to be cast out of Gods favour and overwhelmed with his wrath and fury Not that it is so really For God hath forgiven their sinns Therefore after his forgiving to retain wrath and anger may be ascribed to malicious men whom we shall hear saying I will forgive but never forget him But in no wise to the most righteous God who so forgiveth the sinns of beleevers as that he will never more remember them To the sixth I will not fall into a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a strife and dispute about words and names Let Mr. Baxter agree with us in the matter and we will not stick to close with him in the name and words Let him deny all malignity and curse in the sufferings of the godly and to do him a pleasure we will call them punishments as he doth After that God had new named Jaakob calling him Israel he remained ever after indifferently called either Jaakob or Israel still the new name made it not a sin to make use of the old also So though the sufferings of the Saints which under the Law were usually termed punishments and judgments are now under the Gospel as it were baptized with new names which more set forth their nature such as are Chastisements and Tryalls yet is it no sin to use the old as well as the new names still for we see the penmen of the New Testament to have done it before us To the Seventh Mr. Baxter is here returned again to his evils and either I understand not what his meaning is or if I do understand him I find a pack of little sence and much arrogance a compound of absurdities and presumptions Absurdities in the Argument it self arrogance and presumption in that which he speaketh for the confirmation thereof First we have his absurd non-sense The very nature of affliction saith he is to be a loving punishment a naturall evill sanctified and so to be mixed of evill and good as it proceedeth from mixt causes Let him that can make sense and truth here meet together I cannot By evil I must needs conjecture he means the evill not of sin but of punishment For the evill of sin as sin cannot be mixt of evill and good being altogether evill By affliction ever since I understood words I have concluded to be meant any vexation trouble sorrow anguish or torment that a man hath inflicted upon him by God or the Creature If this be not affliction I never knew affliction If it be so it is a meer absurdity to affirm every affliction to be a loving punishment a naturall evill sanctified mixed of evill and good c. Pharaoh afflicted Israel and the Devill afflicted Job did either Pharaoh or the Devill mean or act love in afflicting or sanctifie the evill which they inflicted or had the evill which they inflicted either love or good in its own nature who but a man in a dream will affirm any of this gear It cannot be pronounced and concluded that the afflictions which are from the Creature as from the Creature to have such qualifications as Mr. Baxter ascribeth to them either from their own nature or from the will and infusion of the Creature inflicting them And no less absurd is it to attribute such qualifications to affliction universally as it proceeds from God either immediately or mediately by the Creature The torment of the reprobate men and Devils in Hell must be granted to be an affliction and that it is God which afflicts them To conclude hence because it is an affliction an affliction from God it is a loving punishment a sanctified evill mixt of good and evill as proceeding from mixt Causes is such an absurdity that although Mr. Baxter in words affirm it * Abhorret a sensu comuni ut benefiat ei a quo poenae sumuntur Cham. Panstr T. 3. l. 23. Cap. 6. Parag. 11. Monstrum judicij c. id ibid. Paragr 30. yet would he be as loath as any of the opposite opinion to try it If he had said Chastisements are in their own nature so qualified we should have born with it but he shunneth that word as a rock upon which he might have dashed the Curse against believers wherewith as with a treasure he hath laden the Barque of his disputation in this place From such false and absurd premisses therefore to inferr this Conclusion Therefore to say that Christ hath taken away the Curse and evill but not the suffering is a meer contradiction becaus so far as it is a suffering it is evill to us and the execution of the Curse is as fallacious as the premisses absurd Fallacious many ways 1 in jumbling in the execution of the Curs which was neither expressed nor implyed in the premisses 2 In couniting together evill and the curse as equipollent terms which are oft disparates No man besides Mr. Baxter will conclude every evill of suffering to be the Curse Christ mourned for the sins of Jerusalem Mat. 23. 37. Lu. 19. 42. Paul had continuall heavinesse and sorrow in heart for the unbelief of Israel Rom. 9. 2. Jeremy had his soul weeping in secret and his eyes running down with teares for the sin and afflictions of his people Jer. 13. 17. This mourning heavines and weeping were sufferings made impression of evill I mean with Mr. Baxter the evill of pain and sorrow upon them yet were not these sufferings the execution of the Curse upon them 3 In an implyed insinuation that we deny all evill of pain in the sufferings of believers so making them as stocks and stones insensible or as glorified persons impassible Which none ever held though Mr. Baxter would lay it as an absurdity upon all that dissent from him to make the truth which they maintein odious Now Mr. Baxter is not a Child he sees well enough these absurdities and fallacies and doth not either thorow ignorance or inadvertency commit them His use of them therefore doth insinuate to us two things 1 His abasing opinion of others in the superlative confidence that he hath of and in himself If he thought not almost all others to be meer Terrae filios Clods of clay in comparison of himself he would not thus shake out upon his very absurdities and grossest fallacies to be treasured up by us as Oracles becaus his 2 His suspending of conscience that while he pretends unto truth yet takes the reines by any absurd false tricks utterly to subvert it As for his arrogance against God in the Conclusion What reason can be given c. ut supra No marvell if he take the chaire to himself alone from thence to judge of all other Divines when we finde him here as it were usurping the throne of Heaven thence to sentence and censure the wisedome of God in his proceedings In answer to him I shall use no other but Mr. Pembles words against the like arrogance of the Papists Such Questions saith he are vain and curious prosecuted by idle and unthankfull men
saith nothing Yet because this still leaveth sub judice litem and certain Conclusions cannot be inferred upon premisses left uncertain I should answer secondly That the Curse pronounced and inflicted upon Adam related to him not as a private but publike person For so he fell and so was he sentenced As comprehending the Elect he had the blessing of the seed of the woman but as representing those that perish so he had the Curse But touching those things which he and the other godly do suffer the learned Sadeel Adver sus humanas satisfactiones answereth this Popish Argument here proposed by Mr. Baxter out of Augustine Posset aliquis dicere saith Augustine Si propter peccatum Deus dixerit homini In sudore vultus tui edes panem tuum spinas tribulos proseret tibi terra c. Cur fideles post peccatorum remissionem eosdem dolores patiuntur Respondemus saith Austin Ante remissionem esse supplicia peccatorum post remissionem esse certamina exercitationesque justorum i. e. Some one may say If for sin God said to man In the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat thy bread and the earth shall bring forth to thee bryars and thorns c. Why do the beleevers after the remission of sinns suffer these sorrowes We answer saith Austin Before remission these are punishments of sinns after remission they are tryalls and exercises of the Righteous Whereunto Sadeel addeth Non sequitur si mors vitae praesentis aerumnae per se sunt peccati poenae quippe propter peccatum in mundum ingressae eas esse proptereà peccatorum paenas ipsis etiam fidelibus quibus peccata sunt propter Christum condonata i. e. It followeth not if death and the sorrows of the present life be in themselves the punishments of sinn because they entred into the world for or by means of sinn that they are therefore punishments of sinn to the very faithfull also to whom their sinns are forgiven for Christs sake But to do him a pleasure should we give him his Argument forgiving the unsoundnes of it what doth he conclude Thus much that the suspending of the rigorous execution of the sentence of the Law is the most observable immediate effect of Christs death that the redeemed of the Lord partake of By suspending the rigorous execution of the Law he means that he doth forbear an hour or a day or some short time to destroy their lives and cast their souls into hell But so that every moment they must stand in expectation of it and that to their greater torment at last as their sinns during the time of the suspension is increased Whosoever now of Gods redeemed ones receives comfort by this doctrine will I doubt not give his verdit for Mr. Baxter having so nobly and divinely resolved this question that He is a Divine indeed He tells us there be other effects of Christs death c. But he is not at leisure now to communicate them But if they have no more sweet and marrow than this let him keep them to himself we will not be inquisitive after them P. 68. B. To the second Quâ—stion The Elect before Conversion do stand in the same relation to the Law and Curse as other men though they be differenced in Gods Decree Eph. 2. 3 12. Very short yet not so sweet as short He saith it but he proves it not For the Scripture which he brings for proof doth onely declare what the Elect are by nature before conversion not what they are before God in relation to his Covenant of Grace But Mr. Baxter purposeth to speak more largely hereunto in another place which will give me occasion to enlarge my answer At present he is in travell with his answer to the third question and cannot be at rest untill he be delivered of so beautifull a Monster and thus it comes from him Bax. To the third question I confess we have here a knotty question The common judgment is that Christ hath taken away the whole Curse though not the suffering by bearing it himself and now they are onely Afflictions of Love and not punishments I do not contradict this Doctrine through affectation of singularity the Lord knoweth but through constraint of judgment and that upon these grounds following 1 It is undeniable that Christs taking the Curs upon himself did not wholly prevent the execution upon the offender Ge. 3. 7 8 10 15 16 17 18 19. 2 It is evident from the event seeing we feel part of the Curs fulfilled on us we eat in labor and sweat the earth doth bring forth thorns and brayars women bring forth their children in sorrow our native pravity is the Curs upon our souls we are sick weary full of fears sorrows and shame and at last we dye and turn to dust 3 The Scripture tells us that we all dye in Adam even that death from which we must at the Resurrection be raised by Christ 1 Co. 15. 21 22. And that death is the wages of sin Ro. 6. 23. and that the sickness and weakness and death of the godly is caused by their sins 1 Co. 11. 30 31. And if so then doubtles they are in execution of the Law though not in full rigour 4 It is manifest that our sufferings are in their own nature evils to us and the sanctifying of them to us taketh not away their naturall evil but onely produceth by it as by an occasion a greater good Doubtles so farr as it is an effect of sinn it is evill and the effect of the Law also 5 They are ascribed to Gods anger as the moderating of them is ascribed to his lâ—ve Psa 30. 5. and a thousand places more 6 They are called punishments in scripture and therefore we may call them so Lev. 26 41 43. Lam. 3. 39. 4. 6 22. Ezras 9. 13. Hos 4. 9. 12. 2. Lev. 26. 18 24. 7 The very nature of affliction is to be a loving punishment a naturall evil sanctified and so to be mixt of evil and good as it proceeds from mixt causes Therefore to say that Christ hath taken away the Curs and evill but not the sufferings is a contradiction becaus so farr as it is suffering it is to us evill and the execution of the Curs What Reason can be given why God should not do us all that good without our sufferings which now he doth by them if there were not sin and wrath and law in them Sure he could better us by easier means 8 All those Scriptures and Reasons that are brought to the contrary do prove no more but this that our afflictions are not the Rigorous execution of the Law that they are not wholly or chiefly in wrath but as the common love of God to the wicked is mixt with hatred in their sufferings and the hatred prevaileth above the love so the sufferings of the godly proceed from a mixture of Love and Anger and so have in them a mixture
2. 15 is the Originall though our Translation hath it and not by childbearing if shee continue in faith and charity and holines with sobriety The meaning is notwithstanding the Popish false glosse given it that although sorrow in Childbearing was first inflicted upon that sexe as a part of Gods Curse for sin yet as many as beleeve shall finde the Curse removed and a blessing in the place thereof It shall be made a happy furtherance to their salvation putting them in minde of their sin that first brought the sorrow and so filling them with self-deniall and self-abhorring that they shall cleave the faster to Christ for salvation by Faith as knowing themselves forlorn in themselves and stand the more fixed and stedfast in charity holines and sobriety The like is to be concluded of the rest of the sufferings which he particularizeth God so dispenseth them that they may be furtherances of salvation to beleevers by working in them humblednes and self-denyall bearing up themselves by faith in Christ alone both for salvation and increase of their sanctification The very pravity of our nature of which he speaketh is left in us not as a curse in wrath but as a means in Gods wisdome and love more to humble us to make us more to cleave unto Christ and an Antagonist against which fighting in the power and spirit of Christ we may overcome and having overcome may obtein the Crown So that these two Arguments are impertinent and nothing to the question To the third I answer that there is nothing els in it but a wresting of Scriptures from their proper sense that they may be subservient to Mr. Baxters ends First that of 1 Cor. 15. 21 22. maketh nothing to his purpose It onely testifieth that as by man came death i. e. by Adam so by man i. e. by Christ came the resurrection But how far both of the members of this proposition reach is manifest by the following words For as in Adam all dye i. e. all that live and die in Adam perish hopelesly and everlastingly So in Christ all shall be made alive i. e. All that are translated out of Adam into Christ The one man being the root of death to himself and all that are in him the other the root of life to himself and to all that by faith shall be ingraffed into him That this is the genuine meaning of the words is evident by the next verse which amplifieth what th'apostle had said in this viz. who are these all that shall be made alive in Christ First Christ saith the Apostle as the first fruits then they that are Christs at his coming Here is no mention of the resurrection of them that are not in Christ Not that these shall not also be raised by Christ but that the Apostle speaketh here not of resurrection in generall but of resurrection to life whereof those that are in Christ do alone partake Even as of those which dye in Adam he speakes of an everlasting death whereof the unregenerate alone partake So that there is not any mention here expressed of the death of beleevers much lesse of the curse and wrath in their death Touching the second Scripture which he quoteth and citeth Rom. 6. 23. The wages of sin is death who doubts but it is so to them that are under the guilt and dominion of sin But what is this to beleevers And the third Scripture is as pat as the two former For this caus many of you are sick many weak many sleep The Apostle here writes to a visible Church in which it appears there were some true and some but formall and temporary beleevers Christ is in the midst of this Church dispensing his discipline The true beleevers by the contagion of the formall professors had somewhat prophaned the Lords Table by resorting to it somewhat disorderly The other had totally violated it by coming to it drunken and so were worse than beasts from their own Tables here now had Christ inflicted chastisements of sicknes and weaknes for the humbling and amending of those that were his but death and vengeance upon them that while they professed faith in him yet were indeed despisers of him and his ordinances What is this to the Curse of the Law upon beleevers Therefore I shall add to Mr. Baxters And if so my and if so if so that wresting of Scriptures will serve the turn Mr. Baxter will surely have the water run in his ground and his fancy stand though Gods truth thereby fall to the earth To the fourth That his phrase is ambiguous and it is not easily understood what so cunning a sophister meaneth by evills Untill therefore he hath discharged his bushell of distinctions putting a difference after his manner between a naturall and a metaphysicall good whereof this evill is a privation between an evill physicall and an evill morall and an evill in a theologicall sense between the evill of sense and the evill of loss and a whole bundle more of evills that he can distinguish into their kinds we know not what he meaneth when he saith that sufferings are in their own nature evills to us If I should answer in one sense he hath the slight quickly to evade to another and to study out all his evills would cost more labor than a hundred such Arguments and all his evills to boot are worthy of As for that which he addeth Doubtles so far as it is the effect of sin it is evill and the effect of the Law also It is as much as if he had said doubtles so far as the Sun is made or is the effect of a thunder cloud it is black and dark and the effect of the Thunderbolt also We deny it to be the effect of sin as the meritorious cause thereof so that the suffering of a beleever should be the curse or revenging punishment of his sin Christ hath born that and so it shall not be in this respect evill nor the effect of the law neither We grant a beleevers sin to be oft the occasion never the proper cause of a beleevers sufferings To the fifth We deny not the sufferings of beleevers to be oft in Scripture ascribed to Gods Anger But it is so ascribed 1 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to set forth Gods dealings to mans dull understanding by a similitude of mans passions that they might be the more easily comprehended Because man in his anger and wrath doth correct most severely therefore the sufferings of the Saints when they are great and grievous are said to come from Gods anger and therefore said to be from his anger to speak out that they are great afflictions such as children receive from their parents when they are most hot in their passion Not that there is indeed any such passion in God 2 In respect of the sufferers apprehension who being weak in faith and too much prejudiced by sense is apt for a season sometimes in great tryalls to conclude himself
the Apostles termes by which he freely and without necessity in relation to his justice willeth the salvation of one and willeth not the salvation of another loveth or hateth imputeth not or doth impute sinne according to his own free will But justification in the latter sense is an act of Gods righteousnes or faithfulnesse by which hee faithfully and righteously accomplisheth his promises of grace in just â—ying and absolving them which believe by the sentence of pardon pronounced to their conscience according to the Gospel promise made to beleevers No word of promise went before justification in the former sense to make it an act of justice to fulfill that promise neither could it be an act of his natural justice that by the necessity of his nature he should so justifie and love any for then should none be either loved or saved freely of God when contrariwise it was in his own free choice to love or to hate to save or condemn all or mutatis vicibus to have loved Esau hated Jacob to have willed the condemnation of the saved and the salvation of the reprobated But the word of promise preceded justification in the latter sense which it is righteousnesse in God to fulfill therefore is it an act as well of his justice or righteousnesse as of his free grace 3. That Justification in the former sense is antecedaneous or foregoing to all covenants whatsoever 1. In order of nature though not in time it goeth before that covenant between the father and the son mentioned before in the examination of the explication of Mr. Baxters fourteenth Thesis and consequently before Christs undertaking to make or the fathers Covenant to accept what he should offer in satisfaction for the sinnes of the elect For in order of nature the willing of the end alway goeth before the willing of the means conducing to the end so that Gods willing mans righteousnesse and immunity from sinne and loving him to salvation must needs goe before his willing of Christs satisfying of his justice which was but a mean appointed of God to the constituting of man righteous before him that he might be pure from sinne discharged from condemnation and partaker of salvation which was the end Not that there was any precedency or following after of these acts of God in time for they are both coeternal and before all times Whom God hath loved and forgiven their sinnes them hath he so loved and forgiven in and through Christ from all eternity and through and for the merit of his satisfaction Much more doth this immanent act of justification go before not onely in nature but in time also the other temporary Covenants both the Covenant of workes made with Adam and the Covenant of Grace made after by Gospel promise by Christ or God in Christ to us and with us For these had all their being in time But justification in its other acceptation is subsequent unto and followes after and is an effect of not onely the Covenant of Grace but of faith it selfe which the Covenant of Grace calls for as a mean to attain it None else but a beleiver nor he until he actually beleeveth is thus actually justified or hath pardon of sinnes and absolution from wrath declared and pronounced of God in his conscience And thus to be justified in Christ or in God is one thing and to bee justified in our selves by God through Christ is another The former is an antecedent the latter an effect or consequent of the Covenant of Grace 4. That neither the mediation satisfaction of Christ nor much lesse our faith in Christ nor any of the most noble gifts of grace received from Christ either in their habit or operation do move God to justifie us so as to put into him a will to pardon our sins and accept us as righteous or to change his affection from nilling to will our forgivenesse and happinesse and from hating to love and accept us because he is God and therefore immutable and there cannot be any cause of Gods will rendred any more than of God himselfe For the Will of God is God himselfe and these immanent acts of God are God himselfe acting So that the substration of all that Christ hath suffered and by his sufferings satisfied for us and of all that we doe or can doe to put our selves into union with Christ and a conformity with the Will of God are in no wise the causes or conditions or antecedents of Gods first loving owning and pronouncing uâ— righteous and pure from sinne imputed but the effects thereof For he so loveth and justifieth all that in a Covenant way have been or shall be justified in their own conscience before ever they beleeve or live But that the intervening of Christs satisfaction for our sinnes and our recumbency upon and embracing of Christ so satisfying by faith that we may be justified do ad nothing to God which was not nor alter any thing which was in his will before but do onely lay and make a way by Gods ordination how he from all eternity loving and justifying us in himselfe freely may in a course most convenient to magnify both his truth and righteousnesse and withal his grace and mercy at length actually declare us just in and to our own consciences and for ever acquit us from sinne and wrath to the admiration of Men and Angels And so the former justification is a pure simple free and irrespective act of God having no causality out of himselfe moving him to it but the latter is a foederal Gospel or Covenant justification respecting his own Covenant before made Christs satisfaction already given and pleaded in heaven by Christ and mans faith in the mediator and promiser pleading the promise and the blood of the mediator sealing it upon all which he doth he cannot but actually pronounce and declare to the conscience of the beleiver his perfect absolution from sin and vengeance This latter is indeed the justifying wherof the Scriptures primarily speak as oft as they speak of justification by faith but so as the former is also in such Scriptures implyed Neither is the Scripture silent in reference to the former as considered without the latter or apart from it 5. That although all that are or shall be justified by faith in time i. e. each onâ— in the time when he so beleeveth were justified also in Christ secretly in God before they beleived or yet lived even from eternity Yet is there no man justified by vertue of the New Covenant and promise of the Gospel proclaiming right to the Lord Christ to forgivenesse of sinnes freedome from condemnation heirship to Gods Kingdom and all other benefits of Christs Passion until he doth actually beleeve and embrace Christ thorow him to have all those pretious promises made good and effectual to himselfe Though in Christ he were Lord of all before yet differed he nothing in himselfe from a servant from a child of
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
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
but those of Mr. Baxter as far as they relate to it do follow justification 4 The scope of these Scriptures is to urge upon all that draw near to God in prayer to purge out all hatred and purposes of revenge against their brethren from their hearts and the argument by which this duty is pressed is that else it as also any other reigning sin allowed within the heart will make both their persons and prayers an abomination to the Lord. God will not hear will not forgive such as bring while they bring such a devill in their hearts before him they shall depart without any more answer of peace to their souls then they are disposed to give to their brethren against whom they are provoked From these Scriptures therefore we may gather how they are qualifyed which are forgiven and justifyed not by what qualifications and works they have obtained justification That whosoever hath tasted of the pardoning grace of God the same by beholding in Christ the glory of Gods grace as in a glasse is transformed into the same image of grace love mercy goodnesse pity c. towards his brethren as himself hath found in God and sees shining forth upon him from the face of God through Christ 2 Cor. 3. 18. That in whomsoever this mercy and goodnesse of God appears not whatsoever he boasteth of faith and devoutnesse in prayer yet it is certain that he is empty of justifying faith and of the justification which is by faith and so we have here some description of the justifyed and unjustifyed not a precept of duties by which the unjustifyed may attain to be justifyed 5 The three last quotations of Mr. Baxter do subvert utterly all that he built by the former quotations For these Scriptures affirming it to be not indefinitely prayer but the prayer of faith which saveth and obtaineth forgivenesse that not the asking simply but the asking of the faithfull in Christs Name is prevalent that not every one but we know that whatsoever we aske we have our petitions granted do manifest that whatsoever vertue is in prayer it floweth from faith prayer it self is a dead work unlesse faith enliven it and all our works of mercy and forgiving dead works untill faith becomes the living root from which they derive life or rather hath breathed out the life which it hath suckt from Christ our life into them That it is Christs name and mediation that makes all accepted with God and that not to all but to those peculiar ones of Christ that are in union and conjunction with Christ it being a priviledge peculiar to true beleevers that is here mentioned under the word we we have it saith the Apostle the world hath no part in it Esaus forgiving Sauls confession of sin and Simon Magus his prayer for forgivenesse may as in Mr. Baxters last quotation Act. 8. 22. perhaps be so far heard and forgivenesse obtained from the Lord as to the exempting of them from some temporall vengeance but not to interest them in the justification of the Gospell If the cryes and workes of any of these dogs bring them in to partake of the childrens bread it is but in mans judgement alone before God it was their faith and cleaving to Christ yea being in Christ by faith that of dogs made them children and partakers of the Gospell priviledges So these Scriptures in no wise prescribe as I said the duties by or for which we are but delineate the Acts and qualifications of those that are justifyed by Christ So much in generall to the summe of these Scriptures as for the meaning of the severall Scriptures and how Mr. Baxter argues from them as the Papists how the Sophisters for so our men fitly tearm the Papists endeavour from them to prove justification by works and the Protestants answer and confute them I leave to the Reader to fetch from the Commentators themselves whom they shall finde to speake fully as Mr. Baxter knoweth but concealeth not daring to enter the Lists with them The third duty which he brings as coofficiating with Pag. 236. faith to justification is a complexion of duties the whole swarm the vast mountain of duties all that men and Angels can devise to be duty yet that he might declare how he can measure and contain so huge an Ocean in his fist he crusheth them so together as that they may be held in the concave of two Eg-shels love and sincere obedience and their works Fain would he have followed Bellarmine as his shâ—ddow at every turne but he finds his genius somewhat differing from Bellarmines The Cardinall was for prolixity Mr. Baxter is for brevity Bellarmine puts love in the fourth place as operating to justification with faith and thence proceeds to more But Mr. Baxter follows him here to love and weary to go after him any further in particulars shakes hands in love with him and parts from him with good leave in respect of his method but in his matter to hold with him throughout the work The first Scripture which he quotes is the first which Bellarmine alleadgeth thus B. Luk. 7. 47. though I knew in Pinks interpretation of that It seems Pink hath given the right interpretation of that Text which all the Protestants give But Bellarmine interprets it otherwise and must not Christ mean as Bellarmine will have him The words of the Text are these Wherefore I say unto thee her sins which are many are forgiven for she loved much But to whom little is forgiven the same loveth litle What doth Mr. Baxter hence conclude the same with Bellarmine her much love was the ground of the forgivenesse of her many sins and so her love went before her justification and forgivenesse which followed as the fruit or consequent thereof Bellarmine and his fellowrs put authority and holinesse upon this interpretation else would not Mr. Baxter who makes right reason the foundation and rule of his Religion forswear his wit and reason to follow it For it is evident from the Text to all that are not sworn enemies to the truth that the Lord Jesus reasoneth here from the effect to the cause and not from the cause to the effect from the womans great love that many sins were forgiven her causing this love not from the greatnesse of her love as from the cause why so many sins were forgiven her So runs the Text Which will love most he to whom the creditor hath forgiven 500. pence or he Ve. 41 c. to whom he forgave 50 The answer was I suppose he to whom most was forgiven Thou hast well said saith the Lord so it is with this woman she loves much because much was forgiven her Who sees not here the forgivenesse to be the cause of the love not the love of the forgivenesse Or will Bellarmine which affirmes this woman to be Mary Magdalen or Mr. Baxter after him say that while she was yet a Harlot and had seven Devils in her that
thing that firmly susteineth namely the Righteousness of Christ imputed to us and not on the holiness and grace inherent in our selves For this is unperfect c. therefore we cannot for it be counted Righteous before God But the imputed righteousness of Christ is a perfect righteousnes in which there is nothing that can offend the eyes of God but all things that can abundantly please him Vpon this alone therefore are we to rest as upon a thing sure and stable and to beleeve that by it alone we are justified 7 This may undoubtedly be affirmed and it is the opinion of all Divines that God can justifie men and make them pleasing and amiable to him without any inherent quality or habits infused 8 To the same purpose and somewhat more fully speaketh Bellarmine The guilt or obligation to punishment saith he may be taken away without the infusion of Righteousnes For nothing hinders by how much the less God can will the not ordeining to punishment and the pardoning of the offence and the not accounting him for an enemy to whom he hath not granted the gift of habituall Righteousness 9 The Scope of James in the second Chapter of his Epistle is to shew that we are justified not by a barren but by a fruitfull Faith 10 The meaning of James is not that Faith without works is dead c. For it is evident that we are justified by Faith even without works But his meaning is that Faith without works that is which refuseth to work or is noâ— disposed to work is a dead Faith vain and justifieth not What therefore James alleageth out of Gen. 15. Abraham beleeved God to this purpose he alleageth it that he beleeved being in readiness to work Therefore he saith that in the work of offering his Son the Scripture was fulfilled speaking of his Faith prepared to work It was fulfilled I say as to the execution of that great work to which his Faith was prepared 11 If any where in Scripture thou hearest reward or wages promised know that it is no otherwise due then by Gods promise freely he hath promised freely he gives If thou wilt abide in his Grace and Favour make no mention of thy Merits 12 All Papists consentingly make the Merits of Christ the foundation of mans merits as far as he can merit Neither Faith nor works nor doing nor sufferings say they have any other vertue to merit then what they receive from the merits of Christs death then as they are dipt in his blood this makes them acceptable to the Father 13 When Christ saith of the woman Luk. 7. 47. Many sins are forgiven her for she loved much it is to be understood not that she loved much and so her much love was the cause of her great forgiveness but contrarywise that because many sins were forgiven her therefore she loved much 14 To be given freely and to be a retribution to works are as much opposit as that which is free and that which is from Justice or as not due and debt And this way of inference the Apostle useth in the beginning of this 4th Chapter viz. speaking of Justification by Grace 15 The work of Justice is wages or Reward and this way of Justice Grace excludeth whose work is meer gift or Donation 16 In this verse the Apostle concludeth that Christ hath saved us from all the evill both of fault and punishment That there is nothing of condemnation remaining to them that are in Christ because all judgment is taken away both to the fault and the punishment 17 It is certain that when originall sin is remited that the evils which it brought are not remitted and taken away as all finde by experience Notwithstanding they remain not under the consideration of punishment because the fault being taken away there can be no desert as to punishment remaining 18 I will remember their iniquities no more saith the Lord i. e. I will neither in this world injoin any Penance for them nor in that which is to come inflict any punishment for them So hath the Holy Ghost promised that our sins shall be forgiven by the New Covenant of Grace 19 In regard of the uncertainty of our own righteousness and the danger of vain glory it is most safe to repose our whole confidence in the sole mercy and benignity of God Baxter THe bare act of beleeving is not the onely condition of the New Cardinall Contarenus in Rom. 4. Covenant but severall other duties also are parts of that Condition The Common opinion that justifying faith as justifying doth consist in any one single act is a Wretched Mistake by the one act of faith he means Faith in opposition to works Aph. p. 235 248. Faith it self is our righteousnesse viz. our Evangelicall as Christ is our Legall Righteousnesse It self Toletus a Iesuite upon Rom. 3. is imputed to us for righteousnesse Aph. p. 125 126. It justifieth as it is an act of ours and as it is a morall duty App. p. 80. 102. Both Faith and workes make up one condition one righteousness one perfect righteousness of our own by Cardinall Cajetan upon Rom. 3. which we merit to be justified by God by the legall righteousness which is in Christ And consequently Faith doth not lean upon anothers and works upon their own righteousness but both make up one compounded righteousness and goodness which make us righteous and good also and by this righteousness and goodness deservers of justification salvation Aph. Thes 17 18 19 20 23 24 26. and scatteringly throughout the whole Book Faith as an act of ours and of it self with other workes procureth Righteousness And God hath used Toletus the Iesuit up on Rom. 1. works to justifie as he hath used faith even in the same kinde of causality So we have found Mr. Br. oft affirming as may be seen in our former quotations Let him deny that he holds the consequents of these two Antecedents if he will It is so far from being an error to affirm that Faith it self is our righteousness that it is a truth necessary for every Christian to know yea it both is our Righteousnesse and is imputed to us for righteousnesse The very personall performance of faith shall be imputed to us for a sufficient personall payment of righteousnes Idem in Rom. 4. as if we had paid the full duty and righteousnesse which the Law requireth This is the substance of his words though not his very words which being continued in terms of a Metaphor cannot without the citing of the whole similitude be expressed to the understanding otherwise Aphor. p. 125 126 129. There is a two-fold righteousnesse attainable by Christ at least in words the one an inherent righteousnesse in our selves consisting in the seed and acts of Faith Love Holinesse c. the other in Christ but made over to beleevers by Gods Donation if not imputation Both of these are absolutely necessary to salvation neither is