good works in or through Christ Jesus When God made man at first and gave him a Law it was that he should live Holy When righteousness then was the end of his Creation and the Law thereof how is this said to be the end of his Redemption I answer Righteousness or holiness as they are one we must know does lye in a conformity to the Law which God gives us There is nothing else and nothing less then this the full performance of a Law given that is Righteousness Upon this account as soon as man once fell and broke the Law of his creation it was impossible he should be righteous any more unless there were a new Law brought in in the performance whereof he might attain to that again which he had lost Now to this end was it that Christ came and died this was the very main business I count of his Redemption even the procuring this new Law or another Law with lower termes which some men performing they do thereby become righteous and so have righteousness according to that Law imputed to them for remission and life eternal Here you see what that righteousness indeed is which Christ is said to bring in and in what sense he hath brought it in or how such Texts as those before do attribute our Holiness to him The obedience of Christs life and death we know was fulfilled on earth and of this he himself hath once said It is finished But the righteousness he is said to bring in is called an Everlasting righteousness And what then can that be but the righteousness of the Gospel which upon the same account also is called the Everlasting Gospel That is because it is by this righteousness in opposition to that of the Law or the righteousness of works that all men from the beginning of the world to the end of it and so is it to be accounted ever of force do obtain everlasting Salvation I know the great difficulty of this Doctrin will lye on the point of remission Our Divines do generally place justification in the remission of Sin so do the Papists with something else and so have I my self after others Nevertheless as I remember St. Augustine in one place does find fault with this in Pelagius so hath the perplexity of it of late lead me into the like thoughts The truth is Pardon of Sin is a benefit unto which the justified person is adjudged as eternal life is but remission of Sin must not be made the formal reason of justification Our Divines may define justification to be an Act of Grace whereby God gives us Eternal Life or a right to it as well as an act of grace whereby he pardons our sins That act that very only act wherein the form of justification does lye is Gods accounting or pronouncing a man righteous and this is a forensical act according to Law the Law or Covenant of grace Which covenant promising Forgivencss and Life upon the performance of its Conditions when a man hath performed them he hath a right to those benefits and when God does declare or account that a man hath performed them which is all one as to judge him righteous these benefits flow to him from that judgment or are confer'd on him by that act as Effects of that cause and consequently cannot be the very act it self which is the cause of them To forgive a mans sin and declare him righteous are two things inconsistent one with another in the same respect and therefore when God pronounces a man just it is according to the Law of Faith and when he pardons his Sin it is in respect to the Law of works And how then can two acts incompatable but in divers respects cùm omne ens sit unum be made to enter one and the same definition It is true as all agree that there are no works that man does or can doe able to make God any amends for our offences so that remission of sin must be attributed altogether to the merits of Christ in regard to the attonement made But we must distinguish of Remission Remission is either Conditional and Universal as it lyes in the Covenant and is the purchase of Christ or Actual as it lyes in the application thereof to particular persons upon performance of the condition When Divines do say we can doe nothing our selves for procuring reconciliation and remission it is to be understood of Conditional universal remission No mortal could do any thing toward the obtaining of that God was in Christ reconciling the World unto himself not imputing their trespasses But as for remission Actual that man must be blind who sees not that God does every where require us to repent beleeve confess our faults forsake them do good works forgive others that we may have pardon and be saved Conditional pardon now is antecedent to a mans justification and contained in our redemption In whom we have redemption through his blood even the forgiveness of Sins Actual remission is subsequent to justification for we must be supposed first to have performed the condition and be pronounced righteous and then pardoned When there is no remission then but what does either goe before or follow justification it cannot be made the very act it self of our justification There is one Text may be opposed Even as David also described the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth Righteousness without works Saying Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven It seems that the Righteousness which Paul speaks of without works in the one verse is described by pardon in the other This I my self have alleadged but upon farther consideration I answer The man to whom God imputeth righteousness without works or the blessedness of that man is described but we may suppose not the Righteousness without works The scope of the Apostle is plainly to shew us only that it is not by works of the Law or such works as would make the reward of debt and not of grace as appeares in the immediate verses before which are perfect works that a man is justified And he proves it by this argument because the man is blessed whose sins are forgiven that is as much as to say not he who is without sin but he who hath sin and it is forgiven The man who is blessed is justified But the man who is blessed hath sin to be forgiven Therefore the righteousness which a man hath or is imputed to him is not a righteousness according to the Law of works but according to the Covenant of Grace This I say is the scope of the place Gods imputing Righteousness to a person is indeed a phrase signifying Gods accounting him righteous or justifying him and the Apostle Proves a man is justified without works that is perfect works because he hath sin to be covered I will yet repcate The man to whom righteousness is imputed without works is pardoned but it followes not that this Righteousness without works
is pardon To have righteousness imputed to a man without works is all one as to have faith imputed to him for righteousness so repentance or evangelical obedience and that is not pardon though these are never divided from the same subject I will conclude therefore with that I have said once before will say it again at my parting with the point that it is strange to me our Protestant Divines should be so offward to this cleer Determination To wit God judges and will judge all men according to the Gospel Those who perform the condition of it he accounts or pronounces righteous They whom he accounts righteous are justified I will add That the righteousness of Christ which is the meritorious cause of our justification without dispute on all hands that is the impulsive procatartick cause which alwayes comes under the Efficient cannot for the same reason be the Formal or Material cause of it It is not the infusion of Righteousness with the Papist which is our sanctification nor the imputation of Christs righteousness with the Protestant which is not to be understood but in genere causae Efficientis nor remission of Sin with Protestant and Papist which I have now bin disproving but the imputing to a person his performance of the new covenant for righteousness or the accounting or pronouncing him righteous according to that covenant is the form formal Cause or formal Reason of his justification Do not think this strange Justification I will grant virtually or Eminenter as unum aggregatione containes in it many things and so remission among others for we must find line to speak as Divines use but Justification Formaliter as unum simplex I say is only Gods pronouncing us Just or sincere penitent believers and remission is a benefit which in order of Nature does follow the performance of that condition And so I proceed to my third Paper Of the Covenants Of the Law and Gospel For the Doctrin of the Covenants There is the Covenant of Works say Divines and the Covenant of Grace The Covenant of works say they was made with Adam in his integrity being that Law which is written in all mens hearts and so requires perfection and for the least transgression threatens Death The Covenant of grace is made with man in his Estate fallen or with Christ in his behalf and requires only our Faith repentance and sincerity unto Life which being held forth under the Title of the Promise to Adam Abraham David and all during the Law was ratified by the death and blood of Christ the Redeemer under the Gospel and so promulgated to the world to continue still on force and in that as in one regard called new as long as that lasts Behold the dayes come saith the Lord when I will make a new Covenant not according to the Covenant I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt Here is the Old Covenant and the New Covenant The Old is that which God made with the Jews when Moses lead them in the wilderness The New is that which we have under the Gospel The old Covenant then is not the Covenant of works for that was made with all in Adam and as written in our hearts must be eternally obligatory But the old Covenant was made with the Jews in opposition to other Nations and as peculiar to them is vanished and binds not Neither is it the Covenant of grace for the same reason as also because the covenant of grace is the new covenant but the New is not the Old The Old and New covenants say Divines indeed ordinarily are both the covenant of grace in opposition to that of works the same in substance but differing in the Administration But this with me is not so easy to be received without the distinction of an A and The in the case The Old covenant may be a covenant of grace or covenant of works or both but not the covenant of works or the covenant of grace There are some plead it is a subservient covenant as Camero Some that it is a mixt covenant as Ball. Some that it is a covenant of works as the Loyden Divines The most of our own late Divines do make it a covenant of grace Whereof one voluminous Authour denying the other three opinions does yet say it was so dispensed as to tender life both upon the condition of Faith and works But if it proposed life on condition of perfect doing it was a covenant of works If on believing too a Covenant mixt both of Works and Grace And as perfect doing was urged only in tendency to believing a Covenant-Subservient and so all say true as to the main and yet none so distinctly true as to leave any enquiring man without confusion in what they say There is one thing then I apprehend will serve much for the enodation of many difficulties in theis matter and that is to conceive aright what the Old Covenant is And there is another like it to the same purpose to know what kind of Covenant it was As for the former we have hitherto been seeing but what it is not only now to understand what it is Let us separate what Moses did deliver to the Israelites from that which was before in promise to the Patriarks as single by it self and this is the Old Covenant Or take that and all that whatsoever and in what manner soever that was added to the Covenant of Grace which Abraham and the Patriarks were under and that abstracted therefrom is I count the Old Covenant Let me yet speak more fully Take Abraham before he was ninety years old when he at first Believed and that Faith was imputed to him for Righteousness upon which he became the Father of the faithful while as yet he was in his Uncircumcision for the Law of Circumcision which was after given in peculiar reference to his natural Seed the Jews in pursuance of the temporal Benediction is to be reckoned as Preambulatory to the Law and belonging to it and when you have pared away Circumcision and all that which Moses commanded the Jews afterwards from Walk before me only and be perfect all this rest this pared away from that whatsoever it be is I say the Old Covenant or the Law strictly taken From this in the first place we have light to distinguish between the Law taken strictly and largely In regard whereof we shall find the Apostles somtimes proving the Righteousness of Faith from the Law being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets and another time setting the Law and Gospel at the widest distance and opposition As the Law is taken comprehensively for the promise to Abraham as well as the Covenant made with the Jews that is for the whole state they stood in who were under the Law by vertue of the Covenant confirm'd to their fore Fathers as by vertue of that given by Moses the Law and Gospel are
THE Middle-Way In One paper of THE COVENANTS LAW and GOSPEL With Indifferency between the LEGALIST ANTINOMIAN By J. H. Doing nothing by Partiality LONDON Printed for I Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheap-side 1674. OF The Covenants IT is one reason of my sending out these sheets thus in single Papers that I may have the opportunity my self of Reflexion If any thing be wanting I may supply it where I am in the dark I may explain it or call for Light If I erre I may correct it and put my self at ease still when I need as to the whole It is verily a foolish thing I count for any man to think that he can speak or write so as what he hath once spoken or written cannot be mended When we change our thoughts every day and week in our private Studies what a vain resolution is it that because we have Preached or Printed thus the shutters must be drawen up presently and no more Light be let to come in upon us For my part I declare I will never Preach or Print upon such termes but upon these That I may be mistaken That I may acknowledg it if I be convinced That I may therefore be controuled and have leave to be indifferent to my own opinion as to anothers Two Papers I have sent out already The first or that which in order should be first is of Election and Redemption wherein I observe some things to be misplaced at the Press but so long as the things be put in and my notion proposed I am sollicitous about nothing else That God would have all to be saved and therefore prepares that grace for all that is sufficient which is his antccedent will and that then he foresees who they be that will comply with that grace and and who not and by his consequent will decrees the one to salvation and the other to damnation is that Doctrin in the maine that is the Rachel of the Schools For the latter part whereof I have given my thoughts in that paper the former part requires a little further consideration That the goodness of God is advanced towards all I like well and that they lay the blame on man only that he perishes and that they are so careful against Pelagius for therefore do they bring in a sufficient grace for all because man shall be allowed him to do nothing that disposes him to conversion or justification by his own strength without grace nevertheless whether this sufficient grace of theirs is to pass or not is the question There is the universal convourse of God with man in all his acts as the first cause in whom we live and move and have our being and there is that influx or assistance of his we call Grace It would be known in the first place what is the difference between these That assistance of God which goes to the acts of Nature and the prefervation thereof is the common concourse of his Providence that assistance of his which goes to the production of acts above Nature is called Grace By Nature we mean corrupt Nature and by acts above Nature we mean such acts as we should not do according to our natural inclination if it were not for supernatural help that is some further operation or influence on us from God then that which goes only to our natural preservation Grace then in short is that Divine assistance which Elevates Nature and heales it This Grace is twofold the Divine motion or habitual disposition habitualis gratia or divina motio the infused habit or Divine operation It is said now in the Schools that there is this difference between infused habits and acquired that when the one do introduce only a facility to the action but presupposes the power the other do bring the power it self as without which we can do nothing This is spoken I count very agreeably to the Scripture which sets forth man in his natural state as dead in sin and the work of Grace by regeneration and new life with many the like expressions nevertheless as there must be some limits fixt for the right interpretation of such places which in effect must come to that which I have given in my first paper that there is indeed such an indisposition on all men through original corruption as that there is no man ever does did or will repent do his duty and live but it is was and must be through Gods especial Grace and yet are we to account for all that that they have power that they may if they will that the covenant of grace requires not any thing which is impossible for both these are to be held So must I crave liberty to enter my different opinion It was Pelagius his conceit I have noted in one of my other papers that grace served only to help the power when St. Augustine proves that it inclines the will and works in us the deed my thoughts now lye partly between both that the Posse or Power indeed is of Nature and Grace or the operation of God is that which drawes that power into the Will or Act that is makes us willing This act of the Will laies an impression on the soul inclining it to the like acts These acts iterated turns that inclination to an habit that is Habitual grace infused if you please per modum acquisitorum The agere the act must presuppose the posse the power That 's certain If the habit then brought the power the Divine motion or preventing grace which goes before the habit did nothing You will say There is a double power a remote or next power The remote power is of nature but the next power is of grace and sufficient grace gives to all a next power Let me ask you then whether there be any further grace after we have the next power to make us willing or to give us also the will and deed If you grant it you may make the most of your sufficient grace I will not quarrel with you for it But when the posse the power is of nature and the Will and Deed is of that grace which is more than sufficient I would faine know why nature and effectual grace alone should not serve the turn and whether sufficient grace over and above these is not indeed more than needs Here I stick where I left The second paper is of justification and of this I count there are two parts The one is a reconciliation of St. James and Paul and so of faith and works in that point which I must needs say having lain in my thoughts the main notion in Paper by me this 16 or 18 Years or upwards I cannot but be very throughly satisfied with and much the rather when I see the same growing up in late Books as particularly in those most judicious temperate Theses of Le Blanc and Mr. Trumans Great Propittation The other is concerning the imputation of Christs Righteousness wherein