were mis-informed and I thanke you for your endeavour to prevent mistakes Truly Sir I doe not wilfully mistake your sense nor doe I desire to take any advantage of an hasty expression Your first Proposition is that justification is divine acceptation and pardon of sinne I will not stand to aske you why you put acceptation before pardon it is likely that was not done de industrià but I would know why you speake of remission and acceptation and leave out imputation I observe that in your second proposition you doe affirme that The mercy of God through the satisfaction and merits of Christ is the sole cause of this justification Doe not thinke mee too curious since you desire mee to give my opinion of these propositions you know there are some that distinguish between a first and second justification and they doe expresse themselves warily and they will grant what you say so you will give them leave to chuse which they meane this or that justification But I will judge charitably of you hoping that by this justification you intend not to imply that there is another justification and so as they say a first and second justification Give me leave to aske you a question or two about the second proposition compared with the fourth and with some passages in your Practicall Catechisme that by a cleare answer to a few quaeres many mistakes may be prevented In your second proposition you say The mercy of God through the satisfaction and merits of Christ is the sole cause of justification In your Catechisme you say That Christ did sacrifice himselfe for all the sin of all mankinde and yet in your fourth proposition in this last return you say That this worke of grace in God through Christ is not every mans portion Sir if Christs satisfaction bee the sole cause and hee hath made satisfaction for every man the grace of God which extends as farre as Christs satisfaction must be the portion of every man for his justification by the obedience of Christ alone My first quaere then is 1 Why the grace of God in justifying those for whom Christ hath satisfied doth not extend to every man for whom he hath satisfied 2 Whether the qualification and condition which you require in the subject bee bestowed upon the elect absolutely or conditionally Regeneration you say is a condition which doth dispose the subject for justification that is for acceptance and pardon as I conceive and you expresse Pray Sir shew mee what condition God requires unregenerate persons to perform that they may attaine unto regeneration which you take to be the condition of justification I acknowledge that God doth never justifie an impenitent infidell in sensu composito that is the infidell doth not remaine an impenitent infidell but then you must grant on the other side that God doth justifie the ungodly 3 Whether there be any condition which doth so qualifie the subject as that you can say by these habits acts vowes and these onely I am justified Pract. Catech. page 28. Sir Learned men say that there is no condition required to dispose the subject for justification but there is a condition namely Faith bestowed upon none but the elect to receive the object of justification Christ and his compleate obedience perfect righteousnesse and hence as I conceive some men that meant well say there is a condition required that is to receive the object and others say there is no condition required that is to dispose or qualifie the subject so as that the subject shall bee constituted righteous by that disposition or qualification I speake as plainely as I can devise that there may bee no mistake God doth by his free and effectuall grace worke the hearts of his elect to receive Christ that they may bee justified not by their own obedience or vow of obedience but by the obedience of Christ alone freely imputed by God and rested on by faith onely Moreover Learned men doe distinguish betweene disposing of the subject to salvation which is the last part of the excution of Gods decree of election and disposing the subject unto justification though they grant that there is a condition to enable the subject to receive the object Jesus Christ who is Iehovah our righteousnesse And therefore Protestants do maintaine that all the habits and acts of grace which are in the best of men concurring together are not sufficient to justifie a man before God and therefore faith concurring with a vow of obedience or any faithfull actions cannot justifie us Though faith alone bee said to justifie us Relatively that is in regard of the object received by faith I acknowledge with you that justification is Gods act wee cannot pardon out selves and God sitting as a fatherly Judg upon a throne of grace doth justifie us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Chrysostome upon the 8. of Rom. 33. vers Sir let me intreat you not to wonder that I find fault with some passages in your Book which you say are in effect places of Scripture Sir to abuse the Scripture for the maintenance of any error is to my apprehension a great deale worse then to deliver any erroneous conceits in our own language The Papists say as you doe that they say no more then St. Iames himselfe saith I did not dreame that you thought Abraham was justified by the actuall sacrificing of his sonne Socinus saith Abraham was justified by offering up of Isaac I doe not think he means it in any other sense then that which you repeat namely that Abraham was justified by a resolution to obey God in the sacrificing of his Sonne not by the actuall sacrificing of him Sir I am heartily glad to heare you acknowledg that you agree with mee in the conclusion bee pleased to retract all that is contrary to that conclusion in your Pract. Catechisme and then I am sure you must retract what I complained of Pray Sir doe you not thinke that we are justified by a sincere vow of obedience as truly as wee are by faith that is that our vow of obedience is a condition of Justification I doe not say an instrument for you deny faith to bee an instrument of justification And therefore if a sincere vow of obedience be the condition of justification wee are justified as truly by that as by faith 2 Consider that you say in this last returne p. 20. The condition must bee undertaken before the Covenant belongs to me This vow or resolution of obedience is as I conceive that which you call the undertaking of the condition why then surely obedience is the condition of the Covenant of justification for obedience is that which is undertaken in a vow of obedience 3 If by Covenant you meane the whole Covenant of grace you must make some condition goe before our regeneration also 4 You know the Papists speake as fully as you doe any where for the meritorious satisfaction of Christ but you know what
former proposition and meaning it in the very same latitude that thereit had been used for the entire not partiall or first or one part of justification To let this passe when you had taken notice of it was not an act of charity but justice in you yet that whirh would have beene very welcome to mee many times For just from as true or solid ground as this have many of your other exceptions sprang up and have not so candidly beene laid downe by you To your next questions which you professe to aske that mistakes may bee prevented upon that account I professe to answer most cheerefully for I see how wearisome a thing it is to have been mistaken To your first quaere Why the grace of God in justifying c. doth not extend to every man for whom Christ hath satisfied I answer clearely because Christs satisfaction is not absolutely for all or that they may bee pardoned whatever they doe how infidell or impenitent soever they continue but conditionally for all and thereupon that grace of justification extends to none but those who performe the Condition For your second 't is very nice and might sure have beene spared in this businesse That because God hath been affirmed by me to require regeneration as a condition to justification therefore I must tell you what condition God requires unregenerate persons to performe that they may attaine unto regeneration To question thus were infinite and to this matter of justification utterly unnecessary But yet I shall not faile you in any thing I le satisfie you in that also God requires in the unregenerate man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Ancients expresse it a readinesse to obey his call not to resist but receive his grace when hee bestows it on him and having received it what degree soever it bee to cherish and make use of it and this by his grace God enables him to doe As for your demand of mee by way of retribution that I must grant that God doth justifie the ungodly i. e. the man that is guilty of many sinnes I make no question of that if hee bee a penitent and so may hee bee and yet bee called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 still in the sense that I conceive belongs to that word Rom. 4. 5. that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not one that continues impenitent in sinne but one that neither hath nor doth performe exact perfect legall obedience which is very reconcileable if not the same with what you confesse That God never justifies an impenitent infidell in sensu composito i. e. never any that is then infidell or remains impenitent To your third I answer that there is such a condition which doth so qualifie the subject that I can say by it and onely by it I am justified i. e. by it onely as a condition not including any causality in it And if you will know what that condition is you have been oft told already and I now tell you Faith in the nation wherein it signifies a receiving the whole Christ and containes in it a resolution of obeying Christs Commands as well as of depending on him for mercy And on supposition or condition that you grant that and so speake of faith as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I will speake with you in the dialect of the first sort of the men you mention and say that faith is required to receive the object of justification Christ c. but withall adde that it is required as a condition too to dispose or qualifie the subject and that without this condition no man living shall bee justified Which being premised it shall not yet follow from thence that by this he shall bee sa you say constituted righteous if by constituted by you attribute any causality to this qualification or any thing but that of being a condition by which hee is justified i. e. is not jnstified without it And so this is as plain as I can devise too and mee thinkes there should bee no mistake For in the sense wherein I have now exprest my selfe I doe again consent to your conclusion that God doth by his free and effectual grace worke in the hearts of his elect to receive Christ that is the Whole Christ that they may be justified not by their owne obedience or vow of obedience as by a cause but by obedience of Christ alone freely imputed by God and rested on by faith onely It being one act of that faith by which the just doe live to have affiance or rest on Christ. In your moreover it may also bee true that there may be some difference between disposing the subject to salvation and to justification as the cordiall habit of faith aud sincere vow may dispose to justification and in case of living to occasions and opportunities the acts of faith and actuall performances will bee required yet so that he that is disposed for justification if he should then presently dye were disposed to salvation also Which notwithstanding I shall also add with you 1 That there is faith required to receive the object Christ Iehova our righteousnesse and grace prerequired to enable thus to beleeve and obedience to or making use of that grace the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 12. 28. a condition required in us to that end that grace may have its perfect worke on us And 2 that all the acts and habits of grace which are in the best men concurring together are not sufficient to justifie a man before God And therefore faith concurring so with such a vow or with faithfull actions cannot justifie us This I write out of your Paper as fast as I can drive and by the way you see some difference betweene our tempers I consent to as much of yours as possibly I can and labour to take as few exceptions you on the contrary have another method in reading them that you are not kinde to and consent to it most fully at first sight and never remember to have doubted of it since I considered Divinity But for your addition Of faiths justifying relatively you must give mee leave not to take that into my forme of Doctrine being not very intelligible but to use my owne expressions as conceiving them more perspicuous and commodious to the notions I have of this matter viz. Thus that Christ onely justifies Faith receives Christ but yet still by no way of causality justifies is causall indeed in receiving Christ but onely the condition in justifying because though receiving is an act of ours and in us yet justification is an act onely of Gods upon us and concerning us Which in effect you yeeld also when you say that Faith cannot pardon sinnes or accept For then it cannot justifie At this time me thinks we are excellently well agreed I wish it may long continue But then in the next words wee are out againe I am now lookt on as one that abuses Scripture for the maintenance of errors
practise and therefore you should have been most cleare and expresse in this point that by Gods grace this pronenesse to sinne might bee both bewailed and mortified I need not tell you how many dangerous consequences have been inferred from some doubtfull expressions in Catechismes or confessions about originall sinne but I hasten to your last report which is about justification 4 It seemes you are most to seek here you desire mee to help you out Sir I never said that faith was a Physicall Instrument of justification sure justification is no Physicall thing You doe grant at least in termes that faith is a Morall instrument of justification but if you deny it to bee a Reall instrument in receiving Christ then sure what you grant in termes you deny in deed No man ever dreamt that faith doth pardon sinne but a sinner doth by faith receive a pardon 1 Faith doth receive Christ really but spiritually not corporally or physically 2 That which you call a sufficient acknowledgement is not sufficiently cleare bee pleased to explaine what you meane when you say that faith is an instrument in receiving of Christ and all other acts of the man as Christian and onely a condition or capacity in the subject to make capable of Gods act upon him in justification 3 You should distinguish as the Apostle doth between receiving of Christ and walking in him 4 If you meane that all other acts of a Christian namely acts of repentance charity and in a word all acts of Evangelicall or new obedience are Morall instruments of justification I desire a proof of that 5 Doth my receiving of Christ make mee capable of Christ or rather make mee possest of Christ 6 I thinke you will not deny that Gods act in giving Christ giving a pardon c. is in order of nature before my receiving of Christ and a pardon 7 You have not yet clearely expressed what is the true notion of faith in your opinion and what Dr. Preston saith to confirme you in it and where he saith it 8. If you conceive that a cordiall assent to Christs commands hath any influence into our justification bee pleased to unfold that riddle you know it is confessed by all that the true beleever doth give a cordiall assent to Christs commands but is hee justified by that assent 9 How doe you prove that any soule whilst it remaines un justified doth cordially and wholly give up it selfe to bee ruled by Christ I confesse it to bee a good evidence of justification but not an antecedent to much lesse a Condition to make us capable of justification 10 If a cordiall assent to Christs commands and a resolution of obedience are morall instruments of justification bee pleased to shew what efficiency these instruments have in justification whether the Terminus of that efficiency bee a capacity in the soule which doth formally make the soule capable of Gods act in pardoning sinne and pronouncing the person just and righteous 11 If a resolution or vow of obedience bee sufficient unto justification without the actuall performance of the vow why doe you winde in all other acts of a man as Christian into a discourse of the very first act of faith in receiving Christ and forgivenesse of sinnes 12 If on the other side God justifies the ungodly how doth a constellation of Gospel-graces and all the acts of grace put a capacity into the subject to make a man capable of justification Sir that which I tooke exception at was your confounding of faith and workes in a discourse of justification 2 That you doe frequently imply that wee are justified by faithfull actions acts of sincerity and obedience that they are the Condition of justification and that God doth absolutely require them as the onely things by which a man is justified p. 28. you say the condition which makes us capable of pardon of sinnes is positively the new creature or renued c. obedience to the whole Gospel the performing c. and Constellation of Gospel-graces c. I need not transcribe your words in your last edition they are to bee found in the 8 page 3 You say that faith without the addition of such workes such obedience Evangelicall would bee unsufficient to justification c. The words following are as bad or worse page 35 36. and the like you have page 44 45 Sir I proved that faith was sufficient to bee an instrument of justification without the addition of Evangelicall workes unto that purpose and in that act and that wee were not justified by a righteousnesse inherent in us or any acts of repentance charity or new obedience performed by us I am not ashamed yet am not now at leisure to repeat my arguments to prove that wee are justified by the obedience of Christ alone freely imputed by God applyed and rested on by faith onely For Mr. Cheynell SIR I Received your returns and the Letter that enclosed them and shal as briefly as I can give you my sense of both And first to your letter I shall tell you truly that you are the onely man in the world that ever I knew to have endeavored the confuting one syllable of that Catechisme and therefore the addresse I made to you I acknowledge to have made to you onely If by your reverend brethren you meane those which are here with you employed at this time I suppose your periphrasis hath told mee who they are and then I am confident they are persons which would have communicated to me any such advertisements wherein I am so neerly concerned to discerne whether their dislikes were causlesse or no before they had publiquely accused me for them which because they have not done I must not yet beleeve that refutation was publique or such as could bee capable of my notice though I must acknowledge to expect from either of them that which is as you say much more solid then yours and heartily wish it were either of those to whom I am now writing for then I should make no question but the satisfaction mutually would bee much greater But as it is I must undergoe my fate and cannot be deceived in the successe of this paper more then I now finde my selfe to have been in the reception of my former which when I had kept my selfe within those limits which I suppose farre from all motion toward distemper and onely asked and as you say beg'd an exact account of what you had said of that Author and given you the plaine reasons of my request is yet charged by you to have fallen foully on you To this reproach of yours I reply not one word being not so much in love with that part of your spirit as to imitate it which yet both here and hereafter I beseech you not to mistake for a no-sense of it but conceive it as true that I have done so as that the errours so styled by you are either errors or dangerous I will not doubt of your
is but a nicety that untill I did beg as well as desire and request and againe re-inforce my request you did not thinke fit to grant me the least crumbe of that justice which I desired from you At the phrase exact account you affirme your selfe to have stumbled and call it those hard words If this bee so I cannot tell how to behave my selfe so cautiously as either to speak plainely enough to you or to keep you from stumbling For axact account is so plaine to bee understood and so unlike jurisdiction unlesse you mistooke it for exacting an account which you are too subtle to doe when the word desire went before it that if ever I had exercised jurisdiction over you or any other which I never was in place to doe the Office for which my first fruits are required being without a jurisdiction annext to it yet you could not have been tempted by that to this mistake I suppose you were pleased to be merry when you imply you were and therefore must friendly admonish you that there is a shrewd disease in which Irenaeus had so much skill as to pronounce 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and therefore I shall briefly desire you that hereafter you speak 1 So properly as not to say desiring is exercising jurisdiction And 2 Seriously for truly I am not in jest when I write to you and that would have kept you safe from stumbling Yet because you are at such leisure as to remember I had an Office in your now Countrey I shall tell you that there is a seale belonging to that Office from which if you had induction to that Living you may read in your Wax 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and then you will soone discerne how many men as well as mee you have helpt to make happy I blesse God and will never curse you that I am one of that number In your next Section you pray for them that suggested so many false accusations against you to mee But first you affirme not above one to have been false and that I confesse to bee so and need not to bee told so back againe As for your new accusation which you are resolved to pay mee in stead of that former I desire you to know that I defie it and know no danger or ill sound in the language of Speculative mysterie nor acknowledge any Author of it whom you can suspect particularly not him whose name you blotted out so that I might read I meane neither Smalcius nor Socinus whose doctrines in the businesse of the Trinity I doe heartily disclaime and am so farre from being tainted or tempted by them that I cannot say I ever permitted my selfe to read any Tract in them or any other of that set unlesse in the Racovian Catechisme on that subject And you will never repaire the injury if you use arts to fasten it on mee or to perswade any man that I was ever inclined towards it For your nicety by which you except against my calling the doctrine of the Trinity a speculative mystery saying that it is practicall and giving your reason because the blessed Trinity is the object of our worship as well as of our faith I shall make no scruple to acknowledge the Trinity to bee the object of our worship and to that end I directed that concluding act of my worship to that blessed object and every point of that which in the Catechisme is made due to God I supposed there and now professe to bee perfectly due to the Trinity But then you might remember that you acknowledge it the object of our faith and of that there be many parts which will not be disparaged by being stiled mysteries and depths of speculation and in that sense or as they are so I then spake and onely so and need not acknowledge any impropriety in that speech because though a speculative doctrine may be also practicall in another respect as the knowledge of the causes of diseases is a practicall knowledge in respect of the cures it will help to worke yet as that is ordinarily called the Theory of Physick and is presumed before Students ascend to the practicall so I told you the Author supposed the speculative understanding of that mystery in the Church-Catechisme before hee came to the Doctrines in this Booke which are the practicall You remember mee that a Sacramentall Covenant is practicall and I may as well remember you that there are credenda proposed to the vower in that Sacrament as well as facienda On occasion of mention of the Church-Catechisme you say you like that better then my Practicall and I confesse my selfe to doe so too so vehemently that I beleeve 't will bee long ere wee see a better in its stead But yet I conceive that hee that hath learnt that may bee capable of more at least of directions to make use of that knowledge imbibed to the amendment of his life else most of our preaching were in vaine nay else both that Catechisme ought never to have been expounded and every one that hath written any thing else for the benefitting of youth or men must lye under the prejudice of that insolence of thinking himselfe able to make a better as well as this Author For your justice in that answer to the third reason I am not to thanke you nor can I thinke that any man that was in any measure my friend needed to bee told by you or any that I acknowledged the Trinity If hee did examine your owne heart whether you know not some body who had helped to defame mee in that particular by saying I was a Socinian or the like or by saying I maintaine many errours broached by such If you doe not I will thank you for the good office you mention and so hasten also and wish heartily I could make more haste to get into some more delightfull imployment to the second report In that I see I met with no false accusation of you but in you enough of injury to that Author by picking out what might make him odious and present him an eloquent learned disciple of yours to bee taught that swearing is a sinne or rather a profane designer and corrupter of the Nation that hath given Boyes a liberty of swearing in their Catechisme I have sufficiently told you and all men that that Author is most guiltlesse of that charge and if you will not yet acknowledge it I must leave it to God to judge betwixt us as also whether hee produce not the unquestionable command of God against all swearing assertory or promissory and whether you doe not imply that hee doth so in saying against him that the perhaps imaginary superaddition which you know are no other then the words of Christ will not bee so effectuall to restraine as the unquestionable command of God Sir doth hee question the Command of God to bee against swearing doth hee not say that all profane use of Gods name is sure forbidden under the
I said I have sinned unto the Lord and thou puttest away the iniquity of my sinne This thus pre-required I call sanctification in semine or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the direct Greeke for that word without which no man shall see God and consequently without which no man is justified for whosoever is so is in that condition at that minute that if hee dye in it hee cannot misse of glory Beside this notion of sanctification there is another for the acts and fruits and state of sanctification and that I acknowledge a consequent of justification and an effect of that grace that justifieth the ungodly And having added this I conceive I have clear'd the way to your last particular In which it seemes you tooke some exceptions which by what hath been said will appeare to bee your fault not the Authors of the Catechisme For 1 faith and workes are not confounded in the discourse of justification any otherwise then St. Iames and St. Paul confound them St. Paul saying Abraham was justified by faith and St. Iames by workes aud the way of the reconciling them punctually set downe there 2 What hee doth say of being justified by faithfull actions as it is after the very stile of St. Iames Abraham was justified by workes so doth the word by signifie onely a condition not an efficient And whereas you mention obedience to the whole Gospel constellation of Gospel-graces c. and thinke strange that they should bee affirmed the condition of justification you must remember that those phrases denote them onely in the seed or first life of all these proportionably to the first notion of sanctification and then I suppose you can make no scruple of that affirmation 3 You scruple that faith without the addition of such workes such obedience Evangelicall would bee affirmed unsufficient to justification Wherein perhaps you thinke workes signifies actuall performances but that is not the meaning of it in that place but the word is taken in another Scripture-acception of it for such obedience as the Gospel now requires and for that which the Story of Abraham once makes the thing on which hee was justified i. e. resolution to obey God in the sacrificing his Son not the actuall sacrificing of him this is there called in the Catech. page 35. Evangelicall obedience and is set as the explication of workes and without this I acknowledge to beleeve that faith would bee unsufficient to justifie meaning faith in any other notion but that which doth containe this receiving him as a King and giving up the obedience of the heart to him And you must give mee leave a little to wonder why you should add that the words following in that place are as bad or worse then the former and yet 't was but civility and prudence not to name them when they are but a direct citation of a place of Scripture Thus the same is called in a parallel place Faith consummate by love Gal. 5. 6. for so the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is rendred by the Syriack The truth is the last thing by you excepted against was in effect a place of Scripture also Iam. 2. 22. Faith made perfect by workes set downe in some words of paraphrase and then this in the Galatians might be as bad or worse then that I shall mollifie the harsh phrase for you and adde more contrary to the Antinomians and Fiduciaries As for your disproving that doctrine I shall not need consider that because the doctrine is new set when it comes to bee disproved and in those termes which you see I acknowledge not for I doe not suppose the necessity of adding Evangelicall works unto that purpose and in that act to make faith the instrument of justification For 1 I acknowledge not faith an instrument of that any other then a morall instrument by which I expresse my selfe to meane a condition accepted by God to justification and a logicall or proper instrument of receiving Christ which Christ not which Faith justifies 2 Evangelicall workes in the notion wherein I surpose you now take them for fruits of faith performances of obedience I affirme not to bee either instrument or condition in the act of justification or to that purpose but I require them afterwards when occasions and opportunities of exercising that faith of performing those resolutions doe call for them And therefore 3 I make no scruple to acknowledge that wee are not justified by any righteousnesse inherent in us as I oft have said but onely by the righteousnesse of Christ imputed Only that infusion of new righteousnesse which when 't is infus'd and rooted is inherent in us is the condition without which we shall not bee justified not taking it againe for the actuall performances or acts of righteousnesse Yet in the three last lines you have now againe changed your question and made it such an one that I cannot blame you not to bee ashamed to repeat your arguments or to maintain For I shall most joyfully conclude with you in the very words the truth of that you say you used those arguments to prove viz. That wee are justified by the obedience of Christ alone freely imputed by God applyed and rested on by Faith onely For whatever other qualifications be required as conditions in the subject 't is the worke onely of faith to apply in that sense i. e. to rest on Christ. And having so well agreed in the conclusion one would wonder how wee should so differ in the premises Certainely there was some fault some where Was not it a willingnesse to find faults in that Book that made it appeare so full of errours and a heat that might have been spared which turned the pulpit into a Pasquin or Morforius on which that Author was to be defamed That which I have now affirmed I am confident is the summe of what is said on that Point in more words and with more proofes and clearings in that Catechisme and not now minced or drest anew by your directions or for your palate Yet if it may now please you and you will ask God forgivenesse for your slandering of me and consider me so much as to think that that reputation was valuable to the Author which you unjustly laboured to rob him of I shall most heartily as I do already forgive you the injury so conclude this Paper and take leave of you and continue Munday night Oct. 19. 1646. Your Servant H. Hammond I desire to heare what opinion you have of this large trouble thus unexpectedly multiplyed upon my hands SIR I Am sent for away from hence in great haste to my deare Mother who is very sicke and so am forced to dictate to an ill Amanuensis if greater Letters then an e bee mistaken I must crave your pardon If you thinke fit to reply be pleased to seale up your notes and Mr. Wilkinson who lodges at Merton Colledge will convey them to Your Servant Fr. Cheynell Octob. 30. 1646. SIR I
they say of the praevious dispositions to dispose and qualifie the subject for justification and you know what others say of the vow of obedience 5 Though to give a pardon bee Gods act yet to receive forgivenesse is an act of faith Acts. 26. 18. Wee doe not receive a pardon by an act of charity or by a vow of obedience or receiving of Christ as King and giving up the obedience of the heart to him I beleeve you have not forgotten these expressions which are scattered up and downe in your Catechisme and Papers If faithfull actions bee the onely thing whereby a man is justified as you affirme page 28. then are wee not justified onely by a vow of obedience If faith bee unsufficient to our justification unlesse it bee consummate by love that is by acts of Christian charity or keeping the Commandements of God as you expound that phrase page 35. then sure you cannot say you plead onely for justification by a vow of obedience Unlesse you will make a first and second justification I doe not see how you can come off On the other side if wee are justified by a vow of personall obedience then wee are not justified by the obedience of Christ alone or by faith onely I meane by the obedience of Christ as that obedience whereby wee are constituted righteous nor by faith onely as that whereby wee receive a pardon receive Christ as Iehovah our righteousnesse and therefore truly Sir I doe not yet see how you can agree with mee in my conclusion namely that we are justified by the obedience of Christ alone freely imputed by God applyed and rested on by faith onely unlesse you will retract those passages in your Booke which were justly complained of for the good of you and this whole University I speake plainely and freely as it becommeth Octob. 30. 1646. Your Friend to serve you Fr. Cheynell SIR ON Saturday October 31. I received your Papers dated the day before by way of return to mine of October 20. That night I got a liberty from other avocations to read them over and am now on Munday at the beginning of the weeke following on preparation to give you some account of them Your letter which conducted them was but briefe yet was willing to take notice of one particular that of your having written 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which though it bee onely a grammaticall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and very extrinsecal to the matter in hand yet seeing you are pleased to make it the onely subject of those few lines I must in civility tell you somewhat of your manner of excusing it 1 That literall mistake you know you were guilty of and I onely told you that you were so and added not one word more Instead of excusing or confessing it you now desire mee onely to pardon the mistakes of an ill Amanuensis and adde your reasons that forced you to make use of him Sir I will doe more then you desire First I will pardon that former mistake in your selfe also and tell you that in one that undertakes to bee a Scholar and to be very severe to those writings of other men which many pious persons have beene willing to receive with some kindnesse and now professe to see no kinde of ground for your quarrells in them the not spelling so plaine a word of Greeke would by very many men bee hardly excused I meane it would take off from their opinion of your learning as much as if you had written impius with a y that is more then many faults of a higher nature could bee fit to doe Secondly I will beleeve or excuse your saying that your haste forced you to dictate to an ill Amanuensis when I have some reasons to thinke it did not 1 Because you had had my last Returne in your hands ten dayes and I suppose the occasion that caused your haste was not knowne to you all that time or more dayes then one or two of them for I professe to think your avocation so very urgent and should bee sorry to heare that I was the occasion of detaining you one minute but then before you knew of it I suppose that did not force you to choose this shorter way This was my first reason 2 Because the Amanuensis was so farre from being an ill one that in the whole paper I know but of one failing in the kinde forementioned and that is in the word Sacrifice where in stead of the letter c. there is s which is in effect to write facio with s. But then upon the first sight this plainely appeares to be your owne hand interposing this word in stead of another blotted out as you know I can discerne both by your former Letters and by the like alterations in other places of these Papers This againe inclines mee to beleeve that the dictating you mention might bee designed a little to conceale such slips which might possibly fall from you and that it was not forced by your haste onely My third Reason is because I conceive it farre more speedy way to write from my own phansie or understanding which may be done without any stay but that of inventing and writing then to dictate to another wherein much longer time is required for mee to dictate articulately and for him after that to write then againe to recite to mee what he hath written before I can proceed to dictate In this I can speake but mine owne and some others sense and the common notion that I have of it but considering how farre my notions are wont to bee from pleasing you and that 't is possible you might mean dictating out of your Note-booke where you may have throwne together all your exceptions against that Author for that your Amanuensis transcribed what you had formerly writ I suppose you doe not meane that by dictating on these grounds I say it is possible here may bee some difference in judgement between us also And therefore if againe you tell mee that you have spoken your full sense in this particular I shall make all haste to beleeve you and aske you pardon for this importunity Yet in the meane time I will tell you my reasons also for my being so free with you in materiâ non gravi 1 Because I discerned so little in your future discourse which would bee more pertinent to the matter of my last returne having found that after my having answered or laid grounds of answering neare twenty questions in your last Paper more then the matter in hand or my leisure engaged mee to you have thought fit to spring new matters of controversie and to that purpose that you may never faile of the like matter to catechise mee in a strange number of questions more when the whole intention of my Paper was that it might bee considered whether you had not wronged that Author in your first quarrells at that Booke and not to engage my selfe in
whereas God knows 't was no more but citing the words in St. Iames faith consummate by works as a parallel place to faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in St. Paul and let the Papists say what they wil and abuse that or any other place sure this is no abusing Scripture for maintenance of errors But then what you meane by your not dreaming that I thought Abraham was justified by the actuall sacrificing of his Sonne I cannot dreame or imagine certainly I never said any such thing or if you thought I meant that by works you are much mistaken but onely I conceived the resolution of sacrificing to have been accepted by God to his justification without actuall sacrificing him But then Sir in that which follows when 't is resolved that wee are agreed in the conclusion 't is very strange that that will not satisfie you without some retraction O how much a more pleasant thing is victory then peace Sir I must tell you confidently all that that Author ever hath said in the Catechisme is perfectly reconcileable with this conclusion and hee may chance to bee as fit to judge of the importance of his owne words as any man else and therefore still retraction must be spared unlesse you please to retract causelesse displeasures But that it seemes you will not suddainely doe for againe you are deepe in a questioning over againe what hath beene so often answered and profestly acknowledged I shall proceed to doe it over againe once more 1 I say that wee are not jnstified by any thing in us i. e. either by vow of obedience or faith save onely as by a condition or causâ sine quâ non and in that sense by both of them together wee are justified But then you have an objection to those words of mine The condition must bee undertaken before the the Covenant belongs to mee and say in your third That if by Covenant I meane the whole Covenant of grace I must make some condition goe before our regeneration also I answer that the word Covenant there in that place signifies any one part of the whole Covenant which depends on the performance of any proportionable part of the condition and so needs not belong in that place to regeneration also but may bee restrained onely to that of justification Yet for the condition praerequired to regeneration also I have given you my sense formerly and need not so soone repeat it to you 4 For the third you know I professe not to know how they belong to me or any interests of mine 5 That to receive forgivenesse is an act of faith I shall againe acknowledge so you conclude not from thence that it justifies by so doing But that I ever said That wee receive a pardon by an act of charity c. I shall not yet be perswaded nor can that proposition have any truth any otherwise then that charity is part of the condition without which that Pardon shall not belong to me which were a very ridiculous ground of saying that wee receive our pardon by that act because receiving by notes an efficiency and of that there is none in a meere condition Sir I am confident I never said these words and therefore I cannot well forget them As for your citation out of the page 28. of the Cat. That a man is justified by faithfull actions and by them onely That you must understand as 't is there clearely set in the case of Abraham in case there be a present opportunity to exercise the faith For though when such occasions are not present the faith which consists in voto the full resolution the cordiall receiving the whole Christ will serve the turne without any actions yet when the occasion is present the action must bee ready or else the faith will not justifie And therfore though in this case of such opportunities I plead for more then the bare vow as necessary to justification yet still 't is true that I plead for no more in any other case and even in this I can content my selfe with this vow if it bee sincere nor will God acknowledge it so if it act not in time of tryall when the opportunity is offered And so sure I am well enough off from a first and second justification For all that I require by way of condition is the sincere receiving of Christ in heart and resolution which if it bee sincere will fructifie in its due season and if it be not such as will doe so 't is not fit to bee accepted by God to our justification But for your arguing on the other side That if wee are justified by a vow of personall obedience then wee are not justified by Christ alone or by faith onely that is but the old Sophisme so oft laid open by our confessing nothing to have to doe with our justification but Christ as the cause of our justification or that which constitutes us righteous and for our vow of obedience and faith that is onely as the condition granting still faith to receive the pardon but not thereby to justifie And so once more I will agree with you that is with that concluding proposition of yours whether you will permit mee or no and doe it now againe without any need of the least syllable of retraction Thus have I attended you a most wearisome journy being scarce permitted to passe over any line in your Papers without answering some either mistake or question of yours And truly I have served you freely and faithfully and that hath swell'd it to a bulke beyond what in any reason I was bound to pay you And if you doe not please that there shall arise to mee some fruit by all this by your discerning and acknowledging the causlesnesse of your exceptions yet if you please let us put it to others to judge between us for 't is possible wee may judge amisse of our owne performances And therefore by your good leave as before I told you I shall bee willing the world shal judge between us or as many of them as shall bee fitted with great patience to sit out the hearing of so meane an Act. If this course will not please you but you thinke good to write back againe I shall take confidence to expect what is most just that you return ad punctum or ad carceres from whence we set out and which soever of your publique charges upon that Author seemes to you to remaine unsatisfied by my returnes let it bee specified and your reasons joyned with your expressions of dislike such as you thinke will destroy the grounds and bee directly and clearely opposite to the state of the question on which I build And having now twice submitted to such punctuall answering of so long a catalogue of questions let mee I pray bee freed from any more of that taske For I know when all other things are at an end there will never bee any end of them There is a very unhandsome English
hee makes faith a condition no instrument If that were it I pray tell me whether you thinke faith a physicall instrument of justification as for a morall instrument that he in termes acknowledges or when justification is onely an act of Gods through Christ pardoning of sin and accounting just you can imagine that faith hath any kinde of reall though instrumentall efficiency in that worke i. e. whether faith in any such sense can pardon sin or pronounce just or whether it bee not sufficient to acknowledge it an instrument in receiving of Christ and all other acts of the man as Christian and onely a condition or capacity in the subject to make capable of Gods act upon him in justification this is the sum of what the Author saith in that point and shal be farther cleared to you if that were your exception Others tell mee it was concerning the priority of sanctification before justification Which point as it is there stated can bee no matter of quarrell to any that affirmes the receiving of Christ to bee pre-required to justification For as that is no more then that faith is pre-required in the true notion of faith and that wherein Dr. Preston acknowledges it so is it by that Author said that onely that sanctification is precedent to justification which is the cordiall assent to Christs commands and promises giving up the heart to him resolution of obedience not the actuall performance and practice of those vowes for that is acknowledged there to bee after justification These are the particulars I have heard of and have now reason to beleeve that of all them you are not guilty especially of the first though 't was even at London positively told mee from you And therefore I doe by these presents acquit you of that but yet thinke it not amisse to have mentioned that report that by it you may see what alone I have now in hand to prove how truly I told you that to avoid the danger of beleeving any thing of you causlesly I thought my self obliged in justice to you to beg an exact account of what you said I have been too long on the evidencing your first mistake I would you had answered my request and then you had taken away all excuse of that prolixity Your second mistake was that you conceived mee to have said that 't was a piece of Christian justice in you to have given mee an account this night c. wherein you were faine to adde to my words this night whereas I onely mentioned an answer but assigned you no time for it but punctually required the Messenger to desire to know when it would bee seasonable and hee should call for it and accordingly though I have this evening written this rejoynder yet that I may not trouble you I meane to respite the sending it till Munday And yet by the way I conceive it had been as easie for you to have given mee what I desired as that Letter in stead of it unlesse it be easier for you to write out of your invention then your memory I am sure it had been the savingst way for then you had escaped this importunity The distance of your answer from my proposition I shall not need to put you in minde of That which you meane to adde more of the Catechisme is not all nor if my intelligence faile me not any part of what you have said already and 't is but diversion to tell mee you will say more and give mee reason of that more when as yet much lesse is desired of you and cannot bee obtained I shall when you are at leisure desire all your heape of exceptions against that poore creature that I will bee deposed for it meant no man any greater malice then to land him safe at heaven the nearest and surest way that the Author could imagin But I will not yet importune you for any more then you have yet delivered publikely in this City By granting me this uprightly and candidly you will make me really rejoyce to hear that you shall have taken any further notice of me but if you shall persist to deny me this first request you will utterly discourage Your Servant H. Hammond Octob. 20. 1646. POSTSCRIPT YOu are pleased to mention your designe of further severity against that Authour in the matter of the morall law which say you it seemes to evacuate under pretence of filling up its vacuities and adde that it doth in effect overthrow the summe and substance of the Gospel The latter of these I confesse would be a little strange to me that he that labours to elevate the Gospel-precepts as you think too much above the Law should overthrow the summe or substance of the Gospell I must professe to beleeve that whatever charge can be affixt to that Doctrine that would not bee it but rather that it labours to raise the Gospell to a greater height then it would bear or indeed to lessen the Law not to alter any thing in the Gospell In this particular I must professe my self posed and utterly unable to conjecture what you mean till you are so kind as to adde your reasons One thing onely I meant to serve you in by this Postscript because I see that unlesse others have deceived mee you may possibly bee deceived in passing judgement on that Book and that is to tell you that you have a hard taske to prove that that Authour doth at all evacuate the Law morall unlesse you guard your selfe by that cautious word that it seemes to evacuate it and that it may and not doe it really For you may please to marke from mee who know the sense and spirit of that Author better then you that hee saith not positively that Christ added to the Law new precepts but one of these two either new precepts or new light and concludes that either of these two will serve his turne and enhance the Christians obligation and addes that hee that will acknowledge that Christ requires more of his Disciples or Christians now then the Jewes by any cleare revelation had been convinced to be necessary before did grant as much in effect as he desired to bee granted And yet farther in the close that if any will contend and shew as universall plain obliging precepts under the Law as there are in the fifth of St. Matthew he shall bee glad to see them and not contend with him so that hee will bring the Jews up to us and not us downe to the Jewes professing that the onely danger which hee had used all his diligence to prevent Now I have told you this use your discretion and let mee heare the worst you can say in this particular also For Dr. Hammond SIR I Was not the first no nor the last that endevoured to confute the dangerous errors of your much admired Catechisme yet I doe not hear that you have fallen foule upon any but on my selfe I acknowledge my selfe the weakest and yet am confident
bee more expresly cleared I could not divine and had liberty to use my own method This onely I know that inclinations to sin are there exprest to bee sins and that clearely enough that hee may discerne it who hath so much leisure from quarrelling as to bewaile them And indeed you need not tell me what dangerous consequences have been inferred from doubtfull expressions in Catechismes c. For I have an example before mine eyes of one that will inferre those consequences from one word in such a Booke that the whole sense of the place contradicts directly as much as sin and no sin are contradictories and then 't is but reason a man were allow'd pardon and not triumph'd over presently for being willing when 't is by anothers fault become so necessary to explaine And so much for the third report The fourth that about faiths being whether a condition or instrument of Iustification I cannot observe by your words that you have at all insisted on in either assembly for though you deny it not yet also you affirme nothing as in the two former which you owne and as in the last you are pleased to doe Either then you spake to this particular and then although it bee a fault in you not to acknowledge it yet till I am sure of it and that my reputation is concerned in it I have no reason farther to importune you or else you did not speake to it and consequently did mee no injury in that particular and then I truly cannot accuse you having no authority that you did worth my depending on and that which I had contradicted by others as the other of the Trinity which proved untrue and so the rather inclines mee to beleeve that this is so also On these grounds I have no temptation to adde more to this matter because the whole businesse which brought us now together was to vindicate my selfe from and that made it necessary for me to know what had been your accusations and not to render you at this time which I can spend much more profitably to my selfe and others an account of my faith save onely where you have calumniated it Yet because it is possible that the questions here proposed by you may through some mistake or ignorance of the grounds that I goe on bee matter of some scruple to you and it may bee my duty to prevent those mistakings I have now thought fit to tell you what is the generall ground that I build on in this matter by analogy to which you may forme an answer to those questions and reconcile those seeming differences which you may have taken notice of My grounds are these 1 That justification is divine acceptation and pardon of sin 2 That the mercy of God through the satisfaction and merits of Christ is the sole cause of this justification 3 This worke of justification is of such a nature consisting meerly in Gods pronouncing us just accepting and pardoning a worke of God without us upon us concerning us but not within us that consequently nothing within us can have any reall proper efficiency in this worke for then that whatever it is must bee said to justifie i. e. to accept and pardon which nothing in us can be said to doe though but minus principaliter secundario or realiter instrumentaliter for if it had any such efficiency there might in strict speaking be some reall vertue or force in that thing and that proportionable to the effect in some measure at least it must act virtute primae causae and by the impulsion of that might immediately produce the effect which any even grace as it is in us hath not force enough to doe For either it must doe it as an inferiour meritorious cause subordinate to Christs merits or as an inferiour efficient cause subordinate to Gods pardoning and accepting and then as I said that must pardon and accept also immediately though not principally as the knife cuts immediately though the hand or the man principally 4 This work of grace in God through Christ thus justifying is not every mans portion some qualification or condition there is required in the subject in the person whose sinnes God will thus pardon in Christ or without which God that justifies the sinner will not yet justifie the impenitent infidell the promises of God though generall being yet conditionall promises and the promise of pardon being one of them as shall be proved at large if you thinke fit 5 This condition is set downe in severall phrases in the Scripture Conversion Repentance Regeneration but especially receiving of Christ faith in the heart an embracing of Christ the whole Christ taking him as our Priest whose sacrifice and whose intercession to depend on as our King whose throne to bee set up in our hearts as our Prophet to submit our understandings to his doctrines and captivate them to the obedience of faith 6 This grace of faith hath mauy excellent offices and efficiencies one principall one laying hold on the promises laying hold on the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 others also of subduing the passions mortifying lusts overcomming the world In all these being workes wrought in us by God principally instrumentally by this grace Faith is an efficient But all this doth not at all conclude it to bee in any propriety of speech an efficient or any kinde of logicall proper cause in the act of justification because there is no need of any such God being ready to doe his worke to performe his promise i. e. to justifie the penitent beleever and whensoever by his grace that qualification is wrought in the heart or there but truly rooted God pronounces that man just I have out of my heart set downe my sense which I suppose you will finde every where scattered in the Booke I desire not that it may prove a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 between us in case there bee any word hastily let fall which though to mee that understood my owne meaning it bee plaine to you especially if you delight to bee captious may want explication but yet I would bee glad to heare if there bee any poyson in any of these propositions and whether and wherein I am mistaken If not I suppose you will be able to answer all your twelve quaeries out of these premises or discerne that it was impertinent to aske them these grounds being thus supposed I shall I think onely need to adde that as soone as ever this new creature hath life in him at the first cordiall receiving the whole Christ in vow or resolution sincere i. e. at the first minute of conversion thus to God the person is justified not one of those in time after the other but in order of nature as naturally the condition must be undertaken before the Covenant belongs to mee but at what minute soever this is done God puts away his wickednesse c. I have sinned saith David and the Lord hath put away thy sinne saith Nathan