say that his writing was the instrument of his writing is a hard saying but to say his hand acted in writing was his instrument of writing it is not a hard saying To the second It is wholly Sophisticall For when he saith 1. The sanctifyed faculty it self cannot be the souls instrument because it is the soul it self what is this to the purpose
a corrivall with it 6. He at last deals no lesse sophistically in his comparisons You may as well call saith he a mans life his instrument of acting or the sharpnesse of a knife the knives instrument as to call our holinesse or habituall faith the instrument of receiving Christ The aptitude of a cause to produce its effect cannot be called the instrument There is no parity in the Comparison Life to acting and faith to receiving of Christ are not Mr. Baxter will not say they are in one and the same kinde and order of causes and effects Besides one of the effects is put with the other subtlely left without an object as if the receiving of Christ were no more then and altogether as naturall to man as receiving indefinitely any naturall object so that albeit this Comparison may stand in some parity with a naturall and civill faith without the object Christ annexed to it yet the divine faith whereof we hear speak is of an another an upper and higher region and agrees not in motion with the naturall life or with the naturall or civill faith The one moves its course and operation in a way that God by nature hath prescribed and the other in the way which God by grace hath prefixed Their orbs are severed and not confounded either with other As for the other Comparison the sharpnesse of the knife Nothing else undoubtedly but the sharpnesse of M. Baxters wit could have devised it Is then faith in man no more then sharpnesse in a knife What good then might a ship-load of whet-stones and grinding-stones do among the Turks to make them Christians The sharpnesse of the knife is not any thing really distinct from the knife it is otherwise with the faith of a man The knife is mans instrument the sharpnesse thereof is but the aptitude of the instrument by which man as the efficient produceth the effect How shall this square in the Comparatum Man must be the principall efficient cause what will he assigne to be the instrument whereof faith is the aptitude to produce the effect But I fear of transgressing by following him that Parvis compâ—nere magna solebat That dares with audacious arrogance to measure the bottomlesse ocean in his fist and to try Celestiall and Spirituall things in the scales of Nature and to compare not with the Apostle spirituall things with spirituall 1 Cor. 2. 13. but with carnall profanely making the Mysteries of Christ to be rather the whetstone of his wit then the object of his reverence and ballast of his conscience I shall forbear here to add my judgment concerning what faculty or faculties of the soul are the subject of faith Whether faith may be more properly said to receive Christ by the faculty or the faculty by faith How far faith in the habit and how far in the act may be said to justifie These and other things may come more properly to be handled afterward then in this place It shall suffice that here notwithstanding Mr. Baxters winnowings yet faith faileth not from being our instrument of applying or receiving Christ Eightly The latter which he maketh his sixth Question Why he maketh faith the Câ—usa sine qua non he thus endeavours to maintain as it followeth in the nâ—xt Chapter CHAP. XXVI Arg. Mr. Baxters further dispute upon the same Subject examined and answered B. Pag. 223. TO the 6. and last Qâ—estion I answer Faith is plainly and undeniably the condition of our justification The whole tenour of the Gospell shewes that And a condition is but a Causa sine qua non or a medium or a necessary antecedent Short and in compasse of words little is it which he here speaketh yet if we look to the matter thereof in it two things are principally to be examined 1. That he makes faith the condition of justification and what he means by that term 2. That he cals it the Causa sine qua non He means questionlesse the same thing by both but the words differ and he useth both as by both together so by either part to get advantage to his cause Therefore I shall examine them severally To the former I have spoke somewhat largely before in the examination of his 13 14 15 17 18 19 20 43 44 45. Theses as he gave me occasion in these severall positions to answer what he there asserted of conditionall justification I have therefore here the lesse to speak referring the reader to what hath been spoken before Yea in this point I should be totally silent because Mr. Baxter in words speaks no more here then what some of our most sound and godly Divines have spoken before him that faith is the condition of justification were it that Mr. Baxter meaneth as they mean For though in the best meaning of the best men the propriety of the terms or phrase may be much questioned and give occasion of much dispute yet traversing controversies about words when there is agreement in the substance to which both parties drive is in my apprehension a businesse so far tending to distractions and breach of union among the Saints that it is the last and least Trade I am confident that ever will befall me to drive But in this point though Mr. Baxter here speaks in words what some of ours have said and do say still and that without any detriment that I can see to the Gospell Yet his meaning and theirs are in no lesse antipathie then a Hawk and a Heron and that as in other lesser so principally in these particulars of moment 1. By faith they mena our application or faith as it is our instrument of applying Christ and the grace of God in Christ to our justification he by faith means not only the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere as a part of our inherent righteousnesse but as a generall and common word that compriseth within it self all good qualifications and good works whatsoever as elsewhere and specially in and under his 70 71. Theses he declareth himselfe so that he makes and under the word Faith understandeth all these as equall conditions with faith of our justification 2. By condition they mean that which being once attained and once fixed upon Christ speaks us absolutely justifyed for ever So that in calling faith the condition of justification they mean we cannot be justifyed without it but having once by faith apprehended Christ we are by it united and joyned to Christ and by force of our union with him are thenceforth absolutely and irrevocably pardoned and accepted as righteous in Gods fight He cals it so a condition as that it continues still a condition justifying us only conditionally and not absolutely so that it leaves our estate still one and the same no more justifyed and pardoned when beleevers then when unbeleevers For by the satisfaction of Christ we are before faith cometh conditionally justifyed if we beleeve and when faith is come we remain still but conditionally
justifyed if we beleeve our safety being as loose and uncertain then as before depending still upon the residence and abode of faith in us as before it did upon the possibility of its future ingeneration into us and acting in us and that we are no longer justifyed then while we beleeve and obey so that by beleeving and unbeleeving obeying and rebelling we may be justifyed and unjustifyed again a thousand times before we die and how often after himself expresses not I need not mention more these two differences are enough to declare that although here he speak in the same tone with some of our Divines yet his judgement no more agrees with theirs then the Pope with Luther and Calvine Elymas with Paul Simon Maguâ— with Peter or the Scribes and Pharisees with Christ In stead of speaking what might be further expected I shall onely content my self here to lay open some of the many monstrous absurdities and mischiefs that follow this doctrine 1. It proclaims mutability in God and alteration in his minde and will as swift and sudden as in mutable and sinfull man For if God justifie and unjustifie forgive and unforgive love and hate as oft as belief and unbelief obedience and disobedience do nod and succeed either after other in man through infirmity then is there no more stedfastnesse and consistency with himself in God then in man but rather God is swayed hither and thither in willing and nilling love and hatred by influx from man as the Sea by the influx of the Moon then man by influx from God Mr. Baxter sees this absurdity as well as his fellows the Arminians and goes about here and there by the Arminians Sophisms for lack of better to wipe off the stain telling us that the change is in man the object and not in God God hates Paul unbeleeving and persecuting but loves him beleeving and obeying the change is here in the object not in God No more then the Sun is changed by the variety of the Creatures which it enlightneth and warmeth or the glasse by the variety of faces which it represents or the eye by the variety of colours which it beholdeth pag. 174. But Aethiopem dealbat If God love to salvation and hate to damnation one and the same person and love succeeds into the place of hatred and hatred into the place of love and God that erewhile willed the salvation anon willeth the damnation and after that again the salvation of the same man c. as this kinde of Anti-Gospellers assert this is one and the same mutablenesse in God whether it proceed from a principle of inconstancy within or from the mutation of the object without him It denies not the Chameleons that change their colour from white to black and black to white to be mutable because these changes befall them from outward objects the divers coloured Carpets on which they are laid Or if he shall object as do the Arminians Here is no shew of change in God for God changeth not his purpose of saving because he had never but a conditionall purpose and will to save viz. if man will beleeve and obey and this conditionall intent remains in God still together with a conditionall intent to hate and damn him if he perform not the conditions I should answer him in the words of our Divines in answer to the Arminians and Mr. Baxter knows them to be beaten with shame out of this plea therefore to decline the strokes I finde him not yet adventuring to make use of this obiection 2. It denies in effect and substance the justification and remission of any man in this life for to forgive upon such a condition as no man hath power in himself to perform is but a verball not a reall forgivenesse And Mr. Baxter will not let out one gry or iote from his lips that shall give hope to the sinner yea to the believer of any dram of grace and power that the Lord will minister to the Elect more then to the reprobates for the supportation of their Faith and from themselves they have all propensivenesse to fall and no strength to stand In this respect therefore he makes the state of beleevers worse then the state of unbeleevers For Miserrimum est fuisse beatos To have had Faith yea Christ in hand and Heaven in hope and then to fall from all makes their case more miserable in the losse of it then it would have been if they had never had any thing in hand or in hope It utterly destroyeth all joy in beleeving all peace of Conscience all consolation in the holy Ghost while it sets the beleever in the arms of Christs love and participation of his merits and benefits as Dionysius placed Damocles at his table with all sumptuous provisions before him Musick attendance and whatsoever else was Majestical or delightful to cheer him but with a sharp sword hanging by a single hair over his head threatning him No other after Mr. Baxter is the state of a beleever in all his most spiritual enlargements and comforts in Christ there is but a single hair between him and hell fire Death is in the pot of all his contentments Fear of imminent vengeance gives him not leave to taste one of the sweet morsels upon or crums that fall from Gods table And this is a Gospel from hell contrary to the everlasting Gospel which Christ brought from heaven giving a joy that none shall take from beleevers Joh 16. 22. The foundation thereof the love of God in Christ remaining immutable impregnable I am perswaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities c. shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord Rom 8. 38 39. 4. Whereas there are three acts considerable about our Justification 1. Christs giving 2. Gods accepting the satisfaction given for us and 3. Gods justifying or declaring and evidencing us justified in and to our consciences for this satisfaction so given and accepted I would here demand of which of these Faith is a Condition If he say of Christs giving satisfaction this is a contradiction for Christ gave satisfaction before we beleeved or lived so that Faith which came after could not be the Condition of an Act that went before except he will say that Christ must so oft dye as sinners attain to beleeve If of Gods acceptance then more is ascribed to our faith then to Christs death for our justification and faith shall be more then collateral with the sacrifice of Christ to our salvation the sufficiency of satisfaction remaining only in Christs bloud but the efficacy thereof arising from mans faith yea and so Christ should have paid our debts and spilt his bloud for us at the feet of the Father without knowing whether he would accept it or no and so whether there should be the least fruit of his death for the justification of the beleevers before his death is but conditionall
also concurreth with it to blesse it even it alone to this end Here to determine peremptorily whether of these acts of God his qualifying of faith for or his commanding it to this use is more and lesse direct or proper to the end or whether they are coordinates thereunto I fear may proceed more from a headie rashnesse then from the modesty of Christian wisdome especially because I take justifying faith to be more then a naturall or morall virtue which Mr. Baxter possibly will deny viz. an infused habit qualifyed by God himself that infuseth it with this peculiar property to cleave unto Christ and receive him But by the way it shall not be impertinent to shew in some particulars what mentall Reservations Mr. Baxter hath in his words not easily appearing to a cursory reader 1. When he saith B. Faith justifyeth as it is the fulfilling of the condition of the new Covenant His meaning is that it only so far justifyeth as it fulfilleth the condition But throughout our whole life according to his principles we are but fulfilling have not fulfilled the condition of the new Covenant therefore throughout our whole life we are but in justifying not justifyed And then consequently if it be true what most of our Divines conclude that in the next life there shall be no use of faith because vinon and fruition are proper to that state beleevers shall not be justifyed at all because the condition was never fulfilled 2. When he saith B. Because God hath commanded no other means nor promised justification to any other therefore it is that faith is the only condition and so only thus justifyeth The reader that doth but catch here a little and there a little of his doctrine would think him by what he here findeth no lesse Orthodox in the point of Justification then Luther or Paul himself that he explodes all works all inherent righteousnesse from bearing the least part with faith unto justification whereas contrariwise he speaks not here of the faith of Gods stamping but of his own coining of a faith that brings in all good works that is it self all good works to justification attributes no more to faith then he doth to any other part of our inherent righteousnesse nor any thing to faith it self as usefull to justifie but as it is our whole inherent righteousnesse or at least a part of it as partly by that which hath been but principally by that part of his treatise which remains to be examined appeareth The rest of this Section I let passe without examination I come now to the fift and last Section of his Explication pag. 230. B. 5. That faiths receiving Christ and his righteousnesse is the remote and secondary and not the formall reason why it justifyeth appeareth thus We finde verifyed in Mr. Baxter that of the Poet Dolus an virtus quis in hoste requirat having professed open warre against the doctrine of all the Protestant Churches yea of the Gospell of Christ he manageth it more by stratagems then by valour We finde him here perverting in stead of rightly stating the question thereby to get advantage to answer what he will and to what he pleaseth The question controverted between us and the Papists first and in these latter times the Arminians also is not whether Gods instituting of faith in Christ or else the acting of faith so instituted be the one the formall and the other the remote reason why it justifyeth But whether faith so instituted of God to be the mean or instrument of our Justification doth justifie by vertue received from Christ its object or else by its own vertue as it is a good work or as it is an act of righteousnesse performed in obedience to Gods commandement That which they maintain is that faith justifyeth by vertue of its object Christ denying the Papists work and the Arminians act If Mr. Baxter did labour more for truth then for victory we should not finde in him so much fraud and so little of sincerity It is not Christs but Antichrists kingdome that is maintained by the pillarage of shifts and sophisms Let him not astonish the poor Saints of Christ with words that they cannot understand obscuring the truth with needlesse terms of art his poor flock of Kederminster for whom he affirmes himself to have compiled this work are in all probability as well acquainted with the formall and remote reason why faith justifyeth as they are with Hocus Pocus his Liegerdemain In this point let him either confute the assertion of our Divines or maintain the adversaries assertion here he doth neither directly but beats the aire and makes a great noise to little purpose Yet let us see how well he proveth his own assertion B. Suppose Christ had done all that he did for sinners and they had beleeved in him thereupon without any Covenant promising Justification by this Faith would this Faith have justified them By what Law or whence will they plead their Justification at the Bar of God This supposition is not full there must be another supposition antecedaneous to this supposition A true supposition that will shew the invalidity of this feigned one Suppose that upon a foregoing Covenant between the Father and him Christ hath done all this for his elect whom he knoweth by name and so Christ in their names hath given and God hath taken full satisfaction for all their offences and hereupon Christ hath received in their behalf a full acquittance and discharge Who now shall lay any thing to their charge It is God that justifieth Rom. 8. 33. under this supposition they are for ever freed from pleading at Gods Bar They have there an Advocate to plead for them Jesus Christ the righteous and he is the Propitiation for our sins 1 Joh. 2. 1 2. Sits at the right hand of God with the effectuall Oratory of his pretious bloud making intercession for us Rom. 8. 34. so the supposition of Mr. Baxter extends no further then this if without any Covenant promise of Justification by Faith in Christ could they by beleeving in him have had the beeing and comfort of Justification within their own souls Unlesse God had by some other way ratified and sealed this benefit to them I acknowledge they could not yet had their justification been still nothing the lesse firm before God in Christ But now by the promise of the New Covenant through Faith they have the sweetnesse and joy thereof in themselves also B. But suppose Christ having done all that he did for us that he should in framing the New Covenant have put in any other condition and said whosoever loveth God shall by vertue of my satisfaction be justified would not this love have justified No doubt of it I conclude then thus The receiving of Christ is as the silver of this coin the Gospel promise is as the Kings stamp which maketh it curraut for justifying If God had seen it meet to have stamped any thing else it
his sophistry hath bin occupant In these two Positions viz and 57 58. Mr. Baxters aym is at two assertions of the Protestants to smite them through viz. the instrumentality of Faith and the vertue which it deriveth from Christs it object to justifie and to set up his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Credere or act of beleeving under the name of a condition of the New Covenant without any respect of instrumentality that it hath to apprehend Christ or any vertue that it receives from Christ apprehended to justifie This he doth in the last words of the 57. Thesis telling us that faith can be said only in a remote and improper sense as it receiveth Christ to justifie where by receiving he shaketh and shifts off the instrumentality of faith and by Christ the vertue of faiths object into a remote and darke corner as not working at all or very obscurely in our justification But his act of beleeving he exalteth as the proper and formall reason of faiths justifying This he illustrateth in the Explication pa. 230. Suppose Christ had put some other condition of the new Covenant as Love Patience Temperance Mercy c. that could not be instruments of receiving Christ nor have Christ their object to draw vertue from him should not either of these notwithstanding though neither instruments nor in a capacity to have Christ their object from which to have drawn vertue by their own act have justifyed So faith being the condition of the new Covenant doth by its act justifie So argued he under Thes 57. But doubting of the validity of his reasons there either to weaken ours or to stablish his own assertion he addes this Thesis more fully to confirm what he had there endevoured The ground of this is saith he because and because as is before expressed I answer there is no sufficient ground laid for the confuting of ours or the strengthning of his tenent For be it that Christs righteousnesse be ours by divine donation or imputation how doth he build his opinion upon this ground that the act of faith as being the condition c. doth properly justifie He must shew his meaning in words at length and not in figures before he shall win us to build with him straw and stubble upon the ground that is good and fitted to bear a good structure But very remarkably doth he here dispute in opposing Gods donation or giving or our beleeving or receiving of Christs righteousnesse as if they could not both consist together in justifying us at least properly Then it seems we are properly justifyed by the donation of Christ without his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere or act of faith Yea then are we properly and formally justifyed in Christ before we yet beleeved For he will not denie that Gods donation of Christ at least in his sense is before our receiving him And thus with one breath he will throw down all that before with so much labour he hath built But let us see how from this ground he batters our assertions and what force there is in his battery If we look to the Prothesis of his Thesis alone the argument in substance runs to this Tenour Faith doth not justifie us either as an instrument or by vertue of Christ or Christs righteousnesse its object because it doth not justifie us as an instrument or by vertue of its object Who can shake his buildings that founds them on such firme ground That this is the force of his reasoning is evident to them that observe him that by the word receiving he excludes the instrumentality and by Christ excludes the object of faith from any proper acting to justifie us as I said before But we will annex the Antithesis to his Prothesis and so fill up his Thesis and then see what strength there is in the whole to his advantage or our disadvantage What he must prove in his and refute on our part hath been already declared Only in the forecited Prothesis he begs the conclusion that he should have proved Therefore we must lay his whole argument from the donation or imputation alone yet will we put his Argument fully thus If Christs righteousnesse doth not properly justifie us because we beleeve or receive it but because it is ours in Law by Gods imputation or donation then faith doth not justifie as an instrument or by vertue of Christ its object but as it is an act containing the condition of the Covenant But the former is true therefore the latter also I deny the assumption as to the former member thereof the beleeving and receiving c. And Mr. Baxter brings not so much as a gry to prove it And as to the latter member Gods donation c. I deny the consequent of the Major Though Christs righteousnesse justifie us properly because it is ours in Law by Gods donation or imputation yet it followes not that either faith as an act or condition doth so of it self justifie or that it doth not justifie as an instrument and by vertue of its object or as some say its correlate or as others by the communion that it puts us into with Christ this I prove thus not from terms of art but from the authority and testimonies of the most high God 1. From the relation between the brazen Serpent the Type and Christ Jesus the Antitype Joh. 3. 14. The brazen Serpent was of Gods donation to Israel so also was the Soveraigne power that was infused into it to heal but the eyes of the wounded Israelites must be directed unto and fixed upon the Serpent for cure and then vertue issued from it to heal So was the son of man lifted up with vertue in him to heal Christ with this vertue is of Gods donation yet this donation hinders not but that our faith as an instrument must be directed to and fixed upon him alone for justification and so that justifying vertue or righteousnesse in him comes from him upon us to justification It is no more the act of faith that of it self because a condition if indeed a condition doth it then the act of the eye cured the wounded without vertue drawn by it from its object 2. From the cure of the woman which had the bloudy issue Marke 5. 25. it will not be denyed that the vertue by which she was healed was of divine donation yet it was brought home to her not by the instrumentall service of her hand touching Christs garment for the multitude touched his garments and thronged him yet had no benefit by it verse 31. But her faith apprehending Christ himself so said the Lord Thy faith hath made thee whole verse 34. yet not the act of faith as a condition but faith as an instrument by which the poor woman drew vertue from Christ its object Jesus perceived that vertue had gone out of him verse 34. So it was not the vertue of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or act of beleeving but of Christ beleeved
on which wrought the cure such are the operations of Christ and faith in the cure of the soul as here in the cure of the body 3. From 1 Gâ—r 30. 31. Christ is of God made unto us Righteousnesse viz. to Justification That he which glorieth may glory in the Lord. God hath made him righteousnesse but how to us or our righteousnesse that it may be of his donation to us Mr. Baxter must answer by faith else farewell his condition but if by the act of faith as our righteousnesse in fulfilling â—he condition or otherwise then an instrument to apprehend the righteousnesse of Christ to justification then have we somewhat of our own righteousnesse wherein to glory all would not be the Lords that we might glory in him alone 4. To this I might add also the phrase which the Apostle useth that we are justifyed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by faith through faith as an instrument and never 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for our faith or upon our faith as for a cause or upon a condition fulfilled as some of our Divines have well observed I proceed to the next position B. Thesis 59. Justification is not a Momentaneous act begun and ended immediately upon our beleeving but a continued act which though it be in its kind compleat from the first ' yet it is still in doing till the finall justification in the judgment day All this together with most of the Explication may be granted as being capable of an Orthodox sense 1. That justification as an act immanent in God is such as is here described is confessed But Mr. Baxter is deaf in this ear 2. That our justification in Christ is such in some sense we also grant but neither will he listen to this 3. Therefore if he would take off all ambiguity of his words and declare his sense to be the same with the sound we would grant to him also that such is our personall justification in our selves which he owneth only for justification For as it is an act of God it is never interrupted or dissolved till the day of judgement though as it is taken Passively there may be many interruptions of our sense and apprehension of it But his Thesis is faced like Janus lookes two wayes at once is set forth in such words as will more properly admit of an evill then a good sense And that he speaks them after the Remonstrant not the Protestant dialect is too probable though not infallibly evident from these reasons to be meant in an evill sense 1. Because he delivers it in the Arminian phrase For so his St. Episcopius Justificatio est actus continuus qui est Episcop Disp 22. Thes 12. de Justif durat quamdiu durat ipsius conditionis requisitae praesentia interrumpitur vero semper toties quoties actus praestantur ejusmâ—di qui cum vera fide conscientia bona consistere nequeunt i. e. Justification is a continued act which is and dureth as long as the presence of its requisite condition continueth but is interrupted so often as such acts are done which cannot consist with true faith and a good conscience To the continuance of justification Mr. Baxter here speaketh the same thing with him and though as to the interruption of it he speaks here as out of a cloud yet compare with this his 45. Thesis and you will have the whole of Episcopius from the pen of Mr. Baxter 2. Because his words do seem here to suppose a Magis minus in its active acceptation or sense It is not begun and ended immediately saith he but is still in doing in a way of perfecting untill the judgment day 3. His restriction added to the compleatnesse or perfection thereof at the first It is compleat at first saith he but in its kind which restriction makes the compleatnesse of justification incompleat and its perfection imperfect till the day of judgment as himselfe hath expressed himselfe before Thesis 41. These things from the position it self From the explication will follow 4. The heartlesse and comfortlesse proof that he brings to prove the continuance of this justifying act making it to reach only to the Genera singulorum not to the singula generum to such a kinde of men not to any singular man or individuall person upon earth to Beleevers but not to this or that beleever So that the holiest Saint if at any time his faith in some temptation faint and cannot be brought to sensible acting is left destitute of all comfort from the Gospell or new Covenant after Mr. Baxters principles It justifieth onely so long as faith actually receiveth Christ if faith through infirmity cease to act he gives the distressed soul no comfort that God continueth to justifie 5. From the first use of instruction which he draweth from this position This sheweth us saith he in the first place with what limitation to receive the assertion of our Divines that remission and justification are simul and semel performed his meaning is that we must understand them in this assertion to deal as Mr. Baxter is wont viz. to say one thing and mean another Not to think as they speak but to equivocate and retaine a mentall reservation within themselves That our justification is begun and perfected both at once and together but all this is but suo genere in its kinde that is conditionally even as the Usurer frankly and freely forgave to his debtor all that he owed him but with this limitation that if he were not paid the whole debt to day he would cast him in prison to morrow there to lie untill he should pay the whole forfeiture But because Mr. Baxter is disposed here to lisp and not to speak alowd and plain his minde we shall leave him to his humour and proceed to hearken to him where he speaketh plainly and without parables Mr. Baxters APHORISMS EXORIZED AND ANTHORIZED OR An Examination of and Answer to a Book written by Mr. Rich. Baxter Teacher of the Church at Kederminster in Worcestershire ENTITULED Aphorisms of Justification THE SECOND PART By JOHN CRANDON an unworthy Minister of the Gospel of CHRIST at Fawley in Hantshire LONDON Printed by E. C. 1654. Mr. Baxters APHORISMS Exorized and Anthorized OR An Examination of and Answer to a Book written by Mr. Rich. Baxter Teacher of the Church at Kederminster in Worcestershire ENTITVLED Aphorisms of Justification THE SECOND PART CHAP. I. The following Doctrine of Mr. Baxters Book reduced to some few heads and the question between him and the Protestants about Justification by works stated HItherto we have been busied about the view of Mr. Baxters swelling which the more and the farther we gazed on the more it increased and after a long expectation of an issue at length the imposthumated matter breaks out in the sight of all men to the offence of all spiritualized men Justification by workes This is the declared and professed Subject of all the following part of this
Treatise what before he did but hint and whisper in a kind of darkenesse now he preacheth on the top of the house proclaiming it as the sole Soul-saving doctrine canonizing as Saints the Papists for the constant holding forth of it and Anathematizing all the Protestants Churches as Apostaticall for departing from it as by examining what followes in this his Tractate will appear For the avoiding of confusion and prevention of a voluminous prolixity into which I see my self already carried by following him Thesis after Thesis being necessitated thereby as he speaks so to examine and answer the same things often in many places I shall endeavour to reduce unto some few heads the sum of what he saith upon this Question examining that which is to the purpose and leaving the rest that is inconsideraable or impertinent to it 1 Then I shall endeavour to draw out from him the state of the Question what he holdeth and how he holds it forth to us 2 I shall examine his Arguments and Reasons by which he endeavoureth to confirme his assertion or assertions 3 I shall also examine what force there is in the Reasons which he bringeth to clear himself and his doctrine from being derogatory to the grace of God and full efficacy of Christs mediation or from all tainture of Popery Socinianism or other heresies Within this Triangle I conceive the whole fabrick of his doctrine of workes to be comprehended and in examining of these fully nothing to be left unexamined that may make for his purpose 1 The state of the Question or his assertions which he maintaineth I shall as neer as may fitly be done transcribe from him in his own words thus 1 The bare act of beleeving is not the only condition of the new Covenant but severall other duties also are part of this condition viz. of Justification For this is his meaning and if he be not so understood he is understood besides his meaning and in what he saith he saith nothing His Tractate contains Aphorisms of Justification only And the conditions of the new Covenant which tend to Illumination Sanctification Glorification c. must not be confounded with those of Justification if it were granted him that the Gospell dispenseth all or any of these upon conditions In this sense therefore he must he will be understood Thes 60. pa. 235. 2 That these duties coordinate with Faith to our Justification as conditions thereof are Repentance praying for pardon forgiving others love hearing the word consideration conviction godly sorrow knowledge of Christ assent to the truth of the Gospell subjection consent acceptance cordiall covenanting self-resigning esteeming and preferring Christ before all loving him above all sincerity perseverance affiance sincere obedience and works of love serious painfull and constant use of Gods ordinances hearing praying meditating in a word all good works i. e. all the works of Righteousnesse holinesse mercy c. which the Law requireth yet with this proviso that all these legall workes must be called not our Legall but our Gospell Righteousnesse Thes 60. p. 235 236. p. 240 241 242. Thes 73 74 p. 289. 290 291 292. 3 That the non-performance of any one of these doth hinder but it is not one or many but a concurrence of all these together in one that sufficeth to condition us unto Justification Thes 61. So that when the promise of life is made in Scripture to our beleeving in Christ or to any other inseparable concomitant of Faith you must understand it Caeteris paribus viz. that your knowledge repentance obedience good workes c. are not an inch behind your faith or in sensu composito that it is a compounded Faith hath all other vertues not only included in it but also actuated and cooperating with it for justification or else you must be shaken off unjustified yea though all the rest be in act and but one out of act Thes 61. and its Explication He saith not this indeed totidem verbis word by word But let him deny the least particle of all this to be his meaning he shall by such a denyall extremely wound if not wholly subvert his cause and yeeld it to us 4 It is not the habit of these vertues as infused from above into us but the act or work of them as set in operation by us that justifieth For so saith he of Faith it self much more implieth it of the other vertues that it is the act of faith alone as it is our act or work that justifyeth aâ—d consequentially that we are justifyed wholly by works viz. as the alone condition or causa sine qua non 5 That some of these justifying vertues or works are antecedaneous to or fore-going preparatives of some integrall parts some proper essentiall formall acts some differentiall and essentiall parts some modifications some in separable products some both parts and necessary consequents and subservient acts some necessary continuing and exercising means and lastly some separable adjuncts of Faith yet tending to the well being thereof and thus having adorned faith like the Cornish Chough with the feathers of all the best birds he sends it to scar aloft with these plumes to heaven for justification which without this borrowed help of it self it was not in a capacity to do pa. 240 241 242. In these particulars I take the whole sum of his doctrine about this Question to be comprehended He addeth indeed some lenitives here and there to mitigate and make tolerable the asperity and harshnesse of these his assertions which we shall examine among the reasons that he brings to manifest his doctrine not to be derogatory from the glory of Gods grace c. as being more proper to that then this place All the forementioned particulars may be summed up in this one That all the acts or works of all morall vertues and of all insuâ—ed Habits if he grant any such are required coordinately with faith to make up the conditio upon which we shall and without which we cannot be justifyed In opposition to this all the Protestant Churches do and still have maintained that Faith alone and the same not as it is in the consideration of a habit or vertue or as an act of ours but by way of a means or instrument as hath been before explained justifyeth without any concurrence of works with it in the act and office of justifying This assertion he endeavours to destroy and establish his own with many Arguments which we shall examine severally either after other CHAP. II. Mr. Baxters preface to his first Argument drawn from Scriptures to prove Justification by works examined and the Scriptures which the Protestant writers bring against it and Mr. Baxter would have stifled in darknesse here brought to light together with the opinion of the most eminent Protestant writers upon this Subject HIS first argument is drawn from Scriptures unto which he thus prefaceth B. 235. I desire no more of those that deny this but that
Scriptures which Mr. Baxter quotes to prove that repentance as a really distinct thing from faith justifyeth do wholly fail him For as our Divines well say against the Papists though these two acts must needs cooperate together viz. the casting out of self and the receiving of Christ yet it is the latter alone that doth properly and instrumentally justifie by receiving the justifyer and his righteousnesse the former act doth but disponere materiam as one saith not too catachrestically doth but put a man as it were in a justifiable posture and capacity doth but obiâ—em tollere pluck out and cast away the barre that might fasten the door against Christs entrance and this it doth not as a distinct vertue from faith but as a subservient act of faith to its receiving of Christ Lastly those of the forequoted Scriptures which speak of repentance in a strict sense advantagious to life after conversion and that which the Papists and Mr. Baxter call the first justification as 2 Cor. 7. 10. and some other these speak of repentance indeed really distinct from faith being an effect or fruit of faith But this repentance is in no other sense called repentance to life then as by it the Saints sometimes recover the sense and comfort of their justification that had for a while laid fainting in them or as it is impowred from above to repair confirme and increase the life of sanctification in them And this is besides the question in hand whether repentance justifyeth I shall therefore pretermit to speak futher of it And thus have we one file of his Scripture quotations examined and do finde that all which he would thence deduce to confirme a collaterall officiating of repentance as a thing really distinct from faith together with faith to justification stands him in no stead at all The second duty which he nameth as an equall condition with faith of our justification is praying for pardon and forgiving Pag. 230. others In this though he follow Bellarmine yet he holds not himself to Bellarmines words but having overtaken him runs beyond him Bellarmine thus speaketh having mentioned before two things that justifie Thirdly saith he Spes obtinendae veniae est etiam dispositio ad justitiam et remissionem peccatorum i. e. Hope of forgivenesse is also a disposition to righteousnesse and the remission of sins Mr. Baxter outruns him and saith that praying for pardon and forgiving of others too are conditions of pardon but suppose that I do hope and pray for pardon and forgive others too shall I then be forgiven Mr. Baxter will not promise that but if I do that caeteris paribus then forsooth I may hope well but what is this sensus compositus or caeteris paribus viz. if I do this and all that else is to be done i. e. all the duties which either Law or Gospell commands me But I demand if all this be done am I then justifyed Neither will he grant me this I am then conditionally justifyed as I was before I did any thing yea more I am now a probationer for justification and upon my bene se gesserit my good behaviour I am justifyed for an hour possibly untill I be unjustifyed again but if I do all and never cease to do all either while I am living c. or when I am dead there may be possibly a day when there be no more days when I may if all things faie well be justifyed But further that all may faie well will he tell me what the caeteris paribus the rest conditions are that I may perform them all and not misse in number Thus far possibly he will condescend to make known some of them and to give me some generalls of the rest and make known the materia prima in which the substantiall formes lurk yea the genera and the species that are such subalternatim but the species specialissimas infimas together with their individuals he either will not or cannot particularize the seed of Mr. Baxter in this kind is more numerous then the seed of Abraham more then the starres of heaven then the sands of the sea for multitude yet if one be wanting I am as far from justification as if I had nothing So blessed a man will Mr. Baxters conditions make me But let me on the contrary part demand of Mr. Baxter Suppose a person truely in the Covenant of grace vitally in Christ if he have never a one of these additory conditions actually moving in him is not his justification and glory as certain as anothers that hath all the conditions Mr. Baxter dares not deny the supposition to be possible for then shall he exclude all dying Infants from the kingdome of heaven which in another book of his it is said he flatly denyeth the consequent therefore cannot be denyed that justification before God is as sure without as with these conditions and so no condition at all to be granted of our justification save that which may assure and declare it to our selves What mis-spent time will it be then to bawl about two or three of many decads and centuries yea myriads of conditions by disputing whether they be conditions when if we know not and have not all the rest it shall go as well with those that have none of them as with them that have all to one I had almost said when these all brought as conditions in Mr. Baxters sense to Gods tribunall will without doubt condition him that brings them to condemnation But because Mr. Baxter and his disciples may be angry if we hear not what so great a Master saith for our own safety we will attend to hear what Scriptures he alleageth The first he brings from the prayer of Solomon 1 King 8. 30 39. Hear Lord thy servants when they shall pray towards or in this place and forgive them and give to every man according to his wayes What will hence follow either ergo whosoever prayeth in or towards Solomons Temple in Jerusalem shall be forgiven so far as forgivenesse consisteth in giving to every man according to his ways or shall be forgiven as to the famine and pestilence c. ver 38. mentioned so as he pray caeteris paribus though he be never forgiven as to hell fire or ergo there was a time when prayer for pardon was a condition of forgivenesse viz. when the Temple stood at Jerusalem if prayer were made in it or towards it but now since the desolation of the Temple this condition for the space of 1600. years hath been out of force Let him conclude better for himself from these premises if he can I can conclude no better thence to the maintenance of his assertion And it is worthy of consideration to take notice how extremely the Apostles logick and Mr. Baxters logick do differ From the like promise of salvation made in Scriptures to them that pray for it the Apostle concludes that we are justifyed and saved by faith thus
Such as these have exhibited or do still exhibit Christ to us for redemption or justification such is our faith still to receive him But these all have exhibited and do exhibit Christ not as a Law-giver but as an offering or sacrifice for our sins therefore under this notion our faith is to receive him to justification So all the sacrifices circumcision paschal Lamb c. under the old Testament directed the faith of men to Christs sacrifice to the bloud and wounds of Christ for purging c. Or if any will say as he may truly say that circumcision typified also the renovation of the heart by the Spirit of Christ himself may answer himself that this was to sanctification and not to justification 2 The whole stream of the Gospell leads our faith to Christ crucifyed or dying for justification As the serpent was lifted up in the wildernesse so shall the Son of man be lifted up viz. upon the crosse that whosoever beleeveth in him should not perish but have everlasting life John 3. 14 15. I determined to know i. e. to preach among you for your knowledg nothing else but Christ and him crucifyed 1 Cor. 2. 2. If I be lifted up I will draw all men to me signifying what death he should die Joh. 12. 32 33. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my bloud c. Joh. 6. 47 58. Whom God hath set forth as a propitiation through faith in his bloud Rom. 4. 25. Being justified by his bloud Rom. 5. 9. The bloud of Christ cleanseth from all sin 1 Joh. 1. 7. The Lambe of God sacrificed that taketh away the sins of the World Joh. 1. 29. Having made peace through the bloud of his Crosse Col. 1. 20. And reconciled us in the body of his flesh through death Ver. 21 22. Having redemption through his bloud even the sorgivenesse of sin Col 1. 14. He hath purchased his Church with his bloud Act. 20. 28. Having boldnesse to enter into the Holiest by the bloud of Jesus by the new and living way which he hath consecrated through the veil of his flesh Heb. 10. 19 20. He was wounded for our sins and bruised for our iniquities and by his stripes we are healed Isa 53. 5. God forbid that I should glory in any thing but in the Crosse of our Lord Jesus Christ Gal. 6. 14. I might even weary the Reader with allegations of Scriptures every way as pertinently and properly making Christ dying for us the object of faith as justifying And I challenge Mr. Baxter and all his admirers to produce one Scripture proving Christ as a Law-giver to be the object of our faith to justification If they cannot do it let it be acknowledged as an audacious and daring presumption in Mr. Baxter from his own authority without and against the Word to lay it down here as a position and principle of Religion 3 If the death and sufferings alone of Christ and not his giving of Lawes and commanding duties of righteousnesse be the sole and entire satisfaction which he hath given to the justice of God for us then Christ in his death and not at all in his Laws and Commands of such duties is to be made the object of our faith for justification But the former is true therefore the latter also Both the consequent and consequence of the Proposition must needs be granted by all Protestants though not by Remonstrants and Socinians which hold the imputation of the obedience of Christ to us by which he hath satisfyed Gods justice that he for us and we in and by him have done our law that his satisfying obedience is by imputation so fully made ours to justification as if we had done it our selves which is the doctrine of all Protestant Churches But Mr. Baxter hateth this phrase of imputation of Christs obedience will not cannot admit it for then he destroyes and pronounceth all at the best to be erroneous whatsoever he hath spowted out for sacred doctrine he grants the imputation of nothing else but our own faith and works to justification so that after his principles the consequence is not so clear Let us see therefore whether also after and upon his own grounds it may stand firm and undenyable 1 Then Mr. Baxter Thes 18. affirmes our Legall righteousnesse as he cals it i. e. that righteousnesse by which the Law is satisfyed for our breaches of it to be in Christ and in calling this Legall righteousnesse ours and the satisfaction therein made ours he doth imply that the satisfaction of Christ is the thing that being made ours is that which justifyeth us This he speaks out yet more plainly pa. 218. telling us that Christs satisfaction must be made ours else we cannot be justifyed that so far as by imputation no more is understood then the bestowing of Christs satisfaction on us so that we shall have the justice and benefits thereof as truely as if we had satisfyed our selves in this sense he granteth the imputation of Christs satisfactory righteousnesse and thus according to his principles that act or those acts of Christ by which he made satisfaction for us or rather Christ in these acts is to be made the object of our faith as justifying According to this rule pa. 54. he makes the Active righteousnesse of Christ considered as such part of the satisfaction together with the Passive and to lay a ground for that which he here inferreth pa. 57 he affirms that among other parts of Christs righteousnesse or Active obedience his assuming of the humane nature his establishing and sealing the Covenant his working miracles his sending his Disciples to convert and save the world his overcoming death and rising again c. which were all works most proper to his kingly office to have been meritorious and satisfactory And all this to lay a foundation for what here and Thes 72. he buildeth viz. Christ as a Law-giver as well as a Redeemer is the object of justifying faith as such and that obedience to his Laws as well as faith in his sufferings hath to do in our justification We finde then Mr. Baxter making Christ in his Legislative righteousnesse upon this ground alone to be the object of justifying faith as therein he in part satisfyed for our disobedience Therefore hoc nomine and in this respect must the consequence of the proposition stand firm with him viz. If only the death and sufferings of Christ and not at all his Legislative righteousnesse be the sole and entire satisfaction c. then Christ in his death onely and not c. is to be made the object of faith as justifying For in that righteousnesse alone by which Christ satisfyed is faith to apprehend him to justification by his own rules The Assumption then remaines alone needfull to be proved viz. that Christs death and suffering alone is the entire satisfaction This is clear to them which will not wilfully retain beams in their eyes from these Scriptures which affirm the
heâ—r it tends to the promoting of his cause to affirme it And this alters the Case quoth Ploydon How rightly did Mr. Baxter describe his owne acting in this businesse p. 291. I resisted saith he the Light of this Conclusion as long as I was able It is the light of the Conclusion not of the Premises that swayeth him First hee pitcheth upon this Conclusion Works justifie there was light in this Conclusion it fell out of the Lant-horne of the Jesuits sophistry into his bosome and by that light he is swayed and having taken up the conclusion in such light of its owne from them now he digs downward for day and takes up that which erewhile he shook off as darkness for light to illustrate and prove it So his light conclusion is first formed and afterward he seeks for Crutches and reasons what come first to hand to support it sacrificing here more to hast than to reason lest his idol should fall before he returnes with his props to sustaine it And what if upon new thoughts we shall finde all that is here said all so unsaid again Let us passe to his explication peradventure we may stumble at such a stone before we come off from it B. Explication Heere I have these things to prove 1 that the Justifying sentence shall passe according to works as well as Faith 2. That the Reason is because they are parts of the condition For the first see Mat 25. 21. 23. well done good aâ—d faithfull servant thou hast been faithfull over a few things I will make thee ruler over many things enter thou into the ioy of thy Lord. And most plaine is that from the mouth of the judge himselfe describing the order of the processe of that day Mat. 25. 34 35. Come ye blessed inherit the Kingdome c for I was hungry c. So 1 Pet 1. 17. who without respect of persons judgeth according to every mans worke So 2. Co 5. 10. we must all appeare before the judgement seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body acording to that he haâ—h done whether good or bad So Rev. 20. 12. 13. They were judged every man according to his works Heb. 13. 17. Phil 4 17. Mat. 12. 36 c. but this is evident already The Scriptures that he brings to prove that the justifying sentence shall passe according to workes as well as Faith are first here put and therefore first to be examined And against his reasoning from them I except 1. as well as Faith is here foysted in being wanting in the position And why heere supplyed but to beguile the simple with a good opinion of his assertion as if he attributed something to Faith also in Christs and Pauls sense When contrariwise he teacheth that Faith hath nothing to doe in this businesse but in the notion of our Act our righteousnesse or worke so that with him to be justified by Faith is to be justified by our owne worke 2. That there is no one of these Scriptures but is alledged by Bellarmin and his fellows against the Protestants and by them fully answered manifested to make nothing for justification or salvation by works scripture after scripture no one of them pretermitted When Mr. Baxter now stands up in Bellarmins place against us is it sufficient for him to tel us what Bellarmin hath said against the truth as if we could not without him know it and to leave unanswered yea unmentioned the hundreds of our side that have retorted upon him his owne arguments to the subverting of his owne cause that by these Scriptures he would have maintained If he would have another answer ought he not to have excepted against the validety of those that have beene already given Is he worthy to heare more from vs that hath stopped his eares against all that so many worthies have said already scorning to take notice thereof Nay when he will onely alledge the Scriptures and not take the labour to tel us what or how he will conclude from them he leaves us not in a capacity to declare so much as our consent with him or dissent from him Yet for the use of the weaker sort of readers that have not ability to make recourse to those learned workes where these controversies are handled or to understand them in that language in which most of them are written I shal speak something in generall to all these Scriptures First of that of Mat. 25. 21. 23. or rather taking the whole parable together beginning at ver 14. and ending at v. 30. granting it on both sides to be the same Parable which Luke recordeth chap. 19. beginning at the 12. and ending at the 27. verse which very few have questioned no one hath had cause to deny then it suits not at all with Mr. Baxters purpose or his Judgement dayes justification For the Kingdome of Heaven and the Lords comming and reckoning with his Servants and retribution of their service is to be taken for Christs comming to preach first in his owne person and then to set up and stablish the Gospel by the Ministry of his Apostles The servants to be reckoned with are principally the Teachers of the Iewes the Talents used or abused are the mysteries of the Gospel revealed though veyled under the Law The matter of the Account is what each by his serious studies and labours had cleared up to himselfe and others of this Gospel and saving knowledge of Christ before his comming for the advancement and advantage of Christ at his comming They which had spent their labours this way received at Christs comming a double measure of the spirit of illumination in the knowledge of Christ and salvation by him and were intrusted with a fuâ—ler measure of this sacred Treasure to bee the dispencers thereof to the world But hee which â—ad wrapt his Talent in a Nâ—pkin and hid it in the earth left the Doctrine of Christ scattered throughout the old Testament under a veile as he found it without searching into it and clearing it up to others was lâ—ft in the state of infidelity rejected and bound over hand and foot by his unbeliefe to perdition And his Citizens which sent word after him wee will not have this man to rule over us we will have a Christ such a one as wee have framed to our selves in our owne immaginations but not this Christ have their doom not only denounced but executed also upon them bring them hither and slâ—y them before me Who are these but the great Body and Nation of the Iewes that professed themselves Citizens and the onely Saints of God but for their refusall of Christ were slaine and destroyed by the sword of the Romans And so the parable comprehends in it a Prophecy of the successe of the Kingdome of Grace now in the way of erecting in its power as to the Iews So saith Luke in that 19. Chapter verse 11. Hee added and spake a parable because
once revealed to us and made ours in possession or in hope ought so to spiritualize us so to swallow us up into the spirit that we should no longer walk after the flesh but after the spirit to delight in the Law of God in all the holiness and righteousnes which the Law teacheth after the inner man He that seeks not so to doe hath hugd in his arms a dream of Christ not Christ himselfe hath had him possibly in his fancy never in his heart and conscience Hee that hath effectually met with God in Christ reconciling the world to himselfe and there tasted the love of God or rather God which is love hath suffered a Metamorphosis and is changed all into love hath so beheld God shining in Christ as in a glasse that he is transformed into the same image is or would bee wâ—olly configured to the likeness of God Yea we grant more that the truly justified and adopted ones of the Lord may perform these works of naturall righteousness which the Law commandeth with respect to and expectation of the future glory which shall be revealed to them and conferred on them for Christs sake as a reward of such their imperfect service yet not a reward of debt purchased by and due to their works but of free gift and grace from their indulgent father who of his infinite love and bounty is wont to recompence the mites of his dear childrens labours with the talents of his grace and bounty not because they are worthy but because he is gracious yea Grace and Love it selfe Ro. 4 4. 5. Goe ye into my vineyard and whatsoever is right or meet ye shall receive Mat. 20. 7. It must bee a boundless reward what such a father shall think right and meet to bestow upon his dear children Their reward shall bee proportioned not to the pittance of their poore service but to the riches of their fathers bounty and uncircumscriptiveness of his treasure The respect of such infinite treasure in their fathers hand and the riches of his love to bestow it in largest dimensions upon them with a gracious respect to their dutifulness and service should serve as a strong motive and attractive to them to be still doing for him When I was yet in my bloud hee loved and cleansed me Ezek. 16. 6 -9. When dead he quickned me Eph. 2. 1. When without strength to work when a sinner when ungodly when an enemy he gave his son to die for me and reconciled me to himselfe What will he now doe for mee so quickned reconciled washed and justified having attained strength if I employ that strength in his service Ro. 5. 6-10 Now wee are the sons of God but it doth not yet appear what wee shall bee onely wee know that when he appears we shall bee like him having therefore this hope we ought to purifie our selves as he is pure 1. Jo. 2. 25. 3. Thus are the saints to draw encouragement to obedience from the consideration of the reward or rather from the infinite love and bounty of the rewarder 3. That they which are out of Christ yet under the means of Grace and Ministry of the Gospel must performe all pure Gospel duties which the Law requireth onely in generall and implicitely but the Gospel specifieth expresly to the severall ends to which the wisdome of God hath severally related them some to justification some to sanctification by Christ Jesus It is their duty to hear learn study and meditate upon the doctrine of Grace and mystery of Christ duly to prize and value it to desire gasp cry and pray for the effectuallizing of it to themselves to embrace and receive Christ to repent of their long estrangedness from him to deny themselves and cast away all opinion of and confidence in their owne righteousness that Christ alone may bee embraced and the dung being cast out they may bee replenished with that which is indeed the Treasure and all this that they may bee justified and saved not by and for these duties so performed but by and for Christ to whom they seek and strive in all these duties to come into union All this the Gospel both tacitely implieth and expresly teacheth and the Law also in generall and inclusively commandeth as hath been sayd Thus the Kingdome of Heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force Here stil Christ is al to justification salvatioÌ„ Faith the alone instrument to receive him All the other actings are but subservient to Faith in this its instrumentall service to make way for it As when a treasure is offered by a munificent benefactor to a poor beggar the grace of the benefactor and pretiousnesse of the treasure is that which inricheth him and the hand the alone instrument to receive it yet must the eye guide him the understanding prompt him the wil move him the feet carry him and other actings of the minde and body bee subservient to him that the hand may rerceive that which inricheth him At length when all is done such a begger hath more apparent grounds of boasting that hee hath been and done somewhat to his owne enriching than the best of us that we have been or done any thing to our own Justification For though the Benefactor hath poured upon him freely of his own mercy not for or upon condition of his crying running to him emptying his hand of what was in it before and stretching it forth to bee filled with the treasure profered him yet the benefactor gave him neither a heart to desire nor wisdome to value nor light to guide him nor feet to carry him nor a hand to receive the treasure conferred It is otherwise in our Justification by Christ God freely gives it in Christ and all the power will actings and instruments by which we come into the possession of it Neither when we affirme all these to be our duty while yet unjustified doe we thereby affirme that all must be done before we can bee justified The grace of God oft prevents our operation in most of these justifying us by Faith before we have time to put our selves upon many of these operations In this sense I know none that denieth an obligation upon sinners to act and worke for their justification and salvation 4 They that are justified ought to be still active and industrious in all the duties of the Gospell tending to their confirmation in the Faith stablishment in Christ illumination in the misteries of the Gospell denyall of themselves and seeking to be wholly swallowed up into the Lord Iesus that they may be dayly more filled and ravished with fuller assurance and comfort of their justjfication salvation by him This we find the Apostle making his taske Phill. 3. 8 9 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. And hereunto tend the many memento's scattered by the holy Ghost in the Gospell watch pray take heed beware stand fast hold fast Run fight strive continew c. All which tend to the
laying not of such our labours but Christ Jesus abouâ— whom these our labours are to be exercised as the foundation of happinesse more and more fixedly within our sâ—ules Whatsoever Gospell duâ—ies and labours God hath ordeined for the faster setling of us upon the Rock of Righteousness the empâ—ying ouâ—selvs of our nothingnesse and making Christ 〈…〉 all those all are to be done by the saints not onely from life but also for life to be had and confirmed to them not in these duties but in Christ more and more formed and perfected in them to righteousnesse and salvation by these their religious indeavours These four Conclusions I know none of the Protestant or as Mr. Baxter terms them Antinomian Teachers denying Whatsoever therefore he bringeth not thwarting and opposing some of these Assertions he doth but Oleum operam ludere spend time and wit to prove that which none denieth and to oppose that which none teacheth and patronizeth These things therefore thus premised it is easie to answer all that he will seeme to himselfe to have laid impregnably for justification by works in his Appendix To begin with pag. 76. of that his Appendix and passing over that bold peremptory Pharisaicall and popish Assertion that Doe this and live is the language both of the Law and the Gospel together with the explication and feigned sense of Doe and live as it is the voice of the Gospel p. 77. there being nothing for but all against this doctrine throughout the whole Gospel as hath been already fully proved all that he brings for the confirmation of it in the sense in which he will be understood is ineffectuall to this end All his posiions pag. 78 79 80. may in the sense before mentioned be granted him viz. 1. That a wicked man or unbeliever may and must labour to obtaine the first life of Grace 2. That a man may act for the increase of this spirituall life when he hath it 3. That we may and must act for the life of Reconciliation Justification and Adoption 4. That we may act for the assurance of both our Justification and Sanctification 5. That wee may act for Eternall Salvation All these things are wholly besides the question and no more either powerfull or proper to prove that Do and live in the sense which he affirmeth and all Protestans deny to be the voice and Tenour or scope of the Gospel than if he had said nothing at all He might expect the beguiling of the simple but not of any knowing and considerative person with this dispute of his totally alien from the matter about which he disputeth For himselfe knoweth that they which use this Phrase We must work from life not for life do in this expression 1. Speak only of those that are already alive in Law againe i. e. justified and absolved from all their sins through faith in Christs bloud and so delivered from the Curse and death of the Law 2. That they mean principally if not only the the life of Justification reconciliation and Adoption that they which in respect of this life are already alive before God of meere Grace uniting them to Christ which is their Life ought not to seek the same life by works as if it were not already attained for this were to reject Grace and Christ as insufficient to Life and to flye to works as either alone sufficient or without which Grace and Christ are not sufficient to it 3. That if at any time by and under this expression they comprize besides the life of Justification c. here the life of glory hereafter also in excluding our acting and working for it they exclude them only as our acts and workes i. e. as acts and works either of Gods worship or of righteousness and charity towards our neighbour commanded by the Law of Nature by the righteousnesse thereof to live Not those Gospel duties of Gods ordination to be subservient to our union unto and receiving of Christ to bee our alone righteousnesse by which to live This way themselves doe and teach all both believers and unbelievers to act for life The sum of their doctrine about Justification and salvation breathing out it selfe in calling all from all iniquity to the fountain of Christs bloud for cleansing and from all confidence in the righteousness of their owne workes to put on him alone for their alone righteousnesse at Gods Tribunall Whatsoever acting and working there is in selfe-searching selfe-denyall selfe-renouncing whatsoever in the study knowing desiring seeking comming to Christ that they may receive and retaine him to bee their sole and whole life and righteousnesse All this they doe and teach to bee done and that for life This way say they the Kingdome of Heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it yea hold it also by force Nevertheless even these Actings they disclaim also as by their righteousness interessing to Christ and life in him and will no otherwise act by these for life but as they are ordinately subservient to Faith and to living by Faith i. e. by Christ whom Faith apprehendeth Even Faith it selfe as an act or work justifying they explode leaving it to the Papists Socinians Arminians and among these to Mr. Baxter which heere pag. 80. of his Appendix as elsewhere teacheth it So the question is not when God of the freeness and riches of his Grace doth offer unto us Christ with Righteousness and life in him as a free gift whether we ought to act and work for the receiving and holding of it or not But whether wee ought to work ordinately as God prescribeth or inordinately as Mans mad God Reason fancieth We only deny that when such a gift is so offered we ought to run with fist foot sword and club to force it out of Gods hand as our due as they doe which after the doctrine of Mr. Baxter and his Masters invade God with their works to claime it as due to their righteousness But we teach men tolie prostrate in the sense of their own vileness gasping after it and receiving it as a free gift of Mercy granting man in the very first acting of his will toward Christ and Gods acting upon him to draw him to Christ the relation of more then a naturall patient not pronouncing him a stock or stone as our Adversaries object to us even of obedientiall subjection as they term it in the Schools and ever after of a free Agent to fetch life and motion from Christ by the spirit Thus far and no further doe we grant doe and live to bee the voyce of the Gospel viz. as there is a doing in receiving Christ and adhering to him and as the will in receiving Christ is as well an Agent as a Patient Mr. Baxters sense wee reject and have spoken to his reasons heer brought to confirm it And whatsoever he hath sayd elswhere hath been before examined As to the Scriptures which he quoteth to confirm his 5. Position p. 80.
works and in opposition to works That this is Pauls doctrine and Pauls justifying Faith I suppose hath beene enough evinced before and shall God assisting bee more fully eleared in its due place when I come to examine the reasons which Mr. Baxter bringeth to proove his doctrine not to bee opposite to Pauls but the same with it Therefore in calling this Faith a soule couzening Faith hee proclaimes Paul yea Christ himselfe which revealed to Paul his Gospel a cheater and couzener learning this calumniation from that Jewish and Pharisaicall generation from which he hath derived his Doctrine Joh. 7. 12. But the testimony of the Holy Ghost runnes contrary to Mr. Baxters pronouncing them that joyne Works with Faith as necessary concâ—uses with it to Justification to bee the couzeners troublers and subverters of mens soules Col. 2. 4. Gal. 5. 12. Act. 15. 1. 24. But to vindicate the Doctrine of the Protestant Churches and therein also the doctrine of the Gospel both being one and one 〈◊〉 from having any thing in it that may give footing to this 〈◊〉 that we teach a soule-couzening Faith and to manifest that Mr. Baxter doth knowingly asperse the Doctrine of Faith and them that held it with this slander I shall collect into a few heads the doctrine which our Churches teach yea which Mr. Baxter knoweth they teach as to this Question First then they affirme That God hath layd up in one Christ alone all supplies for poore sinners to relieve them against all their spiritual wants of which supplies these 2 are principal ones righteousnesse to justification and the Spirit to Sanctification The one delivereth from guilt and condemnation the other from the domination of sin and impotency to acceptable obedience The former stateth the sinner Rectum in Curia righteous before God again having his sin pardoned and no more imputed the latter spirituallizeth quickneth and new formeth him again to the will and image of God in holinesse and righteousnesse 2 That whosoever receiveth one receiveth both these supplies from Christ none puts him on to justification but puts him on to sanctification also and so becomes a new creature as well in reality as in relation becomes inherently as well as imputatively righteous by him 3 That it is one and the same Faith which is instrumentall both to justification and sanctification though not by one and the same but by severall and different Acts. As my hand even the same hand is instrumentall both to feed and cloth me though not by the same but by different Acts. It is the will of my benefactor to hold my selfe to Mr. Baxters simily having ransommed me from Turkish thraldome and appointed me to honourable service in his house to leave open to me both his wardrop and his store house or promptuary of provisions with a command that I should pertake freely and richly of both that by the one I might be fitly habited and adorned by the other nourished and strengthened for honorable service to be done to him In both these my hand is instrumentall to serve and furnish me yet by severall Acts. It neither fetcheth meat from his wardrop nor clothing from his Pantry and Cellar but by several Acts from both and either what in both and either is laid up for me yet so as all is my Lords goods and by my pertaking thereof I am put into a capacity of dooing him faithfull and acceptable service I need not make the application every one can do it for himselfe The eternall King having layd downe the life of his owne son for the ransom of my soule hath opened to me all his treasuries in one the same Christ the treasury of his blood merits to purge me from the guilt of sin and obligation to judgement and vengeance so that having put on Christ crucified my Law is done my sin forgiven my nakednesse and filthinesse covered and I stand in Christ as perfectly righteous as if I had never offended the treasury of his spirit and spirituall gifts sufficient to turn my water into wine to renew my hart and to sannctifie me throughout that henceforth I shall hate sinn no lesse than hell and delight in the Law of God after the inner man taking no lesse pleasure in the holinesse than in the happinesse which are by Christ The eternall Father offers both together and neither without the other And the same spirit which drawes to one drawes to both The same Faith which apprehends one apprehends both is not a justifying except it be also a sanctifying Faith Yet by severall Acts and from severall treasuries in the same Christ the same Faith fetcheth justification from his satisfaction and new inherent righteousnesse from the spirit of sanctification 4 That as justification ought and doth declare it selfe to the person justified by its proper and immediate fruits peace of conscience joy in the Holy Ghost prizing Christ above all things soul contentation in him living and dwelling upon him selling all to enjoy him alone to righteousnesse and salvation counting all things dung and losse in comparison of him emptying our selves more and more of our owne righteousnesse of our owne-selfe confidence that hee may be made out all at Gods Tribunall repairing no more to Abanaâ— Pharfar no nor to Jordan it selfe but to the one fountaine of Christs blood there to Wash dayly and be cleane neither in this mountain nor yet at Hierusalem but in Christ alone to worship that we may be accepted So also sanctification doth and ought to shew it selfe to us and others by its fruits to our selves by the seeds and habits of love righteousnesse holinesse c. affecting the heart within To others by the fruits and workes of the spirit manifested in the practise without viz. all the Acts of love mercy goodnesse sanctity piety charity equity patience meeknesse c. as also in subduing the flesh by the spirit mortifying every evill affection fighting against every sinn that we may shew our selves a peculiar people of the Lord zealous of every good worke 5 That justification and sanctification by Faith in Christ do evidence either the other He that can finde himselfe truely justified may know himselfe to be no lesse truly sanctified by Christ because he that is in union with Christ so as to be pertaker of his justifying and saving righteousnesse by being so joyned to Christ is become one spirit with him saith the Apostle The spirit of sanctification discendeth and giveth influence from the head to the whole body and every member thereof So on the other side he that by being one spirit is sanctified by the same spirit of Christ may by this evidence know himselfe that Christ by the same spirit is made righteousnesse to him and is in the same relation to God with Christ being justified adopted c. a son and heir with him to all the inheritance Sanctification I say truly understood is such an evidence for none are sanctified but the justified and
works are required to it viz. The fear of God hope in his mercy Love Repentance a desire to receive the Sacraments a purpose to lead a new life and keep the Commandements under this lâ—st speciall they comprize all good works whatsoever Nay so far are both parties from this Faith that Faith onely justifieth that Both teach we are justified by Works only For 5 We are justified by the Act of Faith which is a work and a Law so that if we are not justified by works Faith it self must be excluded from justifying Though we are not justified by any works i. e. by any works of the Law yet by a work of the Gospel such as Faith is we may be justified 6 Our Adversaries i. e. the Protestants consent together in this that good works are not necessary to salvation otherwise than by the necessity of their presence but that they have not any relation to salvation as merits or causes or conditions thereof c. We contrariwise say that good works are necessary to a righteous man unto salvation by way of causality or efficiency because they effect or work salvation 7 When the Apostle saith we are justified by Faith and not by Works there is to be understood a Synecdoche in the words of Paul that when he saith we are justified by Faith hee meaneth not without works but by Faith and works together so that Faith is put for Faith works of Faith 8 The good works of justified men which effect their Justification are absolutely just and in their Mode or manner perfect 9 So the perfection of our righteousnes and Justification is not from Faith but from works For Faith doth but begin Justification and afterward it hath assumed to it self Hope and Charity it doth by these perfect it 10 Good works merit without all doubt yet not by any intrinsecall vertue and worth in themselves but by vertue of Gods promise A promise made with a condition of work brings to pass that he which performs the work is said to have merited the thing promised and may challenge the reward as his debt in Law 11 The Hereticks teach that it is unpossible for a righteous man to fullfill Gods Law The Catholicks teach that it is absolutely possible for a righteous man to fullfill it by the help of Gods Grace and Spirit of Faith and Charity infused into them in their Justification 12 The contrary doctrine which denyeth Justification by works and the Merit of works is a pernicious doctrine an enemy to all good endeavours good works invites all to a licentiousness of sinning and to transgress without fear or shame what evil will he fear or what good will he not despise who thinks faith alone sufficient to righteousness 13 Though a man hath received the infusion of grace and the Spirit of Faith and Charity and is now justified yet he is under the penalty and curse of the Law still For Christ hath given and God hath taken satisfaction onely for the fault but not for the punishment so that when God hath fully pardoned the fault he may and will inflict the punishment upon the offender 14 Yea this punishment remains upon the Justified both inlife and death and after death in Purgatory 15 For the Righteous or Justified man is so under the obligation of Gods Law that except he shall fullfill it he shall not be saved 16 Because our Justification being still conditionall even after we are Justified may be somtimes lost somtimes reteined now had and then lost and after recovered yea and lost again as we do hinder or not hinder the Grace of God 17 No man can be assured of his eternall Election that he is ordeined of God to life or of his perseverance in grace to the end and consequently not of his salvation For the Scripture in express words teacheth that Salvation depends of the condition of works But no man can certainly conclude that he shall do much less persevere to do all that Christ hath Commanded 18 It cannot be that the Righteousness of Christ be imputed to us in that sense that by it we may be called and be formally righteous although it be true that Christs merits be imputed to us because God hath made them ours by donation and we may offer them to God the Father for our sinns because Christ hath taken upon him the burthen of making satisfaction for us and of reconciling us to God the Father yet the denomination of righteous persons is from the intrinsecall righteousnes in themselves 19 Though we are justified by the works which the Law commandeth yet are we not justified by them as they are works of the Law but as they are Evangelicall and works of the Gospel done in the strength of Christ and by the power of renewing grace powred upon the Elect by Christ under the Gospel 20 Love or Charity is the form of Justifying Faith so that when faith doth Justifie it justifieth by charity as its form which gives it its life and motion so that if Faith justifieth love justifieth either in an equality with it or more than it 21 Justifying Faith consisteth in the Assent of the judgement to all things which are written in the word of God No other faith is required of any But an implicit Faith is sufficient in the Laity and ignorant which are not acquainted with the Scriptures in whom it is enough to beleeve as the Church beleeveth i. e. as their Clergy teacheth and beleeveth though they do not explicitly and in particulars know what the Church beleeveth BAXTER JVstification is two-fold either in Trident. Conc. Sess 6. c. 6 7 8. Tilet in Apol p. 237. in defeÌ„s Trid. Conc. adversus ChemnitiuÌ„ part 1. title of Law or in sentence of Judgment In this later having out-runn the Papists to meet with them again he looks back to the former and makes it two-fold thus Justification in title of Law is to be considered either in its first point possession or in its after continuance and accomplishment The later he makes entire consequently in the way of opposition there used the former to be put in part Aph. p. 302. 311. The first point and possession of Justification I acknowledg to be by faith alone without either the concomitancy or co-operation of works Iidem Ibid. for they cannot be performed in an instant But the continuance and accomplishment of Justification is not without the joynt procurement of obedience Aphor. p. 302. The righteousness of the New Covenant i. e. in his sense faith and works is the only condition of our interest in and enjoyment of Bel. l. 1. de purg cap 14 Sect. 4. Ratio 4. Bell. lib. 4. de Just c. 2. the Old i. e. of the righteousness of Christ to justification Both these righteousnesses are absolutely necessary to salvation Aph. Thes 17. 19. 60. and from thence every where untill the very end of his Book The bare Act of beleeving is
and actions the godly are called Righteous in Scripture and their faith and duties are said to pleas God viz. at they are related to the Covenant of grace i. e. as they are coÌ„ditions procuring our Justification by Christ as well as in regard of the imputed Righteousnes which he addeth but as a cypher bringing no proof for it but all seemingly for the former Aphor. Thes 18 19 20 22 and its explication p. 119. c. We are justified by works commanded This is the generall vote of all Popish writers none excepted in the Law yet as they make up not our Legall but our Evangelicall Righteousness not as they are done upon legall terms but as they are conditions of the New Covenant This is the chief substaÌ„ce of Mr Brs whole book and it is a poorer shift to elude the doctrine of Paul than is that of the Papists Love is an essentiall part of Justifying Faith not properly a fruit of of it Aph. p 266. When Faith therefore The common Tenet of Papists not love is said to justifie it is said so to work in its essentiall work of accepting by Love pa. 268. That both are necessary to salvation are concurrent in apprehending Christ is doubtless p. 271. Love doth truly receive Christ c. p. 224. The people are to understand that for them to take upon trust from their Teachers what they cannot yet reach to see in its own evidence is less absurd and more necessary that many This also is a known Tenet among the Papists do imagin Epistle to the reader in the last page save two These may suffice for a Taste by which the reader may judge whether Mr. Brs and the Papists Barrells are filled with the same Herring or not Should I proceed to Compare also his and their equivocations ambiguities mentall reservations together with their purposed and not unwary Contradictions when to say and deny the same thing in severall places as may severally make for their advantage But specially if I should go on to Compare them how they bring the same arguments to prove their severall assertions and the same distinctions and other shifts of Sophistry to elude the Scriptures and reasons which make against them I should procedere ad infinitum almost begin but finde no end In alleaging the words of the severall Authors something here and there hath perhaps been abbreviated some words standing as cyphers without waight in reference to the questions Controverted interserted to make up some orderly Connexion of the following with the foregoing particular cited But no where have I wittingly Committed any such alteration of the words as to alter in one Title the sense of the Writer as will be evident to all that will but take the pains to examine the citations with their authentique or books from which they are cited Neither is there any one thing alleaged in which the two parties Cohere but what hath been still Controverted between the Papists and Protestants Else would it be easie to produce a thousand particulars wherein the Pope and Luther themselves speak one and the same thing without opposition or difference If any where when Mr. Br and the Papists speak the same words yet Mr. Br means not punctually the same thing with the Papists in every such allegation I undertake to manifest that he is worse and delivers more self-exalting Grace-depressing doctrine than they Yet all this is too little to set forth the frame of Mr. Brs spirit he may take himself injured and left too obscure if he be but matched with the Papists and have no pre-eminence granted him before and above them in exalting mans righteousnes and nullifying the Grace of God in Christ That we may not rob him of the praise to which his ambition seems to aspire we will grant to him that the Papists are but the Pigmies and he the Giant that in the battell between Michael and the Dragon he hath superexcelled more deserved the Scarlet Hat Miter Crosier yea Triple Crown it sâ—lf than they that have and wear them if not by his Art yet at least by his daring boldnes in his undertakings This service therefore I shall do him to manifest not onely his equality with but also his exâ—perancy above many of the famous Champions of Rome That many of the brave Cardinals Bishops Jesuits and Fryars of the Church of Rome are Protestants in the poynt of Justification as compared with Mr. Br and that he sheweth himself in many particularâ— about this doctrine a Papist of a deeper dye than the more modest Papists yea than some of the most Jesuitized and Trentified Rabbi's among them This shall be the business of the next Chapter CHAP. XVII A comparing of Mr. Baxters Doctrine with the Doctrine of some of the more Modest and other more Trentified and Jesuitized Papists in which he is found more Antichristian than they Papists 1 IT is to be noted that the Scripture attributeth this imputation of Righteousness to no other thing but Faith 2 Faith hath not of it self any efficacy as it is our act to forgive and reconcile but all its vertue proceeds from its object namely Christ whose vertue and merit God hath disposed to apply to the sinner unto Justification by Faith on him 3 If it be enquired how the Law of Faith is distinguished by Paul against the Law of works even of morall works when Faith also is comprehended under the genus or kind of works for to beleeve is our work The solution is that to beleeve in him that justifieth the ungodly leaneth upon the Righteousnes of another to wit of God through Christ but other works do lean upon their own Righteousness every work is in or after it self good and makes him good that hath it 4 If Faith as it is a certain Act and of it self should procure Righteousness then were not Righteousness given freely God hath not used works to justifie as he hath used Faith that men should not boast attributing Righteousness to the vertue or merit of works 5 Faith is not counted to us for Righteousness as if it self were made our Righteousness but because it brings a Righteousness on man before God not as it is an act of man then Grace should be of works for to beleeve is a kind of work but of Gods will as he hath willed that Righteousness should be given to man by Faith and the vertue of Christ upon whom man beleeveth should be communicated to the beleever This is to count or impute Faith to Righteousness before God 6 Whereas we attain a twofold Righteousness by Faith an inherent Righteousness c. by which we become pertakers of Gods nature and the Righteousness of Christ imputed to us c. It remains to be enquired upon which of these we ought to lean or trust and to account our selves justified before God My judgment is that we are to rest to rest I say as upon a stable
thing that firmly susteineth namely the Righteousness of Christ imputed to us and not on the holiness and grace inherent in our selves For this is unperfect c. therefore we cannot for it be counted Righteous before God But the imputed righteousness of Christ is a perfect righteousnes in which there is nothing that can offend the eyes of God but all things that can abundantly please him Vpon this alone therefore are we to rest as upon a thing sure and stable and to beleeve that by it alone we are justified 7 This may undoubtedly be affirmed and it is the opinion of all Divines that God can justifie men and make them pleasing and amiable to him without any inherent quality or habits infused 8 To the same purpose and somewhat more fully speaketh Bellarmine The guilt or obligation to punishment saith he may be taken away without the infusion of Righteousnes For nothing hinders by how much the less God can will the not ordeining to punishment and the pardoning of the offence and the not accounting him for an enemy to whom he hath not granted the gift of habituall Righteousness 9 The Scope of James in the second Chapter of his Epistle is to shew that we are justified not by a barren but by a fruitfull Faith 10 The meaning of James is not that Faith without works is dead c. For it is evident that we are justified by Faith even without works But his meaning is that Faith without works that is which refuseth to work or is noâ— disposed to work is a dead Faith vain and justifieth not What therefore James alleageth out of Gen. 15. Abraham beleeved God to this purpose he alleageth it that he beleeved being in readiness to work Therefore he saith that in the work of offering his Son the Scripture was fulfilled speaking of his Faith prepared to work It was fulfilled I say as to the execution of that great work to which his Faith was prepared 11 If any where in Scripture thou hearest reward or wages promised know that it is no otherwise due then by Gods promise freely he hath promised freely he gives If thou wilt abide in his Grace and Favour make no mention of thy Merits 12 All Papists consentingly make the Merits of Christ the foundation of mans merits as far as he can merit Neither Faith nor works nor doing nor sufferings say they have any other vertue to merit then what they receive from the merits of Christs death then as they are dipt in his blood this makes them acceptable to the Father 13 When Christ saith of the woman Luk. 7. 47. Many sins are forgiven her for she loved much it is to be understood not that she loved much and so her much love was the cause of her great forgiveness but contrarywise that because many sins were forgiven her therefore she loved much 14 To be given freely and to be a retribution to works are as much opposit as that which is free and that which is from Justice or as not due and debt And this way of inference the Apostle useth in the beginning of this 4th Chapter viz. speaking of Justification by Grace 15 The work of Justice is wages or Reward and this way of Justice Grace excludeth whose work is meer gift or Donation 16 In this verse the Apostle concludeth that Christ hath saved us from all the evill both of fault and punishment That there is nothing of condemnation remaining to them that are in Christ because all judgment is taken away both to the fault and the punishment 17 It is certain that when originall sin is remited that the evils which it brought are not remitted and taken away as all finde by experience Notwithstanding they remain not under the consideration of punishment because the fault being taken away there can be no desert as to punishment remaining 18 I will remember their iniquities no more saith the Lord i. e. I will neither in this world injoin any Penance for them nor in that which is to come inflict any punishment for them So hath the Holy Ghost promised that our sins shall be forgiven by the New Covenant of Grace 19 In regard of the uncertainty of our own righteousness and the danger of vain glory it is most safe to repose our whole confidence in the sole mercy and benignity of God Baxter THe bare act of beleeving is not the onely condition of the New Cardinall Contarenus in Rom. 4. Covenant but severall other duties also are parts of that Condition The Common opinion that justifying faith as justifying doth consist in any one single act is a Wretched Mistake by the one act of faith he means Faith in opposition to works Aph. p. 235 248. Faith it self is our righteousnesse viz. our Evangelicall as Christ is our Legall Righteousnesse It self Toletus a Iesuite upon Rom. 3. is imputed to us for righteousnesse Aph. p. 125 126. It justifieth as it is an act of ours and as it is a morall duty App. p. 80. 102. Both Faith and workes make up one condition one righteousness one perfect righteousness of our own by Cardinall Cajetan upon Rom. 3. which we merit to be justified by God by the legall righteousness which is in Christ And consequently Faith doth not lean upon anothers and works upon their own righteousness but both make up one compounded righteousness and goodness which make us righteous and good also and by this righteousness and goodness deservers of justification salvation Aph. Thes 17 18 19 20 23 24 26. and scatteringly throughout the whole Book Faith as an act of ours and of it self with other workes procureth Righteousness And God hath used Toletus the Iesuit up on Rom. 1. works to justifie as he hath used faith even in the same kinde of causality So we have found Mr. Br. oft affirming as may be seen in our former quotations Let him deny that he holds the consequents of these two Antecedents if he will It is so far from being an error to affirm that Faith it self is our righteousness that it is a truth necessary for every Christian to know yea it both is our Righteousnesse and is imputed to us for righteousnesse The very personall performance of faith shall be imputed to us for a sufficient personall payment of righteousnes Idem in Rom. 4. as if we had paid the full duty and righteousnesse which the Law requireth This is the substance of his words though not his very words which being continued in terms of a Metaphor cannot without the citing of the whole similitude be expressed to the understanding otherwise Aphor. p. 125 126 129. There is a two-fold righteousnesse attainable by Christ at least in words the one an inherent righteousnesse in our selves consisting in the seed and acts of Faith Love Holinesse c. the other in Christ but made over to beleevers by Gods Donation if not imputation Both of these are absolutely necessary to salvation neither is
out to be children of the Devill though they brake not out in them into every particular Act as in the Devill The utmost that M. Br. can from such premisses conclude is that though in many things els it be yet in this one his Doctrine is not aspersed with Socinianism 2. I think it will not be objected by any to M. Br. that he is ambitious in all things to be a Socinian but in such only wherein the Socinians are most subtle Sophisters than the Jesuites and doe bring more shew of sophisticated reason to exalt Popery than the Papists themselves and with greater plausibility and craft do pervert the truth and simplicity of the Gospel more extolling mans pride and more nullifying Gods grace than any of the Champions of the Pope had either the wit or the audacity to do untill these had taught them If then in the before-mentioned point hee holds not with Socinus no marvell for then should he have relinquished the Papists I do not think that his wits do run in Pilgrimage to Racovia upon any other grounds but in love to Rome and in abhorrence of free Jerusalem Gal. 4. 26. 3. Hee should have cleered if hee could his Doctrine from other peeces of Socinianism which he knows it guilty of would be objected against him As 1. His To Credere or Act of believing justifying a sinner 2. All other works of obedience as our Acts or works justifying in an equality and in the same manner with Faith without mentioning any vertue that they have from the death of Christ to this end as the Papists teach but rather that Christ fetcheth vertue from these to justifie 3 His doctrine of Gods dispensing with and relaxing of his Law To which I might add in the 4 th place his canonizing and almost deifying Reason and that without any adject of renewed or spirituallized even of naturall and sophisticall reason to which he doth so frequently in his book almost sacrifice as to the sole and sufficient Judg of the Scriptures and guide unto salvation These things he cannot deny to be originally from Socinus though probably brought home to him by other dirty Channels and not dipt from the spring or rather puddle it self It is but a vain piece of his sophistry to defend himself where none will accuse and to hide himself in the dark where ke knows he should meet with opposition and accusation 4 He professeth himself to be but yet a puny in the School of Secinus hath read but little of their doctrine yet is much sowred with the Leaven thereof when hee hath more fully tryed the quaintnes depth of their sophistry in which his soul delighteth more than in the plainnes foolishnes of the Gospel who knoweth whether he may not following such a guide as reasō at length also sup up with pleasure what now he casteth off with defiance the Apost speaks somthing that may put us in fear of it 2 Tim. 3. 13. 5 Even this error of Socinus against which in speciall he protesteth his abhorrence he doth in generall maintain with as strong a Front as any of the Socinians They say that Christ offereth salvation to all but it is every particular mans particular faith and obedience their actuall believing and obeying following his precepts and treading in his steps to the end that in the end makes him to be actually and effectually a Saviour to them And this is the sum and full dimension of Mr. Brs. doctrine Only they make Christ the Prophet chiefly but this man Christ as Priest and King to be the Saviour In this they both agree that except we by our own righteousness become self-Saviours we shall have no salvation by him What else he hath in this Section for the vindicating yea magnifying of his doctrine hath been oft spoken to already and will a little after be examined again where hee useth the Tantundem though not literally the Idem of these words to apologize for his doctrine against other crimes imputable to it CHAP. XIX Mr. Baxters first Reason examined by which he endeavours to evince his Doctrine not to be repugnant to Pauls viz. that Pauls question in his Epistles and his question in his Aphorisms are not one but divers Pauls question what is that proper Righteousness by which we are justified from the laws malediction which the Apostle concludeth to be Christs satisfaction only But Mr. Brs. and St. Iames his question what is the condition of this Justification by Christs Righteousnes whether Faith alone or works also WEe have examined what he hath to say for the vindicating of his Doctrine from Popery and Socinianism we expected also that hee should in the next place have shewed or at least pretended some distance between him and the Arminians But it seems he glories in it as his Crown to be reputed one of their part Therefore leaving this he undertakes a greater Task an Herculean Labour in his third dispute of this kind viz. to cleer his doctrine from all opposition to Paul and the Scriptures This is a work indeed which if hee discharge honourably and full up to what he promiseth all will grant him the Lawrell above all the Angelical and Seraphical Divines that have in any age made use of ink and paper It is the sole thing that we long after for satisfaction Let him bless us with sound demonstrations to prove it wee shall all run after him And though some madd men may term us Papists Socinians Arminians or whatsoever else we shal gladly bear it to become his Disciples All what else he hath said would be superfluous to every conscientious man This alone would win him But how poorly and Pigmie-like this supposed Giant dischargeth this bold adventure let his owne words declare B. p. 307 c. Lastly let us see whether S. Paul or any other Scripture do contract I thinke it should be printed do contradict this And for my part I know no one word in the Bible that hath any strong appearance of contradiction to it The usuall places quoted are these Rom. 3. 28. 4. 2 3 14 15 16. Gal. 2. 16. 3. 21 22. Eph. 2. 8 9. Phil. 3. 8 9. In all which and in all other the like places you shall easily perceive 1 That the Apostles dispute is upon this question what is the Righteousness which we must plead against the accusation of the Law or by which we are justified as by the proper Righteousness of that Law And this he well concludeth is neither works nor Faith but the Righteousness which is by Faith that is Christs Righteousnes But now St. James his question is what is the condition of our Justification by this Righteousness of Christ whether Faith onely or works also This is the first part of this his Dispute Let us examine what force it hath to the end for which he useth it whether it reconciles Paul to Mr Br. or shew they never contradicted one the other 1
Divines to have sought an evasion Opera quidem legis saith he quatenus sine fide gratia Campian geruntur nihil habere quod ad justitiam conferant Caeterùm opera sanctorum Hominum cùm ejusmodi non sint sed fide gratia referta ideo justificari dicuntur verè coram Deo ex operibus suis non tamen tanquam suis i. e. The workes of the Law as they are done without Faith and Grace have nothing to contribute to Justification nevertheless the workes of godly men are not of that kind but replenished with Grace and Faith therefore are they sayd to bee justified by their workes yet not by workes as theirs but as wrought by the grace of God in them So also Vega the Monk Duplex est Justificatio altera ex gratia operandi infusa Andr. Vega de Just vag 751. altera ex debito Legis seclusa Gratia Excluditur ergo Justificatio illa quae fit seclusa gratia non Justificatio illa quae fit ex operibus gratia adjutis c. i. e. There is a two-fold Justification one of the Grace to work infused into us the other of the debt of the Law without Grace to enable That Justification is excluded which is sought after without Grace not that Justification which is of good works holpen by Grace And Hosius to Hosius elude that of the Apostle We are not justified by works Verum inquit ex operibus iis quae legis sunt aut quae liberi Arbitrii nostri propria existunt quae cum laborant imperfectione nihil ad justificationem conferunt i. e. It is true saith he of those works which are of the Law or done in the strength of Free-will only which in regard they have their imperfection cannot avail to Justification But as for such works as flow from our Free-will as it is set in operation by the over-powering of Gods Grace He concludeth otherwise Not to trouble our selves with what these Sophistical pratlers speak every and each of them severally let us take them collectively in one bunch and body as Mr. Pemble in his Treatise of Justification brings them in both head and tayle great and small thus disputing against Justification by the righteousness which is in Christ without any righteousness of our own intermixed Against this Doctrine they have two exceptions saith Mr. Pemble Pemb. Treat of Just if page 37. 1. That we are not justified by any work of our own viz. that we our selves do by our own strength without the help of Grace But yet we may be justified by some work which we doe viz. by the ayd of Grace such is the work of Faith 2. That wee are not justified by any workes of our own i. e. by any works of the Law but by a work of the Gospel such as Faith is we may be justified By this time it is enough evident that Mr. Baxter fights the Popes battel with the Popes weapons that as he maintaines the Popes cause so he rankes and files himself with the souldiers of the Popes Army who then can give any reason why hee should not be thought as sure a friend either to Christ or at least to Antichrist as are the Priests and Jesuits Onely if for no other yet for this cause Mr. Pemble deserves the brand of an Antinomian which in the following part of his Tractate Mr. Baxter gives him pag. 173. for disgracing this sophisticall shift which is common to other Papists with Mr. Baxter telling us in the fore-quoted place that this distinction of works done without Grace and works done by Grace was devised by one and consequently followed by others that had or have neither Wit nor Grace being a trick to elude the force of such Scriptures as exclude indefinitely all works from Justification c. A spightful speech thus at once to cast dirt in the faces both of Mr. Baxter and all his fratres or Fryars of the holy Mother Church of Rome No marvel if Mr. Baxter though he smooth him somtimes for his own ends yet doth carry him in mind to fit him a penny-worth for it when he thinks he hath caught an advantage against him Neverthelesse though Mr. Baxters ingenuity and plaine dealing seldom keep him company in this dispute and controvâ—rfie yet his subtilty and sophistry fail him never In his former positions before examined he affirms that besides the imputed righteousness we must have a personal righteousness inherent in our selves as absolutely necessary to salvation and justification Here now to make that his assertion sufferable he minceth it in its termes and in this Thesis calls it a performance of conditions and in the Explication an Acting of Duties what before he had called justifying righteousnesse Yea further tels us that some think it a self-ascribing and derogating from Christ to affirm our selves to be but the Actors of those Duties though we professe our selves to do it only by the strength of Grace When contrariwise the question is not about either the requisitenesse of Gospel duties nor about the strength by which they are to be performed herein if Mr. Baxter meaneth as he speaketh wee are agreed but about their office and end to which they are to be performed whether these duties are conditions of our Justification and that the end of our performing them ought to be that we may be justified by the righteousness which consisteth in their performance Doth hee meane to tune up a Palinodiam to recant and eat up his former assertions that he doth here so lenifie the roughness and correct the extravagancy both of his words and matter before delivered Nothing less but hee throws sugar after his poyson both that it may goe down the more quietly what he hath given already to his unwary Readers to drink and that they may be ready without suspition to drink deeper and more deadly draughts of the same poyson which thorow the whole sequele of this his Treatise he makes his business to temper for them I shall there answer more fully where he speakes more fully In the mean time all may see his dealing here to be not faire and logicall but fallacious and sophistical He tels us in the conclusion of his Explication that He will not digress from his intended subject so far as to enter here into a disquisition of the nature and workings of that Grace which doth enable us to perform these conditions but refers us to Parkers Theses de traductione peccatoris ad vitam What that Mr. Parker or his work is I know not But that Mr. Baxter will not here deliver his own judgement I think he doth well For if his judgement in the doctrine of Gods Grace working unto mans conversion and sanctification be not more sound then about the operation of the same Grace to mans Justification his silence will be farre more acceptable then his best argumentations to chaste ears and spiritual minds And little cause have we to expect any
evill is intended to them I shall give these few premunitions First that the question it self proposed by him is meerly captious If Faith be our Righteousness it self how is it said to be imputed to us for Righteousness as if Faith either as an act or duty or habit of Evangelical righteousness were imputed to us for and in stead of the perfect fulfilling of the righteousnes of the Law to Justification This he takes as granted whereas it is one cheif thing in question All the reformed Churches with their Teachers Pastors have unanimously denyed both that faith is our justifying righteousnes and that it is imputed to us for righteousnes otherwise then as it is instrumental to apprehend Christ to be our righteousness or the satisfaction which Christ hath made for us to be imputed to us for and instead of that righteousnes which consisteth in fulfilling the Law 2. As to the plain and positive answer which he makes to the question Though we grant what he saith of our unrighteousness Christs satisfaction and purchase of the prisoners yet in that which hee addeth of the covenant that hee makes with the prisoneâ—s so bought there is nothing but guilful ambiguity viz. that Whosoever will accept and belieâ—e in him who hath thus satisfied it shall be as effectual for their justification as if they had fulfilled the Law of Works themselves To the simple and upright man that is not acquainâ—â—d with Mr. Baxters subtilties this will seem as sound a Doctrine as if an Angel from heaven had delivered it But how wide is his meaning from that which his words seem to import 1 By faith he meanth not what he calls it An accepting of and beleeving in Christ as it is such an accepting and beleeving but as it is a qualification or act Comprehending in it all qualifications and good works besides as afterward he makes his meaning evident 2 When he calls it an accepting of and beleeving in him who hath thus satisfied he means not a beleeving and accepting of him onely under this notion as he hath satisfied that this shall suffice to Justification Nay our accepting him for our law giver and performing of all things that he Commandeth and Consequently all our obedience he will have to bear an equall part to Justification 3 When he saith whosoever thus accepteth and beleeveth doth he mean that this Faâ—th or beleeving is the alone Condition of the full justification of which he speaketh or upon whâ—ch alone Christ Covenanteth to justifie Nay he attributes no less to repentance Charity mercy holines every gift of the Spirit every work of the law to which we are moved by the Spirit and Called by the Gospel about their efficacy to Justification than to Faith it self Why doth he put off the Monkes Câ—wle and put on Pauls Cloke onely to deceive the simple for whom Christ hath dyed 4 When he saith It shall be as effectuall c. putting It next to the word satisfied and next to the Clause Him that hath satisfied there is the same ambiguity and falshood with that which I noted in the second place and whether he meaneth it faith or it satisfaction shall do the work 5 Where he saith It shall be as effectuall to Justification as if they had fulfilled the law of works themselves Here he utterly destroyeth the righteousness and satisfaction of Christ as any way imputed to Justification when elswhere he makes it equally necessary with the righteousness of Faith to Justification And thus he seems to leave the Papists which he would not do for a world I think which hold that we are justified both by Christs righteousness and our own righteousnes also and to joyn onely with the Socinians which hold that we are justified onely by faith imputed to us for righteousnes and not by the righteousness and satisfaction of Christ at all For if this beleeving be by the vertue of Christs Covenant as effectuall to Justification as our fulfilling of the law of works could have been then is there no need of any act or suffering or satisfaction of Christ to be imputed to us For whosoever shall fullfill the law shall have no need of a Mediator to justifie him Therefore neither he that so beleeveth c. But how hard is it for a man that oppugneth truth and propugneth error by meer fallacies against the light of his Conscience to keep himself free from Contradictions here he Contradicts what he had before said of Christ our righteousnes and in the application of the following similitude we shall find him in substance contradicting what he here saith Touching all those things which a little before I have affirmed his meaning to be so and so let none demand how I know what is in another mans heart himself in the following part of this Tractate fully discovers it as we shall finde by reading and examining it Neither will any question it but they that have not read him or in reading have not understood him Thus much to his plain answer before he discends to his similitude which he useth as sugar to lap roll it up in that it may go down pleasantly In this answer we finde nothing but words his own words not the least pittance of Gods word to authorize it he saith all and with the same facility we deny all Proceed we after him now to his similitude 3 As to his similitude first I except that Similitudines or rather Similia illustrant non probant Similitudes are of good use to illustrate and make Cleer to the understanding that which is before proved to be a truth but of no use to prove that which is unproved and the thing still in question That which Mr. Br hath before Concluded in his answer was that Faith is both the righteousnes it self by which we are justified and 2 that it is also imputed to us for and in stead of Justifying righteousnes viz. the very Gospel Righteousnes imputed for and in stead of the legall righteousnes He hath said it without any addittament of Scripture or reason to prove it so that his similitude here is brought to illustrate onely a phantasm of his own brain not any doctrine of Gods word 2 I except against the similitude it self as being in its matter and form altogether incongruous to illustrate the doctrine of justification by Faith which the Gospel holds forth to us because it hath besides other these following incongruities to it 1 Though as in the positive answer before we did so here we grant what he saith of the Tenants forfeiture unablenes to pay expulsion from the inheritance casting into prison his Landlords son paying the debt for him delivering him out of prison putting him into his house again as his Tenant having purchased the house and all to himself provided alway that all this be done by the will of the Father the first Landlord which Mr. Br doth not deny And though we pardon to Mr. Br upon Condition that
the Apostles termes by which he freely and without necessity in relation to his justice willeth the salvation of one and willeth not the salvation of another loveth or hateth imputeth not or doth impute sinne according to his own free will But justification in the latter sense is an act of Gods righteousnes or faithfulnesse by which hee faithfully and righteously accomplisheth his promises of grace in just â—ying and absolving them which believe by the sentence of pardon pronounced to their conscience according to the Gospel promise made to beleevers No word of promise went before justification in the former sense to make it an act of justice to fulfill that promise neither could it be an act of his natural justice that by the necessity of his nature he should so justifie and love any for then should none be either loved or saved freely of God when contrariwise it was in his own free choice to love or to hate to save or condemn all or mutatis vicibus to have loved Esau hated Jacob to have willed the condemnation of the saved and the salvation of the reprobated But the word of promise preceded justification in the latter sense which it is righteousnesse in God to fulfill therefore is it an act as well of his justice or righteousnesse as of his free grace 3. That Justification in the former sense is antecedaneous or foregoing to all covenants whatsoever 1. In order of nature though not in time it goeth before that covenant between the father and the son mentioned before in the examination of the explication of Mr. Baxters fourteenth Thesis and consequently before Christs undertaking to make or the fathers Covenant to accept what he should offer in satisfaction for the sinnes of the elect For in order of nature the willing of the end alway goeth before the willing of the means conducing to the end so that Gods willing mans righteousnesse and immunity from sinne and loving him to salvation must needs goe before his willing of Christs satisfying of his justice which was but a mean appointed of God to the constituting of man righteous before him that he might be pure from sinne discharged from condemnation and partaker of salvation which was the end Not that there was any precedency or following after of these acts of God in time for they are both coeternal and before all times Whom God hath loved and forgiven their sinnes them hath he so loved and forgiven in and through Christ from all eternity and through and for the merit of his satisfaction Much more doth this immanent act of justification go before not onely in nature but in time also the other temporary Covenants both the Covenant of workes made with Adam and the Covenant of Grace made after by Gospel promise by Christ or God in Christ to us and with us For these had all their being in time But justification in its other acceptation is subsequent unto and followes after and is an effect of not onely the Covenant of Grace but of faith it selfe which the Covenant of Grace calls for as a mean to attain it None else but a beleiver nor he until he actually beleeveth is thus actually justified or hath pardon of sinnes and absolution from wrath declared and pronounced of God in his conscience And thus to be justified in Christ or in God is one thing and to bee justified in our selves by God through Christ is another The former is an antecedent the latter an effect or consequent of the Covenant of Grace 4. That neither the mediation satisfaction of Christ nor much lesse our faith in Christ nor any of the most noble gifts of grace received from Christ either in their habit or operation do move God to justifie us so as to put into him a will to pardon our sins and accept us as righteous or to change his affection from nilling to will our forgivenesse and happinesse and from hating to love and accept us because he is God and therefore immutable and there cannot be any cause of Gods will rendred any more than of God himselfe For the Will of God is God himselfe and these immanent acts of God are God himselfe acting So that the substration of all that Christ hath suffered and by his sufferings satisfied for us and of all that we doe or can doe to put our selves into union with Christ and a conformity with the Will of God are in no wise the causes or conditions or antecedents of Gods first loving owning and pronouncing uâ— righteous and pure from sinne imputed but the effects thereof For he so loveth and justifieth all that in a Covenant way have been or shall be justified in their own conscience before ever they beleeve or live But that the intervening of Christs satisfaction for our sinnes and our recumbency upon and embracing of Christ so satisfying by faith that we may be justified do ad nothing to God which was not nor alter any thing which was in his will before but do onely lay and make a way by Gods ordination how he from all eternity loving and justifying us in himselfe freely may in a course most convenient to magnify both his truth and righteousnesse and withal his grace and mercy at length actually declare us just in and to our own consciences and for ever acquit us from sinne and wrath to the admiration of Men and Angels And so the former justification is a pure simple free and irrespective act of God having no causality out of himselfe moving him to it but the latter is a foederal Gospel or Covenant justification respecting his own Covenant before made Christs satisfaction already given and pleaded in heaven by Christ and mans faith in the mediator and promiser pleading the promise and the blood of the mediator sealing it upon all which he doth he cannot but actually pronounce and declare to the conscience of the beleiver his perfect absolution from sin and vengeance This latter is indeed the justifying wherof the Scriptures primarily speak as oft as they speak of justification by faith but so as the former is also in such Scriptures implyed Neither is the Scripture silent in reference to the former as considered without the latter or apart from it 5. That although all that are or shall be justified by faith in time i. e. each onâ— in the time when he so beleeveth were justified also in Christ secretly in God before they beleived or yet lived even from eternity Yet is there no man justified by vertue of the New Covenant and promise of the Gospel proclaiming right to the Lord Christ to forgivenesse of sinnes freedome from condemnation heirship to Gods Kingdom and all other benefits of Christs Passion until he doth actually beleeve and embrace Christ thorow him to have all those pretious promises made good and effectual to himselfe Though in Christ he were Lord of all before yet differed he nothing in himselfe from a servant from a child of
act absolved the conscience there followeth also the sense of our remission and justification So that besides this sense and apprehension there are two things in our justification by faith over and above that which was in our eternal justification in Christ viz. 1. A total diffidence and denyal of our own righteousnesse and a trusting and adhering wholly and onely to Christ for pardon and justification 2. Gods act upon our consciences declaring and assuring us that our debt is paid by Christ and we discharged upon the satisfaction which our surety hath made so that the obligation is cancelled and we depart with a full and general acquittance in our consciences Neither of these were there in the former justification i. e. in the justification in the former sense before mentioned and so that there is more than the bare knowledge of our justification in our being justified in the latter sense is evident Whatsoever else is conteined in the doctrine of the Protestant divines about this question we shall have occasion to adde in examining what Master Baxter saith here and afterwards to oppugn it But the chief thing is yet behind may some say viz. the proof of these positions by sound Arguments or by evidencing Scriptures and the main thing to be proved is that there is such a justification as is an immanent and eternal act in God It is Master Baxters lowd challenge pag. 93. Let all the Antinomians shew but one Scripture that speaketh of justification from eternity I will be so charitable as to conceive he expects not that we should produce Scriptures that say in those very words but that which is the Tantundem that say it in sense and substance else if he reject the matter and stick to words I shall challenge him to produce one sentence of all the sermons which Christ preached and in the whole doctrine that he personally delivered which speaketh at all of justification by faith But in words equipollent to Master Baxters the Scripture delivereth this doctrine which he opposeth viz. justification from eternity First What lesse is to be gathered from 2 Tim. 1. 9. God hath saved us and called us with a holy calling not according to our workes but according to his purpose and grace which was given us in Christ before the World began What can be said more fully to Master Baxters challenge He will not deny that the word saving doth include in it justifying for so should he both contradict himselfe and lose elswhere more than he can gain here by denying it It will then run thus that we are justified and called of God with a holy calling not according to our works these words destroy the end of Master Baxters opposing the eternity of our justification if our own qualifycation and workes may not come in collaterally with Christ to constitute us justified he little regards whether the act be immanent or transient but according to his purpose and grace which was given us in Christ before the world began and that is from eternity See the grace of justification and salvation was given us in Christ from eternity Object Master Baxter may probably object that the grace was indeed given us in Christ from eternity that is God had decreed from eternity to justifie us in Christ when we should come to beleeve in him to justifie or save us in time as to call us in time For the grace here mentioned given us in Christ before times is as much affirmed to be the grace of our vocation or calling as of our saving and justifying But our calling must therefore our justification also must be in time And thus by the grace given must be understood Gods gracious purpose and decree to give us salvation and justification So Mr. Baxter I know God hath decreed to justifie his people from eternity But it is done in time page 93. Sol. 1. That Covenant justifying or the declaring of us in our own Consciences to bee accepted as just in Christ is not denyed to be an act accomplished in us in time Nor yet that God decreed from Eternity to declare us in our consciences Righteous when wee should beleeve But the granting of all this nothing advantageth Master Baxters cause For neither doth this Act of God in time terminate upon our conscience nor his eternal decree so to justifie us beleeving in our selves deny that wee were justified in God and in Christ from Eternity 2. It appears not that the Apostle here speaketh of our calling to the participation of Christ and of justification and sanctification by him in time but rather of that calling mentioned Rom. 4. 17. That God calleth those things that be not as though they were As he called Abraham the father of many Nations when he was yet either childlesse or at least was in reference to the strength of nature without having without hope to have that child from whom those nations should issue and accrew to him as their father So God is said to have called us with a holy calling i. e. to have called and reputed us in Christ his pardoned accepted and adopted children even before we had any actual being in our selves Dedit qui erat accepit qui non erat Quis antem hoc facere potuit nisi qui vocat ea quae non sunt tanquam ea quae sunt Aug. de verb. Apost Sect. 3. If by Calling it be pertinaciously maintained that we must understand that which is done by the Ministry of the Gospel yet all this helps not Master Baxter at all in regard of the exclusive clause following not according to our workâ— where our salvation and justification as well as our vocation are denyed to have any dependance upon our own workes and qualifications as conditions thereof And the whole end of Master Baxters dispute against justification as an immanent Act in God is because if that be granted there will be no place for footing our works and qualifications as necessarily precedent conditions of justification And these fall to ground as well as if we were justified without them though in time as if wee were justified from Eternity 4. But how and whether we can truly and properly be said to have received Grace in Christ before all worlds whereby we are saved and justified and yet not to be saved and justified in Christ before the world was will come to bee examined in drawing forth the sense of other Scriptures which I shall annex In the interim this remaines unquestioned that although the Apostle speak here of Justification in our selves in time yet he affirmes it to be according to the Grace given us in Christ before the world so it was in Christ for us before though not in our selves till we beleeve Againe when the Scripture speaking of the Sonnes of Isaac saith of them while yet unborn and consequently having neither done good nor evill Jacob have I loved but Esau have I hated Mal. 1. 2 3. Rom. 9. 11 13. And
not see it to impute it as to the curse which Baalam was hired to denounce from God against Israel If God did not actually see iniquity and perversnesse in Israel then never did he see it in any people So degenerate had Israel been into the idolatries of the Egyptians so full of infidelity and murmuring in the Wildernesse untill the very day that God thus spake that unlesse wee will make him Plinies God that doth not descend in his providence lower than the starrie and Celestial Spheres to intermixe himself with earthly things for fear of attracting to himself pollution thence Wee must acknowledge that he saw iniquity in that people But he saw it not to impute it although he saw it clearly to reprove it and to purge it out of them Also in those Scriptures where God imputeth to men righteousness without works prâ—nouncing â—hem blessed whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sinns are covered and to whom God imputeth no sin but imputeth Righteousnesse Rom. 4. 6 7 8. 11. 2 Cor. 5. 19. To what time shall we reduce this imputation to find it in its Originall if not to Eternity When began God to account or reckon us righteous in Christ or not to impute sinne to us if he did not actually doe it in himself before time from eternity When else was the generation of the Elect reckoned righteous in Christ first and had their iniquity no more imputed but when Christs satisfaction became effectuall for them But this Master Baxter before page 23 24. acknowledgeth and maintaineth to be when Christ undertooke to satisfie in their behalf How should it be otherwise when Christ came to bee voluntarily bound for them then were they dismissed free When he became sinne for them they became the righteousnesse of God in Christ 2 Cor. 5. 21. At once their sinnes were imputed to Christ in point of satisfaction to bee made for them and they discharged for ever viz. in the Court where these things were transacted between the Father and the Sonne from making satisfaction in their own persons and reckoned perfectly righteous for ever in respect of vengeance and condemnation for sinne But Christs undertaking to satisfie for them and consequently the whole transaction and covenant between the Father and him about our Redemption and Justification and the said imputation of the sins of the Elect to Christ were all from eternity before the foundation of the world else how could they bee loved in Christ before the foundation of the world Therefore also their being accounted Righteous in Christ the not imputation of sinne unto them their absolution and discharge from condemnation and this Master Baxter will acknowledge to be Justification were perfited in God and in Christ before the foundation of the World Yea however some godly Commentators speak beneath the mind of the Apostle yet his words are plaine and full Tit. 1. 2. 1 Tim. 1. 9. That God hath promised eternal life and given us Grace in Christ before the world beganne How promised unto Christ our head and to us in him by that eternall Covenant between the Father and the Son And how given us in him but as Iohn saith He hath given us eternall life and this life is in his Son viz. laid up in him for us from eternity to be received in time into our selves as we receive Christ according to what followeth He that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son hath not life 1 Ioh. 5. 11 12. And the grace or life that in that 2 Tim. 1. 9. is said to be given us in Christ before times is yer 10. affirmed to be brought to light by Christ in these last times As the former seems the Immanent so this the Transient Act of Justification Else let Mr. Baxter produce any other season of such a parley and covenant between God and Christ since the world beganne He finds this project not to thrive in the hands of his friends the Arminians therefore as ashamed of it he layes it aside not touching it as far as I can remember in any part of this his Tractate As for that giddy and unbottomed devise of Grotius which Master Baxter laies down first in his own words Thes 15. pag. 92. and then in Grotius his words pag. 94 95. it hathin its due place received so much in answer as I think fit to be given to so bold peremptory an assertion as hath nothing but a dream for its father and neither Scripture nor shew of reason annexed to confirm it If it be objected that the Apostle in the aforeâ— quoted Chapter affirms faith to be imputed for righteousnesse and that it was so reckoned to Abraham when he was yet in uncircumcision and thence concluded that therefore we are justified in time even when wee beleeve wee grant the argument in respect of foederall justification or Gods transient act concerning declaring a man justified to his own conscience This alone the Apostle there asserteth and this is acknowledged by our Divines as hath been said before not to be untill we actually beleeve But this is nothing to the confuting no nor to the weakening of our Justification compleated in God and in Christ before the foundation of the world This I take to be the sum of the Doctrine which Mr. Baxter asperseth with Antinomianism which I beleeve no other Papist or Arminian had done before him As well and properly might hee have termed it Mahometanism for as agreeable is it with the principles of this as of that How consenting it is with the Scripture I leave to the unprejudiced Reader to judge The very flower of all our Protestant Writers have asserted it in such numbers as would fill up a page to name them Neither know I any one Writer which having not occasion to manifest himselfe to be of the same judgement hath ever expressed himselfe to dissent from it Till Doctor Downham excepted against Master Pemble for delivering it and that upon a strange ground that declared great inadvertency in the reading of the Doct. viz. That he beleeveth no man had so written before Mr. Pemble Within these ten years indeed some others of great place and name among our selves have disrellished it But as farre as I can by enquiry find have not communicated their reasons to their Brethren why they did it therefore ought not to be angry with them if by an implicite Faith they take not in the same disrellish also For my own part I must crave the liberty to see light for my guidance into the contrary assertion before I lay down this as darkness unto which I at least think my self to have been led by the light of the Word Yet with these Proviso's to prevent mistakes I adhere to his opinion 1. That this Immanent Act in God doth not deny his Transient Act of Justifying man when he beleeveth any more then this latter doth that former 2. That the Transient Act of Justification consisteth not onely in
Gods evidencing and manifesting to the beleever that he was really justified in God from eternity but also in Gods Actual and Judiciall pronouncing of the sentence of Absolution to the soul drawn to Gods Tribunal and gasping for pardon thorough Christ By means whereof the poor sinner is constituted as well as declared actually and personally righteous and that before God his Justifier 3. That as oft as the Gospel speaketh of Justification by Faith it is in reference to this Transient Act of God not that Immanent 4. That as I conceive the Covenant between God and Christ to be if I may so term it a fruit in order to that immanent act in God so I think also that the Covenant of Promise the Covenant under the Law the Covenant under the Gospel and the very Covenant of Works to be subservients to this Covenant made with Christ as a publick person representing us to work all coordinately to the advancing of the glory of Gods Grace to his Elect in justifying them in himself from Eternity Yet so that if I find a candid Teacher in any or all these to inform me better I hope I shall not be wanting to shew my docility I should have wholly forborn to touch upon this point so famous a Divine having lately taken upon him the Province but this was written before and it will not hinder his further prosecution thereof to which I hear hee will bee provoked As to Mr. Baxter let him pretend what he will of his zeal against this Doctrine because it is a Pillar of Antinomianism yet his conscience tels him that his rage against it is under this consideration as it is a slâ—dge to beat in peeces the conditional Justification Election Redemption and Grace together with the pride of mans Free-will Works and Righteousnesse uncertainty of Perseverance c. Which are the Articles of Faith common to Mr. Baxter with the Papists and Arminians If Justification as an immanent act in God from Eternity hold all these must fall and Master Baxter and his fellows bee crushed with the ruines thereof The worke of the next Chapter therefore shall bee to examine the force of his reasons and arts whereby he seekes to refute and subvert it CHAP. XXI Arg. Mr. Baxters Reasons and Dispute examined by which he endeavoureth to refute Justification as an Immanent Act in God and from Eternity B. A great question it is whether Remission and Justification be Immanent or Transient Acts of God The mistake of this one point was that that led those two most excellent famous Divines Doctor Twiss and Mr. Pemble to that errour and pillar of Antinomianism viz. Justification from Eternity For saith Doctor Twiss often All acts immanent in God are from Eternity But Justification and Remission of sins are Immanent acts Therefore c. By Immanent in God they must needs mean Negatively not Positively For Acts have not the respect of an Adjunct to its Subject but of an Effect to its Cause Now whether all such Immanent Acts are any more Eternall then Transient Acts is much questioned As for God to know that the world doth now exist that such a man is now just or sanctified c. Gods fore knowledge is not a knowing that such a thing is which is not but that such a thing will be which is not Yet doth this make no change in God no more then the Sun is changed by the variety of creatures which it doth enlighten and warm or the glass by the variety of faces which it represents or the eye by the variety of colours which it beholdeth For whatsoever some say I doe not think that every variation of the object maketh a reall chaâ—ge in the eye or that the beholding of ten distinct colours at one view doth make ten distinct acts of the sight or alterations of it much less doe the objects of Gods knowledge make such alterations But grant that all Gods Immanent Acts are Eternall which I think is quite beyond our understanding to know yet most Divines will deny the minor and tell you that Remission and Justification are Transient Acts which is true but a truth which I never had the happiness to see well cleared by any For to prove it a Transient Act they tell us no more but that it doth transire in subjectum extraneum by making a Morall change on our relatio though not a reall upon our persons as Sanctification doth But this is onely to affirme and not to pâ—ove and that in generall onely not telling us what Act it is that maketh this change Relations are not capable of being the patients or subjects of any Act seeing they be but meer Entia Rationis and no reall beings Neither are they the immediate product or effect of any Act but in order of Nature are consequentiall to the direct effects The proper effect of the Act is to lay the foundation from whence the Relation doth arise And the same Act which layeth the foundation doth cause the Relation without the intervention of any other Suppose but the subjectum fundam entuÌ„ terminus and the Relation will unavoydably follow by a meer resultancy The direct effect therefore of Gods actuall Justification must be a reall effect though not upon the sinner yet upon something else for him And thence will his passive Justification follow Now what Transient Act this is And what its immediate real effect who hath unfolded I dare not be too confident in so dark a point But it seemeth to me that this justifying transient Act is the enacting or promulgation of the New Covenant wherein Justification is conferred upon every beleever Here passing and enacting this grant is a transient Act. 2. So may the continuance of it as I think 3. This Law or grant hath a Moral improper action whereby it mâ—y be said to pardon or justifie which properly is but virtuall justifying 4. By this grant God doth 1. Give us the righteousnesse of Christ to be ours when we beleeve 2. And disableth the Law to oblige us to punishment or to condemn us 3. Which reall foundation being thus laid our relations of Iustified and pardoned in title of Law do necessarily result A matchlesse and egregious dispute able to tum all the immanent Acts of God into Transient yea if spell'd backward to turne all his Transient Acts into immanent of force enough to extort from Gods bosome all that waâ— in him from eternity that it shall abide in him or with him no longer Here is Doctrine fitted to purpose for his ignorant babes and tender lambs of Kederminster for whose sake and use this worke if wee will believe the Author was chiefly published No lesse proper for them than the Scripture in the Latine tongue by his holy mother appointed for the illumination of them that cannot read the English or their Country language What a supereminent measure of the Spirit hath this man received above Christ himselfe above Paul the most learned
of all Christs Apostles Christ was annointed with the Spirit to preach the Gospel to the poor Luke 4. 18. Isa 61. 1. And had received from the Lord God the tongue of the learned to speak a word in season to the weary Isa 50. 4. This mans Spirit carries him aloft in the Aire to clowd the Gospel from the poor and to darken with his vaporous Sophistry the things which God hath hidden from the wise and prudent but revealed to babes and useth the tongue of the learned to amaze and intangle not to refresh the weary Paul descended from all excellency of speech and of wisedom to the capacity or rather incapacity of the weak Christians in the Ministry of the Gospel 1 Cor. 2. 1 2. and fed the babes with milk 1 Cor 3. 1 2. And even then when he spake wisedom to the perfect because perfect it was not the wisedome of the World or of the Princes for learning of the World but the Mysterious and hidden wisedom of God and this he spake also not in the words which mans wisedome teacheth which the subtile Sâ—phistâ—rs made uâ—â— of but which the Holy Gost teacheth comparing spirirituall things with spirituall 1. Cor 2. 6 7. 13. This man casting away the words which the Holy Ghost teacheth and useth in the holy Scriptures sends his poore lambes to feed and seek spiritual pasture in the thorny Copses of his Master Aristotle and his Saint Suarez Saint Vasques Saint Fonseca's Metaphysicks and Metaphysical Jesuitical Divinity or in Seraphical Scotus his Quodlibetary learning all which understood just so much of the Spirit and mystery of the Gospel in this greatest point of Gospel Doctrine Justification as the unlearned people of Kederminster do of this and the like peeces of this tractate of Mr. Baxter As for the matter it self he that understands it not shall be as much endoctrined by it as he that understands it For my own part I professe I see nothing in it of any more force to refute the opinion which he here opposeth Eternal Justification or Justification as an immanent Act in God than there is in a Peacocks Feather to dash out all the teeth of a Lion For should wee grant to him all that he here saith the thing in question onely excepted That immanent in God must be understood not Positively but Negatively for that Acts have not the respect of an Adjunct to its subject but of an effect to its Cause that Gods justifying a man when he believeth argues no change in God any more than is found in the Sunne glasse or eye by the variety of creatures faces colours set before them as he mentioneth what of all this What will he conclude at length against that which he saith Doctor Twisse maketh the Major of his Argument vizt That all immanent Acts in God are from Eternity will he deny it Nay but distrusting the weaknesse of his reasoning he doth rather grant it But grant saith he that all Gods immanent Acts are eternal which yet I think is quite beyond our understanding to know This is the result of all his Argumentation as to the Major It is true notwithstanding any thing I have said or can say against it onely I think it is beyond our understanding to judge whither it be universally true or no. As to the Minor of Doctor Twisse his Argument vizt That Remission and Iustification are Immanent Acts he disputes with as little dexterity as to the Major Most Divines saith he will deny the Minor and tell you that they are but transient Acts. Be it so But what have those most Divines to say for the disapprâ—ving of the Minor 'T is true saith Mr. Baxter what they say but I could never have the happinesse to see or hear it well cleared by any For to prove it transient they tell us no more but that it doth transire in Subjectum Extraneum By making a moral change on our Relation c. But this saith he is to affirm and not to prove What then doth Mr Baxter himself to supply what is in his most famous Divines deficient This onely he tels us a tale of a Tubb about relations how they are made up and thence hee brings in his Conjectures to make clear how this change of our relation is made up that our Pactional Justification or Justification according to the New Covenant is a Transient Act of God which I was never so happy or unhappy in my slender reading to find any one that denyeth And all this being granted yet may it stand as a firm foundation that Remission and Justification are immanent Acts in God as hath been before and shall be if there be need more fully afterward shewed He that readeth Mr. Baxters dispute must acknowledge that I do him no wrong in this Epitomizing of it And let every rationall man judge whether the heat of the man in promising so confidently before pag. 93. and in charging all his impetus or impotent impetuousness here as against the Pillars of Antinomianism be answered with strength of reason to beat down what he would have down Gods Eternal acceptation and approbation of his beloved ones in Christ Jesus Thus feeble are the most Nervous armes in fighting against God and so vain in their imaginations as the Apostle saith do they become who whet their wits upon the threshold of humane literature to dispute against God But after this generall view of his dispute it shall not be impertinent to take notice of the particulars also therein enclosed And 1. Why doth he call Doctor Twisse and Master Pemble Most excellent famous Divines Doth he so stile them for the excellency of their Philosophick Scholastick learning He should then more properly have termed them Most excellent famous Philosophers or Schollars Except he will also make Aristotle because he in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 makes the Treating of God one part of that Doctrine which is to be handled in that Science which is commonly called Metaphysicks to be a Theologer or Divine also Or for their abundant knowledge in the Doctrine of Christian Religion together with their great ability and faithfullnesse to teach and maintain it against the Adversaries thereof Much more proper had it been then for him to have followed the Genius and policy of the chief Priests as in other things he doth that would not say any thing to the Praise of Iohn that his Baptism or Droctrine were Divine and from Heaven fearing lest the Lord Jesus should then urge upon them Why then did yee not believe him Mat. 21. 25. For so Master Baxter here opens his bosome to the dint of the like reproof Were they excellent Why doth not he close with them in their excellency No one of the Papists or Arminians against whose Sophisms and impostures these two Champions so excellently and famously propugned the truth of Christ hath more deviated from their doctrine i. e. the Doctrine of Christ which they defended than Master
and continued untill the full execution thereof That very pactional Justification which is by Faith being nothing but the execution of the decree of God from eternity For besides our eternal Justification in Christ before mentioned we acknowledge also an eternall decree in God to declare and evidence his Elect justified in their own consciences i. e. in time to send forth his Spirit into them and by his Spirit to work Faith in them and so to draw them unto Christ and by the evidence of Faith and evidence of the Spirit to declare themselves to themselves to be justified and pardoned for ever As for that of the respect of the Adjunct to its Subject wee leave to Master Baxter and his friends the Arminians They indeed make Pardon and Justification to bear the nature of Adjuncts yea separable Adjuncts and Accidents of God which may adesse vel abesse sine destructione subjecti that God may hate one day even to damn and love the next day to save and the third day convert this love into hatred againe and so consequently change more frequently then the Moon and yet be Gâ—d still Such shall we find Mr. Baxters doctrine suckt out by kissing from the lips of the Arminians But I forbear to speak further of it here reserving it for its proper place 4. As to the instances which he giveth to make questionable whether Imanent Acts are eternall viz. For God to know that the world doth now exist that such a man is sanctified or just c. Gods foreknowledge is not a knowing that such a thing is which is not but that such a thing will be which is not I answer that foreknowledge doth still imply and connote knowledge though knowledge doth not so imply foreknowledge He that perfectly in every respect foreknew an Ecclipse in every point of its time measure c. knew it also perfectly and could as fully and perfectly contemplate and speak of it in its fruition as presence future and present it was and is one to him Much more in God who hath created time for the measure of his creatures not his own being and motion Past present and future are much to us whose existence duration and motions are spanned and spinned out by moments But to God who is eternall dwels in eternity is eternity not circumscribed with place or time there is nothing former or latter no succession of present to past of future to present but all at once and at one view apparent to his eye or knowledge So that albeit he speakes oft in Scriptures to our capacitie of succession of times as if he together with us did act within the bounds thereof else if he should speake stil in reference to things of old and things hereafter to us as the eternall I AM not I was or I will bee our weakness would be beneath the comprehension of what he saith Yet these circumstances of time doe adde nothing to take nothing from nor properly square with him that is above time without the precincts of time comprehends time and temporary things within himself and is not comprehended or touched by them The now existence of the world the now sanctification of such a man are nâ—w and new in the knowledge of the Creature not the Creator Or let Mr. Baxter deny the world in that form state extent fulness c. in which it doth now exist or the now either sanctified or just man or the measure and nature of his Justification to have been from all eternity as apparent to Gods knowledge as it is in this now or present time of us his creatures 5. The comparisons or similitudes which hee bringeth of the Sun the glass the eye though they may have some appearance of freeing God from change in taking new notions into his knowledge in time which notwithstanding is but an appearance yet is there nothing in them from which to argue to the acts in general which are immanent in God These do but set forth the respect of natural causes and their natural effects either to other therefore are in a capacity to illustrate onely those acts that flow naturally and therewithall necessarily from God Not those that proceed from the liberty and freedom of his will which Master Baxter call Morall Acts and Morall Causes For of these there can be no Cause assigned but the free will of God And if they serve not Master Baxters turn in this respect they become utterly unusefull to him in the point of Justification Yet to this end doth he drive that God doth justifie and unjustifie pardon and unpardon change his will from love to hatred and from hatred to love to will the salvation of the same man at one time and his damnation at another without any change of his will or in himself The absurdity and impossibility whereof we shall afterward shew when Master Baxter in his following Theses gives me cause to do it So much of what he saith by way of answer to the Major or more properly what he saith to leave it unanswered For after all he concludes But grant that all Gods immanent Acts are Eternall And this is as much as if he had said All that hath been said is of no force to refell it Therefore I grant it As for his answer to the Minor That Remission and Iustification are immanent Acts in God though he speak much yet is it nothing to the pupose First he tells us that most Divines will deny it and tell you that they are transient Acts which is true An irrefragable Argument most will say it Ergo it is true True because most Will say it though hitherto possible they have never said it And how knowes he they Will say it â—eradventure he puts so much confidence in his following dispute that he accounts all will be captivated by it into his opinion Oâ— if he mean the most Divines have said it hee questionlesse means partly the Jesuiticall Divines for so Bellarmine indeed with others of the same School asserts or else more primarily the Arminian Divines speaking in this point what they have learned of Socinus who is as great with them as was Simon Magus with the Samaritans Yet even these also though they someâ—imes deny yet do they also sometimes when it may make for their advantage affirme Justification to be an immanent Act in God 2. Who is there that sees not his sophistry in shifting from him this proposition in stead of answering it Doctor Twisseâ— his proposition is Justification is an immanent Act in God To subvert this Master Baxter bestirrs himself to prove a seemingly but not really contradictory proposition viz. That Justification is a Transient Act of God A fallacy which in the Schools is called Ignoratio Elenchi And the reasoning of Master Baxter here is as proper and powerful as if Master Baxter should affirm that Apollo was above a hundred years old and I to overthrow his conclusion should assert and prove that Apollo
had never a beard There is no contradiction between these two assertions A man may be old and yet be without a beard So to affirm that Justification is a transient doth not contradict that Justification is immanent in God For both are true and may concurre without dashing either in the other The Eternall Justification deposited in Christ upon the Covenant made between the Father and the Son is immanent in God But that Justification which according to the tenor of the New Covenant made with man is declared and evidenced by God unto the Conscience of man is a transient Act of God So that the affirming and confirming of the latter doth not contradict the former but is a meer sophism an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a flinching to another question which I take to be in substance the same with the before named fallacy And so Master Baxter doth but Oleum Operam perdere toyl much catch nothing in disputing so profoundly and Metaphysically pa. 175. about the Doctrine of Relation and pa. 176. to make out according to that Doctrine a possible probable Transient Justification which is a conclusion that is granted him without dispute And yet the grant of it doth not at all weaken the Minor proposition of Doctor Twisse That Remission and Justification in the sense oft mentioned are Acts immanent in God The Subjectum Fundamentum Terminus together with the Ratio Fundandi are no more wanting in Gods Eternall justifying us in Christ than in his Temporaneous justifying us declaratively and evidentially to our own Consciences and might be no lesse confidently upon as good grounds of Reason particularized if we delighted as Master Baxter doth to bring Gods Acts under the rule and measure of the termes of humane Art and learning Which notwithstanding if wee either would not or could not do our Faith should in no wise stumble but having the infallible word of God for its foundation which we have before seen notwithstanding all that Master Baxter hath said against it to be for us it ought on it to rest contemning all the pillarage of humane reason and wisdome to lean thereon for sustentation In like manner the whole summe of Master Baxters dispute pa. 177 178 179 180. spent in raising and overthrowing an objection so raised about a thing never questioned is altogether impertinent to the question in hand None denies the conclusion or objects against it in that manner or any thing at all to the substance of it So that Master Baxter doth here but make knots to loose them and fight against the Air which never accepted of a Combat with him Neither is there any other or new thing in this peece of his dispute that hath not had before a sufficient examination and Answer At length pa. 180 181. he doth in a manner unsay all that he hath said and confesse that his whole dispute is little to the purpose and therefore doth more than half grant the question to them whom he hath made his adversaries For these are his words B. The second kind of Gods acts which may be called Justifying is indeed immanent viz◠his knowing the sinner to be pardoned and just His willing and approving hereof as true and good These are Acts in Heaven yea in God himself but the former sort are on earth also I would not have those Acts of God separated which he doth conjoin And he ever doth these last with the former But I verily thinke that it is especially the former transient legall Acts which the Scripture usually means when it speakes of pardoning and constitutive justifying and not these immanent Acts though these must be looked on as concurrent with the former Yet most Divines that I meet with seeme to look at pardon and justification as being done in Heaven onely and consisting onely in these latter immanent Acts. And yet they deny justification to be an immanent Act too But how they will ever manifest that the Celestiall Acts of God vize his willing the sinners pardon and so forgiving him in his own brest or his accepting him as just are transient Acts I am yet unable to understand And if they be immanent acts most will grant that they are from Eternity And then fai◠fall the Antinomians c. I know not of two things considerable in these words of Master Baxter which is more considerable either the power and victory of truth against his will convincing his Conscience or his hatefull and desperate detestation of the truth when his Conscience is convinced thereof The conviction of his Conscience that it is the truth which he hath here oppugned is sufficiently manifested in this that he confesseth 1. That Gods knowing the sinner to be pardoned and justified his willing and approving hereof to be true and good and a little after his willing of the sinners pardon forgiving him in his own brest and accepting him as just to be Celestiall Acts Acts in heaven yea in God himself indeed immanent 2. That he seeth not how they can ever be manifested to be transient Acts. 3. And if immanent Acts most will grant and himselfe hath nothing to contradict that they are from Eternity His willfull hatred of this truth so confessed is plainly enough hinted in these words Then fair fall the Antinomians i. e. then in despight of the Devill yea malice it self the Assertors of this truth abide unquenched yea untouched This torments his spirit and makes him to gnash with the teeth in fury like him that cryed O Galilaean thou hast the Victory He will not have those acts of God to be separated which he doth conjoyn And who ever separated or was so madd as to divide Gods Knowledge and Will from his either immanent or transient Acts that hath ever said that God in imputing our sinnes in reference to punishment to Christ Jesus in forgiving absolving and accepting the sinner hath done either he knowes not what or that which he would not willeth not But to conjoyn what the Lord hath divided in point of time his constitutive justifying us in his own brest thorow Christ before time with his declarative justifying us in our own consciences in time were to confound heaven and earth eternity and time together in one The question is not whether when God hath by a transient act justified a sinner he knoweth and willeth his justification But whether God did not both knowingly and willingly so justifie and pardon him through Christ within his own brest from eternity or whether Gods accepting him in Christ and knowing him to be so accepted be begotten in the will and mind of God now in the end of time and so God is not the same God in his Knowledge and Will which he was from eternity He verily thinks that the transient Acts of God are meant in those Scriptures which speak of justification by faith for so I conceive he would be understood And I verily think that he is not enough sound in his
said we may easily perceive without any further and new summing up the particulars what the assertions are which may be truly and properly charged with Antinomism and gave first the Term of Antinomism to the Assertors Now let us see also what the Tenents of Master Baxters Antinomists are and what opinions he curseth to Hell unde the name of Antinomianism Their Heresies according to Master Baxter are these which follow 1. That Justification is or there is a Justification from Eternity pag. 93. 2. That it is an immanent act in God pa. 173. 3. That our Evangelicall righteousnesse by which we are justified is without us in Christ pa. 109. or performed by Christ and not by our selves pa. 111. 4. That Justification is a free act of God without any condition on our part pa. 169 170. 5. That God seeth not sin in his justified ones pa. 207. 6. That we must not work or perform duties for life and salvation but from life and salvation or that we must not make the attaining of justification or salvation an end of our endeavours but obey in thankfullnesse onely because we are saved and justified pa. 324 325. 330. 7. That they acknowledge no condition of life but bare beliefe in the narrowest sense that is either belief of pardon and justification and Reconciliation or affiance in Christ for it so also they acknowledg no proper damning sin but unbelief in that strict sense as is opposite to this faith i. e. the not believing in Christ as our Saviour Append pa. 20 21. 8. To these he addeth many more or rather mostly the same in other Termes out of the Marrow of Modern Divinity I mean the book so entitled which in due place we may as far as shall be thought needfull examine Appen pa. 100. to pa. 106. Lastly he seems to accuse them of all the prodigious Doctrines which Colyer Spriggs Hobson and the rest of that Anabaptistical Enthusiasticall and phanatick strain of men have if indeed they be of them that have at any time said and unsaid whether such as they have derived from Nicolas Stock David George Thomas Muncer John of Leyden Cniperdolins c. and others of the same stamp in these latter times or such as either of them hath by a kind of Necromancy raised up from the ashes of Manes Samosatenus Arrius and other cursed Hereticks of antient times All these he would willingly inure upon the Antinomians i. e. upon them that will not say the same things with him who speaks the same things with the Jesuits in the point of Justification This he doth subtlely and underhand to beguile his unwary reader Append. pa. 99. Of all these onely the fift hath been as far as ever I could finde by any considerate and judicious person nicknamed with Antinonism untill Master Baxter and some other of his fellowes in these late years have taken upon them a Soveraignty as Lords and judges from Peters Chair which they have Canonized again to baptise with new names all the Doctrines of the Gospell that crosse the pride of their selfe-righteousnesse And even the sift it self in Scripture sense as I have before shewed is a Soul-comforting truth which we must no more suffer to be wrested from us than our Christ and all our happinesse by him vizt that God seeth not sin in his justified ones to impute iâ— to hate and condemn them for it Hee seeth not the guilt of any sin upon them having laid it and the condemnation to which it obliged upon Christ Jesus But that God doth not simply see sin in them either Originall or Actuall to act about it in a way of grace and truth according to his promises in Christ This I take to be a foppery the fruit of mens willfullnesse and pertinacity to have their own words and phrases stand as impregnable as Christs truth lapt up in them Let it be called Antinomism or Antigospellism or what else Master Baxter will stile it I shall not herein withstand him To me the truth and spirit of the Doctrines conteined in the word sufficeth the letter I shall no further propugn or oppugn than as through it the spirit and truth is levelled at To the first and second I have before spoken and let any man upon earth be produced that ever charged them with Antinomianism saving Master Baxter himselfe or one of his Disciples And if they be Antinomian Tenents then is Master Baxter one of those Antinomians being forced after his long and impotent cavill against as last to grant both as wee have before seen To the third I have also before answered Neither hath Master Baxter named nor can he I am confident name one man but either a Papist or at best an Arminian that before him hath either called Faith and Gospel obedience the Evangelicall Righteousnesse by which we are justified Or that hath denyed our gospell righteousnesse by which we are justified to be without us in Christ So that he pronounceth here all the orthodox of all Churches yea all professed Christians saving Papists Arminians and perhaps Socinians to be Antinomians So much of Antichristian pride and impudence possesseth him To the fourth and seventh I answer 1. That they are contradictory either to other For how can both be true that they affirm Justification to be a free Act of God without any condition on our part and yet teach also Faith or affiance in Christ to be a necessary condition of our Justification who shall take upon him to defend him that arraigneth and proveth himself to be a slanderer 2. Yet may it without contradiction be both affirmed that Justification as an act immanent and Eternall in God is absolute and without condition but as it is transient and Terminate upon the conscience of a believer not to be without condition 3. Because the Scripture never nameth Faith much lesse works the condition of Justification in time to question whether Faith itself may not more properly be termed by some other denominâ—tion in reference to justification than a Condition is no peece of Antinomism but a point of Christian prudence to consider and examine specially at such a time when Master Baxter and other of the Popes Factors under the word condition bestirre themselves to re-erect Justification by works 4. That Justification by that which Master Baxter abasingly calleth bare belief or affiance in Christ the Saviour i. e. by Faith without works is no Antinomian Doctrine but the Doctrine which Christ and Paul and the rest of the Apostles have preached and sealed with their blood that which all the reformed Churches have unanimâ—usly maintained and do maintain unto this day and that which Antichrist with his vassalls and others apostatized from the reformed Churches to them do pursue with fire and fury unto ruine With whom though Mr. Bax. come up in the rear driving Jehu like furiously in his Charriot to destroy it yet shall it stand impregnable as the prime Article of their Creed who either
are or shall be justified and saved To the sixth I shall reserve my answer untill I come to examine the forequoted places of Master Baxter together with his impetuous and fiery dispute against it Append. pa. 76. and thence forward unto pa. 98. where wee shall find him combating against this opinion with as much gallantry and possibly with no lesse successe than the Dragon fought against Michael In the interim I doubt not thence after the question rightly stated to maintain the position as our Divines most eminent in the reformed Churches have taught it to be the sacred and sound Doctrine of the Gospell as free from Antinomism as the contrary assertion of Master Baxter is full of Popery The examination of the things conteined in the eighth and ninth I shall leave to their proper place particularly to be examined because they have a multitude of particulars congested in them requiring particular answers From all that hath been said upon this point wee may take up two observations in reference to Master Baxters dealing therein 1. That there is no truth and sincerity in his pretence of fighting against the Antinomians truly so called throughout this his Tractate For he medleth not at all with their erroneous Tenents But contrariwise that he useth meer fraud to inure the odious Term of Antinomism upon the choice and most pretious Doctrines of the Gospel delivered by Christ and his Apostles and taught and defended by the most able and most faithfull Ministers of Christ in all ages to make both the pure Gospel and the defenders thereof to stink in the nostrills of unread and unwary men subtlely concealing the names of those worthies which have taught and maintained these truths lest their light and glory should bring his Doctrines contrary to theirs into suspition first then to examination and lastly to an abhomination among men How much more candour do we find in his fellowes the Arminians or Remonstrants These in all their Tenents wherein they dissent from the Protestant Churches do not load the contrary opinion with the imputation of Antinomism but throughout their Apology ever and anon ingeniously confesse of that which they hold Contra quod fere hactenus creditum est in these and in words equipollent acknowledging still their opinions to be wholly against the judgement of the best Churches and Divines before them Master Baxter it seems hath more of the serpent in him than they had therefore followes the steps of our English Arminians rather than those in Holland before them For as these blasted the sacred truths which they opposed with the name of Puritanism so doth this man with the name of Antinomianism to make them odious A trick which the old Pharisees had learned of their Father Jo. 8. 44. and propagated to their sonns the Papists to besmear the Doctrines of Christ with the infamous titles of Schism Nazarism Heresie Who then will lay it as a fault to their Children in our times if they doe also Patrizare Secondly that he hath the like fraudulent design in mingling with the truths of the Gospel which he brandeth with Antinomism the dreams of Colyer Spriggs Hobson and other Ranters if indeed these be such for I have not read them giving the same brand to these as to the former by this feat endeavouring to instill into the mindes of them that will be deceived 1. That all the hereticall and blasphemous Doctrines which these men teach are Antinomian 2. That the truthes which the one side teach against Antichrist and the Blasphemies which the other side vent against Christ are of one Nature and the former to be no lesse abhorred than the latter Now if the Pamphlets of these men be so abhominable as Master Baxter affirmeth and others also that are both able to judge and faithfull to give their judgement have told me for I acknowledge my self never to have been so ill at leisure to spend two hours in reading what any or all of them have written he dealeth unjustly to yoake them together with those tenents which he falsely accuseth of Antinomism yea with those that are rightly fathered upon Antinomians indeed For granting that they hold some Tenents of the Antinomians yet this neither argueth that all their heresies and blasphemies are so many peeces of Antinomism Nor yet that the Antinomians speaking the same things with these in the points proper to their sect do also close with them in their abhominable Doctrines that are totally alien from the Antinomists Tenents Else because Master Baxter joineth with the Jesuits in the Doctrine of Justification by works we might conclude that in all points he is a Jesuit holdeth not onely lies equivocations and mentall reservations but also murthers Massacres Seditions Powder treasons and all other practices devised in hell it self to be Meritorious works if done to the advancing of Romes interest And because he holdeth the very Act of believing to justifie with the Socinians therefore he is in all other the most blasphemous of their assertions against Christ and his blood a Socinian also or on the other side that the Jesuits and Socinians are in all things because in some things of the same judgement with Master Baxter Were it the truth of Christ which Master Baxter goeth about to propagate he would doubtlesse seek the propagation of it in Christs Spirit and Christs way When we see such serpentine windings and crookednesse in his disputes who can but judge that it is the work of the Old Serpent about which he is imployed Neither the truth of Christ nor Christ which is the truth have any such impotency in them as to need any deceits and shifts for their support When Mr. Baxter yea when all the Jesuits have raised all their mists of Sophistry Sycophancy contumely c. as thick as the smoke from the bottomlesse pit to dim the beams of Gods grace shining forth in the Sunne of Righteousnesse not one Raie thereof shall be thereby diminished it shall hide the pure light of the Gospell onely from them that perish whose eies the God of this World hath blinded 2. Cor. 4. 3 4. No one Soul shall be thereby beguiled save those onely that were made to be taken and destroyed 2 Pet. 2. 12. A large Catalogue more of the Antinomian Tenents are set forth by Master Anthony Burgess affixed to his Lectures against them Which he saith he hath gathered from Luthers works against them I will not question his faithfullnesse in collecting them whether Islebius and his Disciples directly maintained such Doctrines or whether Luther in prosecuting them enumerates these as absurdities that would follow upon their Doctrine whether they are imaginary or reall opinions of any sect of men the most of them are detestable But I find not that either Master Burgess or Mr. Bax can name any one creature under the Sun that hath declared by words or writing that he held them If they can we shall joyn with them as dissenters from and excepters against
Princes Son pittieth and mediateth and by Mediation obtaines a pardon from the Prince and brings it under hand and seal puts it into his hand for life while standing at the Princes Law bar he was by Law condemned yea condemned himselfe The pardon thus freely given he cannot but gratefully embrace He questions not none can question that findes him guilty in Law from what bar the pardon came Hee was a dead man in Law It must therefore needs be from free Grace meer Mercy that the pardon came The receiver acknowledges it pleads onely the grace of the pardoner not any righteousnesse of his facts or innocency in the things whereof he is accused or deseâ—ts of former service or purposes of future loyalty for his life Such is the justification which the Gospell holds forth The multiplication of Barrs which Master Baxter maketh at which â—his New Covenant justification is transacted is a confection of fancied Beares Bulls and Bubbles to distract poor Soules from the plain way and sound Comfort of Justification B. Thesis 41. pa. 194. That saying of our Divines that justification is perfected at first and admits of no degrees must be understood thus That each of those Acts which we call justification are in their own kind perfect at once and that our Righteousnesse is perfect and admits of no degrees But yet as the former Acts called Justification do not fully and in all respects procure our freedom so they may be said to be imperfect and but degrees to our full and perfect Justification at the last judgement Here Master Baxter advanceth himselfe not so much as Doctor and Moderator as Popelike to command and impose a sense yea his sense upon that which the Divines in generall of all the Churches have said That saying that Iustification is perfected at first and admits not of degrees must be understood thus c. very Magisterially at the best for what if not all of them yea none of them meant so would be so understood This nothing hinders though they will not yet they must be thus understood What necessity or authority lieth upon them and their writings that they will they nill they must be understood or upon us that although we know them to mean otherwise yet we must so understand them No other power or reason from Heaven or Earth is here specified besides Master Baxters placitum his pleasure he so defineth so determineth How fair doth he bid for Peters Chair and Golden Pantofle Jupiter in caelis Caesar regit omnia terris What authority the Pope challengeth over all the Canonicall Scriptures and the penmen thereof the same doth Master Baxter over the Ecclesiasticall writings and the Authors thereof It is but one step higher to the Triple Crown But ipse dixit and we must be silent else Master Baxter will be angry and crown us with the fooles Cappe and put upon us the Ignoramus and Dulman Welâ— how must they then be understood viz. that each of those Acts saith he which We call Iustification are in their own kind perfect at once and that our Righteousnesse is perfect and admits not of degrees Hâ—re I crave leave of the Magister to put some few quâ—stions 1. Whom hee meanes by the word Wee when he saith which we call justification doth he not mean Chiefly yea onely himself if not let him name any of the Divines which deny against the Papists the Magis minùs or degrees of Justification but denies also against the same Papists the twofold justification and maintaines against their Sophisms justification to be but one one onely justification I acknowledge my selfe not to be that I am not ambitious to be Librorum helluo I have in sacred Doctrines but one Master Yet as many of our Divines as I have read disclaim and detest this twofold justification not onely as a Popish but also as a new and Jesuiticall invention devised for the perverting and subverting of that justification which is by grace That this man therefore takes upon him to affix his Index expurgatorius not to their words but to their meaning that they must be understood in another sense than they meant because he will so have it is not onely to usurp to himself a power above the Pope but above God himself also who doth not cannot make that which was not to have beene the meaning of any man in what he hath said 2. When he saith they must be thus understood I demand what the necessity is either simple and absolute or respective and secundum quid a Necessitas praecepti or Necessitas Medij If simple and the duty injoyned by some precept where is that precept of God or man to force the understanding to believe a lie if respective or in order to some end to which such a misunderstanding subserveth as a mean let us know what that end is whether good or evill if evill we must not do or think one evill understand falsely against understanding and Conscience for the promoting of another evill This is worse than devilish for he can say video Meliora Deteriora sequor Or if good their damnation is jâ—st that report saith the Apostle we say much more that would have us say let us do evill that good may come thereof Ro. 3. 8. Or must Master Baxters will or peremptory conclusion stand in stead of a Divine precept to necessitate and determinate our understandings to a false principle Get thee behind us Satan wee owne no such Masters 3. When he saith we must understand Each of those Acts i. e. Gods justifying us first in title of Law secondly in sentence of judgement are in their own kinde perfect not in the respect that either hath to other but that the latter addeth a perfection which was wanting in the formâ—r I might demand first who besides the Wee in Master Baxters mouth hath called the latter Justification But of this already 2 What new thing as an encrease or further degree of Justification doth the latter Act adde to the former He acknowledgeth that the former which is the sole New Covenant Justification doth acquit from Accusation and condemnation Thes 38. yea from all guilt and obligation to punishment pa. 189. and all this at once not by degrees as in this Thes 41. what new things or farther degree doth the latter feigned justification adde to this Himselfe attributeth no more to this which he calls justification in Sentence of Judgement This saith he acquitteth from Accusation and condemnation Thes 39. where now is the Magis here or the Minus there the most Eagle and Lâ—ncean eye cannot discern it in the substantialls we must therefore seek it in the circumstantialls of justification This he seemes to place in two things 1. The former only in Title of Law the latter in sentence of judgement at the bar 2. The former to be from the accusation and condemnation of the Law simply the latter from the same accusation and condemnation pleaded by Satan This
is the whole difference which he putteth as may be seen by comparing the 38 and 39 Theses together To the first I demand whether the Justification in this life be not an acquitting by sentence of judgement at the bar Whether it be not a sentence of absolution pronounced to the soul and conscience of a sinner drawn to Gods bar and there impleaded and confessing it self guilty of sin and of condemnation Who was there ever of them whom Mr. Baxter vouchsafeth to call our Divines that held otherwise Where then is the difference Yes saith Mr. Baxter this latter is at the publique bar I answer so is the former even that bar of God at which all that ever have been are or shall be justified have and shall have the sentence of Justification pronounced to them Object But this latter shall be at the great and grand generall Assizes before all the host of heaven earth and hell whereas the former was but between God and the soul Sol. This is nothing else but a publick declaration to the world what God had before granted to the soul which indeed in judicatures of men which are mutable and deny oft in publick what they had before acted in secret may be of some consequence to him that is so publickly acquitted but in respect of Gods judgement who cannot be inconsistent with himself and whose acts in secret are as unreversible as those in publick here is nothing added to the bulk of justification nor any thing but the solemnity of the manifestation of it after the man is before compleatly justified to the circumstances thereof To the second I have spoken before that Satans managing of the accusation and condemnation of the Law is more properly if not onely in this life and let Mr. Baxter prove if he can any such accusation that hee shall manage against us in the day of judgement If he can prove it the thing proved proves no addition or encrease which shall be then made to our present justification because here also we are acquitted against all accusations pleaded by Satan If he prove it not then there is in this respect a magis in the circumstance of justification here beyond that imaginary justification in the day of judgement 4. When he addeth that we must understand our Divines affirming our Justification to be perfect at first and to admit of no degrees that they mean our Righteousnesse is perfect and admits not of degrees I demand which righteousness himself meaneth that which he calls our Legal or that which he calls our Evangelical righteousnesse or both If the first Christ made Righteousnes to us this is indeed the righteousness the whole and sole righteousness the Gospel righteousness which we have given to us unto Justification a righteousness without us which admits not of degrees And this righteousness is fully given us in this life and not reserved to be given us in the day of Judgement This must we are content Mr. Baxter should put upon our understandings that in this sense we must understand our Divines But this hews in peeces what Master Baxter addeth in this Thesis making the Justification here unperfect and to have but degrees toward our ful and perfect Justification at the last judgement for if so the imperfection here and the perfection there must be either in the righteousnesse given as I conceive or in the act of giving the righteousnesse Not the former for Christ whole Christ according to Mr. Baxter is the righteousness given in this life Neither will he I suppose affirme that we shall have a doubled Christ or two Christs given us for righteousness at the last judgement Nor the latter For I will not entertain so slanderous a thought of Mr. Baxter to thinke he will say that God gives Christ but unperfectly and seemingly here but there perfectly and really Nay hee gives Christ perfectly and really here There he will but own and manifest his former gift and grant Object But the former acts of Justification do not forthwith and fully bring a total freedom and glorification after them as doth this last at the last judgement Sol. This is not ad idem Mr. Baxter here flirts from the question which is of Justification it selfe to the consequents and effects of justification which are total freedome from inherent sinne and from all sorrow glorification and in truth also the sentence of life at the last judgement which is not another justification but the fruit and effect of our present justification The supreme power of the Nation grants to Mr. Baxter great immunities and a large demeans to be entred upon at the next general Assizes for the County and withall appoints the Iudge of the Assizes openly to proclaim it The Iudge doth according to his commission and Mr. Baxter taketh possession by the vertue of the aforesaid grant will he say the former grant was unperfect in comparison of the Iudges proclamation at the Assizes because it put him not into the present possession are not as well the Iudges proclamation as his entry the effects of the former grant But how far and in what respects the possession of the effects of justification is suspended hath been before examined Iâ— he meaâ—s that which he calls our Evangelical righteousness consisting in Faith and Gospel obedience Thes 20. that we must understand this righteousness to be perfected at once and not to admit of degrees this were totally to confute and confound himself in whaâ— hee hath written and all the Papists his darlings in what they have written about the point of justification and would put the lye upon most passages that remain to be examined in these his Aphorisms This therefore I cannot conjecture to be his meaning I would he could as wel discharge himself of doubleness as of silliness and simplicity In the 42 Thesis hee seemes to have had a purpose to have brought somewhat against that which they whom he calls our Divines do assert of the perfecting of Justification at once in the due and proper sense of their own meaning and to yeeld forth some shew of reason that contrary to their assertion Justification begun admits of many steps and degrees one after another tending to the perfecting thereof To this end he brings in a whole legend of stairs mounting up from the bottom to the top of Justification A sack full of Heterogeneous bugbears like that army of Solomon whereof Mahomet speaks in his Alcoran consisting of men beasts angels devils creeping flying swiming crawling and hopping creatures all marching together in so comely and harmonious order as confusion and ataxie can devise with such an army comes Master Baxter here against our Divines with a catalogue of God and Christ justifying Men justifying Angels justifying self justifying acts justifying passions justifying relations justifying qualities justifying One taking it from anothers hand and each amending what the other had left defective so that at last the sinner so shifted from hand to hand
accounts it for ours c. and so before he pronounceth us he maketh us righteous Let us be rude with the Apostle as long as we stand fixed in the doctrine of grace with the Apostles That Mr. Baxter speaks more Logically after the Sophisters and captivates himself to their learned errours however he may applaud himself therein we conceive it to deserve more pity then envie 6. To his fourth Question I shall speak but little because I understand him but little Neither have I that edge upon my dull brain to discern whether in his acutenesse he doth more contradict others or himself or what other least cause he hath to contradict granting what he grants save â—â—ly the spirit of contradiction The formall cause of justification in his Thesis we have thus B. The formall cause is the acquitting of the sinner from the accusation and condemnation of the law or the disabling the law to accuse or condemn him The question that he conceiveth will be put to him here to answer is B. Why he makes not the imputation of Christs righteousnesse the formall cause To this he answers p. 218. B. That imputation is not the forme is undeniable The forme gives the name especially to actions that have no matter Imputation and Justification denote distinct acts and how then can imputing be the form of justifying c. Here before I can understand the depths of Mr. Baxter I must be resolved by him in some Queries 1. Whether justification hath its being before it hath its form For the form doth more unexceptively give the being then the name and is in order of nature before the thing formed or named 2. If not Whether then there were ever a justifyed man after the tenour of the new Covenant upon earth or ever shall be such For if the acquitting of the sinner from the accusation and condemnation of the Law or the disabling of the Law to accuse or condemn be the form of justification then is justification unformed and without being according to Mr. Baxter untill the day of Judgment Untill then he binds all hand and foot under the threatnings and curse of the Law as we have seen in and under his 9 11 12 13. Thesis and how long after he doth not yet certifie us so that if this be the form of justification then after his principles there neither is nor shall be either justification or any justifyed person as long as the world lasteth either in heaven or upon earth Except Mr. Baxter will say the law is so dealt with by Christ as Cnipperdoling was by John a Leyden of the highest magistrate and judge made tormentor or hangman deposed from being any longer a righteous Accuser Judge or Condemner of guilty persons and made an Executioner and Tormentor of them whom no Law accuseth or condemneth 3. Whether the Law accuseth or condemneth of any thing else but of sin And if not Whether Gods acquitting the sinner from the Lawes accusation and condemnation be not his acquitting the sinner from all sin that might expose him to the Lawes accusing and condemning This Mr. Baxter must grant except he will say a man may be acquitted from the Lawes yet left unto the Devils accusation and condemnation as he seems before to hint But this is no other acquitting but from the frying-pan into the fire from a just accuser and Judge into the tyranny of an unjust slanderer and destroyer Such a justification with its form we decline as damnation it selfe if Mr. Baxter can with his Sophistry charm the Devill let him grapple with him 4. Whether the imputation of righteousnesse and the not imputing of sin be not the same thing neither an act distinct from the other but each connoting and implying the other For so he answers the question denying imputation to be the form viz. imputation of righteousnesse without the adject terme of diminution the righteousnesse of Christ knowing well that some of the most considerate of the Antipapisticall Divines place the form of justification in the imputation of righteousness not in the imputation of Christs righteousnesse viz. which he hath done These two Quaeâ—ies he must grant us except he will sinke from his own principles and contradict himself 5. Whether then there be any difference between Mr. Baxters form of justification and that form which he impugneth Whether the acquitting of the sinner from the Law from sin which exposeth to the Lawes accusation and condemnation be not the same thing in substance with Gods imputing of righteousnesse and not imputing of sin to him What hath the one of these save words alone more or lesse in it then the other They must be Mr. Baxters Lynces eyes that are busied in the speculation of Democritus his Atomes and Platoes Ideas that can discern the difference my blunt fancie is uncapable and uncomprehensive of it B. I believe saith Mr. Baxter that this imputing doth in order of nature goe before justifying And doth not the form in order of nature go before the thing formed how else doth the form give it its ultimum esse This more proves then denies imputation to be the form B. And that the righteousnesse so imputed is the proper ground whence we are denominated legally righteous and why the Law cannot condemn us This also makes more for us then for him He tels us before that the forme gives the name Now to be Legally righteous in Mr. Baxters phrase is to be righteous in the righteousnesse of Christs satisfaction He that is so is justifyed in title of Law as Mr. Baxter termes it and here treats of it if then it give denomination of legally righteous it gives the name of justification in title of Law except he will say that a man is legally righteous in Christ before Gods gracious act makes him such if so then is imputation the form of justification because it gives it its name He concludes well B. It is a vain thing to quarrell about the Logicall names of the causes of justification if we agree in the matter Yet see I no other ground that Mr. Baxter hath to take up this quarrell against the whole stream of Protestant Divines in refusing and oppugning the form of justification which they give but to quarrell about names and words The form which he substituteth in place of theirs being the same with theirs in substance and differing only in Logicall not Theologicall names and words Unlesse some will say there is a reall as well as a nominall difference between the disabling of the Law to accuse of sin and Gods not imputing sin i. e. between the Lawes acquitting and Gods acquitting from sin between the Lawes not imputing unrighteousnesse and Gods imputing righteousnesse which is all one as if I should put a difference between the pardon that disables the Law of the Land from accusing and condemning of a malefactor and a pardon which acquits him from the offence which the same Law had power to accuse him of
or between the not accusing or condemning of a man and the not imputing any thing to him to his accusation and condemnation CHAP. XXV Arg. of the Causa sine qua non or the condition or the instrumentall cause and whether faith be the instrument And in what sense it is so The absurdities wherewith Mr. Baxter chargeth this doctrine removed and those that follow his doctrine in part particularized TO the first Question we must apply our selves somewhat more fully because in answer to the former Questions Mr. Baxter seems to me to have aimed chiefly to the ostentation of his wit and Logicall both acutenesse and profoundnesse to make himself thereby admired and formidable But in answering this and the next he collects in one all his subtilty and Sophistry â—o beguile and deceive if it were possible the very Elect. And indeed if he carry these two Questions in captivity to his own sense and purpose he shall thereby make at least a seeming way by which to introduce all his Popish soul-subverting errours about justification which follow and hang as at the tayle of these Questions His words in the Thesis are B. The Causa sine qua non is both Christs satisfaction and the faith of the justifyed As much as he thought would be objected against his putting Christs satisfaction in the same place and degree of causality as a collaterall with faith he hath spoken to in his answer to the second Question and the firmnesse of this his answer hath been there examined But what concernes faith that which he thinks he shall be opposed in he formes into two Questions Explication pa. 214. 1. Why he makes it not the Instrumentall cause 2. Why he makes it the Causa sine qua non The former which is his 5. Question he applies himself to answer pa. 219. in these words B. To the fift Question perhaps I shall be blamed as singular from all men in denying faith to be the instrument of our justification But affectation of singularity leads me not to it 1. If faith be an instrument it is the instrument of God or man Not of man for man is not the principall efficient he doth not justifie himself 2. Not of God for 1. It is not God that beleeveth though it 's true he is the first cause of all actions 2. Man is the causa secunda between God and the action and so still man should be said to justifie himself 3. For as Aquinas the action of the principall cause and of the instrument is one action and who dares say that faith is so Gods instrument 4. The instrument must have influx tâ— the producing of the effect of the principall cause by a proper causality and who dare say that faith hath such an influx into our justification Here I know not whether we have more of the subtle serpent or of the roaring Lyon 1. He useth his winding Sophistry to intangle 2. His daring threats to them that being not intangled will be so bold as to contradict him Let us examine what efficacy there is in either or both these and first in his Sophistry To insinuate or as the Apostle saith to creep into the hearts of his Readers to deceive them he tels us Perhaps he may be blamed as singular from all men in denying faith to be the instrument of justification It seems he doubted that some of his Readers for lack of acquaintance with many Authours upon this subject would not or could not take notice that it is a new doctrine which he here delivereth and so he should be robbed of the glory of his new invention That the praise thereof might therefore wholly redound to him he tels them he is the first of men that ever saw and taught Faith not to be the instrument of justification that herein he is singular from all men Bâ—t had he not rubbed his forehead that with open face he thus vindicateth to himself that which he hath received from the Priests and Jesuites Let him name himself singular and abhorrent from all Protestants yea from Christ and his Apostles not from all men he is singular and alone in this and most his assertions from the Orthodox from whom but holds it in common with the whole herd of Antichrist to whom he is fallen Doth not Bellarmine deny that faith can truly be said to justifie us except it doth obtain and in some sort merit Justification from God Do not all his brethren with one voice shake off the instrumentall causality of justification and make it as a perfect quality or good work to merit it A two fold subtlety yea falshood is there to be found therefore in this his insinuation 1. That he affirmes himself singular in this point to catch after an usurped praise to himself as if he had seen what none in the world before him had seen 2. In pretending it to be a new doctrine thereby to draw disciples after him in a time wherein the ears of men itch after new in disdain of sound and true doctrines But further to insinuate he tels us that affectation of singularity leads him not to it We beleeve him without oath or protestation It is not the desire of them that are of his hair to trudge single but accompanied with a whole Brigade of disciple under their conducting and seducing unto Rome But let us come to his Arguments B. If faith be an instrument it is the instrument of God or Man But of neither of these Ergo not at all an instrument His Proposition or Major we grant him And it were enough and full to that which can be expected to refell his reasons which he brings for the proof of the minor Yet because my drift is not so much to answer him as to stablish some weak and unwary Christians against his impostures I shall endeavour first to confirm what he denyeth and seeks to shiver and then to examine the strength of reason which he brings against us When he saith in the Minor that faith is the instrument neither of God nor Man in justification What if I should undertake to prove and defend it to be the instrument of both He speaketh here of Justification as taken Passively declared to and termined upon the conscience For if we should mention justification as taken meerly Actively for that internall eternall and immanent act in God not transient upon an extraneous subject but hid in God before the world was or any justifyed or unjustifyed persons began to live or be Mr. Baxter would be ready to deal with us as did the Jewes with Steven Act. 7. 57. stop his ears and cry out against us with a loud voice Blasphemy blasphemy Yet in this sense we acknowledge that saith is neither Gods nor Mans instument of justification But in that sense which alone Mr. Baxter here taketh justification for that gracious act of God by which he dischargeth for Christs sake the sinner from condemnation by vertue of the new
but those of Mr. Baxter as far as they relate to it do follow justification 4 The scope of these Scriptures is to urge upon all that draw near to God in prayer to purge out all hatred and purposes of revenge against their brethren from their hearts and the argument by which this duty is pressed is that else it as also any other reigning sin allowed within the heart will make both their persons and prayers an abomination to the Lord. God will not hear will not forgive such as bring while they bring such a devill in their hearts before him they shall depart without any more answer of peace to their souls then they are disposed to give to their brethren against whom they are provoked From these Scriptures therefore we may gather how they are qualifyed which are forgiven and justifyed not by what qualifications and works they have obtained justification That whosoever hath tasted of the pardoning grace of God the same by beholding in Christ the glory of Gods grace as in a glasse is transformed into the same image of grace love mercy goodnesse pity c. towards his brethren as himself hath found in God and sees shining forth upon him from the face of God through Christ 2 Cor. 3. 18. That in whomsoever this mercy and goodnesse of God appears not whatsoever he boasteth of faith and devoutnesse in prayer yet it is certain that he is empty of justifying faith and of the justification which is by faith and so we have here some description of the justifyed and unjustifyed not a precept of duties by which the unjustifyed may attain to be justifyed 5 The three last quotations of Mr. Baxter do subvert utterly all that he built by the former quotations For these Scriptures affirming it to be not indefinitely prayer but the prayer of faith which saveth and obtaineth forgivenesse that not the asking simply but the asking of the faithfull in Christs Name is prevalent that not every one but we know that whatsoever we aske we have our petitions granted do manifest that whatsoever vertue is in prayer it floweth from faith prayer it self is a dead work unlesse faith enliven it and all our works of mercy and forgiving dead works untill faith becomes the living root from which they derive life or rather hath breathed out the life which it hath suckt from Christ our life into them That it is Christs name and mediation that makes all accepted with God and that not to all but to those peculiar ones of Christ that are in union and conjunction with Christ it being a priviledge peculiar to true beleevers that is here mentioned under the word we we have it saith the Apostle the world hath no part in it Esaus forgiving Sauls confession of sin and Simon Magus his prayer for forgivenesse may as in Mr. Baxters last quotation Act. 8. 22. perhaps be so far heard and forgivenesse obtained from the Lord as to the exempting of them from some temporall vengeance but not to interest them in the justification of the Gospell If the cryes and workes of any of these dogs bring them in to partake of the childrens bread it is but in mans judgement alone before God it was their faith and cleaving to Christ yea being in Christ by faith that of dogs made them children and partakers of the Gospell priviledges So these Scriptures in no wise prescribe as I said the duties by or for which we are but delineate the Acts and qualifications of those that are justifyed by Christ So much in generall to the summe of these Scriptures as for the meaning of the severall Scriptures and how Mr. Baxter argues from them as the Papists how the Sophisters for so our men fitly tearm the Papists endeavour from them to prove justification by works and the Protestants answer and confute them I leave to the Reader to fetch from the Commentators themselves whom they shall finde to speake fully as Mr. Baxter knoweth but concealeth not daring to enter the Lists with them The third duty which he brings as coofficiating with Pag. 236. faith to justification is a complexion of duties the whole swarm the vast mountain of duties all that men and Angels can devise to be duty yet that he might declare how he can measure and contain so huge an Ocean in his fist he crusheth them so together as that they may be held in the concave of two Eg-shels love and sincere obedience and their works Fain would he have followed Bellarmine as his shâ—ddow at every turne but he finds his genius somewhat differing from Bellarmines The Cardinall was for prolixity Mr. Baxter is for brevity Bellarmine puts love in the fourth place as operating to justification with faith and thence proceeds to more But Mr. Baxter follows him here to love and weary to go after him any further in particulars shakes hands in love with him and parts from him with good leave in respect of his method but in his matter to hold with him throughout the work The first Scripture which he quotes is the first which Bellarmine alleadgeth thus B. Luk. 7. 47. though I knew in Pinks interpretation of that It seems Pink hath given the right interpretation of that Text which all the Protestants give But Bellarmine interprets it otherwise and must not Christ mean as Bellarmine will have him The words of the Text are these Wherefore I say unto thee her sins which are many are forgiven for she loved much But to whom little is forgiven the same loveth litle What doth Mr. Baxter hence conclude the same with Bellarmine her much love was the ground of the forgivenesse of her many sins and so her love went before her justification and forgivenesse which followed as the fruit or consequent thereof Bellarmine and his fellowrs put authority and holinesse upon this interpretation else would not Mr. Baxter who makes right reason the foundation and rule of his Religion forswear his wit and reason to follow it For it is evident from the Text to all that are not sworn enemies to the truth that the Lord Jesus reasoneth here from the effect to the cause and not from the cause to the effect from the womans great love that many sins were forgiven her causing this love not from the greatnesse of her love as from the cause why so many sins were forgiven her So runs the Text Which will love most he to whom the creditor hath forgiven 500. pence or he Ve. 41 c. to whom he forgave 50 The answer was I suppose he to whom most was forgiven Thou hast well said saith the Lord so it is with this woman she loves much because much was forgiven her Who sees not here the forgivenesse to be the cause of the love not the love of the forgivenesse Or will Bellarmine which affirmes this woman to be Mary Magdalen or Mr. Baxter after him say that while she was yet a Harlot and had seven Devils in her that
slaves future service is not a condition but a consequent of his present redemption But let us see now whether Mr. Baxter with this paint of that which he cals right Reason do fight against God or Man doth resist the placits of men or else the holy Ghost himself He required before that all might be tryed by Scriptures Let us now bring his doctrine to the touch-stone I shall not repeat all or any of the Scriptures before alleadged or that might be further alleadged against him One arrow out of that holy quiver one Scripture out of the whole body of Gospell doctrine shall suffice to smite to the heart to death it self all that he goeth about here with fine flourishes of wit to establish Eph. 2. 8 9 10. thus speaks the holy Ghost By grace are ye saved through faith and that not of your selves it is the gift of God Not of works lest any man should boast For ye are Gods workmanship created in Christ Jesus to good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them That the word Saved is an equipollent here with Justifyed if there should be any that will deny yet Mr. Baxter will and must affirme unlesse he will beat in pieces one of the chief pillars of the fabrick erected in this book and overthrow what he hath built In this truth he must joyn with us though in other he estrange himself from us The same Act of God being called justifying as it dischargeth us from the state of our misery as considered to be a state of sin and saving as it delivereth us from it under the consideration of it as a state of condemnation and vengeance Mr. Baxter will grant cannot but grant this And then there will naturally drop from this Scrtpture these following positions 1 That the justification or salvation of the Covenant of grace is by faith 2 That it is not of works but by faith in opposition to works 3 That the very works which flow from our union to Christ and to which we are new created in Christ Jesus even those which Mr. Baxter calleth the righteousnesse of the Gospell are excluded from bearing any part with faith in our justification 4 That the not justification by works doth in no wise hinder the beleevers performing of them for they are created in Christ Jesus their hearts are new wrought by the Spirit to a holy delight in them 5 That God hath not ordained them to justifie but for the new created and justifyed in Christ to walk in them 6 That to teach otherwise of works the very works of Sanctification is to depresse Gods grace and to extoll mans boasting and vain-glory 7 Even these gospell works and righteousnesse are excluded from having any part in justifying not only as collaterals with the satisfaction of Christ but also as collaterals with faith i. e. from bearing a part either in causality or conditionality with faith to justifie I challenge Mr. Baxter and all his Legall and Anti-evangelicall disciples here to deny any one of these positions to spring naturally from this Text. And if the the holy Ghost here speak all this then by it all that Mr. Baxter speaketh throughout this whole Tractate for justification by works is by the breath of Gods mouth blown to the curse as in many things I shall by Gods help shew afterward At the present what he speaketh of works comprehended in faith to justification is here shaken off as a Sophisticall phantasticall Antiscripturall dream the holy Ghost here by the positing of faith in expresse words rejecting works Gospell works all that Mr. Baxter makes a part with faith in that which he cals Evangelicall righteousnesse from all and any copartnership with faith in saving or justifying so excludes all as that he denyeth that justification by grace can any more stand if the best Gospell works of the best Saints are put in any cooperation with faith in the promoting of it All the rest that he hath in the explication pa. 240. and thence to pa. 243. is wholly besides the question which is not whether works and duties be reducible to faith or in what respect every particular qualification and duty standeth to it But whether reduced or not reduced it doth by Gods appointment help with saith to justify us before God This we have found to be an usuall feat of Mr. Baxter where his assertions are confident and peremptory but his proofs of them light and shadie to devise in such case some witty passage wherewith to divert the considerations of his reader from the shame and nakednesse of his foregoing Arguments And this most probably was his drift and craft here having given us but words in stead of Arguments to prove that works are comprehended and implied in faith in all such Scriptures as attribute justification to faith only that the emptinesse and nothingnesse of his argumentation to make this good may not appear to the reader he tols him a way to attend to a subtle and plausible dispute of the relation that every good endowment and work hath particularly to faith In which discourse of his we will not examine how many things are true and how many false for if they were all true they are nothing to the thing in question viz. whether in the severall relations that Mr. Baxter makes them to stand to faith or in any other they help with faith to justification and that so as that when all these with faith cojustifie we may be yet said to be justifyed by faith alone When he hath spoken all by meer affirming without confirming he thus indeed at last concludeth pa. 243. B. So then when you invite a man to your house it is not necessary to bid him come in at the door or bring his head or arms or legs or cloaths with him though these are necessary because all these are necessarily implyed Even so when we are said to be justifyed by faith only or when it is promised that he which beleeveth shall be saved all these forementioned duties are implyed and included How ecliptick is falshood but sincerity open and full No man invites another to his house but to some end either to taste of some dainties or hear some good tidings or see some excellent work or for some other end He should have named the end and we would grant him all thus that as much as the door head legs armes clothes of the invited do partake with the mouth in the act of tasting or with the eye in seeing or the ear in hearing so much when we are invited to Christ do other duties and workes partake with faith in receiving him to justification A third argument if indeed it be not one and the same in substance and differ only in words from the former he draweth from a wide wilde vast confused and incircumscriptive definition of faith begotten of his own brain and now first as an overgrown monster born into the world and baptized
life of Christ sacrificed for us to be the Ransom Mat. 20. 28. 1 Tim. 2. 6. The Price by which we are purchased and redeemed from thraldome 1 Cor. 6. 20. 7. 23. The propitiation for our sins through faith in his bloud Rom. 3. 25. 1 Joh. 4. 10. i. e. that one and only act of Christ by which our sinnes are expiated the justice of God satisfyed and his wrath appeased so that we finde him now a God propitious and gratious to us But if we will hear the Scriptures speaking at large and articulately confirming this position that the satisfaction made by Christ is begun continued and perfected meerly and wholly in and by Christs sufferings in steed of many Testimonies which the Scripture affordeth I shall pitch upon two disputes only of the Apostle in the Epistle to the Hebrews The former in cap 9. beginning at the 11 and 12 verses That Christ being become an high Priest c. by his own bloud entred once into the Holy place having obtained for us eternall Redemption I need not explain the words for the edification of any that hath but read the Scriptures and taken but overly into his consideration how that which was yearly under the Law figured in the act of the high Priest the type was at length effectually accomplished by Christ the Antitype Again ver 13 14. If the bloud of Buls c. sanctifyed to the purifying of the Flesh how much more shall the bloud of Christ which by the eternall Spirit offered himselfe to God without spot purge your conscience from dead works c. An undeniable vertue and efficacy in the bloud of Christ alone without any further acts of Christ himself to purge the conscience e. i. to absolve and justifie is here affirmed And further ver 15. He is the Mâ—diatour of the new Covenant that by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions under the first Testament they which are called may receive the promise of the eternall inheritance i. e. the eternall inheritance promised by means of Christs death and not by his Legislative righteousnesse And ver 26 Christ now once at the end of the world hath appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself What sin All sin according to that of John The bloud of Christ purgeth from all sin 1 Joh. 1. 7. And if from all sin what sin is there left for Christs giving of Lawes to put away or what of justification left out for it to perfect or of full satisfaction not made for it to compleat Lastly ver 28. Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many How did he bear them but as the Apostle saith He hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law being made a curse for us Gal. 3. 13. and in bearing them on our behalfe he satisfyed justice on our behalf And this is affirmed to be by offering himself for us not by giving Laws to us or injoyning duties upon us His second dispute is chap. 10. where the Apostle having mentioned the feeblenesse of the sacrifices offered by the Law to take away sin brings in Christ offering himself to accomplish what these could not and declaring his ready obedience to fulfill that will of God written in the volume of Gods book to offer himself a sacrifice for sin with a Lo I come by this will of God saith he we are sanctifyed by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all ver 5 10. He saith not we have our consecration to be holy by the commands of Christ c. but by the offering of his body And that by sanctification is to be here understood purification and justification I think it will not be denyed However ver 12. it is added that he having once offered sacrifice for sins for ever sat down at the right hand of God his sitting down and resting argues his work the work of our redemption and justification perfected in every degree and number His rest is as Gods rest was from the beginning then the work of Creation now of Redemption being made absolutely perfect the rest followed and where had this work its beginning progresse and perfection In his once offering of sacrifice for sins for ever Nothing here of Christs Law-giving and rule from the bottom to the top of the work of Redemption or Justification The sacrifice alone satisfyed so far all things of man are here excluded as that nothing else of Christ is required As it is more fully yet expressed ver 14. For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctifyed His perfecting Mr. Baxter will not deny to be his making of perfect satisfaction for them and this is done by one offering of Christ Will Mr. Baxter be so audacious as to oppose the holy Ghost with his Nay telling that there must be somewhat else besides this offering viz. Christs Law-giving as part of the satisfaction made for us Lastly to put all out of doubt and besides the bounds of cavilling what the Apostle should mean here by sanctifying and perfecting this also is unfolded in plain words ver 17 18. viz. The taking away of their sinnes and iniquities And where the remission of these is there is no more offering c. satisfaction is made to the full and no need of any addition for the perfecting thereof I acknowledg there are many things required to condition Christ that he might be an effectuall offerer and offering else could not the redemption and justification which are by him have been completed or the satisfaction made for us been perfect Yea that after the work of satisfaction as formerly of Creation finished and a totall resting from any further addition to it yet the Father worketh and the Son worketh hitherto in the businesse of governing and preserving of what is so created and repayred yet this doth not at all hinder but that full satisfaction is made by the alone offering of Christ And here once more I call upon Mr. Baxter and all his adherents to bring forth any one testimony of Scripture to prove that either Christs Law-giving or any other act of Christ besides this one of offering himself a sacrifice for sin is by the Scripture in whole or in part affirmed satisfactory to God for our justification Let them not as Mr. Baxter before doth from pa. 54. to pa. 61. bring their peradventures and may bees and possibles and verisimilies for are the conjectures and results of a working and self-conceited brain to be laid as a foundation whereon to build an Article of our faith But let them bring the oracle of the Word testifying either that Christ hath done or God hath required of him or accepted from him such and such works in part of satisfaction Else our ears will be deaf to hear mans prattle being attentive in such matters only to the voice of the holy Ghost This shall suffice for the opening and confirming of ouâ— Tenet untill it shall
be further opposed Now let us hear what Mr. Baxter hath to say against us or for the proof of his Assumption B. Pa. 255. That Christ as a Saviour only or in respect of his Priestly office only is not the object of justifying faith But that faith doth as really and immediately receive him as King and in so doing justifie this I prove thus If he mean otherwise then I have before declared to be the judgment of Protestants and as he terms them godly and learned Divines of singular esteem in the Church of God pa. 53. and one of them to be of more authority then many writers and readers Appen pa. 12. he feigneth an Adversary and beats the winde But against our Assertion as I have explained it or for his Assertion setting up the commands of duty by Christ together with the sacrifice of Christs death to be the object of faith as justifying if he say any thing we are to examine it As for the rest which he speaks besides the purpose we shall look on it and neglect it B. 1. The Gospell doth not reveal Christs offices as separated but as they are revealed so they must be beleeved This makes not against us but against himself We make Christ in his offering himself for us our Melchisedek King Priest and Prophet he divides in restraining the Kingly office only to giving of Lawes c. and not at all acting mediatorily in his death B. 2. Neither doth it offer Christ in his Pristly office only as separated form his Kingly though it may sometimes presse the acceptance of him in one respect and sometimes in another but as he is offered so he must be received We grant him all but what hence will result to his use B. 3. Scripture no where tyeth justification to the receipt of him as our Priest only therefore we must not do so Scripture every where affirmeth Gods justice to be satisfyed by the blood of Christ and sends our faith to that fountain alone for purging therefore we must do so B. 4. How commonly doth Scripture joyn his offices together calling him our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Hath Mr. Baxter in a dream met with any bug-bear that doth otherwise B. 5. If we receive him not as King we receive him not as entire Saviour for he saveth us not only by dying for us but also by reducing us really into communion with God and guiding us by his Lawes and protecting and perfecting us by his government and subduing our enemies 1 The husband is in some sense said sometimes to save the wife and the wife to save the husband and the Ministers to save themselves and others 1 Cor. 7. 16. 1 Tim. 4. 16. Must therefore the husband or wife or Minister be made the object of saving or justifying faith as such â— The question is not here how many acts of Christ of men of our selves are instrumentall to our salvation but what act of Christ hath satisfyed for our sinnes by the application whereof we are constituted actually righteous are pardoned and justifyed before God This we maintain to be Christs offering himselfe to God for us and let Mr. Baxter disapprove it 3 We deny not that Christ hath other operations by which to perfect and sustain the justifyed to eternall life yea to prevent our faith infusing it and directing it to himself crucifyed and satisfying for us and to follow it by supporting it and holding us fixed by faith to himself thus satisfying for us and to stabish his Kingdome within us in peace righteousnesse and joy in the holy Ghost yea that in these Christ must be made the object of our faith for our confirmation dependence and comfort But as justifying and fetching from him the matter of justification or rather the righteousnesse by which we are justifyed it must know nothing else but Christ and him crucifyed as before hath been proved and we wait to hear from Mr. Baxter or any of his disciples one Scripture to confute it B. 6. His Kingly office is a true part of his entire office of Mediatourship Now the sincerity of acts in Morall respects lyeth in their true suitablenesse to the nature of their objects As God is not truly loved except he be loved entirely so neither is Christ truely received except you receive him entirely It is a lame partiall faith and no true faith that taketh Christ only in the notion of a deliverer from guilt and punishment without any accepting of him as our Lord and Governour though I beleeve that the hope of being pardoned and saved is the first thing that moveth men to receive Christ yet doe they being so moved receive him as their Lord also or else they do not receive him sincerely Sound without substance no more to his purpose then if he had said nothing What one Protestant ever held it a sincere faith that apprehends Christ to justification and not for illumination and sanctification also will it then follow that illumination and sanctification are justification or that faith as these wayes acting doth justifie Then also my hand in feeding clothes me and in clothing feeds me B. 7. The exalting of his Kingly office is as principall an end of his dying and becoming Mediator as is the saving of us and exalting of his Priestly office see the 2. Psalme Rom. 14. 9. To this end he both dyed rose again and revived that he might be the Lord both of the dead and the living and therefore the receiving of him as Priest alone is not like to be the condition of our justification An invincible argument he that will not be swayed by it let him continue in his wits still As if whatsoever thing God had an end to exalt by Christs death must be the object of faith as justifying God intended by it to exalt his elect are the elect therefore the object of justifying faith Besides we say not that the receiving of Christ as Priest alone justifyeth B. So that if Christ put both into the condition we must not separate what he hath joyned Himself as I have shewed separateth we joyn them together in Christs passion and in the rest of his acts and benefits B. But the main ground of their errour who think otherwise is this They think acceptance of the mercy offered doth make it ours immediately in a naturall way as the accepting of a thing from men and so as if he that accepteth pardon should have it and he that accepteth sanctity should have it c. But Christ as I have shewed establisheth his office and authority before he bestoweth his mercies and though accepting be the proper condition yet doth it not confer the title to us as it is an accepting primarily but as it is the Covenants condition If we we should take possession when we have no title in Law God would quickly challenge us for our bold usurpation and deal with us as with him that intruded without the wedding garment There
all hearts witnesse for him that no good will to Popery in generall provoked him to trouble the Church with his doctrine I will not judge But if good will to this part of Popery that consists in justification by works unto which if all the rest garbage of Popery be compared it is insufficient to counterpoise it in mischief did not provoke let him shew what hath provoked him to it Is it in hatred to the Papists that he hath laboured so stoutly to maintain their Kingdome Is not this the pillar of all Popery and if this be demolished what is there of all their heresies but will fall after 3. As to his sincerity in this businesse in following conscientiously his judgment I know I finde in my self the heart is deceitfull above all things and desperately evill who can finde it out I search only my own not anothers heart that is out of my orb and beyond my fathom But I should give the more credence to Mr. Baxter speaking of his own sincerity in this businesse did I not see him forsaking the fountain and digging to himself cisterns deriving from every puddle of Papists Arminians Socinians and Atheists both his tenents and all fallacious Sophistry to maintain them leaving the pure word of God and tossing it either from him or for himself at his pleasure 4. As for his prayer if presented to God after his own principles as an Act helping to justifie him and no further through the mediation of Christ then as the same mediation take efficacy as to him from his own works and worth no marvell if the justice of God flung it back as dirt in his face and left him to that de luding spirit which worketh by those false Apostles whom he had studied so many years having spent but a few days upon the Scriptures as himself confesseth So the Pharisee after his praying departed from the presence of God unjustifyed unregarded Such devout Protestations may possibly take impression upon the weak and ignorant But Satan in the vizzard of an Angell of light and Satan in his own ghastly visage is to them that are strong in the faith the same Satan and alike shunned Besides when men rest not satisfyed with the sacred truth of the Word but will as it were rake the very dung of Gods enemies for quaintifies of knowledge which the Word hath not if they are blacked no marvell for their delight is to dwell with Colliers And God hath threatned to send them strong delusions that they should beleeve a lie c. 2 Thes 2. 10 11 12. Yeelding them up to waxe worse deceiving others being themselves deceived or self-deceivers 2 Tim. 3. 13. He promiseth some proofs of what he saith and one argument he puts in this explication thus B. If faith justifie as it is the fulfilling of the condition of the new Covenant and obedience be also part of the condition then obedience must justifie in the same way as faith But both parts of the Antecedent are before proved An Herculean Argument as soon may a man wrest the Club out of Hercules his hand as make void the conclusion which is inserred by this Argument If my eye discerneth colours upon condition it look diligently upon them and my hand doth inrich me upon condition that it stretcheth forth it self to receive a Princes beneficence and my heel be put into the same condition with my eye and my hand then my heel doth discerne colours in the same way with my eye and enrich me in the same way with my hand But both parts of the Antecedent are as firmly proved before as the both parts of Mr. Baxters antecedent Ergo the conclusion is as very a blank as Mr. Baxters If Mr. Baxters oft saying of the same thing doth prove the thing to be true then this cannot be denyed to be a truth For who can number the times that he hath kissed and spit in the mouth of this Ashteroth Condition setting it up cheek-mate with Christ himself in justifying us For Thes 56. he yoaks together Christ and faith in the same way of causality to justification and here and every where faith and obedience or works so that Christ faith and works are collaterals in justifying how as they meet together in this one Great Colossus condition or causa sine qua non Christ is the condition even in his satisfaction and faith is the condition and works is the condition so that Condition it seems by him justifyeth more then works or faith or Christ for neither works alone nor faith alone nor Christ alone doth justifie But this mouth-almighty Condition when like Bel and the Dragon she hath eaten up and swallowed into her bowels Christ faith and works doth of and by her self alone justifie such a Justifyer and such a Justification I should speak more seriously if Mr. Baxter had ministred to me more serious matter whereof to treat Chaffe is wont to be exposed to the winde when the Wheat as more substantiall is allotted to a more substantiall handling The rest of his Arguments which he brings in other Theses I shall examine by themselves CHAP. VI. The fift Argument answered and the dispute of St. James Cap. 2. opened and the Reasons drawn thence to prove justification by works refuted THe former was Mr. Baxters great Argument the fift in number is like to it yet not so much hugged and honoured by him as the former because that was his own born of his own brain This he takes up as fully formed by the Papists to his hand and use so that he is not to have the entire honour of it but every petty Monk and Sacrificer will challenge his part therein This is indeed their great and sole Argument against the Protestants The rest they bring is unworthy the hearing This therefore Mr. Baxter here that the Popish cause may stand and ours fall Atlas-like puts his shoulder and whole strength under to support B. Thes 75. pa. 292. The plain expression of St. James should terrifie us from an interpretation contradictory to the Text and except apparent violence be used with his Chap. 2. 21 24 25. c. it cannot be doubted but that a man is justifyed by works and not by faith only Eusebius Hierom. I mean not here to seek an evasion by pleading that this Epistle in the primitive times of the Church before the controversie about justification by faith or by works and faith was in agitation was questioned by some and denyed by others to be of divine authority Or that * Erasmus Luther Musculus Cajetan a Cardinall of the Romish some great Divines of these latter times have not received it into the Canon or that among those that embrace it as Canonicall it is much disputed what James is the Authour of it For besides the Syriac interpreter that weakly attributes it to James the brother of John who in the cradle of the Church was slain with the sword by Herod Act. 12.
Qu. 14. that he so layeth this position that he may thereby lay a ground-work for Justification by works Doth Dr. Preston to this end make Christ as Lord the object of Justifying Faith or any where affirm him to be offered as a Law-giver or Commander of morall works and duties to our justifying Much less doth he affirm that such works have any thing to do with Faith in justifying A notable skill hath Mr. Br in confounding when he should divide and distinguish and in distinguishing when there is no need as either may serve to his purpose He knowes that Dr. Preston when he treats of the New Covenant comprehends under it the whole doctrine and all the Promises of Grace made Yea and Amen in Christ as the same Christ is given to us not onely to Justification but also to regeneration illumination sanctification and whatsoever the Grace of the Eternall Father hath made him to us And when he treats of Faith he handles it as the instrument by which not onely Justification but also all the other benefits of Christ may be made ours in receiving Christ the treasury spring of all appropriated to us Therefore in describing the New Covenant he describes it in generall as the womb of all the blessings which are attainable by Christ and not of Justification and Salvation alone And in describing Faith he describes it as the instrument by which we apprehend and appropriate to our selves not onely Christ as righteousness and salvation but also as wisedome and sanctification yea all that tends to the perfecting of a poor sinner to our selves Therefore is it that he speaks more largely of the Covenant and treats more fully of it then needed if he had been to speak of it onely to Justification and Blessedness and that he speaks of Faith more largely and mentioneth other acts of it then are required to this one end And necessarily must he so do else should he have maimed both the Covenant of Grace and the Faith of Christ Here whatsoever Dr. Preston speaketh of the Covenant and Faith in generall of which some part belongeth to the interessing of us to sanctification and other blessings which are by Christ Mr. Br to beguile his Reader confoundeth and confineth to Justification as being spoken of it alone When contrariwise the Doctor doth enough cleerly express the distinct benefits of the Covenant and the distinct acts of Faith receiving the distinct benefits in the very words which he alledgeth out of him App. p. 117. Thou shalt receive the gift of Righteousness wrought by him for an absolution for thy sins and for a reconciliation with me This is our Justification And thereupon thou shalt grow up in love and obedience towards me This is our sanctification But suppose he should have affirmed that Faith as it cleaveth to Christ not onely for the sprinkling of his blood for Justification but withall for the effusion of his spirit to sanctification and the shedding forth of his beams for illumination and the stretching forth of his Almighty arm for supportation c. doth in all these acts justifie as some Divines do seem to speak though without prejudice to their reputation not enough advisedly yet both he and they are so far from making either the most spiritual knowledge and wisedom which are the immediate fruits of illumination or love righteousnes and holines and their acts or works which are the immediate fruits of sanctification to be in any respect usefull to justification that they utterly deny peace joy and hope the immediate fruits of Justification to be any way effectuall and usefull in this business But I find not Dr. Preston any where laying that ground-work much less erecting such a building on it To the five last points if Mr. Br hold them in that which I have expressed to be Dr. Prestons sense yea which himself expresseth to be his own sense I have nothing to say against him The tenth onely excepted to which I must be also mute because neither doth Mr. Br alledg what the Doctor saith and I have not that Treatise of his to inform me But all this is but a playing with holy things he might as well have said Dr. Preston consents with him in confessing there is a God a Christ a Justification a man a sinner to be justified as have said most of what he hath here said We expected he should have produced testimonies of other Divines speaking in common with him what he speaks in common with the Papists in opposition to the doctrine of the Protestants In his Appendix p. 167. and thenceforth to the end of the Book he brings a new supply of Testimonies which he intituleth Bax. Sayings of excellent Divines added to satisfie you who charge me with singularity I shall examine so many of them as have any shew of agreement with Mr. Br in those things wherein he fights against the doctrine of the Protestant Churches Bax. 1 He alleadgeth Dr. Twisse his discovery of Dr. Jacksons vanity p. 528. What one of our Church will maintaine that any one obteins actuall Redemption by Christ without Faith esspecially considering that redemption by the blood of Christ and forgivenesse of sins are all one Eph. 1. 17. Col. 1. 14. How prettily would he here instill into the thought of his Reader that Dr. Twisse is a man of levity here a subverter of Antinomianism whereof in his Aphorisms p. 173. he complained him to be a Pillarer that here he subverteth Justification from eternity whereof elswhere he is an assertor Nay here he speaketh of the Justification which is by vertue of the New Covenant of the obteining of it actually to our selves This neither Papist nor Protestant neither Dr. Twisse noâ— Mr. Br ever affirmed to be without Faith Bax. 2. Bishop Hooper cited by Dr. Jackson Christ onely received our infirmities and originall disease and not the contempt of him and his Law Expounded by Dr. Twisse against Dr. Jackson p. 584. His meaning in my judgment is onely this that Christ hath made satisfaction for the imperfection of our faith and holiness although we continue therein untill death But he hath not made satisfaction for the contempts and hatred of his word c. in case men do continue therein unto death Here is nothing of that which Mr. B. hunts after that Christ hath satisfied for no offence no infirmity committed against the New Covenant but this alone is the sum of it that they shall have no benefit by Christ no one sin committed against the Law or Gospel pardoned to them who live and dye impenitent and unbelievers According to that of our Saviour Jo. 8. 24. Therefore I said unto you ye shall dye in your sins for if ye beleeve not that I am he ye shall dye in your sins B. 3 Alstedius Distinct Theol. cap. 17. p. 73. The Condition of the Covenant of Grace is partly Faith partly Evangelicall obedience or holiness of life proceeding from Faith in Christ 1 In
the one perfect and the other Contarenus Card. in Tractat. de Justif unperfect as to justification but the inherent perfect in its kinde as well as the imputed so that both in their kinds of causality are to be rested on as things sure to support us to justification before God and we are as truly justified by and for the inherent as the imputed righteousnesse if the righteousnesse which is in Christ meriteth a possibility of the justification of a sinner before God he must by his inherent and actuall righteousnesse merit the actuall application of Christs righteousnesse and justification by it else he cannot be justified Mr. Br cannot deny every particle of this doctrine to be his own in words at length that hath been already manifested in those former these latter quotations The inherent righteousnesse is absolutely necessary to salvation Aph. Medina in 1. 2. Qu. 110. â— 2 4. Thes 17. Otherwise justification from eternity also would peep in and then Actum est c. And if absolutely necessary how can God justifie without it Manum a tabula this is enough to wipe out Bellarmine from Mr. Brs Kalender of Saints A whole ile of Salt is too little to season Bell. de Justif lib. 1. cap. 16. this passage It overthrowes the great Goddesse Condition so pretious to Mr. Br. and erects that Image of Iealousie in its place justification an immanent act in God For if God may justifie where there is no infused righteousnesse where then is the condition Then is the justification in God and not termined on the Conscience of the justified but Bellarmine hath his time to deny it again els Actum esset de Amicitia Except apparent violence be used Caâ—etan on Iames. with this Chapter c. iâ— cannot be doubted but that a man is justified by works and not by Faith onely Thes 75. James saith that Faith is dead being alone because it is dead to the use and purpose of justifying For in it self it hath a life according to its quality still c. And so works make Faith alive as to the attainment of Cajetan â—bidem its end justification Works therefore justifie not onely proving our Faith to be sound but themselves being in the obligation as well as Faith and in the same kind of causality and procurement with Faith Salmero on cap. 2. Iac. though not in equality with it which I prove thus When it is said we are justified by works the word by implyeth more then an idle concomitancy c. as I have before alledged him p. 229 230. Mr. B. makes the promise of God an obligation by which God is bound to man so that man may challenge God for debt pronouncing the performers worthy their performances Fryar Ferur on Mat. 20. 1. merit Yea scarce admits of any one drop of Gods blessings to discend upon the good or bad which he ascribes not to some kind of mans merits Aph. p. 137-141 Mr. B. contrariwise ascribes all the meritorious vertue of mans works to their own righteousnes leaving man so long naked of the righteousnes which is by Christ untill he hath by his own strong indeavours merited it so that according to his doctrine the application of Christs merits to any is the fruit of that mans merits and not the mans merits the fruit of Christs merits this is cleer from the former allegations M. Br. interprets it the contrary way Aph. p. 236. as the understanding Reader will easily perceive Let all judge that have but a mite of reason whether Soarez Bishop on the place this man hath any awe of the Scripture which so abuseth it yet cries out upon others as faulty To use his own words he may as well make a Creed of his own whatsoever the word saith to the contrary There is no such opposition Justification is from the ordinate Salmero disp 35. ad Rom. justice of God and the fruit of the merit of our righteousnes yet a free gift of free grace nevertheless So he declares his judgment in the fore-cited places Mr. Br. directly teacheth the contrary doctrine throughout Dominicus a Soto in Rom. 4. his Book every where solving the absurdity of his doctrine by his conditions Nay he hath not so saved freed us from the punishment and curse but that they that are in Christ must bear it both Soto Salmero Aquinas â— upon Ro 8. 1. in soul and body As his alledged words before declare Mr. B. asserts the contrary doctrine and propugneth it with ten Arguments which Vasquez in 3. ThoÌ„ disp 156. cap. 3. de paenalitatibus have been examined in the first part of this Tractate Nay the beleevers sins tho pardoned yet are but conditionally pardoned so that they Anselm are still in Gods remembrance to inflict the curse and punishment of the Law upon them as the curse in life and death giving them no full discharge till the day of judgment The place hath been cited before So to repose our confidence Bellarmine on sole mercy and grace is a soul-cozening Faith Aph. p. 326. He must be undoubtedly damned that doth not work and obey to be justified and saved by and for his obedience and works ibid. p. 325. compared with p. 300. 320. Let now not only Schollars to whom Mr Br appealeth to judg of his freedom from Popery but with them all rationall and conscientious men give their verdict whether he be not so cleer as Pilate when he had washed his hands was from the blood of Christ and whether the better Divinity come from Rome or from Kederminster CHAP. XVIII Whether Mr. Baxters Plea here be of sufficiency to prove his Doctrine free from Socinianism THe second aspersion of infamy from which he endeavours to vindicate his doctrine is Socinianism This hee goeth about to do in these words Bax. p. 306. But what difference is there betwixt it and the Socinian doctrine of Justification Answ In some mens mouths Socinianism is but a word of reproach or a stone to throw at the head of any man that saith not as they Mr. Wotton is a Socinian and Mr. Bradshaw and Mr. Gataker and Mr. Goodwin and why not Piscator Pareus c. if some zealous Divines know what Socinianism is But I had rather study what is Scripture-truth than what is Socinianism I do not thinke that Faustus was so infaustus as to hold nothing true That which he held according to Scripture is not Socinianism For my part I have read little of their writings but that little gave me enough and made me cast them away with abhorrence In a word The Socinians acknowledg not that Christ had satisfied the Law for us consequently is none of our legall righteousness but only hath set us a Copie to write after and is become our pattern and that we are justified by following him as a Captain and guide to heaven and so all our proper
ugliness of this imaginary Chimera Here therefore it shall suffice leaving the Reader to the perusall of what hath been said already upon this subject to mind him of these two things 1. That both the whole and every least fragment of all that is here collected whether we look to the substance or Artifice used about it is not his but borrowed partly from the Papists partly from the Socinians and their Apes the Arminians as hath been before shewed and if I shall be called thereto I am ready more fully to shew by quoting the Authors out of whom he hath transcribed all almost word for word to his use So that the Reader may consult with such of our Writers that have answered their sophistry if he desire to read more fully and largely upon this subject and not expect it from mee who have already transgressed as some will judg by my too much largeness thereon as to Mr. Baxter 2 That although the voyce here be the voyce of Jacob yet the hands are the hands of Esau Sweet words but subverting doctrine in matter and substance Pills of poyson wrapt up in gold we except not against the gold but the poyson therein inclosed not against the Terms of words considered by themselves but against the pernicious doctrine which they palliate Whether we ascribe too much to Faith by making it an instrument see the examination of his answer to the last question which he propoundeth in the explication of Thes 56. But how false and fallacious his flaattering words which he useth here to make tolerable yea sweet his arrogant doctrine of Justification by works viz. that Wee that is I and the Papists with Socinus and Arminius make our righteousnesse but a Condition or Medium or a poor improper Causa sine qua non no part of satisfaction for our unrighteousness Not as works simply considered nor as Legall works nor as Meritorious works Nor as good works with which God is pleased but as our Gospel-righteousness and conditions to which the free Law-giver hath promised justification and life will easily appear to him that considereth what how much hee ascribeth to works Though he cals works a poor Causa sine qua non yet himself affirmeth that some Causes sine qua non deserve farr greater praise in morall respect than some that have a proper Causality do Aph. pa. 216. which though in words he deny of Faith meaning by faith all obedience and good works which hee calls the severall Acts of Faith Aph. p. 126. that it doth so deserve Aphor. p. 224. yet in matter and substance he affirms it And Nulla fides verbis cum res adversa loquatur For as I have more than hinted before 1 He maketh our righteousnes of works and Christs satisfactory righteousness co-ordinate and collateral in the procurement of our Justification the one as absolutely necessary as the other to the attainment of this end the one to purchase a possibility of Justification the other to render that which was but in possibility actual and effectual to us Both satisfactory the one as a sufficient Fine and payment the other as satisfactory Rent and homage Aph. Thes 17 18 19. pa. 129. 2 He puts both in the same order and kind of Causes making our righteousness and Christs satisfaction to be both the Causa sine qua non Thes 56. For although he names Faith there yet himself declares himselfe under Faith to mean and comprehend obedience also This Civility alone he vouchsafeth to Christ that he names Christs satisfaction before our faith or obedience because it seems that is the elder But in order power and authority to the producing of this effect Christ hath no pre-eminence given him above man 3 He affirms mans righteousness to be as perfect as Christs righteousness in order to Justification viz. both perfect in suo genere Christs righteousness perfect to do its work mans to its work or as he explains himself both perfect in the perfection of sufficiency in order to its end So that here also is a parity no efficiency in Christs righteousness without mans nor in mans without Christs to justifie But when the two perfections meet if neither lose its perfection they may after the world is ended perfect our justification Thes 24. p. 132. In the mean while till our works be added to Christs satisfaction what he saith of faith that he every where implyeth of the satisfaction of Christ that it is dead being alone as to the use and purpose of justifying And so as works make faith alive so they make Christs satisfaction alive as to the attainment of its end justification 4 That works justifie in the same kind of Causality and procurement with faith not only proving Faith to be sound but themselves being in the same obligation with Faith not idle Concomitants only standing by while Faith doth all which some fools might imagine hee meaneth when he calls them onely necessary Antecedents of Justification pa. 223. Nay they are Concomitants with Faith in the very Act of procuring it and in that kind of Causality which they have p. 299 300. 5 They do all this as they are works Even Faith it self justifieth as it is an Act of ours Append. p. 80. and as a morall duty Append. p. 102. So do all other Morall duties as they are part of our sincere obedience to Christ ibid. 6 That we are justified not only by works Aph. p. 300. and according to our works but also for our works pa. 320. that good works are a ground and Reason of it p. 221. 7 That we are justified for our works that is for the Merit of them Not Merit in the most proper and strict sense which is the performance of somewhat not due by one that is not under the Soveraignty of him to whom it is performed of that worth in it selfe which bindeth him to whom it is done in strict and naturall justice to requite him Such an obligation can no creature lay upon God Neither could perfect obedience in respect of the Law of Works if man had continued still upright have so merited But so far as it was possible for a perfect man to have merited under the Covenant of works hee may now merit also under the Covenant of Grace by his works viz. in an improper way of Meriting where the obligation to reward is Gods Ordinate Justice and the truth of his promise and the worthinesse lyeth in our performance of the Condition on our part Thus farr might Adam in his perfection have merited according to the Law of works and so farr may wee merit according to the Covenant of Grace Aphorism Thesis 26. pa. 138. 140 141. Let all this be laid together and who can but per-force acknowledge together with the horns of the Lamb the voyce of the Dragon also and all that he hath spoken pretendedly to the diminution of works under the fine terms of his causa sine qua non his
the New Man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness Eph. 4. 20. 24. If Mr. Br. had been taught of God as the truth is in Jesus I should think he would not have put at least upon deliberation left in print such a question and bold Cavill against the Apostle yea against Christ himself Object But if good works will neither justifie nor save me why should I do them and not take the liberty to do what I list Answ The voyce of a Rebel against God who if hee may not serve God to his own ends will not serve him at all and professeth openly that he doth all that he doth in Gods work not for Gods sake but for his own sake An Objection more deserving to be answered with a Thunder-bolt than with Scripture-reason Yet may there be alledged many other most holy and honourable ends for which we are to do good works though we be not justified and saved by them These I had thought here to have particularized but the work is swoln already to a bignes and dimension never intended at first And this Task hath been already so fully performed by so many of our Protestant Writers in answer to the Papists that I should but glean after them to say a little but begin a new work if I should say all that they have sayd and might be said to this purpose I therefore transmit the Reader for his full satisfaction to read Calv. Instit lib. 3. Cap. 16. Zanch. Confess Fidei pro se sua Familia bound with his Miscellan Vrsin Catech. Quest 91. Catech and his Quest 5. upon that Question Tylenus Synt. part 2. disp 46. Th. 8 9 10 11. where is to be read too short an abbreviation of the three former But M. Perkins in one of his works I remember though at present I am bereaved of them all hath the very same words of Zanchy translated into English in answer to this question And since these whole hundreds both of English and forreign Divines have after Zanchy and Perkins delivered the same things in substance with them though some more largely some more compendiously so that to the exercised Reader it will be superfluous for me to write any thing upon the same subject I shall conclude all in the words of Augustine as more needing his Apology than himself where he useth it Lib. de Spir. Litera Cap. 35. Haec egi libro isto loquacius fortasse quà m sat est Sed contra inimicos Gratia Dei paraeùm mihi dixisse videor Nihil que mihi tam multum dicere delectat quam ubi mihi Scriptura ejus plurimum suffragatur id agitur ut qui gloriatur in Domomino glorietur in omnibus gratias agamus Domino Deo nostro sursum corda habentes unde a patre luminum omne Datum optimum omne donum perfectum est that is These things have I treated of in this Book it may be with more than enough plenty of words and language But I seem to my selfe to have spoken little against the Enemies of the grace of God And I take delight to be large in speaking about nothing else so much as when both the Scripture doth most give its testimony with me and the question treated on is that hee which glorieth may glory in the Lord and that in all things we may give thanks to God having our hearts lifted up to the Father of Lights from whom every good and every perfect gift discendeth He it is that freely justifieth us by his Grace To him be the praise and glory of all and let his Kingdom come and be speedily inlarged throughout the world that from all parts thereof there may be a joyfull acclamation of Saints Amen Amen FINIS A TABLE of the Generall and Chief Heads of Doctrine Treated of in this Booke A WHether the To credere or Act of beleeving be that by which we are justified part 1. p. 164. and onward to p. 181. p. 363 364 Mr. Br. to shew that both Papists and Arminians are met together in his owne brest teaaheth both that it is our justifying Righteousnesse and imputed to us for Righteousnesse his Reasons to prove it examined ibid. p. 166 c. More of Act viz. Immanent and Life A short Animadversion upon Mr. Brs dispute of Christs Active and passive righteousnesse in order to Justification Part 1. p. 21. to 25. Afflictions befalling the Saints not parts of the Curse but fruits of Gods Love Part 1. p. 35. to 37. What they are in their nature ib. p. 44 45 Antinomians their first rise originall and what their Tenets then were part 1. p. 263 264. Their growth and what hath been in these latter yeers charged on them as errours ib. 264 266. What of all wherewith they have been charged is errour indeed ibid. p. 267. to 271. 273. Who are such in Mr. Brs Kalender Pref. p. 7 8. part 1. p. 271 272. His Fraud under this Nick-name to make odious the Gospel and all true Protestants Pref. ibid. part 1. p 274. In the midst of his Invectives against imaginary he hath more then all men besides honoured the reall Antinomians part 1. p. 162 163. and declared himself really one of them p. 277. Exotick Arts how far usefull in Divinity Pref. p. 14. to the 17. They are incompetent to be Rules and Judges in purely Gospel matters ibid. and in some following pages and part 1. p. 341. What evils have followed such use and abuse of it Pref. 24 c. How abasingly the Scriptures speak of it as so abused Pref. p. 22 23. More viz. Sophistry Authority of men viz. Faith B Bellarmine and Mr. Br. speak the same things in the point of Justification part 2. p. 25. 31. Bullingers judgment of mingling prophane Arts in teaching with the Gospel pref p. 42 43. C Mr. Brs new Modell of the Causes of Justification and Salvation examined part 1. p. 314 c. And 1 of the principall efficient Cause ib. p. 316 317. 2 Of the instrumentall Cause ib. p. 317 318. 3 Of th◠procatarctick Causes ib. p. 318. to 321. 4 Of the naturall Cause and the Protestant doctrine defended against his cavils ib. p. 323. to 327. 5 Likewise of the formall Cause ib. p. 327. 329. The Protestant doctrine that Faith is the Instrument or Instrumentall Cause of Justification viz. Gods effective and mans receptive Instrument largely defended against Mr. Brs Sophisms ib. p. 330. to 348. Whether Faith be the Causa sine qua non ib. p. 356 357. Works cannot be the causa sine qua non part 2. p. 110 111. Charity the Rule of judging one another and by what evidence it must judge part 2. p. 93 94. What it is to take half and what to take whole Christ to justification part 2. p. 184 186. What to make Christ our All in Preaching part 2. p. 291. More viz. Grace 293. Whether Justification run upon Conditions
land of Canaan again The same is evident from the words of Moses in Deuteronomy where Moses having in the name of God pronounced the many blessings and whole confluence of secular happinesse to the obedient and to them that after much transgression and many curses for their transgressions should repent and turn and denounced curses upon curses a whole deluge of judgements and temporary afflictions one on the neck of another against as many as should disâ—bey the Commandements c. cap. 28. cap. 29. he doth cap. 30 15 19. Call heaven and earth to witnesse that he had done his duty in setting before them life and death good and evill blessing and cursing inplying the life and death here mentioned consisted chiefly in outward prosperity and adversity stroaking and striking That these were the apples and the rods to allure and terrifie them yet in their minority and under a paedagogie untill faith should come and the Sun of tighteousnesse shine in its splendor that they might walk by faith and not by feeling act from love and not from fear from the Spirit of adoption and not of bondage so that this shadie life promised to a legall repentance is nothing to the life of justification but so far beneath it that it is in no capacity to be used as a proofe about it These therefore serve not at all to drive on Mr. Baxters conclusion In the second place Those Scriptures which he quotes that offer life upon condition of Evangelicall repentance doe not make for him any more then the former For Gospell repentance is taken either in a large or strict sense in the more large sense it is the same with conversion or regeneration and oft times equipollent and the same thing with faith though some little consider it to be so And this is as oft as repentance is put for the one and whole thing required on our part to put us into the actuall and sensible possession of the grace and life of the Gospell as Mat. 3. 2. Mark 6. 12. Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand The summe of their preaching was Repent so Luk. 13. 3 5. Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish 24. 47. and many other of the Scriptures which he quoteth In all these places repentance containeth primarily the change of our relation and but secondarily of our qualifications and manners It is a quidam motus in which acti agimus being moved by Gods Spirit we move the terminus a quo in this motion is self our self-righteousnesse and self-confidences from which we turn no lesse then from our polluted self sinfull self and sinfull wayes The terminus ad quem is God the grace of God inviting us The medinm per quod is the Lord Christ through whom we have accesse to the Father for remission first and then for sanctification also And as the scope of the Gospell requires us to understand in such Scriptures repentance in this sense so neither do the two Greek words rendered in Latine Resipiscâ—ntia in English Repentance refuse this sense For what is that change of the mind of the judgement wisdome and will when it is taken for a Theologicall vertue but a change of these in reference to happinesse A renouncing of and departing from natures groaping and erring directions by our own works and righteousnesse to seek for blessednesse and a cleaving to the directions of the Gospell pointing out Christ as the alone way to it For instance Paul while yet impenitent and unconverted walked by the light of his naturall conscience as it was informed and awaked by the Law and by this rule walked as a strict Pharisee touching the righteousnesse which is in the Law blamelesse Phil. 3. 5 6. and looking as Mr. Baxter doth upon the doctrine of free grace and righteousnesse freely imputed as upon a licentious doctrine was carried with full sails of zeal totally to destroy it I verily thought with my self saith he that I ought to do many things against the Name of Jesus c. which thing I also did c. Act. 26. 9 10. Now when the Lord Christ met him in the midst of his raging madnesse so working upon his heart that he now beleeved in Christ whom he had erewhile persecuted received him and rested on him for righteousnesse whom he had erewhile blasphemed What will ye call this obedience to the faith this closing of his heart with Christ in stead of further dashing against him was it not his conversion his repentance or is the promise of life I mean the life of justification made to any other repentance besides this In this sense therefore repentance is not a quid distinctum a thing distinct from but one and the same with justifying faith or if it be objected that it is somewhat larger then justifying faith I shall not contend but acknowledge that it comprehends whole faith both qua justificat qua sanctificat to justification and to sanctification Yet this hinders not but that these two phrases repentance to life or remission of sins and faith to life and the remission of sins are in the language of the holy Ghost one and the same Where repentance is taken in a stricter sense and some of the Scripture which he quotes seem to promise remission of sins or life to it we must necessarily understand of every such Scriptures that it speaketh of the repentance which is actuated in our first conversion and calling or after it That which is in our first conversion or calling when it is taken in a strict sense is not as in the former sense put as the whole thing required on our parts but seems in words a coordinate with faith to interest us in the righteousnesse and life which are by Christ Such are these Scriptures Repent and beleeve the Gospell repentance toward God and faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ Mark. â— 15. Act. 20. 21. and many other But in these repentance and faith together make up no more then in other Scriptures either faith alone or repentance alone in their large sense import and so repentance is taken for self-denyall self-abhorring self-subduing and faith for embracing Christ both these are repentance or faith in their larger sense To no other end doth repentance cast and empty out self but to be filled with Christ nor doth faith receive Christ untill self be let out and evacuated that it may receive him See we it in Paul his casting away his Phi. 3. 8 9. own righteosnesse as dung and losse and putting on of Christ to win and wear him for righteousnesse were two concurrent acts either of one faith or one repentance for we may use after the holy Ghost either term indifferently and repentance here is no distinct thing from faith nor faith from repentance and in naming these two the holy Ghost nameth not two gifts of grace but two acts of the same gift of grace in us so that hitherto the