it is not by Assent properly or fully that we receive Christ So Amesius ubi supra § 19. Crediturus etiam porro cum ex miseriae sensu omnimoâ—ae liberationis cum in se tum in aliis defectu necesse habeat se dedere Deo in Christo tanquam Servatori sufficienti fideli Deditionem istam facere non potest ullo modo per Assensum Intellectus sed per Consensum Voluntatis And indeed I think this Dedition or self-delivery to be part of Faith and that the covenanting in heart with God in Christ is the very justifying faith taking him for ours and giving up our selves to him as his and the external Covenanting is the profession of Faith and that Baptism is the marriage-solemnization and engaging sign and means 6. That Act which cannot be discerned in a Saint in it self from what may be in the wicked is not the receiving of Christ fully or properly which justifies But the Act of Assent to the Truth of the Gospel as it is in a Saint cannot in it self be discerned from what may be in the wicked Therefore the Act of Assent is not the Receiving of Christ which justifies The Major is hence evident In that justifying faith being the condition of our Justification must needs be the great Mark to know by whether we are justified or no But if it could not be known to be sincere it self in vain is it made a Mark to know our state by yea or a Condition almost when a man can never tell when he performeth it The Minor I have endeavoured to prove in an Additional Chap. to the third part of my Book of Rest to which for brevity I refer you Dr. Stoughton I have there shewed you saith as I Aâ—esius saith Medul l. 1. c. ◠§ 4. quaÌ„vis fides praesuppmat semper notitiaÌ„ Evangelii nulla tamen datur in quoquaÌ„ cognitio salutifera ab illa quo in quibusdam non salvandis reperitur diversa nifâ— consequenter ad actum istuÌ„ voluntatis ab ipso dependens Job 7.17 and 8.31.32 1 John 2.3 I doubt not but in the Intensness of Degree there is a difference between the Intellectual acts as Knowledge and Assent in a Saint and a wicked man but if any think that they are in themselves discernable I would he would tell me one Mark of the difference In their different Effects on the Will I know they are discernable 7. If you acknowledge that other Graces receive Christ as well as Faith and receiving of Christ doth make him ours and so justifie then you must acknowledge that other Graces justifie as well as faith yea not secondarily only but as Principally as Faith But that you will be loth to do The consequence will not be avoided but by shewing that there is a twofold receiving of Christ and that one justifieth and the other not which when you have proved from Scripture I will yield but then at least I shall gain this that receiving Christ justifies not properly ex natura actus sed ex voluntate Ordinantis and if I get that I get the main part of the cause in controversie 8. Affiance is judged by Divines to be an Act of the Will But Affiance is judged by the same Divines to be the justifying Act Therefore they judge that the justifying Act and consequently the Reception of Christ belongs to the Will 9. The Velle or Elicite act of the Will which I insist on is the very first Act and goes before Affiance as it denotes any other Act of the Will Therefore either this Velle must be the justifying Faith and Reception of Christ or else they must say that there is a saving reception of Christ that goes before the justifying or Reception which sure they will not grant that make that Faith the actus primas vitae spiritualis 10. Lastly The opinion seems to me so Improbable without and against reason and so dangerous that God doth assign one only Act of the soul to the Office of justifying especially the act of assent that I dare not entertain it without proof It is improbable that in a Moral Political Theological Matter the Holy Ghost should speak as if it were in the strictest discourse of Physicks It is improbable that God should speak to man in such a Moral discourse so as no men use to speak and therefore so as men could not without a further explication understand Doth he that speaks of receiving a man to be our Husband King Master c. mean it of one only Act though I know Consent is the chief Or he that gives any great matter on Condition of such Receiving Doth he mean that any one single Act is that Condition Much less Assent Or is there any likelyhood that when other Acts do receive the same Object Christ in a way of as high honouring him that yet God should confine Justification to one Act setting by all the rest Yea when the rest are acknowledged to be part of the Condition and Receiving as Lord to be the fides quae I know God is not bound to give man a Reason of his Laws but yet he usually doth it and we must take heed of asserting that to be Gods Law which appears unreasonable till we can prove what we say Yea what a dangerous loss will Christians then be at who will hardly ever be able to find out this single Act what it is and when they have it And he that knows how quick Spirits are in their actings and withall how little able we are to observe and discern them perhaps many doubt whether you can find a name for any single act of a soul or know when it is one Act and when many In the forementioned Instance A woman is condemned for Treason the Prince writeth to her that he hath dearly paid her Ransom will not only deliver her but also make her his Queen if she will Believe this and Receive him accordingly If now the Lawyers should dispute the case what single act it was that she was Delivered and Dignified by whether an act of the Intellect only or of the Will only whether Assent only or Affiance Yea whether agendo vel patiendo as many here do would not men think that learning made them dote And I would entreat you to consider whether it were Gods Design in the Gospel to advance any one Act of mans soul above the rest and so to honour it or rather to advance the Lord Jesus whom faith Receiveth as Mr. Gataker tels Salâ—marsh Many speak dangerously in over-magnifying their own faith when they should magnifie Christ whom it relates to I know the great thing that sticks with some is that the Scripture oft seems to describe faith by the Act of Assenting But consider so it doth in other places by Trusting Resting Taking Receiving Coming Eating and Drinking which Metaphors must needs signifie acts of the Will c. which shew that it is not any single
not designed to their provocation or dishonour and as I heartily do the like by theirs and as I hope God will do both theirs and mine And I do adjure the Reader to believe that this Controversie for all our infirmities is managed with a very high esteem and honour of those Reverend Brethren whom I am necessitated to gainsay Nor would I have it be any dishonour to them though an excuse to me that they have been the Assailants and begun the conflict for the Truths of God must be precious to us all and I doubt not but they were confident that it was some dangerous errour which they set upon and I have here proved to be the Truth Nor is it any such wrong to either side to be openly contradicted that Reasons may be openly produced and men may have some further help to see into these Points Let the proud swell or smart because they are thus proclaimed fallible and mistaken but the Humble that are devoted servants to the Truth are of another spirit and have learnt another lesson And if any Papist or enemy to our unity and Peace shall from these Writings predicate our dissentions or divisions let them know to their faces that even these differences as momentous as they seem are not neer so great as are commonly published among themselves nor are they for Number one to twenty perhaps to a hundred that are agitated in their Schooles and the writings of their Doctors Had we such differences as those of the Jesuit Casuists opened by Montaltas the Jansenian in his Mysterie of Jesuitism out of their own writings something they might then say against us Yea I doubt not but we differ with more hearty Christian Love then they agree and have more real union in our controversies then they have in their Articles of Faith and are neerer one another in our smaller differences then the French and Italians are in their very Fundamentals The third Disputation was called forth by Mr. Warner's Treatise of the Object and Office of Faith and takes up the subject of the first Disputation with some others When that was in the Press Mr. Tombes's Book against Infant Baptism came forth in which I found the Papers that I sent to him upon his importunity printed without my consent which if God will I shall yet vindicate And therefore seeing that it is his way I thought he might do the like by other Papers which formerly I had wrote to him on this subject of Justification And therefore thinking it fitter that I should publish them of the two then he I have saved him the charge of printing them and annexed them to these The fourth Disputation was added because it is the very heart of our Controversie which most of our Disputes about the instrumentall Causality of Faith as to Justification and the other Concomitant are resolved into That the Reader may understand these Disputations the better I shall here at the entrance shew him the face of the way that I maintain and also of the way that I oppose The way that I plead for is contained in these Propositions 1. Man having broken the Law of Nature or works is lost and disabled to his own Recovery or to do any works by which that Law will ever justifie him 2. Jesus Christ hath Redeemed him from this lost condition by his Incarnation Life Death Resurrection c. fulfilling the Law by his obedience and suffering for our not fulfilling it and thereby satisfying the Lawgiver and attaining the ends of the Law and more making himself an example to us of holiness and becoming our Teacher High Priest and King to save us from all sin and enemies and recover us to God for our Salvation and his Glory and Pleasure 3. The Offices and Works of Christ are for other ends as well as for our justification even for our Sanctification Glorification c. 4. The Believer ought not to confound the offices works or ends and effects but to apprehend them as distinctly as he can 5. The same Offices of Christ are exercised in the effecting several works He doth justifie us both as Priest Prophet and King and he sanctifieth us as Priest Prophet and King His Death purchasing both our justification and sanctification and his Teaching shewing us the way to both and his Kingly Office conferring both though most notably our justification and the Prophetical effecting more of our sanctification then of our justification 6 We must have part in Christ himself as our Head in order of Nature before we can partake of justification Sanctification as following our first faith or Glorification from him 7. Though our Physical Communion with Christ is effected by a Physical change on the soul yet our Right to him and to Justification and other following benefits is the effect of a free Gift or Testament or Promise and that Promise or free Gift is our Title which is Fundamentum juris or the efficient Instrumental cause 8. Christ and pardon or justification and Right to Heaven c. are given us by one and the same Deed of Gift so that he that hath Right to Christ hath by the same Title on the same terms Right to these his benefits 9. This Promise or Gift is conditional though it be but the Condition of a free Gift that is required 10. No mans works Repentance or Faith is his proper Title to pardon or life nor any proper meritorious cause of it nor any efficient Principal or Instrumental causes of his Right No act of ours can be more then a meer condition of that Right and a Causa sine quâ non which as it is an act that 's pleasing to God and hath the Promise of a Reward the Fathers called improperly by the Name of Merit which yet less fitly agrees to the Condition of our first Justification then of our Glorification 11. Christs pardon and life are given by this Gospel-Promise on condition of our faith in Christ that is if we become Believers in Christ or Christians which is If we accept of Christ as offered in the Gospel and that is to bring us from our sins and selves to God by the acts of his Teaching Priestly and Kingly Office Or if we believe in Christ as Christ So that it is not any one single act of Faith that is the condition of Justification nor are the several Benefits of Christ given us on condition of several acts of Faith as if we had Right to pardon by one act and to Christ himself by another and to Adoption by another and to Heaven by another c. Nor have the several acts of our faith as divided an Interest in procurement of the Benefits as Christs actions had But it is one and the same entire faith in Christ as Christ that is the condition of all these consequent special Benefits without division in the procurement So that the Belief in Christ as our Teacher and King hath as much hand in our
was the Act of seeing which cured them without touching laying hold on apprehending resting on c. But you will not say so of justifying faith 3. The sight which was the condition of their cure was no actuall reception of the brazen Serpent but the species of that Serpent by the eye and so the eye did no otherwise receive the Serpent then it received every Object it behold even the Serpent that stung them But if you say that our receiving Christ is but per simplicem apprehensionem objecti and that it is a receiving of his species and so that we receive Christ no otherwise then we receive Satan or any Object of Knowledge I will not be of that opinion 4. Their cure was simul semel but our Justification is a continued Act as really in doing all our lives as at first 5 Therefore though one act finished their cure and there was no condition perscribed as requisite for the consummation or continuance yet when our Justification is begun and we truly justified there is further conditions prescribed for its continuance and consummation To conclude I am so far from saying that any other Act will as well heal the wounded Christian besides what God hath made the express condition of his cure that I flatly aver no other will do it But whether he hath made any one single act or Passion to be the whole of that condition I have elsewhere out of Scripture shewed you and you do not deny what I say My two last Answers to your exposition of Pauls words you are pleased to overpass the last of which the ninth being the main that I made use of viz. that Paul taketh the word Workâ— more strictly for such working as maketh the Reward to be not of Grace but of debt and in this sence I disclaim all works not only as you do from being receptive or instrumental or effective but from being concomitant why you said nothing to this my chief Answer I do not know You next tell me that I cannot take the Assemblies definition in that sence as they declare it or the Scripture words which are Metaphorical imply for its the resting of a burdened soul upon Christ only for Righteousness and by this Christs Righteousness is made over to us and it s a receiving of Christ as the hand embraceth any Object c. Answer That the word Receiving and Resting are Metaphorical I easily grant you and wonder the more that you still insist on them and instead of reducing them to more proper expressions do here add Metaphor to Metaphor till all your definition be a meer Allegory when you know how much Metaphors do seduce But for the Assemblies Definition I embrace it unfeignedly in that sence as the words seem to me most evidently to import without using violence with them But I perceive by this that you will not think it enough in a man to subscribe to national Confessions and Catechisms in the obvious sence or that which he judgeth the plain proper sence except he also agree with you in the explication Some think it not enough that we subscribe to the Scripture because we may misunderstand it and therefore we must subscribe to national Confessions as more explicate which I like well so we add nothing to Gods word nor thrust our own Commentaries into the Text or obtrude out own Doctrines upon men as Articles of their faith or at least as the Bishops did the Ceremonies which they made indifferent in word but necessary indeed But now I perceive the matter comes all to one in the issue when you cannot make a definition of Faith in such Language as is any easier to be understood then the Scripture when you and I cannot both understand it and I find that many are of Bellarmines judgement Apol. c. 7. cited by Mr. Vines in his Sermon against Haeres pag. 50. That a man may be an Haeretick though he believe the Scriptures the three Creeds and the four great general Councils But for the sence of the Assemblies definition 1 I know not what you mean by the words as they declare it If any private declaration I am not to take notice of it nor do I know what it meaneth and could wish they would do or might have done as Mr. Vines desired in his Sermon Jâ—â— 28. 1645. that is To second their conclusions with the Reasons and Grounds of them which will do much to make them pass for currant seeing saith he the Gorgons head which struck all dumb in former times The Church The Church is not likely to have the same operation row in this seeing and searching age for though men be willing to be subject to Authority yet as they are men they will be slaves to Reason So that if there were any private exposition I would we had it But if you mean only what is declared in the words of the Definition I am most confident though I never was in the Assembly that I have hit on their sence far neerer then you seem to have done and I dare not think otherwise lest I be hainously censorious of so reverend an Assembly which I am resolved not to be 1. Their very words are a receiving of Christ and not immediately and primarily his Righteousness but himself and in the confession they say as I do that it is an accepting receiving and resting on Christ 2. And as Christ the anointed which Name signifieth the Offices which he is anointed to viz. King Priest c. 3. It maketh it to consist in no one act but several expressed in two phrases 1. Receiving Christ 2. Resting on him alone for salvation 4. It expresly saith that it is a receiving of him as he is offered in the Gospel and that is not as a justifier only but as a Lord and Prophet and that as immediately as the other and conjunct with it for he is no where offered as a justifier alone if he be shew where it is 5. And hence it is plain that they mean no Reception but moral by Willing Consenting Accepting as they expresly say in the confession of Faith For he is no otherwise offered to us in the Gospel He is not offered to our Physical Reception It is not his person in substance that is offered to the Contact of our Spirits much less of our flesh but his person as cloathed with his Relations of Mediator Redeemer Lord Saviour c. And can you receive a King as King who is personally distant or invisible by any other Reception then I have said If we do receive a King into England the only Acts of the soul are hearty consenting and what is therein and thereto implyed though bodily Actions may follow which as to Christ we cannot perform I think verily this is the plain sound sence of the Assembly and shall believe so till the same Authority that thus defined do otherwise interpret their own definition And for your phrase of Resting a burdened
so desire me not to take it ill to be called an erring shepherd As if I did not know my Proneness to err and were not conscious of the weakness of my understanding or as if the expressions of so sincere love did need excuse or as if I were so tender and brittle as not to endure so gentle a touch as if my confidence of your love were Plumea non Plumbea and would be blown away with such a friendly breath Certainly Sir your sharper smiting would be precious Balm so it light not on the Truth but me I am not so unctuous nitrous or sulfureous as to be kindled with such a gratefull warmth My Intellect were too much active and my affections too passive if by the reception of the beams of such favourable expressions my soul as by a Burning-Glass should be set on fire I am oft ashamed and amazed to think of the horrid intolerable Pride of many learned Pious Divines who though they have no worse Titles then Viri docti reverendi celeberrimi yet think themselves abused and unsufferably vilified if any word do but acrius pungere or any Argument do faucibus premere witness Rivet and Spanhemius late angry censure of Amyraldus Can we be fit Preachers and Patterns of meekness and humility to our people who are so notoriously proud that we can scarce be spoke to My knowledge of your eminent humility and gentelness hath made me also the freer in my speeches here to you which therefore do need more excuse then yours And I accordingly intreat you if any thing have passed that is unmannerly according to the natural eagerness and vehemency of my temper that you will be pleased to excuse what may be excused and the rest to remit and cover with love assuring your self it proceeds not from any diminution of his high esteem of you and love to you who acknowledgeth himself unfeignedly so very much below you as to be unworthy to be called Your fellow-servant RICHARD BAXTER June 28. 1650. Kederminster Postscript DEar Sir while I was waiting for a messenger to send this by Master Brooksby acquaints me that you wisht him to tell me that I must expect no more in writing from you My request is that whereas you intimated in your first a purpose of writing somewhat against me on this subject hereafter you would be pleased to do it in my life time that I may have the benefit of it if you do it satisfactorily and if not may have opportunity to acquaint you with the reasons of my dissent Scribunt Asinium Pollionem dixisse aliquando se parasse orationes contra Plancum quas non nisi post mortem esset editurus Plancum respondisse cum mortuis non nisi larvas luctari ut Lud. Vives ex Plinio Dr. Humfred ex illo Jesuit 2. p. 640. Also I request that if possible you would proceed on such terms as your Divinity may not wholly depend upon meer niceties of Philosophy For I cannot think such points to be neer the foundation Or at least that you will clearly and fully confirm your Philosophical grounds For as I find that your Doctrine of a Passive Instrumentality of the Act of faith and that in a Moral reception of righteousness which is but a relation yet calling it Physical is the very bottom of the great distance between us in the point of justification So I am of opinion that I may more freely dissent from a brother in such tricis philosophicis then in an Article of faith Especially having the greatest Philosophers on my side and also seeing how little accord there is among themselves that they are almost so many men so many minds and when I find them professing as Combacchius in praefâ—ad Phys that they write against their own sense to please others quod maximam opinionum in lib. contentarum partem non jam probaret Aristotelem non esse normam veritates and wishing ut tandem aliquando exurgat aliquis qui perfectiora nobis principia monstret and to conclude as he salsitatem opinionum sententiarum scientiarum imperfectionemâ—jam pridem video sed in veritate docenda deficio Et Nulli aut paucis certe minus me satisfacturum ac mihi ipsi sat scio And how many new Methods and Doctrines of Philosophy this one age hath produced And I am so far sceptical my self herein as to think with Scaliger ibid. cit Nos instar vulpis à Ciconia delusae vitreum vas lambere pultem haud attingere But I believe not that in any Master point in Divinity God hath left his Church at such an utter loss nor hanged the faith and salvation of every honest ordinary Christian upon meer uncertain Philosophical speculations I do not think that Paul knew what a Passive instrument was much less an act that was physically passive in its instrumentality in a moral causation You must give me leave to remain confident that Paul built not his Doctrine of justification on such a philosophical foundation till you have brought one Scripture to prove that faith is an instrument and such an instrument which can neither be done Especially when the same Paul professeth that he came not to declare the Testimony of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that he determined not to know any thing among them save Iesus Christ and him crucified and that his speech and preaching was not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that so their faith might not stand 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he spoke the mysteries of the Gospel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 2. I am past doubt therefore that to thrust such Philosophical dictates into our Creed or Confession and make them the very touchstone of Orthodoxness in others is a dangerous presumptuous adding to the Doctrine of the Gospel and a making of a new Doctrine of justification and salvation to the great wrong of the Prophet and Lawgiver of the Church I was even now reading learned Zanchius proof that believers before Christ did by their faith receive Christs flesh or humane nature as promised and future as well as the Divine and his heavy censure of the contrary Doctrine as vile and unsufferable which occasioneth me to add this Quere Whether that believing was a physical reception when the object had no real being or did not exist Or whether meer morral reception by Accepting Choosing Consenting as a people receiving the Kings Heires for their future Governours before they are born or as we receive a man for our King who dwels far out of our sight Or as Princes wives do use to take them both for their Husbands and Soveraign Lords even in their own Native Countrey before they come to sight of the man the match being both driven on and made and the marriage or contract performed and imperfectly solemnized at that distance by an Embassador or Delegate just so do we receive Christ whose humane nature is far off and his Divine out
For it fell out that I first saw your Book without the Epistle and Preface 2. Because I thought it fittest to follow the Method that my Subject and the Readers â—â—dification did require 3. Yet did I once purpose to have answered all that was of moment in your Book against the Truth but upon trial I found your Reasons so inconsiderable that weariness interrupted me and put an end to my Reply and withal I grew confident that my labour would be to little purpose For I dare venture any Judicious Divine upon your Book without the help of a Reply And for the rest it is not replying that will serve turn but either prejudice will hold them to the side that they have taken or else they will think him in the right that hath the last word when they have read mine they will think that I am in the right and when they have again read yours they will think that you carry the cause and when they read my Reply again they will say you were mistaken but usually they will go with the party that is in greatest credit or hath most interest in them or advantage on them But yet I think you will find that none of your strength against me is neglected For I can truly say that when I think not meet to Answer all that a man hath said I never pass by that which I take to be his strength but purposely call out that and leave that which I think is so grosly weak as to need no answer So much of your ten Demands or Laws as I apprehended necessary I have here answered supposing what I had said of the same points in my first Disputation which I saw no Reason too often to Repeat I am none of those that blame you for too much of the Metaphysicks but rather mervail that you feared not lest your Metaphysical Reader will wrong you by mis-applying your cited Schegkius contrary to your better opinion of your self and take both your Schegkius and your Scaliger for Prophets that could speak as if they had read your Book and been acquainted with your arguings But it seems you are not the first of that way By your Arguments in your Preface I perceive you think it a matter of very great moment to your cause to prove that there are divers acts of Faith whereas I am so far from denying it that I am ready to demonstrate that even the faith by which we are Justified is liker to have twenty acts then one only but many certainly it hath Your first Argument is from the different objects because the Objects specifie the Acts. A sufficient Argument which no man can confute But 1. This is no proof that one act only is it that we are justified by 2. Where you add that Justifying Faith hath not respect to Christ as Lord formaliter you beg the Question and assert no light mistake But where you add in its act of Justifying you do but obtrude upon us your fundamental Error which leadeth you to the rest by naked affirmations Faith hath properly no justifying act Justificare est efficere Faith doth not effect our Justification we are justified by faith indeed but not as by an efficient cause unless you will take Justification for Sanctification For real qualitative Mutations it doth effect but the Jus or Title to any mercy in the world it cannot Effect but Accept when offered If you â—â—nâ— see so plain a Truth in its Evidence yet observe by the words of the Reverend Brother that is my Opponent in the second Disputation and by your Prefacers Dr. Kendals course that its a passive instrumentality that the Defenders of your cause at last are driven to and therefore talk not of its act of Justifying unless you will mean Gods act of Justifying which faith is the Condition of And whereas you make unbelief to be formally a slighting and neglecting Christ as a Saviour and effectively you must mean only effective non formaliter a denying subjection to him as Lord. You err so great but so rare an error that I suppose it needless to confute it All Christians as far as I can learn have been till now agreed that Believing in Christ as Prophet and King is a real part of faith and that unbelief or rejecting him as Prophet and King is a real part of unbelief Your second Argument is from the different subjects where you give us two such palpable Fictions that its a wonder you can make your self believe them much more that you should lay so great a stress on such absurdities The first is that the Act of Faith is in several faculties and you elswhere give us to understand that it is one Physical Act that you mean And do you think in good sadness that one single Physical act can be the act of both the faculties The second is that the fear love and obedience to Christ as King is but in the Will But 1. That Readers do you expect that will take an Assertion of Fear-Love and Obedience in stead of an assertion concerning Faith Were you not comparing faith in Christ as King with faith in Christ as Priest only And why speak you not of faith in one part of your comparison as well as in the other Your conclusion now is nothing to the Question 2. Or if you mean that Faith in Christ as King is not in both faculties as well as Faith in Christ as Priest or sacrifice did you think that any man of ordinary understanding would ever believe you without any proof or that ever such a thing can be proved Your third Argument is Because they are in a different time exerted the one that is Faith as Justifying being precedaneous to the other and to other Graces Answ Wonderfull Is that man justified that believeth not in Christ as the King and Prophet of the Church Do you believe this your self why then an Infidel is justified by Faith The ' Belief in Christ as a Sacrifice or Priest only is not the Christian faith it is not faith in Christ properly because it is not faith in Christ as Christ For Christ as Priest only is not Christ A Heart only is not Corpus humanum A Body only is not a Man where there are three essential parts one of them is not the Thing without the rest The name Jesus Christ signifieth the office as well as the person It is essential to that Office that he be Prophet and King And hereby you shew that you do not only distinguish but divide For where there is a distance of time between the Acts there is a division Do you think that we are Christs enemies or followers of them unless we will believe you that a man is Justified by Believing in Christ only as a Priest or Ransom or in his Righteousness before ever be believe in him as King and Lord and so as Teacher c. If I had said that you are Christs enemy for such Doctrine
which is preached to every Creature and not only one branch of it Col. 1.21 22 23. And it is called Col. 2.6 a Receiving Christ Iesus the Lord. John 20.31 These things are written that ye might believe that Iesus is the Christ the son of God and that believing ye might have life through his Name That faith by which we have life is certainly it by which we are justified for as Justification is part of that life so Right to Eternal life is given on the same terms as Justification is And the object of this faith here is Christ in Person and entire Office the son of God by whose Name we have life Acts 2.30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38. Knowing that God had sworn with an Oath to him that of the fruit of his loynes according to the flesh he would raise up Christ to sit upon his Throne he seeing this before spake of the Resurrection of Christ that his soul was not left in his Hell neither his flesh did see Corruption This Iesus hath God raised up whereof we are all witnesses therefore being by the right hand of God exalted therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made this same Iesus whom ye have Crucified both Lord and Christ Now when they heard this Then Peter said unto them Repent and be baptized every one of you in the Name of Iesus Christ for the Remission of sins Here it is evident that Remission of sins is a Benefit that by this faith they were to be made partakers of and so that it is the faith by which we are justified that they are Invited to And that the Object of this faith implyed in the terms Repent and be baptized c. is the Name of Jesus Christ and that eminently in his exaltation as Risen and set at the Right hand of God and as Lord and Christ So Acts 3.19.22.15 Repent therefore and be Converted that your sins may be blotted out For Moses truly said A Prophet shall the Lord your God raise up Here the Jews are accused for killing the Prince of life vers 15. and exhorted to Repent thereof and so of their Infidelity and be converted to Christ and so to become Christians which is more then one act of faith and this was that their sins may be blotted out And Christ as Prophet is propounded to them as the object of this faith which they are exhorted to So Act 10.42 43. with 36 37 38 40 41. And he commanded us to preach unto the people and to testifie that it is he that is ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead to him give all the Prophets witness that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive Remission of sins Here the faith is described which hath the Promise of Remission And the Object of it is at large set out to be Jesus Christ as Lord of all ver 36. as anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power raised from the dead and made the Judge of the quick and the dead and it is called entirely a Believing in him and the Remission is through his name Act. 16.31 The faith of the Jaylor as perswaded to for life is the believing in the Lord Jesus Christ entirely and it s called a Believing in God ver 34. 1 Pet. 2.4 5 6 7. The faith there mentioned is that By which we are justified he that believeth on him shall not be confounded and the Object of it is whole Christ as the Corner stone Elect and Precious John 5.10 11 12. The faith there mentioned is that by which we have Christ and Life And the Object of it is the Son of God and God and the record that God gave of his Son even that God hath given us eternal Life and this life is in his Son Mat. 11.27 28 29. The faith there mentioned is called a comming to Christ weary and heavy laden that he may give them rest which must comprehend Rest from the Guilt of sin and punishment And the Act of that Faith is directed to Christ as one to whom all Power is given by the Father and as one whose yoak and burden we must take upon us But I shall add no more for this To this last Mr. Blake saith pag. 504. This Text shows the Duty of men to be not alone to such rest and ease from Christ but to learn of Christ and follow him But neither their learning nor their imitation but faith in his blood is their freedom or Justification Repl. Properly neither one act of faith nor other is our Justification Faith is a Quality in the Habit and an act in the exercise and Justification is a Relation Faith is a part of our Sanctification Therefore it is not our Justification But supposing you speak Metonymically I say both acts of faith are our Justification that is the Condition of it And the Text proves it by making our Subjection not only a Duty but an express Condition of the Promise And this Conditionality you here before and after do confess or grant Argument 4. If we are justified by Christ as Priest Prophet and King conjunctly and not by any of these alone much less by his Humiliation and Obedience alone then according to the Opponents own Principles who argue from the distinct Interest of the several parts of the Object to the distinct Interest of the several acts of faith we are justified by believing in Christ as Priest Prophet and King and not as Humble and Obedient only But we are justified by Christ as Priest Prophet and King c. Ergo c. The Consequence is their own And the Antecedent I shall prove from several texts of Scripture and from the nature of the thing beginning with the last And first it is to be supposed That we are all agreed that the blood and Humiliation of Jesus Christ are the Ransome and Price that satisfieth the Justice of God for our sins and accordingly must be apprehended by the Believer And many of us agree also that his Active obedience as such is part of this satisfaction or at least Meritorious of the same effect of our Justification But the thing that I am to prove is that the Meritorious Cause is not the only Cause and that Christ in his other actions is as truly the efficient Cause as in his meriting and that all do sweetly and harmoniously concur to the entire effect and that faith must have respect to the other causes of our Justification and not alone to the Meritorious Cause and that we are Justified by this entire work of Faith and not only by that Act which respects the satisfaction or merit And first I shall prove that Christ doth actually justifie us as King The word Justification as I have often said and it s past doubt is used to signifie these three Acts. First Condonation or constitutive Justification by the Law of Grace or Promise of the Gospel Secondly Absolution
If you consent not to this you then must maintain that this Covenant excludeth not Infidels from salvation the term only being not implyed in the promise of pardon to Believers But if you grant all this as sure you will then it is most evident that Believing is taken in the same sense in the promise and in the threatning For no man breathing can tell me either how a Promise to one kind of faith can imply a threatning against the want of another kind or act of faith or else what that other faith must be that is so implyed if not the same And if it be the same faith that is implyed which is a most evident truth then it will follow that if I prove the Threatned unbelief to be a Rejecting of Christ as King the faith then that is made the condition of the promise must be the accepting of him as King as well as Priest But I have proved that not believing in Christ as King is part of the unbelief that is specially threatned werth condemnation therefore believing in him as King is part of that faith which hath the promise or is the Condition of Justification But saith Mr. Blake I further answer Rejecting Christ as King is a sin against the moral Law which damns Yet somewhat more then subjection to the Moral Law is required than a sinner may be saved Repl. For my part I know no Law but moral Law It s a strange Law that is not Moral as it is a strange Animal that is not quid Physicum But yet I partly understand what some others mean by the phrase Moral Law but what you mean I cannot tell for all your two volumns And it s to small purpose to dispute upon terms whose sense we be not agreed in nor do not understand one another in And you must better agree with yourselves before you agree with me I cannot reconcile these speeches Mr. Blake of the Covenant pag. 111. I know no other Rule but the old Rule the Rule of the Moral Law that is with me a Rule a perfect Rule and the only Rule Mr. Blake here pag. 563. Yet somewhat more then subjection to the Moral Law is required that a sinner may be saved I am confident you will allow me to think you mean somewhat more ex parte nostri and not only ex parte Christi And can that somewhat more be required without any Rule requiring it And yet I find you sometimes seeming offended with me for telling you I understand you not But I further answer you The rejecting of Christ as King is no further a sin against the Moral Law then the accepting him as King is a duty of the Moral Law Will you not believe this without a Dispute when you are told by Paul that where there is no Law there is no transgression and elsewhere that sin is a transgression of the Law And need not stand to prove that the same Law which is the Rule prescribing duty is the Rule discovering sin even that sin which is the Privation of that duty I desire no Readers that will not receive these things without any more arguing Mr. Blake adds Vnbelief if we speak properly doth not at all condemn further then as it is a breath of a Moral Commandment The privation of which you speak only holds the sentence of the Law in force and power against us which me thinks should be yeur judgement as well as mine seeing you are wont to compare the new Law as you call it to an act of oblivion And an act of oblivion saves many but condemns none Repl. It is in more then one thing I perceive that we differ But this is a truth that you must not so easily take out of our hands Though having had occasion to speak largely of it elsewhere I shall say but little now First Again I know no Commandment that is not moral But if you mean by Moral the Commandment either meerly as delivered by Moses or as written in Nature I am not of your mind nor ever shall be To be void of the belief of these Articles of the faith that this Jesus is the Christ that he was actually conceived by the Holy Ghost born of the Virgin Mary suffered under Pontius Pilate was crucified dead and buried Rose again the third day ascended into Heaven sitteth in our nature at the right hand of God gave the Holy Ghost to his Apostles to confirm the Doctrine of the Gospel with many more doth condemn further then as it is a breach either of the Mosaical or Natural Law yea in some respects as it is no breach of those Laws And yet the same sin materially may be a breach of several Laws and condemned by several Secondly you very much mistake my judgement here if you think it the same with yours Nor will the mention of an act of oblivion justifie your mistake I suppose an Act of oblivion may possibly have a Penalty anexed as that all that stand our and accept not of this pardon by such a year or day shall be remediless and lyable to a greater Penalty And I think if no Penalty be named there is one implyed For my part I am satisfied that the Remedying Law or the Law of Grace hath its special Threatning when I so often read it He that believeth shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned and unless ye believe that I am he ye shall die in your sins And I take it to differ from the Threatning of the law of works thus First In the matter of the condition which is not sin in general any sin but a special sin viz. the final rejecting the Remedy that is Refusing to turn to God by faith in Christ Secondly In the Penalty First The Gospel Penalty is Non-liberation from the curse of the Law Not to be forgiven or saved This had been but a Negation and not Penal if there had been no Christ and Gospel But it is a privation and penal now because by a special sin we forfeit our hopes and possibilities Secondly As to the degree I find it will be a far sorer punishment Heb. 10.29 The Law of greatest Grace doth threaten the greatest punishment Thirdly And doubtless in Hell Conscience will have a special kind of Accusations and self-tormentings in reflecting on the refusals of the remedy and treading under foot the blood of the new Covenant which is a punishment that was never threatned by the Covenant of works Fourthly And there will be a Privation of a greater Glory then ever was promised under the Law of works Fifthly As also of a special sort of eternal felicity consisting in loving the Redeemer and singing the song of the Lamb and being his members c. Thirdly And as there are these five differences in the Penalty besides that of the Condition of it so is there a considerable modal difference in the consummation it self viz. that of the Law of works was
act it self and therefore it is not faith as faith that is as it is an apprehension of Christ or recumbency on him that Justifyeth nor yet as an Instrument thus acting The nature of the act is but its aptitude to its office or justifying Interest and not the formal cause of it Proposition 6. No work or act of man is any true proper cause of his justification as Justification is commonly taken in the Gospel neither Principal or Instrumental The highest Interest that they can have is but to be a condition of our Justification and so a Dispositio moralis which therefore some call cansa dispositiva and some causa sine qua non and it s indeed but a Nominall cause and truly no cause at all Proposition 7. Whatsoever works do stand in opposition to Christ or disjunct from him yea or that stand not in a due subordination to him are so far from Justifying even as conditions that they are sins which do deserve condemnation Proposition 8. Works as taken for the Imperate Acts of Obedience external distinct from the first Radical Graces are not so much as conditions of our Justification as begun or our being put into a Justified state Proposition 9. Repentance from dead works denying our our selves renouncing our own Righteousness c. much less external Obedience are not the receptive condition of our Justification as faith is that is Their nature is not to be an actual Acceptance of Christ that is they are not faith and therefore are not designed on that account to be the Condition of our Justification Proposition 10. God doth not justifie us by Imputing our own faith to us in stead of perfect Obedience to the Law as if it were sufficient or esteemed by him sufficient to supply its place For it is Christs Righteousness that in point of value and merit doth supply its place nor doth any work of ours justifie us by satisfying for our sins for that 's the work of Christ the Mediator Our faith and love and obedience which are for the receiving and improving of him and his Righteousness and so stand in full subordination to him are not to be made co-partners of his office or honor Affirm Proposition first We are justified by the merits of a perfect sinless Obedience of Christ together with his sufferings which he performed both to the Law of nature the Law of Moses and the Law which was proper to himself as Mediator as the subject obliged Proposition 2. There is somewhat in the nature of faith it self in specie which makes it fit to be elected and appointed by God to be the great summary Condition of the Gospel that it be Receptive an Acceptance of Christ is the nature of the thing but that it be a condition of our Justification is from the will and constitution of the Donor and Justifier Proposition 3. There is also somewhat in the nature of Repentance self-denyal renouncing all other Saviours and our own righteousness desiring Christ loving Christ intending God and Glory as our end procured by Christ confessing sin c. which make them apt to be Dispositive Conditions and so to be comprized or implyed in faith the summary Receptive condition as its necessary attendants at least Proposition 4. Accordingly God hath joyned these together in his Promise and constitution making faith the summary and receptive Condition and making the said acts of Repentance self-denyal renouncing our own righteousness disclaiming in heart Justification by the works of the Law and the renouncing of all other Saviours also the desiring and loving of Christ offered and the willing of God as our God and the renouncing of all other Gods and so of the world flesh and devil at least in the resolution of the heart I say making these the dispositive Conditions which are ever implyed when faith only is expressed some of them as subservient to faith and perhaps some of them as real parts of faith it self Of which more anon Proposition 5. The Gospel promiseth Justification to all that will Believe or are Believers To be a Believer and to be a Disciple of Christ in Scripture sense is all one and so is it to be a Disciple and to be a Christian therefore the sense of the promise is that we shall be justified if we become true Christians or Disciples of Christ and therefore justifying faith comprehendeth all that is essential to our Discipleâ—ship or Christianity as its constitutive causes Proposition 6. It is not therefore any one single Act of faith alone by which we are justified but it is many Physical acts conjunctly which constitute that faith which the Gospel makes the condition of Life Those therefore that call any one Act or two by the name of justifying faith and all the rest by the name of works and say that it is only the act of recumbency on Christ as Priest or on Christ as dying for us or only the act of apprehending or accepting his imputed Righteousness by which we are justified and that our Assent or Acceptance of him as our Teacher and Lord our desire of him our love to him our renouncing other Saviours and our own Righteousness c. are the works which Paul doth exclude from our Justification and that it is Jewish to expect to be justified by these though but as Conditions of Justification these persons do mistake Paul and pervert the Doctrine of Faith and Justification and their Doctrine tendeth to corrupt the very nature of Christianity it self Though yet I doubt not but any of these acts conceited meritorious or otherwise as before explained in the Negative if men can believe contradictories may be the matter of such works as Paul excludeth And so may that one act also which they appropriate the name of justifying faith to Proposition 7. Sincere obedience to God in Christ is a condition of our continuance in a state of Justification or of our not losing it And our perseverance therein is a condition of our appearing in that state before the Lord at our departure hence Proposition 8. Our Faith Love and Works of Love or sincere Obedience are conditions of our sentential Justification by Christ at the particular and general Judgement which is the great Justification And so as they will prove our Interest in Christ our Righteousness so will they materially themselves justifie us against the particular false Accusation of being finally impenitent Unbelievers not Loving not obeying sincerely For to deny a false accusation is sufficient to our Justification Proposition 9. As Glorification and Deliverance from Hell is by some called Executive pardon or Justification so the foresaid acts are conditions of that execution which are conditions of Justification by the sentence of the Judge Proposition 10. As to a real inherent Justice or Justification in this life we have it in part in our Sanctification and Obedience and in the life to come we shall have it in perfection So much for the
explicatory Propositions I Come now to prove the sum of the Affirmative Proposition together so far as they resolve the Question in hand viz. that works or acts of man have such an Interest in our Justificaon and are so far conditions as is here asserted My first proof is from those Texts of Scripture which expresly speak of Justification by such acts or works If we are justified By our words and works then are they no less then conditions of Justification But we are justified By them Ergo. c. The Consequence of the Major is plain first In that the Preposition By doth signifie no less then the Interest of some means but these Works can be no means but either a condition or a cause which is more A cause the persons that now I deal with will not affirm them to be If they do then they ascribe much more to them then to be a condition Secondly The Interest of faith it self is expressed by no higher terms then By that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so is the Interest of these other acts The Minor is express 1. Mat. 12.36 37. For by thy words thou shalt be justified and by thy words thou shalt be condemned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is at the day of Judgement in the great Justification 2. Jam. 2.24 ye see then how that By Works 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a man is justified and not by faith only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This speaks of Justification in this life When men argue against Justification by our words or works I desire 1. to understand whether it be the words or the sense that they argue against If the words then it is either against the use of them simply as being false or unmeet or else against unseasonable use of them For the former they have no ground for you see it is the express language of Christ himself and his Apostle And as to the later I easily grant that no Scripture phrase should be unseasonably used But if it be not the words but the sense that they blame why then do they harp so much on the words themselves and raise the most of the odium from thence And what is the unwarrantable sense I know not of any lower sense that they can put on these words then what importeth the Interest of a condition As for that of Mat. 12. they say little to it And as to that of James they interpret it differently among themselves First Some of them say that James speaks of Justification before men and others say he speaks of Justification before God The former are easily confuted as they restrain the text to that alone by the express words of the Text. For first ver 23. it expresly speaks of Righteousness by divine Imputation and of Gods accepting Abraham into friendship Secondly The text speaks of that Justification which concurreth with Salvation ver 14. can faith save him Thirdly It speaks of the Death of faith without works as to Profiting ver 16.17 which is different from manifestation Fourthly It instanceth in the secret act of Rahab and such an act of Abraham as we read of no men that then justified him for nay they were liker to condemn him Fifthly Men may justifie an Hypocrite as soon as the truly godly and can but conjecture at the faith by the works But the scope of the text shews that it is no such frivolous justification that is here meant Secondly They that say that it is justification before God that is here meant as no doubt it is have yet divers interpretations of the word Works Some say that by Works is not meant Works themselves indeed but a working faith To them I say first I deny it and wait for better proof then is yet brought Secondly The text nameth works expresly twelve times in a few verses which is not usual in speeches so tropicall as this is supposed to be Thirdly In many or most of the texts that interpretation would make the words non-sense as the perusall will declare Fourthly If the word works did emphatically signifie the working nature of faith or faith not qua fides but qua operans it will be all one as to the matter in question and yield what I desire Others say that by works is indeed meant the works themselves properly but then they say that the text speaks not of the Justification of the person by them but of faith by them for faith say they alone doth justifie the person and works only justifie faith Answer But first this contradicteth the express text for verse 14. It is the Salvation of the person that is denyed and ver 21. It it the justification of Abraham himself that is there mentioned and ver 24. it is the man that is said to be justified by works and not by faith only and verse 25. it is Rahab her self that is said to be justified by works Secondly The answer contradicteth themselves or granteth what I desire for if works justifie the faith they must needs justifie the person in tantum against any accusation of gross Infidelity and Hypocrisie Sometime the person is justified when his Action cannot be justified as in case of satisfaction and pardon but to justifie the action it self is the highest sort of justifying the person So that all other Interpretations being either overthrown or resolved into that which we maintain I need to say to more for the defending of it My next proof is from those texts that say we shall be Judged according to our works and rewarded according to our Labour c. 2 Cor. 5.9 10. 1 Cor. 3.8 1 Pet. 1.16 17. Matthew 16.27 c. If men shall be justified according to their works then those works are no lower then a condition of that justification But the Antecedent is true as I prove thus If men shall be judged according to their works therefore they shall be justified according to their works The reason of the Consequence is evident because judging is the Genus which comprehendeth Justification and condemnation as its species The reason also of the consequence of the former Argument is apparent because the term of judging according to works doth in the common use of men signifie ordinarily that which they call the Meritum causae but never any thing lower then a bare condition nor can any lower tolerable judiciary sense be put upon them as might easily be shewed if it were worth the standing on My next proof is from those texts that expresly promise the pardon of sin on condition of Repentance Confession c. If Repentance and other acts are made by the Gospel conditions of pardon and our first general Pardon then are they made conditions of our first admission into a state of Justification But the Antecedent is plain in Act. 2.38 Mar. 14. Luke 13.35 Isa 55.67 and 1.16 17 18. Ezek. 33.11 16. and 18.28 29 30 31 32. Prov.
in other places between faith and any thing of ours that he admits of no medium 2. He instances in Abrahams works and excludes them now were Abrahams works works done by the meer strength of the Law Did not Abrahams Obedience and other works flow from Grace Were Abrahams works in opposition to Christ Yet even these are excluded 3. He excludes all works under any notion by the opposition justifying covering all is wholly attributed unto God 4. The Assertion is universal The Apostle saith without works in general ver 6. And he works not ver 5. Lastly By the testimony he brings from the Psalmist that blessedness is where sin is not imputed whrere it is forgiven These reasons do evidence that he excludes works under all notions in the act of Justification though not from the person justified 3. You say how then saith James true But I ask if there be justifying works how saith Paul true But again James saith true for this faith which in respect of its act ad intra doth only justifie yet it works ad extra The old Assertion is fides quae viva not quo viva You speak of a seeming Antilogie among the orthodox in this reconciliation but though all go not eadem semiâ—â yet they do eadem viâ against works under any notion whatsoever in the act of Justification 4. You argue that faith as an Instrument is excluded Thus Bellarmine also apprehendere est opus therefore faith is excluded But non sequitur Faith is passive in its Instrumentality and although to believe be a Grammatical action its verbum activum yet its physicâ—n or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 passive A man by believing doth not operari but recipere As videre audire are Grammatical actions but Physical or natural passions now you cannot say thus of the exercises of other Graces this is the seeming strength of your Exceptions For Repentance is not excluded as qualifying but as recipient which is a fifth Exception As for your discourse whether Paul disputes what is our Righteousness or upon what terms it is made over to us it doth not much matter for indeed Paul speaks to both those only inclusively or collaterally as you say but that which he chiefly intends is to shew in what manner we are justified whether by believing or working and these he makes two immediate opposites not granting any tertium You speak of Faith taken relatively for Christs Righteousness but how can you find out such a figure for faith in your sence unless you will acknowledge Love or Obedience relatively for Christs Righteousness Indeed those that hold Faiâ—h instrumentally receiving the whole righteousness of Christ and no other Grace they often speak of faith taken relatively but so cannot you who hold that not only seeing this brazen Serpent but any other actions of sence will as well heal the wounded Christian You say you acknowledge the Assemblies definition of resting or receiving you cannot take in that sence as they declare it as the Scripture words which are Metaphorical do imply for its the resting of a burdened soul upon Christ only for Righseousness and by this Christs Righteousness is made over to us and it s a receiving of Christ as the hand embraceth any Object now you make the Righteousness of Christ made over to us in any other exercise of Grace as well as this So that although you would willingly seem not to recede from others yet you plainly do and although you think your Assertions are but more distinct explications yet they are indeed destructive Assertions to what our Divines do deliver neither may you while you intend to dispute exactly build upon some homiletical or popular expression in any mans book You reply to a second part in my Letter whether a godly man dying may be affected according to your position and thereupon you instance in Hezekiah Paul and that no man can dye with comfort without the evidence of these works But is this the state of the question with us Do you think that I deny a godly life to be a comfortable testimony and a necessary qualification of a man for pardon You cannot think that you speak to the point in this But here is the question Can a godly man dying think the Righteousness of Christ is made his by working or believing Is it repent and Christs Righteousness is by this made yours and rest in Christ Certainly the dying Christian is in agonies directed to this resting on Christ to the eying of this brazen Serpent not to be found in any thing but the Righteousness by faith It s an act of Dependance not of Obedience that interests us in Christs Righteousness It s that puts on the robes of Christ that our nakedness may not appear And that is very harsh still which you express to expect the Righteousness of the Covenant of Grace upon the conditions fulfilled by your se lf through Gods workings I am unwilling to parallel this with some passages that might be quoted out of unsound Authors but that I am confident howsoever your Pen-writes you have a tutissimum est to rest only upon Christs Righteousness and that by bare resting and beleiving you look for a Righteousness As Philosophers say we see or hear intus recipiendo not extra mittendo otherwise Bellarmine argues consonantly enough that Love would justifie as well as faith but we say that Faith doth pati Love doth agere Not but that faith is an active grace only in this act it is meer recipient Sir I have not time nor paper to answer those many questions the most of which I conceive impertinent to this business and your Explication of your self how imperfections in our Graces are done away and yet the conditions of righteousness is to me 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but I cannot go any further What I have written with much love and respect to you I should account it a great mercy to be instrumental to bring you to the right way again If there be so much Joy for reducing a wandring sheep be not offended if I say there will be much more for an erring shepheard though I hope at last your error may prove in words rather then in sence with heartly brotherly love I have written this and so let it be received from your fellow-labourer who honours Gods gifts in you and is also sensible of his own infirmities and proneness to err Dear Sir IF you doubt of the truth of my bodily infirmity it is because you neither know my body nor mind The dispute at Bewdley as it was almost at home so I had the choice of the time and such strength vouchsafed from God which I cannot again expect much less promise my self I told you I have some lucida intervalla perhaps a few hours in a moneth but if upon such uncertainty I should draw you to a journey and then ten to one fail you I should be injurious But seeing you so far and freely condiscend
apprehensio 2 Horum Compositio 3. Compostorum aestimatio eoque verorum à falsis divisio 4. Ex his raticcinatio And you know that Tolet having formerly thought with Aegid Paul Venet. Cajet that sensatio ita intellectio est formaliter passio did change his judgement and at last conclude that Visio vel sensatio alia duos motus dicit unum materialiter hic est receptio speciei alterum formaliter hic est Actio Prior inest Organo ratione materiae posterior ratione potentiae aâ—imae tamen uterque eidem inest Organo Prior quidem non est substantialiter essentiâ— liter sensatio sed concomitans velut dispositio posterior est essentialiter sensatio But I have been too tedious on this vid. ultra in l. 2. de Anima p. 76 77. c. l. 3. q. 13. c. You see my reasons in part why I may think my self excusable though I build not an Article of my faith on your Philosophical assertion that videee audire and so to believe are Grammatical actions only for you must say only or you say nothing and but physical passions Quest 2. Whether to Believe be only verbum activâ—m but phycally passive and a man by believing doth not operari but recipere This Question comes a little closer By operari I know you mean agere for if you should mean such an operation as Operarius pro mercede ex debito performeth then you should say nothing but dispute against what I disavowed even in the letter you answer which I dare not impute to you Now the reasons that force me to differ vehemently from you as you said to me in this point are partly Philosophical partly Theological And 1. I would sain know what that is which you here call Faith and say its passive Is it the Habit No For 1. That cannot be passive 2. That is not it that justifieth 3. That is not a passion as you say this is 4. That is not a Grammatical Action as you say this is What then Is it the Act of Faith No For 1. That 's it that you are denying and say it s but verbum activum 2. You say it is passive But how an Action can be passive is so far beyond the reach of my weak understanding that I could not believe it though it were judged Heresie to deny it Pâ—ssâ—o intrinsecum ordinem dicit ad subjectum repugnat dari passionem extra subjectum saith Surrez Tom. 2. disp 49. p. 451. And that Action can be the subject of Passion is Philosophy that I never learned and I think never shall do Especially if Schibler and most Philosophers say true that Actio passio non differunt realiter sed secundum inadaequatoâ— conceptus For very many have taught me that to the Peripateticks it is absurd for the same to be both the Action Passion and Passum yea to common reason it is Most certainly therefore it is neither Habit nor Act of faith which you call faith What is it then Is it a Passion so you say your self and therefore I must take that to be your meaning And I cannot imagine what else you should call faith But here you leave me at as great a loss as before For 1. You say it is Passive But I never heard or read before of a Passive Passion any more then of a Passive Action And if I should set my understanding on the wrack it would not apprehend or acknowledge any such thing I cannot imagine that it is the soul it self which you say is passive 1. Because you say it is faith 2. Because else your Argument must conclude that the soul only is the instrument But we are not questioning the instrumentality of the soul now but of faith More I might urge to shew that this cannot be your meaning but that I will not suppose that it is the soul it self which you call faith It being therefore neither the Soul Habit Act nor Passion which you here say is Passive in its instrumentality I am forced to confess I know not what you mean Yet if you should mean any Potentia Passive 1. Whether there be any such in the rational soul distinct from the soul it self is a great doubt 2. If there were I know not how it can be called faith 3. Nor is it such a Potentia that is the instrument of justification Yet afterwards you say It is an act of dependance which here you call a Passion 2. But whether Act or Passion it must belong either to the Vnderstanding or Will or both And 1. If you should place it only in the understanding you would besides Dr. Downam have few but the Papists with you 2. If in the Will only then as Scripture is most plain against it so you would also go against the generality of our Divines Melancthon Jâ— Crocius Amesius Davenant c. make it the common Protestant Tenet that it is in both In actu siâ—ei Justificantis tota an ma se convertit ad causam justificantem Davenant Determ Q. 38. pag. 174. Fides illa quam Scriptura justificantem agnoscit habet in se complicatum actum voluntatis intellectus idem ibid. Q. 37. pag. 166. And to them that think it absurd to have it in both faculties I answer with the same Author 1. Quod philosâ—â—kantur voluntatem intellectum esse duas potentias re ipsa distinctas dogma philosophicum est ab omnibus haud receptum not of Scotus and his followers with many more Theologicis dogmatibus firmandis aut infirmandis fundamentuÌ„ minime idâ—neum 2. Neque nobis absurdum sed valde consentaneum videtur actum illum quo tota anima purificatur justificatur ad totam animam pertinere ita ut in nudo intellectu habeat initium in voluntate complementum Idem ibid. 3. If you say it is in both as I doubt not but you will it being the plain Truth then 1. It cannot possibly by any one single Act or Passion which you call the passive Instrument and do you think to find out many such 2. For that which belongeth to the understanding it must be either a simple apprehension a composition or division or a ratiocination or Judgement And 1. A simple Apprehension it cannot be 1. For so the Intellect receiveth all Objects alike It receiveth sin death unrighteousness Satan hell in the same kind as it receiveth Grace Life Righteousness Christ Heaven For it understandeth both in the same way receiving them per modum objecti 2. And thus it receiveth not the very thing it self Essentially though it understand the thing it self but only as is said the species or action of it c. except you will say as Sir Ken. Digby and the Lord Brook that the thing understood is really in the understanding and become one with it Now according to this sence you would not make faith to receive Christ or his Righteousness
answer 1. Righteousness is but a relation And therefore a thing which is naturally uncapable of being of it self physically apprehended This is past doubt 2. If it be physically received then either as a principle and quality or as an object Not the former For so we receive our first and after grace in sanctification but none ever said so in justification Nor indeed can that righteousness which is formally but a relation dwel in us as a principle or quality If we receive it as an object then by an Act Or if the soul were granted to be passive in reception of an object I have shewed that 1. It is but in apprehensione simplici None pleadeth for more But faith is not such 2. And so it would receive Christ no otherways then it receiveth any object whatsoever it thus apprehendeth 3. And this is not to receive Christ or his righteousness but the meer species of it according to your own Philosophers and if righteousness be but a relation and a relation as Durandus Dr. Twiss and many another thin be but Ens Rationis then the species of an Ens Rationis is a very curious Web Knowledge as D'Orbellis saith in 2. sent Dis 3. q. 3. is twofold i. e. sensitive and intellective and each of these twofold Intuitive and Abstractive Intuitive knowledge is indeed de objecto ut in se praesens quando scilicet res in propria existentia est per se motiva Exemplum de sensitiva est ut visus videt colorem yet this is but Recepiendo speciem non rem and this is not it in question Exemplum de intellectiva est ut visio Divinae essentiae à beatis This is utterly denyed to be at all by Doctor Stoughton Camer and other solid Divines against the School-mens judgement And if it be yet doubtless as we know not how so it is not such as faiths apprehension which we enquire after Cognitio Abstractiva est quando species rei movet ad cognoscendum rem ipsam hoc siveres sit in se praesens sive absens sive existat sive non Exemplum in sensitiva est ut phantasia imaginatur colorem Exemplum in intellectiva est ut intellectus cognoscit quidditatem coloris medicante ejus specie So that if it be either of these it were at the utmost but a passive reaception of the species and not of Christ or his righteousness 2. By what physical contact faith doth receive this might be enquired and 3. By what physical act of the Agent to neither of which questions can I imagine what tolerable answer can be given in defence of this cause 2. And if faith be a passive physical instrument it must have a Physical Efficiency and what is that to justifie why even God himself in this life doth that but by a Moral Act by his word and not by a physical as to particulars 3. But that which driveth me to the greatest admiration is How faith should Efficere patiendo If I should rip up this or require a demonstration of it in respect to the justification at judgement yea or in this life yea or of any effect I should lay such an odium on it from its absurdities that in dealing with you modesty doth forbid me to insist on it 4. The fourth requisite will be enquired after in the next Question save one The fourth Question is Whether other Graces may not be as properly called physical passive Instruments as Faith is your sense And I doubt not but they may though its true of neither For 1. If there be no physical reception of Christs righteousness imaginable but that which is per modum objecti and if other gratious acts have Christs righteousness for their object as well as that which you call faith then other Acts do receive Christs righteousness as well as saith but both branches of the Antecedent are true therefore the consequence the bare knowledge or simple apprehension of Christs righteousness per modum objecti may better pretend to this then recombency or affiance Yea and love it self more fitly then affiance may be said to receive or embrace its object which is not therefore false neither because Bellarmine hath it and you know he brings Austines plain words affirming love to be the hand by which they received him c. I confess if I first renounce not the concurrent Judgement of Philosophers I cannot approve of the common Answer which our Divines give to Bellarmine in this viz. That Faith receiveth Christs Righteousness first to make it ours but Love only to retain it and embrace and enjoy it when first we know it to be ours For though this say as much as I need to plead for acknowledging Love to be as properly a physical Reception for retention as Faith is for first Possession yet if affiance be taken in any proper ordinary sence it cannot thus hold good neither for so Affiance must signifie some act of the will in order of nature after love or at least not before it I acknowledge that so much of Faith as lyeth in the understanding is before Love in order of nature sicut ipse intellectus est simpliciter prior voluntate ut motivum mobili activum passivo ut Aquin. 1. q. § 2. a. 3.2 and 12. q. 13. a. 1. C. For as he Intellectus est primum motivum omnium potentiarium animae quoad determinationem actus voluntas verò quoad exercitium actus Aquin 12. q. 17. a. 1. C. But for the acts of the will toward Christ I could give you but to avoid tediousness I must forbear at large the Testimony of Aquinas Tolet Gerson Camero Amesius Zanchius Rob. Baronius Bradwardine Ravio Viguerius c. That Love is not only the first of all the Passions but even the first motion of the Will towards its Object and little or not at all different from Volition diligere being but intensive velle I have much more to say to this which here I must pretermit But still I speak not of Love as a Passion but a true closure as it were of the will with its Object as Good and expect love to be proper to the sensitive and strange to the intellective soul we must make it the same with Velle For Amor gaâ—dium in quantum significant Actus appetitus sensitivi passiones sunt non autem secundum quod significant Actus appetitus intellectivi inquit Aquinas 1. q. 2. a. 1.1 The fifth Question is Whether Faith be any Instrument of our Justification Answer Scotus gives many sences of the word Instrument and so doth Aquinas Schibler and most Philosophers that meddle with it and they give some so large as contain all causes in the world under God the first cause In so large a sence if any will call faith an Instrument of Justification I will not contend with him though yet I will not say so my self as judging faith to be no kind of cause of it at
all but in the proper ordinary sence as an Instrument signifieth Causam quae influit in effectum per virtutem inferioris rationis as Suarez Stierius Arnisaeus c. Vel Instrumentum est quod ex directione alterius principalis agentis influit ad produceâ—dum effectum se nobiliorem ut Schibler c. So I utterly deny Faith to be an Instrument But I will first question whether it be a physical Instrument 2. Whether a moral 1. And for the first I have done it already for seeing our acute Divines have ceased to lay any claim to it as an active Instrument but only as a Passive therefore having disproved what they claim I have done enough to that 2. Yet I will add some more And 1. If it be a physical active Instrument it must have a physical active Influx to the producing of the Effect but so hath not Faith to the producing of our Justification Ergo c. The Major is apparent from the common definition of such Instruments The Minor will be as evident if we consider but what Gods Act in Justification is and then it would appear impossible that any act of ours should be such an Instrument 1. At the great Justification at Judgement Christs act is to sentence us acquit and discharged and doth our Faith activè sixae influere ad hunc effectum Doth it intervene between Christ and the effect and so actively justifie us Who will say so 2. And the act by which God justifieth us here is by a Deed of Gift in his Gospel as I Judge Now 1. That doth immediately produce the effect only supposing Faith as a condition 2. And it is but a moral Instrumental cause it self and how faith can be a Physical I know not 3. Nay the act is but a moral act such as a Statute or Bond acteth and what need Faith to be a physical Instrument 2. My second Reason is this It is generally concluded that Tota instrumenti causalit as est in usu applicatione It ceaseth to be an Instrument when it ceaseth to be used or acted by the principal cause But faith doth most frequently cease its action and is not used physically when we sleep or wholly mind other things Therefore according to this Doctrine faith should then cease its Instrumentality and consequently either we should all that while be unjustified and unpardoned or else be justified and pardoned some other way and not by faith All which is absurd and easily avoided by discerning faith to be but a Condition of our Justification or a Causa sine quae non 3. If Faith be a physical Instrument then it should justifie from a reason intrinsecal natural and essential to it and not from Gods meer ordination of it to this office by his Word of Promise but that were at least dangerous Doctrine and should not be entertained by them who truly acknowledge that it justifies not as a work much less then as a Physical reception which they call its Instrumentality The consequence of the Major is evident in that nothing can be more intrinsecal and essential to faith this faith then to be what it is viz. a Reception or acceptance of Christ or his Righteousness therefore if it justifie directly as such then it justifieth of its own Nature 4. It is to me a hard saying that God and Faith do the same thing that is Pardon and justifie and yet so they do if it be an Instrument of Justification For eadem est Actio Instrumenti principalis causae viz. quoad determinationem ad hunc effectum ut Aquinas Schibler c. I dare not say or think that Faith doth so properly effectively justifie and pardon us 5. It seems to me needless to feign this Instrumentality because frustra fit per plura quod fieri potest per pauciora 6. Yea it derogateth from the work for as Scotus saith in 4. dist 45. q. 1. pag. mihi 239. D. Actio sine instrumento est perfectior quà m actio cum instrumento 7. And this Doctrine makes man to be the causa proxima of his own Pardon and Justification For it is man that believes and not God God is the causa prima but man the causa proxima credendi and so of justifying if Faith be an Instrument Or at least man is a cause of his own Pardon and Justification Yea faith being by Divines acknowledged our own Instrument it must needs follow that we justifie and forgive our selves Dr. Amesius saith Bellar. Enervat To. 4. li 6. p. mihi 315. Plurimum refert quia sicut sacramenta quamvis aliquo sâ—nsu possint dici Instrumenta nostra c. proprie tamen sunt Jnstrumenta Dei sic etiam fides quamvis possit vocari Instrumentum Dei quia Deus justificat nos ex fide per fidem proprie tamen est Instrumentum nostrum Deus nos baptizat pascit non nosmet ipsi Nos credimus in Christum non Deus Whether faith may be a moral Instrument I shall enquire when I have answered the next question which is Q 6. If faith were such a Physical Passive or Active Instrument whether that be the formal direct reason of its justifying and whether as it is it do justifie directly and primarily quatenus est apprehensio Christi justitioe vel Justificationis And this is it that I most confidently deny and had rather you would stick to in debate then all the rest for I ground many other things on it I affirm therefore 1. That faith justifieth primarily and directly as the condition on which the free Donor hath bestowed Christ with all his benefits in the Gospel-conveyance 2. And that if it were a meer Physical apprehension it would not justifie no nor do us any good 3. And that the apprehension called the receptivity which is truly its nature is yet but its aptitude to its justifying office and so a remote not the direct proper formal cause These three I will prove in order 1. And for the first it is proved 1. From the Tenor of the justifynâ—g Promise which still assureth Justification on the condition of Believing He that believeth and whosoever believeth and if thou believe do plainly and unquestionably express such a condition upon which we shall be justified and without which we shall not The Antinomians most unreasonably deny this 2. And the nature of Justification makes it unquestioinable for whether you make it a Law-act or an act of Gods own Judgement and Will determining of our state yet nither will admit of any intervening cause especially any act of ours but only a condition 3. Besides Conditions depend on the will of him that bestoweth the Gift and according to his Will they succeed but Instruments more according to their own fitness Now it is known well that Justification is an act of Gods meer free Grace and Will and therefore nothing can further conduce to Gods free act as on our part but by way
neither and yet say it is harsh But the reason you intimate because Bellarmine hath some such phrase which I never remembred or observed in him and little do I care whether he have or no If the Papists be nearer to us then I take them to be it is cause of joy and not sorrow But sure I am that Protestant Writers generally use the word Condition and Wendeline saith The Papists abuse us in feigning us to say the Gospel is absolute and saith the Gospel in each sence is conditional In one sence Faith is the Condition in another Faith and Obedience c. But here you come again to the Labyrinth and transcendent Mysterie of passive Faith nay you enlarge the Mysterie yet more 1. You say again Faith doth pati 2. And yet Love doth agere 3. Else you would yield that Bellarmine argues consonantly enough that Love would justifie as well as Faith 4. Yet you acknowledge Faith an Active Grace but only in this Act its meerrecipient Answer I confess my reason utterly at a loss in this but yet if it were in my Bible to me Intelligible I would believe it as I do the Doctrine of the Trinity and cease enquiring But I cannot so do by any Creature to make him the Lord of my faith and Reason 1. Whether Faith doth Pati I have enquired already 2. That Love doth Agere I verily believe and yet I have ofter heard Love called a Passion then Faith And as Keckeram saith the Affections are more Passive then the immanent Elicit Acts of the Intellect and Will And though as it is in the Rational soul Love saith Aquin. is no Passion but a Willing which causeth me to judge it so near Kin to Faith yet as it is in the sensitive it is a Passion So that I am quite beyond doubt that physically love is more properly called a Passion then Faith 3. Therefore for ought I know it is no wonder if Bellarmine bear the Bell and Papists be unconvinced if you have no better Arguments then this especially if no body else had better 4. But yet the Mysterie is far more unsearchable to me that faith should be Active in all other save only this Act. What is this thing called Faith which you make such a Proteus to be Active and Passive as to several Objects Yea when it is acknowledged the same Faith which receiveth Christ and Righteousness and the several promises and resteth on Christ for the Pardon of each sin for hearing each Prayer for Assurance Peace Comfort Deliverance from temptations and dangers and sin and is thus usefull through all our lives for the fetching of help from Christ in every streight yet that this same Faith should be Active in all the Rest and Passive only in One justifying Act. Oh For the face of an Argument to prove this Sure its natural Reception of one Object and another is in point of Passiveness alike and its assigned Conditionality in Scripture is of like nature as to each branch of the good on that condition promised 5. And here also I perceive by your speech you make it consist in some single act And yet you never tell what that is and how then can it be in several faculties as Davenant Amesius Joh. Crocius Melancth with most do affirm 6. But yet the depth of the mysterie to me lies in understanding and reconciling your words Only in this Act its meerly Recipient Is this an Act too and yet meerly Recipient which you make a meer Pasâ—ive reception A meerly Passive Act is such a contradiction in adjecto to my understanding that I cannot welcome the notion thither yea if you had said less that it is an Act in any Part or Degree Passive I never knew that an Act could Pati yet am I more conscious of mine own insufficiency then to contend with one of your knowledge in matter of Philosophy but I must needs say that your notions are yet so far beyond my reach that possibly I might take the words as true upon the credit of one whom I so highly value yet am I not able to apprehend the sence The Joy in Heaven which you mention for a wandring sheep I think is meant of the first or some eminent recovery to Christ and not of every Philosophical notion sure Sir if salvation hang on this Doctrine as thus by you explained I am out of hope that either I or ever a one in all this countrey should ever come to heaven except by believing as that part of the Church believes which is of your opinion When I am yet apt to think that siding with any party in such opinions will not conduce to any mans salvation For I am of Bergius his mind that as it is not the Jew the Pagan or the Mahometan or any Infidel privative that shall be saved but the Christian so it is not the Papist the Lutheran the Calvinist the Arminian that shall be saved qua talis but the Catholick However I am in strong hopes that a man may be saved though he cannot understand how an Act can be a passive instrument nor do I think that my subscribing to that notion would make any great rejoycing in Heaven I am sorry you had not leisure to answer the Questions which were very pertinent to the business of my satisfaction though not to your business That my explication of that plain weighty necessary point how imperfect graces or duties can yet be the conditions of the New Covenant should seem a Paradox to you I say to you makes me yet more possest with admiration When you know that such conditions there are suppose it were but faith alone and you know your self that this faith is imperfect But I perceive we know but in part and therefore must differ in part He shall see whom God will enlighten I had far rather you had fallen upon that point then on the term of Justification by works If you would but grant me that Justifying faith as such is an Accepting of Christ for King and Prophet as well as for a Justifier and consequently that it is a resigning our selves to be ruled by him as well as to be saved by him I shall then be content for peace sake to lay by the phrase of Justification by workâ— though it be Gods own phrase if the Church were offended with it and required this at my hands So they will be satisfied with my silencing it without a renouncing it I have written thus largely that I might not be obscure and to let you see that though I have scarce time to eate or sleeep yet I have time and paper for this work and that I make not light of your dissent The Love and Respect which you mention to me I do as little doubt of as I do whether I have a heart in my breast and your desires of my reducing I know do proceed from your zeal and sincere affections That which I take worst is that you should
Whether if Magistrates be Officers of Christ as King by Office they be not in his Kingdom and so Infidel Magistrates in Christs Kingdom contrary to Col. 1.14 4. If it be maintained That Christ died for every Child of Adam conditionally It would be well proved from Scripture that the procuring of such a conditional Law or Covenant was the End or Effect of Christs death and whether the so Interpreting Texts that speak of his dying for all will not serve for Evasions to put by the Arguments drawn from them to prove Christs Satisfaction aad Merit proper to the Elect. For if they may be Interpreted so He died to procure the conditional Covenant for every one this may be alledged justly then you can prove no more thence for that is the sense and then we cannot prove thence he died loco nostro c. It is a matter of much moment and needs great Circumspection Yours Sir BEsides what hath been formerly suggested to you these words in your Scripture proofs pag. 323. And where he next saith that in the aged several dispositions are required to fit a man to receive pardon and so justification viz Catholike faith hope of pardon fear of punishment grief for sin a purpose against sining hereafter and a purpose of a new life all which dispose the Receiver and I agree to him though all do not are so like the Doctrine of the Trent Council sess 6. c. 6. that it will be expected you declare whether by avowing that speech of Dr. Ward you do not join with the Papists contrary to Bishop Downam of Justification l. 6. c. 7. § 1.2 Mr. Pemble vindict fidei § 2. c. 3. And when you make Justification a continued Act upon condition of obedience it s to be considered how you will avoid Tompsons opinion of the Intercifion of Justification upon the committing of a sin that wasts the conscience refuted by Dr. Rob. Abbot but vented after by Moutague in his appeal and opposed by Dr. Preston and others As for Justification by Law-Title by the Covenant upon actual Believing without any other act of God consequent on Faith if it were so 1. Then it should be by necessary Resultancy But Justification is an Act of Will and no act of Will is by necessary Resultancy 2. If the Covenant justifie without any other Act of God then it Adops Glorifies Sanctifies c. without any other Act which is not to be said The reason of the Sequel is because the Covenant of it self doth in the same manner produce the one as well as the other 3. The Justification of the Covenant is only conditional therefore not Actual Actual Justification is not till Faith be put and then Posit â conditione it is Actual A conditional is only a possible Justification it s only in potentia till the Condition be in act Now the Covenant doth only assure it on condition as a future thing not therefore as actual or present 4 The Covenant is an Act past Tit. 1.2 Gal. 3.7 8. so not continued and consequently the Justification barely by it without any other Act must be past long since and not continued and he neither Justification Actual and in purpopse or virtual will be confounded or an effect shall be continued without the cause Jan. 17 1651. Yours I.T. Reverend Sir I AM more thankfull to you for these free candid rational Animadversions then I can now express to you yet being still constrained to dissent from you by the evidence of Truth I give you these Reasons of my dissent 1. First You think that the Scriptures cited are not to be intepreted of Justification in Title of Law because this is only an Act of God prescribing or promising a way of Justification not the Sentence it self and is general and indeterminate to particular persons c. To which I answer 1. That I am past doubt that you build all this on a great mistake about the nature of Gods Law or Covenant Promise the moral action thereof For you must know that this Promise of God 1. is not a bare Assertio explicans de futuro animum qui nunc est as Grotius speaks Nor yet that which he calleth Pollicitatio cum voluntas seipsam pro futuro tempore determinat cum signo sufficientè ad judicandam perseverandi necessitatem But it is Perfecta Promissio ubi ad determinationem talem accedit signum volendi jus proprium alteri conferre quae similem babet effectum qualem alienatio Dominâ—i Est enim aut via ad alienaâ—ionem rei aut alienatio particulae cujusdam nostrae libertatis c. Vid. ultra Grot. de jure Bellili 2. c. 11. § 2.3 4. 2. This Promise or Covenant of God is also his Testament and who knoweth not that a Testament is an Instrctment of proper Donation and not only a Prediction 3. Moreover this same which in one respect is a Covenant and Promise and in another a Testament is also truly part of Gods Law even the New constitution of Christ the Law-giver and King But â—ndoubtedly a Law which conferreth Right either absolutely or conditionally is the true and proper Instrument of that Effect and not only the presenting or promising away thereto The proper Effect or Product of every Law is Debitum aliquod Et de hoc debito determinare is its proper Act. Now therefore this Promise being part of Christs Law doth determine of and confer on us the Debitum or Right to sentential Justification having first given us an Interest in Christ and so to the Benefit of his satisfaction and this is Justificatio constitutiva You know a Deed of Gift though but conditional is a most proper Instrument of conferring the Benefits therein contained And is not the Promise undoubtedly Gods Deed of Gift And doth he not thereby make over as it were under his hand the Lord Jesus and all his Benefits to them that will receive him So that when you say that his Promise to justifie upon condition is not justifying You may see it is otherwise by all the forementioned considerations of the nature of the Promise You may as well say a Testament or deed of Gift conditional doth not give or a Law doth not confer Right and Title And in these Relative benefits to give Right to the thing and to give the thing it self or right in it is all one still allowing the distance of time limited for both in the Instrument It is all one to give full right to son-ship and to make one a Son or at least they are inseparable Yea which weigheth most of all with me it being the proper work of Gods Laws to give Duness of or Right to Benefits it cannot be any other way accomplished that is within our Knowledge I think For Decree Purpose and so Predestination cannot do it they being Determinations de eventu and not de debito as such And the sentential declaration presupposeth this Debitum or true Righteousness an
also of the objec as an offered good besides the understandings Assent to the Truth of the word which offereth it The former is by the Apostle oft distinguished from Love and is said to work by Love as the lively acts of the understanding produce answerable motions in the will But the later is that faith which justifieth to wit The Receiving of an offered Christ And this comprizeth both the Act of the Understanding and Will as almost all Protestant Divines affirm But both these acts together are called Faith from the former which is most strictly so called because the great difficulty then lay in Believing the Truth of the Gospel and would do still if it were not for the advantages of Credit Education Custom c. therefore the whole work is thence denominated though yet the compleating of the work be in the Will and the Understandings Act but preparatory thereto 2. You must also distinguish between Love to Christ the Mediator and the Grace of Charity in general as it is extended al so to God as Creator to Saints to all men c. And between that first act of Love which is in our first receiving of Christ and the love which we afterwards exercise on him and so I answer you 1. That as the Apostle distinguisheth between Faith Hope and Love So do I. 2. Faith taken strictly for assent to Divine Testimony produceth love in every one of the forementioned senses of the word Love 3. Justifying faith comprizing the wills acceptance produceth both the grace of Charity as it is exercised on other objects and also the following acts of it towards Christ the Mediator And so I acknowledge that Faith worketh by Love and that Love is not faith But yet whether Love be not in some sense essential to justifying faith if you speak only of Love to Christ and that not as a distinct grace but as it is comprized in our Acceptance of him at first I shall leave to your consideration when you have first resolved these things 1. Whether justifying faith be not an act of the Will as well as the Understanding Few but Papists deny it and not all of them 2. Whether Christ himself be not the object of it Few Protestants will deny it 3. Whether Good be not the object of the Will and so Christ be not willed as Good None doubts of it 4. Whether this willing be not the same as Loving as love is found in the rational appetite Sure Aquinas saith so no man that I know contradicting it 5. Whether you can call Affiance or any other act of the will justifying faith excluding this willing or not principally including it For 1. This is the Wills first act towards it object and will you say that Love goes before justifying faith and so before Justification and such a Love as is distinct from justifying faith as being no part of it How then is Love the fruit of faith and as Divines say a consequent of Justification Yet it is beyond all doubt that this Velle or Love to Christ goes before Affiance on him or any other act of the Will vide Aquin. 1.2 Q. 23. a. 33. Et. 1. Q. 20. a. 1 Et Tolet de anima l. 3. cap. 9. Q. â—7 28 Et Ames contra Gravinchou pag. 16. 2. And can it be imagined that preceding assent and subsequent Affiance in Christ should be conditions of our Justification and yet the Velle Christum oblatum that Willing which we call Consent Election or Acceptance which goeth between assent and Affiance should be excluded as no part of this condition 3. Especially considering that Affiance contains divers acts whereof one is of the Irascible of the sensitive and so is but an imperate act of the Will and less noble then that elicite Act which I plead for as well as Posterior to it and if Aquin. be not out in his Philosophy when he so oft saith that fiducia is spes roborata then our Divines make Hope to justifie Yet for all this I have not espoused this saying that Love to Christ is Essential to justifying faith nor will contend with any man that thinks it unmeet if we agree in the things of moment I hate to quarrel about words Nor do I think it a meet phrase to say we are justified by Love though in the sense before mentioned I think it true because it is but a part or affection as it were of that reception by which we are justified and stands not in so full a relation to the object received And yet if I had said none of all this I see not that I need any more then to deny your consequence as being wholly ungrounded For it followeth not that if it be an essential part that therefore it must have the Denomination of the whole yea though the whole be said to work by that part The Brain and Heart are essential parts of the Body and yet not to be called the Body and it is more proper to say that the body works by the Brain or Heart or that the vegetative soul doth work by the natural heat and Spirits then to say the Body worketh by the Body or the vegetative soul by it self I will explain all together in my usual Similitude which is Dr. Prestons or rather Pauls A condemned Beggar is offered a Pardon and also to be made a Queen if she will but take the Prince for her Husband Now here put your Questions 1. Is Love any part of the Condition of her Pardon and Dignity Answer Yes An essential part for Consent is of the Essence of it and Love is essential to true consent to receive any offered good Not love as it is a Passion but as it is an act of the rational Appetite which is but Velle And Eligere Consentire Acceptare are nothing else but a respective Willing 2. But it is not Love as a Vertue in general or as exercised on any other object which is this essential part of the Condition but only love to him whom she marrieth And so her first love is necessary to her Pardon and Dignity as begun and her continued love and marriage-faithfulness is necessary to them as they are to be continued supposing the Prince to know the heart as Christ doth Qu. 2. Is it then a meet phrase to say that she is pardoned and dignified by loving such a Prince Answ It hath some Truth in it but it is not a fit speech but rather that it is by marrying him because Love is but a part or as it were an Affection of that Marriage Covenant or consent which indeed doth dignifie her Love may be without marriage but not Marriage cordially without Love So in our present case justifying faith is the very Marriage Consent or Covenant with Christ It is therfore fitter to say we are justified by it then by love because the former expresseth the full condition the latter not Qu. 3. If love be an essential part of the
voca notatur certa absoluta persuasio de bono futuro sed quâ significat Electionem Apprehensionem sufficientis ac idonei mediâ— ac in qou persausio expectatio talis fundatur Quo sensu dicuntur homines fiduciam habere in sapientia potentia Amicis ac opibus suis Psal 78.22 If therefore you understand by Affiance many Acts of which velle Christum oblatum called Acceptation quia volumus objectum ut oblatum and Election quia volumus medium hâ—s rejectis aliis or Consent quia volumnus ex alterius Promotione qui prius voluiâ— is the first and chief of those of the Will as Amesius doth then I am of your mind If you say that Velle vel Acceptare is not credere vel fidem babere in the common notation of the word I answer 1. It includes Velle as its principal Act in the common use of the word when its object is an Incompelx term but indeed it includeth more also 2. Words of Knowledge in Scripture do imply Affection we say but Will much more 3. I answer in the words of Amesius Medul l. 1. c. 3. § 2 3 Credere vulgo significat actum intellectus Assensum testimonio praebentis sed quoniam consequenter volunt as moveri solet extendere sese ad amplectenduÌ„ bonum it a probatum ideirco fides â—tiam hunc Voluntatis actum designat satis aptè quomodo hoc in loco necessario intelligitur Est enim receptio bond sub ratione boni intima unio cum codeÌ„ John 1.12 Hinc fides fertur in bonum qoud per istam fit nostrum est actus Electionis est actus Totius hominis qua actui Intellectus nullo modo conveniunt John 6.35 Yea further I doubt not but where this act of the Will is in sincerity there is Justification certainly consequent but the term Affiance contains some acts which Divines say do only follow Justification which also Amesi seems to acknowledge ibid. § 21. Quod vero fiducia dicitur fructus fidei verum est de fiducia prout respicit Deum in futurum est spes fâ—rma sed prout respicit Deum in Christo in praesentia se offerentem est ipsa fides Yea the same Amesius tells us Medul lib 2. cap. 5. That five things concur even to that Belief which we call fides Divina viz. 1. Notitia rei à Deo testatae 2. â—ffectio pia erga Deum quae facit ut maxime valeat apud nos ipsius Testimonium 3. Assersus qui praebetur veritati test atae propter hanc affectionem erga Deum qui est ejus testis 4. Aquiescentia in Deum ad illud quod propâ—nitur consequendum 5. Electio vel apprehensio rei ipsius quae in Testimonio nobis exhibetur So that even this faith hath many acts Yea and he adds Primum horum est in intellectu sed non constituit fidem c. secundum quartum quintum sunt in voluntate constituunt fidem prout est virtus actus religionis Tâ—rtium viz. assensus est in intellectu sed prout movetur à voluntate neque est proprie fidei virtus sâ—d effectum So that this Doctrine which 1. makes three acts of faith in the very will 2. and makes the intellectual acts even assent to be but an effect of faith and not the vertue is far from yours though I scruple not to take in assent with the rest for all it is in the Intellect and if these be all in that faith which is a holy vertue much more must that which justifies contain as much And indeed to place justifying faith only in the intellect is somewhat strange for those that make it the principal Grace when Philosophers will not give it the name of a moral Vertue For in the understanding are only intellectual Habits but moral vertues are all placed in the Will or sensitive appetite for that quarrel I will pass by whether they be only in the sensitive as Burgersâ—icius c. If any therefore wonder that I place faith in so many acts and yet make one the chief compleative Act I have yet further this most accurate Divine saying the very same as I. Perfectio autom fidei est in Electione aut apprehensione illa qua bonum Propositum fit nostrum Hinc fidei natura â—ptimè explicatur in Scriptura cum fideles diâ—untur adhaererâ— Dâ—o Jos 23.6 Act. 11.23 viâ—â— veritatis â—ligere Psal 119.30 31. Where you see also that by Affiance and Adhaesion Amesius principally means the very Elicit act of the Will as Election is And indeed he that observeth but how the Scripture throughout doth hang mans salvation or damnation on his Will mainly so far as it may be said to depend on our own acts rather then on any acts of the understanding but only as they refer and lead to those of the Will might well wonder that justifying saving faith the great needfull act should be only intellectual and not chiefly in or by the Will as well as all the rest Ye will not come to me that ye may have life How oft would I and ye would not These mine enemies that would not I should reign over them c. Whoever will let him take or buy freely c. Still almost all is laid on the Will and yet is not Faith in the Will Assent may be compelled by evidence of Truth and so be unvoluntary And so a man may be a Believer thus against his Will and if this will serve men may be saved against their Wills I know some think it enough that the Will commands the understanding to believe But even thus saith Amesius Medul l. 2. c. they place the first principle in the Will Qui fidem collocant iu intellectu necessariam tamen fatentur esse aliquam motionâ—â— volâ—ntatis ad assensum illum praebendum quemadmodum iâ— fide humana voluntarium esse dicitur adhibere fidem alicui si vero à voluntate pendâ—at fides necesse est ut primuÌ„ principium fidei sit in voluntate â— 20 But this is only commanding the performance so it is thus no elicit act for Aquinas and others conclude that Voluntas est Principium determinans actus humanos quo ad exercitium actus intellectus autem quo ad actus specificationem But it is moreover the Wills Elicite Act that I assert And as I said this imperium voluntatis may possibly be wanting and belief be involuntary for the main Let me add but one more consideration for I perceive my tediousness If Infidelity as it is a Privation of saving faith and so is the condemning sin be in the Will as well as in the Intellect then faith must be in the Will too But Infidelity is in both Ergo. c. That Infidelity which is the Privation of meer assent is rather said to be willing then in the Will but that which is opposite to justifying faith is in the Will
enacting of the Grant and still is his Will that this his Grant or Deed of Gift should moraâ—iter agere â—ffecius hos vel illos producore at such a distance upon such and such conditions The Act and Effect of the Law or Testament is the Act and Effect of the Legislator and Testator whose Instrument it is But the said Law or Testament doth not efficaciter agere or produce these effects tâ—â— the time that the conditions are performed for it is the Nature of a Moral condition to be added for the suspension of the Effect or event of the â—rant c. till it be performed Therefore the Rector Donor or Testator doth not efficaciter agere till then And therefore he acteth by that his Instrument then or not at all If you give by Deed or by Willâ— such and such portions to some Children at such a term of Age and to others when they marry The full actual Right is by a meer Resultancy as from the Instrument but by an Act of Will as from you but really from neither before the Term or condition performed This is a most obvious Truth 2. And as easie is the Answer to your second If the Covenant justifie without any other Act then it adopts sanctifieth Glorifieth without any other Answer In the Propositions against Mr. Bedford you might have seen this dispelled For Adoption I yield the whole But know you not that as there is great difference between changes Relative and Qualitative so the later results not from a meeâ— Fundamentum c. but is effected by a Physical Operation It is Jus ad rem it is Right or Duness which is the proper immediate product or quasi effect resulting from and given by the Law or the like Instrument and not the natural thing it self Now in these Relations either the Right and the thing it self are the same or else the difference so small that it is next to undiscernable and must needs both in eâ—dem instanti result as afore said But in Physical changes thete is a greater difference between the Right and the Benefit The Benefit cannot as the Right doth proceed per â—ndam resultantiâ—â— If you give your Son 100. l. by a Deed of Gift this giveth him the Right immediately but not the Thing There must be a Physical Act to that But Pardon to a Malefactor is given by a written Pardon or Grant from whence the Right to it and the Benefit it self do immediately result being indeed but one thing except my understanding be too gross to distinguish them If therefore you had said as you should that Right to Glory and to Sanctity so far as that Covenant giveth it are bestowed without any other Act except finall Judgement which is necessary to full Justification as well as Glory I should yield you all 3. To your third That the Covenant justifies but conditionally therefore not actually I answered before for it was one of your former Arguments Conditio est Lex addita negotio quae donec praestetur eventum suspendit saith Cujacius And as Mynsinger saith Neque actio neque obligatio ulla est antequam conditio eveniat quia quod est in conditione non est in obligatione Schol. in Justit p 52â— So that it is the Nature of the condition to suspend the effect but not to make the cause to be no cause Indeed if the Condition be never performed then it destroyes or prevents the effect and so the Instrument doth not agere And why but because it was the Will of the Agent that it should act so and on such terms or else not so that the non-performance doth not undo what the Instrument did nor doth it disoblige the Author but it manifesteth that he was never obliged they are Grotius words I conclude therefore that when the condition is performed then the Instrument or conditional Grant doth begin verè agere donarâ— and the Agent by it but till then it doth not properly act or effect at all Is not your Testament that gives your Legacy because it gives conditionally Or must there be some other Act to make it an absolute proper Gift 4. Your fourth also is one of those which you have in the Beginning where I have answered it The Covenant you say is an Act past and so not continued and so the Justification by it past and not continued c. Answer The Physical Act of Legislation or Covenant granting is past but this only makes it an Instrument able and fit to produce such and such effects and not actually to produce them at that present when it is conditional But the Moral action of this Law or Covenant is not past but continued The Law or Covenant is not out of Date And therefore it continueth still to justifie The making of our Laws are Acts past by Parliaments long ago and so not continued Will you therefore conclude that the Moral Agency or Efficiency of these Laws is past and therefore they do not condemn or justifie I know no ground that can bear your conclusions except with Rishworth Dialog and such other of the more impudent Papists one should vilifie the Scripture and say that they were only Miscellaneous occasional writings and never intended to be Gods Law or our Rule of Faith and Life but I believe you will never come to that Surely David frequently stileth the old Scriptures that were in his Times Gods Law And why many Divines should strike in with some Lutheranâ— Error in denying the Gospel or New Scripture to be properly Christs Law and so inveigh against those that call it the New Law I know no Reason but that the ignis fatuus of contention and prejudice misleadeth them O happy Disputers that are not carried head-long into extreams by the spirit of Contradiction What more proper to the reformed Religion as such then to honour the Scriptures And how do these men vilifie them and rob them of their highest honor that deny them to be the Laws of God yea deny this to the Gospel it self Is not Christ the Law-giver Isa 33.22 Psal 60.7 and 108.8 and the King Must not the Law go out of Zion Isa 2.3 And is not that the Law and Testimony to which we must seek Multitudes of Scriptures and most of the Fathers that ever I read do call the Gospel Christs Law or the new law 2. To your second Exception against my approving a speech of Dr. W. I ans 1. Do I need to tell you how unlike this saying of Dr. Wards is to that of the Council of Treâ—t You know by Justification they mean principally Sanctification But the Dr. saith not that these are preparatives to Justification Sure you could not seriously suspect me to join with the Papists when they speak of one Subject and I of another The acts of that Session will tel you more differences between them and me then is worth the while to repeat and you know how largely Chemmitius endeavours
take it for an Immanent Act. Your self who take it for a transient act but once performed do yet judge I doubt not that our Justified estate which is the effect of it is permanent and the relations of Reconciled Pardoned Adopted are continued Also you and they I hope will confess that Justification passive is continued on the condition of continued faith Now I would know how you will avoid Tompsons Doctrine of Intercision upon every notable defect of a Christians faith when unbelief gives him a foyl which is too common as you answer so will I. If you say his faith is not overcome habitually when unbelief is prevalent in the present Act I will say so of his obedience 2. You know most Divines say as much as I that obedience is a condition of the continuance of Justification only they say that faith only is the Instrument of Justifying and how will they answer you 3. You know that all say that obedience is a condition of Salvation and so of our present Title to Salvation Now how will they avoid Tompsons Doctrine of Intercision of that Title to Salvation upon the committing of such sins 4. It is not perfect obedience which I say is the condition but sincere And by sincere I mean so much as may express that we unfeignedly take Christ still for our Lord and Saviour And so it is not every sin that I say will forfeit or interrupt our Justification and cause it to discontinue that is lose our Title or change our Relation in Law no nor every gross sin but only that sin which is inconsistent with the continued Accepting Christ for our Soveraign that sin which breaks the main Covenant of which see Dr. Preston at large as Adultery or Desertion doth in marriage A denying God to be our God or Christ to be our Christ by our works while we confess him in word An actual explicite or implicite Renunciation of Christ and taking the flesh for our master and the pleasing of it for our happiness or as the Mahometans following a false Christ Now I hope that no justified person doth ever commit this sin much less any elect and justified man of whom Tompson speaks You may see through his ninth chap. part 2 that Tompson erred through misunderstanding wherein the sincerity of Faith as justifying doth consist I wish many more do not so He thought that Justification did follow every act of undissembled Faith but only rooted Faith would certainly persevere and therefore the unrooted Though true Believers might lose their Justification if they were Reprobates Prascits as he calls them or have it interrupted if they were elect But if he had known what I have asserted in the aforesaid cap. 11. part 3. of Rest Edit 2. that the very sincerity of faith as justifying lyeth not in the natural being of the act meerly but the prevalent Degree and moral specification then he would have known that his unrooted ones were never justified therefore never lost it And if in asserting justification by the only act of Faith he had not over-looked the use of the habit he had not spoke so much of Intercision of Justification through interruption of the acts where the Habits remain Of this I must further explain my self where it is more seasonable His Objections pag. 21. cap. 5. part 1. I have answered in the place before cited Yet even Tompson denyeth that ever sins once pardoned do return or Justificationem à peccatis sâ—mel remissis amitti pag. 11 part 1 cap. 2 sed â—arsonam quae aliquando justa fuit posse contrabere aliquando actu contraâ—ere per nova peccata novum reatum ire Divinae mortis aeternae So that it is not the loss of the first justification that he asserteth I conclude then that as you and others answer Tompson just so will I if you do it well for it concerneth my cause no more then yours or other mens But Sir you have drawn me so neer the difficulty which perplexeth me that I will now open it to you How to avoid the Intercision of justification is a question that hath long troubled me not on any of these terms proper to my own judgement but how on your Grounds or any Orthodox Divines it will be avoided I would know 1. whether we are Guilty not only facti sed poenae of every sin we commit or of such sins as Davids before Repentance if not guilty then what need of Pardon of daily praying Forgive us our Debts or of a Christ to procure our Pardon If we are Guilty how can that consist with a justified state Reatus est obligatio ad Pernam The least sin unpardoned makes obnoxious to condemnation and Hell He that is obnoxious to them is not at present justified Here I am much puzled and in the dark In my Aphor. I have slightly touched it but so as doth not quietare intellectum I deny the Intercision of universal Justification Yet I dare not say but that a Believers sins may be unpardoned till he Repent Believe and seek pardon And I dare not think that Christ teacheth us to pray only for pardon in soro conscientiae or only of the temporal punishment nor only for continuance of what we had before But how to make personal universal uninterrupted Justification consist with the Guilt of one sin or with one sin unpardoned here is the knot Our British Divines in Dort synod Act. de Persever Thes 5. pag. 266. say that Believers by such sins Reatum mortis incurrunt Prideaux Lect. 6. de persev pag. 80. saith they do reatum damnabilem contrahere sic ut saltem demeritorie licet non effectivè Jus ad regnum caelorum penitus amittant This distinction doth no good for we pray not Forgive us our trespasses i. e. that they may not deserve Death Mr. Burges of Justif Lect. 27. pag. 242. thinks They have an actual Guilt obliging them to eternal wrath not absolutely but conditionally till they take the means appointed of God for their pardon for God doth not will to them salvation while they abide in that state Mr. Reynolds Life of Christ pag. 404.442 443 496. saith that they certainly incur Gods displeasure and create a merit of Death and deserve Damnation but de facto bring it not Now all this openeth not mine understanding to see How a man is Reus mortis and yet perfectly justified and so non-condemnandus etiam in sententia Legis at the same moment of time And were it a thing that should be futurum which we may suppose that he should dye in that state whether he should be justified at Judgement and so be saved or not Sir though â— resuse not to accept your further Animadversions on the former Points yet being indeed satisfied pretty well in them I chiefly intreat that you would communicate to me your thoughts of this one Point as soon as you can if you have any clear way to untye the knot and if
cause as they think some other Act is Paul doth not exclude that which he makes necessary Argument 5. That which makes not the Reward to be of Debt and not of Grace is none of the works that Paul sets faith against But other acts of faith in Christ do not make the reward to be of Debt and not of Grace any more then the one act which you will choose E. g. Believing in Christ as King and Teacher any more then believing in him as a Ransom therefore they are not the works that Pauls sets faith against The Major is proved from the Description of the excluded works Rom. 4.4 The Minor is evident Argument 6. All acts of Faith in Christ as our Justifier are such as are opposed to works by Paul and are none of the works which faith is opposed to But they are more then one or two that are Acts of faith in Christ as Justifier Ergo. The Major I think will be granted the Minor is plain For 1. Christ justifieth us meritoriously as a Sacrifice 2. And as Obeying and fulfilling the Law 3. As the complement of his satisfaction and the entrance upon his following execution his Resurrection justifieth us 4. As the Heavenly Priest at Gods right hand he justifieth us by his Intercession 5 As King and Head he justifieth us by his Covenant or Law of Grace 6. As King and Judge he justifieth us by sentence 7. As Prophet he teacheth us the Doctrine of Justification and how to attain to Justification by sentence So that at least none of these are the excluded works Argum. 7. If the whole Essence of Christian faith be opposed to works and so be none of the opposed works in the matter of Salvation then it s so also in the matter of Justification But the Antecedent is true therefore so is the Consequent The Minor is confessed by my Opponents The consequence of the Major I prove 1. Because Salvation is as free as Justification and no more of works which Paul excludeth 2. Salvation comprehendeth Justification and Glorification hath the same conditions as final Justification at Judgement it being part of Justification to adjudge that Glory 3. The express Scripture excludes works as much from Salvation as from Justification Eph. 2.8 9. For by Grace ye are saved through faith and that not of your selves it is the gift of God not of works lest any man should boast Tit. 3.5 6 7. Not by works of Righteousness which we have done but according to his Mercy he saved us by the washing of Regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour that being justified by his Grace we should be made Heirs according to the hope of eternal Life Many such places are obvious to any diligent Reader For the Minor also read 1 Cor. 15.1 2 3 4 5 6 c. Argum. 8. If no man can name any one Act of faith that is opposed to all the rest as works or opposed to works when the rest are not then no such thing it to be asserted But no man can name the Act that is thus opposed alone to works 1. It is not yet done that I know of We cannot get them to tell us what Act it is 2. And if they do others will make as good a claim to the Prerogative Argum. 9. They that oppose us and affirm the Question do feign God to have a strange partiality to one Act of faith above all the rest without any reason or aptitude in that act to be so exalted But this is not to be feigned and proved it cannot be that God should annex our Justification to the Belief in Christ as a sacrifice only and to oppose this to belief in him as Rising Interceding Teaching Promising or Judging is a fiction contrary to Scripture Examine any Text you please and see whether it will run well with such an Exposition Rom. 4.4 5. Now to him that worketh i. e. Believeth in Christ as Teacher Judge Intercessor is the reward not reckoned of Grace but of Debt But to him that worketh not that is believeth not on Christ as King and Teacher c. but Believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly an act of his Kingly office c. Doth this run well I will not trouble you with so unsavoury a Paraphrase upon the like Scriptures you may try at pleasure on Rom. 3. 4. and Gal. 3. Eph. 2. Phil. 3. or any such Text. Argument 10. If the Doctrine of the Opponents holding the Affirmative were true then no man can tell whether he be a condemned Legalist or not yea more if it be not faith in Christ as such containing the whole Essence by which we are justified as opposed to works or which is none of the excluded works then no man can tell but he is a condemned Legalist But the Consequent is false therefore so is the Antecedent The Reason of the Consequence is because no man is able to tell you which is the sole justifying Act or which are the only acts if it be not faith Essentially that is it for among all the acts before mentioned if a man mistake and think one other E. g. faith in Christs Resurrection in Christ as King Judge Teacher c. is it by which he must be justified then he falls upon Justification by Works and so falls short of Grace for if it be of Works then it is no more of Grace else Works were no Works And so no man can tell but he destroyeth Grace and expecteth Justification by works much less can weak Christians tell I never yet saw or heard from any Divine a just Nomination with proof of the one Justifying act or a just Enumeration of the many acts if all must not be taken in that are Essential Some say Affiance is the only act but as that 's confuted by the most that take in Assent also so there are many and many acts of Affiance in Christ that are necessary and they should tell us which of these it is Object And do you think that we can any better tell when we have all that are Essential Or doth every weak Christian believe all the twenty Articles that you mentioned at first Answ 1. We can better know what is Revealed then what 's unrevealed The Scripture tells us what faith in Christ is but not what one or two acts do Justifie excluding all other as Works Divines have often defined Faith but I know not that any hath defined any such one act as thus exalted above the rest of the Essence of Faith If we covld not tell what is essential to Faith we could not tell what faith is 2. The twenty Objects of Assent before mentioned are not all Articles or material Objects the second is the formal Object And of the rest unless the Fifth Believing that Christ was conceived by the Holy Ghost and born of a Virgin may be excepted which I dare not affirm