Baxter how is not then himself in famous in reference to that for which he pronounceth them famous Or in granting them at the highest the name of Theologers doth he not inure upon himself the brand of a Theologaster But peradventure he thus insignizeth them in respect of the opinion that others have of them though in his own accompt or in comparison with himself he knowes not whither to terme them Cranes or Pigmies Or it is a peece of that subtlety which elsewhere he useth frequently to abuse the ignorant with a conceit that all which he delivers is orthodox because of his pretending himself to be an admirer of such in whom verity and Godlines with profoundness in learning are met together Or lastly Ambition of popular glory and praise might invite him so to magnify them The greater the Champions are with whom he Combateth The more glorious he may conceive his victory to be if he return out of the field Conqueror And he might expect that the lesser and lower rank will be as mute as fishes when they see the Classicall Doctors of highest esteem once battered by his disputations Two Kings could not stand before him how shall we stand 2. Kin. 10. 4. so c. However it be all that know them and him will conclude certainly that hee doth in no wise so speak of them because he can say of them in the words of John whom I love in the truth 3. Jo. 1. But note ye out of the same mouth in the same breath come Blessing and Cursing The Kiss and the stab of Joab go together Majestically rather than Magisterially he mounts them to the top of the Stage to hurl them down thence in the same Momâ—nt headless Master Pemble long since while he was yet a young man slâ—pt in Christ But Doctor Twisse not untill of late in a venerable old age was laid in the grave and Master Baxter a Punie to him throwes his curses after him that he was erroneous hereticall yea one that set up the Pillar of that which he calls and detesteth as the worst of Heresies Antinomianism Dared he but to have whispered so while Doctor Twisse was yet living It is come to passe what I conceived and intimated to divers of my friends at the first coming abroad of Doctor Twisse his works that during his life we should finde none that would write against him but after his death there would be many censurers though never an answerer of him Our eyes have seene since his death brought forth into the light those Tractates which while he lived dared not come forth out of the womb of darknesse And those mouths now open after his death to snarl at him which for fear of him were as fast shut while he lived as the Egyptian doggs at the presence of an Israelite Exo. 11. 7. yet may some take it to argue an ignoble Spirit in Master Baxter so to tread on the neck of a dead Lion having not so much as looked thorow the Grate upon him while yet living and to seek honour by the Conquest of them Quorum Flaminiâ tegitur cinis atque Latinâ But there is but little harm where there is but barking onely without biting And how little impression upon Doctor Twisse his either Doctrine or reputation Master Baxters sugillation hath made we have in part and in generall seen already and may yet take notice more particularly 2. Then when in opposition to Doctor Twisse his Major proposition vizt All Acts immanent in God are Eternal he tells us that Immanent in God must needs be taken Negatively not Positively § To speake more scripturally than Metaphysically I answer I see no ground of such a necessity but that it may be understood as well positively as yea rather positively than Negatively What is immanent in God but abiding or residing in God or to use the Scripture terms hidden in God Eph. 3. 9. Col. 3. 3. Yet so that when it is revealed it abides notwithstanding and hath its immanency in God still Approbation Acceptation accounting us just and loving us in Christ are Acts of Gods Knowledge and will and both before and after we have the revelation thereof to our soules they are immanent and abiding in God fâ—om everlasting to everlasting Are there not immâ—nent Acts in the soul of man much more in the minde and will of God What man knoweth the things of a man but the Spirit of man which is in him Even so none knoweth the things of God but the Spirit of God saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 2. 11. By the things of God and the things of a man I doubt not but it will be granted that we must understand the apprehensions volitions purposes and affâ—ctions if I may so speak of God and of men And are not these things in God as well as the things of God So they are as properly termed Acts immanent in God in a positive sense as actually abiding in God as in a Negative in opposition to their Transiency and termination upon a subject without God The latter is not onely or so much denyed as the former affirmed And thus our justification is positively and depositively immanent in God from eternity Posited in the bosom of God the Father as in the Cabbinet of his counsells and deposited in the hand of God the Son as in the hand of a faithfull Mediator and surety for us upon his undertaking to make satisfaction which God the Father accepted as present satisfaction made for our sinns 3. The reason which he annexeth to prove that Acts are not positively immanent in God is insufficient and reasonlesse For Acts saith he have not the respect of an Adjunct to its subject but of an effect to its Cause As if Acts and effects could not also abide and remain in their cause Master Baxter no doubt hath read Bellarmine Arminius and Corvinus in their disputes against the Doctrine of the reformed Churches suppose now an act of approbation hath passed within him so far as that their Faith is become his Faith also but secretly and not fully yet manifested to the World Is not this approbation an Act of Master Baxter if so is it not also an immanent Act abiding in himselfe within his owne minde as well positively the râ—siding as negatively not transient upon those Writers to produce any new relation or passion in them Himselfe and his Master Grotius concurre That the effects of efficient voluntarie causes do not alway immediately follow them That God hath decreed from eternity the transient Justification of the Elect in their own consciences yet the execution thereof follows not untill they beleeve Thes 15. and its Explication and here againe pag. 177. I demand now where this decree this act lyeth hid untill the execution thereof It must be either no where and consequently null and annihilated or else abide still and bee Immanent in God and so what was in God from eternity is immanent in him from eternity
to melt out his mercy in justifying us How then was he in Christ reconciling the world to himself before all such actuall intercession and prayers 2 Cor. 5. 19. 6. The like might I say of his objective and occasionall causes that objects and occasions have their being and qualifications from Gods either directive or promissive providence that they may serve to his eternall and absolute volsitions and purposes not that they work any new thing in the will and purposes of God for then like the Masse-priests should they be the creators of their Creator 4. To his second Question Why he cals Christs satisfaction both the Meritorious cause and the Causa sine qua non If he had not I should not have made it a question But because he delighteth both to put the question and to answer it I shall not permit his answer wholly to passe without a short reply B. Pag. 215. That it is the Meritorious cause I know few but Socinians that will deny He must needs mean few Baxterians that are not also Socinians i. e. few of them that with him deny justification to be an eternall immanent act in God For Mr. Baxter himself whether he be or be not a Socinian will and must grant that if justification be and as far as it is an eternall immanent act in God Christs satisfaction neither is nor can be the Meritorious cause thereof But as we look to the justification as in time applyed and declared to the soul and conscience which Mr. Baxter calleth the justification of the new Covenant and the Scriptures justification by faith of this justification I will not contend with him but Christs satisfaction though no where in the word totidem verbis so termed yet may enough properly be termed the Meritorious cause But why he will also have it called the Causa sine qua non a blinde man may easily see his reason what else doth he drive at but to put it in the same order of Causality with faith and good works which also in the whole sequele of this Treatise is with him the Causa sine qua non and consequently to make Christs sufferings and mans qualifications collaterall causes of Justification Hereunto pertaineth his extolling the cause sine qua non and exalting the praise thereof above other causes Pag. 216 217. not so much to attribute it to Christs satisfaction as preparatively to deifie and equalize with Christ the meritorious perfection of mans righteousnesse which he is bringing in as a rivall of Christ for the honor of justification and herein he will rather turn Cynick then leave the praise of man in his justification any one inch beneath the praise of Christ For hereunto pertaines his Quare me non laudas qui dignus sum ut accipiam Plus enim est meruisse quam dedisse beneficium If God be to be praised for giving justification why not I that am worthy to receive it for it is more honourable to have deserved then to have given a Benefit How well this agreeth with that which he hath in and under his 24 26 27. Theses I leave the Reader to consider and how fully he speaks it out in the following doctrine of this book we shall see more fully afterward Yea when he here puts Christs satisfaction in the same kind of causality with faith and works which he here cals the Causa sine qua non elsewhere the conditions of justification and Thesis 62. pronounceth faith to be the principall and works the lesse principall condition what place doth he leave for Christs satisfaction but to be a footstool to our faith and works Ob. Yes he reserves the entire praise of merit still to Christs satisfaction alone Answ Not so for though in words he sometimes asserteth Christs satisfaction to be the merit of our justification yet he makes the worthinesse of our own righteousnesse to be that which makes both Christs merit and justification merited to be ours and so we out-merit Christ deserving not only justification but Christ the meriter and the merit of Christ to be made ours In this he is worse then the Papists They give the praise of our mâ—rit to Christ he hath merited saith they a power â—o our works to merit This man contrariwise that neither Christs merits nor justification the fruit of it becomes ours untill we by our merits and worthinesse have put our selves into the possession of it so according to the Papists the efficacy of mans merits depends upon Christs merits according to Mr. Baxter the efficacy of Christs merits as to this or that justifyed person depends upon a mans own merits as in the fore quoted Thesis he manifesteth himself Let all men judge whether his ambition bends not to be more then an approver even an eminent improver of Popery 5. To his third question somewhat also In the Thesis where he gives us the order of the causes of justification to set up his own not Gods justification he saith B. Materiall cause properly it hath none if you will improperly call Christs satisfaction the remote matter I contend not And in the explication pa. 214. against what he had said in the Thesis he supposeth it will be questioned B. 3. Why he makes not Christs righteousnesse the Materiall cause And pag. 217. He thus answers the question B. Christs righteousnesse cannot be the materiall cause of an act which hath no matter If any will call Christs righteousnesse the matter of our righteousnesse though yet they speak unproperly yet far neerer the truth then to call it the matter of our justification We have here as elsewhere a Momus among the Gods a curious and carping Critick against not only Ecclesiasticall but Canonicall writings also no farther owning what they speak then as they speak it in a dialecticall dialect so setting Aristotle above Christ and weighing all the sentences of the Gospell in the scales of Logicall terms and maxims and Socinus-like submitting all the truths of the Gospell to reason yea to the rules of Aristotles logick or reason Justification is an act saith he and there is no matter of an act ergo it hath no materiall cause Christ therefore and his Apostles yea all the Doctors of the Church that speak after the Scriptures are dunces delivering a vain Theologie not truely Theologicall because not after the Peripateticks precepts totally Logicall But what law of Medes and Persians can binde the holy Ghost never to mention justification but strictly under the consideraration of an act Will Mr. Baxter deny it sometimes to be used in a passive sense Or what he saith of faith Thesis 62. may it not more truly be affirmed of justification That as a whole Country oft takes it name from the chief City so may all the privileges and benefits of the Gospell from justification so that when it is named all the rest are implyed and named under it The thing in question I acknowledge Mr. Baxter granting what he grants is
himself Sol. We make not man a stone nor degrade him into a dead block we grant of him that actus agit He hath not lost his free-will but all possibility of being saved by it all the spiritualnesse of it that without a new reparation of it it can will nothing in matters of salvation concurrent and conforming with the will of God But all mans actings of his faith when he is so renewed and moved by the prime cause is but to the receiving and application of his justification evidencâ—d to him As it is Gods instrument and acted by God so it is Gods evidence to manifest to him his justification It is Mr. Baxtâ—r and his fellowes that by their doctrine make mâ—n self-justifyers Teaching that Gods justification is conditionall and the alone instrument of God therein viz. the Gospell holds forth the same universally to all no lesse effâ—ctually to them that reject it then to them that embrace it But that it is a mans faith and obedience begun and continued in untill the day of judgment that makes this justification to be the justification of each singular person that is to be justifyed and so Gods instrument of justification justifyeth but conditionally i. e. no one singular man actually and absolutely It 's man that by his faith and works makes Gods universall justification to be his proper justification and Gods conditionall justification to be his actually and absolutely It is God that justifyeth all with a common and conditionall justification but it is every mans task to make and his own act when he hath made this justification to be really and undoubtedly his Therefore he doth but gaze here to finde a moate in his brothers eies fastening the beam in his own B. 3. For as Aquinas the action of the Principall cause and of the instrument is one action and who dare say that faith is so Gods instrument 4. The instrument must have influx to the producing of the effect by a proper causality and who dare say that faith hath such an influx into our justification I couple these two together because they are as twins that shew no malignity in their faces but are by Mr. Baxter made to carry fire in their tails Who dares to say and who dare say What if we should say it must we expect a broken head from the Challenger Is it but a word and a blow with him Or doth he affright us with Gods judgments from saying it is it his meaning who hath so little fear or conscience towards God as to offend him and derogate from his glory in saying it O that there had been but a moytie of the reverence and conscience toward God to annihilate man and advance the glory of Gods grace in Mr. Baxter which aboundeth in many of those whom he here opposeth he then surely would have cast this pernicious pamphlet of his into hell-fire if it had been possible rather then published it to the nulling of Gods and deifying of mans righteousnesse But to the matter we dare and that in the fear and presence of God to aver 1. That the declaration of a man to his own conscience and evidencing to his soul that he is justifyed in Christ to be the one and same action of God the principall cause and of faith the instrument The declaration and manifestation of justification to the soul is here the action God as the principall cause doth it by faith his evidence and instrument faith as the instrument and evidence doth it from God as the principall cause in manner before expressed God healed Naaman of his Leprosie by the water of Jordan as his instrument did many wonders in Egypt and in the Sea and in the wildernesse by Moses his Rod as his instrument subverted the wals and Towers of Jericho by the instrumentall subserviency of mens voices and the sound or winde of Rams horns and Trumpets Christ gave sight to the blind man by a plaister of clay applyed to his eyes Will he not acknowledg all these wonders to be the actions both of God the principall cause and of these so feeble instruments also The despicablenesse of the instruments and means do not spoyl God of but visibly attribute unto God the whole glory of his grace and power which in the use of more noble instruments would not appear so sensibly unto some apprehensions much more is the same action the action both of God and faith his instrument and this without all seeming ground of contradiction when we attribute not to faith any instrumentality under God to the working or effecting but only to the declaring and evidencing to man his justification before effected and compleated in God and in Christ And 2. That faith as Gods instrument hath influx in its kinde to produce this effect the evidencing of mans justification to himself by a proper causality I mean not Mr. Baxter I thinke means not by a causality that is naturally its own and proper to it but by a proper causality which God hath given it in appointing and using it as his instrument to produce the effect Will deny any this to be true of the forementioned instruments He that made them his instruments begat in them a causality and power instrumentally by and under him to produce those effects Indeed to Mr. Baxter in respect of his principles that denies Justification as an immanent act in God constituting and accepting us righteous and will have this to be done only by a temporaneous and transient act of God by the grace of the new Covenant these assertions must seem to have some monstrosity upon their faces that faith should be so the instrument of God in justifying or making us just Yet such as he can easily swallow because on the other side his justification is but an universall conditionall justification i. e. a justification in a possibility or impossibility but not at all in being and that faith should be termed the conditionall instrument of God in producing a conditionall justification I see not why it should set the man in a chafe he puts the dare to it therefore I suppose to make it too hot for the swallowing of weak and fearfull Christians To them that know whosoever are justifyed in themselves that is declared to be such within their own consciences the same were justifyed in God in Christ from all eternity so that faiâ—t is Gods instrument only to evidence them to themselves and in themselves justifyed not to justifie them in Gods mind and will for there they are justifyed without instruments there is nothing formidable nor rough in these assertions The objection which he addes by which he pretends we seek to evade we own not neither have we need in the defence of truth to seek evasions Let him name some one of his some that have so objected a passive instrument of justification or else leave us to conclude that the objection is of his own head partly to take advantage thereby yet
Wherefore puts he the soul for the man but to cheat in stead of informing his reader If any say faith is the instrument of the soul he speaks by a Synecdoche putting the part the chief essentiall part of man for the whole man after the common use of the Scriptures and why may not the severall faculties of the soul be as well mans instruments as the severall members of the body It is not unproper to call the eye the instrument by which man seeth or his ear the instrument of hearing or the the tongue of speaking or the hand of working c. and why should it be then unproper to call the faculties of the soul the instruments of man to act those offices by each faculty to which each faculty is appropriated Or when faith is infused into the soul doth it disinstrument the faculties thereof that they become no more instrumentall to man in their places Nay it makes them instrumentall to work henceforth upon spirituall as before upon naturall and morall objects And this also answereth his second reason why the habit of faith cannot fitly be called our instrument because saith he the holinesse of the faculties is not their instrument I grant it but this is not the question That which he was to disprove is that faith makes not the faculties of the soul into which it is infused instrumentall to the applying of Christ to justification The Compasse is the Mariners instrument by which to steer his ship yet would it be nothing instrumentall to this purpose were it not touched with the Loadstone that points it to the North-pole so are the will and understanding instrumentall to the receiving of Christ and justification in and by him not by any innate power in themselves but as they are touched and pointed directly by faith to the bloud of Christ for justification as to the doctrine of Christ for illumination and to the Spirit of Christ for sanctification And for this cause we call not so much the faculty of the soul the instrument as faith because faith makes it instrumentall to justification The power and disposition which it hath to this act being not naturall from it self but supernaturall from faith infused into it and working on it In stead of answering in order to every particle of what he addeth it shall suffice to discover his Sophistry by which he seeketh to elude a sacred truth of the Gospell in all that he saith upon this Argument and this will be enough in answer to all that he saith yea manifest him unworthy of an answer As before he first maketh all the instrumentality or causality whether proper or improper of faith to consist in the act of faith or faith actuated as if the Chirurgeons instruments were not his instruments while they lie by him but then only while he actually useth them in the severall offices to which they are appointed and faith were no longer an instrument if an instrument of justification then while it is actually receiving Christ and so the same man should be justifyed and unjustifyed oft in the same day in the same hour being no longer justifyed then while faith is in the act of applying Christ And 2. In contracting the whole man yea Christian into a soul as if we did make such a faculty of the soul the souls and not the mans instrument to receive Christ which himself knoweth to be the meaning of no one of them against whom he fighteth but a slanderous and subtle trick of his own devising to make their doctrine seem absurd in an alien sense which in their own sense he can in no wise confute So 3. Here he further sophisticateth and perverteth their doctrine in contracting the whole man not only into a soul which he had done before but into some one or two faculties of the soul into which faith is infused and inherent as in its subject as if they taught that faith is the instrument of a faculty and not mans instrument The holinesse of the faculties is not their i. e. the faculties instrument saith he but themselves rectifyed The absurdities therefore which he infers as consequents of such an assertion are the consequents of his slander not of their doctrine None ever taught faith to be the instrument of a faculty or instrumentall to justifie a facultie but mans instrument and nstrumentall to justifie man 4. In supposing it as a thing granted that faith in the soul or faculties of the soul is nothing but the holinesse of such faculties or their being rectifyed and not a being distinct so distinct as may be called their instrument a doctrine well agreeing with his principles who makes sanctification the condition of justification and no further attributes any thing to faith but as it is a part of our sanctification Pag. 195. n. 5 6. and thorowout this whole Treatise but altogether denied by the Protestant Churches which ascribe not to faith any instrrumentality to justification as it is a part of our holinesse and rectitude but as by a supernaturall virtue which it infuseth into the soul to carry it out to Christ to God in Christ for remission and reconciliation Otherwise godlinesse hope love meeknesse and all other the fruits of the Spirit should justifie us equally with faith because the holinesse and rectitude of the soul consisteth no lesse in these then in faith And this is the thing in question if we grant it all is granted which the worst of Jesuites seeks or Mr. Baxter in this whole book contends for so that to make the whole thing in question a known and granted conclusion from which he will prove a particle in question is too grosse and un Baxterlike a Sophism he is wont to spin finer webs what make such course threads in his fingers And why saith he Not so distinct is faith a being distinct from the faculty in which it is Even this that it is a being distinct from the essence of man speaks it capable of an instrumentality to mans justification especially God having appointed and fitted it to that end much more of being an instrument in generall for mans use which is all that Mr. Baxter should have denyed when he denies it to be the faculties instrument 5. In reiterating the soul for the whole man and annexing captious words to it Who ever called habits or dispositions the souls instruments Thus he playes the Sophister to make the instrumentality of faith ridiculous as if we affirmed it instrumentall to justification quatenus as it is and only in this respect because it is a habit or disposition of the soul when contrariwise we ascribe this power and office to it as it is a virtue or gift of grace endewed with this property from the author of it to cleave to Christ and draw forth the soul with it to Christ for justification as hath been before expressed and in this office it hath no other habit power or disposition of the soul naturall or infused
he hath enough manifested himself B. Some think that Faith may be some small low and impulsive cause but I will not give it so much though if it be made a Procatarctick objective cause Iâ— will not contend If he mean any other difference between the impulsive and the Procatartick objective cause besides that which is between the Generall and the Speciall it is past my skill to understand him or to comprehend what he denies and what he grants no doubt either he would not be understood or else he attributes to his righteousnesse of faith and good works an excitation but not an impulsion forsooth of the Grace of God actually to justifie those whom he beholdeth Schild Metaph li. 1. câ— 44. N. 24 25 40. fairly dressed therewith and so the beauty of the object enamors God to love and justifie And what more doe the Pâ—pists teach and so our justification as Gods act is but in posse till our righteousnesse as a sufficient cause brings it into esse or act Thus far of Mr. Baxters causes of Justification in which if he hath illustrated or confirmed any truth of God God is much beholden to him and Aristotle for it For distrusting the succour of the Scriptures he hath left them and brought nothing else but Logical and Metaphysical notions and reasons to prove all that which he hath said CHAP. XXVII Arg. Whether the sinner be justifyed only by the act not the habit of faith And whether it be not ordained to this use by reason of the usefull property which God hath infused into it to receive Christ Whether and in what sense a man may be said properly to be justifyed by faith In which also some things are intermixed about Mr. Baxters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Credere and conditions of Justification B. Thes 57. IT is the act of faith which justifyeth men at age and not the habit yet not as it is a good work or as it hath in it self any excellency above other graces but 1. In the neerest sense directly and properly as it is the fulfilling of the condition of the new Covenant 2. In the remote and more improper sense as it is the receiving of Christ and his satisfactory righteousnesse It is not for nothing that Mr. Baxter puts here a restriction upon justification by the Act of faith limiting it to men of age Are then elect infants that die before they attain age and strength of reason to put forth their faith into act justifyed only by the habit of faith It seemeth then that the hue and crie hath apprehended the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere as to them and laid it fast from justifying them Again if they are justifyed by the habit of faith as a habit of inherent grace though not such as he here denyeth to have an excellency above other graces what difference doth he put between Justification and Sanctification Doth he not speak the same things here with the Papists Yea in a higher dialect then any of them For they grant to Infants justification only by the washing of Christs bloud conferred upon them in Baptism without any qualification of their own But this man if he thus say justifies them by an inherent righteousnesse of their own But if Infants are justifyed without the act of faith and yet not by its habit how are they then Justifyed but by that which he calleth Christs own justification as a publick person at his resurrection which notwithstanding he utterly denyed Thes 42. and its Explication and if they are so justifyed will it not follow then that justification by the act of faith is Gods declaring and mans applying of his justification to his present comfort and full assurance which Mr. Baxter explodeth as an unsufferable conclusion But dying Infants are to have no use of this present comfort and full assurance therefore it sufficeth them to be justifyed in Christ though not in themselves Lastly or do they depart hence unjustifyed because without actuall beleeving and receiving of Christ and so shall be justifyed in the day of judgment because at the resurrection they shall actually beleeve What a crie do the poor souls in the interim then make in that Limbus insantum And why may not then according to Origen all the Devils and reprobates in hell be then justifyed and saved also because then they may actually beleeve and according to Mr. Baxter the condition of justification lasteth untill that day B. Explication That faith doth not properly justifie through any excellency that it hath above other graces or any more usefull property may appear thus To the excellency of faith above other graces I have nothing to say But to the reasons which he brings to deny the more usefull property of it I shall speak briefly B. 1. Then the praise would be due to faith No more then when God gives us meat the praise of our nutriment and life is due to our teeth because they have a more usefull property to grind and chew the meat then our eyes or ears B. 2. Then love would contend for a share if not a priority This is only said and not proved or declared upon what grounds love should contend B. 3. Then faith would justifie though it had not been made the condition of the Covenant 1. We denie faith to be the condition of the Covenant in Mr. Baxters sense If he would have spoken directly to them against whom he argueth he should have said Then faith would have justifyed though it had never been appointed and given of God as an instrument to receive Christ the justifyer And then we should answer 2. That it is so much as if he had said Then our teeth would have nourished and preserved life although God had never appointed and given them to us as instruments to chew the nourishing meat And thus the Caveat that he addeth becomes uselesse viz. B. Let those therefore take heed that make faith to justifie meerly because it apprehendeth Christ which is its naturall essentiall propertie For none affirmes faith to justifie meerly because it apprehendeth Christ without considering also Gods ordering and fitting it to this office together with his promise and the virtue laid up in Christ to justifie all that do by faith so apprehend him B. That it is faith in a proper sense that is said to justifie and not Christs righteousnesse onely which it receiveth may appear thus 1. From a necessity of a twofold righteousnesse which I have before proved in reference to the twofold Covenant 2. From the plain and constant phrase of Scripture which saith he that beleeveth shall be justifyed and that we are justifyed by faith and that faith is imputed for righteousnesse It had been as easie for the holy Ghost to have said that Christ only is imputed or his righteousnesse only or Christ only justifyeth c. if he had so meant He is the most excusable in an errour that is led into it by the constant
and continued untill the full execution thereof That very pactional Justification which is by Faith being nothing but the execution of the decree of God from eternity For besides our eternal Justification in Christ before mentioned we acknowledge also an eternall decree in God to declare and evidence his Elect justified in their own consciences i. e. in time to send forth his Spirit into them and by his Spirit to work Faith in them and so to draw them unto Christ and by the evidence of Faith and evidence of the Spirit to declare themselves to themselves to be justified and pardoned for ever As for that of the respect of the Adjunct to its Subject wee leave to Master Baxter and his friends the Arminians They indeed make Pardon and Justification to bear the nature of Adjuncts yea separable Adjuncts and Accidents of God which may adesse vel abesse sine destructione subjecti that God may hate one day even to damn and love the next day to save and the third day convert this love into hatred againe and so consequently change more frequently then the Moon and yet be Gâ—d still Such shall we find Mr. Baxters doctrine suckt out by kissing from the lips of the Arminians But I forbear to speak further of it here reserving it for its proper place 4. As to the instances which he giveth to make questionable whether Imanent Acts are eternall viz. For God to know that the world doth now exist that such a man is sanctified or just c. Gods foreknowledge is not a knowing that such a thing is which is not but that such a thing will be which is not I answer that foreknowledge doth still imply and connote knowledge though knowledge doth not so imply foreknowledge He that perfectly in every respect foreknew an Ecclipse in every point of its time measure c. knew it also perfectly and could as fully and perfectly contemplate and speak of it in its fruition as presence future and present it was and is one to him Much more in God who hath created time for the measure of his creatures not his own being and motion Past present and future are much to us whose existence duration and motions are spanned and spinned out by moments But to God who is eternall dwels in eternity is eternity not circumscribed with place or time there is nothing former or latter no succession of present to past of future to present but all at once and at one view apparent to his eye or knowledge So that albeit he speakes oft in Scriptures to our capacitie of succession of times as if he together with us did act within the bounds thereof else if he should speake stil in reference to things of old and things hereafter to us as the eternall I AM not I was or I will bee our weakness would be beneath the comprehension of what he saith Yet these circumstances of time doe adde nothing to take nothing from nor properly square with him that is above time without the precincts of time comprehends time and temporary things within himself and is not comprehended or touched by them The now existence of the world the now sanctification of such a man are nâ—w and new in the knowledge of the Creature not the Creator Or let Mr. Baxter deny the world in that form state extent fulness c. in which it doth now exist or the now either sanctified or just man or the measure and nature of his Justification to have been from all eternity as apparent to Gods knowledge as it is in this now or present time of us his creatures 5. The comparisons or similitudes which hee bringeth of the Sun the glass the eye though they may have some appearance of freeing God from change in taking new notions into his knowledge in time which notwithstanding is but an appearance yet is there nothing in them from which to argue to the acts in general which are immanent in God These do but set forth the respect of natural causes and their natural effects either to other therefore are in a capacity to illustrate onely those acts that flow naturally and therewithall necessarily from God Not those that proceed from the liberty and freedom of his will which Master Baxter call Morall Acts and Morall Causes For of these there can be no Cause assigned but the free will of God And if they serve not Master Baxters turn in this respect they become utterly unusefull to him in the point of Justification Yet to this end doth he drive that God doth justifie and unjustifie pardon and unpardon change his will from love to hatred and from hatred to love to will the salvation of the same man at one time and his damnation at another without any change of his will or in himself The absurdity and impossibility whereof we shall afterward shew when Master Baxter in his following Theses gives me cause to do it So much of what he saith by way of answer to the Major or more properly what he saith to leave it unanswered For after all he concludes But grant that all Gods immanent Acts are Eternall And this is as much as if he had said All that hath been said is of no force to refell it Therefore I grant it As for his answer to the Minor That Remission and Iustification are immanent Acts in God though he speak much yet is it nothing to the pupose First he tells us that most Divines will deny it and tell you that they are transient Acts which is true An irrefragable Argument most will say it Ergo it is true True because most Will say it though hitherto possible they have never said it And how knowes he they Will say it â—eradventure he puts so much confidence in his following dispute that he accounts all will be captivated by it into his opinion Oâ— if he mean the most Divines have said it hee questionlesse means partly the Jesuiticall Divines for so Bellarmine indeed with others of the same School asserts or else more primarily the Arminian Divines speaking in this point what they have learned of Socinus who is as great with them as was Simon Magus with the Samaritans Yet even these also though they someâ—imes deny yet do they also sometimes when it may make for their advantage affirme Justification to be an immanent Act in God 2. Who is there that sees not his sophistry in shifting from him this proposition in stead of answering it Doctor Twisseâ— his proposition is Justification is an immanent Act in God To subvert this Master Baxter bestirrs himself to prove a seemingly but not really contradictory proposition viz. That Justification is a Transient Act of God A fallacy which in the Schools is called Ignoratio Elenchi And the reasoning of Master Baxter here is as proper and powerful as if Master Baxter should affirm that Apollo was above a hundred years old and I to overthrow his conclusion should assert and prove that Apollo
of rich glasses set in artificiall order and able to dazle the eye of the beholder what pity is it that any one of them should meet with a knock and be broken and so the beautifull order in which they were placed be on a suddain marred yet if such a thing should fall out it were no great wonder Pretinesse and strength are rarely twins and we speak of prety things but rarely long in the present tense before their perishing by weaknesse forceth us to take up another tone and to tell that there was such a delicate toy but if we seek it the place thereof is not to be found It is possible such a stroke may befall the image that Mr. Baxter hath here set up in imitation of that of Nebuchadnezzar Dan. 2. 31 32 33 c. it hath clay in the feet cannot goe without halting if it meet with a stone to crush its toes it may possibly fall all to shivers Himself seems to doubt of it therefore prepares himself to defend it as seeing it cannot defend him or it self So saith he in the Explication B. Here it will be expected that I answer to these Questions 1. Why I call the Gospell the Instrumentall cause 2. Why I call Christs satisfaction the Meritorious cause and the Causa sine qua non 3. Why I make not Christs righteousnesse the Materiall cause 4. Why I make not the imputation of it the formall cause 5. Why I make not faith the Instrumentall cause 6. Why I make it only the Causa sine qua non To these Quaeries it will be expected saith he that he answer But what if other besides these exceptions be made though it be in his power to deny his answer yet it is not in his choice or authority to restrain any from excepting 1 Perhaps some may except why he in asserting God to be the principall efficient cause of Justification lets it passe so nakedly without an adjection of any of his attributes so leaving it doubtfull whether it be the grace or the justice the love or the hatred the mercy or the wrath of God that is the efficient of Justification We may easily answer our selves as to this question It is not Gods but Mr. Baxters justification whereof the causes are here assigned such as the Scriptures are unacquainted with a justification of his own devising defining and distinguishing himself and none before himself that I know was in every point acquainted with it No marvell then if he speak differingly in setting forth the causes of his from our Divines in laying down the causes of Gods justification And indeed it is a difficult question to determine whether his justification if it were at all granted to be of God might challenge more properly the love or the hatred the grace or the justice of God for its womb It being a justification that leaves all men under the curse under the wrath of God both in life and in death untill the very day of Judgment as we have found him disputing most profoundly in and under his 9. Thesis A justification that gives only a titular title without actuall and absolute possession of any greatest or least benefit to the justifyed which according to Mr. Baxter is the same thing as if we should say to the unjustifyed A justification more unpossible to be apprehended and held then was the first justification by works that was held forth upon possible tearms exacting from a living man only continuance in the works of life this upon unpossible as respecting our present state of infirmity offering to a dead soul righteousnesse and life upon condition the dead soul will quicken and arise from the dead to fetch it thence whither if it come it must still abide empty as it came untill the day of Judgment and then Mr. Baxter will come again to tell us more of his minde whether it be at all attainable I do not at all injury the man in saying he offers justification to a dead soul c. upon condition the soul will quicken it self For let there be found but one clause in his whole book that implyeth a concurrence and effusion of grace from God more to the quickning and justifying of Peter and Paul then of Cain and Judas of the damned then of the saved Or what doth he lesse that brings in works to justification then destroy grace to set up justification after the order and rule of strict justice Or when Mr. Baxter is so exact in enumerating the Procatarcticall or outwardly moving causes to what purpose doth he jumpe over the Proegumene or inward moving cause viz. the grace love and mercy which is within God himself but to imprison it in darknesse and eclipse its glory that mans righteousnesse might have the praise which pertains to God alone 2 It may be also questioned why amongst all the causes of justification here assigned there is no mention made of union and communion with Christ when as our Divines following the rule of the Word makes our union with him the very chief cause and ground of our being justifyed or declared to be justifyed according to the Gospell justification 1 Joh. 5 12. Phil. 3. 9. 1 Cor. 5. 19. and a multitude of other Scriptures which they alleadge and if there were the least need I might here quote a score What else but an evill eye maligning the praise of God and of his Christ suppresseth in silence and suffers not to appear in the chain of the causes of justification this link of union with Christ Is it not that he will make our faith and works yet out of Christ the cause of our union with Christ and not this the ground of the other 3 To come to those questions which Mr. Baxter answereth because he conceives it will be expected 1. About the instrumentall cause we question not what he goes about to answer why he cals the promise or grant of the new Covenant or the Gospell the instrumentall cause of justification actively considered but 1. Why he makes it the only instrumental cause of justification howsoever considered For this grant and promise doth by it self no more justifie the beleevers then the infidels the justifyed then the unjustifyed Doth not God also make the spirit his instrument of justifying by declaring and unfolding the doctrine of the Gospell and evidencing and witnessing to the soul remission and justification together with the love and grace of God from which this justification floweth Why doth he stifle the working of the Spirit from having to do in this great work except either with the Sadduces he denies the being or with the Socinians the divinity and divine operation of the Spirit or else to leave open a door to let in justification by the flesh not by the Spirit by the strength of mans free will without the preventing helps of the Spirit of grace Or as justification is taken passively for our being justifyed in our selves why is not faith put as an
accounts it for ours c. and so before he pronounceth us he maketh us righteous Let us be rude with the Apostle as long as we stand fixed in the doctrine of grace with the Apostles That Mr. Baxter speaks more Logically after the Sophisters and captivates himself to their learned errours however he may applaud himself therein we conceive it to deserve more pity then envie 6. To his fourth Question I shall speak but little because I understand him but little Neither have I that edge upon my dull brain to discern whether in his acutenesse he doth more contradict others or himself or what other least cause he hath to contradict granting what he grants save â—â—ly the spirit of contradiction The formall cause of justification in his Thesis we have thus B. The formall cause is the acquitting of the sinner from the accusation and condemnation of the law or the disabling the law to accuse or condemn him The question that he conceiveth will be put to him here to answer is B. Why he makes not the imputation of Christs righteousnesse the formall cause To this he answers p. 218. B. That imputation is not the forme is undeniable The forme gives the name especially to actions that have no matter Imputation and Justification denote distinct acts and how then can imputing be the form of justifying c. Here before I can understand the depths of Mr. Baxter I must be resolved by him in some Queries 1. Whether justification hath its being before it hath its form For the form doth more unexceptively give the being then the name and is in order of nature before the thing formed or named 2. If not Whether then there were ever a justifyed man after the tenour of the new Covenant upon earth or ever shall be such For if the acquitting of the sinner from the accusation and condemnation of the Law or the disabling of the Law to accuse or condemn be the form of justification then is justification unformed and without being according to Mr. Baxter untill the day of Judgment Untill then he binds all hand and foot under the threatnings and curse of the Law as we have seen in and under his 9 11 12 13. Thesis and how long after he doth not yet certifie us so that if this be the form of justification then after his principles there neither is nor shall be either justification or any justifyed person as long as the world lasteth either in heaven or upon earth Except Mr. Baxter will say the law is so dealt with by Christ as Cnipperdoling was by John a Leyden of the highest magistrate and judge made tormentor or hangman deposed from being any longer a righteous Accuser Judge or Condemner of guilty persons and made an Executioner and Tormentor of them whom no Law accuseth or condemneth 3. Whether the Law accuseth or condemneth of any thing else but of sin And if not Whether Gods acquitting the sinner from the Lawes accusation and condemnation be not his acquitting the sinner from all sin that might expose him to the Lawes accusing and condemning This Mr. Baxter must grant except he will say a man may be acquitted from the Lawes yet left unto the Devils accusation and condemnation as he seems before to hint But this is no other acquitting but from the frying-pan into the fire from a just accuser and Judge into the tyranny of an unjust slanderer and destroyer Such a justification with its form we decline as damnation it selfe if Mr. Baxter can with his Sophistry charm the Devill let him grapple with him 4. Whether the imputation of righteousnesse and the not imputing of sin be not the same thing neither an act distinct from the other but each connoting and implying the other For so he answers the question denying imputation to be the form viz. imputation of righteousnesse without the adject terme of diminution the righteousnesse of Christ knowing well that some of the most considerate of the Antipapisticall Divines place the form of justification in the imputation of righteousness not in the imputation of Christs righteousnesse viz. which he hath done These two Quaeâ—ies he must grant us except he will sinke from his own principles and contradict himself 5. Whether then there be any difference between Mr. Baxters form of justification and that form which he impugneth Whether the acquitting of the sinner from the Law from sin which exposeth to the Lawes accusation and condemnation be not the same thing in substance with Gods imputing of righteousnesse and not imputing of sin to him What hath the one of these save words alone more or lesse in it then the other They must be Mr. Baxters Lynces eyes that are busied in the speculation of Democritus his Atomes and Platoes Ideas that can discern the difference my blunt fancie is uncapable and uncomprehensive of it B. I believe saith Mr. Baxter that this imputing doth in order of nature goe before justifying And doth not the form in order of nature go before the thing formed how else doth the form give it its ultimum esse This more proves then denies imputation to be the form B. And that the righteousnesse so imputed is the proper ground whence we are denominated legally righteous and why the Law cannot condemn us This also makes more for us then for him He tels us before that the forme gives the name Now to be Legally righteous in Mr. Baxters phrase is to be righteous in the righteousnesse of Christs satisfaction He that is so is justifyed in title of Law as Mr. Baxter termes it and here treats of it if then it give denomination of legally righteous it gives the name of justification in title of Law except he will say that a man is legally righteous in Christ before Gods gracious act makes him such if so then is imputation the form of justification because it gives it its name He concludes well B. It is a vain thing to quarrell about the Logicall names of the causes of justification if we agree in the matter Yet see I no other ground that Mr. Baxter hath to take up this quarrell against the whole stream of Protestant Divines in refusing and oppugning the form of justification which they give but to quarrell about names and words The form which he substituteth in place of theirs being the same with theirs in substance and differing only in Logicall not Theologicall names and words Unlesse some will say there is a reall as well as a nominall difference between the disabling of the Law to accuse of sin and Gods not imputing sin i. e. between the Lawes acquitting and Gods acquitting from sin between the Lawes not imputing unrighteousnesse and Gods imputing righteousnesse which is all one as if I should put a difference between the pardon that disables the Law of the Land from accusing and condemning of a malefactor and a pardon which acquits him from the offence which the same Law had power to accuse him of
or between the not accusing or condemning of a man and the not imputing any thing to him to his accusation and condemnation CHAP. XXV Arg. of the Causa sine qua non or the condition or the instrumentall cause and whether faith be the instrument And in what sense it is so The absurdities wherewith Mr. Baxter chargeth this doctrine removed and those that follow his doctrine in part particularized TO the first Question we must apply our selves somewhat more fully because in answer to the former Questions Mr. Baxter seems to me to have aimed chiefly to the ostentation of his wit and Logicall both acutenesse and profoundnesse to make himself thereby admired and formidable But in answering this and the next he collects in one all his subtilty and Sophistry â—o beguile and deceive if it were possible the very Elect. And indeed if he carry these two Questions in captivity to his own sense and purpose he shall thereby make at least a seeming way by which to introduce all his Popish soul-subverting errours about justification which follow and hang as at the tayle of these Questions His words in the Thesis are B. The Causa sine qua non is both Christs satisfaction and the faith of the justifyed As much as he thought would be objected against his putting Christs satisfaction in the same place and degree of causality as a collaterall with faith he hath spoken to in his answer to the second Question and the firmnesse of this his answer hath been there examined But what concernes faith that which he thinks he shall be opposed in he formes into two Questions Explication pa. 214. 1. Why he makes it not the Instrumentall cause 2. Why he makes it the Causa sine qua non The former which is his 5. Question he applies himself to answer pa. 219. in these words B. To the fift Question perhaps I shall be blamed as singular from all men in denying faith to be the instrument of our justification But affectation of singularity leads me not to it 1. If faith be an instrument it is the instrument of God or man Not of man for man is not the principall efficient he doth not justifie himself 2. Not of God for 1. It is not God that beleeveth though it 's true he is the first cause of all actions 2. Man is the causa secunda between God and the action and so still man should be said to justifie himself 3. For as Aquinas the action of the principall cause and of the instrument is one action and who dares say that faith is so Gods instrument 4. The instrument must have influx tâ— the producing of the effect of the principall cause by a proper causality and who dare say that faith hath such an influx into our justification Here I know not whether we have more of the subtle serpent or of the roaring Lyon 1. He useth his winding Sophistry to intangle 2. His daring threats to them that being not intangled will be so bold as to contradict him Let us examine what efficacy there is in either or both these and first in his Sophistry To insinuate or as the Apostle saith to creep into the hearts of his Readers to deceive them he tels us Perhaps he may be blamed as singular from all men in denying faith to be the instrument of justification It seems he doubted that some of his Readers for lack of acquaintance with many Authours upon this subject would not or could not take notice that it is a new doctrine which he here delivereth and so he should be robbed of the glory of his new invention That the praise thereof might therefore wholly redound to him he tels them he is the first of men that ever saw and taught Faith not to be the instrument of justification that herein he is singular from all men Bâ—t had he not rubbed his forehead that with open face he thus vindicateth to himself that which he hath received from the Priests and Jesuites Let him name himself singular and abhorrent from all Protestants yea from Christ and his Apostles not from all men he is singular and alone in this and most his assertions from the Orthodox from whom but holds it in common with the whole herd of Antichrist to whom he is fallen Doth not Bellarmine deny that faith can truly be said to justifie us except it doth obtain and in some sort merit Justification from God Do not all his brethren with one voice shake off the instrumentall causality of justification and make it as a perfect quality or good work to merit it A two fold subtlety yea falshood is there to be found therefore in this his insinuation 1. That he affirmes himself singular in this point to catch after an usurped praise to himself as if he had seen what none in the world before him had seen 2. In pretending it to be a new doctrine thereby to draw disciples after him in a time wherein the ears of men itch after new in disdain of sound and true doctrines But further to insinuate he tels us that affectation of singularity leads him not to it We beleeve him without oath or protestation It is not the desire of them that are of his hair to trudge single but accompanied with a whole Brigade of disciple under their conducting and seducing unto Rome But let us come to his Arguments B. If faith be an instrument it is the instrument of God or Man But of neither of these Ergo not at all an instrument His Proposition or Major we grant him And it were enough and full to that which can be expected to refell his reasons which he brings for the proof of the minor Yet because my drift is not so much to answer him as to stablish some weak and unwary Christians against his impostures I shall endeavour first to confirm what he denyeth and seeks to shiver and then to examine the strength of reason which he brings against us When he saith in the Minor that faith is the instrument neither of God nor Man in justification What if I should undertake to prove and defend it to be the instrument of both He speaketh here of Justification as taken Passively declared to and termined upon the conscience For if we should mention justification as taken meerly Actively for that internall eternall and immanent act in God not transient upon an extraneous subject but hid in God before the world was or any justifyed or unjustifyed persons began to live or be Mr. Baxter would be ready to deal with us as did the Jewes with Steven Act. 7. 57. stop his ears and cry out against us with a loud voice Blasphemy blasphemy Yet in this sense we acknowledge that saith is neither Gods nor Mans instument of justification But in that sense which alone Mr. Baxter here taketh justification for that gracious act of God by which he dischargeth for Christs sake the sinner from condemnation by vertue of the new
or conditionall offer thereof to us Nor any thing to the justified and actually declared just in themselves Justification is no longer in a conditionall offer to them but in its absolute being within them Whatsoever therefore he addeth there pag. 43 44. is wide from the question being not limited to the Justification of the New Covenant which is the subject of his Treatise which here he shunneth and talketh extravagantly about sanctification because he cannot confute the absolute justification but that it doth and will stand and standing will not admit a conditional justification to stand with it and by it in its beeing though the offer thereof before it is in beeing be conditionall And this is all which at length he concludeth pag. 45. of the conditionall Covenant of Grace which without all this circuition would have been granted him viz. that it is propounded and offered to mankinde conditionally if they will beleeve and without this faith none hath or shall have the benefit and comfort thereof to themselves and in themselves because all these that do not or shall not being in a capacity to beleeve are reprobates and as many as are elect shall come to Christ and beleeve in him as hath been before shewed What he addeth for the application may have some pertinency to the matter there objected but it hath none to the thing here in question Therefore I passe it by as not concerning us 2. To his Causa sine qua non briefly thus 1 In so tearming Faith he denyes faith to be any cause at all of our Justification for that is but Causa â—quivoca or nomine tenus or titulo tenus hath but the name not the nature of a cause hath no causality upon gives no influx into the effect 2 Neither whatsoever it be is Faith the Causa sine qua non of Justification in that sense as Mr. Baxter taketh and defineth it either in his stricter or larger definition except he will say that no Infants are justified who do not cannot accept Christ much lesse so beleeve as in his larger definition he sets forth faith 3 Faith is not the Causa sine qua non of our justification in God no nor yet in Christs Justification as he tearms it for these are antecedaneous to our faith and our faith not an antecedent to it 4 At the utmost it can be but the Causa sine qua non of Gods declaring and evidencing of our selves to our selves justified and this justification Mr. Baxter so disdaineth and snuffs at that he will not own it much lesse mention it Yet can he not with all his Sophistry name any other act of justification in this life whereof faith can be proved to be the Antecedent Medium or Causa sine qua non 5 Why doth he call faith and all the conqualifications wherewith he loadeth the shoulders thereof and all the works which he makes its Concomitants the Causa sine qua non as if all these with their Colaterall in the other scale of his ballance Christs satisfaction did make up the one and sole Causa sine qua non of our justification can none else be named Besides other the weaknesse and infirmity of the Law to justifie as it removes the impediment of justifiablenesse in Gods Court of strict Justice For had there been a Law given which could have given life verily righteousnesse should have been by the Law Gal. 3. 21. and sin which removes the same impediment might more properly and socially then Christs satisfaction have been placed on horseback in the same saddle of Causa sine qua non had not Mr. Baxter thought Christ would blesse but these would have defiled this golden saddle of his own either making or appropriating to this use and so bespattered and undressed the righteousnesse of his Qualifications and good works that they would never more become fit to ride on horsback in procession with the Holy Wafer Thus his condition and Causa sine qua non must be new modelled ere they will be Canonicall But see we here the mans wit which never fails him at a dead lift What he cannot act by power he seeks to compasse by a stratagem Because he cannot cover the nakednesse of his assertion he labors to make bare ours and cast filth in it that having diverted the eyes of his Reader thither he may forget the vanity of his Condition or Causa sine qua non And thus he doth it B. Here by the way take notice that the samemen thus blame the advancing of Faith so high as to be our true Gospel Righteousnesse Posit 17 20. and to be imputed in a proper sense Posit 23. do yet when it comes to tryall ascribe far more the faith then those they blame making it Gods instrument in justifying In examining all these quoted Theses I have shewed both who they are which blame him or at least his doctrine which was born before ever he commenced such a Doctor viz. All the Orthodox Protestant Divines and Christians and withall for what they blame it viz. as it is Papism Socinianism and at the best Arminianism 3. To which I have also made out their just grounds of blaming it as may be there seen yet to cheat his Reader he cals these those very men as if there were some few contemptible Antinomians lately sprung up when himself knows them to be all the Churches of Christ which since the Reformation have been called Protestants But of what blasphemy or evill fact doth he accuse them That they ascribe more to Faith then those they blame making it Gods instrument in justifying Yea but we have seen or thought we had seen at least just grounds for their so doing how doth Mr. Baxter aggravate it to make it odious B. 1. And so to have part of the honour of Gods own Act. Fie upon the Hugonets and Lutherans if this be true who then will not run from them at Mr. Baxters heels to Rome But the Scriptures make Balaams Aâ—se Gods instrument to rebuke the madnesse of the Prophet Namb. 22. 28 30. 2 Pet. 2. 15 16. The Raven his Instrument to feed Elijah 1 King 17. 6. The brazen Serpent his instrument of healing the Israelites bitten with firie Serpents Joh. 3. 14. Numb 21. 9. The Assyrians his instruments of chastising and reforming his people Isa 10. 5. c. and the very Devil his instrument of trying Job Job 1. 12. and of executing his pleasure upon Ahab 2 King 22. 21 22. Shall we now fall foul with the Scriptures and accuse them that they ascribe part of the honour of Gods own acts to the Asse the Raven the Serpent the Assyrians the Devil by affirming these to be the instruments by which God acted Doth not the seeblenesse of the means and instruments speak out the whole honour of the action to pertain to the Lord Was it to honour his slaves and abase his freemen and subjects the Lords Israel that Solomon made the former
expresse phrase of Scripture 3. From the nature of the thing For the effect is ascribed to the severall causes though not alike and in some sort to the conditions especially me thinks they that would have faith to be the instrument of justification should not deny that we are properly justifyed by faith as by an instrument For it is as proper a speech to say our hands or our teeth feed us as to say our meat feedeth us I shall not have need to speak much to this passage because Mr. Baxter hath before said and I have answered to the greatest part of it in examining his 23. Thes with the explication thereof Here as there I shall defend against him that it is not faith as it is righteousnesse but Christs righteousnesse by which we are said to be justifyed The first reason which he brings to evince the contradictory and contrary conclusion hath been there examined and I will not here actum agere To the second 1. He should have quoted that Apocryphal Scripture which saith He that beleeveth shall be justifyed as if he were not already justifyed I finde it not in the Canonicall 2. Those Scriptures which say we are justifyed by faith say not that we are justifyed by it as it is our righteousnesse or any part of our justifying righteousnesse and those that say it is imputed to us as Mr. Baxter will have it for righteousnesse have been sufficiently spoken to under Thesis 23. And by the way Mr. Baxter is not ignorant that the originall text may be more properly rendred unto or to righteousnesse then for righteousnesse and that the old translation and most of our Protestant Divines so render it neither have I met with any one that declares his dislike of that version And from the text so read what Mr. Baxter can suck out to stablish the righteousnesse of faith not as the same but as a collaterall with the righteousnesse of Christs satisfaction to justification I understand not 3. To his Only only and only I answer 1 That it is not the first time that Mr. Baxter hath taken the boldnesse to teach the holy Ghost to speak properly and fully 2 When the holy Ghost saith That the bloud of Christ cleanseth from all sin 1 Joh. 1. 7. that whosoever is washed therein needs no other washing Joh. 13. 10. that he is the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world Joh. 1. 29. that by his one offering he hath for ever perfected them that are sanctifyed by taking away their sins and iniquities Heb. 10. 14 17. That he is made of God righteousnesse to us 1 Cor. 1. 30. that he was made sin for us that we might become the righteousnesse of God in him 2 Cor. 5. 21. That he is all in all Col. 3. 11. Will Mr. Baxter elude all these and a whole century more of the like Scriptures with this evasion yea Christ hath done and is all this in part to us leaving the other part of righteousnesse not perfected by him to be supplyed by faith his collaterall to our justification Or when it is said There is salvation in no other nor any name else given us under heaven by which we may be saved besides Christ Act. 4. 12. and the Apostle professeth it his whole labour to be found in Christ not having his own righteousnesse which is of the Law but the righteousnesse which is through the faith of Christ the righteousnesse which is of God by faith so making Christ put on for righteousnesse the righteousnesse which is through the faith of Christ the righteousnesse which is of God by faith not severall kinds of righteousnesse but one and the same righteousnesse which he opposeth there to his own inherent righteousnesse which he excludeth are not these speeches equipollent to that which Mr. Baxter requireth the Christ only or the righteousnesse of Christ only It is but a flourish wherewith he concludes this argument about the constant expresse phrase of Scripture For let him either produce one Scripture that affirmeth faith by any inherent righteousnesse in it self or of her own conveyed into us to contribute somewhat to our Justification or else confesse his errour to be derived from the scriblings of Bellarmine Socixus Grotius and Arminius where this Doctrine is to be found and not from the Scriptures of Gods inspiration that are wholly against it To his third reason I can say nothing because I understand nothing of his meaning therein or if I doe understand it nothing needs to be said because it hath nothing for himself or against us But to that which he addes of his thinking 1. Let him say whether by them that he saith would have faith to be the instrument c. he doth not mean all the Protestant Churches both Lutherans and Zuinglians or Calvinists as they are by some distinguished whether the best that have opposed them herein have not been the Arminians and from what Rome or Hell these first drank in their opinion he is not ignorant having fished in the same pools after them 2. When he thinks these should not deny that we are properly justifyed by faith as an instrument I answer 1 If they will not deny it will Mr. Baxter with them confesse it 2 The word properly is vox aequivoca a phrase may be said to be proper as it is enough fit and proportioned to declare the meaning of the speaker and in this sense we deny not that faith as an instrument subservient to the principall efficient doth so properly as an instrument can justifie us in our selves or to our own consciences Again it may be said to be proper in opposition to a tropicall way of speaking and in this sense we cannot say that faith doth so properly justifie specially in that extent wherein Mr. Baxter and his Masters will have it to justifie without a trope in the phrase of speaking which I would shew if it were pertinent to the question I shall spare to transcribe at large his next section which he puts under n. 4. of his Explication Because if he meant singly and precisely as he speaks all might be granted in a positive sense without prejudice to our cause or advantage to his viz. that faith doth directly and properly justifie in and to themselves those that were before justifyed in Christ as it is in a good sense the condition of the new Covenant and a means or instrument of Gods stamping by his commandement and promise to the attainment of this justification For this denyeth not that truth which before he kicked at that faith doth so justifie also in regard of that usefull and essentiall property which it hath above all other gifts of grace to be instrumentall to apprehend Christ for righteousnesse Nay even for this cause hath God either ordained and commanded faith to this end because it hath this property or because he hath ordained and given to it this property therefore he not only requireth but
himselfe our Divines give an interpretation to this one passage that may declare it though it hath a seeming yet not to have a reality of dissent from the rest Because if this be Canonicall and from the H. G the H. G. cannot contradict himselfe In expounding this dispute of James therefore the Protestants take notice of a two fold homonymy of words one in the word Faith the other in the word Justifying both which Paul and James use but use them the one in one and the other in another sence so that though they seeme somwhat to differ in words yet in sense they speake the same thing 1. They say as when Paul speakes of Faith to justification by Faith he meanes a true and lively Faith which fetcheth power from the merits of Christ to Iustifie and from the spirit of Christ to Sanctifie so Iames here battereth under the name of Faith a bare profession and boasting of Faith which some Hypocrites leaned on to Iustifie them being wholly destitute of Faith indeed that is alive and effectuall to draw from Christ matter both to Iustification and Sanctification 2. They say that as Paul takes the word Iustifying for remission and absolution before God so James takes it as oft as he requires here works to Iustifie for the declaration of the truth of our Faith and Iustification before men Yet let not this their distinction if it may fitly be so termed and exposition bee taken up unlesse it hath sufficient grounds from the Text to beare it up I shall begin first with the latter because Mr. Baxter there begins That Justification by works is by James understood the declaring us to man to have true Faith and to be Iustified by it they bring these reasons to prove 1 James himselfe even in expresse words affirming it ver 18 Shew me thy Faith without thy workes and I will shew thee my Faith by my works where he tels us that by Iustifying he means the shewing or declaring our Faith and Justification not to God but one to another And thus he denieth Faith which is not Shewed by works to Iustifie i. e. to Shew or declare us to men Iustified 2. ver 21 where he saith was not Abraham our Father justified by works when he had offered Isaack his Son upon the Altar doth he speake of Gods Iustifying Gen. 15. 6. him or declaring him to be justified unto men Not the former for God had justified him by Faith many yeares before and there was no diâ—uption according to Mr Baxters doctrine in the intervall by any apostacy made by Abraham that of justified he became unjustified and needed here to be justified anâ—w How then was hee justified by offering his Sonn Can there be any other way not repugnant to reason devised but this that God here by proving and bearing him up in so searching a proof and Temptation to shew so matchless an act of obedience did declare to the world that his Faith was in sincerity his feare and love unfained so that all must be restrayned from charging him with selfe respects and Hypocrisy in all the professions that he made towards God Or what less is to be drawn from those wordâ— from Heaven Gen 22 12. upon this act of Abrahams obedience Now I know that thou fearest God seeing thou hast not witheld thy Son thy onely Son from me Did not God know what was what himselfe had wrought in Abrahams hart before this tryall of him doth he need outward actions to manifest to him what is in the heart within M. B. so much cleavs to theÌ„ that make all things which God doth to flow from his prescience that he will not ungod God so much as to deny that he knew as perfectly before as after tryall Why saith he then now I know but to intimate that now he had given a strong evidence both to the present and future generations to know that God knew and therby to convince men of all ages that they also must know the truth of Abrahams Faith feare and justification 3. The same might bee said of Rahabs justification by workes in receiving the Messengers and letting them forth another way ver 25. Did such a work as this justifie her before God or obtain to her remission of sins and deliver her from everlasting vengeance when there cannot be the least probable conjecture that shee had then any Faith in Christ or had ever heard of a Christ to come Then let us disclaime that Fabulam de Christo as one of the Popes termed the Gospell Righteousness is by workes without Faith without Christ and Stapletons glosse â—apleton Anrid p. 82 83. upon Pauls Iustificamur fide i. e. non absque side we are justified by Faith i. e. not without Faith because Faith is necessary to justification though not without works sufficient to it must be rejected as too Evangelicall And then also how shal Mr Baxters Thesis not fal which makes workes collateralls with Faith in Christ to justification workes can do it without Christ But if all this intrench upon Blasphemy then was shee justified by workes to men to the Israelites who by this Act toward them had so farr evidenced her fidelity to them and their cause that thereupon shee was taken into Covenant with them delivered from the ruine which befell Iericho and after as it were adopted or naturallized into the Common-wealth of Israell Ye have one part of the exposition and the grounds of it which Mr Baxter concealed that the unwary reader might despise it as groundlesse Mr Baxter opposeth it tellâ— us it is false and it may appeare thus B. p. 294. The Worlds Iustification frees us but from the worlds Accusation to which it is opposed And therefore it is but either a Iustification from Mans Laws or else a particular Iustification of us in respect of some particular Facts or else an usurped Iudgement and sustification for they are not constituted our Iudges by God and therefore wee may say with Paul it is a small thing with me to be judged of you or of mans judgement And so a small thing to be justified by men from the accusations of the Law of God But the justification in James is of greater moment as appears in the Text. For 1. It is such as salvation dependeth on ver 14. 2. It is such as followeth only a saving Faith But the world may as well justifie us when we have no faith at all I therfore affirm 1. That the world is no lawfull judge of our righteousness before God c. 2. Nor a competent capable judge and cannot passe any certain true sentence c. 3. If they could yet works are no certain Medium or evidence wherby the world can know us to bee righteous For there is no outward work which an hypocrite may not perform and inward works they cannot discern c. So that if it bee not certain that the Text speaketh of justification before God I scarce know
From the attributes that he gives to the faith to which he denieth justification viz. a dead faith ver 17. 20. 26. A faith of Devils ver 19. But a dead and Devillish faith are not a true Gospel faith but at the best a figment and counterfeit thereof 4. From the similitude by which he illustrateth his disputation If a man in a pretence of charity speaks comfortable words to his hungry and naked brother Alas poor soul be cloathed be filled but ministreth nothing to him for his refreshing will any call that flourish of words true charity Is it any more then a paint therof So also of him that saith hee hath faith but evidenceth it not by its fruits c. The verball faith doth no more profit to justification than the verball charity to sanctification If one of these in the mind of the Author be true charity then according to the minde of the Author also the other is true Faith 5. From the object of that Faith which James excludeth from Iustification Mr. Baxter acknowledgeth that the object of justifying Faith is Christ Thes 66 -68 and their explication But let him shew that James doth here expresly or impliedly in any one passage of his dispute make Christ the object of that Faith which he excludes from justification or any other object than the Faith of a meer Heathen or Hypocrite may pitch upon viz. generall truths that there is a God c. else let him grant from his owne principles that it is not true Faith but an unprofitable Historicall Faith as some terme it which is here excluded Thus have our writers in answer to the Papists Cavills expressed the minde of James in this place or rather from him selfe declared what himselfe expresseth to be his minde and this they expresse not as Mr. Baxter perverts them by some one but by both of these interpretations viz. of the word justifying and the word Faith manifesting out of James himselfe that as oft as in this dispute he attributes justification to works he speaks of justification i e. the declaration or manifestation thereof to men As when vers 21 Abraham and ver 25. Rahab and ver 24. A man indefinitely are said to be justified by works he meanes they are so manifested and declared by their works to us This is a usuall phrase not only in Scripture but in our common expressions and our common talk I will justifie what I have spoken or done i. e. I will declare it make it appear to be all good true and just I will justifie him from all that is layd to his charge i. e. I will declare and prove him just and free from all that he is charged with Again where hee denieth justification to that dead faith that worketh not by love that by faith he means a false profession and counterfeit of and not the true justifying faith and who among us ever said that to say I have faith never expressing the power and fruits of it can justifie a man So there is nothing to be found in James crossing the Protestant yea Evangelicall and Apostolicall conclusion that we are justified in our consciences before God by faith alone without works i. e. by a living and working not a dead faith yet without works can we not be declared and manifested just unto men That which Mr. Br. hath spoken against the former part of this interpretation viz. justification before men we have found to be either less or worse than nothing To the other viz. the denying of justification to faith that is a counterfeit a false profession of faith hee saith nothing and why because hee hath not what to say Therfore he stifles it in darknes will not have his Reader hear of it for then actum est he must run to S. Francis or some other Saint S. James leaves him in the mire It is no lesse ludicrous than fallacious that he turns the state of the question another way and danceth round about it never comming to that which our Divines answer 1. Having devised pag. 294. that we say James speaks of works as justifying our faith not our persons he doth pa. 296. goe about to prove that works justifie the person not the faith only And who ever denied this position Doe not wee all say that the holy life declares the truth of faith and therin justifieth as to men the professor of it from all hypocrisie in making such a profession 2. pag. 297. he falls foul with the Ghost of sweet Mr. Pemble for saying that by Faith and works Iames understands a working Faith And after a sharp chiding without examining his Reasons the matter whereof I have before examined at length p. 298. fetching breath he offers him peace and friendship upon condition that he will arise from the grave say what Mr. Baxter saith But despairing of that and concluding if he should rise again from the dead he would still say with the Protestant Churches and Writers that Fides solùm justificat non autem fides sola Faith alone justifieth but not that Faith which is alone without works because that alone faith is not a true Faith he 3. Makes a transition to fall out with all Protestant Churches for attributing too much to Faith in making it instrumentall to Iustification that when Believers are said to receive Christ Io. 1. 12. and to receive abundance of Grace and of the gift of Righteousnesse Rom. 5. 17. wee will not say they receive this Christ this gift of his Righteousnesse to Iustification without any receiving instrument but make Faith the instrument by which we receive the same p. 299. A most pernicious Doctrine to Mr. Baxters Cause If it stand Mr. Baxters Iustification by workes in the same relation with Faith as its Concause must needs fall and tumble downe to hell for works will not be bowed into any instrumentality to co-operate with Faith in receiving Christ and his righteousness When contrariwise if we would say as he doth and which we must take his word without any further demonstration to bee true then in despite of Paul and the Holy Ghost our justification should be parted between faith and works and Mr. Brs. new Gospel stand the Gospel of Grace being wholly taken out of the way as unprofitable But in all that he saith hee diligently keeps off from speaking a word to what our Divines say in proving from James himselfe that he means not true faith when hee denies to the counterfeit or profession of it any efficacy to justifie and let the conscientious Reader judge whether he doth this in zeal for Christ or against him Let none except that possibly hee never read any of them that have thus expounded James What one of them hath he then read Nay I rather question what one of them hath he not read or with what one thing is he unacquainted that any of them hath written He is a stranger to Mr. Br. that will accuse him of little reading
Gospel Condition and necessary Antecedents to be really but a Cloke to hide his diminution of Christ and exaltation of sinfull man A Syrens song to draw poor souls to dash against the Rocks and be drowned in the gulph Why had he not made our works conjunctly vvith Christs satisfaction in his Thes 56. the procatarctick and meritorious cause of our Justification as well as he doth the satisfaction of Christ conjunctly with our Faith or obedience in the same Thesis the Causa ssne qua non thereof Had he so done could he have ascribed more to vvorks under the name of a Meritorious cause then he doth under the title of a poor improper Causa sine qua non But by so doing he should have shewed himself in the light when contrariwise he that doth evill hateth the light neither cometh to the light lest his deeds should be reproved Let now any of his Disciples produce I will not say one Arminian but one Socinian Papist yea or Jew that ascribes more to works then this man in derogation from Christ and Grace else let him cease to be a follower of him or openly and ingenuously profess that he followeth him as a Jew Papist or Socinian and consequently that he hath made not Mr. Br. but Mr Brs Masters his Master also in the doctrine of Justification And that in advancing self so high as to affirm he meriteth no less fully and properly then Christ himself hath or could have done For his merits are in order to Gods ordinate not naturall justice But to shew the vanity of his distinction here how carelesly he eludeth the holy Scriptures as meer shaddows and play-games the Apostle denyeth man in this or that or in any sense to be justified by works He saith not Not by works as the efficient or meritorious cause or as the Medium or Antecedent or Condition or Causa sine quâ— non lest any man should boast but positively and peremptorily not by Works as by Faith yea not by works in any acceptation upon any score and accompt Mr. Brs chippings therfore have no more force then a chip to make the Holy Ghost to unsay what he hath said And it is as good sense as if I should say Mans bread doth not apparrell him as it is the maker or matter or instrument or merit of his clothing but as it is the antecedent or medium or condition or Causa sine qua non of his apparrelling when contrariwise it doth not at all in any sense apparrell him CHAP. XXIV Mr. Baxters Sophism to prove that his Doctrine of Justification by Works doth not at all derogate from the Doctrine of Faith examined and found to be meer vanity BEcause the Scripture attributeth Justification to Faith without works and to Faith in opposition to works excluding works and requiring Faith alone to apprehend the Righteousnesse which is by Christ and denominating it the Righteousnesse of Faith Rom. 4. 11. The Righteousnesse which is of Faith Rom. 9. 30. 10. 6. in opposition to the Righteousnesse of works He easily seeth that he shall be excepted against for his antiscripturall doctrine in making Faith and works Concomitants in the same kind of causality and procurement of Justification Therefore he makes it his sixth task to vindicate this his doctrine from all derogation from Faith and from all unscripturall confounding of Faith and works together To prove himself as innocent in this as in all the rest he brings these Reasons B. Thes 62. 1 Because though he makes Works and Faith to be the Conditions of our Justification yet according to Scripture phrase Faith may be called the onely Condition of the New Covenant 1 Because it is the principall Condition and works but the lesse principall And so as a whole Countrey hath oft its name from the chief City so may the Conditions of this Covenant from Faith 2 Because all the rest are reducible to it Either being presupposed as necessary Antecedents or means or conteined in it as its parts properties or modifications or else implyed as its immediate products or necessary subservient means or consequents All without Book one of Mr Brs Mysticks that hath no one sound of Gods word patronizing or favouring it Witnesse Mr. Br. who neither in his Thesis nor in its Explication hath alledged one Scripture to make it good Is Pythagoras come among us in a new body speaking nothing but Parables and Paradoxes which vulgar capacities can no more comprehend then they can Plato's Idea's or Democritus his Atomes If so it shall be needfull for him to injoin upon his Schollars as he did of old five years dumbnesse or silence Els if the mouth of a very Asse should be open it would rebuke the madnesse of the Prophet for delivering things so contradictive to the word to himself and to reason 1 To the word and the Holy Ghost speaking by it who every where opposeth Faith and works as to Justification making them to exclude not to infer or imply either the other By faith therefore not at all by works not by works therefore by faith alone But this man puts them in a conjunction makes Faith and works together the Condition of our justification from thence to conclude that Faith is the onely Condition and justifieth alone So much a greater Artist is Mr. Br. then the Holy Ghost and so ambitious of the praise of wisedome that he thinks himself to be but a vulgar idiot if his wisdom be not stretched Nine whole words by measure beyond and above the wisedom of the Holy Ghost 2 Contradictive to himself For Aph. p. 300. He denyeth that which he calleth an idle Concomitacny of works with Faith that they onely stand by while Faith doth all and concludes that they act together with faith in the same kind of causality to procure Justification and so denyeth that we are justified by Faith onely Here contrariwise he denyeth all such co-working of works with Faith but that faith may be said to be the onely Condition and to justifie onely 3 Contradictive to reason also and yet this next to Condition he seems to honour as the greatest God it must be to the Goats and sheep of the mountains not to Christs sheep to men that have reason that Mr. Br. must deliver this doctrine That we are justified not by faith alone but by works also yet it stands nevertheles as a firm Maxim faith is the onely condition or justifieth alone If the lips were shut and sealed up yet reason would use a ventriloquy or force a way thorow the ears to reclaim against such an absurdity If I should so reason of Condemnation the contrary to Justification that when the blind lead the blind and both fall into the ditch when seducers pervert those that are made to be taken and destroyed and so all utterly perish and are damned That tho all are damned yet it is but the leader and seducer alone that is damned he for all that he hath
the New Man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness Eph. 4. 20. 24. If Mr. Br. had been taught of God as the truth is in Jesus I should think he would not have put at least upon deliberation left in print such a question and bold Cavill against the Apostle yea against Christ himself Object But if good works will neither justifie nor save me why should I do them and not take the liberty to do what I list Answ The voyce of a Rebel against God who if hee may not serve God to his own ends will not serve him at all and professeth openly that he doth all that he doth in Gods work not for Gods sake but for his own sake An Objection more deserving to be answered with a Thunder-bolt than with Scripture-reason Yet may there be alledged many other most holy and honourable ends for which we are to do good works though we be not justified and saved by them These I had thought here to have particularized but the work is swoln already to a bignes and dimension never intended at first And this Task hath been already so fully performed by so many of our Protestant Writers in answer to the Papists that I should but glean after them to say a little but begin a new work if I should say all that they have sayd and might be said to this purpose I therefore transmit the Reader for his full satisfaction to read Calv. Instit lib. 3. Cap. 16. Zanch. Confess Fidei pro se sua Familia bound with his Miscellan Vrsin Catech. Quest 91. Catech and his Quest 5. upon that Question Tylenus Synt. part 2. disp 46. Th. 8 9 10 11. where is to be read too short an abbreviation of the three former But M. Perkins in one of his works I remember though at present I am bereaved of them all hath the very same words of Zanchy translated into English in answer to this question And since these whole hundreds both of English and forreign Divines have after Zanchy and Perkins delivered the same things in substance with them though some more largely some more compendiously so that to the exercised Reader it will be superfluous for me to write any thing upon the same subject I shall conclude all in the words of Augustine as more needing his Apology than himself where he useth it Lib. de Spir. Litera Cap. 35. Haec egi libro isto loquacius fortasse quà m sat est Sed contra inimicos Gratia Dei paraeùm mihi dixisse videor Nihil que mihi tam multum dicere delectat quam ubi mihi Scriptura ejus plurimum suffragatur id agitur ut qui gloriatur in Domomino glorietur in omnibus gratias agamus Domino Deo nostro sursum corda habentes unde a patre luminum omne Datum optimum omne donum perfectum est that is These things have I treated of in this Book it may be with more than enough plenty of words and language But I seem to my selfe to have spoken little against the Enemies of the grace of God And I take delight to be large in speaking about nothing else so much as when both the Scripture doth most give its testimony with me and the question treated on is that hee which glorieth may glory in the Lord and that in all things we may give thanks to God having our hearts lifted up to the Father of Lights from whom every good and every perfect gift discendeth He it is that freely justifieth us by his Grace To him be the praise and glory of all and let his Kingdom come and be speedily inlarged throughout the world that from all parts thereof there may be a joyfull acclamation of Saints Amen Amen FINIS A TABLE of the Generall and Chief Heads of Doctrine Treated of in this Booke A WHether the To credere or Act of beleeving be that by which we are justified part 1. p. 164. and onward to p. 181. p. 363 364 Mr. Br. to shew that both Papists and Arminians are met together in his owne brest teaaheth both that it is our justifying Righteousnesse and imputed to us for Righteousnesse his Reasons to prove it examined ibid. p. 166 c. More of Act viz. Immanent and Life A short Animadversion upon Mr. Brs dispute of Christs Active and passive righteousnesse in order to Justification Part 1. p. 21. to 25. Afflictions befalling the Saints not parts of the Curse but fruits of Gods Love Part 1. p. 35. to 37. What they are in their nature ib. p. 44 45 Antinomians their first rise originall and what their Tenets then were part 1. p. 263 264. Their growth and what hath been in these latter yeers charged on them as errours ib. 264 266. What of all wherewith they have been charged is errour indeed ibid. p. 267. to 271. 273. Who are such in Mr. Brs Kalender Pref. p. 7 8. part 1. p. 271 272. His Fraud under this Nick-name to make odious the Gospel and all true Protestants Pref. ibid. part 1. p 274. In the midst of his Invectives against imaginary he hath more then all men besides honoured the reall Antinomians part 1. p. 162 163. and declared himself really one of them p. 277. Exotick Arts how far usefull in Divinity Pref. p. 14. to the 17. They are incompetent to be Rules and Judges in purely Gospel matters ibid. and in some following pages and part 1. p. 341. What evils have followed such use and abuse of it Pref. 24 c. How abasingly the Scriptures speak of it as so abused Pref. p. 22 23. More viz. Sophistry Authority of men viz. Faith B Bellarmine and Mr. Br. speak the same things in the point of Justification part 2. p. 25. 31. Bullingers judgment of mingling prophane Arts in teaching with the Gospel pref p. 42 43. C Mr. Brs new Modell of the Causes of Justification and Salvation examined part 1. p. 314 c. And 1 of the principall efficient Cause ib. p. 316 317. 2 Of the instrumentall Cause ib. p. 317 318. 3 Of th◠procatarctick Causes ib. p. 318. to 321. 4 Of the naturall Cause and the Protestant doctrine defended against his cavils ib. p. 323. to 327. 5 Likewise of the formall Cause ib. p. 327. 329. The Protestant doctrine that Faith is the Instrument or Instrumentall Cause of Justification viz. Gods effective and mans receptive Instrument largely defended against Mr. Brs Sophisms ib. p. 330. to 348. Whether Faith be the Causa sine qua non ib. p. 356 357. Works cannot be the causa sine qua non part 2. p. 110 111. Charity the Rule of judging one another and by what evidence it must judge part 2. p. 93 94. What it is to take half and what to take whole Christ to justification part 2. p. 184 186. What to make Christ our All in Preaching part 2. p. 291. More viz. Grace 293. Whether Justification run upon Conditions
of works is repealed to all the world and the Covenant of Grace alone in force Those that hold it most probably are some Eutopians that Mr. Baxter alone and no other either man or Angel besides him have had acquaintance with or the happines to know their opinion So that Mr. Baxter might have done well to have taken a second voyage into the land of Eutopia either to have joyned with them or disputed against them upon their own happy turf and not to have troubled our unhappy Coasts with this Controversie it hath the unhappines doubtles to be pestered with so many opinionists as any Nation in the world but among all hath not such bug-bears or phrenticks that I know who maintein such an assertion But it is one of Mr. Baxters subtleties to feign such ghosts and phantasmes of men to fight against thereby taking the advantage secretly and unespyed as he hopeth to erect more cursed and monstrous assertions than all such ghosts and phantasmes as he feigneth could have devised But we cannot stop him in his Career on he posteth and Against both these imaginary opinions saith he I maintein this Assertion i. e. his 11th Thesis which we have found to be a meer fardle of equivocations ambiguities c. for explication whereof we have sought where he promised it but have found nothing but fictions imaginations and new falshoods more to obscure it Yet this peece of darknes he promiseth to maintain under the 13 posiâ—ion where we shall wait on him But in the mean while he hath a 12th Thes and an explication to intersert which we must by the way take notice of as a most noble preparative to the sublime learning which in the 13th he will deliver As for that brag wherewith he shuts up all that he hath said in the titular explication of this his 11th position I hope that I extoll free Grace as much and preach the Law as little in a forbidden sense as though I held the contrary opinion unto it I say but this If his preaching be so much better and honester than his writing we could wish him henceforth to apply himself wholly to the Pulpit not at all to the Presse And notwithstanding his brags and all his equivocations windings and fallacious argumentation we will still keep in minde the state of the question from which he seeks to avert us viz. that the Law is not nulld to beleevers but even when they are beleevers they are still under the Law as a Covenant of works This he hath promised to maintain against Scriptures and Orthodox Writers whatsoever els he speaketh and not home to this point is besides the question Attend we therefore what he hath to make this good in the next position CHAP. IX Mr. Baxters Distinctionary preparative to the Confirmation of his Assertion that beleevers are under the Law as a Covenant of works examined and all that he haeh therein manifested to be in part impertinent to the question and pertinent onely to his vain-glory in the rest to be Popish and destructive to all hope of salvation Thesis 12. BAx Therefore we must not plead the repeal of the Law for our Justification but must refer it to our surety who by the value and efficacy of his once offering and merits doth continually satisfie We assent here to his words in substance but finde Cause in the placing of them to doubt of a fallacious meaning which he hath therein 1 We do not we will not plead the repeal of the Law for our Justification But Mr. Baxter as he makes it appear by what is antecedent and following in this dispute would have us to conceive that in the not repealing of the Law is included our being under the Law as a Covenant of works Such tame fools in the lofty opinion that he hath of himself doth he account us If in the following words of the position he meant fairly he would speak plainly We must not plead the repeal of the Law for Justification c. What then but we must refer it to our surety who by the value c. Why saith he not plainly we must not plead the lawes repeal for c. but our fullfilling of it in Christ or the satisfaction which he hath once made for all the breaches of the Law which we have or shall have committed why speaks he ambiguously we must refer it to our surety what whether or when we shall be justified or to him to plead for us neglecting to seek for any ablenes to plead and give account of our hope for our selves willingly remaining uncertain of salvation all our life time And when he saith by his once offering and merits he doth continually satisfie though in a good sense it be true and good yet hath he not already actually satisfied and are not beleevers by that satisfaction actually justified we shall finde anon there was a monster conteined in the womb of these equivocall locutions In the interim let us search whether in the place of explication there be any thing spoken to explain his meaning Explication Bax. I shall here explain to you in what sense and how far the Law is in force and how far not and then prâ—ve it in and under the next head Here now he brings in a quaternion of distinctions to undermine and blow up the authority of the sacred Tâ—inity expressed in the forecited Scriptures that proves beleevers not to be under the Law as a Covenant of works and foure against three is odds Bâ—x You must here distinguish betwixt 1 The repealing of the Law and the relaxing of it 2 between a dispensation absolute and respective 3 Between the alteration of the Law and the alteration of the subjects relation to it 4 Between a discharge conditionall with a suspension of execution and a discharge absolute Parturiunt Montes What follows upon all these polite and profound distinctions many notable Conclusions doubtles Mr. Baxters nose is as right in the middle of his face since as before his disburthening himself of these distinctions But most certainly we are dull and cannot piece deeply But Mr. Baxter is no less acute than deep let us see what work he can make of it Bax. And so I resolve the question thus 1 The law of works is not abrogate or repealed but dispensed with or relaxed A dispensation is as Grotius defineth it an act of a superiour whereby the obligation of a law in force is taken away as to certain persons and things 2 This dispensation therefore is not totall or absolute but respective For 1 Though it dispense with the rigorous execution yet not with every degree of execution 2 Though the law be dispensed with as it conteineth the proper subjects of the penalty viz. the parties offending and also the circumstances of duration c. yet in regard of the meer punishment abstracted from person and circumstances it is not dispensed with For to Christ it was not dispensed with His satisfaction
was a voluntary agent Called and Consecrated by the Father to be our Priest Heb. 5. 5. No man taking his life from him but himself laying it down of himself for us and in our stead Joh. 10. 18. Thus he became the purchaser of righteousnes for us and is made of God Righteousnes to us 1 Cor. 1. 30. But all this he did not by the rule of the Law or Covenant of works but of the secret and sacred Covenant made between the Father and him Therefore having mentioned the voluntarines of his suffering in the fore quoted Joh 10. 18. He addeth This Commandment have I received of my Father implying that this his satisfactory obedience in dying for us had its regulating not by the old Covenant of works or any precept of the Law given to man but by the Covenant which had passed between the Father and the Son in reference to man and a speciall positive Commandment from the Father agreeing with the tenor of that Covenant As for our apprehending and pleading the righteousnes of Christ to Justification impudency it self will neither affirm it to be done by the rule of the Covenant of law and works nor deny it to be done in Conformity to the Covenant of grace and rule of the Gospel Or because Christ hath born the penalty of the Lawes breach shall he therefore be Called our legall righteousnes as from the formall reason of the thing Nay both that Christ suffered and the Father received and accepted his sufferings in full satisfaction for our transgressions That the Father sent him to satisfie the justice of his law for us and for his satisfactions sake he doth no more impute to us the breach of his Law All this is the fruit of his grace and in conformity to the Gospel and Covenant of grace not to the Law and Covenant of works Therefore if we give the denomination from the formall reason of the thing we must call it our Evangelicall not Legall righteousnes which is in Christ Touching the other opposite term that any thing inherent in man whether the gifts of grace Faith Repentance Charity c. or their fruits and works should be called our Gospel righteousnes I see no reason for it neither can devise in what other sense they may be so called but by a Catachresticall Ironia which names a thing and means the contrary As the Mounteins are called Montes quia minime movent Mounts or Movers because they do in no wise Move or as the Fames Auri is sometimes called sacra the inordinate desire of money is termed holy quia minime sacra sed prorsus execrabilis because it is in no case sacred but wholly accursed So in no other sense may this righteousnes in self be called Gospâ—l righteousnes in reference to Justification but because it is totally opposite to the doctrine and nature of the Gospel and because the Gospel doth wholly reject and abandon it Mr. Br. peradventure may and will bring other reasons and where he doth it we shall take pains to examine them 4 Why he calls beleeving or Faith to be our Gospel righteousnes and whether it be to any other end but with the Papists upon the same grounds to bring in good works to Justification also If he deny this the whole sequele of his Book will be an enditement of falshood against him CHAP. XIV That which Mr. Baxter brings to confirm the matter of this his Doctrine examined and found both fallacious and empty And what he addeth to mitigate the asperity viz. That we perform these conditions not by our own strength but by the grace of Christ evidenced to be a meer shift borrowed from the Papists Mr. Baxter after he hath thus made a flourish and nothing but a flourish to explain and defend his phrase and make odious the phrase of Scripture now proceedeth to confirm the matter of his doctrine Let us see whether there be any thing Logicall or Theologicall and not meerly sophisticall He hath confessed before p. 109. that some who are not Antinomians but Orthodox Divines have startled at the expressions of his 19 and 20 Positions as conteining in them some self-exalting horrid doctrine therefore will he say something thereto by way of explication and confirmation Now having said something as bad as nothing to take off contention about words what doth he add for the confirmation of the matter of his doctrine He was to have proved 1 That Gospel righteousnes or the righteousnes of the New Covenant consisteth not in the imputation of the righteousnes which is by Christ to us but in our own actuall and personall faith and obedience 2 That we must be righteous in our selves first and then after be made righteous by Christ 3 That the righteousnes of the New Covenant is not sufficient to justifie and save but onely to give us right to the righteousnes of the old Covenant which doth actually and immediately save and justifie 4 That those gifts of grace vertues and endowments that are required to our sanctification are not the fruits but the causes of our justification and conditions of our interest in Christ and consequently that our sanctification hath a priority and goes before justification These were the points in which he acknowledgeth himself to be down-right opposed by some and startled at by others What doth he now say for the silencing of these down-right opposers and startlers Just so much as he that would confute all that Bellarmine had written in three words viz. Bellarmine thou liest Or what brings he for the confirmation of those his assertions wherein he is so opposed Nothing but a fardle of sophisticall fallacies consisting of begged principles and homonymies of words First he clustereth together many Conclusions without either premisses or proofs The righteousnesse of the New Covenant then being the performance of its conditions this is his first Conclusion which by the word then bearing the force of therefore he would insinuate to lean upon some foregoing premisses when contrariwise there is not so much as a peble of four grains to sustein it not a word laid as the foundation thereof It is the thing in question we deny it he brings nothing to confirm it besides his bare affirmation which to us is no more then a pillar of straw to bear up a Castle And its conditions being our obeying the Gospel or believing This is his second Conclusion taken as granted when contrariwise his opposers utterly deny it And here he plaies also with an homonymy of words as if faith and obeying the Gospel which in the Apostles sense are so in his sense also were the same thing covering his poyson untill the feat be done by it It must needs be plain that on no other terms do we partake of the legall righteousnes of Christ I will not say that self-confidence hath made the man mad but rather that he thinks all the world mad and in such a sottish slumber that none can
by Christs repenting beleeving c. his satisfying of Gods justice by his expiatory sacrifice for the failings of our Faith and Repentance at they held not up to the Lawes perfection I dislike it no less then Mr. B. But can we conjecture that Mr. Saltmarsh himself was not the first that disliked it and all the rest both good and bad of what he wrote in that Tractate I have been told by some of his godly acquaintance that the man had a naturall impotency of crazines in his brain And the whirlwind of imaginations wherewith he was carried to a hasty taking up of opinions and no les hasty hurling away of them again the much of the top and the little of the bottom of wit the flashes of nimblenes and the want of solidity and depth which he shewed in his writings his inconsistency with himself with others with the Scriptures his exâ—reme mutability and roving from Tropick to Tropick without settledness any where do in great measure prove the report to be true And if so he is to be pittied though his infirmities are not to be patronized However this extravagancy of his into so loos and careless expressions doth neither justifie Mr. B. Tenents nor ought to â—rejudice the Truth from which Mr. B. or any other hath erred Neither doth Mr. B. captiousnes so null my charity as to enteâ—â—ain the least conjecture that ever Master Saltmarsh meant or thought that Christ had sinne to repent of or beleeved to obtein the pardon thereof Here now wee finde Master Baxter returning from his irefull pursuit of his imaginary not reall Antinomians and of a dead mans Ghost that could neither see nor hear him And when hee reviews what he had written hee sees it neither holpen nor amended by his hot words spent upon the wind He had affirmed that there is a two-fold Righteousnesse necessary to our Justification one the Righteousnesse of Christ imputed to us the other a personall Righteousnesse or Righteousnesse of our owne inherent in our selves And to this our own Righteousnesse had attributed an equall power with the Righteousnesse of Christ to our Justification if not a power above and superiour to it This assertion of his he perceives to savour so much of humane arrogance and to use his own words to be a self-exalting horrid Doctrine of so high a nature and so contradictory to the whole Tenor of the Gospel that a short affected brawl with No-bodies and dead men cannot turn away the hatred which all that know and love the Lord Jesus must needs conceive against it Hee is therefore in a streight cure it he cannot revoke it he will not Therefore in stead of a better shift he posteth to the Monks Jesuits borrows their either Cowl or Cloak to cover the deformity of it And good reason have they to stead him for it is their cause in his hand viz. Justification by our own personal Righteousness that hath streightened him Let us now see what he brings from them to us to make their assertion from his pen tolerable B. Thes 21. 115. Not that wee can perform these conditions without Grace for without Christ we can doe nothing But that he enableth us to perform them our selves and doth not himself repent beleeve love Christ obey the Gospel for us as he did satisfie the Law for us B. Explication This prevention of an objection I adde because some think it is a self-ascribing and derogating from Christ to affirm our selves to bee but the Actors of those duties though we professe to doe it onely by the strength of Grace But that it is Christ that repenteth and beleeveth not we is language somewhat strange to those that have been used to the language of Scripture or Reason Though I know there is a sort of sublime Platonick Plotinian Divines sprung up of late among us who think all things to bee but one c. We find in Scripture that as Christ hath his Mystery so hath Antichrist his Mystery also And that this latter is a Mystery of iniquity 2 Thess 2. 7. and Mystery Babylon the great c. And it is somewhat mysterious and strange that the materials of this Babel-building will not hold and close together without Babel slime to cement it Mr. Baxter would fain have fortified and fastened together the gaping chinks of this Babel with his owne morter But it will not hold therefore is he forced ever and anon to make use of the proper slime which the former Builders have left for them that come after to repair so doth hee in this place None of his own sHifts and tricks could hide the menstruousness and monstrousness of his Doctrine this Pall from Rome doth it no less perfectly then the Fig-leaf Aprons covered the nakedness and filthiness of our first Progenitors from the eye of God It sounded before so dreadfully as it was enough to make the ears of a true Christian to tingle at the hearing that Our own righteousnesse must goe foot by foot with Christs righteousnesse to our Justification but that which Mr. Baxter brings here from Rome takes off the ghastlyness and makes all smooth and himself in what he hath said no less amiable then he that had the Lambs horns but the voice of the Dragon Rev. 13. 11. How should it bee otherwise when all the glory is ascribed to Gods Grace and to the Spirit and Power of Christ so saith he Wee are justified in part by our own righteousnes indeed yet Not that we performe in this Righteousnesse which he termeth these conditions without Grace for without Christ wee can doe nothing but hee enableth us to perform them c. And in the Explication This prevention of an objection I adde because some thinke it a self-ascribing and derogating from Christ to affirm our selves to bee the Actors of these duties though we professe to doe it only by the strength of Grace Now when Mr. Baxter hath thus sayd and professed what reason can there be given why he should not bee thought as honest and innocent as the proudest Popish Prelates Jesuits and Friars that in answer to this objection which Mr. Baxter preventeth here have said and professed the same thing over and over many hundred times In stead of them all which even to name with their words abbreviated would fil a volumne I shall mention some few only First the Popish glosse thus speaketh Opera nostra quatenus nostra Glosa ordinaria in cap. 6. ad Rom. ver 23. sunt vim nullam Justificandi obtinent quatenus verò non à nobis sunt sed in nobis à Deo facta sunt per Gratiam Justificationem promerentur i. e. Our works as farre as they are ours have no power to justifie but as farre as they are not from us but wrought of God by Grace in us so they deserve justification In the same manner our English Jesuit Campian is recorded in the dispute which hee had with some of our English
heap and hoard up Scriptures to the same purpose which call men righteous in reference to the Law of Works But in what respects men are called so in Scripture for an unperfect righteousness is not the thing in question Not that they were justified by it is certain but in whatsoever other respects it destroyeth Mr. Baxters conclusion that men are called Righteous in relation to the Covenant of Grace onely and shews the inconsequence of his Argumentation that because none is perfectly righteous viz. to Justification in relation to the Law of Works Ergo in no other respect is he called Righteous according to the Covenant of Works What he addeth Onely in Christ who hath obeyed and satisfied we are Righteous This we embrace as our Gospel Righteousness and Mr. Baxter alone without company or suffrage of Prophet or Apostle Ancient or Modern Writers affirms to be our legall Righteousness But hitherto we finde it an affirmation without confirmation It follows Bax. But if you consider our actions and persons in relation to the Rule of the New Covenant so all the Regenerate are personally righteous because they all perform the conditions of this Covenant and are properly pronounced Righteous thereby Neither can it be conceived how the works of Beleevers should either please God or be called Righteousness as they relate to that old Rule which doth pronounce them unrighteous hatefull and accursed He proceeds still in his sophistry without any the least particle of Scripture or any thing else save the wind of wit and words to prove what he would have us to beleeve It behoveth him that will fasten and screw into the judgements of men new and strange Doctrines that never sounded before at least in the same phrase of words in their ears to bring irrefragable Arguments to confirm it But such paradoxes and prodigies both of doctrines and words doth Mr. Baxter here hold forth as were never before heard of but in uttering them he is a Barbarian to us and we Barbarians to him in not understanding them yet brings nothing else but his own word to promote them The mysteries of his sophistry are so deep that our woodden wits cannot sink to the bottome to comprehend and understand it First what means he by the Rule of the New Covenant Doth he put the New Covenant here in the Passive or in the Active and Possessive sense i. e. Doth hee meane by the Rule of the New Covenant a rule extrinsecall and without the New Covenant to which the New Covenant must bee conformed that it may bee regular or a rule in the New Covenant and by it made out to us whereunto wee must bee conformed If in this latter sense then whether without or else with reference to some end if to some end whether then to Sanctification or Justification I cannot so much as conjecture that he puts the phrase in the first sense that he tels us here of a Rule to which the New Covenant must be conformed because it is altogether alien from the scope of his dispute and besides how we should be related to a rule with which the New Covenant must suit I cannot see for such a Rule I should conceive to be immanent in God and so hid from us that we cannot perceive how to regulate our selves by it This then he cannot mean 2. Neither doe I conceive that his meaning is that we are to be conformed to the Rule which is contained in and manifested by the New Covenant without respect to any end to which the rule directeth that we ought to be thus and thus qualified and thus to act onely because the Gospel so biddeth without reference to the end of such qualifications and actings For neither is this any thing to the purpose of his dispute Neither in this sense can such qualifications and actings be in any shew of reason called what Mr. Baxter here calleth them Conditions of the New Covenant For they are Conditions if at all Conditions in reference to some ends without which the end cannot be obtained Or what ends doth the New Covenant immediately point at more then either our Justification or Sanctification 3. If he mean the Rule of the New Covenant for Sanctification 1. Then I shall demand of him whether the Law of Works be not the rule of the matter and substance of those qualifications and actions which conduce to Sanctification even under the New Covenant and whether the Rule of the New Covenant or Gospel doe extend any further then to the Modification of those Qualifications and Actions directing to the Mediator from whom to derive those Qualifications and Actions and by and through whom to present our selves and them unto God 2. And then whether in reference to Sanctification men may not be called Righteous as having their righteousness relating to the rule of the Old as well as the New Covenant I cannot be so uncharitable to think that Mr. Baxter having positively affirmed that beleevers are in part under the Curse of the Law will deny them to be also in part under the rule and direction of the Law if he should hee must brand upon himself the due infamy of Antinomianism which he unduly and falsly chargeth upon others 3. And yet this will in no wise advantage his cause For we grant him that in reference to the inherent righteousnes of Sanctification men are called Righteous in the Scriptures by a personal righteousnesse But what is this to that righteousnesse in our selves equally necessary to the righteousnes which is in Christ to Justification which he had in the former Theses asserted and here goes about to prove or illustrate 4. If he mean the rule of the New Covenant to Justification which seems to me unquestionable though hee will not fully express himself then 1. I demand of him how our actions relate to this rule Is it that themselves i. e. our very actions may be justified by it This he condemneth Thess 25 and its Explication Or that they may Justifie us as conditions of our Justification This most probably is his meaning which when he confesseth he confesseth himself worse then Popish for the Papists ascribe Justification not to actions indefinitely but to some good works onely When he speaks more broadly then they let him shew himself without a vizard under the name and notion of a Papist and he will not want answerers or answers But upon this supposition let us see what he inferreth So all the regenerate are personally righteous because they all performe the conditions of this Covenant and are properly pronounced righteous thereby Let us now collect together what in probability is the whole summe of his dispute Leaving what he hath said to deny that men are called Righteous in respect of Justification by the rule of the Law because wee doe not cannot perform the conditions of the Law unto which I have already answered here he endeavours to prove that they are called Righteous onely in reference to
he do so no more that he speaks here more orthodoxly than he purposed viz. the prisoners debt to be satisfied the prisoner to be delivered restored to his house to the inheritance again by the meer grace and purchase of the Son before God which implyes no less than a full justification with by God before ever the prisoner beleeved or had a new Lease a new Covenant of grace and faith made with him a doctrine which before Mr. Br anathematizeth to hell it self and will do so again though he thereby Curse himself for that which inconsiderately here fell from him These things granted and winked at we utterly explode all the rest in the Similitude not onely as uncoherent with but as contrary to the doctrine of Grace yea utterly destructive to the nature and working of grace in our Justification and that in these particulars as I promised above to specifie 1 That it maketh our Justification mercenary and held by yeerly rent for though it be but a pepper-corn that is payd yet that is rent and payment as shall be manifested before we passe from this similitude which is contrary to the Covenant of grace and doctrine of the Gospel which affirmeth that We are justified freely by his Grace through the Redemption which is in Jesus Christ Rom. 3. 24. And wholly agreeing with the doctrine of the Gospel is that of Austin Non enim gratia Dei Gratia erit ullo modo nisi gratuita sit omni modo The Grace of God shall not be grace in any respect except it be free in every respect But how is it free which is a debt acquired and held by rent and payment 2 That it maketh our Justification Conditionall if Articles of Covenant be performed then the Tenant abides in the inheritance the man is justified if through foolishnes or forgetfulnes unperformed then is the Tenant outted the man unjustified And to be thus conditionally Justified is no Justification When contrariwise the Gospel holds forth a reall and absolute Justification Son Daughter Be of good cheare thy sinns he forgiven Mat. 9. 2. Luk. 7. 48. He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet but is clean every whit Joh. 13. 10. Being justified by faith we have peace with God and glory in tribulation Rom. 5. 1. 3. Is it not a reall and absolute but a conditionall forgivenes washing Justifying here spoken of then must the effects in these places added and attributed to such forgivenes washing Justifying be not reall but conditionall also A conditionall not reall chear comfort a conditionall not reall cleanness a conditionall not reall peace with God and glorying in tribulation But these effects are out of question reall Therefore Justification the Cause of these effects reall also 3 It delineats an unperfect Justification The Old Lease is not cancelled but kept firm to be put in suit against the Tenant after the New Lease is made The Old Covenant of works is kept in force against the beleever after he is entred into the New Covenant of grace to be put in suit against him upon occasion to his totall damnation When the Gospel pronounceth the justification of a beleever perfect the Old Covenant in respect of any power over him to be dead Rom. 7. 6. The hand writing against him and contrary to him blotted out taken out of the way and nailed to the Cross of Christ Col. 2. 14. So that he is no longer under the Law of workes to be pleaded or putt in suit against him Rom 6. 14. Nor is there now any more Condemnation to be inflicted on him Rom. 8. 1. 4 It points out a mutable justification While the Tenant payeth the rent he shall be acquit both from his debt and all other rent for the future but if he miss of payment then both the old dâ—bt and rent falls on him as a mountain again crushing him untill the pepper-corn intercede remove the mountain and then acquitt again untill the pepper-corn be lost in carriage or being round and full of volubility run besides the Landlords hand then on comes the mountain of debt upon the Tenant again c. Thus mans justification is made fast or loose according to the stedfastnes or mutableness of mans will and the grace of God in justifying of so little fixedness that a pepper-corn can weigh it and sway it up and down at pleasure When contrariwise the Scripture every where pronounceth the grace of God and Covenant of grace everlasting unchangeable and makes the Justification of man to rest not upon his own mutable and mad will but upon the stable and stablishing grace of God I will be mercifull to their unrighteousness and their sinns and iniquities will I remember no more Heb. 8. 12. I will make an everlasting Covenant with them that I will not turn away from them to do them good but I will putt my fear in their hearts that they shall not depart from me Jer. 32. 40. with a large heap of testimonies more to the same purpose which would be here impertinent to transcribe Thus is the similitude as here framed in all these respects proper indeed to illustrate the bugbear figment of Justification in Mr. Brs brain but altogether incoherent with the Justification which the Gospel holds forth to us Yet he addeth In this case the payment of the grain of pepper is imputed to the Tenant as if he had payd the Rent of the old Lease When contrariwise the reformed Churches affirm from most full and pregnant Testimonies of Scripture that to rest any thing at all upon the imputation of such pepper payments for righteousness doth utterly frustrate the offers of grace and benefits of Christs death unto us as hath been oft before manifested That which followeth doth not take off the Odium and falshood of this his doctrine but rather augments it declaring that he hath learned of the Papists not onely their falsifications of the Gospel nullifying of the grace and righteousness of God and extolling the crest of mans pride but also their fallacious shirts to dâ—fend his dealing herein Yet this imputation saith he doth not extoll the pepper-corn nor vilifie the benefit of his benefactor who redeemed him Nor can it be said that the purchase did onely serve to advance the value and efficacy of that grain of pepper The very language of the Papists and the Arminians for â—o they when they have mounted the righteousnes of mans faith and works to be a part or the whole of the righteousness effectuall to Justification they come after with a plausible varnish of words professing that they do not herein abase Gods grace nor heave above its own proportion mans righteteousness For say they we do not attribute any thing to mans righteousness either as it is mans righteousnes or to the price and value of it as if by its own worth merit it doth Justifie but partly saith Antoninus ex ordinatione Divina as God hath ordeined
signifie But that he means to extoll them he doth enough plainly give us to understand When he saith that the purchase did not Onely serve to advance the value and efficacy of that grain of pepper his meaning must be at least that Christ dyed and by his death hath purchased to the pepper-corn of mans righteousness a value and efficacy in part though not Onely to Justifie us so that our righteousness must go Cheek by Cheek with the righteousness of Christ to Justification Now as if Usury as it Consisteth in taking increase be unlawfull a penny of a hundred pounds taken by way of increase is no less in substance Usury and unlawfull than the taking of Tenn pounds of the hundred so if the adding of our righteousness to the righteousness of Christ for our justification be an unlawfull exalting of our own and depressing of Christs righteousness then to bring our own righteousness with the righteousness of Christ in the least part to justifie is as truly an unlawfull depression of Christs righteousness and advancing of our own as if we brought it in the highest degree wholly and alone to justifie us and so by his account Christ dyed to make man though not the Onely yet in part a saviour of himself And herein to follow his doctrine is the ready way to be a self-destroyer Christ is become of none effect to you whosoever of you are justified by the Law ye are faln from grace said the Apostle to a people that did extoll but in part and not Onely their own righteousness to justification Though it be not Onely poyson which a man eateth yet it there be poyson in it it brings death after iâ— If we magnifie one grain of our own pepper to that height that we make it a part of that righteousness by which to stand at Gods tribunall this one grain will sink us down to hell so hot a poyson is Mr. Brs pepper-corn I shall joyn that which followes in the similitude viz. Bax. But thus A personall Rent must be payd for the testification of his homage He was never Redeemed to be Independent and his own Landlord and Master The olde Rent he cannot pay his new Landlords clemency is such that he hath resolved this grain shall serve the turn With that which is homogeneous to it in the application Bax. Two things are considerable in this debt of righteousness The value and the personall performance or interest The value of Christs satisfaction is imputed to us in stead of the value of a perfect Obedience of our own performing and the volue of our Faith is not so imputed But because there must be some personall performance of homage therefore the personall performance of Faith shall be imputed to us for a sufficient personall payment as if we had payd the full Rent because Christ whom we beleeve in hath payd it and he will take this for satisfactory homage so it is in point of personall performance and not of value that faith is imputed It is not denyed but a personall testification of homage is required We were not Redeemed to be independent or our own Landlords and Masters to serve our selves and walk after our own thoughts No Ye are not your own for ye are bought with a price saith the Apostle Therefore glorifie God in your body and in your Spirit which are Gods 1 Cor. 6. 20. And again He hath given himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works We must live and dye to him that dyed for us in testification of our homage But the thing in question is not whether this homage is to be done but whether when it is performed it be a Cause or an effect of our redemption and justification Whether we are to perform all duty that we may be redeemed and justified or because we are redeemed and justified Whether the relation of the persons go before the relative duties or the relative duties before the relation of the persons Reason tells us that filiall obedience doth alway presuppose the relation of a Son and where there is no Childe there can be expected no Childlike obedience First free and then free service And to this tenor runs the vote and voyce of the Gospel We are delivered out of the hands of our enemies that we may serve him without fear in holines and righteousness before him all the dayes of our life Luk. 1. 74 75. Not that we shall be delivered out of c. because we have so served him all the dayes of our life That we are married to Christ that we should bring forth fruit unto God Rom. 7. 4. Not that we are married to Christ because we have brought forth fruit unto God That he dyed for all that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto him that dyed for them 2 Cor. 5. 15. Not that we must live to Christ that we may live by Christ and obtein life by his death If any man be in Christ he is a new creature 2 Cor. 5. 17. Not that he must be a new creature to the end that he may be in Christ Mr. Br shakes the whole frame of the Gospel into a topsie-turnie and might as rationally make our glorification the Condition of our sanctification as sanctification the Condition of our Justification and Adoption As for the distinction which he puts in the application between the value and the performance of Faith i. e. in his sense of sanctification making the value of Christs satisfaction to be imputed in stead of the value of a perfect obedience and the personall performance of Faith to be imputed onely in stead of the personall performance of the Law and so our inchoat sanctification for that he means by the performing of faith is imputed to us in place of performing all perfect righteousness unto justification some pretty witty men may be taken with it as a pretty witty fancy But whosoever Loveth the Lord Jesus up to a due jealousie for his honour Cannot but have his heart full of trembling to see the sacred word and mysteries of Christ to be made the play-game of an audacious and frothy wit and eluded yea vilified and enervate with such absurd and windy distinctions that have no footing in the word of God Himself using this distinction with a purpose not to teach but to Cheat the simple For pag. 141. he doth in express words affirm the worthines or value which he doth here ascribe to Christs satisfaction to lye in our performance or works Either he must be destitute of all natural and moral operations of Conscience or an Anti-Hannibal that hath sworn unreconcileable warrs not for God against Rome but for Rome against Christ that in so holy a busines can so frequently and fearlesly act the wanton I shall conclude therefore in the words which Mr. Pemble hath against the brethren of Mr. Br in this point
act absolved the conscience there followeth also the sense of our remission and justification So that besides this sense and apprehension there are two things in our justification by faith over and above that which was in our eternal justification in Christ viz. 1. A total diffidence and denyal of our own righteousnesse and a trusting and adhering wholly and onely to Christ for pardon and justification 2. Gods act upon our consciences declaring and assuring us that our debt is paid by Christ and we discharged upon the satisfaction which our surety hath made so that the obligation is cancelled and we depart with a full and general acquittance in our consciences Neither of these were there in the former justification i. e. in the justification in the former sense before mentioned and so that there is more than the bare knowledge of our justification in our being justified in the latter sense is evident Whatsoever else is conteined in the doctrine of the Protestant divines about this question we shall have occasion to adde in examining what Master Baxter saith here and afterwards to oppugn it But the chief thing is yet behind may some say viz. the proof of these positions by sound Arguments or by evidencing Scriptures and the main thing to be proved is that there is such a justification as is an immanent and eternal act in God It is Master Baxters lowd challenge pag. 93. Let all the Antinomians shew but one Scripture that speaketh of justification from eternity I will be so charitable as to conceive he expects not that we should produce Scriptures that say in those very words but that which is the Tantundem that say it in sense and substance else if he reject the matter and stick to words I shall challenge him to produce one sentence of all the sermons which Christ preached and in the whole doctrine that he personally delivered which speaketh at all of justification by faith But in words equipollent to Master Baxters the Scripture delivereth this doctrine which he opposeth viz. justification from eternity First What lesse is to be gathered from 2 Tim. 1. 9. God hath saved us and called us with a holy calling not according to our workes but according to his purpose and grace which was given us in Christ before the World began What can be said more fully to Master Baxters challenge He will not deny that the word saving doth include in it justifying for so should he both contradict himselfe and lose elswhere more than he can gain here by denying it It will then run thus that we are justified and called of God with a holy calling not according to our works these words destroy the end of Master Baxters opposing the eternity of our justification if our own qualifycation and workes may not come in collaterally with Christ to constitute us justified he little regards whether the act be immanent or transient but according to his purpose and grace which was given us in Christ before the world began and that is from eternity See the grace of justification and salvation was given us in Christ from eternity Object Master Baxter may probably object that the grace was indeed given us in Christ from eternity that is God had decreed from eternity to justifie us in Christ when we should come to beleeve in him to justifie or save us in time as to call us in time For the grace here mentioned given us in Christ before times is as much affirmed to be the grace of our vocation or calling as of our saving and justifying But our calling must therefore our justification also must be in time And thus by the grace given must be understood Gods gracious purpose and decree to give us salvation and justification So Mr. Baxter I know God hath decreed to justifie his people from eternity But it is done in time page 93. Sol. 1. That Covenant justifying or the declaring of us in our own Consciences to bee accepted as just in Christ is not denyed to be an act accomplished in us in time Nor yet that God decreed from Eternity to declare us in our consciences Righteous when wee should beleeve But the granting of all this nothing advantageth Master Baxters cause For neither doth this Act of God in time terminate upon our conscience nor his eternal decree so to justifie us beleeving in our selves deny that wee were justified in God and in Christ from Eternity 2. It appears not that the Apostle here speaketh of our calling to the participation of Christ and of justification and sanctification by him in time but rather of that calling mentioned Rom. 4. 17. That God calleth those things that be not as though they were As he called Abraham the father of many Nations when he was yet either childlesse or at least was in reference to the strength of nature without having without hope to have that child from whom those nations should issue and accrew to him as their father So God is said to have called us with a holy calling i. e. to have called and reputed us in Christ his pardoned accepted and adopted children even before we had any actual being in our selves Dedit qui erat accepit qui non erat Quis antem hoc facere potuit nisi qui vocat ea quae non sunt tanquam ea quae sunt Aug. de verb. Apost Sect. 3. If by Calling it be pertinaciously maintained that we must understand that which is done by the Ministry of the Gospel yet all this helps not Master Baxter at all in regard of the exclusive clause following not according to our workâ— where our salvation and justification as well as our vocation are denyed to have any dependance upon our own workes and qualifications as conditions thereof And the whole end of Master Baxters dispute against justification as an immanent Act in God is because if that be granted there will be no place for footing our works and qualifications as necessarily precedent conditions of justification And these fall to ground as well as if we were justified without them though in time as if wee were justified from Eternity 4. But how and whether we can truly and properly be said to have received Grace in Christ before all worlds whereby we are saved and justified and yet not to be saved and justified in Christ before the world was will come to bee examined in drawing forth the sense of other Scriptures which I shall annex In the interim this remaines unquestioned that although the Apostle speak here of Justification in our selves in time yet he affirmes it to be according to the Grace given us in Christ before the world so it was in Christ for us before though not in our selves till we beleeve Againe when the Scripture speaking of the Sonnes of Isaac saith of them while yet unborn and consequently having neither done good nor evill Jacob have I loved but Esau have I hated Mal. 1. 2 3. Rom. 9. 11 13. And
Gods evidencing and manifesting to the beleever that he was really justified in God from eternity but also in Gods Actual and Judiciall pronouncing of the sentence of Absolution to the soul drawn to Gods Tribunal and gasping for pardon thorough Christ By means whereof the poor sinner is constituted as well as declared actually and personally righteous and that before God his Justifier 3. That as oft as the Gospel speaketh of Justification by Faith it is in reference to this Transient Act of God not that Immanent 4. That as I conceive the Covenant between God and Christ to be if I may so term it a fruit in order to that immanent act in God so I think also that the Covenant of Promise the Covenant under the Law the Covenant under the Gospel and the very Covenant of Works to be subservients to this Covenant made with Christ as a publick person representing us to work all coordinately to the advancing of the glory of Gods Grace to his Elect in justifying them in himself from Eternity Yet so that if I find a candid Teacher in any or all these to inform me better I hope I shall not be wanting to shew my docility I should have wholly forborn to touch upon this point so famous a Divine having lately taken upon him the Province but this was written before and it will not hinder his further prosecution thereof to which I hear hee will bee provoked As to Mr. Baxter let him pretend what he will of his zeal against this Doctrine because it is a Pillar of Antinomianism yet his conscience tels him that his rage against it is under this consideration as it is a slâ—dge to beat in peeces the conditional Justification Election Redemption and Grace together with the pride of mans Free-will Works and Righteousnesse uncertainty of Perseverance c. Which are the Articles of Faith common to Mr. Baxter with the Papists and Arminians If Justification as an immanent act in God from Eternity hold all these must fall and Master Baxter and his fellows bee crushed with the ruines thereof The worke of the next Chapter therefore shall bee to examine the force of his reasons and arts whereby he seekes to refute and subvert it CHAP. XXI Arg. Mr. Baxters Reasons and Dispute examined by which he endeavoureth to refute Justification as an Immanent Act in God and from Eternity B. A great question it is whether Remission and Justification be Immanent or Transient Acts of God The mistake of this one point was that that led those two most excellent famous Divines Doctor Twiss and Mr. Pemble to that errour and pillar of Antinomianism viz. Justification from Eternity For saith Doctor Twiss often All acts immanent in God are from Eternity But Justification and Remission of sins are Immanent acts Therefore c. By Immanent in God they must needs mean Negatively not Positively For Acts have not the respect of an Adjunct to its Subject but of an Effect to its Cause Now whether all such Immanent Acts are any more Eternall then Transient Acts is much questioned As for God to know that the world doth now exist that such a man is now just or sanctified c. Gods fore knowledge is not a knowing that such a thing is which is not but that such a thing will be which is not Yet doth this make no change in God no more then the Sun is changed by the variety of creatures which it doth enlighten and warm or the glass by the variety of faces which it represents or the eye by the variety of colours which it beholdeth For whatsoever some say I doe not think that every variation of the object maketh a reall chaâ—ge in the eye or that the beholding of ten distinct colours at one view doth make ten distinct acts of the sight or alterations of it much less doe the objects of Gods knowledge make such alterations But grant that all Gods Immanent Acts are Eternall which I think is quite beyond our understanding to know yet most Divines will deny the minor and tell you that Remission and Justification are Transient Acts which is true but a truth which I never had the happiness to see well cleared by any For to prove it a Transient Act they tell us no more but that it doth transire in subjectum extraneum by making a Morall change on our relatio though not a reall upon our persons as Sanctification doth But this is onely to affirme and not to pâ—ove and that in generall onely not telling us what Act it is that maketh this change Relations are not capable of being the patients or subjects of any Act seeing they be but meer Entia Rationis and no reall beings Neither are they the immediate product or effect of any Act but in order of Nature are consequentiall to the direct effects The proper effect of the Act is to lay the foundation from whence the Relation doth arise And the same Act which layeth the foundation doth cause the Relation without the intervention of any other Suppose but the subjectum fundam entuÌ„ terminus and the Relation will unavoydably follow by a meer resultancy The direct effect therefore of Gods actuall Justification must be a reall effect though not upon the sinner yet upon something else for him And thence will his passive Justification follow Now what Transient Act this is And what its immediate real effect who hath unfolded I dare not be too confident in so dark a point But it seemeth to me that this justifying transient Act is the enacting or promulgation of the New Covenant wherein Justification is conferred upon every beleever Here passing and enacting this grant is a transient Act. 2. So may the continuance of it as I think 3. This Law or grant hath a Moral improper action whereby it mâ—y be said to pardon or justifie which properly is but virtuall justifying 4. By this grant God doth 1. Give us the righteousnesse of Christ to be ours when we beleeve 2. And disableth the Law to oblige us to punishment or to condemn us 3. Which reall foundation being thus laid our relations of Iustified and pardoned in title of Law do necessarily result A matchlesse and egregious dispute able to tum all the immanent Acts of God into Transient yea if spell'd backward to turne all his Transient Acts into immanent of force enough to extort from Gods bosome all that waâ— in him from eternity that it shall abide in him or with him no longer Here is Doctrine fitted to purpose for his ignorant babes and tender lambs of Kederminster for whose sake and use this worke if wee will believe the Author was chiefly published No lesse proper for them than the Scripture in the Latine tongue by his holy mother appointed for the illumination of them that cannot read the English or their Country language What a supereminent measure of the Spirit hath this man received above Christ himselfe above Paul the most learned
of all Christs Apostles Christ was annointed with the Spirit to preach the Gospel to the poor Luke 4. 18. Isa 61. 1. And had received from the Lord God the tongue of the learned to speak a word in season to the weary Isa 50. 4. This mans Spirit carries him aloft in the Aire to clowd the Gospel from the poor and to darken with his vaporous Sophistry the things which God hath hidden from the wise and prudent but revealed to babes and useth the tongue of the learned to amaze and intangle not to refresh the weary Paul descended from all excellency of speech and of wisedom to the capacity or rather incapacity of the weak Christians in the Ministry of the Gospel 1 Cor. 2. 1 2. and fed the babes with milk 1 Cor 3. 1 2. And even then when he spake wisedom to the perfect because perfect it was not the wisedome of the World or of the Princes for learning of the World but the Mysterious and hidden wisedom of God and this he spake also not in the words which mans wisedome teacheth which the subtile Sâ—phistâ—rs made uâ—â— of but which the Holy Gost teacheth comparing spirirituall things with spirituall 1. Cor 2. 6 7. 13. This man casting away the words which the Holy Ghost teacheth and useth in the holy Scriptures sends his poore lambes to feed and seek spiritual pasture in the thorny Copses of his Master Aristotle and his Saint Suarez Saint Vasques Saint Fonseca's Metaphysicks and Metaphysical Jesuitical Divinity or in Seraphical Scotus his Quodlibetary learning all which understood just so much of the Spirit and mystery of the Gospel in this greatest point of Gospel Doctrine Justification as the unlearned people of Kederminster do of this and the like peeces of this tractate of Mr. Baxter As for the matter it self he that understands it not shall be as much endoctrined by it as he that understands it For my own part I professe I see nothing in it of any more force to refute the opinion which he here opposeth Eternal Justification or Justification as an immanent Act in God than there is in a Peacocks Feather to dash out all the teeth of a Lion For should wee grant to him all that he here saith the thing in question onely excepted That immanent in God must be understood not Positively but Negatively for that Acts have not the respect of an Adjunct to its subject but of an effect to its Cause that Gods justifying a man when he believeth argues no change in God any more than is found in the Sunne glasse or eye by the variety of creatures faces colours set before them as he mentioneth what of all this What will he conclude at length against that which he saith Doctor Twisse maketh the Major of his Argument vizt That all immanent Acts in God are from Eternity will he deny it Nay but distrusting the weaknesse of his reasoning he doth rather grant it But grant saith he that all Gods immanent Acts are eternal which yet I think is quite beyond our understanding to know This is the result of all his Argumentation as to the Major It is true notwithstanding any thing I have said or can say against it onely I think it is beyond our understanding to judge whither it be universally true or no. As to the Minor of Doctor Twisse his Argument vizt That Remission and Iustification are Immanent Acts he disputes with as little dexterity as to the Major Most Divines saith he will deny the Minor and tell you that they are but transient Acts. Be it so But what have those most Divines to say for the disapprâ—ving of the Minor 'T is true saith Mr. Baxter what they say but I could never have the happinesse to see or hear it well cleared by any For to prove it transient they tell us no more but that it doth transire in Subjectum Extraneum By making a moral change on our Relation c. But this saith he is to affirm and not to prove What then doth Mr Baxter himself to supply what is in his most famous Divines deficient This onely he tels us a tale of a Tubb about relations how they are made up and thence hee brings in his Conjectures to make clear how this change of our relation is made up that our Pactional Justification or Justification according to the New Covenant is a Transient Act of God which I was never so happy or unhappy in my slender reading to find any one that denyeth And all this being granted yet may it stand as a firm foundation that Remission and Justification are immanent Acts in God as hath been before and shall be if there be need more fully afterward shewed He that readeth Mr. Baxters dispute must acknowledge that I do him no wrong in this Epitomizing of it And let every rationall man judge whether the heat of the man in promising so confidently before pag. 93. and in charging all his impetus or impotent impetuousness here as against the Pillars of Antinomianism be answered with strength of reason to beat down what he would have down Gods Eternal acceptation and approbation of his beloved ones in Christ Jesus Thus feeble are the most Nervous armes in fighting against God and so vain in their imaginations as the Apostle saith do they become who whet their wits upon the threshold of humane literature to dispute against God But after this generall view of his dispute it shall not be impertinent to take notice of the particulars also therein enclosed And 1. Why doth he call Doctor Twisse and Master Pemble Most excellent famous Divines Doth he so stile them for the excellency of their Philosophick Scholastick learning He should then more properly have termed them Most excellent famous Philosophers or Schollars Except he will also make Aristotle because he in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 makes the Treating of God one part of that Doctrine which is to be handled in that Science which is commonly called Metaphysicks to be a Theologer or Divine also Or for their abundant knowledge in the Doctrine of Christian Religion together with their great ability and faithfullnesse to teach and maintain it against the Adversaries thereof Much more proper had it been then for him to have followed the Genius and policy of the chief Priests as in other things he doth that would not say any thing to the Praise of Iohn that his Baptism or Droctrine were Divine and from Heaven fearing lest the Lord Jesus should then urge upon them Why then did yee not believe him Mat. 21. 25. For so Master Baxter here opens his bosome to the dint of the like reproof Were they excellent Why doth not he close with them in their excellency No one of the Papists or Arminians against whose Sophisms and impostures these two Champions so excellently and famously propugned the truth of Christ hath more deviated from their doctrine i. e. the Doctrine of Christ which they defended than Master
after many hundreds perhaps thousands of years is at length fully justified or if he be a peece of knotty timber perhaps comes not at last to bee fully justified I shall leave the Reader to view the Aphorism in Mr. Baxters book I hold it not worthy the transcribing so iâ— seems doth Mr. Baxter too for reviewing his company of the whole number which are no less then tenne he retaines onely two viz. Justification in title of Law and that in sentence of judgement about which his former Thesis was occupant disbanding all the rest and so leaving the cause as raw and unconfirmed as he found it CHAP. XXIV Whether Justification be and remains to be conditional and that to beleevers during life and the justified and pardoned may be unjustified and unpardoned again Aâ—so whether and in what sense and respects there may be remission of sinnes before they be committed Thes 43. pag. 196. B. The Justification which we have in Christs own justification is but conditional as to the particular offenders and none can lay claim to it untill he have performed the conditions nor shall any be personally justified till then Even the Elect remain personally unjustified for all their conditional justification in Christ till they do bâ—leeve Thes 44. Men that are but thus conditionally pardoned and justified may be unpardoned and unjustified againe for their non-performance of the conditions and all the debt so forgiven be required at their hands And all this without any change in God or in his Laws See Ball of the Covenant page 240. Thes 45. pag. 198. Yea in case the justified by Faith should cease beleeving the Scripture would pronounce them unjust again and yet without any change in God or Scripture but onely in themselves Because their Justification doth continue conditionall as long as they live here The Scripture doth justifie no man by name but all beleevers as such Therefore if they should cease to be beleevers they would cease to be justified I joyn together these three Aphorismes partly because Mr. Baxter doth very little sever them by the interposition of very short Explications which might have been as well spared as used for any light they give to his Aphorisms But principally because they all treat upon one and the same Argument conditional Justification And here I could have desired that he had treated more Argumentatively and less Magisterially That hee had stated the questions which he here determines into Conclusions and by the best Arguments he could have assayed to prove his assertions which he doth here nakedly and peremptorily lay down only upon his own bare authority to be taken up as if it were holy and unerring He could not have wanted help to have handled these points more controversally having the Papists on the one hand and Arminians on the others suggesting matter and arguments to him it being their not Christs cause and doctrine which he bids and teacheth here to stand alone so that in case he had met with a learned adversary that had driven him out of this field he might have been sure to have been succoured with a whole brigade of these Sophisters that would either have laid in the place or recovered the field for him again But we must give leave to a man that is all wisdome sometimes for his recreation to be servant to his will And because we find him not here what we expected we must take him as he offers himself Stet pro ratione voluntas Only I think it fit to save the labour to answer Arguments when he refuseth to make it his task to bring them Bare negations of Conclusions being the best way of answering where they are peremptorily and fastuously posited without any premissed reasons from whence to draw them or following arguments to back them In matters of Faith asserted not proved Jack Straws negation being of equal validity to John Scotus his affirmation onely we shall view his words to see what shew of reason there may be found in them In the Explication of the first of these three Positions vizt the 43. He tels us This needs not explication He saw it and had acquaintance with it while it was yet but a notion in his brain therefore needs not any spectacles to clear up unto him his own formed of spring but for my part such is my dulness that whether I seek for his meaning in some part of the Position or for truth in the rest I professe my self unable to understand without an interpreter Let his words be not onely glanced over but well considered I might think there may be the like though not so great an incapacity in anothers braine as in mine The Justification saith he which we have in Christs own Justification is but conditional as to the particular offenders Let the acute wit here inform my stupidness what he meanes by the Justification which wee have in Christs own Justification What is Christs own justification or what the justification which we have in Christs own justification If we understand not what the subject of a proposition is we cannot judge at all of the truth of the proposition and do in vain enquire into the predicate We can go no further understandingly in this Thesis untill wee understand this of which all the rest speaketh Christs own justification may be understood actively or passively For the justification by which hee justifieth others or that by which God hath justified him If Mr. Baxter had meant the former I conceive he would have said plainly as he doth every where else Justification without adding to it Christs or Christs own which seems to be used to distinguish here between the justification here spoken of and the common Justification whereof he treateth throughout this Tractate If in the latter sense it may not suddenly appear how possibly we can bee justified in Christs own justification Neither can Christs own justification properly taken be possibly made our justification For all will apprehend without help by Christs own justification the justification proper to his person which none had or have in common with him Yet I conceive Mr. Baxter means here Christs passive justification Gods justifying of Christ and that these words here do relate to the words which he hath within the 4 number of the foregoing or 42 Thesis where he saith 4. His own Justification as the publick person at his resurrection which is not enough properly called Christs own because it is not the justification of Christ as personally alone but as mystically considered Taking this to be his meaning I shall first speak something of the meaning of the phrase and then examine the truth of the Position 1. For the meaning of the phrase As the first Adam sustained the office of a publick person in relation to that Commandement of not eating of the fruit of the tree of Knowledge of good and evil so that if he had obeyed we had all lived and been justified in him but
Christ hath purchased onely and we receive onely an universal conditional Justification 3. Upon as good grounds as Mr. Baxter doth in the ensuing part of this Treatise argue from salvation or glorification to justification might I also argue from justification to salvation that if justification be universally conditionall so is salvation or glorification also that if one then both run upon these terms dum bene se gesserit if he beleeve and obey he shall be justifyed and glorifyed if not neither shall be his protion And when any is justifyed and glorifyed his perseverance in that state depends upon his freewill runs upon the same condition still so long justifyed and glorifyed as he is willing and obedient if he cease to obey he shall be unjustifyed and unglorifyed again And thus all the fruits of Christs death shall be rolled to nothing and Christ righteosunesse and glory shall be a conditionall and mutable righteousnesse and glory to day in splendor to morrow in darknesse and himself become a conditionall Saviour a conditionall King at one time compleat and sitting among his golden Candlesticks in the midst of his glorious Temple at another unchristed unkinged a head without a body and members a Saviour of nobodies a King without subjects some not at all submitting to his golden scepter the rest that have submitted revolting from him some from the kingdome of grace some from the kingdome of glory as Adam from Paradise the Angels from heaven so that he shall be left alone and his sufferings and merits lose all their fruit by means of this conditionall justification There is I confesse no weight in this Argument as to the truly Orthodox But it holds as firme to Mr. Baxter as his Arguments can hold to us about conditionall justification in Christs justification If he object that the Saints in the kingdome of glory shall be so confirmed that they shall not fall away I shall answer so are the Saints also in the kingdome of grace and are as absolutely fixed therein upon the truth love and power of God in Christ as the triumphant Saints in the kingdome of glory I doubt not to prove the one as soundly as he can prove the other I cease further to enlarge my self in Arguments to this purpose That which I have said being as I before mentioned spoken not so much to prove an absolute and to shew the vanity of a conditionall justification by Christ as to make way to that which comes after to be handled From the 45 then I passe to the 55 Thesis of Mr. Baxter because whatsoever there is in the interposed positions worthy of examination either hath been or will come to be considered in a place more convenient Only by the way we shall take a short view of what he hath in and under the 54 Thesis it runnes thus pag. 209. B. Remissian Justification and Reconciliation do but restore the offender into the same state of freedome and favour that he fell from but adoption and marriage union with Christ do advance him far higher Here Mr. Baxter gives me occasion to put up some Quaeries to him 1. Whether remission justification and reconciliation are equipollent termes signifying one and the same thing in substance or so many distinct things differing each from other as well in sense as in sound If differing things wherein doth the difference consist he answers in the explication B. The freedome from obligation to punishment is called Remission the freedome from accusation and condemnation is called Justification and the freedome from enmity and displeasure is called Reconciliation These are all at once but he saith not all one Excellently distinguished as he that divided the word malt into four parts But doth not every of these words imply all those freedomes doth not remission free as well from accusation condemnation and enmity as from obligation to punishment And doth not reconciliation free from obligation to punishment and from condemnation as well as from enmity and displeasure And doth not justification likewise do all as well as one I know no absurdity to assert that the same freedome is in divers respects but in the same sense as Amesius well expresseth called by all Ames Med. lib. 1. cap. 27. §. 22. these names As the state of sin from which we are freed is considered as a state of subjection to punishment or vengeance so this freedome is called Remission As the same state is considered as enmity against God so is it called Reconciliation As the same state is considered as a state of sin and condemnation so the same freedome from it is called Justification and this also so that justification is all these remission all and reconciliation all and neither any thing effectually if it be not all All together make up one act of God by his Gospell and may as I conceive more properly be called Gods act or acts in their active sense then concomitant consequents of one and the same act of God Besides if he take them for three differing things I would aske him whether there be any mysterie in the order wherein he placeth them Whether first we have remission of sins then justificaon from condemnation and then at last reconciliation I speak of priority and posteriority in order notin time for so he saith they are concomitants and at once If some such mystery I would be enformed whether by reconciliation he mean the reconciling of our love to God or of Gods love to us if the former how can our love as he teacheth be a condition of justification if in order it be not before but after justification if the latter then it seems Gods love is not the cause of our justification seeing it doth in order follow it but that our love to God is the cause and ground of it Or if he put these three as Synonyma's for one and the same thing why doth he then so curiously distinguish and as it were give to them their severall differencing forms as we find him to do 2 Whether he take them for the same or divers things I enquire whether they be antecedents or consequents of our union with Christ If antecedents whether it be possible for a man to be justifyed in the way of the new Covenant for of this justification Mr. Baxter speaketh being yet out of Christ or how is he then justifyed by faith charity and good works except it be by a legall faith charity and works and if legall how are these then our Gospell righteousnesse or have they Gospell righteousnesse which are not in Christ Or if consequents of our union with Christ whether then they do not presuppose our union with Christ and if so whether the justifyed in Christ are not advanced to a far higher state of freedome and honour by their being found righteous in Christ then they lost by being found sinners in Adam and whether their union with Christ be not the common foundation both of justification and
adoption Or lastly is his meaning that our union with Christ is the foundation not only of remission justification and reconciliation which do restore the offender into the same state of freedome and favor which we had lost and faln from but also of Adoption and of a far higher advancement then that from which he fell herein I shall not dissent from him But why then doth he so transpose his words as to make the stream of Gods operations to run backward if not to make mans qualifications the ground of his union with Christ his faith and good works by which he is justifyed to be if not the cause yet the antecedent of this union and not this union to be the cause or antecedent of his both justification and holinesse So much I thought fit to interpose here that this Thesis of Mr. Baxter might not serve as a bridge to carry over the reader captive unto some fallacious untruths in the after-part of this his Tractate contained Hence now let us passe to the 55 Thesis which hath not a totall disagreement with the former that have been examined in this Chapter but a dependence upon them B. Thesis 55. p. 211. Before it be committed it is no sin and where there is no sin the penalty is not due and where it is not due it cannot properly be forgiven therefore sin is not forgiven before it be committed though the grounds of certain remission be laid before The strength and evidence of this reasoning will the better appear if we lay by it another to the same tune and upon the same terms It cannot be denyed to be as good an argumentation as this if I should thus argue Before it be committed it is no sin and where there is no sin there is no penalty due and where it is not due it cannot properly be required therefore the sins that have been committed since the death of Christ had not their penalty born by Christ before they were committed and consequently Gods justice remains unsatisfyed for the sins of all that have been committed since the death of Christ and every offender is to bear the condemnation of them in his own bosome though the grounds of certain remission were laid before in God except another Christ be sent from heaven to bear or the same Christ again to bear the penalty of the sins after they are committed Whether this argumentation doth not carry in it as great if not greater likelihood of reason then Mr. Baxters I leave to every rationall man to judge And thus when a proud lust possesseth us to reason from our own brain and not from Gods word we easily reason our selves into hell Neither do I see how Mr. Baxter according to this reasoning can ever look to be justifyed or saved except by one of these two wayes either by asserting his own righteousnesse which hitherto with his fellowes he hath made but a collaterall with the righteousnesse of Christ to justifie and save to be at a pinch all-sufficient and effectuall to perfect the work without Christ as it is with partners in a Trade and buying and selling of wares what one doth both do and what bargain one makes both must stand to it Or else by canonizing the Popish masse to offer therein Christ often unto God as a sacrifice for the expiation and forgivenesse of his sins when he hath committed them sith Christs offering himself was in no wise the bearing of the penalty or satisfying of Gods justice for his or our sins because not then committed But let us see whether in any sense the reasoning of Mr. Baxter here may be made good or taken up as tolerable Not to mention here Gods forgiving of sins as an act immanent in God from eternity For this would but make Mr. Baxter startle he is no more patient to hear this voice then was Caligula at the voice of Thunder his bloud riseth at it as do theirs at the sight of a Cat whose natures have an antipathy to that poor creature that never meant them hurt Let us consider forgivenesse and pardon in tearms and wayes as himself granteth a possibility of giving and receiving it And First in foro conscientiae at the bar of God in the conscience of man to which he most limiteth and contracteth remission and justification May not the offender apprehend and apply to himself the pardon of his future as well as of his past and present sins through the Lord Christ in some sense 1. In respect of the seed of all the sins which he shall through infirmity commit in the time to come of his life I mean his corrupt nature or originall defilement and sin from which as from their naturall source all their acts of sin spring every true beleever is and may apprehend himself pardoned this the very Papists acknowledge denying originall sin and defectivenesse to have any mortality of sin in it because the guilt thereof is purged from the soul by the bloud of Christ at his very first admission and entrance into Christ as they say In this respect I doubt not but Mr. Baxter will confesse that all their after acts of sin are remitted in their seed and womb to beleevers before they be committed 2. In respect of Gods not imputing them to the person that shall offend so the sins not yet committed are forgiven to every elect person God hath laid on Christs score all the sins of the elect committed or to be committed and satisfyed his justice for them upon Christ who in their names hath paid the penalty of all therefore their consciences are discharged neither sins past nor sins to come shall be any more imputed to them There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus Rom. 8. 1. There is dayly new sinning why not also subjection to condemnation because the person being in Christ though subject to a necessity of sinning yet through the justification of his person is exempted from the further imputation of sin so committed unto condemnation He that beleeveth hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation Joh. 5. 24. He comes dayly into the acting of new sins how is it that he comes not into a subjection and obligation to condemnation by those sins but because they were forgiven to the offender before therefore not imputed to him when committed It is one chief priviledge of the new Covenant Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more Now where remission of these is there is no more offering for sin Jer. 31. 38. c. Heb. 10. 17 18. speaks the holy Ghost here only of sin past and not of those to come that they which are within the new Covenant have remission of them then 1. The same person hath some sins forgiven and some not forgiven by Christ that which is past is remitted that which is to come is retained 2. Then the priviledge is no priviledge if only sins past are not remembred but sins to come are
kept in Gods memory to impute them every moment as fast as they are committed For one of these last milstones tyed to the neck of the poor offender sinks him into hell as surely as if all that are removed had their weight returned upon him with that one to sink him 3. If God hath remitted and justifyed a beleever from the sins which he hath committed and not from the sins which he foreknoweth they will commit but imputeth or will impute them then is the same person both justifyed and unjustifyed at the same time and God at the same time both loveth the same person to eternall life and hateth him to eternall condemnation which were no lesse absurdity then to attribute two contrary wils acting in God at once and so the same person be declared in his own conscience at the same time both in the state of life and in the state of death of life in respect of the sins past forgiven through Christ of death in regard of the sins to come not yet forgiven Secondly In Christ or as Mr. Baxter terms it Thesis 43. in Christs own justification either all sins are forgiven to the elect or none at all When having done their Law and paid their debt Christ appeared in the most holy place in the heaven at Gods mercy seat to mediate with his bloud for them he either received acquitance from and forgivenesse of all the sins which his elect in after times should commit and so in Christ their sins to come were forgiven or else no sin was forgiven for as yet they were not in being therefore neither were their sins yet committed But he received then in their names a full acquitance and forgivenesse of their sins as hath been before shewed therefore of their sins before they were committed and they were forgiven before they had offended Hence some of our Divines thus reason if since Christs satisfaction any sins be imputed any more to the elect they must be such as Christ hath or hath not expiated with his bloud and made satisfaction for to Gods justice if such as Christ hath expiated then notwithstanding that God imputes the sin yet the person to whom he imputes it is in grace and favour with God and the full penalty of his sin while imputed is paid to God but this were injustice not incident to God to impute a debt which is fully paid him If such as Christ hath not satisfyed for then the faith of an elect person obtains at Gods hands forgivenesse or the not imputing of such sins for which Christ hath not satisfyed Gods justice and so there shall be here remission without the shedding of bloud and justification out of Christ or faith and Gospell obedience shall be the price and ransome of their soules All which is most absurd Therefore the sins of the elect yet uncommitted are in Christ as fully forgiven as those that are already committed Thirdly If Mr. Baxters meaning be when he saith the sin is not forgiven before it be committed that the beleever hath not a singular apprehension of the forgivenesse of every singular sin before it be committed and that God hath not declared to his conscience the forgivenesse of every singular offence i. e. this evill which at this and that evill which in that hour of his life he shall drop into I acknowledge in this sense neither are any of our sins future forgiven nor many of our sins past For who in this case knoweth not only how oft he shall erre but also how oft and wherein he hath erred in this respect the generall pardon sealed in Christ bloud to us though it mention not every singular errour of our lives contained under the generall is alsufficient for us But perhaps Mr. Baxters meaning is that Christ hath not purchased to the elect a plenary and absolute forgivenesse but hath conditionally dyed for all if they shall beleeve and obey and upon this condition runs the hope of pardon as to the sins which they shall commit unto their lives end their renewed sins being dayly pardoned upon the continuance and dayly renewing of their obedience and so this Thesis runs in the same channell with the 43 44 45. Positions and for this cause I have annexed it to them Neither do I speak any thing to this Position in this sense here because it is prevented by what hath been already said in the examination of what he hath said there And too much hath been said both to those and this Position in which nothing but Magisteriall assertions without proofs are to be found CHAP. XXIV Arg. Mr. Baxters new Modell of the causes of Justification examined and first his dispute about the efficients and the materiall and formall causes thereof MR. Baxter in his 56. Thesis disputeth very Logically though but little Theologically of the causes of justification and because he thinks them all Athenians whom he hath a lust to corrupt viz. such as spend their time in nothing else but in telling or hearing some new thing Act. 17. 21. therefore looking aside from that which all the soundest i. e. with him the Antinomian Divines have said upon this Argument and disdaining it with a squint eye as too rustick and not enough pretty and dialecticall himself presents me with a new case and order of causes from the forge of his fancie viz. some sole and some sociall some single and some double some proper and some improper causes some causes that are causes and some causes that are no causes without further particularizing take him thus in his own words B. Thesis 56. By what hath been said it is apparent that justification in title may be ascribed to severall causes 1. The principall efficient cause is God 2. The instrumentall is the promise or grant of the new Covenant 3. The Prâ—catartick cause so far as God may be said to be moved by any thing out of himself speaking after the manner of men is fourfold 1 And chiefly the satisfaction of Christ 2 The intercession of Christ and supplication of the sinner 3 The necessity of the sinner 4 The opportunity and advantage for the glorifying of his justice and mercie The first of these is the meritorious cause the second the morall perswading cause the third is the objective and the fourth is the occasion 2. Materiall cause properly it hath none if you will improperly call Christs satisfaction the remote matter I contend not 3. The formall cause is acquiting of the sinner from the accusation and condemnation of the Law or the disabling the Law to accuse or condemn him 4. The finall cause is the glory of God and of the Mediator and the deliverance of the sinner 5. The Causa sine qua non is both Christs satisfaction and the faith of the justifyed It must be granted that he is not a man of delicacies hath a dull eye and dry brain whosoever is not enamoured with so fair a shew of causes like a cup-bord
instrumentall cause also But this Mr. Baxter will answer anon and I shall wait on him to hear how satisfactory his answer is 2. Whether in his answer to the Question as he puts it when he makes a mans lease or deed of gift and a Kings pardon to have their force from the hand and seal annexed to it is it not much more implyed that the grant of the Gospell without hand and seal put to it is not a sufficient instrument to the justifying of any man For the grant of the Gospell is made to the world indefinitely but when faith as the impression of Gods hand upon the soul and the Spirit witnessing and sealing to the conscience thou art the person to whom the justification generally proposed in the Gospell doth particularly belong and so are applyed by God as true accessary evidences to the grant of the Gospell to terminate justification upon the soul of man can Mr. Baxter deny these being acts of God distinct from the word of promise to be instrumentall to justification as properly and fully as the said promise and grant 3. To his Procatarctick causes which in the Thesis he giveth viz. so far as God may be said to be moved by any thing out of himself speaking after the manner of men saith he I aske 1 Whether God may be moved in his will by any thing out of himself If so whether then something out of God do not give magis minus increase and diminution to God For every change of Gods will is a change of God himself and what shall it avail any to be justifyed by a mutable God that to day will justifie to morrow unjustifie againe being apt to take impression of change from things without him yea if a God mutable then in truth no God but one of the Pagans Idols or Puppets Or how little doth his additionall cause help him to speake after the manner of mâ—n he ought not to speak a lie for God to please men much lesse to lie against God to fashion himself to the manners of men foolish or wicked men If he say God cannot be moved by any thing out of himself how can he excuse himself from being a slanderer of the most high God by devising and asserting here 4. causes out of God moving him to justifie us having before wilfully suppressed in darknesse the riches of Gods grace within himself alsufficient without any auxiliary strength from the creature to move him How preposterous is he herein to the order of nature making the fruit to bear the tree and not the tree the fruit What lesse doth he in making Christs satisfaction and intercession the sinners supplication and desire of supply and the opportunity or advantage for the glorifying of his justice and mercie the causes of Gods will and gracious willings when contrariwise Gods gracious will is the cause of all these 2 Whether he jears at the invaluable means of our salvation or else that he thinks himself matching cocks for the game that he counterpoiseth the highest perfections of Christs mediatorship with mans vanity how unsufferable is it to see him putting into the one scale a precious pearl into the other a peppercorn or cherry stone To match Christs intercession with the sinners supplication To make the feeblenesse of man a collaterall and concause in the same order and degree of efficacy to justification with the vertue of Christ glorifyed It is to be acknowledged that the nothingnesse of the one is of as full validity as the omnipotency if I may so terme it of the other to beget new love new purposes new acts in Gods will This is that which God himself cannot do not because it is a work above his power but beneath his nature and perfection to work or to be capable of the working of any new impressions or changes in his will Neverthelesse this excuseth not Mr. Baxters vilifying of Christ in mating his intercession with the sinners supplication as if the former were a star of the same magnitude with the latter like that profane fellow that twisted together Religion and Cheese 3 Not to trifle away time upon every trifling word of Mr. Baxter I demand of him why seeing in the Explication pa. 215. he acknowledgeth that Procatarcticall or outwardly impulsive causes have properly no place with God he doth yet in his Thesis here fetch about again his four impulsive causes to marke them with severall names in their foreheads in Aristotles print is it not a testimony under his own hand that he will rather play and dance about God as if he were a meer may-pole then lose the ostentation of one least peece of his wit and art 4 Though I mean not to contend about the meritorious causality of Christs satisfaction because in this he hath as well many orthodox writers as Papists speaking in the same tone with him neverthelesse I should deny his assertion unlesse he he will grant me these 4. or 5. suppositions 1. That so far as justification is an act eternall and immamanent in God Christs satisfaction is not the meritorious cause of it 2. If in some other respect it be the meritorious cause that God doth therein merit from himself For the satisfaction made to him is of his own proper money himselfe paid the price in delivering his Sonne for our sinnes the body which Christ offered for us was given him by the Father to offer in our behalf 3. That this merit must in no wise hinder but that the entire benefit of justification must come to us freely without money and without price 4. That it is but unproperly termed merit even then when it respecteth the discharge which God giveth into a mans conscience it being so called metaphorically as our state in sin is considered as a state of debt which when Christ our surety hath paid for us he hath so far merited only as the payment of our debt may be said to deserve that we should receive a full acquittance from the debt In which Mr. Baxter goeth yet further that it was so paid that the Creditour might have chosen to accept it for satisfaction much more to have given us a full acquittance and discharge So that in relation to him and his principles it is lesse properly merit then to another 5. That Christs satisfaction is more properly to be called Gods foundation of this our new relation of justifyed persons upon which he hath inabled himself to justifie us in mercie without any seeming diminution of his justice and truth These things granted me I dismisse Mr. Baxter with his meriâ—orlous cause 5 When he cals Christs intercâ—ssion and the sinners supplication the morall perswading cause c. I demand whether there were such a totall deficiency or so great a scarcity of morall reason in God that it needed a begetting or quickning by perswasions from without him or whether he were so flinty aâ— that without strong perswasive reasons he could not be induced
not of great moment but the supercilious haughtinesse of the man puft with the opinion of his secular learning so high as to puf and pif at so many excellent Divines for learning and holinesse to many of which he is not worthy to be an Amanuensis is unsufferable I shall therefore as briefly as I can expresse upon what grounds our Divines and how far they make the righteousnesse of Christ the matter of our justification as near as I may upon good probabilities conjecture The Doctrine of justification by Christ is no where in the four Evangelists held forth under the name of justification or justifying Many both Parables and clear doctrines that proceeded from the lips of Christ do indeed in other words fully display it specially John the Evangelist who made it more his task to record the doctrine then the acts of Christ because he saw those historifyed somewhat largely by the other three Evangelists which had written before him Eagle-like mounting on high to the contemplation of his Celestiall and Divine nature and doctrines very exactly sets it forth but under other words naming it Life eternall Life everlasting Life He that beleeveth in the Son hath everlasting life Joh. 3. 36. Is passed from death to life Joh. 5. 24. Hath eternall life Joh. 6. 54. My flesh which I give for the life of the world Joh. 6. 51. And ye will not come to me that ye may have life Joh. 5. 40. Except ye eat my flesh and drink my bloud ye have no life in you he that eateth me shall live by me Joh. 6. 57. In all which and many other texts of this Evangelist none can deny but by life is to be understood chiefly if not only life in law the life of justification not that of glory which is to be received above but that of grace here For so those Scriptures point out a life here in this present world enduring everlastingly to all eternity and not a life here only to be hoped for and hereafter to come into our fruition Neither do I find the word justifie used but once by Luke in the Acts of the Apostles Nor yet at all in any one of the Epistles of the Apostles St. James only excepted in one Chapter but by the Apostle Paul alone Yet the substance of justification was the chief doctrine in all their Epistles handled but the same set forth under the name of Salvation saving life and other phrases which our Saviour himself used And these phrases also doth St. Paul use as equipollent with the word Justifying in all his Epistles Now the reason why this Apostle more then the rest treats of this doctrine under the name of justification I conceive to be this Because he was forced to handle it by way of controversie against the false Apostles some professing some rejecting Christ that taught justification and salvation by the works of the Law in part and not by faith only whom therefore he must needs in his disputes treat with in their own tearms and words Their Argumentation against the Apostle as may be gathered from the Apostles answers ran in this tenour and to this effect That righteousnesse alone which justifyeth or maketh a man perfectly righteous saveth But the righteousnesse of the Law is that righteousnesse alone which justifyeth or maketh man perfectly righteous at least by procuring proper righteousnesse to him therefore that alone saveth The Apostle here granteth the proposition that no other righteousnesse but that which justifyeth or maketh a man perfectly righteous saveth But denyeth the assumption that the righteousnesse of the Law only or at all justifyeth or maketh a man perfectly righteous Because only the perfect doers of the law are perfectly righteous not the hearers But no man can perfectly do it And contrariwise proveth that the righteousness of the Gospel which he cals the Righteousnesse of God the Righteousnesse of faith the Righteousnesse of God by faith which consisteth in Christs satisfaction imputed to us is the Righteousnesse which justifyeth and maketh perfectly righteous because it cleanseth from the guilt and freeth from the imputation of all sin and unrighteousnesse Rom. 1. 17. 3. 5 21 22 25 26. 4. 3 5 6 11. 5. 17 18 21. 9. 30. 10. 3 4 6. 2 Cor. 5. 21. Phil. 3. 9. In all which places and in many other the Apostle having rejected the righteousnesse of works from being asserteth the righteousnesse of God in Christ by faith to be the righteousnesse the matter and substance of the righteousnesse by which we are justifyed This he illustrateth Rom. 5. 19. by a comparison between Adam and Christ Adams disobedience and Christs obedience As by the disobedience of one man many were made sinners so by the obedience of one shall many be made roghteous the ones disobedience was not only the merit but also the matter of our sin as far as sin is capable of matter the very sin it self which being imputed to us as being in him without any personall and actuall sin of our own makes us sinners So the obedience of Christ in offering himself a sacrifice for sin and giving satisfaction to Gods justice in obedience to that positive command of the Father which required it was and is not only the merit but also the matter of that righteousnesse which being imputed to us as being in Christ without any personall obedience of ours added to it constituteth us righteous and justifyed in Gods acceptance or is that for by and in which the Lord pronounceth us just and justifyed to our own consciences Such is the frequent dispute of the Apostle about the substance and matter of that righteousnesse by which we are justify ad which he concludes not to be a righteousnesse inherent in us but this Righteousnesse inherent in Christ but imputed to us and apprehended by faith to justification whom God hath set forth as a propitiation for our sinnes through faith in his blood Rom. 3. 25. And this is all that I finde our Divines to mean in saying the righteousnesse or satisfaction of Christ is the materiall cause of our justification defending against the Papists as the Apostle did againsts the Pharisees that the matter of the righteousnesse which God accepteth and imputeth to us in justifying us or unto righteousnesse and justification is this righteousnesse of Christ only not the righteousnesse of works Mr. Baxter in rejecting the phrase 1. As rude and not Logicall 2. As at the best unproper doth first accuse the Apostle and secondarily them that follow his Apostolicall doctrine and phrase of this rudenesse and impropriety of language One of them speaks out the minde of the rest Deus justitiam i. e. Obedientiam satisfactionem Sevarpius â—rs Th eol â— justif â— 925. Christi nostram facit ac pro nostra ducit c. atque ita nos antequam justos pronunciet justos facit God makes the righteousnesse i. e. the obedience and satisfaction of Christ ours
a corrivall with it 6. He at last deals no lesse sophistically in his comparisons You may as well call saith he a mans life his instrument of acting or the sharpnesse of a knife the knives instrument as to call our holinesse or habituall faith the instrument of receiving Christ The aptitude of a cause to produce its effect cannot be called the instrument There is no parity in the Comparison Life to acting and faith to receiving of Christ are not Mr. Baxter will not say they are in one and the same kinde and order of causes and effects Besides one of the effects is put with the other subtlely left without an object as if the receiving of Christ were no more then and altogether as naturall to man as receiving indefinitely any naturall object so that albeit this Comparison may stand in some parity with a naturall and civill faith without the object Christ annexed to it yet the divine faith whereof we hear speak is of an another an upper and higher region and agrees not in motion with the naturall life or with the naturall or civill faith The one moves its course and operation in a way that God by nature hath prescribed and the other in the way which God by grace hath prefixed Their orbs are severed and not confounded either with other As for the other Comparison the sharpnesse of the knife Nothing else undoubtedly but the sharpnesse of M. Baxters wit could have devised it Is then faith in man no more then sharpnesse in a knife What good then might a ship-load of whet-stones and grinding-stones do among the Turks to make them Christians The sharpnesse of the knife is not any thing really distinct from the knife it is otherwise with the faith of a man The knife is mans instrument the sharpnesse thereof is but the aptitude of the instrument by which man as the efficient produceth the effect How shall this square in the Comparatum Man must be the principall efficient cause what will he assigne to be the instrument whereof faith is the aptitude to produce the effect But I fear of transgressing by following him that Parvis compâ—nere magna solebat That dares with audacious arrogance to measure the bottomlesse ocean in his fist and to try Celestiall and Spirituall things in the scales of Nature and to compare not with the Apostle spirituall things with spirituall 1 Cor. 2. 13. but with carnall profanely making the Mysteries of Christ to be rather the whetstone of his wit then the object of his reverence and ballast of his conscience I shall forbear here to add my judgment concerning what faculty or faculties of the soul are the subject of faith Whether faith may be more properly said to receive Christ by the faculty or the faculty by faith How far faith in the habit and how far in the act may be said to justifie These and other things may come more properly to be handled afterward then in this place It shall suffice that here notwithstanding Mr. Baxters winnowings yet faith faileth not from being our instrument of applying or receiving Christ Eightly The latter which he maketh his sixth Question Why he maketh faith the Câ—usa sine qua non he thus endeavours to maintain as it followeth in the nâ—xt Chapter CHAP. XXVI Arg. Mr. Baxters further dispute upon the same Subject examined and answered B. Pag. 223. TO the 6. and last Qâ—estion I answer Faith is plainly and undeniably the condition of our justification The whole tenour of the Gospell shewes that And a condition is but a Causa sine qua non or a medium or a necessary antecedent Short and in compasse of words little is it which he here speaketh yet if we look to the matter thereof in it two things are principally to be examined 1. That he makes faith the condition of justification and what he means by that term 2. That he cals it the Causa sine qua non He means questionlesse the same thing by both but the words differ and he useth both as by both together so by either part to get advantage to his cause Therefore I shall examine them severally To the former I have spoke somewhat largely before in the examination of his 13 14 15 17 18 19 20 43 44 45. Theses as he gave me occasion in these severall positions to answer what he there asserted of conditionall justification I have therefore here the lesse to speak referring the reader to what hath been spoken before Yea in this point I should be totally silent because Mr. Baxter in words speaks no more here then what some of our most sound and godly Divines have spoken before him that faith is the condition of justification were it that Mr. Baxter meaneth as they mean For though in the best meaning of the best men the propriety of the terms or phrase may be much questioned and give occasion of much dispute yet traversing controversies about words when there is agreement in the substance to which both parties drive is in my apprehension a businesse so far tending to distractions and breach of union among the Saints that it is the last and least Trade I am confident that ever will befall me to drive But in this point though Mr. Baxter here speaks in words what some of ours have said and do say still and that without any detriment that I can see to the Gospell Yet his meaning and theirs are in no lesse antipathie then a Hawk and a Heron and that as in other lesser so principally in these particulars of moment 1. By faith they mena our application or faith as it is our instrument of applying Christ and the grace of God in Christ to our justification he by faith means not only the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere as a part of our inherent righteousnesse but as a generall and common word that compriseth within it self all good qualifications and good works whatsoever as elsewhere and specially in and under his 70 71. Theses he declareth himselfe so that he makes and under the word Faith understandeth all these as equall conditions with faith of our justification 2. By condition they mean that which being once attained and once fixed upon Christ speaks us absolutely justifyed for ever So that in calling faith the condition of justification they mean we cannot be justifyed without it but having once by faith apprehended Christ we are by it united and joyned to Christ and by force of our union with him are thenceforth absolutely and irrevocably pardoned and accepted as righteous in Gods fight He cals it so a condition as that it continues still a condition justifying us only conditionally and not absolutely so that it leaves our estate still one and the same no more justifyed and pardoned when beleevers then when unbeleevers For by the satisfaction of Christ we are before faith cometh conditionally justifyed if we beleeve and when faith is come we remain still but conditionally
would have passed currantly We cannot so suppose for one absurd supposition being granted a thousand more will follow after Mr. Baxter begins too low in his suppositions Let him here advance a stair higher with us and suppose first a truth before he supposeth that which is false and unpossible in respect of that truth that must necessarily be presupposed viz. That God before his Covenanting with man had decreed within himself Salva Justitia without obscuring at all his Justice to make known on the vessels of mercy i. e. in justifying and saving miserable sinners whom he had before prepared to glory the riches of his glory i. e. the praise of the glory of grace Rom. 9. 23. Ephes 1. 6. that himself and his free grace should be all and man nothing to his justification and salvation and to the end that his justice might appear still in all its lustre had taken full satisfaction from his own Son here to manifest the freenesse of his grace the all to our happinesse residing in his meer mercy and the nothing in our selves I see not what other condition or means besides faith God could have put out of which mans proud heart would not have arrogated something to himself to have swoln therewith and so the glory of Gods grace should have been obscured Or doth Mr. Baxter see farther then the Apostle He tels us It is of Faith that it might be by Grace Rom. 4. 16. If by other means it might have been and yet by grace there would be a notable flaw in the Apostles arguing which limits it to faith that it might be of grace To the same purpose are those many Scriptures in which he affirms it to be by faith that all mans boasting may be excluded implying that if it had not been only by faith there would have been something of man in it clowding the glory of Gods grace and giving to man occasion of boasting that there is something of his own to his justification and so to glory partly in himself and not wholly in the Lord. So Mr. Baxters arguing If God had put some other condition no doubt it would have justified is one and the same with this If God had acted against his own purpose and betrayed the glory of his Grace no doubt it had been betrayed But the former supposition is no lesse absurd then the latter And almost so much at the full Mr. Baxter either to toll on his Reader into more snares which afterward he layeth by his magnificent elogies of Gods grace or from the throws and checks of an accusing conscience speaketh in the following part of this Section Yet so that he cannot cease from the interweaving of mans works with Gods grace unto Justification which because he doth more fully and grossely in the following part of this Tractate I shall here forbear to anticipate what there is to be said by way of answer to him The next Position is of neer cognation with this his words are these B. Thesis 58. The ground of this is because Christs righteousnesse doth not justifie us properly and formally because we beleeve or receive it but because it is ours in Law by divine donation or imputation This is plain in it self and in that which is said before How this is plain in that which is said before we have before examined how it is plain in it self we are here to examine To omit how after Mr. Baxters Principles the righteousnesse of Christ can be said to be ours by divine donation and imputation when he holds it no otherwise by Gods donation ours then the wilde Goose is his his if he can catch her and as long as he can hold her so his as it is every ones else as well as his if they can take and hold her For she is the worlds Goose and proper to no one before one hath taken her and no longer that ones then while he holds her if he let her go she is the worlds Goose again If Mr. Baxters righteousnesse be stablished upon such a law donation and imputation let it be his not mine I shall not contend with him for a share in it because the Lord offers me a righteousnesse of a better Covenant established upon better promises Heb. 8. 6. But to let this passe When M. Baxter saith the ground of this is what meaneth he by this That no doubt that went before in the former Position But in it are many things and which of them is plain upon this ground in his meaning I cannot easily judge because to my understanding no one of them is upon this ground plain Nay upon this ground no man living is justified in this world For it is not ours saith he by beleeving and receiving it but by divine donation And this donation he will not have to be confirmed untill all the conditions be compleated and that is not untill the world be ended But to give my best conjecture of his meaning I think he will be understood that the two last clauses of his former Thesis are plain upon this ground viz. 1. That Faith doth justifie properly as a condition c. 2. Improperly as it doth receive Christ The ground saith he is this because c. Here by the way we may take notice of the mans subtilty and sophistry in shifting from one tearm of Art to another Thes 57. he tels us that faith doth properly justifie thus and improperly thus but in the Explication he foysteth in the word formally and formall pag. 230 231. and here Thes 58. puts both together properly and formally as if there were no other proper cause and reason but the formall cause and reason of a thing and that every proper cause were the formall cause And thus whatsoeverr Scripture saith illiterately Christ himself after Mr. Baxters proper language should not be a proper cause of our justification And who sees not the end of this his project If he be put to it he layes a ground for the diverting of the whole dispute from the Scriptures unto Philosophy Logick and the Metaphysicks where there may be a cavill about the nature of the formall cause so long untill both sides be out of breath and in the end both parties be as wise to Justification as in the beginning This is the calamity of the Church in these times that they which hold themselves the chief Doctors and eminent lights thereof darken every sacred truth with the mist of humane Learning cast upon it in stead of clearing it to the comprehension of Gods babes and sucklings No marvel then if the justice of God hath stirred up among us so many Earth-born and Earth-bred Meteors persons of no learning Ranters and Enthusiasts I mean like Balaams Asse to rebuke the madnesse of these Prophets And doubtlesse either by these or some other the Lord will prevail against them if they shall not cease to pervert with Elymas the plain ways of God Now to the matter it self about which
on which wrought the cure such are the operations of Christ and faith in the cure of the soul as here in the cure of the body 3. From 1 Gâ—r 30. 31. Christ is of God made unto us Righteousnesse viz. to Justification That he which glorieth may glory in the Lord. God hath made him righteousnesse but how to us or our righteousnesse that it may be of his donation to us Mr. Baxter must answer by faith else farewell his condition but if by the act of faith as our righteousnesse in fulfilling â—he condition or otherwise then an instrument to apprehend the righteousnesse of Christ to justification then have we somewhat of our own righteousnesse wherein to glory all would not be the Lords that we might glory in him alone 4. To this I might add also the phrase which the Apostle useth that we are justifyed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by faith through faith as an instrument and never 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for our faith or upon our faith as for a cause or upon a condition fulfilled as some of our Divines have well observed I proceed to the next position B. Thesis 59. Justification is not a Momentaneous act begun and ended immediately upon our beleeving but a continued act which though it be in its kind compleat from the first ' yet it is still in doing till the finall justification in the judgment day All this together with most of the Explication may be granted as being capable of an Orthodox sense 1. That justification as an act immanent in God is such as is here described is confessed But Mr. Baxter is deaf in this ear 2. That our justification in Christ is such in some sense we also grant but neither will he listen to this 3. Therefore if he would take off all ambiguity of his words and declare his sense to be the same with the sound we would grant to him also that such is our personall justification in our selves which he owneth only for justification For as it is an act of God it is never interrupted or dissolved till the day of judgement though as it is taken Passively there may be many interruptions of our sense and apprehension of it But his Thesis is faced like Janus lookes two wayes at once is set forth in such words as will more properly admit of an evill then a good sense And that he speaks them after the Remonstrant not the Protestant dialect is too probable though not infallibly evident from these reasons to be meant in an evill sense 1. Because he delivers it in the Arminian phrase For so his St. Episcopius Justificatio est actus continuus qui est Episcop Disp 22. Thes 12. de Justif durat quamdiu durat ipsius conditionis requisitae praesentia interrumpitur vero semper toties quoties actus praestantur ejusmâ—di qui cum vera fide conscientia bona consistere nequeunt i. e. Justification is a continued act which is and dureth as long as the presence of its requisite condition continueth but is interrupted so often as such acts are done which cannot consist with true faith and a good conscience To the continuance of justification Mr. Baxter here speaketh the same thing with him and though as to the interruption of it he speaks here as out of a cloud yet compare with this his 45. Thesis and you will have the whole of Episcopius from the pen of Mr. Baxter 2. Because his words do seem here to suppose a Magis minus in its active acceptation or sense It is not begun and ended immediately saith he but is still in doing in a way of perfecting untill the judgment day 3. His restriction added to the compleatnesse or perfection thereof at the first It is compleat at first saith he but in its kind which restriction makes the compleatnesse of justification incompleat and its perfection imperfect till the day of judgment as himselfe hath expressed himselfe before Thesis 41. These things from the position it self From the explication will follow 4. The heartlesse and comfortlesse proof that he brings to prove the continuance of this justifying act making it to reach only to the Genera singulorum not to the singula generum to such a kinde of men not to any singular man or individuall person upon earth to Beleevers but not to this or that beleever So that the holiest Saint if at any time his faith in some temptation faint and cannot be brought to sensible acting is left destitute of all comfort from the Gospell or new Covenant after Mr. Baxters principles It justifieth onely so long as faith actually receiveth Christ if faith through infirmity cease to act he gives the distressed soul no comfort that God continueth to justifie 5. From the first use of instruction which he draweth from this position This sheweth us saith he in the first place with what limitation to receive the assertion of our Divines that remission and justification are simul and semel performed his meaning is that we must understand them in this assertion to deal as Mr. Baxter is wont viz. to say one thing and mean another Not to think as they speak but to equivocate and retaine a mentall reservation within themselves That our justification is begun and perfected both at once and together but all this is but suo genere in its kinde that is conditionally even as the Usurer frankly and freely forgave to his debtor all that he owed him but with this limitation that if he were not paid the whole debt to day he would cast him in prison to morrow there to lie untill he should pay the whole forfeiture But because Mr. Baxter is disposed here to lisp and not to speak alowd and plain his minde we shall leave him to his humour and proceed to hearken to him where he speaketh plainly and without parables Mr. Baxters APHORISMS EXORIZED AND ANTHORIZED OR An Examination of and Answer to a Book written by Mr. Rich. Baxter Teacher of the Church at Kederminster in Worcestershire ENTITULED Aphorisms of Justification THE SECOND PART By JOHN CRANDON an unworthy Minister of the Gospel of CHRIST at Fawley in Hantshire LONDON Printed by E. C. 1654. Mr. Baxters APHORISMS Exorized and Anthorized OR An Examination of and Answer to a Book written by Mr. Rich. Baxter Teacher of the Church at Kederminster in Worcestershire ENTITVLED Aphorisms of Justification THE SECOND PART CHAP. I. The following Doctrine of Mr. Baxters Book reduced to some few heads and the question between him and the Protestants about Justification by works stated HItherto we have been busied about the view of Mr. Baxters swelling which the more and the farther we gazed on the more it increased and after a long expectation of an issue at length the imposthumated matter breaks out in the sight of all men to the offence of all spiritualized men Justification by workes This is the declared and professed Subject of all the following part of this
Treatise what before he did but hint and whisper in a kind of darkenesse now he preacheth on the top of the house proclaiming it as the sole Soul-saving doctrine canonizing as Saints the Papists for the constant holding forth of it and Anathematizing all the Protestants Churches as Apostaticall for departing from it as by examining what followes in this his Tractate will appear For the avoiding of confusion and prevention of a voluminous prolixity into which I see my self already carried by following him Thesis after Thesis being necessitated thereby as he speaks so to examine and answer the same things often in many places I shall endeavour to reduce unto some few heads the sum of what he saith upon this Question examining that which is to the purpose and leaving the rest that is inconsideraable or impertinent to it 1 Then I shall endeavour to draw out from him the state of the Question what he holdeth and how he holds it forth to us 2 I shall examine his Arguments and Reasons by which he endeavoureth to confirme his assertion or assertions 3 I shall also examine what force there is in the Reasons which he bringeth to clear himself and his doctrine from being derogatory to the grace of God and full efficacy of Christs mediation or from all tainture of Popery Socinianism or other heresies Within this Triangle I conceive the whole fabrick of his doctrine of workes to be comprehended and in examining of these fully nothing to be left unexamined that may make for his purpose 1 The state of the Question or his assertions which he maintaineth I shall as neer as may fitly be done transcribe from him in his own words thus 1 The bare act of beleeving is not the only condition of the new Covenant but severall other duties also are part of this condition viz. of Justification For this is his meaning and if he be not so understood he is understood besides his meaning and in what he saith he saith nothing His Tractate contains Aphorisms of Justification only And the conditions of the new Covenant which tend to Illumination Sanctification Glorification c. must not be confounded with those of Justification if it were granted him that the Gospell dispenseth all or any of these upon conditions In this sense therefore he must he will be understood Thes 60. pa. 235. 2 That these duties coordinate with Faith to our Justification as conditions thereof are Repentance praying for pardon forgiving others love hearing the word consideration conviction godly sorrow knowledge of Christ assent to the truth of the Gospell subjection consent acceptance cordiall covenanting self-resigning esteeming and preferring Christ before all loving him above all sincerity perseverance affiance sincere obedience and works of love serious painfull and constant use of Gods ordinances hearing praying meditating in a word all good works i. e. all the works of Righteousnesse holinesse mercy c. which the Law requireth yet with this proviso that all these legall workes must be called not our Legall but our Gospell Righteousnesse Thes 60. p. 235 236. p. 240 241 242. Thes 73 74 p. 289. 290 291 292. 3 That the non-performance of any one of these doth hinder but it is not one or many but a concurrence of all these together in one that sufficeth to condition us unto Justification Thes 61. So that when the promise of life is made in Scripture to our beleeving in Christ or to any other inseparable concomitant of Faith you must understand it Caeteris paribus viz. that your knowledge repentance obedience good workes c. are not an inch behind your faith or in sensu composito that it is a compounded Faith hath all other vertues not only included in it but also actuated and cooperating with it for justification or else you must be shaken off unjustified yea though all the rest be in act and but one out of act Thes 61. and its Explication He saith not this indeed totidem verbis word by word But let him deny the least particle of all this to be his meaning he shall by such a denyall extremely wound if not wholly subvert his cause and yeeld it to us 4 It is not the habit of these vertues as infused from above into us but the act or work of them as set in operation by us that justifieth For so saith he of Faith it self much more implieth it of the other vertues that it is the act of faith alone as it is our act or work that justifyeth aâ—d consequentially that we are justifyed wholly by works viz. as the alone condition or causa sine qua non 5 That some of these justifying vertues or works are antecedaneous to or fore-going preparatives of some integrall parts some proper essentiall formall acts some differentiall and essentiall parts some modifications some in separable products some both parts and necessary consequents and subservient acts some necessary continuing and exercising means and lastly some separable adjuncts of Faith yet tending to the well being thereof and thus having adorned faith like the Cornish Chough with the feathers of all the best birds he sends it to scar aloft with these plumes to heaven for justification which without this borrowed help of it self it was not in a capacity to do pa. 240 241 242. In these particulars I take the whole sum of his doctrine about this Question to be comprehended He addeth indeed some lenitives here and there to mitigate and make tolerable the asperity and harshnesse of these his assertions which we shall examine among the reasons that he brings to manifest his doctrine not to be derogatory from the glory of Gods grace c. as being more proper to that then this place All the forementioned particulars may be summed up in this one That all the acts or works of all morall vertues and of all insuâ—ed Habits if he grant any such are required coordinately with faith to make up the conditio upon which we shall and without which we cannot be justifyed In opposition to this all the Protestant Churches do and still have maintained that Faith alone and the same not as it is in the consideration of a habit or vertue or as an act of ours but by way of a means or instrument as hath been before explained justifyeth without any concurrence of works with it in the act and office of justifying This assertion he endeavours to destroy and establish his own with many Arguments which we shall examine severally either after other CHAP. II. Mr. Baxters preface to his first Argument drawn from Scriptures to prove Justification by works examined and the Scriptures which the Protestant writers bring against it and Mr. Baxter would have stifled in darknesse here brought to light together with the opinion of the most eminent Protestant writers upon this Subject HIS first argument is drawn from Scriptures unto which he thus prefaceth B. 235. I desire no more of those that deny this but that
imforming and giving life and vertue to it an act apprehending Christ as its object in whom all its vertue lyeth the cloud or darknesse in which Christ dwelleth as God was formerly in a cloud or darknesse upon mount Sinai and in the Temple or as all our Divines say the hand by which we receive Christ made of God righteousnesse to us and in us Gal. 3. 27. 1 Cor. 1. 30. 2 Cor. 5. 21. That the life of justification consisteth not in works at all nor in faith considered in a sense divided from Christ but in Christ our life living in us so that the life which we live is by the faith of the Son of God by the recumbency of our souls by faith upon the Son of God which is our life and that this is to live by faith Gal. 2. 20. Col. 3. 4. Gal. 3. 11. That Christ with all his righteousnesse to remission and salvation is given us freely of God not sold as by Judas to his enemies and so made ours without money without price without fine or rent In the Covenant of grace there is nothing smelling of a Simoniacall contract it is wholly of Gods giving not in the least particle of our purchasing Isa 9. 6. Joh. 3. 16. Isa 55. 1. That the life and justification which are by the second Adam descend to us in the same manner with the sin and condemnation from the first Adam But these descended by our naturall union and communion with the first Adam not by our imitation of him For death reigned from Adam over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam Therefore also righteousnesse and justification descend to us by the union and communion which we have with the second Adam Christ Jesus and not from our imitation of him and configuration to him for when we were yet enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son Not but that every one to whom the sin and condemnation of Adam once descended are thenceforth imitators of and configured to Adam or that they to whomsoever the righteousnesse and justification of Christ have descended do not thenceforth become imitators of and are configured to the image of Christ but that these imitations and configurations do follow and not goe before such union and communion declaring not producing the sin and condemnation which are from Adam or the righteousnesse and justification which are from the Lord Christ Rom. 5. 11. 19. And this is a sound Argument which the Apostle bringeth to prove that works can in no respect justifie or save For we are Gods workmanship saith he created in Christ Jesus to good works which God hath ordained before that we should walk in them Ephes 2. 9 10. where we may take notice that good works are Gods end in saving or justifying us from sin But the means do alway in order of nature go before and not follow the end in execution I mean though not in intention That we are first in Christ the justifyer and in possession of the justification that is by him and then being new created in Christ to the image of God are inabled to do good works That God hath ordained before that we should walk in them being saved or justifyed not that we should be saved or justifyed by them That the righteousnesse of God by which we are justifyed is from faith to faith not begun by faith and ended in works which according to the Apostle is a beginning in the spirit and a seeking to be perfected by the flesh Rom. 1. 17. Gal. 3. 3. Should I proceed so far as the Scriptures as a leading thread would guide me for the confirmation of justification without works I should be taken as exorbitant For the rest I shall refer the reader to such writers as have handled the point of justification against the Papists or to the disputations of the Apostle himself against the false Apostles who taught the same doctrine with Mr. Baxter though not expresly in the same words They taught that we cannot be saved by Christ by faith in Christ alone except we be circumcised and keep the Law or do the works which the Law commandeth Act. 15. 1 24. Mr. Baxter teacheth in this his 60. Thesis that B. The bare act of beleeving is not the onely condition of the New Covenant but severall other duties also are parts of that condition If we take together with his words that which in the precedent Chapter we have manifested to be his meaning in these words and that by the bare act of beleeving he understands faith without and in opposition to works for himself knoweth that it is his Pontificall-Arminian-Socinian not our Protestant Evangelicall doctrine which holds out justification by beleeving as either a bare or a cloathed act or work then he teacheth the same doctrine for which the Apostle anathematized the false Apostles and arch-church-troublers in his time Gal. 1. 7 8 9. 5. 12. And what the Apostle hath against them is against Mr. Baxter their own son I will not say in the faith but in perverting the faith and Gospell For neither did they deny faith but Mr. Baxters bare faith faith without works to be effectuall to justification Against this assertion common to him and them if there were no other Scriptures contradicting but what I have alleaged no arguments brought by our Divines to subvert it and to establish the contrary doctrine but what have been here expressed and implied al which are scarce a drop of their ful bucket yet doth Mr. Baxter declare any finglenesse of heart or sincere aime to advance the glory and truth of God in suppressing all this and all the rest in silence so to beguile his more Logicall then Theologicall readers whom he knowes to be more acquainted with Sophistry then Divinity with exotick scriblings then Canonicall Scriptures with an opinion that the stream of Scriptures runne all to his Mill and that we have nothing from the Word favouring our cause Neither let any object that our Churches do only deny the merit of works not the necessity of them as a condition to justification Herein I shall have a fit place to speak afterward as to Mr. Baxter and as it is his plea to lenifie his self-arrogating assertion In the interim to manifest the simplicity of our gudgeons that are apt to swallow the most portentous errours if offered to them involved in fine terms of logicall notions among whom some that erewhile did prosecute with bel book and candle some to death some to banishment some to sequestrations whom they thought but to smell a little of the perfumes of the purple whore These very same men now having inriched themselves with the spoyles of them whom by their outcries they erewhile pursued are mad to drench themselves with the very dregs of the cup of fornication which is in the hand of the whore and kisse the lips of Mr. Baxter which hath blessed with plausible words the doctrine
passed thorough after men are dead With hundreds more of the same kind and worth wherein it seems Mr. Baxter here would imitate them to ingratiate himself into their favour As for the residue of Mr. Baxters quotations in this place they are for the most part if not all urged in another place to prove works the condition of our glorification and future salvation and untill then I forbear to answer them But lest any in the interim should stand doubting at any of the Scritures hâ—re quoted promising either love or life or grace or glory to men thus and thus qualifyed and conceive that such qualifications are the ground and condition together with faith to in right us in that which is promised I think it fit to premonish by the way what all Protestant writers have â—maintained and cleared against the Papists that the ground of our right in such selicities promised is not the qualifications or works of the person but the new relation of the person so qualifyed his union with Christ justification and adoption before God Such promises not being made to all but to the Saints in Christ so doing I shall clear it up to you by a similitude Isaac promiseth his son Esau his blessing but bids him go a hunting and bring him venison and then in eating it he will blesse him what was that which enrighted Esau to the blessing that was the ground or condition upon which Isaac would blesse him the venison caught and dressed nothing lesse for if a 1000. others should have presented him with a 1000. pieces of venison at severall times all dressed and fitted to his appetite the blessing should have been reserved entire for Esau and they all have been sent away empty as appeareth by his dealing with Jacob presenting his made venison how agreeing so ever the dish was to the palate of the old Patriark yet he will examine thorowly who it is whether his very son Esau that brings it before he gives the blessing It was not then the venison but the sonrship yea primo-geniture of Esau that was the ground and condition of Isaacs promise to blesse him So is it also to his justifyed and adopted ones in Christ that the Lord saith Aske and ye shall have seek and ye shall finde knock and it shall be opened to you Run and ye shall obtain Overcome and ye shall be crowned Love and I will love you Be mercifull and I will be mercifull to you Humble your selves and I will lift you up and a thousand more such promises of grace as far as they hold forth spirituall and saving blessings they are the Childrens bread dispensations of God within his own family no stranger hath part in it or right to it Let the world those that are not beloved aske seek knock run fight c. the Lord may possibly out of the goodnesse of his providence infinitenesse of his wisdome and bounty of his nature reward with corporall and temporall good things their carnall and temporall endeavours but untill by the spirit of adoption they are through faith united to Christ they have no right by the new Covenant to make claim to the spirituall and saving blessings promised neither are they any otherwise to be ratifyed to any but as they were beloved of God in Christ before there were any such qualifications and motions in them as Mr. Baxter cals conditions as hath been before declared Yea suppose that Esau could not have brought the venison to his Father had been hindered or drawn aside from seeking it or seeking could not find it or finding could not have taken and brought it should the promise and purpose of Isaac to blesse him for this cause have failed He performed not the condition he shall therefore be bereaved of the blessing Nothing lesse for the generall and fundamentall ground and condition the relation of a son of the first-born son stood still fixed unto which the good will of the Father and the blessing in the Fathers purpose was entailed In like manner though a child of God fail in some of the works and qualifications which Mr. Baxter cals conditions of the new Covenant yet this makes not the promise of the Covenant or the beneficence of the Covenanter promising to be void because these are grounded so far as they are grounded out of God upon Christ our union unto Christ and new relation to God in Christ All which I doubt not shall be made manifest in its own place only what hath been said I thought fit to be said by the way for the prevention of doubts and perplexities that might ingage the weak reader before we come thither I should here have put an end to what I had to say to his first Argument drawn from Scriptures having spoken to all that in this place are quoted saving those which he brings again elsewhere for which place I have put off my examination of them But that p. 310. he comes with a new supply Lest therefore I should make another work of it there or minister occasion to any of saying that where his Argument is most fortifyed there I shun and shrink from answering I shall examine here also what force such of those Scriptures as have not been here quoted and examined have to prove justification by works and so much the rather because he tels us there that the assertion is evident from these following Scriptures B. Mat. 12. 37. By thy words thou shalt be justifyed and by thy words thou shalt be condemned Justification and Condemnation seem here by our Saviours testimony to depend upon the sinfull and blamelesse use of our tongues Ergo upon works We may grant all in our Saviours sense without advantaging Mr. Baxters cause or endammaging our own For the Lord Christ here directeth his words to those Legall Jewish Pharisaicall Justiciaries who stuck fast to the righteousnesse of the Law for justification and in zeal thereof blasphemed as in the precedent part of the Chapter upon which this dependeth is to be seen Christ and his Gospell This blasphemy Christ here reproveth and smiteth with a weapon fetcht out of their own Armory Even your own law forbids such evill words and blasphemies holding forth Justification and Condemnation not only upon condition of good and evill works but words also so that there is nothing spoken of the justification of the New but of the Old Covenant only A reprehension and commination pat to them to whom it was denounced the threat of the Law to them that refused the Gospell and were and would be under the Law But this is nothing to the justification of the new Covenant that followes the rule of the Gospell The next Scripture not contained and examined in the former sardle of quotations is B. 1 Joh. 1. 9 If we confesse our sins God is faithfull to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from our iniquities Here confession another work seems to be a condition of forgivenesse and justification
these two distinguishing Attributes here the thing in question requires them not But his rotten Cause will receive no appearance of support by this Argument without them Againe as to the rest of his Argument why doth hee assume and conclude otherwise than he proposed The Proposition speaks of a Full Iustification and an Everlasting Salvation but the assumption of a Salvation only and the conclusion of a Iustification only without their Attributes of Everlastingnesse and Fullnesse Doth he not know the falaciousnesse of such Arguings why then doth he use it Is it because he is wholly made of it and cannot shun it or because his Cause is such that it cannot stand without it that to use plaine dealing will discover the deformity of it or for the congruity which such a kind of Argumentation hath with the cause fallaciousnesse with falshood Let him either propose what he assumeth and concludeth or else assume and conclude as he proposeth And then he must argue one of the two wayes either first thus Our Full Justification and our Everlasting Salvation have the same Conditions on our part But sincere obedience is without all doubt a condition of our Everlasting Salvation Therefore also of our full Justification Here the arguing is regular but it is about immaginary things such as neither the word nor the Churches of Christ are acquainted with Wee deny that in Mr. Baxters sence there is any Full Justification as opposite to a maimed true Iustification or any Everlasting Salvation in his sence as opposite to a true spirituall salvation that is temporary and transitory So that his Arguing is the same as if he should argue from Jupiters thunder to Jupiters lightning or from Bellerophons horse to Bellerophons saddle when all these were Fictions had their being only in immagination not in reality Or secondly thus Our Justification and our salvation have the same conditions on our part But sincere obedience is without doubt a condition of our salvation Therefore also of our justification Heere I distinguish the word salvation that it is taken in Scriptures when by it is meant the everlasting salvation of the whole man by Christ sometimes for the state of grace which wee attaine here sometimes for the state of glory above In the former sense we finde it 2. Cor. 6. 2. Now is the day of salvation Luk. 19. 9. This day salvation is come to this house So Acts 28. 28. Rom. 11. 11. Heb. 6 9. and in other places In which sense we are said to be saved when we effectually receive the word of Christ and Christ Jesus to whom that word directeth for Salvation 1 Cor. 1 18. To us that are saved Ephes 2. 5 8. By Grace ye are saved So 1 Cor. 15. 2. 2 Cor. 2. 15. 2 Tim. 1. 9 Tit. 3. 5. and elsewhere In all which iâ— is said wee are not that we shal be saved that Christ hath not that he will save us And the same is further confirmed in the word life where Believers are said to have life 1 Io. 5 12. Everlasting eternall life Io. 3. 36 and 5. 24. and 6. 6 47 54. to bee passed from death to life Jo. 5. 24. All which proveth a life eternall life and everlasting salvation in this world that cannot be lost but shall have its coronation in glory above In this sense wee grant the Proposition so far as we have before granted any condition of justification But we utterly deny the assumption And what Mr. Br. saith sincere obedience is without all doubt a condition of Salvation we affirme to be all the doubt the whole thing in question If it be granted of salvation in this sense it must be granted of justification also Because justification and salvation in this sense are not 2 things but one the same It being cal'd justification as we are freed delivered from the state of misery considered as a state of sin and salvation as we are delivered from the same misery considered as a state of wrath and condemnation To say therfore that our justification and salvation have the same condition is all one as to say our justification and our justification or our salvation and our salvation have the same conditions and wee might as well assume and conclude hence Obedience is a condition of our salvation Ergo of our salvation also as of our salvation Ergo of our justification also In the latter sense if Mr. Baxter take salvation for our future glorification then we utterly deny the consequent of the proposition It is false that he saith justification and salvation have the same conditions For what is a consequent of justification is an antecedent of salvation And obedience in Mr. Baxters sence cannot be a condition without the position whereof God doth not justifie because it followes justification and goeth not before it And in this sense I have oft spoken before to the minor and shal have occasion to speak again But let us see how he goeth about to prove his major proposition B. Explic. p. 311. The Antecedent is manifest in that Scripture maketh faith a condition of both Justification and Salvation and so it doth obedience also as is before explained How far any thing of this is true there hath been given an Examination before to his Explanations before B Therefore are we justified that we may be saved Wee grant more in aright sense viz that in being Justified we are saved But what of this B. It would be as derogatory to Christs righteousnesse if we be saved by works as if we be justified by works Therefore we reject both And let Mr. Baxter look to himselfe for maintaining both B. Neither is there any way to the former but by the latter The greater is his sin that teacheth such a way to justification as bars up the way to salvation making it impervious and unpassable to Gods people B. That which a man is justified by he is saved by This is Christs mediation or Christ the mediator for there is salvation in no other nor any other name given us under Heaven by which we may be saved Act. 4. 12. By the righteousness of this One Grace came upon all to justification of life So we are saved by Christ and not by Condititions B. Though Glorification bee an adding of a greater happinesse then we lost and so justification is not enough thereto yet on our part they have the same Conditions This must be because hee will have it to bee the result of all his dispute But he only saith it but proves it not All that he layeth as the foundation of this Conclusion excepting that which in other words is the conclusion it selfe doth not infer it For it being granted what he saith but sheweth not that the Scripture saith it that we are therefore justified that we may be saved that there is no other way to Salvation but by justification and that it be as derogatory to Christs righteousness to be saved as to be
and order he can call his but the substance of all is theirs as to Justification by works and from them in common with the Socinians and Arminians as to Justification by Faith as an Act or Worke. This I could easily make evident by affixing but marginall quotations of those Popish and Arminian Authours to this Worke whom in every particle hee followeth as having spoken the same things before him if I had now that which once I had that which might be called a Library By how much the more I admire some that make their concourse confluence to him from all parts as to an Oracle to learne from him that which at home by their owne fire Eckins Hosius Vega c. or the more ancient Schoolemen before them or Beâ—â—arminâ— with the Jesuits and Arminians since them would have taught them more at large or which besides other hundreds of our Divines one Chamier in his 3 Tome of his Panstratia would have given them to understand at large together with a large and full confutation of all as to the Papists Yet see with what confidence Mr. Baxter speaketh It is most clear and beyond all dispute c. What is so cleare that our proper compleat and actuall justification c. This is cleare by Scripture Yet neither hath he alleadged or can alleadge any one Scripture that tels us of or teacheth any such justification The Papists tell us indeed of a two-fold Justification but both in this life They say Christs judgement or sentence or our account and reckoning not our justification shall thus pass in the last day The Arminians indeed say as Mr. Baxter and hee hath learned to speake as confidently as they proving as little as they Now what boldness is it to call that from a pretended cleare testimony of Scripture our Actuall most Proper compleat Justification which the Scripture doth in no place call or bid us to call Justification in any sense or con-consideration we would grant to Mr. Baxter the use of his owne Phrase and use it with him if he would understand by the Justification in the day of Judgement onely either the publication and open declaration of the justification before given and received or the conferring on Believers the Glorious and eternall fruits above of their justification here or their exemption from the sentence of vengeance which shal be then pronounced against from condemnation which shal be then executed upon the unbelieving world in which sense it is sometimes indeed in Scripture called our Redemption and the day of Redemption to the Saints which to the world will be an evill day a day of judgement But this will not satisfie him and the Scripture grants no more so that we cannot please him without displeasing God Againe when he saith our most Proper Justification will be at the great Judgement according to our workes and according to what wee have done in the flesh whether it be good or evill Doth he meane first that the measure of our justification wil be according to the measure of our works great works and a great and full justification a little Treasury of workes and a little corner of justification This agrees not with his owne phrase in tearming it a compleat justificacation Nor will it cohere with the definition that he gives to this justification Thes 39. making it to consist in Gods acquitting from the Accusation and condemnation of the Law This Act of God or of Christ doth not recipere magis minus hee that hath more works cannot be said to bee more or he that hath less to be less acquitted but iâ— at all acquitted then compleatly acquitted acquitting and not acquitting being contradictories that admit of no medium but the one or other must stand in all its force Or 2. doth he mean that the being or not being of justification doth follow the being or not being of our Works no works and no justification but if works then justification will it not hence necessarily follow both that many which have died in Christ shall be condemned viz. all that after their union to Christ by the Spirit departed out of this life before they had time and oportunity to doe such works as Mr. Baxter after instanceth and many that never believed in Christ never were in Christ shall bee justified by Christ in the last day viz. such as have lived and died such as the Apostle Paul was before his conversion touching the Righteousnesse which is by the Law blamelesse Phil. 3. 6. and that of sincerity in opposition to hypocrisie and vaine glory walking in all good Conscience before God As for faith in Christ hee doth not heere touch upon and Acts 23. 1 whether any of his reasons which hee brings to confirme his Thesis will infer it we shall see in examining them 3. When he saith that Christ at that great Assize will not give his bare will of Purpose as the reason of his proceedings c. Let him say whether his intent in this passage were not to cast an Odium upon the Protestants as if they so taught And except hee can produce any one man that hath so taught and hath not still asserted that the damnation of the damned shall be for their sinnes and the glorification of the glorified a free gift of God for the satisfaction which Christ hath made for them with reference to their being in Christ Let him confess that he hath slandered them 4. In the rest that is contained in this Thesis we finde nothing but contradictions his unsaying and gainsaying of what he had before said A little before pag 294 295. to destroy that interpretation of James which our Divines bring that when he speakes of justification by workes hee meanes the declaring to men by works the truth of their Faith and Justification the man is angry and cries out An usurped Judgement and Justification I affirme The World is no lawfull Judge of our Righteousnesse before God neither are they competent or capable Judges of our Righteousnesse or unrighteousnesse neither are works a certaine Medium or evidence whereby the world can know us to be righteous for the outward part an hypocrite may performe and the inward part Principles and ends of the worke they cannot discern Why was it that hee was so hot there against the possibility of manifesting to men the truth of our Righteousness It was against his Cause there to owne it Here contrariwise Justification in the last day must passe by workes to declare to the World not only the righteousnes obedience of the justified but also the equity of the Justifier and to stop every month from speaking against either And now the world is no longer an usurping but a lawfull Judge not an insufficient but a competent and capable Judge not onely of mans righteousness but of Christs equity in judgement and works are become a certaine Medium and evidence to manifest both to the world How comes this sudden change
heâ—r it tends to the promoting of his cause to affirme it And this alters the Case quoth Ploydon How rightly did Mr. Baxter describe his owne acting in this businesse p. 291. I resisted saith he the Light of this Conclusion as long as I was able It is the light of the Conclusion not of the Premises that swayeth him First hee pitcheth upon this Conclusion Works justifie there was light in this Conclusion it fell out of the Lant-horne of the Jesuits sophistry into his bosome and by that light he is swayed and having taken up the conclusion in such light of its owne from them now he digs downward for day and takes up that which erewhile he shook off as darkness for light to illustrate and prove it So his light conclusion is first formed and afterward he seeks for Crutches and reasons what come first to hand to support it sacrificing here more to hast than to reason lest his idol should fall before he returnes with his props to sustaine it And what if upon new thoughts we shall finde all that is here said all so unsaid again Let us passe to his explication peradventure we may stumble at such a stone before we come off from it B. Explication Heere I have these things to prove 1 that the Justifying sentence shall passe according to works as well as Faith 2. That the Reason is because they are parts of the condition For the first see Mat 25. 21. 23. well done good aâ—d faithfull servant thou hast been faithfull over a few things I will make thee ruler over many things enter thou into the ioy of thy Lord. And most plaine is that from the mouth of the judge himselfe describing the order of the processe of that day Mat. 25. 34 35. Come ye blessed inherit the Kingdome c for I was hungry c. So 1 Pet 1. 17. who without respect of persons judgeth according to every mans worke So 2. Co 5. 10. we must all appeare before the judgement seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body acording to that he haâ—h done whether good or bad So Rev. 20. 12. 13. They were judged every man according to his works Heb. 13. 17. Phil 4 17. Mat. 12. 36 c. but this is evident already The Scriptures that he brings to prove that the justifying sentence shall passe according to workes as well as Faith are first here put and therefore first to be examined And against his reasoning from them I except 1. as well as Faith is here foysted in being wanting in the position And why heere supplyed but to beguile the simple with a good opinion of his assertion as if he attributed something to Faith also in Christs and Pauls sense When contrariwise he teacheth that Faith hath nothing to doe in this businesse but in the notion of our Act our righteousnesse or worke so that with him to be justified by Faith is to be justified by our owne worke 2. That there is no one of these Scriptures but is alledged by Bellarmin and his fellows against the Protestants and by them fully answered manifested to make nothing for justification or salvation by works scripture after scripture no one of them pretermitted When Mr. Baxter now stands up in Bellarmins place against us is it sufficient for him to tel us what Bellarmin hath said against the truth as if we could not without him know it and to leave unanswered yea unmentioned the hundreds of our side that have retorted upon him his owne arguments to the subverting of his owne cause that by these Scriptures he would have maintained If he would have another answer ought he not to have excepted against the validety of those that have beene already given Is he worthy to heare more from vs that hath stopped his eares against all that so many worthies have said already scorning to take notice thereof Nay when he will onely alledge the Scriptures and not take the labour to tel us what or how he will conclude from them he leaves us not in a capacity to declare so much as our consent with him or dissent from him Yet for the use of the weaker sort of readers that have not ability to make recourse to those learned workes where these controversies are handled or to understand them in that language in which most of them are written I shal speak something in generall to all these Scriptures First of that of Mat. 25. 21. 23. or rather taking the whole parable together beginning at ver 14. and ending at v. 30. granting it on both sides to be the same Parable which Luke recordeth chap. 19. beginning at the 12. and ending at the 27. verse which very few have questioned no one hath had cause to deny then it suits not at all with Mr. Baxters purpose or his Judgement dayes justification For the Kingdome of Heaven and the Lords comming and reckoning with his Servants and retribution of their service is to be taken for Christs comming to preach first in his owne person and then to set up and stablish the Gospel by the Ministry of his Apostles The servants to be reckoned with are principally the Teachers of the Iewes the Talents used or abused are the mysteries of the Gospel revealed though veyled under the Law The matter of the Account is what each by his serious studies and labours had cleared up to himselfe and others of this Gospel and saving knowledge of Christ before his comming for the advancement and advantage of Christ at his comming They which had spent their labours this way received at Christs comming a double measure of the spirit of illumination in the knowledge of Christ and salvation by him and were intrusted with a fuâ—ler measure of this sacred Treasure to bee the dispencers thereof to the world But hee which â—ad wrapt his Talent in a Nâ—pkin and hid it in the earth left the Doctrine of Christ scattered throughout the old Testament under a veile as he found it without searching into it and clearing it up to others was lâ—ft in the state of infidelity rejected and bound over hand and foot by his unbeliefe to perdition And his Citizens which sent word after him wee will not have this man to rule over us we will have a Christ such a one as wee have framed to our selves in our owne immaginations but not this Christ have their doom not only denounced but executed also upon them bring them hither and slâ—y them before me Who are these but the great Body and Nation of the Iewes that professed themselves Citizens and the onely Saints of God but for their refusall of Christ were slaine and destroyed by the sword of the Romans And so the parable comprehends in it a Prophecy of the successe of the Kingdome of Grace now in the way of erecting in its power as to the Iews So saith Luke in that 19. Chapter verse 11. Hee added and spake a parable because
he was nigh to Jerusalem and because they thought that the Kingdom of God should immediatly appeare by this Parable foretelling them that the Citizens the Children of the Kingdom the Iews for their rejection of Christ should bee cast out into utter darknesse where is weeping and gnashing of teeth i. e. into blindnesse of minde and stubbornnesse of heart accompanied with all calamity and misery as we see them undergoing untill this day This I acknowledge to be but my owne private opinion yet such as I could easily manifest from the Text it selfe if occasion were to be very probable if not certainely the minde of Christ Yet let it stand or fall sub calculo melioris Indicii But if we are to understand all of Christs last Comming to judgement it ministers nothing to advantage Mr. Baxters Cause but enough to ruinate it For first the faithfull Servants that shall bee so richly rewarded are such as wrought with a free spirit and the reward which they received was a free gift they challenged it not in St. Conditions name and Christ confers it freely as their munificent Lord. That hee mentions their service argues not either dignity or desert in their service but the riches of his grace that having justified their persons hee had in regard their service also The unprofitable servant cast into utter darknesse is Mr. Baxters legall man serving with a mercenary and slavish spirit expects nothing from Christ but in the way of justice lookes upon him as upon an Austere man a strait Law-giver and a rigorous exactor of the fulfilling of his Lawes I knew thee that thou art an hard man reaping where thou hast not sowne and gathering where thou hast not strawed and I was afraid saith he and so did nothing because of his feare of so strict a Lord at least nothing to purpose nothing to the advancing of the Kingdome of Christ in righteousnesse peace and joy in the Holy Ghost within himselfe or others The second Scripture Mat. 25. 34. 35. is most plain sayth Mr. Baxter in which the mouth of the Judge himselfe describeth the order of the processe of that day Come ye blessed inherit c. For I was hungry c. The Judges mouth describes but why doth Mr. Baxters mouth refuse to speak out the description which the Judge maketh of the processe of that day If hee began at ver 31. when Christ is set in his throne to call all Nations before him to judgement he declares the maner of the processe 1. by separating the sheep from the goats 2. by setting the sheep at his right hand What the sheep were himself declares Jo. 10. such as hear his voice his Gospel voice and are Gospellized and spirituallized by it What hee means by his right hand the Apostle declares 1. Thess 4 16 17. The dead in Christ shall rise first and shall bee caught up in the clouds to meet with the Lord in the ayre What to do not only to be with the Lord but also as the same Apostle sayth to sit with him in judgement and to judge the world 1. Co. 6. 2. This is the right hand of Christ to which the saints perhaps shall bee advanced even before the dead out of Christ shall be raysed To this at last is annexed what Mr. Br. alleadgeth Come yee blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdome prepared for you from the beginning of the world Who seeth not heer the grounds of their glorification to bee that they were Christs sheep the heirs of God and his elect vessels That they are to be convened before Christ not as prisoners to bee judged but to bee owned as his justified ones and to receive the glorious fruits of their justification and adoption a Kingdome by inheritance yea to sit as partners and Commissioners with Christ in judging the world what the Lord Iesus addeth for I was hungry c and yee thus and thus ministred unto me will Mr. Baxter because of the word for conclude these offices to be the cause of their justification then let him also conclude that the cause of Gods shewing mercy to Paul was his ignorance and unbeliefe This will as well follow from those words of Paul 1 Tim. 1. 13. I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbeliefe To his condition the proper place is to speak afterward So the 1 Pet. 1. 17. who without respect of Persons judgeth according to every mans work holds forth thus much to us that God cannot be deluded or corrupted as oft times earthly Iudges are either to pervert justice for favour or carnall ends or to take appearances for substance but jugeth all both persons and actions according to what they are not what they seem In like mnner 2 Cor. 5. 10. the Apostle appeales as may appeare by the 11. and 12. verses compared with this from the standers and censures of the false Apostles to the judgment Seat of God They had it seems questioned among the Corinthians the sincerity of both the Apostle and his Ministry Hee refers all to Christ the Iudge Before him wee must all appeare saith he and hee will reveale who are the sincere and which the hypocriticall Professors and Preachers of Christ they or I to take vengeance of the one and to owne the other He maimeth that testimony of Rev. 20. 12 13. that the force therof may not be understood by his Reader Let him supply what he hath cut off the Book of life by which they which are in Christ are to be judged which is there mentioned aswel as the other books by which the world is to be judged and then the judgments which the Saints are to pass through wil appear to be a judgment of Grace not of strict justice to consist in their admission to the Kingdom after the tenour of Grace not of Workes The other three Scriptures he seeth to have so little even of shew in them for his use that he deigns not the labour to alleage the words and let him not expect that I should stil do it for him Thus far we grant that the sentence of Iudgement though not the justifying sentence shall passe in the last day according to works 1. The whole world that hath not heard of Christ much less beleeved on him shall be judged according to their works to life or death according as their works have been perfect or unperfect yea to a measure of vengeance answering to the measure of their sinnes some to many some to fewer stripes 2. The whole bulk of professed Christians also shall in this respect be judged according to their works viz. that as their professions of and actings in Christ were eyther in truth or in hypocrisie meerly formall or else Vitall and reall so shall they be either exempted from or adjudged unto vengeance And so the secrets of all hearts shall bee then disclosed the Sheep and Goats Saints and Hypocrites shall then bee fully seperated one from the other which untill
Quere It is his doctrine that teacheth a soul-cozening Faith a Faith made up of a fardle of works and rags of our own righteousness as in his larger definition of justifying Faith he hath described it CHAP. XIII Mr. Baxters calumnie that this doctrine doth harden the Papists in their Popery and give occasion to many learned Protestants to turn Papists answered HIS fifth Quere hath no shew of weight in it deserving an examination savouring more of the Spleen than of the judgment of the Author Nevertheless though it declares only the stomach and indignation of the man against the truth rather then any strength in his hand to hurt it yet because it is formed for the deceiving of the simple and unwary upon whom sounds oft times take no less impression than actuall strokes to prevent damage to such I shall examine whatsoever may seem materiall in it as I have the rest B. pa. 329. 5. Lastly Is not this excluding of sincere Obedience from Justification the great stumbling-block of Papists and that which hath had a great hand in turning many learned men from the true Protestant Religion to Popery That by obedience he meaneth all morall qualifications and works as they are vertues and works we have before learned from his own words so his meaning is that the Doctrine of Paul and the Churches which follow him viz. Justification by Faith and not by works is guilty of the damnable and pernicious evills which he here chargeth upon it These evills are two 1 It is the great stumbling-block of the Papists 2 It hath carried back many learned men from the Protestant Religion to Popery To both these I shall speak in order 1 Of its hardning the Papists in Popery Is it not the great stumbling-block to Papists saith Mr. Br. I answer 1 Was not Christ and that in this very point of justifying the ungodly by an imputed righteousness without any inherent righteousness of their own a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence to the Jewes as which they were so offended that to their eternall ruine they reject the Gospel and salvation of Christ unto this day Rom. 9. 32 33. 1 Cor. 1. 23. 1 Pet. 2. 8. What then must Christ be anathematized Nay but let the truth of Christ stand and man be the lyar the transgressor It is scandalum acceptum non datum an offence taken not given And blessed is he who soever shall not be offended in or at Christ Mat. 11. 6. Lu. 7. 23. But if any will be offended and dash the Lord Christ admonisheth him of the danger Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken but on whomsoever it shall fall it will grind him to powder Mat. 21. 44. 2 And as sound a reason is it that our doctrine of Justification hinders the Papists from turning Protestants as was that of some Statists that complained against the Church of Geneva that they hindered the conversion of Papists in those parts by forbidding dancing and the like grave consideration by some great Politicians in England that the forbearing of Bull and Bear-baiting and other sports on the Lords day hardned the Papists of Lancashire in their Popery When Religion is made a meer piece of policy and to have in it at the best no more than a dress of dreggish formality or morality no marvail if such dirty and unspirituall means are made use of to spread it 3 But how deep doth this effect lurk in its cause so that only this one mans sagacity can smell it out That the Papists in the least things will not turn Protestants except we in the worst turn Papists For this Article of Justification is the greatest of all the questions controverted between us and the Papists All the rest not ingredients of or meerly relating to this may the Papists continue in if not of malice or wilfulnesse with a possibility of salvation They are but wood hay and stubble built upon the foundation the very builders whereof may be saved but so as by fire saith the Apostle But a Trentified Papist by the coherent judgment of the best Divines cannot be saved because hee holdeth not the foundation sure and pure but mixeth mans works with the grace of God in Christ to Justification And their judgment is grounded upon the authority of the Apostle Yee are faln from grace Christ is become void or forfeyted to you whosoever are justified by works An ardent love to Romes shavelings out of doubt possesseth Mr. Br. that he doth not only wish himself as did the Apostle but would make himself and all us accursed that they might be not saved but damned with us For if they reject all other their errors and practically retain but this one by it they forfeyt all the salvation of the Gospel 4 Nay contrariwise as long as this Article of the Gospel was diligently preached and stoutly maintained in the Protestant Churches and that not with quiâ—ks and quidities of humane Art but by the nervous arguments of Scripture alone so long the Kingdom of Antichrist more and more decayed and they which were before marked up as slaves to that rivall of Christ brake the fetters and came in by thousands and ten thousands taking the Kingdom by a holy and violent force But since the time this Doctrine hath been less preached and patronized the Reformed Churches have been still in a languishing and the Antichristian Kingdom in a growing condition as Mr. Br. himself so great a Reader and so fully acquainted with the Ecclesiasticall Histories must necessarily grant And why hath this stop to the promoting of the Gospel befaln the Churches but that the Lord Christ doth herein declare his offence taken against us for not making him our all that hee also ceaseth so victoriously as in former times to vouchsafe his presence among us 5 But since Mr. Br. is leapt home to them and many foot beyond many of the more moderate sort of them in the point of justification by works and so hath removed the slumbling-block let him speak by experience how many of them are come in to him to be his Proselytes rejecting the Papacy and other their Popish errors Or whereas his Friends the Arminians have in this and many other of their Tenents so many decads of yeers closed fully with them where is the confluence of Papists to them seen that shaking off their former opinions and practices profess themselves Converts A Cardinals Hat perhaps hath been sent or a fat Bishopprick promised to some of the most deserving men among them in relation to the Romish Cause to allure them to further and higher deservings of this kind But the holy Mother Church I warrant you sticks where she was If shee should permit but one stone of her Fabrick to be loosed it might cause a crack in the whole This part of the Quere I shall therefore upon these Considerations leave as reasonless and examine the next whether there be any more reason in it
through the Redemption which is in Jesus Christ and by their very receiving of him should obtein power to become the sonns of God notwithstanding all their former pollutions without all prejacent qualifications in them to purchase so great a Redemption Such was the doctrine preached to them and in the embracing and professing of this Doctrine and their Faith in Christ the alone redeemer they were first admitted into Christ gathered into Churches and so continued a while stablished in this truth with the joy of the Holy Ghost abounding in them The persons against whom he disputeth were chiefly if not onely the False Apostles of the Circumcision who also professed the Faith of Christ and preached it not the unbeleeving Jewes for these should not have had any such audience from the Churches But such as went out from the Apostles and the Church that was at Hierusalem to preach Christ Act. 15. 24. Such as came from James Gal. 2. 12. Such as boasted themselves to be of Câ—phas to hold forth the doctrine of Peter 1 Cor. 1. 12. Such as preached Christ of envie strife and contenâ—iâ—n not sincerely but under the luâ—e of so holy a name to take the advantage to deceive Phil. 1. 15 16. Who not labouring to gather Disciples to Christ out of infidelity as the Apostles had done entred into the severâ—ll Churches before stablished by the Apostles troubling them with words subverting their souls teaching them that they must be circumcised and keep the Law of Moses els they could not be saved Act. 15. 1. 24. And these were of the Sect of the Pharisees which beleeved Act. 15. 5. Emissaries out of those Many thousands or rather Myriads of the Jewes at Hierusalem which beleeved yet were all zealous of the Law Act. 21. 20. Had the Apostles dispute been against such as had apostatizâ—d from the profession of Christ and against such unbeleevers as had seduced them from trusling on Christs imputed to rest upon their own inherent righteousness for justification iâ— had not been besides the purpose to have it his question as Mr. Br saith whether it be Christs righteousness or our own righteousness that we must plead against the accusations of the Law But seeing both the seduced and seducers with whom he dealeth were such as professed faith in Christ as their justifier and Saviour and questioned onely whether Faith alone or els their righteousness works also together with Faith were required to inright them to Christs righteousnes and salvation it had been impertinent if not ridiculous to have made it his question what the proper righteousnes is by which we are justified For this had been to decline and not to prosecute the question between him and them They would have granted him all that he concluded without the least dammage to their Cause Therefore his question was principally By what means we come to partake of the righteousness of Christ to Justification 2 Let the Apostle himself give his Testimony what his principall question was For he better knew his own minde than Mr. Br or my self And first in his Epistle to the Romans having for an introduction to the question in the three first Chapters proved both the Jewes with all their legall and the Gentiles with all their naturall righteousness and unrighteousness to be under sin guilt and condemnation he no sooner in the third Chapter begins to speak of the mean of their recovery Christ Jesus but he annexeth also by what means we come to have right in him In both which he no less Contradicteth Mr. Br than if he had seen before what Mr. Br hath written so many ages after Or the former he affirmeth that we are justified as by Christ so by the Redemption which is in Jesus Christ as he was set forth to be a propitiation or expiatory sacrifice for our sinns Rom. 3. 24 25. Not as Mr. Br before so stoutly Contended as he is our Lord i. e. in his sense our Lawgiver Of the latter that it is faith alone that makes this redemption and Propitiation ours to Justification namely Faith in his bloud Faith without the deeds of the Law Faith which excludeth without works which include boasting ver 25 27 28. And this faith in the death of Christ without works without deeds cannot include in it Morall works and righteousness unto Justification as Mr. Br would extort from it elsewhere by making Christ as our Lord and Lawgiver the object of Justifying Faith At length he Concludeth ver 30. that both in them which have some seeming and plausible qualification of righteousness and works and in them that have it not it is not that righteousness of their own but Faith which Justifieth And that this Faith is no less effectuall to the justifying of them that unto that very day have been ungodly than of them which from their very birth have seemed to be holy to the Lord. So much is Comprehended in those words of the Apostle It is one God which Justifieth the Circumcision by faith and the un-circumcision through Faith In these words is included the whole State of Pauls question The Apostle writing to the Church that was at Rome Consisting of beleeving Jewes and Gentiles endeavours to heal the divisions Close the breaches and settle a sweet union and Communion between them This he applyeth himself unto first in that great and fundamentall point of Christianitie viz. Justification by Christ in which they dissented Both Jewes and Gentiles acknowledged Justification and salvation to be by Christ alone but in this they differed The Jewes Confined this salvation by Christ to themselves alone that to them onely he was promised that they alone were qualified and in a capacity to receive him and the benefits that are by him That he came to be the Saviour of his own hallowed people that had waited for him not of the common and unclean Pagans that were aliens from the Common wealth of Israel and strangers from the Covenant of promise To this purpose they boasted of their Naturall Faederal and personall righteousness and holines qualifying them for the Justification which is by Christ of all which the Gentiles were destitute Their naturall Righteousness and holiness that they were Jewes by nature and not sinners of the Gentiles the seed of Abraham the holy stock to whom and whose seed the promise was made Their Faederall holines That they alone of all nations were in Covenant with God and did bear the badge and seal of the Covenant Circumcision in their Flesh by which they were distinguishd from all other people as holy to God when all other Nations under the Sunne were an abhomination in his sight Their Legall holiness that they had the Law Word and Oracles of God Committed to them all other Nations being left without Law without God and without hope in the world Their personall and Actuall righteousness that in reference to this holy Law of God they had walked exactly kept it from their youth
and touching the righteousness thereof were blameless When contrarwise the Gentiles had walked inordinately lawlesly after the instinct of their own nature and lusts of their own hearts servants to idols and devills not to God For this Cause they Contended that they by this their righteousness had that the Gentiles by means of their unrighteousness had not right to the redemption and Justification which are by Christ That the Gentiles in stead of the naturall holiness before mentioned must become Proselytes and so the ascititious or adopted Children of Abraham becoming Jewes must receive the seale of the Covenant Circumcision in their flesh receive and be brought under the Law and become personally righteous in keeping it Else they could not be saved by Christ Act. 15. 1 24. Their bare Faith in Christ without their own righteousness and works could not make them partakers of the tighteousnesse and salvation which are by Christ And who seeth not here that Mr. Brs doctrine is one and the same in generall with theirs that were the first heretical troublers and subverters of the Church of Christ But against this plea of the beleeving Jewes the Apostle layeth his Contradictory Conclusion That both the Circumcision and the uncircumcision they that had and they that had not all or any of these kinds of righteousness were made partakers of Justification through Christ onely by Faith in him That our own prejacent works and righteousness are nothing to further nor our former unrighteousness and sinn any thing to hinder our Justification but Faith in Christ is all He that beleeveth is not condemned he that beleeveth not is already condemned whether he be Jew or Gentile clean or unclean outwardly because as he had said before ver 22 23. There is no difference For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God This Conclusion that Faith alone without our prejacent or concomitant works and righteousness do make the righteousness which is by Christ ours to Justification he proveth soundly in the 4th Chapter 1 From the example of Abraham the Father of the Faithfull By what means Abraham found and obteined the Justification which is by Christ by the same means all now obteine it that are Justified But Abraham found or obteiaed it not by his own righteousness or works but by Faith Therefore so do now all that are justified The proposition he leaves as standing so firm on its own pillars that none will dare to seek the demolishing thereof The assumption he proves in both its members that it was not by his own righteousnes either Natural i. e. derived from parents and ancestors for they were Idolaters and served other Gods Josh 24. 2. Or faederall in the Jewes sense for he was justified before he was circumcised and after received Circumcision as a seal of the Righteousness of Faith ver 10 11 of this 4th Chapter to the Romans or Legal For he was so Justified 400 years before the Law was given Or personall by the works of righteousness which he had done For then first he should have had matter of boasting that he had done something towards his own Justification ver 2. And secondly then his justification should have been reckoned not of Grace but of debt and so the glory thereof should have redounded to Abraham and not to God ver 4. And if by no one of these kinds of his own then not at all by his own righteousness That it was by Faith he proves by clear Testimony of Scripture ver 3. Therefore the conclusion stands that we are justified also by faith without works That Faith and not any righteousness of our own makes Christs righteousness ours Another Argument he draws from clear and evident Scripture witnessing that the righteousness and justification which consisteth in the forgivenes not imputing and covering of sinn is made ours without works therefore by Faith alone ver 6 7 8. When in these two Arguments none can deny but that the righteousness and Justification which Abraham obteined and which Consisted not in the doing but in the imputing of righteousness and in the pardoning and not imputing of sinn is the Justification which is by Christ and when the Apostle laboureth not at all to prove this to be The proper Righteousness to Justification but takes it as granted and unquestioned all must acknowledge that his question was not What righteousness it is that Justifieth whether Christs or ours But when all his dispute is confined to this one point to prove that this righteousness by Christ is made ouâ—s not at all by works but altogether by Faith what rational man can be so swayed by a Spirit of Contradiction as to say with Mr. Br. that St Pauls question was not to make out by what means this Justification by Christ may be made ours Whosoever will see these two Arguments further and fully illustrated and amplified together with more arguments to these annexed let him peruse the residue of this 4 Chap. And if he return with his Reason sound and brings not this verdit that it is impudence not judgement in Mr. Br. to state Pauls question as he doth Then am I a stranger both to Paul and Reason Again when the Apostle still insisting upon the same subject setts forth the priviledges of them that are justified by Faith doth withall affirm that while they were yet sinners Châ—ist dyed for them and so they became Justified by his bloud and being yet enemies are reconciled to God by his death Rom. 5. 1 8 9 10. thereby implying that there is nothing of our own works and righteousness except sin and enmity against God be such that doth or can Concurr to our justification so leaving justification to Faith onely it is evident that his principall question was not whether we are Justified by Christ but whether Faith alone or works with Faith are appointed of God in order to Justification I shall forbear to cite short testimonies from other Epistles of the Apostle evincing this Truth and pass to his Epistle to the Galathians in which he wholly levelleth to this mark It cannot be denyed by Mr. Br. himselfe that the Apostle there disputeth not of a legal but Gospel Justification and that this is a Justification onely by Christ that when he saith If any man if we or an Angel from heaven preach any other Gospel c. his meaning is not a Justification out of Christ for this should be a legal not a Gospel Justification but any other way to the Justification which is by Christ save that which we have preached let him be accursed Gal. 1. 8 9. Herein it was agreed between the Apostle and the false Apostles that Christ is the alone Justifier and that salvation is onely by him and to this all the seduced ones among the Galathians assented Else had they been Apostate from Christ to the Law and not to another Gospel as the Apostle terms it Gal. 1. 6. And from their beginning in the Spirit to seek
Divines to have sought an evasion Opera quidem legis saith he quatenus sine fide gratia Campian geruntur nihil habere quod ad justitiam conferant Caeterùm opera sanctorum Hominum cùm ejusmodi non sint sed fide gratia referta ideo justificari dicuntur verè coram Deo ex operibus suis non tamen tanquam suis i. e. The workes of the Law as they are done without Faith and Grace have nothing to contribute to Justification nevertheless the workes of godly men are not of that kind but replenished with Grace and Faith therefore are they sayd to bee justified by their workes yet not by workes as theirs but as wrought by the grace of God in them So also Vega the Monk Duplex est Justificatio altera ex gratia operandi infusa Andr. Vega de Just vag 751. altera ex debito Legis seclusa Gratia Excluditur ergo Justificatio illa quae fit seclusa gratia non Justificatio illa quae fit ex operibus gratia adjutis c. i. e. There is a two-fold Justification one of the Grace to work infused into us the other of the debt of the Law without Grace to enable That Justification is excluded which is sought after without Grace not that Justification which is of good works holpen by Grace And Hosius to Hosius elude that of the Apostle We are not justified by works Verum inquit ex operibus iis quae legis sunt aut quae liberi Arbitrii nostri propria existunt quae cum laborant imperfectione nihil ad justificationem conferunt i. e. It is true saith he of those works which are of the Law or done in the strength of Free-will only which in regard they have their imperfection cannot avail to Justification But as for such works as flow from our Free-will as it is set in operation by the over-powering of Gods Grace He concludeth otherwise Not to trouble our selves with what these Sophistical pratlers speak every and each of them severally let us take them collectively in one bunch and body as Mr. Pemble in his Treatise of Justification brings them in both head and tayle great and small thus disputing against Justification by the righteousness which is in Christ without any righteousness of our own intermixed Against this Doctrine they have two exceptions saith Mr. Pemble Pemb. Treat of Just if page 37. 1. That we are not justified by any work of our own viz. that we our selves do by our own strength without the help of Grace But yet we may be justified by some work which we doe viz. by the ayd of Grace such is the work of Faith 2. That wee are not justified by any workes of our own i. e. by any works of the Law but by a work of the Gospel such as Faith is we may be justified By this time it is enough evident that Mr. Baxter fights the Popes battel with the Popes weapons that as he maintaines the Popes cause so he rankes and files himself with the souldiers of the Popes Army who then can give any reason why hee should not be thought as sure a friend either to Christ or at least to Antichrist as are the Priests and Jesuits Onely if for no other yet for this cause Mr. Pemble deserves the brand of an Antinomian which in the following part of his Tractate Mr. Baxter gives him pag. 173. for disgracing this sophisticall shift which is common to other Papists with Mr. Baxter telling us in the fore-quoted place that this distinction of works done without Grace and works done by Grace was devised by one and consequently followed by others that had or have neither Wit nor Grace being a trick to elude the force of such Scriptures as exclude indefinitely all works from Justification c. A spightful speech thus at once to cast dirt in the faces both of Mr. Baxter and all his fratres or Fryars of the holy Mother Church of Rome No marvel if Mr. Baxter though he smooth him somtimes for his own ends yet doth carry him in mind to fit him a penny-worth for it when he thinks he hath caught an advantage against him Neverthelesse though Mr. Baxters ingenuity and plaine dealing seldom keep him company in this dispute and controvâ—rfie yet his subtilty and sophistry fail him never In his former positions before examined he affirms that besides the imputed righteousness we must have a personal righteousness inherent in our selves as absolutely necessary to salvation and justification Here now to make that his assertion sufferable he minceth it in its termes and in this Thesis calls it a performance of conditions and in the Explication an Acting of Duties what before he had called justifying righteousnesse Yea further tels us that some think it a self-ascribing and derogating from Christ to affirm our selves to be but the Actors of those Duties though we professe our selves to do it only by the strength of Grace When contrariwise the question is not about either the requisitenesse of Gospel duties nor about the strength by which they are to be performed herein if Mr. Baxter meaneth as he speaketh wee are agreed but about their office and end to which they are to be performed whether these duties are conditions of our Justification and that the end of our performing them ought to be that we may be justified by the righteousness which consisteth in their performance Doth hee meane to tune up a Palinodiam to recant and eat up his former assertions that he doth here so lenifie the roughness and correct the extravagancy both of his words and matter before delivered Nothing less but hee throws sugar after his poyson both that it may goe down the more quietly what he hath given already to his unwary Readers to drink and that they may be ready without suspition to drink deeper and more deadly draughts of the same poyson which thorow the whole sequele of this his Treatise he makes his business to temper for them I shall there answer more fully where he speakes more fully In the mean time all may see his dealing here to be not faire and logicall but fallacious and sophistical He tels us in the conclusion of his Explication that He will not digress from his intended subject so far as to enter here into a disquisition of the nature and workings of that Grace which doth enable us to perform these conditions but refers us to Parkers Theses de traductione peccatoris ad vitam What that Mr. Parker or his work is I know not But that Mr. Baxter will not here deliver his own judgement I think he doth well For if his judgement in the doctrine of Gods Grace working unto mans conversion and sanctification be not more sound then about the operation of the same Grace to mans Justification his silence will be farre more acceptable then his best argumentations to chaste ears and spiritual minds And little cause have we to expect any
good from him upon that subject because that although there are many who extoll the power of mans Free-will to his conversion even to the clouding of the glory of Grace that do notwithstanding hold fast the doctrine of Justification by Christ alone without any intermixture of our own righteousnesse Yet I know no one sort or sect of men that part our Justification between Gods righteousness imputed and our own inherent but that the same also about the doctrine of Free-will are wholly Popish if not Pelagian also In the bulk and body of his Explication wherein he inveigheth against those whom hee in termes of abasement calleth sublime Platonick and Plotinian Divines when as they account themselves essentially God himselfe he hath not us dissenting from him CHAP. XV. Whether men in Scriptures are said to be personally Righteous because they perform works and duties as conditions of the new Covenant ye a only for this Master Baxters reasons by which he labours to make it good examined Thesis 22. BAx page 118. In this fore-explained sense it is that men in Scripture are said to be personally Righteous and in this sense it is that the faith and duties of beleivers are said to please God viz. as they are related to the Covenant of Grace and not as they are measured by the Covenant of Works Explication Those that will not acknowledge that the Godly are called Righteous in the Scripture by reason of a personal Righteousnesse consisting in the Rectitude of their own dispositions and actions as well as in regard of their imputed Righteousnesse may be convinced from these Scriptures if they will beleive them Gen. 7. 1. and 18. 23 24. Job 17. 9. Psal 1. 5 6. and 37. 17 21. Eccles 9. 1 2. Ezek. 18. 20. 24. and 33. 12. 13. 18. Mat. 9. 13. To these he addeth as may be there read a multitude of Scriptures more which unlesse it were to better purpose it is not worthy the labour to transcribe To this he further addeth That men are sometimes called Righteous in reference to the Lawes and judgements of men I acknowledge Also in regard of some of their particular actions which are for the substance good and perhaps sometimes in a comparative sense as they are compared with the ungodly as a line lesse crooked should be called streight in comparison of one more crooked But how improper an expression that is you may easily perceive The ordinary phrase of Scripture hath more truth and aptitude then so Therefore it must needs be that men are called righteous in reference to the New Covenant onely Which is plain thus Righteousnesse is but the denomination of our actions or persons as they relate to some rule This Rule when it is the law of Man and our actions suit thereto we are then righteous before men When this rule is Gods Law it is either that of Workes or that of Grace In relation to the former there is none Righteous no not one for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God Onely in Christ who hath obeyed and satisfied wee are Righteous But if you consider our actions and persons in relation to the Rule of the New Covenant so all the regenerate are personally righteous because they all performe the conditions of this Covenant and are properly pronounced righteous thereby Neither can it be conceived how the works of beleivers should either please God or be called righteousnesse as they relate to that old Rule which doth pronounce them unrighteous hatefull and accursed All this in its substance at least might be granted to a conscientious man that meaneth as he speaketh hating all equivocations and mentall reservations For it being first granted to us what is here granted That men are called in Scripture Righteous sometimes in Regard of their imputed Righteousnesse sometimes in reference to the lawes and judgements of Men sometimes also in regard of some of their particular actions which are for their substance good and sometimes in a comparative sense as they are compared with the ungodly The 3 last of these consisting in the Conformity of persons and actions with the Lawes of God or of men though not a perfect Conformity upon this first yeelded to us we could without any prejudice to truth grant back again to such qualified men as are before mentioned that sometimes men are called personally Righteous in reference to the New Covenant i. e. in regard of their inchoat sanctification and an inherent righteousnesse flown out of Christ into them by means of their union unto Christ for which though not yet Complete and perfect in them they are à parte praestantiore termed Righteous But to Master Baxter whom we have as the wolfe by the ears prepared if we hold him to bite at our hands if we let him go to fall upon our throats or invade our face and head if we deny him what he would have to bite at us if we grant it him to improve it against Christ our head we grant nothing wee can grant nothing because in all that he speaketh he means not as he speaketh but covers under fine words fallacies and falsities First then we except against his Thesis that it is a meer fardle of Amphibologies and Equivocations That he so delivers all that he will be held to nothing For first when he saith In this fore-explained sense it is his meaning was no doubt to leave us doubtfull or at least to leave himselfe this advantage that wee should remain uncertain where to find him If we should fetch the explanation from the next Theses he might except that his meaning was of some of the more remote Theses if from the remote he would fly to the next or if wee should draw the sense from both the next and remote Theses he might evade thus that he meant not any thing that was said in any of his Theses but something in the explication of some of them And thus wee might pursue the wild-goose long enough before wee should finde her pitching Secondly When he saith Men in Scriptures are said to be personally righteous his purpose was to leave us in the like doubt whether he means the Righteousnesse of justification or the Righteousnesse of Sanctification and himselfe the like advantage to fly from the one to the other as may most further his ends Thirdly when he saith again And in this sense it is he leaves us as knowing as before what sense he meaneth himselfe hath not yet concluded what the sense shall be saving in general such a sense as upon all occasions may serve to his purposes Fourthly When he saith That the faith and duties of believers are said to please God viz. As they are related to the Covenant of Grace and not as they are measured by the Covenant of works he had a project to leave us uncertain whether by the word They and They twice used he means those beleevers or those duties and works And upon this hinge
he hath out of Schiblers Mâ—taphysicks sound enough I acknowledge as Schibler proposeth it in Thesi but fallacious and misapplyed by this man to his Hypothesis Yet what ever it be though not the least portion of Gods word in it let us examine the strength of it It is the principall efficient of the act or effect that worketh by the instrument saith he but man is not the principall efficient therefore worketh not in this businesse by instruments or instrumentall helps I answer 1. not only in resevence to this but to that which also followeth in his Argumentation We are to distinguish between instruments that they are of two kinds effective or receptive Effective so is a knife the instrument of cutting Receptive so is the hand the instrument of receiving Mr. Baxters Arguments are applyed to the former only not at all to the latter For 1. Of an Effective instument it may be said the knife cuts and the Man cuts likewise But a Receptive instrument hath a double relation 1. To the giver 2. To the receiver As if a rich man give a great treasure to a poor man he receiveth it in his hand the receptive instrument of the poor mans inriching is his hand Now if a man should argue as Mr. Baxter doth the hand if it be an instrument it is an instrument either of the giver or receiver not of the receiver for he doth not inrich himself he is not the principall agent inriching not of the giver for he doth not receive any riches but the act of the hand is to receive therefore the instrument of neither nor at all an instrument Who sees not the vanity of such an Argument Yet such is this paralogism of Mr. Baxter I say therefore that the Canons of an instrument which he citeth out of Aquinas and Schibler hold only of effective not of receptive instruments Yet as faith is Gods effective instrument to justifie man and not himself as Mr. Baxter trifleth so these Canons hold of it also in the sense before specifyed 2. I deny the Assumption or Minor he proves it thus Man doth not justifie himself This is an equivocation and besides the question None ever made man the causa prima of his justification none I mean of all those whom Mr. Baxters disputes against Himself indeed and his followers asserting the perfection and merit of mans righteousnesse consisting in faith and good works and affirming that this righteousnesse of man and in man doth give him title to the righteousnesse which is by Christ cannot well be cleared from making man the first tause of his justification But we speak nothing tending to this purpose and in no other sense do we say that man acteth to his justification but by this apprehending and applying to himself the justification of God And in this respect man is not only the principall but also the sole efficient of apprehending or receiving Christ to justification and faith his alone receptive instrument therein by the instrumentall subsurviency of his faith in receiving Christ We make it not mans instrument of Christs satisfaction or of Gods acceptation or of his declaring but only of our applying it to our soules That it is not Gods instrument he hath these reasons to prove B. 2. Not of God for 1. It is not God that beleeveth though it 's true he is the first cause of all actions A meer bull with which he jeers and scoffes not only at all the Protestant Divines but also at Christ and his Apostles as poor sorry animals and asses unworthy to be answered with reasons but with absurd non-sense 1. Faith in one was never used or ordained to be an instrument of justifying another much lesse faith in God to justifie man 2. He can conclude nothing else hence but this God beleeveth not therefore God is not justifyed or discharged from condemnation by the new Covenant 3. He doth in the Magisteriall confidence of his heart implicitely accuse Christ his Apostles and faithfull Teachers in his Church to hold that God is the instrument of our justification that the Principall agent and the instrument are the same thing that the instrument must be in the Agent or cannot be his instrument so that faith must be Gâ—d himself for whatsoever is in God is God himself the immanent acts of God are Gods acting These are all but slanderings of the Lords servants to make odious the doctrine which they deliver 4. We make faith in man not in God Gods effective instrument which he infundendo creat creando infundit and having wrought it in the soul he doth put it also in acting thereby to evidence to man his justification As some great and munificent Lord having laid up a great treasure for one of his poorest and most abject servant in some secret place tels him first what he hath done bestowes it fully and freely upon him but the servant not finding it is never the richer because he hath not the possession of it At length the Lord lights a torch guides his servant to the secret place and by the light of the torch shewes him the treasure which before in the minde and purpose of the doner was wholly his bids him to see and possesse Here the torch is that Lords instrument by which he discovered to his servant the treasure and evidenced him to be indeed enriched So and much more compleatly is faith Gods instrument by which he justifies us to our selves i. e. declareth and evidenceth us to be just and justifyed B. 2. Man is the causa secunda between God and the action and so man should be still said to justifie himself Either I understand him not or he speaks words without matter or words that are nothing to the matter in hand He is speaking of justification as of a transient act of God upon man in time This act of God we acknowledge no other but Gods declaring and evidencing man to himself justifyed Gods manifestation or pronouncing his justification to his conscience How man in this act of God should be the causa secunda between God in the action he explaines not and I perceive not That man is the causa secunda between God in the application of justification so manifested I deny not But in this doth man no more justifie himself then is above expressed Or because it is faith in man which we pronounce to be Gods instrument of justifying is therefore man causa secunda or a self-justifyer nay faith even in man is Gods Creature and the same nothing of mans essence Not of our sâ—lves it is the gift of God Ephes 2. 8. May not God lay up his own instruments where it pleaseth his will and wisdome for his own use or ceaseth it to be Gods instrument or in Gods hand when it is laid up in the heart of man for his good Obj. But faith acts not in man without man as the second cause acting it and by such acting his faith man should justifie