and the Causa sine quâ non 3. Why I make not Christs Righteousness 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 quâ non To the first Question As a Lease or Deed of Gift is properly a mans Instrument in conveying the thing leased or given and as the Kings Pardon under his Hand and Seal is his proper Iustrument of pardoning justifying the Malefactor so is the new Covenant Gods Instrument in this case or as it were his Mouth by which he pronounceth a beleever justified To the second Question Christs Satisfaction hath severall ways of causing our Justification 1. That it is the Meritorious Cause I know few but Socinians that will deny 2 That it is besides properly a Causa sine qua non cannot be denyed by any that consider that it removeth those great Impediments that hindered our Justification And what if a man should say that because impulsive and procatarcticall Causes have properly no place with God that therefore the greatest part of the work of Christs Satisfaction is to be the Causa sine qua non principalis But because my assigning no more to Christs Satisfaction but merit and this improper causality doth seem to some to be very injurious thereto I desire them so long to lay by their prejudice passion while they consider of this one thing That we are not in this business considering which cause hath the preheminence in regard of physicall production but which in morall respect deserveth the highest commendation In point of Morality the greatest praise is seldom due to the greatest naturall strength or to the strongest naturall causation In Physicks the efficient hath the greatest part of the glory but in Morals the Meritorious Cause hath a singular share As Diogenes said Quare me non laudas qui dignus sum ut accipiam plus enim est meruisse quam dedisse beneficium The like may be said of some Causes sine qua non That they deserve far greater praise in morall respect then some that have a proper causality do It is agreed that removens impedimentum quâ talis is Causa sine quâ non And doth not the greatest part of a Phisitians skill lye there That which taketh away the offending humor and clenseth out the corruption and removeth all hinderances shall have the greatest share in the glory of the cure of any artificiall cause Suppose a man be condemned by Law for Treason one payeth one thousand pound for his Pardon and thereby procured it under the broad Seale hereby he suspendeth and afterward disableth the Law as to the offender This man is the efficient of those happy effects from which the justification of the Traytor will follow But as to his justification it self he is but the Causa removens impedimenta taking away the force of the Law and the offence of Majesty and whatsoever els did hinder the justification of the offender And yet I think he deserveth more thanks then either the Laywer that justifieth him by Plea or the Judge that justifies him by Sentence So here If you had rather you may call it a necessary Antecedent Or if any man think fitter to call these Causes by another name I much care not so we agree concerning the nature of the thing To the third question Christs Righteousness cannot be the materiall cause of an Act which hath no matter If any will call Christs Righteousness the matter of our Righteousness though yet they speak improperly yet farre neerer the truth then to call it the Matter of our Justification To the fourth Quest. That Imputation is not the Form is undenyable The form gives the name especially to Actions that have no matter Imputation and Justification denote distinct Acts And how then can Imputing be the Forme of Justifying Though I mention not Imputation in the Definition nor among the Causes here yet it is implyed in the mention of Satisfaction which must be made ours or else we cannot be Justified by it Though therefore the Scripture do not speak of imputing Christs Righteousnesse or Satisfaction to us yet if by Imputing they mean no more but Bestowing it on us so that we shall have the Justice and other benefits of it as truely as if we had satisfied our selves in this sence I acknowledge Imputation of Christs satisfactory Righteousness But I beleeve that this Imputing doth in order of nature go before Justifying And that the Righteousness so Imputed is the proper ground whence we are denominated Legally righteous and consequently why the Law cannot condemn us It is a vaine thing to quarrell about the Logicall names of the Causes of Justification if we agree in the matter To the fifth 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 leades me not to it 1. If Faith be an Iustrument 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 believeth though its 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 himselfe 3. For as Aquinus 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 of the Principall cause by a proper Causalitie And who dare say that Faith hath such an influx into our Justification Object But some would evade thus It is say they a Passive Instrument not an Active To which I Answer 1 Even Passive Instruments are said to help the Action of the principall Agent Keckerm Logick pag. 131. He that saith Faith doth so in my judgement gives too much to it 2. It is past my capacity to conceive of a Passive Morall Instrument 3. How can the Act of Believing which hath no other being but to be an Act be possibly a Passive Instrument Doth this Act effect by suffering Or can wise men have a grosser conceit of this 4. I believe with Schibler that there is no such thing at all as a passive Instrument The examples that some produce as Burgersdicius his Cultor gladius belong to Active Instrument And the Examples that others bring as Keckermans Iurus instrumentum fabricationis mensa scamnum accubitus terra ambulationis are no Instruments except you will call every Patient or Object the Instrument of the Agent The Instrument is an Efficient Cause All efficiencie is by action and that which doth not Act doth not effect Indeed as some extend the use of the word instrument you may call almost any thing an Instrument which is any way conducible to the
acknowledgeth that the payment is not made by the party to whom remission is granted and so saith every man that is a Christian 2. He saith It was a full valuable compensation therefore not of the same 3. That by reason of the Obligation upon us we our selves were bound to undergo the punishment therefore Christs punishment was not in the Obligation but only ours so the Law was not fully executed but relaxed 4. He saith he meaneth not that Christ bore the same punishment due to us in all accidents of duration and the like but the same in weight and pressure therefore not the same in the Obligation because not fully the same Not the same numerically nor perhaps specifically in all respects if the losse of Gods Love and Image and incurring his hatred the corruption of the body the losse of right to and use of all the creatures and the losse of all comforts corporall or spirituall c. were any part of the curse yet that it was in the greatest respects of the same kinde I doubt not 5. He saith God had power so farre to relax his owne Law as to have the name of a surety put into the Obligation which before was not there and then to require the whole debt of that surety And what saith Grotius more then this If the same thing in the Obligation be paid then the Law is executed and if executed properly and fully then not relaxed Here he confesseth that the sureties name was not in the Obligation and that God relaxed the Law to put it in Now the maine businesse that Grotius there drives at is but to prove this relaxation of the Law and the non-execution of it on the offenders threatned I Iudge that Mr. Owen hath no better successe in his next assault of Grotius on that question whether God manage this work of relaxing the Law punishing Christ for us c. as a Creditor or as an absolute Master or as a Judge under Lawes or as the supreme Rector the last of which Grotius maintaineth He that readeth Grotius and Vossius own words doth need no further defensative against the force of Mr. Owens Answers But this is nothing to me Onely I would not have any truth to fare the worse for Grotius his defection It was himself that deserved the discredit and not the Truth of God The third and last contradicted Article is That no man is actually and absolutely justified upon the meer payment of the debt by Christ till they become Beleevers Against this you send me to both the forementioned Authors Answ. 1. When I first cast my eye upon the two fore-cited Disputations in Maccowski I had thought he had spoke onely of the universall conditionall Justification of men when he saith that active Iustification was at the begining of the first promise But my charitable thoughts I soon saw were mistaken But I find as his Doctrine is very strange so are his proofs as slender as any mans you could have sent me to 1. Is it not strange that Active justification should be perfected 5000. yeares before Passive justification is in being I thought Passive justification had been the mediate effect of the Active And that God had justified no man who is not thereby justified 2. And as strange and abhorred to me is the other part of his doctrine viz. That Faith onely taketh knowledge of justification formerly wrought And his Arguments are as weak as the doctrine erroneous 1. The first is Because the Object must needs go before the Act. Answ. But is it not pity that so excellent a Doctor should think that justification that not only in offer but in actuall being should be the object of justifying Faith I am ashamed to confute so sencelesse an assertion Sure it is Christ and not actuall justification that is the object When the Scripture saith that Whosoever beleeveth shall be justified is it a learned Exposition which thus interpreteth it You that are elect are already justified and if you will beleeve it you shall know it 2. He citeth Paraeus saying that Faith doth not effect justification but accept it Answ. 1. They that say Faith is the instrumentall cause of justification must needs say that Faith effectth it 2. Faith accepteth Christ for justification 3. It accepteth not justification as being actually and absolutely our owne before the acceptance But it accepteth a conditionall justification offered to me that by the acceptance it may become absolutely mine His citing of Tossanus words is nothing for him For when hee saith that All the Elect are justified in Christ in respect of the merit thereof it is no more then to say that Christ hath merited their justification which who denyeth But the great Argument which he and all of his judgement do trust to is this If the surety so undertake or discharge the debt that the creditor rest satisfied with that undertaking or discharge then is the debtor free from the debt But Christ hath so undertaken and discharged the particular debts of the Elect therefore the Elect are freed Answ. 1. Payment is refusable or not refusable That payment which is of the same thing in the Obligation either by our selves or our Delegate is not by the Creditor refusable so that if we had paid it or Christ had been our Delegate appointed by us to pay the same that was due then God could not have refused to take that payment But Christ being appointed to this by the Father and not by us and also paying not the very same but the value God might have refused the payment 2. Where the payment is not refusable there the discharge of the debtor is not refusable but doth follow ipse facto But where the payment is refusable as here it was the Creditor may accept it upon what termes he pleases and chuse to give the Debtor an absolute discharge so that it being the full agreement and pleasure both of the Creditor and the Surety the father and the sonne that the Debtor should have no discharge by the payment but upon a certaine condition by him to be performed no doubt he shall have none till he have performed it 3. So that Gods accepting the payment and being satisfied with it may be understood 1. In respect to the Surety and the value of his payment and so God was well pleased and fully satisfied in Christs payment as bein the full value that his justice did require and beyond which he expected no more at his hands 2. Or it may be spoken in reference to the debtor the sinner and the effecting of his freedome And so God was not immediately upon Christs payment so satisfied or well pleased with the particular offenders as to deliver and discharge them without requiring any thing at their hands 1. For he will first have them perform the imposed condition of taking Christ who hath bought them for their only Saviour Husband and Lord. To these of Maccovius Mr. Owen in
APHORISMES OF JUSTIFICATION With their Explication annexed Wherein also is opened the nature of the Covenants Satisfaction Righteousnesse Faith Works c. Published especially for the use of the Church of Kederminster in Worcestershire By their unworthy Teacher RI. BAXTER Hebr. 9. 15. And for this cause he is the Mediator of the New Testament that by meanes of death for the Redemption of the transgressions under the first Testament they which are called might receive the promise of eternall inheritance HAGUE Printed by Abraham Brown Anno 1655. To the Learned zealous Faithfull Ministers of Jesus Christ Mr. Richard Vines Master of Pembroke-Hall in Cambridge and Mr. Anthony Burges Pastor of Sutton-Cold-field in Warwickshire Members of the Reverend Assembly of Divines my very much valued Friends and Brethren in the work and Patience of the Gospel Most Dear Brethren I Never well understood their meaning who crave Patronage to their Writings from the meere great ones of the times If they need or desire a borrowed honour methinks they quite mistake their way and go for water to the top of Teneriffe which they should seek in the valleys or stillflowing Springs To give them our Writings to instruct them is agreeable to our Office and duty but to submit them to their censures or crave the protection of their Greatnesses and prefix their names as the Signatures of Worth as if Truth did ever the more dwell within where this gilded sign is hang'd without this seemeth to me to be as needlesse as absur'd The self-idolizing sin of Pride is so naturall to all men especially when furthered by dignities and wordly pomp that they are apt enough without a tempter to take themselves for the summum genus in every Predicament as well as their owne A little help wil mount them above their Teachers and a little more above Ordinances but the top of the ambition is to be above God that on them as the Alpha all may depend and to them as the Omega all may ascribe I think it a more needfull work not for our honour but their own safety to make them understand that Princes and Parliaments are Schollers in that Schoole where Christ is the Master and we his Ushers and that at least in respect of our Nuncupative Declarative power we are their Rulers in spirituals whom they are bound to obey Heb. 13. 7. 17. and that all Ministers are Bishops or Overseers in the language of the holy Ghost Act. 20. 28. Phil. 1. 1. c. and not the servants or pleasers of men Gal. 11. 10. They leave us the bare name of their Teachers so that we will teach them nothing but what they have taught us first and leave out the hard sayings which they cannot beare For my part though I have found as much respect from such as most yet have I known very few of the most Religious great ones but if I would deal but half as plainly as my commission and patterns doe require I should quickly turne their respect into indignation If the old round dealing Prophets and Apostles were among us I doubt some pious Gentlemen would take them for sawcy proud pragmatical fellowes and would think their tongues though not their revenues did need a reformation All this is no blemish to Magistracie the Ordinance of God but to humane nature that for the most part can as ill beare a high estate as a mans brains can endure to stand on the pinacle of a steeple Nor is this to blame any due honor to such but to excuse my selfe that I employ not my breath to fill any empty bladder For you who are low and full I suppose the acknowledgement of your worth is lesse dangerous As I am more beholden to Reason and Religion then to Greatnesse so doe I feel them command my esteem and affections most powerfully Your names therefore have I chosen to prefix to this paper 1. As acknowledging you indeed fit censors of my Doctrine having alwayes valued the judgement of Aristotle in Philosophy before Alexanders and thinking your approbation more considerable then all the Lords or Commanders in the Land If you approve I shall be the more confirmed and so will my people for whom I write it who know and honour you If you disallow for I cannot conceit that there is nothing to be disallowed I shall suspect and search againe 2. I desire also hereby to acquaint the world with the reverend esteem I have of you and to shew the contemners of the ministry some examples for their confutation That they who think that England hath not as learned holy experimentall judicious humble heart-piercing Preachers as any other Nation whatsoever may look upon you and confesse their errour That for all the dissentions that have so wasted both Church and State it may appeare in you wee had some that were lovers of peace and if all had been so minded our wounds had bin heal'd That our ignorant yonglings that rush upon the Ministry who may see themselves in that glasse 1. Tim. 3. 6. may consider their distance from such as you and be humbled That those who wonder at the spreading of errors in our people may see in you we had some that taught them better And Alexander did unjustly hang Ephestions Physitian because hee dyed And that our Authors or defenders of Ieroboams worship whose fingers itch to be doing with the Prophets that gain say them may see what manner of men they have to deale with whose worth is sufficient to disgrace the proudest persecutors and make their names hatefull to all generations To whom I commend Sir Walter Rawleighs true observation Hist. of the world par 1. l. 4. c. 3. â— 6. If Antipater upon his conquest had carried all other actions never so mildly yet for killing Demosthenes all that read his eloquent Orations doe condemn him for a bloody Tyrant to this day Such grace and reputation doe the learned Arts finde in all civill Nations that the evill done to a man famous in one of them is able to blemish any action how good soever otherwise it be or honorably carryed To such ends as these have I here prefixed your names and not to interesse you in the dishonour of the imperfections of this slender Tractate Farewell Reverend Brethren and go on to be exemplary in all spirituall excellencies And that the Lord of the Harvest would send forth more such and lengthen and succeed your labours to his Church is the hearty prayer of Your unworthy fellow-servant RI. BAXTER Apr. 7. 1649. To the Reader THe slow progresse of knowledge and the small addition that each age doth make to the foregoing both in common Sciences and Divinity doth seem a wonder to many Among many others these foure are no small impediments to this desirable increase 1. Every ignorant empty braine which usually hath the highest esteem of it selfe hath the liberty of the Presse whereby through the common itch that pride exciteth in men to seeme
is so easie and obvious 3. I call this Act a Discharging as being the proper term in Law to express it by We were before charged by the Law we are by this Act discharged 4. I call it a discharge of the Offender For an offender is the only capable object or recipient of it There can be no pardon where there is no offender 5. I call it a discharging from the Obligation to Punishment For. 1. You must look at this whole process as legall and not as referring chiefly to Gods secret judgment or thoughts Therefore when it is called a freeing man from the wrath of God you must understand it onely of the wrath threatened in the Covenant and so from the obligation to Punishment You must not conceive of the change in God but in the sinners relation and consequently in the sence and sentence of the Law as to him 2. The common word by which this terminus a quo or rather the evil which this pardon doth directly free us from is expressed is Guilt But because the word Guilt is variously used sometimes referring onely to the Fact sometimes to the desert of Punishment and sometime to the dueness of Punishment or the Laws obliging the Offendor to bear it I have therefore here taken it in this last expression because I think that Guilt is taken away only in this last sence as I shall further open anon Therefore many define Guilt only in this last sence Reatus est Obligatio ad Poenam This Obligation though expressed only in the Covenant yet ariseth also from the Fact For if the Covenant had not been broken it had not obliged to suffering but still to duty only 6. I call it a Discharging by the Gospell-promise or grant It is called a Promise in reference to the benefit as future but more properly a Grant in reference to the benefit as present or past either in the conferring or already conferred This I do for these Reasons 1. To clear the nature of this Act. 2. To divert your thoughts from Gods secret judgment where most suppose this Act performed and to turn them right and free God from the imputation of change A great question it is Whether Remission and Justification be immanent or transient Acts of God The mistake of this one point was it that led those two most excellent famous Divines Dr. Twisse and Mr. Pemble to that error and pillar of Antinomianism viz. Iustification from Eternity For saith Dr. Twisse often All Acts immanent in God are from Eternity but Justification and remission of sin 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 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 sanctified or just c. Gods fore-knowledg 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 the colours which it beholdeth For whatsoever some say I do not think that every variation of the object maketh a reall change in the eye or that the beholding of ten distinct colours at one view doth make ten distinct acts of the sight or alterations on it Much less do the objects of Gods knowledg 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 or hear 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 Relation though not a reall upon our persons as Sanctification doth But this is only to affirm and not to prove and that in generall only 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 are 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 fundamentum terminus and the Relation will unavoydably follow by a meer resultancy The direct effect therefore of Gods Active 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 reall Effect who hath unfolded I dare not be to 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 1. The 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 morall improper Action whereby it may be said to pardon or justifie which properly is but virtuall justifying 4. By this Grant God doth 1. Give us the Righteousness 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 layd our Relations of Justified and Pardoned in title of Law do necessarily result Object But this Act of God in granting Pardon to Beleevers was performed long ago But our Justification is not till we beleeve Answ. Though the effects of Causes as Physicall do follow them immediately yet as Morall they do not so but at what distance the Agent pleases sometimes A man makes his son a Deed of Gift of certain Lands to be his at such an age or upon the performance of some eminent Action Here the Deed of gift is the fathers instrument by which he giveth these Lands The passing this Deed is the proper Act and time of Donation Yet the son hath no possession till the time prefixed or till the Condition be performed At which time the conditionall Grant becoming absolute and giving him right to present possession it is not unfitly said that his father doth even then bestow the Lands though by no new intervening act at all but only the continuation of the former Deed of gift in force So here the conditionall grant
to be false But yet by such grounds they may very easily overthrow the safety also of unbeleevers while they teach them how to comfort themselves without Faith or to look at all out of themselves in Christ and so to silence the accusation of both Covenants by producing only the Righteousness of one THESIS LII WE must not plead for our Iustification that Christ hath made us free from the very fact nor 2 from the sinfulness of the fact nor 3 from its desert of punishment If Christ had done any of this for us he must verifie Contradictories But we must plead that the penalty is not due to our persons notwithstanding the fact and its sinfulness and demerit because Christ hath satisfied for all this EXPLICATION SO Mr Anthony Burgess in his book of Justif. pag 19. affirmeth as much though some take it for hainous doctrine 1. That the fact should be done and not done is a contradiction 2. So is it That the fact should be sinful and not sinful 3. Or that it should deserve death and not deserve it Or that it should be a sin against that threatening Law and yet not deserve the penalty threatened Besides if any of these three could have been taken off what need Christ have dyed But that which Remission and Justification freeth us from is the dueness of punishment to our persons notwithstanding the dueness of it to the sin because what is due to the sin is inflicted on the person of another already even Christ. So that you see in what sence Christ taketh away sin and guilt which you must observe lest you run into the Antinomian conceit That God seeth not sin in his justified ones When we say therefore that God looketh on our sins as if they had never been committed the meaning is that in regard to punishment they shall have no more power to condemn us then if they had never been committed THESIS LIII THe offending of God and the desert and procuring of punishment are not two distinct effects of sin as some make them nor is the removal of the curse and punishment and the obtaining of Gods favour two distinct parts of our Iustification EXPLICATION THis is plain because Gods displeasure against our persons for his dislike of the sin is never taken off is a chief part of our punishment and therefore not to be distinguished from it but as the Species from its Genus And so when all the punishment is removed then Gods displeasure or the loss of his favour must needs be removed Therefore that Justification in this differs from Remission of sin I cannot yet think as that godly and learned Servant of Christ whom I honour and reverence Mr Burgess of Iustificat pag. 259. doth That Justification besides the pardon of sin doth connote a state that the subject is put into viz. a state of favour being reconciled with God Because even Remission it self doth connote that state of favour For if the loss of Gods favour be part of the punishment and all the punishment be remitted then the favour which we lost must needs be thereby restored Indeed there is a two-fold Favour of God 1. That which we lost in the fall 2. More super-added by Christ besides the former restored Of these in the following Position THESIS LIV. REmission Iustification and Reconciliation do but restore the offender into the same state of freedom and favour that he fell from But Adoption and Marriage-Vnion with Christ do advance him far higher EXPLICATION THe three former are all concomitant consequents of one and the same Act of God by his Gospell The freedom from obligation to punishment is called Remission the freedom from Accusation and Condemnation is called Justification and the freedom from enmity and displeasure is called Reconciliation which are all at once do all denote but our Restauration to our former state Adoption and Marriage-Union do add the rest Some may blame me for putting Union among the relative Graces and not rather among those that make a real physicall change upon us as Sanctificition and Glorification But I do herein according to my judgment whereof to give the full reasons here would be too large a digression I know that Caspar Streso and divers others do place it in an unconceivable unexpressable medium between these two which yet must be called a Reall Union more then a Relative though not Physicall I will not now stand on â—his 〈◊〉 knowledg a Reall Foundation of a Relative Union and a Reall Communion following thereupon But am very fearfull of coming so near as to make Christ and sinners one reall Person as the late elevated Sect among us do lest blasphemously I should deifie man and debase Christ to be actually a sinner And if we are not one reall Person with Christ then one what It sufficeth me to know as abovesaid and that we are one with Christ in as strist a bond of relation as the wife with the husband and far stricter and that we are his body mysticall but not naturall That we shall be one with him as he is one with the Father is true But that as doth not extend the similitude to all respects but to a truth in some THESIS LV. 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 EXPLICATION FOr proof of this I refer you to Master Burgess of Iustificati Lect. 28. THESIS LVI BY what hath been said it is apparent That Iustification in Title may be ascribed to sever all Causes 1. The principall efficient Cause is God 2. The Instrumentall is the Promise or Grant off the new Covenant 3. The Procatarctick Cause â—o 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 his Iustice and Mercy 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 the acquitting of the sinner from 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 quâ non is both Christs Satisfaction and the Faith of the justified EXPLICATION 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