produce to teach the world that the only justifying act of faith is The Accepting of Justification as merited by Christs blood or the Accepting of Christs Righteousness to justifie them it is not hard for an unprejudiced man to discern For my part in all my experience of the case of the ungodly that I have trial of I can finde no commoner cause of their general delusion and perdition then this very doctrine which they have generally received though not in such exact terms aâ— it is taught them I never met with the most rebellious wretch except now and then one under terrors but when they have sinned their worst they still think to be saved because they believe And what is their beleeving why they beleeve that Christ died for them and therefore God will forgive them and they trust for pardon and salvation to Christs death and Gods mercy This were good if this were not all but if Christ were also received as their Sovereign and Sanctifier and Teacher But if this were the only justifying act as they usually speak then I should not know how to disprove him that should tell me that all men in the world shall be saved that beleeve the Gospel to be true or at least the far greatest part of the most wicked men For I am certain that they are willing not to be damned and therefore Accept or are Willing of Christ to save them from damnation and I am sure they are Willing to be pardoned as fast as they sin and that is to be justified and therefore must needs be Willing of Christ to pardon them supposing that they beleeve the Gospel to be true What therefore shall I say if a wicked wretch thus argue He that hath the only justifying act of faith is justified But that have I for I Accept of Christ to forgive and justifie me by his blood Therefore c Shall I tell him that he dissembleth and is not Willing Why 1. Long may I so tell him before he will beleeve me when he feels that I speak falsly and slander him 2. And I should know that I slander him my self Supposing that he beleeve that there is no pardon but by Christs blood as the devils and many millions of wicked men do beleeve For I know no man in his wits can be willing to be unpardoned and to burn in hell Shall I give him the common answer the best that ever was given to me that though the only justifying act be the receiving Christ or his Righteousness to justifie us yet this must be ever accompanied with the receiving him as Sovereign and a resolution to obey him Perhaps I may so puzzle him for want of Logick or Reason but else how easily may he tell me that this receiving Christ as Lord hath either the nature of a medium ad finem or not If it be no medium the want of it in this case cannot hinder the Justification of that man that is sure he hath the sole justifying act it self For as meer signs or idle concomitants do nothing to the effect so the want of them hinders not the effect where all causes and means are present But if I say that this act of faith is a means to Justification then I must either make it a Cause or a Condition or invent some new medium not yet known But you say Soveraignty doth not cleanse us nor doth blood command us Ans 1. How ill is Soveraignty put in stead of the Soveraign I say not that the reception of Christs Soveraignty doth â—ustifie those words may have an ill sense but we are justified by receiving Christ as our Soveraign which much differs from the former 2. Christ as Soveraign doth cleanse us both from the guilt and power of sinne by actual Remission or Justification and by Sanctification 3. Suppose you speak true as you do if you mean it only of Meriting our cleansing What is this to our Question But you adde Faith in his blood not faith yeelding to his Soveraignty doth justifie us Ans This is something to the purpose if it had been proved But will a nude and crude Assertion change mens judgements or should you have expected it A text you cite and therefore it might seem that you thought it some proof of this Rom. 3.24 But all the force of your Argument is from your dangerous addition which who will take for good Exposition The text faith He is set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his Blood And you adde Not through faith in his Command 1. Sed quo jure nescio Your exclusion is either upon supposition that faith in his Blood is equipollent to faith in his Blood only or else it is on some mysterious ground which you should the rather have revealed because it is not obvious to your ordinary Reader to discover it without your revelation If the former 1. By what authority do you adde only in your interpretation 2. Will you exclude also his Obedience Resurrection Intercession c When by the obedience of one many are made righteous and Rom. 8.33 34. It is God that justifieth who is he that condemneth It is Christ that died yea rather that is risen again who is even at the right hand of God who also maketh intercession for us 2. But the thing that you had to prove was not the exclusion of faith in his Command but of faith in Christ as Lord and Teacher or either Receiving Christ as Ruler goeth before the receiving of his particular Commands And for the text Rom. 3.24 It was fittest for Paul to say by faith in his blood because he intends to connotâ— both what we are justified by ex parte Christi and what ex parte nostri but the former pâ—incipally I will explain my thoughts by a similitude or two Suppose a Rebell be Condemned and lye in prison waiting for Execution and the Kings Son being to raise an Army buyeth this Rebell with all his fellow prisoners from the hand of Justice and sendeth to them this message If you will thankfully acknowledge my favours and take me hereafter for your Prince or General and list your selves under me I will pardon you or give you the pardon which I have purchased and moreover will give you places of Honour and Profit in my Army Here now if the Question be What it is on the Princes part that doth deliver the prisoner It is his ransom as to the Impetration or Preparation and it is his free-Grant which doth it as to the actual Deliverance If it be askt What is it that Honoureth or Enricheth him It is the place of Honour and Riches that by the Prince is freely given him But if you ask on the offenders part What it is that delivereth him as the condition It is not his accepting Pardon and Deliverance or the Prince as a Pardoner or Ransomer that is the sole Condition of his pardon and deliverance from death Nor is it the Accepting of the
Honour or of the Prince as one to honour him that is the sole condition of his Honour Nor is it accepting of Riches that is the sole condition of enriching him But it is entirely the accepting of the Prince for his General and thankfull acknowledging his Ransom that is the Condition of all together and hath as near an interest in one part of the Benefit as another Or suppose the condemned prisoner be a woman and the Prince having Ransomed her doth send this offer to her That if she will thankfully acknowledge his favour and take him for her Redeemer and Husband and Prince to love honour and obey him he will deliver her and make her his Queen and she shall partake of all his Honour and Riches Here now if the Question be What it is on his part that Redeemed her What that Delivered her What that honoured her What that enriched her each effect must be ascribed to its proper cause and the causes not confounded And she must distinctly apprehend by what way and cause each priviledge comes But if you ask only What it is on her part that is the condition of enjoying these Benefits Why it is but one entire undivided Condition before mentioned Will you here subtilly distinguish and say that her taking him to deliver her is the sole act which is the condition of her Deliverance and her taking him to Dignifie her is the sole condition of her Dignity and her taking him as Rich or to enrich her is the sole condition of her enriching No It is one undivided condition that equally gives her interest in all Much less is it the Accepting of his Riches that is the sole condition of enriching her Yet if any should in one Question include both What on his part did save her from death and what on her part then it must be exprest as Paul did in the forementioned text in our case It is her Marrying or Accepting a Mercifull Redeemer I should wrong you by seeming to imply a doubt of your Apprehensiveness if I should spend words in application of this to our case Having been so much too tedious already I will only adde That the common doctrine in this Point requires that there be as many acts of faith as there are Benefits from Christ to be received and that each one is the Instrument of receiving that particular benefit and so one act of faith Justifieth another Adopteth c. And that act which receiveth Justification which they call the Passive instrument thereof in the upshot of all their Disputes they so describe that it is apparent they mean ipsam Justificationem passivam And so with them Credere Justificari must be Synonimall termes For so to receive Justification is nothing but to be Justified §. 2. Mr Bl. THere are several acts of Justifying faith Heb. 11. but those are not acts of Justification It is not Abrahams obedience Moses self-deniall Gideon or Sampsons valour that were their Justification but his Blood who did enable them in these duties by his spirit Paul went in these duties as high as they living in more clear light and under more abundant grace I doubt not but he out-tapt them and yet he was not thereby Justified as 1 Cor. 4.4 §. 2. R. B. 1. IT is a strange phrase to call any act of faith An act of Justification If you speak properly you must mean it efficienter vel constitutivè either that some act of faith is an act of Justification as the efficient but that 's farre from truth to beleeve and to justifie differ or else that it is an act constituting Justification But that is as far from truth for then Credere should be Justificari If you speak improperly you must mean either An act effecting Justification as it seems you do which is unsound as well as improper or else An act which is the Condition of Justification which is sound though improper 2. Who knows whether you mean that none of those acts Heb. 11. are acts of Justification or not all of them The proper importance of your words is for the former But that is a dangerous untruth for vers 13. is judged by our Divines to contain a proper description of justifying faith they saw the promises i. e. the good promised a farre off and were perswaded of them and embraced them c. But which soever you mean you should have proved your assertion It will be easily acknowledged that many there mentioned were not the great and principall act which is the Condition of Justification as begun But yet they may be lesser acts which are secondary parts of the condition of continuing their Justification I do not think but that act by which Noah became the heir of the righteousness which is by faith v. 7. had a hand in continuing his Justification though it were the preparing the Ark being moved with fear I think that act by which Abel obtained witnesse that he was righteous and that by which Enoch pleased God and without which it is impossible to please him had some hand in Justification I think these four great acts mentioned v. 6. are part of the condition of Justification 1. To beleeve that God is viz. that he is God the Chief Good the first and last the principal efficient and Ultimate End c. 2. The diligent seeking of him 3. Beleeving that he is a rewarder of them that do so 4. Coming to him If this be distinct from the second When the holy Ghost doth of purpose in the whole Chapter set forth the glory and excellency of faith I dare not be one that shall imagine that he speaks all this of a lower sort of faith and quite left out the noblest part which justifieth from his praises 3. Yet you should not in my judgement have called Abrahams obedience Moses self-denial Gideons valour acts of Justifying faith Are these acts of faith If you mean that these acts are fruits of faith its true Or if you mean that an act of faith did excite the soul to each of these acts and so you mean not the obedience valour c. but the act of faith which excited it then you might call those acts of justifying faith But if I had called valour and obedience so I should have been blamed 4. What mean you to say Obedience and Valour was not their Justification Do you think that any act of faith is Justification You mean if I may conjecture from your after-doctrine the instrument of Justification 5. But then how come you to say next that it is Christs blood The blood of Christ is the meritorious cause of our Justification which improperly may be called also the Matter of it But I think it is neither our Justification formally nor the instrument of it in proper speech 6. But I thought the contest in your Dispute had been Which is the justifying act of faith and which not and therefore when you denied those in Heb. 11.
vel actio ad receptionem propriam necessaria and that the true reception which is pati non agere doth follow faith and therefore Christ himself is received only Receptione fidei ethicâ activâ metaphoricâ Species Christi predicati recipiatur receptione naturali intelligendo Jâ—â— ad Christum recipitur receptione naturali passivâ propriâ That which is conditionally given on condition of acceptance or the like and offered to be accepted this is received Receptione fidei ethicâ whereupon followeth the actual efficacious giving of that thing the condition being performed which suspended it and this the beleever receiveth Receptione passivâ propriâ but it is not his Faith that receiveth it 7. The great thing therefore that I would desire to be observed is this that though faith were an instrument of the foresaid objective or of the Ethical Metaphorical recption of Christ which yet is not properly being ipsa Receptio yet it is not therefore the instrumental cause of the passive proper reception of Right to Christ or Righteousness Of this it is only the condition and not the proper instrument For I shall shew hereafter that it is impossible it should be both It doth morally qualifie the subject to be a fit patient to be justified as M. Benjam Woodbridge saith truly in his excellent Sermon of Justification The reason of this is That it is only Donation or the will of the Donor signified that can efficiently convey a right to his own Benefits The Receiver is not the Giver and therefore not the conveyer of Right Every instrument is an efficient cause and therefore must effect and it is only giving that effecteth this right Now if the giving the donation had been absolute it had absolutely conveyed right and faith would have had no hand in it as being no condition Or if the gift had constituted another condition that other would have had the causing interest that faith now hath ut causa siue qua non So that the the nearest and formal interest of faith is It s being the condition and its apprehension of its object is but the remote aptitudinal reason being ipsa fides The great thing therefore that I affirm is this That if you will needs call faith the instrument of apprehending Christ or righteousness yet doth it not justifie proximè formaliter As such but As the condition of the gift performed 8. And if you will speak improperly and call faith as it is the performed-condition instrumentum Receptionis it is not therefore instrumentum Justificationis In a few words thiâ— is the summe 1. Faith is an Ethical Metaphorical reception of Christ 2. If any will speak so improperly as to call this The instrument of this Ethical reception I will not contend with him 3. This Ethical reception Active is constituted by Christs Testament the condition of Passive proper reception of Right to Christ and with him to his Benefits Faith must first be faith i. e. apprehensio Christi in order of nature before it can be the condition of Right 4. It justifies therefore quâ conditio and not quâ fides in Christum or as they improperly speak quâ instrumentum Christum apprehendens 5. If any will take the word Instrument so improperly and largely as to comprehend the condition then you may so further say Faith is not only the instrument of Active reception but of true Passive reception of Right to Christ and so of receiving Justification 6. But this is quâ conditio prâ—stita and not qua apprehensio Christi 7. And therefore every act that is part of this condition may so be called instrumentum recipiendi 8. And if it were as they would have it that faith is the instrument eo nomine quia Christum apprehendit then every grace that apprehendeth Christ must be the instrument too And doubtless Knowledge Love Hope Delight c. do apprehend or receive Christ in some sort and have him for their object 9. Though I will not contend with him that will say Fides non quà fides sed quà câ—nditio praestita est instrumentum morale recipiendi jus ad Christum justiâ—iam ab ipso promeritam Yet as I think he laieth a snare for himself and others in turning the plain and proper term Condition into an improper term instrumentum Recipiendi so I think it not to be endured that therefore faith or any act of man should be called the instrument of Justification For though you may in a strained speech say that Receptio moralis activa being made the medium or condition Receptionis physicae passivae may therefore â—e called instrumentum recipiendi and Credere vel acceptare said to be moraliter vel reputativè pati and so every condition quà condition be termed a Receptive instrument I say though I will not quarrell with this speech for meer unfitness yet it is a higher and more dangerous errour to say That faith or any condition is therefore instrumentum Justificationis It is not an instrumental efficient cause of the effect because it is medium fine quo non recipitur As Realis vel naturalis receptio Justificationis is not Justificare sed Justificari so much more evident is it that Moralis imputativa Receptio Justificationis non est Justificare sed medium necessarium ad Justificari 10. Lastly I say again what I said in my Aphorismes These two Questions must be distinguished What is the nearest reason of faiths interest in Justification And what is the remote reason or why did God assign faith to this office To the first this is the only true Answer Faith Justifies rather then any thing else because God in framing his deed of gift was pleased to make faith the condition The meer constitution of the Donor is the cause To the second this is my Answer God chose faith to this office of being the justifying condition rather then other duties because it was fittest as being in its own nature An acceptance of a freely given Christ and Life with him which men call the instrumentality I have the more fully opened my meaning here together about this point though with some repetitions that I might leave no room for doubting of it and misunderstanding me §. 12. Mr Bl. THe Spirit will do nothing without our faith and our faith can do nothing without the Spirit Man cannot justifie himself by beleeving without God and God will not justifie an unbeleeving man Faith then is the act of man man beleeves yet the instrument of God that justifies only beleevers §. 12. R. B. 1. THe Spirits working in Sanctification is nothing to our question of Justification 2. The Spirit worketh our first faith without faiths co-working and that is more then nothing 3. The Spirit moveth faith to action before faith move it self and that is more then nothing 4. It is not so easily proved as said that the Spirit never exciteth any good act in the soul nor yet restraineth from any
her first Interest in him and then in all that he hath It is not accepting this house and that Land and that Servant c. that gives her a distinct right in them There is not a marrying to all these and a particular Acceptance of every of his Goods and Chattel requisite to a right in them though there be to a use of them 2. And the Opinion being utterly unproved is sufficiently confuted In what Book that ever was written have these nice distinguishers proved their Doctrine by Scripture or sound reason Lex non distinguit ergo c. 3. And it discovers its own absurdity For if this be true then to apprehend Christs death is the only act that gives right to that and to apprehend his obedience to that and to apprehend Adoption is the only act that gives right to that and so of all other benefits So that there should be one act of Faith giving right to Christ himself and another giving right to pardon another to sentential Justification another to Adoption another to the Spirit and Sanctification another to Perseverance another to Glory Yea one to every particular gift or part of Sanctification and one to the pardon of every particular known sin that is pardoned One to the Gospel written another to the Ministry one to health another to life and one to every blessing And so that act of faith which Receives Adoption should not Justifie nor that which Receives Christ himself neither directly but only that which receiveth Justification Whereas it is one Reception or Act of faith morally taken Apprehending the entire object that God hath made the Condition of his Promise So that to apprehend Christ as the Donor of Glory doth as much towards our Justification as apprehending him as Justifier And to Believe in him as our Sanctifier and King doth as Really conduce to our Justification and as much as the apprehending him as one that will pardon our sins He that believeth shall be saved is the simple Scripture doctrine 4. And if all this were not so yet it is the apprehending of Christ as King according to them then that must be the Pardoning and Justifying act more then as a Sacrifice For as Satisfier and a Ransome he only meriteth our Pardon and Justification But to pardon by Grant is unquestionably an act of Soveraignty as such It being not the pardon of a private injury but a publick Crime that we have to speak of And to Justifie by Plea is Christs act as an Advocate and not as a Sacrifice And to Justifie by sentence is Christs act as Judge So that if their own Doctrine did hold of the diversifying of our Right by the diversity of the formal reason of the object apprehended then would it but infallibly prove against them that it is the Receiving of Christ as King and Judge that is the Act of Pardoning and Justifying faith more then the Receiving him as a Sacrifice or Ransome FINIS * * Seneca Epist ad Luc. 102. Non debuit hoc nobis esse propositum argutias serere Philosophiam in â—as angustias ex sua Majestate detraâ—ere Quanto sâ—tius est ire aperta via recta quam sibi ipsi flexus disponere quos cum magna molestia debeas relegere Neque enim quicquam aliud istae Disputationes sunt quam inter se peritè captantium lusus * * Yet if you be able to believe him he tels his Readeâ— he is sure there is no Pepper sprinkled throughout his Discourse nor is he Couscious to himself of the least bitterness c. * * Indeed I more desired in Mr. K. a conscience so tender as would have strained at some of all those palpable untruths in matter of fact then a milder language to my self But he tels us in his Epistle that Aliquando innocentius delinquendum erat ne deessent in quibus condonandis c. Et quidni mihig ratuler faelicia quadam erratula c. Whether he think also that he should innocentius delinquere faeliciter errare that there may be matter for the honour of Gods Grace as well as mans I cannot tell Whether faith be the Instrument of Justification * * I suppose the word Act is used so largely as to include the Law it self Of the instrumentality of the Covenant Whether justifying faith be prerequisite to Baptism Rivet in Animad in Annotat. Grotli in Cassandr in art 4. p. 13. fol. Fides quae non parit obedientiae propositum non est vera fides Haec cum primum ingeneratur cum poenitentia conjuncta est quae non potest esse sine obedientiae proposito Fidei formatae insormis apud Veteres Catholicos ne Vestigium quidem reperitur si de fide Justificante salvifica c.
THE CONTENTS THe Prologue to Mr. Blake pag. 1 Certain Distinctions and Propositions explaining my sense How Christ as King is the Object of Justifying Faith § 1. pag. 3 Ten Arguments proving that Christ as King and Head is the object of the Justifying Act of Faith § 1. pag. 3 4 The common Distinction between Fides Quae and Fides Quâ Justificat examined § 1. pag. 7 The danger of the contrary Doctrine § 1. pag. 8 The former Doctrine defended against Mr. Blakes Exceptions § 1. pag. 9 The same defended against more of his Exceptions and the faith Heb. 11 explained § 2. pag. 10 James 2. about Justification by works explained and vindicated § 3. pag. 12 How far works Justifie § 3 4. pag. 14 15 Why I wrote against the Instrumentality of Faith in Justifying § 5. ibid Ethical Active improper Receiving distinguished from Physical Passive proper Receiving § 5. pag. 17 How Christ dwels in us by Faith § 5. ibid Mr. Bl's Exceptions against my opposition of Faiths Instrumentality in Receiving Christ considered § 6. pag. 18 Mr. Bl's dangerous Doctrine That God is not the sole efficient nor any Act of God the sole Instrument of Justification § 7 8. pag. 19 Mr. Bl's contradiction that faith is the Instrument of man and yet man doth not Justifie himself § 9. pag. 20 Whether Faith be both Gods Instrument and mans in Justification § 10. pag. 21 Further how Christ is said to Dwell in us by Faith § 10. pag. 22 The common opinion of Faiths Instrumentality opened and the Truth further explained § 11. pag. 23 More of Mr Bl's reasoning on this confuted § 12. pag. 27 Whether God make use of our Faith as his Instrument to Justifie us § 13 pag. 28 Whether the Covenant of God be his Instrument of Justification § 14. pag. 28 Mr. Bl's arguing against the Instrumentality of the Promise confuted § 15 16. pag. 29 Mr. Bl's dangerous Doctrine confuted that the Efficacy that is in the Gospel to Justification it receives by their Faith to whom it is tendred § 17 18. pag. 30 Whether Mr. Bl say truly that the word hath much less an Influx to the producing of the Effect by a proper Causality then faith § 19. pag. 31 In what way of Causality the word worketh § 20. pag. 32 Whether the word be a Passive Instrument § 21 pag. 33 Mr. Bl's strange Doctrine examined that the word is a Passive Instrument of Justification § 22 23. pag. 34 More against Mr. Bl's Doctrine that Faith through the Spirit gives efficacy and power of working to the Gospel in forgiving sins § 24. pag. 35 Fuller proof of the most proper Instrumentality of the Gospel in Justification § 25. pag. 36 Mr. Bl. Contradiction in making Faith and the Gospel two Instruments both making up one compleat Instrument § 25. pag. 37 More against Mr. Bl. strange doctrine that Faith gives efficacy as an Instrument to the word § 25. pag. 37 A Condition what and how differing from meer Duty § 27. pag. 38 The difference between us compromized or narrowed § 27 pag. 40 Of Evangelical personal Righteousness § 28. pag. 41 What Righteousness is § 28. pag. 43 In what sense our personal Righteousness is Imperfect and perfect § 28 pag. 44 Isa 64.6 explained Our Righteousness is as filthy rags § 29. pag. 46 How Holiness is perfect or Imperfect § 30. pag. 47 Whether Holiness or Righteousnes be capable neither of perfection nor Imperfection but in relation to a Rule § 31 32. pag. 48 Concerning my charging learned Divines with Ignorance and other harsh speeches § 33. pag. 49 We are not denominated personally righteous for our conformity to the Law of works only or properly proved § 33. pag. 50 Whether as Mr. Bl. saith the old Rule the Moral Law be a perfect Rule and the only Rule § 33. pag. 51 A Vindication of the Author from the imputation of Arrogance for charging some Divines with Ignorance § 33. pag. 49 Whether Imperfect Conformity to the Law be Righteousness as an Image less like the patern is an Image § 35. pag. 54 How fairly Mr. Bl. chargeth me to say Sincerity is the New Rule § 36 pag. 55 An Answer to Davenants Testimony cited by Mr. Bl. § 37. pag. 56 How far Vnbelief and Impenitency in professed Christians are violations of the New Covenant § 38. pag. 57 How many sorts of Promises or Covenants there are in Scripture mentioned § 39. pag. 58 How far Hypocrites and wicked men are or are not in Covenant with God in several Propositions § 39. pag. 60 An enquiry into Mr. Bl's meaning of Dogmatical faith and being in Covenant § 39. pag. 64 Of the Outward Covenant as they call it and how far the Vnbelievers or Hypocrites may have right to Baptism and other Ordinances § 39. ibid Mr Bl's Absurdities supposed to follow the restraint of the Covenant to the Elect considered § 41. pag. 80 Our own Covenanting is the principal part of the Condition of Gods promise or Covenant of Grace § 41. pag. 81 Whether I make the Seal of Baptism and of the Spirit to be of equal latitude § 42. pag. 84 Mr. Bl's dangerous argument answered The great Condition to which Baptism engageth is not a prerequisite in Baptism But Justifying Faith is such Therefore § 43. ibid More of Mr. Bl's Arguments answered § 44 45. pag. 86 My Arguments Vindicated from Mr. Bl's Exception § 46. to 52. pag. 88 26 Arguments to prove that it is Justifying faith which God requires of them that come to Baptism and that Mr. Bl's doctrine in this is unsound and unsafe § 52. pag. 94 Of Mr. Bl's Controversie with Mr. Firmin § 53. pag. 107 My asserting of the Absolute promise of the first Grace vindicated § 55 pag. 108 Whether our Faith and Repentance be Gods works § 55. pag. 109 What Life was promised to Adam in the first Covenant § 56. pag. 111 Of the Death threatned by the first Covenant § 57. pag. 112 Whether the Death of the body by separation of the soul were determinately threatned § 58. pag. 113 Of the Law as made to Christ § 59. pag. 115 Whether the Sacrament seal the Conditional promise Absolutely or the Conclusion I am Justified and shall be saved Conditionally § 60 61 62 63. pag. 115 The Nature of sealing opened § 64. pag. 118 20 Propositions shewing how God sealeth § 64. pag. 119 That the minor being sealed the Conclusion is not eo nomine sealed as Mr. Bl. affirmeth § 65. pag. 123 How Sacraments seal with particular Application § 67. pag. 125 Mr. Bl's doctrine untrue that If the Conclusion be not sealed then no Proposition is sealed § 68. pag. 126 Whether it be Virtually written in Scripture that Mr. Bl. is Justified § 69. pag. 126 More about Condiâ—ional sealing § 70 71. pag. 128 Whether it is de fide that Mr. Bl. is Justified § 72 73 74. pag. 129 In what sense we deny
instrument of justifying then farewell old Logick 2. If man sanctifie not himself under God as to the progress and acts of sanctification then farewell old Theology God bids men wash them and purifie their hearts and cleanse their hands and make them new hearts c. and Peter saith Ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit c. 1 Pet. 1.22 And we must cleanse our selves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit perfecting holiness in the fear of God 2 Cor. 7.1 with many the like 3. To close with God in pardoning me signifieth not that I pardon my self or that I or any act of mine is an efficient cause of pardon 4. When you say that Faith as an instrument receiveth righteousness to Justification you speak exactly the conceptions of most Divines that I have met with or read that go your way and therefore these words deserve a little further consideration Their meaning as far as I can understand of the whole business is this 1. They conceive of Christs own righteousness wherewith himself was righteous as given to us 2. They conceive of the act of faith as the instrument of receiving this 3. Upon the receiving of this they conceive we are justified as a man that receiveth Riches is Rich or that receiveth Honour is Honourable 4. Because faith is the instrument of receiving righteousness therefore say they It is the instrument of Justification For Justification Constitutivè is but a relation resulting from righteousness received This is the summe of the common judgement of most that I have read But these things must be more accurately considered I think And 1. It must be known that the Righteousness given us is not the Righteousness whereby Christs person was Righteous for accidents perish being removed from the subject but it is a Righteousness merited by Christs satisfaction and obedience for us 2. It must needs be known that the faith which is the Justifying condition is terminated on Christ himself as the object and not on his Righteousness which he gives us in Remission Remission or Righteousness may be the end of the sinner in receiving Christ but Righteousness or Remission is not the object received by that act which is made the condition of Justification or at least but a secondary remote object even as a woman doth not marry a mans Riches but the Man though it may be her end in marrying the man to be enriched by him nor is her receiving his riches the condition of her first Legal right to them but her taking the man for her husband And as a Patient being promised to be cured if he will take such a man for his Physitian and wholly trust him renouncing all other Here it is not receiving Health or a Cure that is the proper Condition of the Cure Health and Cure is the end for which the Physitian is Accepted and Trusted but it is himself as a sufficient faithfull Physitian which is the object of that receiving which is the condition of the Cure The like may be shewed in other Relations of a Master and Scholar Prince and Subjects Master and Servants c. Receiving the persons into relation from whom we expect the benefit goes before receiving the benefit it self by them which is usually the remote end and not the object of that first reception which is the condition Our Divines therefore of the Assembly do perfectly define justifying faith to be A receiving and resting on Christ alone for salvation as he is offered in the Gospel It is of dangerous consequence to define justifying Faith to be the Receiving of Justification or Righteousness 3. In my judgement it is a meer fancy and delusion to speak of the receiving a righteousness that we may be justified Constitutivè thereby in such a sense as if the righteousness were first to be made ours in order of nature before our Justification and then Justification follow because we are righteous and so these were two things For to receive Righteousness and to receive Justification is one thing Gods justifying us and pardoning our sin and his constituting us righteous and his giving us righteousness is all one thing under severall notions Yet as God giveth 1. Conditionally 2. Actually so man receiveth 1. Receptionè Ethica activâ figuratively called receiving 2. Receptione Physica propriâ passivâ The former goes before Justification but only as a small and secondary part of the condition if properly any it being the accepting of Christ himself that is the main condition The later is nothing at all but Justificari commonly called Passive Justification 4. Christs Satisfaction or Redemption solvend◠pretium and merit cannot be properly received by us For they are not in themselves given to us but as Tropically they may be said to be given to us because the fruit of them is given us It was not to us but to God that Christ gave satisfaction and the price of our Redemption And yet justifying faith doth as necessarily respect Christs satisfaction and merit as it doth our Justification thereby procured It is therefore the acknowledging of this Redemption Satisfaction or Merit and the receiving of Christ as one that hath redeemed us by satisfaction and merit and not the receiving that Redemption or Satisfaction our selves To say therefore that the justifying act of faith is only the receiving of Christs Righteousness or of Justification is to exclude the receiving of Christ himself any way even to exclude him as satisfier from the justifying act and to exclude from that act his Redemption by bloodshed satisfaction and merit For if it be only the receiving of righteousness that is the justifying act then it is neither the receiving of Christ himself nor yet the acknowledgement of his Satisfaction and Redemption by his blood and so they must say of these as they do of the reception of Christ as Lord that it is the fides quae justificat sed non quà justificans 5. If faith shall be said to be the instrument of Justification eo nomine because it is the receiving of that Righteousness whereby we are justified then it will follow that faith must also be called the instrument of our enjoying Christ eo nomine because it receiveth him and the instrument of our Adoption eo nomine because it receiveth Adoption and so the same act of faith which entitles us to Justification doth not entitle us to any other blessing nor that act that entitles us to Christ doth entitle us to Justification unless there be several justifying acts but every particular mercy hath a particular act of faith as the instrument of receiving it which is no Scripture doctrine 6. It must be remembred that the thing that faith receives naturally and properly is not Christ himself or his righteousness but the species of what is represented as its object And that faiths reception of Christ himself and his righteousness or of right to Christ is but Receptio metaphorica
evil without the co-working or instrumentality of faith But these are beside the point 5. When you have laid down one Proposition Man cannot justifie himself by beleeving without God how fairly do you lay down this as the disjunct Proposition and God will not justifie an unbeleeving man Concedo totum Is that your Conclusion Would you have no more Who would have thought but you would rather have said Nor will God justifie man unless his faith be the instrument of it And do you not seem to imply that man with God doth justifie himself when you say Man cannot justifie himself by beleeving without God No nor with him neither For none can forgive sins but God only even to another but who can forgive himself Indeed I have thought what a sad case the Pope is in that is the only man on earth that hath no visible pardoner of his sin he can forgive others but who shall forgive him But I forgot that every beleever forgiveth himself for I did not beleeve it 6. How nakedly is it again affirmed without the least proof that our faith is Gods instrument in justifying Doth God effect our Justification by the instrumentall efficient causation of our faith Let him beleeve it that is so happy as to see it proved and not barely affirmed §. 13. Mr Bl. SO that which is here spoken by way of exception against faith as an instrument holds of efficients and instruments sole and absolute in their work and causality But where there is a concurrence of Agents and one makes use of the act of another to produce the effect that in such causality is wrought it will not hold §. 13. R. B. HE that will or can make him a Religion of words and syllables that either signifie nothing or are never like to be understood by the learner let him make this an Article of his faith 1. What you mean by absolute I cannot certainly ariolate unless that which is never a principall 2. Nor know I whether by sole you mean Materialiter Formaliter vel Respectivè quoad causam principalem 1. Two materials may concurre to make one formal instrument Here the instrument is but one though the matter of it may be of divers parts Sure this is not your sense that faith and something else materially concurre to make one instrument 2. An instrument may be called sole formally when it it is the only instrument and there is no other concurreth to the effect If you mean that my exceptions hold against none but such sole instruments then it is more nakedly then truly asserted nor do they hold ever the more or less whether the instrument be sole or not else they would hold against few instruments in the world For it is not usual to have an effect produced by a sole instrument especially of subordinate instruments though it may be usual as to coordinate 3. An instrument may be called sole Respectivè as to the principal cause viz. It is not the instrument of many principals but of one only Is this your meaning that my exceptions would hold if faith were only mans instrument or only Gods but not when it is both If so 1. This is affirmed without the least shew of proof or reason why my exceptions hold not as much against that instrument of a double principal as of a single surely the nature of an instrument is not varied by that 2. If God and man be both principals as they must be if faith be the instrument of both then either coordinate or subordinate but neither of these as I have argued before Man neither forgives himself under God or with God if you speak of one and the same forgiveness Though I know there is another kinde of forgiveness whereby a man may forgive himself whereof Seneca speaks de Ira when he saith Why should I fear any of my Errors when I can say See thou do so no more I now forgive thee lib. 3. cap. 36. O for one proof among all these affirmations that here is such a concurrence of Agents that God makes use of the act of man to produce the effect of Remission and that as an instrument and not only as a meer condition fine qua non §. 14. Mr Bl. THe Promise or Grant of the New Covenant in the Gospel is instead of faith made the instrument in the work of Justification This is indeed Gods and not mans It is the Covenant of God the promise of God the Gospel of God but of it self unable to raise man up to Justification §. 14. R. B. YOu have been farre from satisfying me in asserting the instrumentality of faith in Justification You here come more short of satisfying me against the sufficiency of the Gospel-grant as Gods instrument You say This indeed is Gods not mans I say There is none but Gods for non datur instrumentum quod non est causae principalis instrumentum You say It is of it self unable to raise man up to Justification I answer 1. It is not of it self able to do all other works antecedent to Justification as to humble to give faith to Regenerate c. But that 's nothing to our business 2. But as to the act of Justification or conveying right to Christ pardon and righteousness I say It is able of it self as the signum voluntatis divinae to do it And you will never be able to make good your accusation of its disability 3. If you should mean that of it self i. e. without the concomitancy of faith as a condition it is not able I answer that 's not fitly called disability Or if you will so call it the reason of that disability is not because there is a necessity of faiths instrumentall coâ—fficiency but of its presence as the performed condition It being the will of the donor that his grant should not efficere actualiter till the condition were performed §. 15. Mr Bl. IT is often tendered and Justification not alwaies wrought and so disabled from the office of an instrument by Keckerman in his Comment on his first Canon concerning an instrument As soon as the instrument serves not the principall agent so soon it loseth the nature of an instrument He instanceth in an horse which obeyeth not the reins of his rider but grows refractory then he ceaseth to be an instrument for travell A sword is not an instrument of slaughter where it slayes not nor an ax an instrument to hâ—w when it cuts not Neither is the Gospel an instrument of Justification where it justifies not §. 15. R. B. J Am too shallow to reach the reason of these words I know you had not leasure to write them in vain and meerly to fill paper And I will not be so uncharitable as to think you willing to intimate to the world that I had wrote or thought that the Gospel was the instrument of justifying a man that was never justified Do you think I know not a Cause and
with men of saith not saving he doth me wrong For in the properest sense i. e. as if God were actually as it were obliged to such in the Covenant of Grace I never said it But how far such are in Covenant or under promise I have by necessary distinction explained before and I think it beseems not a serious Treatise of the Covenants wherein this Question is so largely of purpose handled to have confounded those several considerations and dispute so seriously before the Reader can tell about what The words which Mr. Bl. questioneth I confess are mine against Dr. Ward and I did not think in so gross an opinion Dr. Ward would have found any second to undertake that cause §. 40. Mr. Bl. 1. ALL that hath been said for the latitude of the Covenant may sitly be applyed in opposition to this Tenent for the like latitude of Baptism §. 40. R. B. THerefore did I say the more of the Covenant before to shew your confusion and mistake in that It is not every Covenant or Promise that Baptism is the Seal of §. 41. Mr. Bl. ALL the Absurdities following the restraint of the Covenant to the Elect to men of faith saving and justifying follow upon this restraint of interest in Baptism §. 41. R. B. WHat Absurdities follow such a restraint of it to sound believers as I have asserted I should be willing to know though with some labor I searched for it Bear with me therefore while I examine what you refer me to It is pag. 209. where you charge those Absurdities And the first is this 1. This restriction of the Covenant to shut out all the non-regenerate makes an utter confusion between the Covenant it self and the conditions of it or if the expression do not please the Covenant it self and the duties required in it between our entrance into Covenant and our observation of it or walking up in faithfulness to it All know that a bargain for a summe of money and the payment of that summe the covenant with a servant for labor and the labor according to this covenant are different things Faithful men that make a bargain keep it enter covenant and stand to it But the making and keeping the entering and observing are not the same and now according to this opinion Regeneration is our entrance into Covenant and Regeneration is our keeping of Covenant before Regeneration we make no Covenant after Regeneration we break no Covenant there is no such thing as Covenant-breaking All this makes an utter confusion in the Covenant Reply 1. I have seldom met with a complaint of confusion more unseasonably where the guilt of it in the plaintiffe is so visible as to marr all the work so much 2. I cannot give my judgment of the intolerableness and great danger of your mistake here manifested without unmannerliness I will therefore say but this It is in a very weightie point neer the foundation wherein to erre cannot be safe In my Aphorisms I gave my reasons pag. 265 for the contrarie It is a truth so far beyond all doubt that our own Covenanting is a principal part of the condition of the Covenant of Grace as that it is in other terms a great part of the substance of the Gospel 1. The conditions are imposed by God and to be performed by us the same act therefore is called our conditions as the performers and Gods conditions as the Imposer and Promiser giving his blessings onely on these imposed conditions Most properly they are called the conditions or Gods Covenant or Promise rather then of ours for our own Promise is the first part of them and our performance of that Promise but a secondary part For 2. Gods Covenant is a free gift of Christ and Life to the world on condition of their Acceptance this our Divines against the Papists on the Doctrine of merit have fully proved Onely this Acceptance must have these necessary modifications which may constitute it sutable to the quality of the object and state of the receiver It must be a Loving Thankfull Acceptance and it being the Acceptance of a Soveraign and Sanctifier it contains a Resolution to obey him Our Acceptance or Consent is our Covenanting and our faith So that our Covenanting with Christ and our faith is the same thing that is our accepting an offered Saviour on his terms Or a Consent that he be ours and we his on his terms And who knows not that this Faith or Covenanting or Consent is the condition by us to be performed that we may have right to Christ and Life offered 3. Indeed there is herewith joyned a promise for future duty but mark 1. what 2. and to what end 1. It is principally but a promise of the same consent to be continued which we already give and secondarily a promise of sincere obedience 2. It is not that these future promised acts shall be the condition of our first Justification or right to Christ but onely the condition of the continuance of our Justification it being certainly begun and we put into a state of favor and acceptance meerly on our first consent or covenanting that is believing or receiving Christ That all this is no strange thing that our own Covenant Act should be also the Primary condition of Gods Covenant may appear by your forementioned similitudes and all other cases wherein such Relations are contracted If a King will offer his Son in marriage to a condemned woman and a beggar on condition that she will but have him that is consent and so covenant and marry him here her covenanting consenting or marrying him is the performance of the condition on her part for obtaining her first Right in him and his but for the continuance of that Right is further requisite Primarily the continuance of that consent secondarily the addition of subjection and marriage-faithfulness Yet though consent begun and consent continued be both called consent and are the same thing it is only the beginning that is called marriage so is it only begun faith which is our marriage with Christ and constitutes us Regenerate or converted And therefore you do not well to talk of Regeneration being the keeping of our Covenant If by Regeneration you mean not Gods Act but our repenting and believing then it is our keeping Gods Covenant by performing the condition i. e. Our obeying him in entering his Covenant but it is not the keeping of our own Covenant for our making or entering Covenant is our principal condition on performance whereof we are justified yet in so doing we promise to continue that consent or faith and so the continuance is our Covenant-keeping As for your instances of the Covenant of paying money and doing work had I used such instances what should I have heard from those men that already charge me with giving too much to works in â—ustification you should have considered that our Covenant 1. is not principally to pay and to labor but to receive 2.
not as a Redeemer by ransom or as one that is to justifie us but not to Sanctifie or Rule us each of these is true in suo genere but false if they pretend to be that which Scripture calls Faith in Christ and which denominateth Believers So is it to believe with the understanding speculatively and superficially and yet to Dissent with the will I think if a man say This is the Son the heir come let us kill him and the inheritance shall be ours we will not have this man Reign over us that these are not true Believers nor have right to Baptism though their belief that he is the heir be a Dogmatical Faith true in its kinde 2. As Amesius Medulla li. 1. cap. 3. § 20. Quamvis in Scripturis aliquando Assensus veritati quae est de Deo Christo Joh. 1.50 habetur pro vera fide includitur tamen semper specialis fiducia atque adeo omnibus in locis ubi sermo est de salutari fide vel praesupponitur fiducia in Messiam indicatur tantum determinatio vel applicatio ejus ad personam Jesu Christi vel per assensum illum designatur tanquam effectum per suam causam And as words of Knowledge and Assent do in Scripture oft imply affection and consent so on the contrary words of consent and affection do alwaies imply Knowledge and Assent And therefore Faith is sometime denominated from the Intellectual act Believing and sometime from the Wills act Receiving 3. Do you not know how ordinarily even saving Faith it self is denominated from the Intellectual Act alone when yet you 'l confess the Will is necessarily an Agent in this many texts might quickly be cited to that end Those that Amesius citeth may suffice Joh. 11.25 26 27. He that believeth in me shall live Believest thou this yea Lord I believe that thou art that Christ the Son of God that was to come into the world Such was Nathaniels faith Joh. 1.49 50. 1 Joh. 4.15 Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God God dwelleth in him and be in God And 1 Joh. 5.1 Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God Here is more then Right to Baptism The great doubt was then whether Christ were the true Messiah and therefore this was the greatest and most difficult part of Faith to Assent to this and therefore the whole is denominated from it it being supposed when they believed him to be the only sufficient and faithful Physitian that they were willing to be healed by him in his way 4. If you think as you seem by your answer to do that a man may Assent to the Truth of the Gospel with all his heart and yet be void of Justifying Faith you do not lightly err Though an unregenerate man may believe as many truths as the Regenerate yet not with all his heart Christ saith Math. 13. The word hath not rooting in him Doubtless whether or no the Practical understanding do unavoidably determine the Will yet God doth not sanctifie the understanding truly and leave the Will unsanctified which must be said if the Dogmatical Faith that is the Intellectual Assent of a wicked man be as strong as that of a true Believer Dr. Downam in his Treatise of Justification and against Mr. Pemble hath said enough of this to which I refer you I take that answer as equal to silence which yet Mr. Bl. so highly values as to say It will take away all scruple §. 52. HAving Replyed to your Answer I shall be bold to trouble you with some more Arguments to this point Mr. Blake affirmeth that Justifying Faith is the great Condition to which Baptism engageth and therefore not prerequisite to Baptism and that an acknowledgment of the Necessity of such Faith with engagement to it is sufficient for a title to the Seal and so it is a Dogmatical Faith which entitles to Baptism in which Baptism we must engage to believe with a lively and working Faith hereafter Against this Doctrine I argue 1. From Authority beginning with the lowest Argument The Reverend Assembly in their Advice for Church Government Printed after the Directory pag. 58. of the Church say thus Particular Churches in the Primitive times were made up of Visible Saints viz. of such as being of Age professed faith in Christ and obedience unto Christ according to the Rule of Faith and Life taught by Christ and his Apostles and of their children and they cite Act. 2 â—8 41 last compared with Act. 5.14 1 Cor. 1.2 compared with 2 Cor. 9.13 Now if the Profession of this Saint-ship in Faith and obedience according to the Rule were necessary then the profession of Justifying Faith was necessary For this is justifying Faith without doubt And if so then it is not a Faith short of this which is the condition of Church member-ship for then the profession of that other imperfect Faith might suffice of which more anon See also the Assemblies Confession cap. 28. § 1.6 and the two Catechisms of Baptism where 1. observe the ends of Baptism that it Sealeth Remission Regeneration Adoption c. 2. the subject that none are to be Baptized at age till they profess their Faith in Christ and Obedience to him Which if they do sincerely no doubt that Faith is no less then justifying See also what that truly Iudicious Learned Reverend Divine Mr. Gataker hath Replyed to Dr. Ward viz. against those words which I confuted not knowing that it was Mr. Gataker that the Doctor dealt with in Mr. Gatakers Desceptatio de Baptismatis Infantilis vi efficaciâ— pag. 71. where he also cites Luther Calvin Bucer Whitaker c. and therefore I will cite no more Mr. Marshal in his late Sermon for Unity I mentioned before A hundred might easily and truly be cited to this purpose Argu. 2. My Second Argument shall be from the Testimony and Practice of the purest Antiquity 1 Justin Martyr in his second Apologie relating the Churches custom in Baptizing saith As many as being perswaded do believe these things to be true which we teach and do promise to live according to them they first learn by prayer and fasting to beg pardon of God for their former sins our selves also joyning our prayer and fasting Then they are brought to the water and born again in the same way as we our selves were born again So for the other Sacrament he addeth This food we call the Eucharist to which no man is admitted but he that believeth the Truth of our Doctrine being washed in the Laver of Regeneration for Remission of sin and that so liveth as Christ hath taught 2. Irenaeus l. 4. c. 13. shews that Abrahams Faith by which he was justified is the same with the Christian Faith yea with that whereby we begin to be saved And cap. 76. having reference to the Baptismal Covenant wherein men deliver up themselves to Christ he saith Si igitur tradideris ei quod
to us it is strictly taken nor had I used the term Condition as to God but as it was necessary to satisfie the Objector who so called it intimating the improprietie of it Also I did plainly shew that the thing called Gods Condition was not precisely the same with that called ours Ours was Believing and Repenting Gods is the bestowing of these as the Question expressed or the giving us new and soft hearts that we may do it our selves and do it readily and willingly c. as I expressed pag. 46. because I was not willing to meddle affirmatively or negatively with the question of Gods immediate Physical Efficiencie of our own act yet I doubt not but God doth truly powerfully and effectually to the removing or overcoming all resistance move the Soul to the act it self and therefore it may truly be said that not only Gods own Action but also our action of Believing is the thing promised called his Condition by the Querist and though improperly yet in a language very common in Mr. Blakes Treatise This much being premised I Reply more particularly 1. I will yet say that God hath such an absolute Promise as well as a Conditional till you give me better Reasons of your denyal or your Questioning whether Scripture will bear it And I shall yet say that the giving of our Faith and Repentance is the matter of that absolute promise For your Argument to the contrarie hath little in it to compell me to a change Your Maior is Whose acts they are his conditions they are instead of proof you say This is evident I Reply 1. Negatively it had been evident de Actione qua talis that it is no ones Condition but his that performs it as the condition is said to be his that performeth and not his that imposeth it But Affirmatively the proposition holds not universally Nor Negatively speaking de Actione qua est quid donandum To your Minor I could better answer if I could have found it I expected it should have been this But our Faith and Repentance are not Gods acts But I know not whether I may be so bold as say you will own that Before you say This rises not to make them formally Gods acts and not ours where 1. you cautelously speak the two Propositions copulatively and 2. you put in the word formally which may do much to help you out For the former it is enough according to your own Rule to prove them Gods Conditions and ours if they be Gods Actions and ours for you say Whose actions they are his Conditions they are that is evident It is not therefore necessary that I prove them Gods and not ours 2. It is hard to know whether your formally respect a natural or moral form If the former action is the form it self it is harder to finde out its matter Accidents have not properly matter and form but the subject is called its matter but Action hath scarce so proper a subject as other Accidents have seeing it is rather Agentis then in agente inhaesivè Of transients it s beyond doubt and I think so of Immanents unles we may with Scotus take them for Qualities If you speak of Moral formality were it sinful Action I should deny God to be the Author but of Faith and Repentance I dare not do so I think God is the Author of them formally as well as materially But in your following words you say But they are our acts c. God believes not c. Reply 1. To believe is our act but to give us Faith or to move us effectually to Believe as a superior Cause this is not our work but Gods 2. Let it be so to believe is our work and our condition It follows not that it is not Gods 3. There are sufficient reasons why God is not said to Believe though he cause us to believe If you go on the Predeterminants grounds I suppose you know their reasons who take notice of the Armenians making this objection If you enquire of the Jesuits and Arminians that go the way of determined concourse or of partial Causality they think they have yet more to say of which I suppose you not ignorant Durandus his followers think they have most of all to say both why God should be said to believe and why he is not the Author of our sin in that they suppose that he causeth not the act immediately And yet all these acknowledge God to be the cause of our acts But you adventure a step further and say Faith and Repentance are mans works not Gods Works Reply 1. What mean you then to yield afterward that God worketh all our works in us those which he worketh are sure his works And that It is God that worketh in us the Will and the Deed. 2. I never met with any orthodox Divine but would yield that Faith is a work of Gods Spirit And the Spirits work is doubtless Gods work 3. If you go the common way of the Predeterminants you must acknowldge that God is the Physical Efficient Predetermining Principal Immediate cause of every act of every creature and therefore doubtless of our Faith and that both Immediatione Virtutis Suppositi so that it is more properly his act then ours For my part I confess my self of Bishop Davenants minde who saith against Hoard p. 116 As for the predetermination of mens Wills it is a Controversie between the Dominicans and Jesuites with whose Metaphysical speculations our Protestant Divines love not to torture their brains Or at leâ—t they should not I take it to be a point beyond the knowledge of any man which way Gods works on the Will in these respects Though if I must encline to any one way it would be rather to Durandus for stronger reasons then I finde in Ludov. à Dola who yet hath more then I have seen well answered and lest of all to the Predeterminants for all the numerous arguments of the Dominicans and the seeming strength that Dr. Twisse Heerebâ—ord Rutherford and others of our own do adde to their cause But yet I am far from denying our Faith and Repentance to be Gods Works for I doubt not but he causeth them ut causa Vniversalis by his general Providence as they are natural Actions and also by his special effectual Grace contra omnem Resistentiam infallibly causeth them as they are the special gifts of the Spirit So that I marvail that you should say they are not Gods Works In the conclusion you adde Our dexteritie in holy duties is from the frame into which Grace puts us so still the work is ours though power for action is vouchsafed of God Reply Both Velle Perficere is the gift of God and not only Posse Velle perficere Why should I trouble the Reader to say any more to that point when Dr. Twisse and others against the Remonstrants have said so much and Austin so much before them all And yet I never
leave to Judge those Brethren that oppose me as fallible and subject to error as all the Primitive Fathers were and therefore that I may be no more blamed or thought singular for contradicting them then they are for contradicting the Primitive Church I know as Austin saith de Civitate Dei li. 22. c. 30. Servandi gradus erant Divini muneris ut primum daretur liberum arbitrium quo non-peccare posset homo novissimum quo peccare non posset atque illud ad comparandum meritum hoc ad recipiendum praemium pertineret And the case of the Intellect being the same we must stay til this time of Reward be come before we shall receive our non posse errare I know no Brother that opposeth me doth pretend to Infallibility All that I desire by my far greater advantage of humane Testimony is but to expugn prejudice that I may stand on even ground with them that contend with me And could I but prevail for this that the cause might be decided by meer Scripture-reason and humane Authority wholly stand by and the Reader could but impartially consider things without being byassed to any side or party as if he knew not what any man else doth judge of it I should then make little doubt of the good issue of the Controversie The most that I meet with that explain against my judgement are they that confess that they know not what it is or else apprehend it to be what it is not but whatever it is some that they value are against it and that is it that satisfieth them that I am in an error I do unfeignedly desire that in dark Controversies beyond their reach the unlearned people would more regard the generality of sober Godly Divines then any single and singular Teacher yea though it fall out that he be in the Truth as long as the Evidence of that Truth is out of their reach But this may not encourage any to shut their eyes or to neglect to search after the Evidence which they might discern much less may it excuse such unfaithfulness in Divines themselves nor yet may it encourage any to captivate their judgement to a party against the general judgement of the Church For if I were on one side and all the Divines in England on the other there is yet the same reason to prefer all the first Churches before all them as there is to prefer all them before me In a word I shall ever think him more culpably singular who differeth from Christ and his Apostles and all his Church for 1200 or 1400 years then he that differeth from any party now living and differeth not from them forementioned And how the case stands in this between me and those Reverend Divines that oppose me in the foresaid points of difference I am heartily content to refer to any sober impartial Reader that takes not things on trust from others nor judgeth of the Doctrine of antient writers by any imperfect dismembred parcels Georgius Calixtus Epitom Theolog. Moral pag. 463. INterrogati quae fides nostra quae doctrina respondemus eam esse fidem doctrinam nostram quam Complectitur symbolum Apostolicum symbolum Nicaenum Constantinopolitanum Athanasianum Anathematismi Ephesini Confessio Chalcedonensis Quae Nestorianorum Eutichianorum reliquiis quinta sexta synodi opposuerunt Quae item Pelagianis Africana plenaria sive ut vocari solet milevitana synodus Arausicana secunda synodus opposuerunt Haec symbola hae confessiones declarationes continent non modo quae Credere sine quibus fidem assensum prabere hominem Christianum oportet sine quibus creditis atque cognitis salvari nequit sed illis etiam qui haec ipsa docendo tractant aliis exponunt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quam teneant praescribunt Quae autem hisce symbolis confessionibus declarationibus comprehenduntur è Sacra Scriptura hausta sunt quippe in iis quae aperte in Scriptura posita sunt inveniuntur illa omnia quae continent fidem moresque vivendi c. Denique exercemus nos ad conscientiam habendam sine offensa apud Deum homines semper Lutherus referente Hopffnero Saxon. Evangel p. 110. NIhil pestilentius in Ecclesia doceri potest quam si ea quae necessaria non sunt necessaria fiant Hac enim tyrannide conscientiae illaqueantur Libertas fidei extinguitur mendacium pro veritate Idolum pro Deo Abominatio pro sanctitate colitur I conclude with that of Rup Meldenius elsewhere once before cited Paraenes citante C. Bergio F. 2. Verbo dicam si nos servaremus in Necessariis Unitatem in Non-necessariis Libertatem in Utrisque charitatem optimo certe loco essent res nostrae Ita fiat Amen FINIS POSTSCRIPT HAving perceived by a friend that perused these Papers since the Printing of them that the n. 5th § 11. p. 25. against Mr. Blake is through too great brevity like to be misunderstood I thought meet to adde this Explication I distinguish between the Real Operations and Mutations on mans soul by Objects and the Conveyance of Right to several Benefits by the Covenant of God It is not the former that I speak of in that place I confess that as the Apprehension of one of Gods Attributes makes one effect on the soul and the apprehension of another makes another effect so the apprehension of Christs Kingdome Righteousness Death Obedience Intercession Judgement c. do make also their several Impressions according to the Nature of the thing apprehended But I utterly deny that it is so in Conveying Right to these as much as I deny that Justification is Sanctification or a Real Change of our Qualities as it is This therefore is my Argument If the Apprehension of Christs Righteousness and no other Act should strictly be the Justifying Act of Faith and that eo nomine because it is the object of that apprehension which is the matter of our Justification then it would follow 1. That the Apprehension of nothing else is the Justifying Act. 2. And that we have Right to every other particular Mercy eo nomine because we apprehend that Mercy and so our Right to every particular Benefit of Christ were Received by a distinct Act of Faith But the Consequent is false Therefore so is the Antecedent The minor only requires proof which is proved by the tenour of the Covenant of Grace which Giveth us Christ and with him all things He that hath the Son hath Life He that believeth on him shall not perish nor come into Condemnation As many as Received him to them gave he power to become the sons of God So that one entire faith which is the Receiving of Christ as he is offered that is as our Saviour and King is the Condition of our Right to all particular Benefits Godliness hath the promise of this life and that to come It is a womans taking such a man for her Husband that Gives
He is set out a propitiation through faith in his blood Rom. 3.24 not through faith in his command It is the blood of Christ that cleanseth all sin and not the Soveraignty of Christ These confusions of the distinct parts of Christs Mediatorship and the speciall offices of faith may not be suffered Scripture assignes each its particular place and work Soveraignty doth not cleanse us nor doth blood command us Faith in his blood not faith yielding to his Soveraignty doth Justifie us §. 1. R. B. THis is a Point of so great moment in my eyes that I resolve to begin with it I doubt not but the difference between you and me is only about the bare methodizing of our Notions and not de Substantia rei But I doubt lest your doctrine being received by common heads according to the true importance of your expressions may do more against their salvation then is yet well thought on And that not per accidens but from its proper nature supposing the impression of the soul to be but answerable to the objective doctrinal seal I am no friend to the confusion that you here speak against and I am glad to find you so little in love with it as to pass your judgement that it is not to be suffered For now I rest assured that you will not be offended when here or hereafter I shall open your guiltiness of it and that you will not be unwilling of what may tend to your cure These two or three necessary distinctions I must first here premise before I can give a clear answer to your words 1. I distinguish still between constitutive Justification or Remission by the Gospel grant or Covenant called by most Justificatio Juris and Justification per sententiam Judicis 2. I distinguish between constitutive Legal Justification as begun and as continued or consummate 3. Between the Physical operation of Christ and his Benefits on the intellect of the Beleever per modum objecti apprehensi as an intelligible species and the moral conveyance of Right to Christ and his Benefits which is by an act of Law or Covenant-donation 4. Between these two questions What justifieth ex parte Christi and What justifieth or is required to our Justification ex parte peccatoris 5. Between the true efficient causes of our Justification and the meer condition sine qua non cum quâ 6. Between Christs Meriting mans Justification and his actual justifying him by constitution or sentence Hereupon I will lay down what I maintain in these Propositions which some of them shall speak further then the present Point in Question for a preparation to what followeth Prop. 1. Christ did Merit our Justification or a power to justifie not as a King but by satisfying the justice of God in the form of a servant Prop. 2. Christ dotn justifie Constitutivè as King and Lord viz. ut Dominus Redemptor i. e. quoad valorem rei he conferreth it ut Dominus gratis benefaciens but quoad modum conditionalem conferendi ut Rector Benefactor For it is Christs enacting the new Law or Covenant by which he doth legally pardon or confer Remission and constitute us Righteous supposing the condition performed on our part And this is not an act of Christ as a Priest or Satisfier but joyntly ut Benefactor Rector Prop. 3. Christ doth justifie by sentence as he is Judge and King and not as Priest Prop. 4. Sentential Justification is the most full compleat and eminent Justification that in Law being quoad sententiam but virtual Justification though quoad constitutionem debiti relationis it be actual Justification Prop. 5. Faith justifieth not by receiving Christ as an object which is to make a real impression and mutation on the intellect according to the nature of the species I say To justifie is not to make such a real change Though some joy◠with the Papists in this and tell me that as the Divine Attributes make their several moral Impressions on the soul according to their several natures so do the satisfaction and merits of Christ apprehended procure comfort and joy and a justifying sentence to be pronounced in the soul it self and so the apprehension of Christs Soverainty causeth our subjection which last is true Prop. 6 Faith therefore can have no Physical Causation or Efficiency in justifying seeing that the work to be done by us is not nosmetipsos Justificare in whole or in part but only Jus acquirere ad Beneficium gratis sed conditionaliter collatum It is a Relative change that is made by Justification and not a Real or Physical Prop. 7. The Legal formal interest or conducibility of Faith to our Justification cannot therefore be any other then that of a Condition in the proper Law-sense as the word Condition is used viz. that species of conditions which they call Voluntariae vel Potestativae and not Casuales vel Mixtae Prop. 8. Scripture doth not say that I can finde that Faith justifieth but that we are justified by Faith I therefore use the later phrase rather then the former both because it is safest to speak with the Scripture and because the former speech seemeth to import an Efficiency but the later frequently imports no more then a meer condition Yet I will not quarrell with any that speaks otherwise nor refuse to speak in their phrase while I dispute with them as long as I first tell them my meaning Prop. 9. Though ex parte Christi our several changes proceed from his several Benefits and parts of his Office exercised for us yet ex parte nostri i.e. fidei it is one entire apprehension or receiving of Christ as he is offered in the Gospel which is the Condition of our interest in Christ and his several Benefits and the effect is not parcelled or diversified or distinguished from the several distinct respects that faith hath to its object Christ meriteth Remission for us as Satisfier of Justice and he actually justifieth us as Benefactor King and Judge and he teacheth us as Prophet and ruleth us as King The real mutations here on us receive their diversification partly from our faith because there faith doth efficere or causare As we learn of Christ because we Beleeve him or Take him for our Teacher We obey him because we Take him for our King c. But it is not so with the Conveyance of meer Right or Title to Christ and his Benefits Faith doth not obtain Right to Remission and Justification distinctly as it receiveth his Righteousness or himself as Priest and so Right to the Priviledges of Christs Government distinctly as it taketh him as King nor Right to Adoption as it taketh him as a Father nor Right to Glory as it taketh him as Glorifier no more then all inferiour benefits as Title to Magistracy Ministry Health House Lands c. proceed and are diversified by the divers aspects of our faith on Christ The true Reason of which is this
That Right to a benefit is the meer effect of the Gift Donation or Revealed Will of the Giver And therefore no Act of the Receiver hath any more interest or any other then it pleaseth the Donor to assign or appoint it to have So that suppositâ actus naturâ all the formall Civil interest comes from Gods meer Will as Donor for to the Absolute Benefactor doth it belong as to conferre all Right to his freely-given Benefits so to determine of the Time and Manner of Conveyance and so of the Conditions on the Receivers part The nature of the Act of Faith is caused by 〈◊〉 as Creator of the old and new Creature I mean of our natural faculties and their supernatural endowments or dispositions And therefore this is presupposed in ordine naturae to faiths Legal interest As God is first the Maker of earth before he is the Maker of Adams body Faith is to be considered as being Faith i. e. such acts exercised about such objects in order of nature before it can be rightly considered as justifying or the condition of Justification Seeing therefore it receives all its formal Legal interest from God as Legislator and Donor of Christ and his benefits which is after its material aptitude ad hoc officium its interest must not be gathered directly ex natura actus but ex constitutione donantis ordinantis And therefore you must first prove out of the Gospel that It is the Ordination of God that as Christs several actions have their several effects for us and on us so our faith shall be the proper condition of each of these various effects quâ apprehendit as it Beleeveth or Accepteth each distinct effect or Christ distinctly as the cause of that effect etiam consideratum in modo causandi But alas how invisible is the Proof of this in all your Writings I will leave the rest of the Propositions by which I intended here together to have opened some more of my sense till afterwards because I will not interrupt the present business Here either my Understanding is too shallow to reach your sense or else you are guilty quoad literam of very great confusion which one would think should have befallen you at any time rather then when you are blaming others of unsufferable confusion and yet quoad sensum involutum of more dangerous unscriptural unproved Distinction 1. Your expressions confound Christ and his Actions with mans faith in our Justification Or these two Questions By what are we justified ex parte Christi and By what are we justified ex parte nostri 2. Your implied sense even the heart of your reasoning consisteth in this assertion that As our Right as to the several benefits received is to be ascribed distinctly to several distinct Causes on Christs part so also as distinctly are the particular Benefits quoad Debitum vel Titulum to be ascribed to the several distinct apprehensions of these Benefits as most say or of Christ as diversly causing them as some say And here I cannot but complain of a treble injustice that you seem to me guilty of even in this elaborate Treat wherein you correct the Errors of so many others 1. Against the Truth and Word of God in implying it to have done that even in the great Point the Constitution of the Condition of Justification and Salvation which is nor to be found done in all the Scripture 2. Against the souls of men 1. In such nice mincing and cutting the Condition of their salvation to their great perplexity if they receive your doctrine 2. And also in not affording them one word of Scripture or Reason for the proof of it which is injustice when you are Confuting others and Rectifying the world in so great a Point 3. Lastly and leastly it is evident injustice to your Friend to Accuse him for it is no hard matter to know whom you mean with confounding the distinct parts of Christs Mediatorship which he still distinguisheth as exactly as he can though he do nor distribute as many offices to Faith as there are objects for it or as he doth to Christs several Works Why did you not name one line where I do confound the parts of Christs Offices I pray you do it for me in your next I will not trouble you much with Arguments for my opinion in this Point seeing you meddle with none already laid down and seeing I have done it over and over to others and because I am now but Answering to your Confutation Only let me tell you that the Proof lieth on your part For when I have once proved that God giveth Christ and his Benefits to man on Condition he will Beleeve in Christ or Accept him If you will now distinguish and say It is Accepting his satisfaction which is the Condition of Justification and Accepting him as King which is the Condition of Sanctification or Glorification c. you must prove this to be true For non est distinguendum vel limitandum ubi Lex non distinguis vel limitat If God say Beleeve in the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved and you say Beleeving in him as Priest is the only Condition of saving thee from guilt and Beleeving in him as King is the only Condition of saving thee from the power of sin c. you must prove this which you say Or if you will not say It is the only Condition but the only instrument you give up the Cause For the word Condition is it that expresseth its neerest Legal Interest in justifying or conveying any Right and that which you call its Instrumentality is but the natural Aptitude and Remote Interest 1. It is the Receiving of Christ as Christ that justifieth as the Condition of Justification But he is not received as Christ if not as Lord-Redeemer 2. Justifying faith is say the Assembly the Receiving of Christ as he is offered in the Gospel But he is offered in the Gospel as Saviour and Lord and not as Saviour only Therefore c. 3. Justifying faith is the Receiving of Christ as a full Saviour But that cannot be except he be received as Lord. For to save from the power of sin is as true a part of the Saviours Office as to save from the guilt 4. Justifying faith receiveth Christ as he justifieth us or as he is to justifie us But he doth justifie us as King and Judge and Benefactor as he satisfieth and meriteth in the form of a servant under the Law 5. If receiving Christ as a Satisfier and Meriter be the only faith that gives right to Justification then on the same grounds you must say It is the only faith that gives right to further Sanctification and to Glorification For Christ Merited one as well as the other 6. Rejecting Christ as King is the condemning sin Therefore receiving him as King is the justifying faith Luk. 19.27 Those mine enemies that would not that I should reign over them bring
to be acts of Justification which I am forced to interpret justifying acts I expected to finde the true act asserted but in stead of that I finde the opposite member is The blood of Christ Is this indeed the Controversie Whether it be Accepting Christ as Lord or the blood of Christ that justifieth Never was such a Question debated by me in the way here intimated I am wholly for you if this be the doubt It is Christs blood that justifieth meritoriously But yet we are justified by faith too as the condition of our interest in free Justification And why should these two be put in opposition I lookt when you had asserted and well proved that it is not taking Christ as Lord but only faith in his blood that is the condition on our part of our attaining Justification 7. It would prove a hard task to make good that there are several acts of justifying faith by which we are not justified without flying to great impropriety of speech By justifying faith you must mean the Act Habit or renewed Faculty If the act then I think you will say it is but one or not many Or at least every act which is justifying faith must needs be such as we are justified by Or else why should that act be called justifying faith 2. But I doubt not but you mean the habit And then 1. you confess that the habit is justifying faith which is true not only as it helpeth to produce the act but even as it is in it self But that will overthrow the doctrine of instrumentality 2. It requireth another kinde of Disputing then I here meet with to prove that acts and habits of mans soul are of so different a nature that where the acts are specifically distinct by the great distance and variety of objects yet the habit producing all these is one and the same and not distinct as the acts and that obedience self-denial and valour are acts of the same habit of faith as is the accepting an offered Christ 3. If you should mean by justifying faith the faculty as sanctified then all other acts of that faculty as sanctified or of the Spirit there residing might as well be called Acts of justifying faith But I will not imagine that this is your sense 8. 1 Cor. 4.4 is nothing to our business Paul was not his own justifier Though he knew not matter of condemnation sensu Evangelico for no doubt he knew himself to be a sinner yet that did not justifie him because it is God only that is his Judge Can you hence prove that accepting Christ as Lord is not the condition of our Justification Then you may prove the same of the accepting him as Saviour For Paul knew nothing by himself as if he were guilty of not performing the one or the other yet was he not thereby justified §. 3. Mr Bl. â—Ames indeed saith that Abraham was justified by works when he had offered Isaac his son on the Altar Jam. 2.21 but either there we must understand a working faith with Piscator Paraeus Pemble and confess that Paul and James handle two distinct questions The one Whether faith alone Justifies without works which he concludes in the Affirmative The other What faith justifieth Whether a working faith only and not a faith that is dead and idle Or else I know not how to make sense of the Apostle who streight inferres from Abrahams Justification by the offer of his son And the Scripture was fulfilled which saith Abraham beleeved God and it was imputed to him for righteousness How otherwise do these accord He was justified by works and the Scripture was fulfilled which saith he was justified by faith §. 3. R. B. 1. IF James must use the term Works twelve times in thirteen verses a thing not usual as if he had foreseen how men would question his meaning and yet for all that we must beleeve that by Works James doth not mean Works it will prove as hard a thing to understand the Scripture as the Papists would perswade us that it is and that there is as great a necessity of a living deciding Judge 2. Do but reade over all those verses and put working-faith in stead of Works and try wâ—at sense you will make 3. No doubt but Paul and James handle two distinct Questions but not the two that you here express Paul speaks of Meritorious Works which make the Reward of Debt and not of Grace if you will beleeve his own description of them Rom. 4.4 But James speaks of no such Works but of such as have a consistency with Grace and necessary subordination to it I prove it The Works that James speaks of we must endeavour for and perform or perish supposing time But the works that Paul speaks of no man must endeavour or once imagine that he can perform viz. such as make the reward to be of Debt and not of Grace Paul speaks indeed of faith collaterally but of Christs Merits and free-Grace directly and purposely So that the chief part of Pauls controversie was Whether we are justified freely through Christs Merits or through our own meritorious Works But James's question is Whether we are justified by faith alone or by faith with obedience accompanying it and both as subordinate to Christs Merits Paul's question is Of the meritorious Cause of our Justification James's question is Of the condition on our parts of our interest in a free Remission supposing Pauls question determined that Christ only is the Meriter Paul speaks of Justification in toto both in the beginning and progress but especially the beginning But James speaks only of Justification as continued and consummate and not as begun For both Abrahams and every mans was begun before Works of Obedience Though a disposition and resolution and engagement to obey do go before 4. If with the named Expositors you understand by Works a working-faith either you grant as much as I affirm in sense or else you must utterly null all the Apostle's arguing from vers 13. to the end For if by Working-faith you suppose that James meant that God did not only make Faith it self to be the pâ—incipall condition but also its Working in obedience when there is opportunity to be the secondary condition or part of the condition of Justification as continued as being the necessary modus or effect both which it is in several respects then you say the same in sense as I do only changing the Scripture terms without and against reason It is ordinary to make the modus or quality of that matter which is the substance of the condition to be as real a part of the condition as the matter it self As when you oblige your Debtor to pay you so much currant English money it is here as necessary that it be English and Currant as that it be money If you promise your servant his wages on condition he serve you faithfully here Faithfulness is as real a part of the Condition as
the boldness to speak out its consequents and say Gods Word is the Believers wordâ— the Beleever enableth Gods Law of grace to forgive him The Law of grace is defective in power till the Beleever perfect it Credere non est actuâ— subditi vel Legatarâ—â— sed Rectoris Judiâ—is Testatoris Ergo Homo habet authoritatem seipsum Justificandi sibi ipsi condoâ—andi credendo hanc excâ—â—et authoritatem 8. Your strange proof is oft answered What though the Word without faith is no instrument Doth it follow that therefore either faith makes it an inâ—trument or is an instrument it self The King grants an Act of Oblivion or Pardon to a thousand Traytors on condition that by such a day they come and seek and thankfully accept it Doth their seeking or thankfull Acceptance give power and efficacy as an instrument to the Kings Pardon Or are the Pardon and Acceptance one compleat instrument Or is it more fit to call the Traytors Acceptance the instrument of his Pardon then the Kings Act Credat qui credere potis est Twisse saith An audebit Arminianus aliquis affirmare Remissionem pecâ—â—torum esse effectionem fidei tametsi nisi credentibus contingat ista Remissio Dices fidem saltem praerequisitum quiddam esse ad Remissionem peccatorum consequendum Esto atque hac ratione dicatur effectio fidei sed â—u genere tantum causae dispusitivae Twiss Vinâ— Grat. l. 1. part 2. § 25. p. mihi 273. So he oft saith both of Faith and Works that they justifie only ut causae dispositivae and therefore in one kinde of causality and not as instruments properly so called §. 26. Mr Bl. THerefore to winde up this whole Dispute in which I have studied to be brief though I fear some will think I have been too tedious seeing that those that make faith the instrument in Justification make the Gospel an instrument likewise and dare not go about to strip it of its honour I hope that they that make the Gospel an instrument will acknowledge faith to be an instrument in like manner being in their efficacy as instruments so inseparably joyned and so all the Controversie will be fairly ended and concluded Amen §. 27. R. B. 1. IF this be a Dispute I am none of those that think it too long I scarce finde a line in many Pages It is in my eyes so short that it seems as nothing 2. Your motion for decision will take when man is proved to be God then mans act of Beleeving may fairly share of the same honour with Gods act of Legal forgiving And yet then I shall demurre on the preferring it But till then I love Peace and Unity but not on such a compromising as to share the honour of the Redeemer with the redeemed of the Creator with the creature of the Sovereign pardoning with the Traytor pardoned 3. I like Amen better then Ergo and Herberts transformation I much applauâ—â— but not the substitution of Amen for a necessary Ergo. This â—imium 〈◊〉 disputandi genus that can prove all with a word an ipse dico and wipe off all that is opposed with a wet finger I never liked I must next take in what you adde afterwards §. 27. Mr Bl. Pag. 91. Obj. JT is said by another If faith be a condition of the Covenant of Grace then it can be no instrument of our Justification If it be a condition in this Covenant it justifies as a condition and then it cannot justifie as an instrument and so I pull down what I build and run upon contradictions Answ I answer I should rather judge on the contrary that because it is a condition of the Covenant in the way as it is before expresâ— that it is therefore an instrument in our Justification God â—enders the gift of righteousness to be received by faith He Covenants for this faith for acceptation of it By beleeving theâ— we keep Covenant and receive Christ for Justification we as well do what God requires as receive what he tenders we do our duty and take Gods gift and thereby keep Covenant and receive life and so faith is both a condition and an instrument §. 27. R. B. BUt do you take officium and conditio to be all one I easily yield that we may do our duty in beleeving though it were an instrument But a condition is more then a duty yea then a duty to be performed for the obtaining of a benefit Cujacius saith Conditio est Lex addita negotio qua doâ—ec praestetur eventum suspendit Vel est modus vel causa quae suspendit id quod agitur donec ex post-facto confirmetur Or as Mynfinger Cum quid in casum incertum i. e. contingens qui potest tendere ad esse vel non esse conferiur And they are divided into Potestativas Casuales Mixtas Ours is of the former sort and I define it viz. the condition of the Covenant to be Actio voluntaria de fuâ—â—ro a Deo Legislatore Christo Testatore in neva Legâ— Federe Testamento requisita ut ex ejus praestaâ—ione constituatur jus actuale ad beneficium vel ut obligationem eventum suspendat donâ—â— praestetur For ex stipulatione conditionali neque obligatio â—eque actio ulla est anâ—equam conditio eveniat Quia quod est in conditione non est in obligatione Vt Myâ—sing in Iustâ—â— Schol. pag 5 â—â— â— You must consider that it is not de conditione contractus venditionis emptionis vel 〈◊〉 vel â—â—â—ationis or any the like that is propter preâ—ium but it is the condition 〈…〉 but somewhat partaking naturae Feudi as to sâ—me of the Benefits This being premised it is evident that faith cannot justifie both as a condition and as an instrument of Justification For 1. Either of them importeth the proximam causalem rationem of faith as to the effect But it is utterly inconsistent with its nature to have two such different nearest causal interests To be an instrument of justifying is to efâ—ect it per modum instrumenti To be the condition is to be the causa sine quâ non which doth not effect but suspend the effect till performed It hath the name of a cause and sometime is ex materia a moral impulsive and sometime not but it hath the truâ— nature of such a medium ad finem as is no cause As faith cannot be both efficiens effecti effectum ejusdem â—ficientis nor be both the efficient and constitutive cause material or formal no more can it produce one and the same effect of Justification per modum instrumenti efficientis and per modum conditionis sine quâ non 2. Else you must feign the pardoning act to run thus I will pardon thee on condition thou wilt pardon thy self by beleeving as the instrument and not only on condition thou accept Christ 3. It belongeth to the pardoning instrument to conferre the right to the thing that
far as we have any History to guide us Tertullian Cyprian and all Antiquity uno ore that write of these things put that past question And I dare not think that Christs Church hath ever required that as necessary in Baptism which was not requisite till afterward And if Mr. Bl. say that they did but promise for the future not to follow the World Flesh and Devil before Christ I Reply They renounced them at present and thereby shewed the present conversion and Resolution of their hearts that it was afterward that this was to be manifested in action Argu. 5. They that are required to believe sincerely in the Father Son and Holy-Ghost are required to believe to Justification But such are all that come to baptism Therefore For the major it requires no more proof but to explain what it is to believe in the Father Son and Holy-Ghost And our Divines against the Papists have enough proved that the phrase of Believing in comprehendeth the act of the will as well as of the understanding To believe in God is to take him for our God to take him for our God is to take him for our Soveraign Ruler and Chief good This none but a sound believer can truly do Mr. Bl. confesseth elswhere that â—his is the summe of the Covenant to take God for our God give up our selves to be his people For the Minor They that are to be baptized into the name of the Father Son and Holy-Ghost are to believe in the Father Son and Holy-Ghost But all that are baptized are to be baptized into the name of the Father Son and Holy-Ghost therefore Were it necessary many Texts might be cited that prove it is not only Assent but a believing in Christ that is requisite The very Creed shews it which hath Credo in Deum c. which Creed for the main Articles of it the Church hath ever required all to profess that would be baptized before the application of the water And then that this is required to be done sincerely needs no proof with them that will not believe that God commands or loves dissembling So that I conclude This sincere Faith is required in and before baptism and not only to be promised that we will perform it hereafter Argu. 6. They that are required to repent sincerely are required to believe to justification at the same time But all that come to baptism at age are required to repent sincerely therefore The major is evident 1. In that sincere Repentance and true Faith are inseparable 2. In that Remission is promised to all that truly Repent as well as to them that believe The Minor is proved from several plain Scriptures Act. 2.38 Repent and be Baptized every one of you in the Name of Jesus Christ for the Remission of sins And it was no half or common Repentance that he calls them to for Remission of sins was to be its Consequent If Mr. Bl. say here also That it is the weakest of all Arguments to argue from the order expressed in Scripture I shall say I will not believe him because I suppose Scripture in such Practical directions speaks not more confusedly or preposterously then he or I would do Act. 11.18 It is called Repentance unto life which the Gentils had before and in their Baptism yea they had first the Holy-Ghost Act. 10.47 And Heb. 6.1 Repentance from dead works is a Principle Paul the Jaylor and all that we read of that were Baptized did repent or seemed so to do and were required to do it before Baptism If Mr. Bl. sâ—y It is a Repentance short of that which is saving that is here required I would he would describe it to us and tell us wherein it is short 1. Objectively I hope he will not deny but it is every sin that men should repent of 2. Subjectively it is doubtless sincere and not counterfeit that is required I conclude therefore that seeing saving Repentance is prerequisite to Baptism by Gods appointment and not only to be promised to be afterward performed we must say the same of saving Faith Argu. 7. If saving Grace be not required in Christs Baptism then it requireth less then Johns Baptism did But the Consequent is false therefore so is the Antecedent The Consequence of the major is all that requires proof Which I prove from many Texts Mat. 3.2.6 8. He first preacheth Repentance and causeth them to confess their sins and reprehendeth the Pharises that came in Hypocrisie or with unsound Repentance And it was true Repentance for Remission of sins was annext Mar. 1.4 And it may not only be required after Baptism but before and it is called the Baptism of Repentance because in it they professed Repentance So Act. 13.24 and 19.4 Argu. 8. If Faith-Justifying be required before Remission of sin then is it required of God before we come to Baptism or in us before we bring our Infants But such Faith is prerequisite to Remission of sin therefore The consequence is proved thus Remission is the end and immediate consequent of Baptism where men come as God hath required them Therefore if sincere Faith be prerequisite to Remission it is prerequisite also to right to Baptism I prove the Antecedent Act. 22.16 Ananias saith to Paul Why tarryest thou arise and be baptized and wash away thy sins This was a present Remission and not a future only So Act. 2.38 Be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the Remission of sins And it is a Faith which hath the Promise of Remission which Peter requires of the Gentils before he baptize them Act. 10.43 Act. 13.39 the Apostle tells them All that belive are Justified when he is perswading them to believe It is therefore a believing to Justification which he was perswading them to Rom. 6.3 4. Know ye not that as many as were Baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death therefore we are buryed with him â—y baptism into death that like as Christ was raised up from the dead c. It is therefore in the act of Baptism that we are buried and rise Sacramentally to signifie the present change of our state from the Grave of sin So Col. 2.11 12 13. and 1 Pet. 3.21 Baptism is said to save us but not the external washing without the answer of a good conscience which affordeth two arguments One in that Baptism saveth and therefore leaves not man when rightly used a childe of wrath afterward 2. In that the Answer of a good conscience is required to concurr with Baptism for so the Apostle plainly intimates and the best Expositors understand it and not of a thing to follow as Mr. Bl. doth Eph. 5.25 26. Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it that he might sanctifie and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word Wherefore Paul supposeth them cleansed that are Baptized 1 Cor. 6.11 Such were some of you but ye are washed but ye are sanctified
Absolute but a Conditional Promise or Grant that is sealed 18. This Conditional Promise is sealed Absolutely and actually for were it sealed only Conditionally then it were not Actually sealed at all till the Condition is fulfilled but the sense would run thus This Action shall be my Seal when you believe or perform some other Condition But I conceive God sealeth Actually and therefore Absolutely before men truly or really believe when a Minister on his Command and by his Commission doth it 19. Yet though God Seal the Conditional Promise Absolutely to such as profess to receive it that is though he hereby attest that he owns that Promise as his Act or Deed yet doth he not either Exhibite or Convey Right to Christ and his Benefits nor yet oblige himself for the future Absolutely but Conditionally only For in this Conveyance and Obligation the Grant or Covenant is the principal Instrument and the sign the less principal and both to the same use and therefore the latter cannot Absolutely Convey or Oblige the Promiser unless the first do it absolutely too 20. God may therefore seal his Promise and thereupon offer Christ and Life to men that pretended a willingness to Receive it and yet not actually convey Right to Christ and Life nor Actually oblige himself to pardon or save the sinner because the partie may refuse the offer either refusing Sacrament and all or only Refusing in heart the benefit offered at lest as such and on the terms that it s offered on and on which only it may be had And so when the sealing use is past the Sacrament may lose its Conveying and obliging force so far as we may say God obligeth himself for want of true Reception and thus it doth with all unsound Believers I desire the Reader according to this explanation to understand that which I wrote against Mr. Tombes in my book of Baptism about the Sacraments sealing to the ungodly Having said thus much for the opening of my opinion and the avoiding of Confusion I return to Mr. Blakes words And 1. where he saith The maior is not sealed for the Sacraments seal not to the truth of any general propositions but they seal with application to particular persons I Reply They seal no doubt with respect to particular persons but that they may not seal both the general Promise and the singular as comprized in it to that particular person I hear not yet proved viz. q. d. Having promised Christ and Life to every one that will Accept him lest thou shouldst stagger at this my Promise I own it by this seal 2. Where he saith It seals that which supplies the place of the minor viz. I give thee Christ I Reply 1. It s true because this is no addition to the general Grant but part of its proper sense For he that saith I give it to all Believers saith in sense I give it to thee if thou be a Believer Otherwise God sealeth not to what he promiseth not and were not the singular Enunciation comprehended in the sense of the Universal you could never prove that the singular is sealed 2. But what is the meaning of your Minor which you say is sealed Is it an Absolute and simple Proposition or Enunciation as you express it Or is it a Conditional one Do you mean I will give thee Christ on Condition that thou Accept him as offered or I will give him Absolutely And by giving do you mean proper effectual giving which conveys Right or only an offer which conveys not Right till it be Accepted on the terms on which its offered If you mean by gift a meer offer then it may be sealed Absolutely for God doth Absolutely offer where he doth but Conditionally Give He doth not say I will offer you Christ on condition you will take him for he offereth him whether men Accept him or not If you mean a full gift and mean the Enunciation to be Absolute then that man shall certainly have Christ and Life whether he accept him or not or at lest accepting is no Condition And then all that God so sealeth to shall be saved Nor will it help you to say that he seals this Absolute Promise but Conditionally for however rhe man must needs be saved by such a Gift or Promise it self though it were never sealed at all If you mean as I suppose you do I give thee Christ to be thine on condition that thou Accept him as offered then 1. Why did you express a Conditional Gift in Absolute terms leaving out the Condition 2. Why then are you so loth to yield that this Conditional Grant is Absolutely sealed that is owned by an express sign As long as the Grant is but Conditional yea and the sign it self doth Exhibit or Convey but Conditionally what danger to say that it sealeth Absolutely Is there not more inconvenience in saying that both the Grant is Conditional and yet also that it is but Conditionally sealed 3. You adde The outward Elements are given on this Condition that we receive them that we eat and drink them Reply I never gave them but on a higher Condition viz. If you will take Christ offered take this which signifieth c. And I think Christ never gave them but on condition that men Accept him as well as the sign though when they performed not what they pretend to do he doth not suspend his act of Tradition And in such a case it is a Delivering but not a proper Giving And I do not think that you use your selves to give the Sacramental signs meerly on condition that men will Take and Eat and Drink them As you charge a further Condition on them so I conjecture that if they should profess no more then so to Take the signs you would not deliver them Next you argue thus That which all do not partake of that receive the Sacrament is not Absolutely but Conditionally sealed in the Sacrament But all do not partake of Christ in the Sacrament therefore he is not Absolutely but Conditionally sealed Reply 1. What if I should grant all this what is it to our present question to Seal Christ is somewhat an uncouth phrase It is either the Grant or Promise of Christ that you mean which Gives Christ or it is the Jus so Given For Christ himself in substance is not Given by the Covenant otherwise then by giving us Right to him If you mean it of Right to Christ then this is the Terminus proximus exhibitionis and the more remote end of sealing whereas our Question was of the subject sealed and not of the end of sealing And therefore you should not have thought that you conclude the Question when you speak only to another question But if by sealing Christ you mean only sealing the Promise or Grant of Christ and Life in him then 2. I deny your major proposition If you had said only That which all do not partake of that receive the Sacrament is not
I suppose you wrong them by making them righter then they are For the very passages which you before expressed out of some of the chief of their writers do intimate that they do not indeed take the Covenant or Law it self to command true Perfection but that which they call Perfection is but as you say No other then the Grace of Sanctification in the very sense as the Orthodox hold it out But it is true perfection that those mean whom you now write against So that I see not the least ground for this first charge §. 84. Mr. Bl. 2. IF this opinion stand then God Accepts of Covenant-breakers of those that deal falsly in it whereas Scripture charges it upon the wicked those of whom God complains as Rebellious Deut. 29.25 Josh 7.15 Jer. 11.10 and 22.8.9 Yea it may be charged upon the best the most holy in the world lying under the guilt of it §. 84. R. B. THis charge proceedeth meerly from the confounding of the Duty as such and the Condition as such A Covenant which is also a Law as well as a Covenant may by the preceptive part Constitute much more Duty then shall be made the Condition of the Promises Properly it is only the non-performance of the Condition that is Covenant-breaking and so the Divines whom you oppose are not chargeable with your Consequent For they say not that The Covenant of Grace doth make perfect Obedience the Condition of its Promise and Accept Imperfect That were a flat contradiction for the Condition is Causa sine qua non cum quâ But only they say It Requireth or Commandeth perfect obedience and Accepteth imperfect And if you will speak so largely as to say that all who break the preceptive part of the Covenant are Covenant-breakers then no doubt but God Accepteth of many such and of none but such And as the word Covenant is not taken for the mutual contract but for Gods new Law called his Covenant his Testament his Disposition Constitution Ordination c. so no doubt we all are Covenant-breakers For whether we say that the new Law commandeth perfect obedience or not yet unless you take it exceeding restrainedly it must be acknowledged that the Precept is of larger extent then the Condition having appointed some Duties which it hath not made sine qua non to salvation If you send your childe a mile of an errand and say I charge you play not by the way but make haste and do not go in the dirt c. and if you come back by such an houre I will give you such a Reward if not you shall be whipt He that playes by the way and dirties himself and yet comes back by the hour appointed doth break the preceptive part but not the condition Or if you suppose a re-engagement by Promise to do both these he breaketh his own Covenant in the first respect which was not the condition of Reward or Punishment but not in the second And so do true Christians both break the preceptive part of the Covenant and also some of their own particular covenants with God as when a man promiseth I will commit this sin no more or I will perform such a duty such a day But these are not the Conditions of the Covenant of Grace which God hath made the Causa sine qua non of Justification or Salvation So that I conceive this charge unjust to say no more §. 85. Mr. Bl. 3. THen it will follow that as none can say that they have so answered the Command of the Law that they have never failed they have not if put to answer in the greatest rigor once transgressed so neither can they with the Church make appeal to God That they have not dealt falsly in the Covenant nor wickedly departed from their God Psal 44.17 Every sin according to this opinion being a breach of it and a dealing falsly in it §. 85. R. B. THis charge is as unjust as the former and the absurdity supposed to follow doth not but is supposed so to do upon the forementioned confusion of two acts of the Covenant or New Law the one Determining what shall be mans Duty the other what shall be Conditio sine qua non of Justification and Salvation § 86. Mr. Bl. 4. THen the great Promise of mercy from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him and his Righteousness â—nto childrens children to such as keep his Covenant and to those that remember his Commandements to do them Psal 103.17 18. only appertains to those that so keep the Law that they sin not at all against it §. 86. R. B. IT follows not If they sincerely keep the Law they fulfill the Conditions of the Covenant though not the Precept And they keep the Precept in an improper but usual sense as Keeping is taken for such a less degree of breaking as on Gospel grounds is Accepted This still runs upon the foresaid Confusion §. 87. Mr. Bl. 5. THen our Baptism-Vow is never to sin against God and as often as we renew our Covenant we do not only humble our selves that we have sinned but we afresh binde our selves never more to admit the least infirmity and so live and dye in the breach of it §. 87. R. B. WE do not promise in Baptism to do all that the Precept of the Covenant requireth but all that is made the Condition of Life and to Endeavor the rest Much less as the Covenant is taken in the largest sense as those seem to do whom you oppose may it be said that we promise to keep all its Precepts §. 88. Mr. Bl. 6. THen the distinction between those that entred Covenant and brake it as Jer. 31 32 33. and those that have the Law written in their hearts and put into their inward parts to observe it falls all standing equally Guilty of the breach of it no help of Grace being of power to enable to keep Covenant §. 88. R. B. WHen sincere obedience and perfect obedience are all one and when the Precept and the Condition of the Covenant are proved to be of equal extent then there will be ground for the charging of this Consequence In the first Covenant of Nature the Precept and the Condition were of equal extent for perfect obedience was the Condition but it is not so in the Covenant of Grace §. 89. Mr. Bl. 7. THen it follows that sinceritie is never called for as a Duty or required as a Grace but only dispensed with as a failing indulged as a want It is not so much a Christians honor or Character as his blemish or failing rather his defect then praise But we finde the contrary in Noah Job Asa Hezekiah Zachary and Elizabeth Nathaniel an Israelite indeed that entred Covenant and kept Covenant §. 89. R. B. I Will not say it is past the wit of man to finde the Ground of this charge i. e. to see how this should follow but I dare say it is past
Righteousness of faith Sometimes the Righteousness of God which is by faith but that it is a Righteousness which faith receives Ans 1. It s properer to say Credens recipit credendo The Believer by beleeving receives it Then to say Faith especially the act receives it But if you will use that speech it must express but formalem rationem credendi expositorily and not the efficiency of faith and therefore no instrumentality It is the Righteousness of God by faith because God gives it freely Christ having merited it upon condition of mans faith You adde Eph. 3.17 Christ dwels in us by faith By faith we take him in c. Ans You odly change the question We are speaking of faiths instrumentality in receiving Right to Christ or Christ in relation and you go about to prove the reception of his Spirit or graces really or himself objectively For Christ is said to dwell in us 1. By his Spirit and Graces 2. Objectively as my friend dwels in my heart when I love him The text being meant of either of these is nothing to the purpose 2. Yet here you do not prove that by signifieth a proper instrument no more then your actual intellection is said to be the instrument of Truths abode in you when it is said that Truth dwelleth in you by intellection The same Answer serves to your following words about receiving the Spirit 1. It s nothing to our Question 2. You give us but your bare word that Scripture speaks of faith as the souls instrument even in receiving the Spirit of Christ much less in receiving Right to Christ But still remember that from first to last I profess not to contend with any about the use of this phrase of faiths instrumentality in receiving Christ It is its being really the proper instrumentall efficient cause of Justification which I denied and resolvedly more then ever do deny This you next come to and say §. 6. Mr Bl. THe instrumentality of it in the work of Justification is denied because the nature of an Instrument as considered in Physical operations doth not exactly belong to it which if it must be alwaies rigidly followed will often put us to a stand in the assignation of causes of any kinde in Moral actions The material and formal causes in Justification are scarce agreed upon and no marvell then in case men minde to contend about it that some question is raised about the Instrument But in case we shall consider the nature and kinde of this work about which faith is imploied and examine the reason and ground upon the which faith is disabled from the office of an instrument in our Justification and withall look into that which is brought in as an instrument in this work in the stead of it I do not doubt but it will easily appear that those Divines that with a concurrent judgement without almost a dissenting voice have made faith an instrument in this work speak most aptly and most agreeably to the nature of an instrument §. 6. R. B. BUt is this certain Do I therefore deny faith to be the instrument of Justification because the nature of an instrument as considered in Physical operations doth not exactly belong to it I said 1. The action of the principal Cause and of the instrument is one action Is not this true of moral operations as well as Physical If it be not you must make us a new Logick before you can reasonably expect that we receive your Logical Theology 2. I said the instrument must have Influx to the producing of the effect of the principal cause by a proper causality that is in suo genere Is not this true of Moral operations as well as Physical It s true Moral causes may be said to have a less proper causation then Physical But 1. The instrumental must be as proper as that of the principal 2. There is a wide difference between causam Moralem and causam Moralitatis Effecti naturalis potest esse causa moralis vel imputativa Et effecti moralis scilicet Ethici ut Debiti Juris Meriti potest esse causa remotior naturalis It may well be called a proper causation when the effect is produced by as full a causation as the nature of the thing will admit as in relations that are by meer resultancy 2. You say the material and formal causes of Justification are scarce agreed on But doth that give you a liberty to assert what you list or what cannot be proved true because all men see not the truth I should have thought you should rather have thus concluded Seeing Divines themselves cannot agree about the assignation of these Logical unscriptural notions in the business of Justification therefore it is a meer Church-dividing course to place so much of the Protestant Cause in such notions and insist upon them as matters of such necessity and weight as is done in asserting faiths instrumentality to Justification Your argument in the issue and tendency is like that of plundering souldiers in time of fight that say Now they are altogether by the ears we may take that we light on why should they question us till they agree among themselves 3. Whether this phrase be so apt as you affirm we shall better know when you have said something to prove it If Divines have been so concurrent in it as you say that there is scarce a dissenting voice I hope I am the more excusable if it prove an error for opposing it For it is pity to let so many mistake themselves mislead others and make us part of a new Religion But Sir what 's the cause of this sudden change Through their great condescension I have received Animadversions from many of the most Learned Judicious Divines that I know in England And of all these there is but one man that doth own the Doctrine of faiths Instrumentality but they disclaim it all some with distast others with a modest excuse of them that use it and the gentle interpretation of a Metaphorical instrument and that remote for so they would have me interpret our Divines I told you this when I saw you and you asked me Whether Mr C. were against it To which I Answer Not so much as divers others that write to me but judge you by his own words which are these Obj. But though faith be not the instrument of our Justification may it not be called the instrument of receiving Christ Ans I think they mean so and no more who call faith the instrument of our Justification c. I shall not be unwilling to yield to you that to speak exactly faith may better be called a Condition then an Instrument of our Justification So far Mr C. §. 7. Mr Bl. THe work about which faith is imploied is not an absolute but a relative work a work of God towards man not without the actual concurrence of man such in which neither God nor man are sole efficients nor any act
of God or man can be sole instruments but there must be a mutual concurrence of both §. 7. R. B. A Dangerous Doctrine in my Judgement to be so nakedly affirmed No doubt but Justification is a Relative change and it is past Controversie that it is not without the actual concurrence of man for he must perform the Condition on which God will justifie him But that God is not the sole Efficient nor any Act of God the sole Instrument I durst not have affirmed without proof and much less have undertaken to prove §. 8. Mr Bl. THis must needs be granted unless we will bring in D r Crispes passive recipiency of Christ Christs abode in man without man in spite of man and suppose him to be justified in unbelief §. 8. R. B. THis is very naked asserting Why did you not shew some reason of this ill consequence It s past my reach to see the least 2. Why do you still confound Christs real abode in us by his Spirit with the relation we have upon Justification when even now you affirmed it was a relative work as you call it I pray by the next shew us more clearly how these absurdities follow that doctrine which affirmeth That God is the sole Efficient cause of our Justification but having made mans Belief and Consent the Condition whose nature is to suspend the effect till performed he will not justifie us till we first believe and consent This is my Doctrine plainly §. 9. Mr Bl. ANd faith is disabled from this office in Justification by this Argument If faith be an instrument it is the instrument of God or man c. I Ans It is the instrument of man and though man do not justifie himself yet he concurres as a willing ready Agent with God in it God is a justifier of those that beleeve in Jesus Rom. 3.26 God hath set Christ forth a propitiation through faith Rom. 3.25 §. 9. R. B. IF this be not palpable contradiction saying and unsaying my Logick is less then I thought it had been If it be Mans instrument of Justification and yet Man do not justifie himself Then either Man is not Man or an Instrument is not an Instrument or Justifying is not Justifying Had you only affirmed it to be mans act and Gods instrument how absurd soever otherwise yet you might have said Man doth not justifie himself But if it be mans instrument then man is the principal cause in respect of the instrumentall For omne instrumentum est causae principalis instrumentum And can he be the efficient cause and yet not effect Is not that to be a Cause and no Cause In my judgement this doctrine should not be made part of our Religion nor much stress laid on it if it were true because it s so obscure That man concurres as a ready Agent who doubts but doth that prove him or his faith the efficient cause of his own pardon and Justification Is the performer of the condition of Gratefull consent no willing Agent unless an efficient Cause The text you cite doth not speak of instruments for ought I can finde §. 10. Mr Bl. ANd because it is the instrument of man in a work of this nature it is also the instrument of God As some have observed a communication of Titles between Christ and his Church the Church being called by his Name so there is a communication of actions in these relative works Christ dwels in our hearts by faith Eph. 3.17 We believe and not Christ and yet faith there is Christs instrument whereby he takes up his abode God purifies the hearts of the Gentiles by faith Act. 15.17 They believed and not God yet faith is Gods instrument in the work of their purification So on the other side the Spirit is Gods work yet we by the Spirit do mortifie the deeds of the flesh Rom. 8.13 §. 10. R. B. IF this be indeed true That it is mans instrument of Justification and Gods both then both God and man are both Causae principales partiales by coordination making up one principal cause This I hope you will not downright affirm I deny it on this reason Every absolute Donor I mean who is absolutely owner of what he gives is the totall cause-efficient-principal of his own Donation But God in justifying is an absolute Donor giving remission and Righteousness Therefore c. 2. Or else God and man must be principal causes one subordinate to the other and each total in his own kinde This must be your meaning by your first words But then which of these is the most principal cause and which the subordinate It is hard for a better wit then mine to know your minde by your words For when you say Because it is mans instrument it is also Gods instrument It may seem that you take it to be mans instrument first or else how can it be therefore Gods instrument because it is mans But yet whether you speak de ordine consequentis vel consequentiae de ordine essendi efficiendi vel de ordine dicendi colligendi I know not However I will not be so uncharitable as to imagine that you take man for the most principal cause and God for the subordinate but contrarily But then you do not only make man the pardoner and justifier of himself but you make him the nearest total cause of it and so it would be as proper to say Man forgives himself as that God forgives him And so faith would be only mans instrument directly as being the nearest cause-principal and Gods instrument remotely As if I hold my pen and you hold my hand the pen is proximè my instrument and remotiùs yours And so God should justifie and pardon man by himself as Gods instrument As if a Judge had committed Treason and the King should give him authority to Judge Pardon and Absolve himself But how much might be said against this To justifie efficienter is actus Rectoris Sed homo non est rector sui ipsius in the sense in hand Therefore he cannot justifie himself Indeed if you had spoke only of the Justification in soro conscientiae you might well have ascribed it to man as the efficient cause but that you speak not of 2. The communication of Titles that you speak of is 1. very rare 2. Uncertain whether at all found in Scripture That Text 1 Cor. 12.12 seemeth rather to leave out the Church as understood then to communicate Christs Name to it q. d. So is Christ and the Church I would advise all friends of mine to take heed that they presume not on this slight ground to communicate Christs Name to the Church in their ordinary speech 3. But who can tell what you mean by a communication of actions Your putting Communication of actions in contradistinction from Communication of Titles makes the proper sense of your words be that Christ doth as really communicate actions themselves as he doth Titles themselves