be convicted of moral evil and so unconcernedly to omit the weightier matters of the Law as Judgment Mercy or Charity in Vnity and Faith what can Charity call this but meer Pharisaism and where must such Pharisaism end at length but in Sadducism even denying of the Blessings and Curses of a Future Life For as Drusius hath Si Patres nostri selvissent mâ—râ—â—â—s resurrecturâ— praemia manere â—ustos â—â—st hanc vitam nâ—n tantoperè râ—bellassent Drusius in Mat. c 3. v. 7. Item in c. 22 23. observed it was one Reason alledged by the Sadduces against the Resurrection If our Fathers had known the dead should rise again and rewards were prepared for the Righteous they would not have rebelled so often not conforming themselves to Gods Rule as is pretended by all but conforming the Rule of Sin and of Faith it self to the good Opinion they had of their own Persons and Actions which Pestilential Contagion now so Epidemical God of his great Mercy remove from us and cause health and soundness of Judgment Affection and Actions to return to us and continue with us to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. THE CONTENTS OF THE CHAPTERS Chap. I. OF the Nature and Grounds of Religion in General Which are not so much Power as the Goodness of God and Justice in the Creature And that Nature it self teaches to be Religious Chap. II. Of the constant and faithful assurance requisite to be had of a Deity The reasons of the necessity of a Divine Supream Power Socinus refuted holding the knowledge of a God not natural Chap. III. Of the Unity of the Divine Nature and the Infiniteness of God Chap. IV. Of the diversity of Religions in the World A brief censure of the Gentile and Mahumetan Religion Chap. V. Of the Jewish Religion The pretence of the Antiquity of it nulled The several erroneous grounds of the Jewish Religion discovered Chap. VI. The vanity of the Jewish Religion shewed from the proofs of the true Messias long since come which are many Chap. VII The Christian Religion described The general Ground thereof the revealed Will of God The necessity of Gods revealing himself Chap. VIII More special Proofs of the truth of Christian Religion and more particularly from the Scriptures being the Word of God which is proved by several reasons Chap. IX Of the several Senses and Meanings according to which the Scriptures may be understood Chap. X. Of the true Interpretation of Holy Scriptures The true meaning not the letter properly Scripture Of the difficulty of attaining the proper sense and the Reasons thereof Chap. XI Of the Means of interpreting the Scripture That they who understand Scripture are not for that authorized to interpret it decisively The Spirit not a proper Judge of the Scriptures sense Reason no Judge of Scripture There is no Infallible Judge of Scripture nor no necessity of it absolute The grounds of an Infallible Judge examined Chap. XII Of Tradition as a Means of understanding the Scriptures Of the certainty of unwritten Traditions that it is inferiour to Scripture or written Tradition No Tradition equal to Sense or Scripture in Evidence Of the proper use of Tradition Chap. XIII Of the nature of Faith What is Faith Of the two general grounds of Faith Faith divine in a twofold sense Revelation the formal reason of Faith Divine Of the several senses and acceptations of Faith That Historical Temporarie and Miraculous Faith are not in nature distinct from Divine and Justifying Faith Of Faith explicite and implicite Chap. XIV Of the effects of true Faith in General Good Works Good Works to be distinguish'd from Perfect Works Actions good four wayes Chap. XV. Of the effect of Good Works which is the effect of Faith How Works may be denominated Good How they dispose to Grace Of the Works of the Regenerate Of the proper conditions required to Good Works or Evangelical Chap. XVI Of Merit as an effect of Good Works The several acceptatations of the word Merit What is Merit properly In what sense Christians may be said to merit How far Good Works are efficacious unto the Reward promised by God Chap. XVII Of the two special effects of Faith and Good Works wrought in Faith Sanctification and Justification what they are Their agreements and differences In what manner Sanctification goes before Justification and how it follows Chap. XVIII Of Justification as an effect of Faith and Good Works Justification and Justice to be distinguished and how The several Causes of our Justification Being in Christ the principal cause What it is to be in Christ The means and manner of being in Christ Chap. XIX Of the efficient cause of Justification Chap. XX. Of the special Notion of Faith and the influence it hath on our Justification Of Faith solitary and only Of a particular and general Faith Particular Faith no more an Instrument of our justification by Christ than other co-ordinate Graces How some ancient Fathers affirm that Faith without Works justifie Chap. XXI A third effect of justifying Faith Assurance of our Salvation How far a man is bound to be sure of his Salvation and how far this assurance may be obtained The Reasons commonly drawn from Scripture proving the necessity of this assurance not sufficient c. Chap. XXII Of the contrary to true Faith Apostasie Heresie and Atheism Their Differences The difficulty of judging aright of Heresie Two things constituting Heresie the evil disposition of the mind and the falsness of the matter How far and when Heresie destroys Faith How far it destroys the Nature of a Church Chap. XXIII Of the proper subject of Faith the Church The distinction and description of the Church In what sense the Church is a Collection of Saints Communion visible as well as invisible necessary to the constituting a Church Chap. XXIV A preparation to the knowledge of Ecclesiastical Society or of the Church from the consideration of humane Societies What is Society What Order What Government Of the Original of Government Reasons against the peoples being the Original of Power and their Right to frame Governments Power not revocable by the people Chap. XXV Of the Form of Civil Government The several sorts of Government That Government in general is not so of Divine Right as that all Governments should be indifferently of Divine Institution but that One especially was instituted of God and that Monarchical The Reasons proving this Chap. XXVI Of the mutual Relations and Obligations of Soveraigns and Subjects No Right in Subjects to resist their Soveraigns tyrannizing over them What Tyranny is Of Tyrants with a Title and Tyrants without Title Of Magistrates Inferiour and Supream the vanity and mischief of that distinction The confusion of co-ordinate Governments in one State Possession or Invasion giveth no Right to Rulers The Reasons why Chap. XXVII An application of the former Discourse of Civil Government to Ecclesiastical How Christs Church is alwayes visible and how invisible Of the communion
Justice But to arrive in this doubtful and perplexed way to the right end of this Dispute it will be necessarie to pass briefly through all the several Causes of our Justification and so much the rather because divers before have so done and failed in their Divinity because of a mistake in Logick in miscalling Causes And first we must know otherwise then some have taught That the Material Cause of our Justification is not the graces in us nor the pardon without us nor remission of sins nor obedience of Christ nor of our selves but the person justified is the subject of Justification For who with good sense can say Our sins are justified our good works are Justified Acts. 13. 3â— True it is St. Paul saith by him Christ all that believe are justified from all things from which ye could not be Justified by the Law of Moses Shewing hereby that we are Justified from our sins but not that our sins are Justified And so where St. James speaks so often of which hereafter that we are Justified by Works he intendeth not to say our Works are Justified For t is the person not the qualities of him that is Justified And if any speak otherwise they must be helpt out by recurring to Figurative not proper speaking In such cases as these if ever we would judge aright we must hold as precisely as can be to propriety of speech About the Final cause of our Justification I find nothing singular but in common with all the Acts of God towards man and all the Actions of Man towards God viz The glory of God Neither is there any difference of parties herein But concerning the Formal Cause of our Justification before God some discord is found yea concerning a Formal Cause in General what it is and wherein it consisteth which is very necessarie to be understood to attain to the true notion of being Formally Justified A Formal Cause then is that whereby a thing is what it is subsists in it self and is distinguished from other things being always essential and intrinsecal to the thing so by it constituted that it cannot be so much as conceived without it and cannot possibly but be with it This whether artificial or not I weigh not much but is a true description of that Cause For instance sake A man is a man properly by his soul and not by his body his soul being his Inward form and as it is impossible that he should be so without it so is it impossible but that he should be so with it whatever outward visible defects or imperfections may appear otherwise So in the present cause it must necessarily be that the Formal Cause of our Justification be intrinsecal to the Justified person and that not being that he should not be justified Contrary to what some have affirmed upon this occasion who from an instance of an Eclipse would show that the formal Cause is not alwayes intrinsecal to that which it formeth For say they as it should seem by the autority of Zabarel In an Eclipse of the Sun the Moon interposing is the formal Cause of the Darkness of the Earth and yet it is not intrinsecal to it but separate But the mistake is plain that the Moon being not the cause of the earth it self but of the darkness of the earth only it is not the Formal Cause of that and so may be extrinsecal to it and intrinsecal to the darkness as the formal cause but whether this be so or not we are here only to show that no cause formal can be external to the thing of which it is the form and by consequence that nothing without us can be the formal cause of our Justification or that whereby we are denominated Just before God So that neither Christ nor his merits do render us so Justified And therefore they who to magnifie the mistery of our Justification do object to themselves How a man can be Just by the justice of another and how righteous by another persons righteousness any more than a man can hear with another mans ears or see with another mans eyes do tie such a knot as they can by no means loose For in plain truth neither the one nor the other can formally be But they may say As it is Christs righteousness indeed and rests only in him so we cannot be said to be justified formally by it but as it is made ours especially by Faith and is applied unto us so we may be formally Justified by it To which I say that if that individual formal Righteousness which is in Christ were by any means so transferred formally unto us and infused into us that we should in like manner possess it as did Christ then indeed the argument would hold very good that by such application we were Justified formally by Christs righteousness but no such thing will be granted neither is any such thing needfull For though the Scripture saith directly that Christ is The Lord our Phil. 3. 9. righteousness and St. Paul desireth to be found in Christ not having his own righteousness which is of the Law but that which is through the Faith of Christ the righteousness which is of God by Faith Yet we are not to understand hereby that the formal righteousness of Christ becomes our formal Righteousness but that he is by the Gospel he revealed unto us the teacher of Righteousness and that far different from that Righteousness of the Law which St. Paul calls his own as that which he brought with him to Christ and he is Justification is neither but a certain action in God applied unto us or a certain respect or relation whereby we ar acquit of our sins and accepted to life everlasting Perkins Gal 2. 16. Rom. 8. 30. the Prime Cause of our Righteousness sending his holy Spirit unto us and by his merits appeasing the wrath of God and satisfying his Justice for us all which is not the formal cause of our Righteousness or Justification For neither is that formal righteousness in us which is inherent Righteousness the formal Cause of our Justification But our Justification formal is an Act of God terminating in Man whereby he is absolved from all guilt reputed Just and accepted to Grace and favour with God When God hath actually passed this divine free and gracious sentence upon a sinner then and not before is he formally Justified This is the end and consummation of all differences between God and man and the initiating him into all saving Grace here and Glory hereafter as St. Paul writing to the Romans witnesseth in these words Whom he predestinated them he also called and whom he called them he also Justified and whom he justified them he also glorified CHAP. XIX Of the Efficient Cause of Justification IT remains therefore now that we proceed to the means causes and motives inducing God Almighty thus to Justifie Man a sinner whom he might rather condemn for his unrighteousness And these as
that is in the sense even now Jude 4. explained given over to condemnation by God If we may make humane methods of any use to us in arriving at the knowledge of Gods proceedings as hath been generally received why may we not judge thus of Gods order of Causes Especially having the consent of the Scripture which thus speaks frequently according to the several occasions given And if it be said to be absurd thus to judge of God as unsetled in his knowledge and judgment and being regulated by emergencies We can well answer as in other points of Anthropapathie or Gods complyance with Mans capacity in speaking after humane manner And if God condescends on purpose that we should understand something of him to our edification shall we transcend unnecessarily the limits of modesty and content our selves with no other order or less knowledge than God himself hath of himself and wayes Gods acts several in respect of us may be simple in respect of himself and one but denominated and discriminated variously from the divers habitude of the Object The simple eternal Will and Law of God is this that the Righteous shall be saved and the Unrighteous damned This is his Predestination in general of all mankind subordinate to this are the several intermediate changes the first being immutable And it concerneth not to enquire What kind of Righteousness this is or whence or how man comes by it Whether he hath it as original Justice given him immediately of God at his first institution or whether he hath it superadded and derived from Christ This is certain which St. John saith He that doth righteousness is righteous even as he is â— John 3. 7. righteous whether this Righteousness comes by Nature or Grace And this is another infallible Rule which St. Peter delivereth in his Sermon to Acts 10. 34 35 Cornelius That God is no respecter of Persons But in every Nation he that feareth him and worketh Righteousness is accepted of him Which is his most immutable Counsel and Decree of saving men and the consideration whereof we should firmly and immoveably stick to and put in practise But because it is one principal part of our Righteousness to agnize the Author and ground of it that famous doubt ought here to be touched Whether Righteousness be an effect of Predestination and Election or the Cause thereof with God The answer to this doth require that we be first satisfied in these three things Predestination Election and Vocation and the importance of them and principally to note in order hereunto that however later Authours especially from St. Austins time downward have invented and that usefully and reasonably enough several significations and importances of them which are not to be neglected yet the Scriptures use them promiscuously as may be seen from these instances amongst many Ephesians the first the fourth and fifth the Apostle saith According as he hath chosen i. e. Elected us in him before the foundation Ephes 1. 4 5. of the world that we should be holy and without blame before him in love Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will Where Beza himself in his Annotations will allow Election in the fourth verse to signifie the same as doth Predestination in the fifth And that Vocation is taken for both 1 Pet. 1. 10. may be gathered from St. Peters words saying Who hath called us unto his eternal glory And it is as certain that St. Austine also so confounds them diverse times nevertheless they have their distinct conceptions which may be these For first Predestination or Fore-ordination according to Scripture it self will admit of a contrary object And there is a Predestination to Evil as well as to Good but in a different sense For as we have shown when God is said to ordain to Evil it must be rather understood in the Negative sense when he ordains not to Good but delivers over men to the commission of sin But Election is alwayes in a good sense as is also Vocation and are but so many progressions of Divine Providence in the salvation of the Faithful and not specifically distinct Species or kinds of acts as doth appear from St. Pauls accurate use and Rom. 8. 25 30 placing of them in his Epistle to the Romans Whom he did foreknow he also did predestinate to be conformed to Moreover whom he did predestinate them he also called and whom he called them he also justified and whom he justified them be also glorified Where the Apostle explaining the order of Gods proceeding in the saving of man makes a commutation of tearms expressing it For here Fore-knowledge is not that simple Intuition whereby he knows all things but that effectual knowledg founded on a precedent Decree which is the same with Predestination as now commonly used And that Predestination here is the same with Election is probable from that it is added to be conformed to the image of his Son and Calling is actuating of that Election and Predestination So that Predestination is alwayes understood as an act of Gods counsel and Election when taken properly as distinct from that is an act outward whereby it pleaseth God to take to his special favour certain persons and pass over others And Vocation seemeth to be nothing else strictly taken than that outward means or ministry whereby such are chosen to God As a man first propounds several objects to himself next he pitches upon one and determines to take it thirdly he actually makes choice of the same by some special signal of his will And this God commonly doing by word of mouth calling him to him hath given ground to that form of speech in Scripture of being called and calling the publication and ministration of the Gospel of Grace being that word of Gods mouth by which a man is selected from the rout and refuse of the World to the means of Grace Justification and Glory This I take to be the simplest and soberest state of this perplexed mystery In which I suppose it necessary to be advised how we stick too religiously to the tearms Predestination Election and Vocation because of their mutable signification in Scripture which must needs confound an immutable adherer to any one sense precisely and that such words must be understood rather from the relation they have one to another and the matter treated of as also the occasions than according to any simple sound of them And therefore to return to the Question moved concerning Righteousness as an effect or cause of Predestination Election and Vocation it must be answered from the distinct consideration of these tearms For when all these as sometimes are Synonymous and the same with that Pre-determination of Almighty God to Grace For there is a Predestination and Election and Vocation to Grace as the means as well as to Glory the End then it can be in no tolerable sense said
it Chap. V. Of the proper Acts of God Creation and Preservation or Providence What is Creation That God created all things And how Of the Ministers of Gods Providence towards Inferiour Creatures the Angels of God Their nature and office towards man especially Chap. VI. Of the Works of God in this visible World Of the Six dayes work of God All things are good which were made by God Chap. VII Of the Creation of man in particular according to the Image of God Of the Constitution of him and of the Original of his Soul contrary to Philosophers and the Errors of Origen concerning it The Image wherein it consists principally Chap. VIII Of the Second General Act of God towards the Creature especially Man his Providence Aristotles Opinion and Epicurus his rejected What is Providence Three things propounded of Providence And first the Ground of it the knowledge of God How God knoweth all things future as present Of Necessity and Contingencies how they may consist with Gods Omniscience Chap. IX The method of enquiring into the Nature and Attributes of God Vorstius his grounds of distinguishing the Attributes of God from his Nature examined Of the Decrees of God depending on his Understanding and Will Of knowledge of Intelligence Vision and the supposed Middle knowledge The Impertinency of this middle knowledge invented in God How free Agents can be known by God in their uncertain choice Indifferent actions in respect of Man not so in respect of God All vision in God supposes certainty in the thing known Chap. X. Four Doubts cleared concerning the Knowledge and Decrees of God and free Agents and contingent Effects How man that infallibly acts is responsable for his Actions The frivolous Evasion of the said difficulties by them of Dort Chap. XI Of the Execution of Gods Providence in the Predestination and Reprobation of Man How the Decrees and Providence of God are distinguished The Reason and Method of Gods Decrees Righteousness is the effect and not cause of Predestination to Life Predestination diversly taken in Scripture as also Election and Vocation God predestinates no man simply to Death without consideration of Evil foregoing as Calvin and some others would have it Chap. XII Of Gods Providence in the Reprobation and Damnation of Man Preterition is without any cause personal but the corruption of the Mass of Humane Nature Damnation alwayes supposes sin Chap. XIII The occasion of treating of sin here What sin is What Evil Monstrousness in things natural and Evil in moral things illustrate each other Sin no positive or real thing God the direct cause of no evil St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans makes nothing for the contra-Remonstrants literally and primarily taken Chap. XIV Of Sin more particularly And first of the fall of Adam Of Original Sin wherein it consisteth and how it is traduced from Father to Children The Proofs of it The nature and evils of it And that it is cured in Baptism That Natural Concupiscence hath not the nature of Sin after Baptism Chap. XV. Of the Restitution of Man after sin The Means and Motives thereunto In what manner Christs Mediation was necessary to the reconciling of Man to God Socinus his Opinion of Christs mediation refuted That Christ truely and properly satisfied by his Death and Passion for us Chap. XVI Of the Nature and Person of the Mediatour between God and Man In the beginning was the Word proved to be spoken of Christ and that he had a being before he was incarnate The Union of two Natures in Christ explained Christ a Mediatour by his Person and by his Office and this by his Sacrificing himself The Scriptures proving this Chap. XVII How Christ was Mediatour according to both Natures Calvins Opinion and others stated Of the effect of Christs Mediation and the extent thereof Of the Designation and Application of Christs death Of the sufficiencie and efficacie of Christs death How Christs death becomes effectual to all The necessity of Gods Grace to incline the will of man to embrace Christ Of the efficacie as well as sufficiencie of Gods Grace on the Will of Man Several Gradations observed in the Grace of God Chap. XVIII Of the effect and benefit of Christs Mediation in suffering and rising again seen in the Resurrection of Man The necessity of believing a Resurrection The Reasons and Scriptural Testimonies proving a Resurrection Objections against the same answered Chap. XIX Of the most perfect effect of Christs Mediation in the salvation of man Several senses of Salvation noted That Salvation is immediately after death to them that truly dye in Christ And that there is no grounds in Antiquity or Scripture for that middle State called Purgatory The Proofs answered Of the Consequent of Roman Purgatory Indulgences The novelty groundlesness and gross abuse of them The Conclusion of the first part of this Introduction The Contents of the Second Part c. Chap. I. OF the worship of God wherein the Second Part of Christian Religion consists Of the necessity of worshipping God It is natural to worship God Socinus holding the contrary confuted Of the name of Religion the Nature of Religious worship wherein it consisteth Chap. II. Of the two parts of Divine worship Inward and Outward The Proof of Outward worship as due to God and that it is both due and acceptable to God Several Reasons proving bodily worship of God agreeable to him Wherein this bodily worship chiefly consists Certain Directions for bodily worship Exceptions against it answered Chap. III. Of the second thing considerable in Divine worship viz. The state wherein we serve God What is a state The formal cause of a state Divine Vowes What is a Vow The proper matter of Vows Evangelical Councils That it is lawful and useful to make Vows under the Gospel contrary to Peter Martyr The nature of Vowes explained Chap. IV. Of the matter of Vows in particular And first of the Virginal state that it is both possible and landable And that it is lawful to vow Celibacie or Widowhood No Presidents in the Old Testament favouring Virginity The Virgin Mary vowed not Virginity no Votary before the Annunciation Chap. V. Of the second State of special serving God the Clerical State or Ministerial Of the necessity and liberty of singleness of Life in a Clergy-man The Opinion and custom of Antiquity concerning it That it is in the power of the Church at this day to restrain or permit the marriage of Priests The Conveniences and Inconveniences of wedded Life in Priests Chrysostom's Judgment of Marriage and Virginity recited Chap. VI. Of the third State of serving God a Life Monastical That it is not only lawful but may be profitable also The Exceptions of Mr. Perkins against it examined The abuses of Monastical Life touched That it is lawful to vow such a kind of Life duly regulated Chap. VII Of Religious worship the third thing considerable in it viz. The Exercise of it in the several kinds
works rites or Ceremonies of the Law delivered them by Moses as Saint Paul hath not only taught us but irrefragably proved against them in several places of his Epistles For the summ of his Argument and force may truly be reduced to this form as it is laid down more largely in his third Chapter to the Galatians Judaizing after the embracing of the Gospel of Christ Galat. 3. That way whereby Abraham Isaack Jacob and the most holy and renowned Patriarchs of the Jewish Line were justified before God must needs be it which God chiefly intended for the Justification of their Posterity to whom all the promises of God were made through them But neither Abraham nor Isanck nor Jacob were Justified by the Law of Moses so religious and rigorously now insisted on The first part of this reason will be easily granted by the Jews because they were the principal of the Jewish nation and honoured by God above any that succeeded them and therefore undoubtedly Justified by God But that this justification could V. 17. not be according to or by the Law of Moses Saint Paul in the forecited Chapter apparently proves where he shews that the Law was four hundred and thirty years after Abraham And how could that which then had no being be a cause of justification of Abraham Again the accounting of Righteous before God is to be justified before God But Abraham was accounted Righteous before God by Faith and Galat. 3. 6. Gen. 16. 6. Gal. 3. v. 7. not by Law For so saith the Scripture Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness Therefore They that are of Faith they are children of Abraham that is They who believed and live as did Abraham are Abrahams spiritual seed and heirs apparent of all the Promises made to him whereby all nations not the Jewish only should be blessed Furthermore No man could ever be Justified by that law but may rather be said to be condemned and cursed by it which he nor no man else did ever Deut. 27. 26. keep And the law saith expresly Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the Gal. 3. 10. words of this Law to do them which Confirming is well explained by the Apostle by Continuing For who ever by disobedience breaketh it cannot be said to confirm it or continue in it Now seeing all flesh failed more or less in the due observation thereof there must be provision otherwise made by God if so be he would have any saved It will perhaps be here said That God in such cases had appointed Sacrifices for expiations and reconciliations with him But against this not so much the Auctority as the Argument of the same Apostle makes in his Epistle to the Hebrews saying In those Sacrifices there is a remembrance made of sins Heb. 10. once every year That is notwithstanding there were daily Sacrifices made according to the Law every day and upon special sins peculiar Sacrifices made by the offendor for an atonement yet every year to shew the insufficiencie of the Precedent Ceremonies mention was made of the sins of the People when the High Priest entred into the Holiest of Holie And the reason of this imperfection is given by the Author to the Hebrews when V. 4. he argueth First from the nature the Sacrifices themselves That it is impossible that the blood of Bulls and of Goats should take away sins or as one of their own Prophets before him intimateth saying Wherewith shall I Mic. 6. 6. come before the Lord and bow my self before the High God Shall I come before him with Burnt offerings and Calves of a year old Will the Lord be pleased 7. with thousands of Rams or with ten thousands of Rivers of oil Shall I give my first born for my transgression The fruit of my body for the sin of my Soul And so again in the book of the Psalms Sacrifices and offerings thou Psal 4. 6 7. didst not desire mine ears hast thou opened Burnt-offerings and sin-offerings hast thou not required Then said I Lo I come in the volume of the book it is written of me c. All which with many such like places do declare what esteem Good and Godly men had of the Legal Sacrifices that were but in themselves insufficient and unacceptable to Almighty God for either the expiating and satisfying for sins or the appeasing of God offended by the same and therefore some further remedie some more excellent means of reconcisiation were necessary And this appears from the ends of such Sacrifices instituted which principally were these First to declare a right that God had in all those Creatures which he had given man for his use and service Secondly to represent to man the guilt and punishment unto which he was subject by his sins as verily as that beast so slain and sacrificed before his eyes Thirdly to insinuate unto him the true means of becoming reconciled unto God offended which was A Second general end of the Old Law which was to prefigure the Messias and only true Saviour of the world who related not only to Abrahams seed but to all to whom the promise made to Abraham related viz. Gen. 22. 18. Galat. 3. 10. In thy seed shall all the Nations of the earth be blessed And therefore if such an objection be made Wherefore serveth the Law if not to such Ends Saint Paul answereth thus It was added because of transgressions to whom the Promise was made Because of Transgression First by reason that the Oral Covenant made with Adam and renewed to Abraham suffice not of it self to contain man in his dutie without the additional statute committed to writing by Moses called signally The Law Secondly this became to them under it a rule and direction until such time as the seed to whom it was promised should come i. e. The fulness of the Gentiles to whom through Adam and Abraham both the Messias was promised Whence appeareth the vanitie of the Jews imagination supposing that God by an immutable decree had affixed the priviledges and benefits of the Gospel entirely to the Jews And this inferrs another argument used by Saint Paul against the perfection and perpetuity of the Jewish Law For nothing was promised to Abraham and his seed peculiarly but upon the Covenant of Circumcision But Abraham was not reputed righteous before God by vertue of Circumcision but being Righteous was Circumcised and all the principal Promises made to Abraham as the Father of the Faithful were before Circumcision as the historie in Genesis assures us and Saint Paul to the Romans argueth and concludes against the Jews They which are the children of the Flesh are not the Children of God that is in that respect or for that cause because they were lineally descended from Abrahams flesh and blood but the Children of the Promise are counted for the Seed i. e. They were the persons comprehended in the Covenant and promises made to
but they were the intermediate effects of the stock of Grace treasured up in the Soul and exhorting and improving it self by the continual supplie of the Spirit of Christ according to the * Mat. 25. 16. doctrine of St. Paul to the Corinthians saying Insomuch that we desired Titus that as he had begun so he would also finish in you the same Grace also Therefore as ye abound in every thing in Faith in utterance in knowledge and v. 7. in all diligence and in your love to us see that ye abound in this Grace also Of this influence of Christs Spirit to the augmentation of Grace in the hearts of the true believers speaketh the same Apostle to the Colossians thus The Col. 2. 19. Head from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministred and knit together encreaseth with the encrease of God Sanctification then may be described The Grace of God infused into the Soul of a Sinner and purifying it by Faith as Justification is the reputation and acceptation of a person for Just by almighty God through the intuition of the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ And yet more distinctly to declare their mutual agreement and difference it will conduce much to the due understanding of them both First then Justification and Sanctification agree in their Subject The true believer the same person who is Sanctified being also Justified and he that is Justified being Sanctified also For so saith the prophet Nahum of him The Lord is slow to anger and great in power and will not at all acquit the wicked Nahum 1. 3. And when we find St. Paul affirming the contrary in appearance viz. that God justifieth the ungodly we are to understand him to speak not in Rom. 4. 5. Sensu composito in such manner that he is justified while he is so ungodly but in Sensu diviso a distinct sense and season as if it had been said Him that was once ungodly as he seems to interpret himself in his Epistle to the Corinthians where having spoken of the many abominations men were subject to he saith And such were some of you but ye are washed but ye are 1 Cor. 6. 11. Sanctified but ye are Justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God Secondly Justification and Sanctification agree in their foundation which is at least inchoate and initial holiness For though no mans inherent holiness arises so high as to denominate him truly Just or holy for its own sake yet both to Sanctification and Justification is necessarily required some preparatorie and imperfect holiness consisting principally in the Conversion of the mind to God from sin Thirdly both Sanctification and Justification are alike owing to Faith as their immediate Cause next under Gods Spirit as may be gathered from the prayer of Christ for his disciples Sanctifie them through thy truth thy word is Joh. 17 17. truth That is the doctrine of Faith received To which Faith the effect of Sanctification is ascribed by St. Peter in the Acts whereby the Act. 15. 9. hearts of the Gentile were purified or Sanctified Fourthly they are both equally imputed unto us through the Righteousness of Christ Therefore saith St. Paul to the Corinthians To them that are Sanctified in Christ Jesus And 1 Cor. 1. 2. Heb. 10. 29. to the Hebrews it is said We are Sanctified by the blood of the Covenant So that no less are we Sanctified then Justified by Christs death and merits and the imputation of them But on the other side they are distinct in some formalities such as these may be for First the immediate cause of our Sanctification is in holy Scripture imputed to the operation and influence of the Holy Spirit as our Justification is more properly attributed to Christ the mediator between God and man As appeareth from St. Pauls words to the Thessalonians But we are bound to give thanks alwayes for you brethren beloved of the Lord 2 Thes 2. 13. because God hath from the beginning chosen you to Salvation through Sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth And St. Peter Elect according 1 Pet. 1. 2. to the foreknowledge of God the Father and Sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience Thirdly Justification looketh backward being an absolution of the guilty from sins formerly committed and holding him Just but no man is justified actually from sins which hereafter he may fall into But Sanctification relates chiefly to the time future For not only is a sinner by the Spirit of Regeneration and Sanctification purged from the old Leaven of sin and malice but he becometh a New Lump and unleavened 1 Cor. 5. 7. Rom. 6. 13. and whereas he hath yielded his members as Instruments of unrighteousness unto sin he doth yield himself unto God as those that are alive from the dead And old things are done away in him and all things become new And whosoever is 1 Joh. 3. 9. thus born of God doth not commit sin for his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God Fourthly to the Act of our Justification the will of man doth not necessarily concurr though it dissents not but is rather passive than Active but to our Sanctification is absolutely required the co-operation of the will and affections of man with the Grace of God in all those who have attained unto the use of reason For indeed by baptism Infants are so far Sanctified as to be freed from that hereditarie evil incident unto them which their will concurred not to but to actual Sanctification from those evils our wills did freely consent actual concurrence of our wills is necessary Fifthly Our Justification is entire and absolute at once no man being partly Justified and partly not Justified though he be partly Just and partly unjust or unholy But no man in this Life is so perfectly Sanctified as that there wants not somewhat to consummate the same because Justification being altogether the Act of God and not at all of Man God may and doth wholly and freely remit the guilt of sin to the penitent offendor But Man being also concerned in the Sanctification of himself his acts are imperfect and defective so that the effect it self partakes of the same and so Sanctification continues imperfect And it is not all at once but answerable to our natural man proceedeth by degrees Until we all come Eph 4. 13. in the unity of the Faith and of the knowledg of the son of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the Stature of the fulness of Christ which fulness of stature is that we are to hope for and enjoy only in heaven Lastly to search no farther into this point before Justification there must of necessity goe some degree of Sanctification even in the opinion of such as contend most rigorously for freeness of Justification for to make Justification altogether
inconditionate and absolute on mans part is to blaspheme the immutable Justice of God and withall destroy the use of Faith in order to our Justification For it is impossible any thing bearing the name of a cause or condition as Faith certainly doth when we say We are Justified by â—aith should be posteriour to the thing it so relates unto The promise indeed of pardon and Justification of a sinner is actually made to those who do not actualâ—y believe and repent but promise answerably and covenant to believe and repent Non enim ut fâ—â—â— eat ignis cal facit sed quia fervet Nâ—c ideo benâ— currit roâ—a ut rotunda sâ—t sed quia rotunda Aâ—g ad Simplic Qu. 1. but the Execution and performance of this promise is not made before there be an actual fulfilling of our Covenant with God But then on the other side there must be perfect Justification before there can be that perfect Sanctification which we all aspire unto and God expects from us For then are we truly Sanctified when our works are holy and acceptable unto to God which they are not untill they proceed from a person so far Justified as to be accepted of God Whence may be resolved that doubt about Gods acceptation of the person for the works sake or the work for the persons sake For wisely and truly did the wife of Manoah inferr Gods acceptation of their sacrifice from the favour and grace he bore unto their persons and at the same time prove the favour God bore to their persons from the Acceptance of their sacrifice saying If the Lord were pleased to kil us he Judg. 13. 23. would not have received a burnt-offering and a meat-offering at our hands neither would he have shewed us all these things nor would as at this time have told us such things as these That God therefore accepted their Burnt-offering it is a sign he approved their persons but the reason antecedent of Gods acceptation of their sacrifice was because he first approved their persons And yet notwithstanding the goodness of the person is the original of the goodness of the work nothing hinders but the goodness of the work may add value favour and estimation unto the person As to use Luthers comparison and others after and before him the tree bears the fruit and not the fruit the tree And the goodness of the tree is the cause of the goodness of the fruit and not the goodness of the fruit the cause of the goodness of the tree Yet the fruit doth procure an esteem and valuation from the owner to the tree and endears it to him to the cultivating the ground and dressing it and conferring much more on that than others In like manner the Person Sanctified and Justified produces good works and not those good works him but some actions accompanied with Gods grace antecedent and inferiour to the fruit it self Yet doth the fruit of good Works add much of esteem and honour from God to such a person and render him capable of an excellent reward for St. Paul to the Philippians assureth them and us when he saith I desire fruit that may abound to your account Phil. 2. 7. CHAP. XVIII Of Justification as an Effect of Faith and Good Works Justification and Justice to be distinguished and How The several Causes of our Justification Being in Christ the Principal Cause What it is to be in Christ The means and manner of being in Christ. TO the informing our selves aright in the much controverted point of Justification which whether it be a proper effect of Good works or not doth certainly bear such a relation â—o them as may well claim this place to be treated of it seemeth very expedient after we have distinguished and illustrated it by Sanctification explained to proceed to distinguish it likewise from Justice For as Righteousness or holiness the ground of Sanctification is to be distinguished from Sanctification it self so is Justice the ground to be distinguished from Justification its complement and perfect on This being omitted or confusedly delivered by diverse hath been no small cause of great obscurities For Righteousness or Justice seems to be nothing else but an exact agreement of a mans actions in general to the true Rule of Acting and that Rule is the Law or word of God For he that offends not against that is undoubtedly a Just man of himself by his own works and needs nothing but Justice to declare and ackowledg him for such no mercy nor favour As that thing which agrees with the square or Rule is perfect But notwithstanding such supposed perfect conformitie to the Law of God be perfect righteousness yet is not this to be Justified Neither can any man in Religion be said more to Justifie himself than in civil cases where it is plainly one thing to be innocent and to be an accurate unreproveable observer of the Law in all things and to have sentence pronounced in his behalf that so indeed he really is For this is only to Justifie him though in pleading his own case in clearing and vindicating himself a man is vulgarly said to Justifie himself And no otherwise if we will keep to the safe way of proper and strict speaking is it in Religion Supposing that which never happen'd since Christ that a man should have so punctually observed every small as well as great precept of Gods Law that no exception could be taken against him yet is he not hereby Justified though he may be said to be the true Cause of his Justification and that he hath merited it Which St. Paul seems to implie unto us saying For I know 1 Cor. 4. 4. nothing by my self yet am I not hereby Justified For in truth Justification is an act of God only as Judge no less then author of his own Laws upon the intuition of due Conformitie to it or Satisfaction of it And as a man may possibly be just and yet never be Justified taking things abstractly so may a man be unjust and guilty and yet be justified doth not the word of God as well as common reason and experience certifie so much He that Justifieth the wicked and he that condemneth the Just even Prov. 17. 15. they both are abomination unto the Lord. This then surely may be No man then can be justified by himself or any Act or Acts of him no not through Christ But though he cannot thus Judicially and formally Justifie himself it is not so repugnant to reason or Scripture to be said Materially and Causally to act towards his Justification Nay he cannot come up to the rigour of the Rule nor excel so far in Justice and holiness as to demand at Gods hands his absolving sentence yet that he cannot contribute towards it is not only false but dangerous doctrine leading men into a sloathfull despondencie and despair so that they shall do nothing at all because they cannot do all that is required of
many and divers in kind as they are may all be reduced unto the Efficient causes so often mistaken for the formal And truly to proceed herein regularly and clearly we must begin with the Cause of all Causes God himself For though Christ be the Cause of all Causes visible and in the actual administration and execution yet he is not the first but subordinate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrys Hom. 27. in Joan. Cause of Mans reconciliation to God his Justification and Salvation For as holy Chrysostom divinely and sublimely enquiring into the reason that might incline God to restore Man being fallen and lost by his Apostasy from God unto a state of bliss again to admit of any terms of Reconciliation with him determines it it is nothing but the divine Philanthropie of God his free undeserved unscrutable love towards man springing as it were from his own breast beginning within himself and of himself absolutely irrespectively to any outward motives but to show as St. Paul saith He would have mercie on whom he would have mercie and he Rom. 9. 15. would have compassion on whom he would have compassion and because as the Psalmist hath it Whatsoever the Lord pleased that did he in heaven Psal 135. 6. and in earth in the seas and in all deep places He pleased to leave the fallen Angels and he pleased to restore fallen man and that because it so pleased him For not so much as any consideration of Christ could dispose him to decree so favourably on the behalf of man but first this decree passed and then followed the determination of the means most convenient thereunto which was to send his son to give him to be Incarnate and to be the great and powerful Mediator between God and Man mighty to save Christ then was that which in general moved God Externaly to the Justification of Man after he had conceived of himself a purpose to reconcile man to himself as S. Paul clearly asserteth in his second Epistle to the Corinthians All things are of God who hath reconciled us to himself 2 Cor. 5. 18. by Jesus Christ and hath given to us the ministery of reconciliation To wit that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself not imputing 19. their trespasses unto them and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation And more particularly elsewhere he describeth unto us the several parts of our reconciliation to God saying But of him are ye in Christ Jesus 1 Cor. 1. 30. who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness Sanctification and redemption Therefore it is that so often in Scripture Christ is called a Gal. 3. 20. Heb. 8. 6. 1 Tim. 2. 5. Heb. 9. 15. Heb. 12. 24. Mediator between God and man for the bringing to pass and causing to take effect the General decree of God for the redemption of Mankind For through Christ we were by God predestinated as is taught us by St. Paul to the Ephesians Having predestinated us unto the adoption of Children by Jesus Christ unto himself according to the good pleasure of his will Where Eph. 1. 5. we see plainly that Christ was not the Cause that we were predestinated in Christ but the Good pleasure of his Absolute will Again we were called in Christ as St. Jude implieth saying To them that are sanctified Jud. 1. by God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ and called And as we are called and sanctified so certainly are we justified freely by Christ And there is nothing more requisite for us to be fully justified in the presence of God then to be made partakers of Christ and as St. Paul saith To be found in Christ not having our own righteousness which is of the Law Phil. 3. 9. whether of Nature or Moses but that which is through the Faith of Christ the righteousness which is of God by Faith From whence and several other texts of Holy Scripture testifying the absolute necessity of Christ to the Justifying and saving of us it appeareth that nothing can be more contrary to the Eternal purpose of saving man through Christ yea nothing indeed more tidiculous then to but imagine that there can be any Act in man contradistinct from Christ and not receiving all its worth and vertue from Christ which can avail any thing towards the salvation or Justification of him Or that a man being grafted into Christ and partaking of his graces and merits can fail of being accepted of God unto Justification and salvation For as St. Paul saith to the Romans All have sinned and come short Rom. 3. 23 24 25. of the glory of God Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through Faith in his blood to declare his Righteousness for the Remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God c. Now there are three things in General which truly denominate us to be in Christ and partakers of him To be partakers of the benefit of his Passion satisfying for us To be partakers of his spirit and graces thereof renewing and sanctifying us and thirdly to be partakers of his Intercession before God on our behalf For as the Scripture tells us He ever liveth to make intercession for us And this Heb. 7. 25. his intercession an Act of his Sacerdotal office is it whereby Christ properly meriteth for us For the Passion of Christ doth sufficiently discharge us of our former Obligations and obnoxiousness to the Law of God and the punishments therein denounced against the contemners and violaters thereof and so may be said having fully satisfied all the Law justly demanded of us to have merited pardon and remission of what is passed doth not thereupon entitle us to any graces or blessings from God but yet putteth us into a capacity of them but the actual collation of them is rather owing unto the uncessant mediation of him before God in behalf of us And this the Scripture intends when it saith We have a great high Priest Heb. 4. 14. that is passed into the Heavens Jesus the son of God And thus we have made a second step towards the clearing our Justification in its Efficient Causes viz That it is wholly effected by Christ made righteousness sanctification and Redemption unto us But a third thing and that of no mean necessity and difficulty both is behind how we come to be so entirely partakers of Christ how Christ so becomes ours as that God should upon the intuition hereof freely Justifie us For as St. Austin hath observed of the giving of the Holy spirit of God to those that ask aright whereas none can ask aright but by the Holy spirit herein is a great mysterie that a man can be said to be capable of the Spirit before he hath the Spirit In like manner can no man be said to be capable of Christ and
end of all St. Pauls Epistles to the Romans to the Colossians to the Galatians to the Hebrews especially not excluding the other where he most expresly and zealously urges Faith against works and he shall soon perceive that his intention and drift is not absolutely to oppose works of Faith to the doctrine or Grace of Faith but the works of the Law which infirmer Christians newly entred into the Faith of Christ had so venerable an opinion of that they imagined Christ could profit nothing without the works either Ceremonial or Moral of the Law of Moses For whereas they for instance depended absolutely on Circumcision for their Justification and thought that without so sacred and solemn a Rite they could not be profited by Christ himself St. Paul on the other side resolutely and positively determineth thus Behold I Paul say unto you that if you be circumcised Gal. 5. 2. v. 4. Christ shall profit you nothing And presently after Christ is become of no effect unto you whosoever of you are Justified by the Law ye are fallen from Grace Can any thing be more manifest then here it is that Grace is opposed to the Law And that to trust in that is to fall from Christ And when it followeth We through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by Faith is it not v. 5. as plain as need be that Faith is here taken for that doctrine and not Act of Faith whereby men are instructed in Christ believe in Christ adhere to him relinquishing the imperfect and antiquated doctrine of the Law and its practises which by St. Paul are all called Flesh in opposition to the spiritual worship of the Gospel as to the Philippians For we are the Circumcision Phil. 3. 3. which worship God in the Spirit and rejoyce in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh Though I might also have confidence in the flesh c. 4. Rom. 3. 21. And to the Romans But now the Righteousness of God without the Law is manifested that is surely now is the doctrine of Righteousness published through Christ without the Law being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all 22. 20. 27. and upon all that believe And verse the twentieth By the deeds of the Law there shall no flesh be justified c. And verse the twenty seventh the Anti thesis or opposition doth most evidently declare the Apostles intention Where is boasting then It is excluded By what Law Of Works Nay but by the Law of Faith The Law of Works then is the Law of Moses and the Law of Faith is the Law of Christ And to be Justified by Faith in Jesus of which immediately before is to be understood of the whole Covenant of Grace or Faith which is made to us in Christ Jesus and revealed in the Gospel as contradistinct to that Covenant of Works given by Moses and not of any special Grace or Act of Faith as Faith is sometimes distinguished from other Evangelical Graces It may be said that the works of the Law are excluded expresly and therefore no competition is to be made between them and Faith in the case of our Justification To which my answer is That though I grant that not only the works of the Law though moral do not Justifie but not the works of Faith of themselves yet I may confidently say None of these places commonly alleadged by the Exalters of Faith and Depressors of Good works to null the merits of works done even in Faith of Christ do according to the literal meaning really perform so much yet I rather choose to affirm That the works excluded by St. Paul are not works of the Law moral so much as Mosaical For the morality of the Old Law was not properly of Moses but the Ceremonial only and consequently the Law from these taking its denomination of Mosaical when works of the Law are mentioned in the New Testament we are to understand Mosaical Works rather than Moral but not at all works of Faith So that whatsoever is contended or pretended our being justified freely by Grace and justified again by Faith do Rom. 3. 24. Gal. 2. 16. not at all deny our Justification by works of Faith or that the efficiency of such a Faith is quite of another nature from that of works done in Faith But yet it is plain from the whole design of the Epistle of St. James the Quoniam haec opinio fuerit exerta sine operibus justificari hominem aliae Apostolicae Epistolae Petri Joannis Jacobi Judae contra eum maximâ— dirigunt intentionem ut vehementer astruant fidem sine operibus nihil prodesse c. Aug. de Fide Operibus c. 14. second Epistle of St. Peter the Epistle of St. Jude that divers of Old did so mistake St. Paul as of late dayes he hath been understood which moved St. Austin to say directly that these Epistles were on purpose contrived and published to obviate such a misconstruction of the Blessed Apostle as if he had intended when he often sayes We are Justified by Faith only a separate notion of Faith from works and effects of Faith which was far from him from whence we have a very compendious solid and clear reconciliation of St. James his Epistle especially with those of St. Paul For as is shewed already certain it is that it being his principal end to oppose and void the pretensions of the Jews to Justification without believing in Christ or as a more moderate sort of them weak in the Faith of Christ admitting no sufficiency in Christ to justifie them without a dash as least of Moses's Law he declared freely for an absolute sufficiency in the Faith of Christ to justify and save such as believe in him This doctrine of St. Paul was quite mistaken by some who supposed that the act of believing simpâ—y taken or the Grace of Faith specially used was it whereby they were in a certain way of being justified leaving out the fruits and effects of that lively Faith and making it a dead Faith as St. James calleth it who thus argueth against such a fond and dangerous presumption What doth it profit my brethren though a James 2. 14. 17. man say he hath Faith and have not works can Faith save him Faith without works is dead For the use and end of knowledge and Faith being only obedience and a life according to Faith what a monstrous and ridiculous thing would it be to divide the Cause from the effects proper to it But it is usually replied No God forbid we should divide Faith from good Works Where there is true justifying Faith there will be there must be good works and that for several other reasons but not for our Justification This is most true whereever there is a Justifying Faith there will be good Works but what do they there in order to
Justification Just as much as the fair gay train of a Peacock to the bird that draws it after it make a fine show and that is all that we know of But the difficulty is yet very strong behind And that is seeing it is granted that some Faith in Christ is Justifying and some is not Justifying whence comes this about Is it not because one is a lively and operative Faith and the other is drie and unactive and unfruitful So that Faith which is said to Justifie is it self first Justified by its works For though as hath been said Faith doth absolutely produce good Works and not good Works Faith yet good Works are they in which its goodness consists next unto its object Christ and consequently render it Justifying actually And whereas they would evade his and elude St. James's autority by distinguishing the Cause and Sign of our Justification saying That we are Justified only by Faith effectivè effectually but by works as St. James saith ostensivè declaratorily as signs that we are Justified it is a sense meerly obtruded upon the Apostle there being no more grounds or occasion given by St. James why they should understand him that works justifie only declaratorily than are given by St. Paul that I should interpret that Justification which he ascribes to Faith to be only Declaratorily For though Faith received in the mind is not apparent yet when it is professed then it may be said no less to declare our Justification then good works as the Scripture it self testifies saying With the heart man believeth unto righteousness Rom. 10. 10. i. e. to the doing of works of righteousness which proceed from a true Faith and with the mouth confession is made unto Salvation CHAP. XX. Of the Special Notion of Faith and the Influence it hath on our Justification Of Faith Solitary and Onely Of a Particular and General Faith Particular Faith no more an Instrument of our Justification by Christ than other co-ordinate Graces How some Ancient Fathers affirm that Faith without Works Justifie ALL this while we have treated of the complex notion of Faith or at least as it is that first general Grace whereby we are inserted into Christ and justified by it together with its blessed retinue of subordinate Evangelical Graces which are reduced to these three Faith Hope and Charity where Faith standeth by its self and is a peculiar Grace of it self and hath in this acceptation a more then common prerogative attributed unto it in order to our Justification or the bringing us to Christ and partaking of Christ For that is it whereby we are only properly justified and all Graces serve for no other end here than to adopt us for the benefit of Justification through Christ and for Christ's sake alone So that no man can as yet complain That though I derogate somewhat from the vertue and value of Faith in reference to our Justification as it is explained by moderner Divines some I mean I do not in the least detract from the sufficiencies freeness and absolute necessity of Christ's Merits and Grace towards us Yea I establish it nay I augment and commend more the Free Grace of God then do they who have chose another way to express it For all this while I do not compare Works with Christ nor Hope nor Charity nor Obedience with Christ as is plain but I compare now one Grace with another and Faith simply considered with the obedience of Faith For Faith taken as in general for the embracing of the Fundamentum ergo esi justitiae Fides Ambr. Offic. Lib. 1. cap. 29. Lib. 2. cap. 2. Habet vitam aeternam fides quia est fundamentum bonum Habet facta quia vir justus dictis factis probatur c. Id. de Basilicis non Tradendis Fides quae est justitiae fundamentum quam nulla bona opera praecedunt sed ex qua omnia procedunt ipsa nos à peccatis nost◠is purgat c. Prosper Lib. 3. de Vita Contemplativa cap. 21. Fides est omnium bonorum fundamentum humanae salutis initium c. August in Vigilia Pentecostis whole Body of the Gospel hath this undoubted prerogative to be the Grace of all Graces the Mother of all the Fountain from which all flow and as the Fathers generally do justifie because it is the foundation of all access to Christ Which assertion of theirs however later Wits have slighted and contemned as not giving Faith its due in order to our Justification doth in my opinion with much greater perspicuity and simplicity and soundness express its proper office then those newly invented and several distinctions and sub-distinctions confunding rather than setling the judgment of a good Christian And first They ascribe this virtue of Justifying to a special Faith Then they say this Faith doth not justifie as a Work or Act but Grace Then they proceed to affirm That not as a principal cause but only as an instrument created by God in the heart to that end And yet farther Not as an Instrument active and operative but as an Instrument rather receptive and passive as appears by the example given of an Hand which is no true cause of an Alms given but yet it properly receives it But first What a disorder must these multiplyed niceties needs breed in the minds of the simpler sort who are not able to comprehend them and so are brought into great troubles of conscience whether their Faith be directed to Christ under the true relation it ought to bear How much more clear and easie is that Doctrine that teaches First That neither our Faith nor Works proceeding from thence can avail any thing without Christ and that all their sufficiencie is of Christ And next That this Faith and good Works do but qualifie us according to the Free Covenant of Grace for Christ Secondly If it be denyed as in truth it is That Faith is any more an Instrument whether active or passive or a Hand as it is called to lay hold especially in another kind of Christ than Hope or Charity I do not find how they can prove it For I may and do yield a greater degree of vertue in Faith special well founded on God than in other Graces distinct from it but I do not yield that this is the Faith properly by them contended for For It is a mixt compound Grace consisting of Hope and Love which they call Fiducia Confidence and resting upon God This indeed is a special Grace as considered in subordination to the general Grace whereby we assent and submit to the Gospel of Christ but it is not special as distinct from other co-ordinate Graces with it Calvin Inst Petrus Mart. Lo. Com. class 3. cap. 4. num 6. But what manner of Faith say they do we suppose that which goes so ill attended alone First I suppose there is such a Grace distinct from others and that which was set up against
alledged more pregnantly proving the power of that fiducial Faith as I may so call it in order to the Justification of a man before God and yet it must here be granted That this trust is much different from the Faith contended for And that from hence or the like Texts not a different vertue in nature or kind though peradventure more effectual and prevalent is ascribed to it above other Graces in order to our Justification All which is no less true of our Sanctification than our Justification For we are altogether as much sanctified by Faith alone as we are justified by Faith alone or only as appeareth from the Scripture which saith That our hearts are John 15. 3. Acts 15. 9. purified by Faith So that in this much disputed Question I know no readier way of satisfying the fearful and dubious mind than by taking a due estimate of the power of a General or Particular Faith in reference to Fides nos à peccatis omnibus purgat mentes nostras illuminat Deo concliat Prosper ubi supr our Sanctification and judging alike of our Justification thereby For we are sanctified as freely by Grace as we are justified and as much by Faith too as Prosper before cited saith And therefore lastly in answer to divers places of the Ancients which are produced to confirm the modern sense of Justification by Faith alone I answer in a word That it is true their words seem to attest so much but their meaning was plainly no more than this That Faith many times doth justifie without Works that is any outward manifestation of their Faith by such fruits but never without inward acts of Repentance and Charity distinct from this special Faith nor without such a devotion to good Works which wants nothing but opportunity to exert them which is by an extraordinary Clemencie and Grace of God accepted for the thing it self This appears by the example by them given to manifest their meaning of the Thief on the Cross who was so justified and saved by Faith alone without good Works answerable thereunto because his sudden faith was prevented by sudden death Nevertheless That his Faith was so much alone as to exclude Repentance and such Graces as were competible to one in his condition from a proportionable concurrence to that effect is no where said nor intended by any of the Fathers whose judgment is of account in the Church of God CHAP. XXI A third Effect of Justifying Faith Assurance of our Salvation How far a man is bound to be sure of his Salvation and how far this assurance may be obtained The Reasons commonly drawn from Scripture proving the necessity of this assurance not sufficient c. ANother effect of Faith or at least consequence upon it hath the certainty or assurance of our Justification and Salvation been commonly reputed The better to understand which we must take as supposed and granted the difference between the Truth of a thing and Evidence of it or the Certainty that such a thing is and the knowledge that so it is So that the doubting of our Justification or Salvation doth not make the thing infallibly so but leaves us under fears and sometimes disconsolations But a competent remedy seems to me to be ready at hand if we consider that our opinion of our selves is no good conclusion against our selves but rather being founded in humility and disowning of our worth and righteousness an introduction to a comfortable hope in Gods mercy who hath begun at least the work of Grace in us by rendring us studious and anxious about his service and our salvation unless it could be proved which we shall see presently whether so or not out of the word of God that it is his will and direct command that we should have this assurance in us For as saint John saith Hereby we know that we are of the truth and shall assurt 1 John 3. 19 20. our hearts before him For if our heart condem us God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things i. e. the hearts and consciences of the children of God do frequently condemn them but their comfort is that God is greater than their hearts and doth not judge according to what opinion good or evil we have of our selves but according to his own Wiâ—dom and Grace So that it is no just inference at all I do not believe I shall be saved therefore I shall not be saved Nor this I do believe I shall not be saved therefore I shall not be saved Only they have great cause thus to argue and conclude against themselves who are wont on the contraâ—y to reason I believe I shall be saved therefore I shall be saved abusing and corrupting the Doctrine of Faith two wayes most dangerously First In making it the simple and direct cause or means unto Justification and then a reason of a Reflex act whereby they stand assured that they are so acquitted and justified before God But St. John in the former words cited reasons much otherwise For having in the 18. verse exhorted to and urged the duty of mutual Christian Charity he inferreth from thence in the 19. verse Hereby we know that we are of the truth c. i. e. from the Indication of Love and Charity to the Brethren â—ere is then an assurance and that before God and yet as we have seen there resteth and consisteth withall a diffidence and doubting as we have shewed The reconciliation of this seeming opposition doth lead us to a necessary distinction tending to the resolving of the principal Querie and it is between the State of Justification and the Act of Justification And again as to Assurance here spoken of It is one thing to be assured of our Justification and another of our Salvation as shall hereafter appear First then I hold it sufficiently demonstrable out of Scripture That a man may and every good Christian ought to be assured that he is in a state of being justified and saved likewise This we teach well in our Church Catechise in answer to this Question Doest not thou think that thou art bound to believe as they have promised for thee thus Yes verily and by Gods help so I will and I heartily thank our heavenly Father that he hath called me to this State of Salvation through Jesus Christ our Saviour Every Christian that in Baptism hath put on Christ and is entred into a Covenant of Grace with God is bound to believe assuredly that thereby he is in a state of Salvation and Justification For thereby God hath especially elected him to salvation of which Election the Scriptures chiefly if not only speak which are drawn to signife the Eternal Decree of God choosing not only men estranged from God to the Covenant of Grace but such as are first within the Covenant to an infallible Justification and Salvation This I say is rarely if at all intended by any of those many Texts of Scripture alledged to
possible reason being to be found why a thing should so infallibly be to him but because he hath resolved decreed that so it shall be From whence may be reconciled the frequent sayings of the Ancient and some Modern Divines who have said That God fore-sees a thing because it is to be and not that it is because God sees it For the seeing of a thing absolutely and the seeing it to be are vastly distinct notions And most true is that observation to be found as I remember amongst Philosophers concerning the difference between the Understanding of God and its Object and the Understanding of Man or Angel and its object For in the Intellectual Part for I use the word Understanding now and not for the Act as even now of the Creature Understanding is caused from and by the Object to the faculty represented and the Object makes the knowledge and not the knowledge the Object But on the contrary the Understanding of God is many times operative and makes its object A Second capital Doubt will be How such a perpetual and infallible Causation in the Creatour upon the very Understanding and Will of the Creature Rational can consist with the native Prerogative of Liberty of Will given by the same hand to it The Answer to this hath cost many a Volume with no great satisfaction and therefore how little may be expected from this Compendium every equal Judge will easily see I shall forbear Citations of other mens opinions and autorities for brevity sake And endeavour first by a description of Liberty of Will and next by a Distinction of Necessity which is commonly lookt on as the cut-throat of Liberty to contribute something to the easing this difficulty And first we are to distinguish of Free-will as in Mankind in General from that which may be found in any one Individual man For when the noted place of Ecclesiasticus which I will not quarrel at because it is only Ecclesiasticus tells us God made man from the beginning and Eccles 15. 14. left him in the hand of his Counsel What doth it more say Then that God dealt not so straitly with mankind as with other kinds of Creatures inferiour to him He left it undetermined in the nature of man to do this or that And humane nature had such a measure of Wisdom Understanding Reasâ—n and Counsel put into it of God that there was such a power of choosing and refusing as no other Creature could claim and there was not the like natural restraint upon Mans will as upon Beasts will considered still in the general Notion And surely this is no small difference whereof man may glory above beasts which is not wholly lost to man though in particular there should be found a determination of Mans will to one Secondly Liberty is made up of two things necessarily the Acts of Reason and the Acts of Will If any such determination were made of Mans actions in the Individual that Reason were lockt up and could not stir or move in man or when reason out of its native power remaining did argue and debate things variously there were no power left in the Will to follow the Dictates of it but was driven like an horse in a Cart by the fierce voice and whip of the stander-by then indeed all pretense to true Liberty must needs perish because here were a Co-action of the Agent moving him to one thing Co-action as hath been granted by the strictest defenders of Grace is against Liberty and they show by most numerous Autorities and sufficient Reasâ—ns that this is the only enemy to Freedom For as St. Austin hath it This a man is said to have in his Power which if he wills he may do Aug. de Spiritu Litera cap 31. If he wills not he may not do And Hugo de Victore doth yet more expresly define Liberty to be An Ability of the Rational Will whereby through the Co-operation of Grace it chooseth Good and it deserting it Evil. By which it should appear that there is no inconsistencie with the Co-operation of God though infallibly moving to one and the Election of the Will as will yet be more clear in the second thing here principally to be distinguished viz Necessity which I make either in Co-ordinate or Subordinate Causes and directly deny That Necessity in Causes subordinate one to another doth quite destroy Liberty or Free-will especially if we subdivide Necessity of things in subordination into subordination to the first Cause of all and of second Causes I grant that in Causes co-ordinate as Man and Beast or Man and Man acting upon distinct principles and ends Necessitation from the One quite ruins the Freedom of the other and is unnatural and violent being purely an external cause giving no power to the Will to move but exciting and impelling it against the judgment and more rational conclusion of the understanding to accept the terms given But Necessity proceeding from the First and Supream Cause God himself to whom all inferiour Causes are subordinate doth not take away the native Freedom of Man The Reason whereof is because the concurse of the First Cause is not extrinsecal to the Natural Agent but really intrinsecal to it and essential And therefore the division of Causes by Logicians into Internal as Matter and Form and External Efficient and end holds good only in secondary Efficients and not in the first and universal Agent For though it be most true that the Absolute nature and Being of God is quite distinct from created being and extrinsecal yet it is not so as he is a Cause The reason of this will make it undenyable because as is agreed by Christian Philosophers the act of Creation in God is essential to the Creature so produced and the act of Conservation is a perpetuation of that act creative in God and therefore also must needs be intrinsecal to the Creature and the act of Gods concurse moving the Creature and so determining it is no other but a branch of that conservative act in God and so is intrinsecal to the Creature that what the Creature doth by vertue of such influence it may no less be said to do of it self there being a Coalition of both acts created and increated in one than it may be said to subsist of it self by its matter and form of which it consists And this St. Pauls doctrine declares to us where he puts no difference between our living moving and having our being in God all alike depending on him Acts 17. 28. and be equally intrinsecal to all And therefore Gods action terminated in man becomes his as much as those which we conceive to proceed from his own being and notwithstanding to this act of God primarily may be ascribed the turning as it were of the Scales of the Will yet may man also be said herein to determine himself the reason whereof is That both the first Cause and the second are
That grace is the cause of such special acts of God Neither doth any prevision in God of acceptation of grace of complyance with and obedience to Gods will move to Elect or Call any man and that upon that sure ground of Thomas because Thom. 3. Q. 2. 11. c. there can be no possible way of meriting without Grace for Grace is the first Principle or beginning of all merit and nothing can be a cause or so much as conduce to its own being But the inclining of God to such a thing must come under the notion of meriting or to speak more agreeably to our ears doing well before God And therefore they much more truly may be said to be the direct cause of Grace And this not as some Pelagian Hereticks supposed at last by constraint of argument for the more ready and easie operation of mans will but simply to will that which is good Nay St. Austine saith and that truly the same of mans Understanding De Spir. Litera ca. 7. as Will. For he holds forth his mercy not because they do know but to the end they may know Neither because they are of a right heart but that they may be right of heart doth he hold forth his Righteousness whereby he justifieth the ungodly So that provision of good Works or Faith as the reason inclining God to confer Grace simply is altogether inconsistent with the Holy Scriptures and the freeness of Gods grace asserted plentifully therein But there is another and farther tearm of Gods Predestination Election and Vocation which is to his Kingdome of Glory and the Reward not of the merit but work of Faith and Holiness And to these no doubt but we are ordained and elected and called as the end by those means This is that St. Paul intended in that place to the Romans above quoted and in the second chapter telling us God will render to every man according Rom. 2. v. 6. 10. to his deeds and glory honour and peace to every man that worketh good to the Jew first and also to the Gentiles Christ tells us in the twentieth chapter of St. Matthew that to set on his right hand and on his left in Matth. 20. 23. Matth. 25. 34 35 36 37 38. his Kingdom shall be given to them for whom it is prepared and in the 25th who they are for whom it is so prepared from the foundation of the world viz. the Righteous and moreover who are the Righteous namely such who abounded in good works there particularly mentioned And to this may be referred most of those speeches at large falling from the most eminent Fathers of the Church before the time of Austine wherein they affirm that God elected some and not others upon the fore-sight of good works in them and obedience others rejecting for their disobedience Thus spake Origen thus Chrysostome Nazianzene Ambrose and Hierome too who wrote as expresly as Austine against such a freedom of the will which should give any occasion to God to confer his first Grace on man all meaning no more than the election of man to glory upon the intuition of Grace Now if this opinion should be strained to the highest it would not rise to this that God did choose any man simply and primarily for his works sake or his faith fore-seen for as is shewed God elected simply to that and not for that but the most may be wrung out of it is too great a propinquity to Merit But neither doth this follow seeing they who say God in such an order i. e. after grace upon such an occasion as those good works of which God is no less a principle cause than Man doth choose to confer glory on a man or ordain him to life do not say that such fore-seen works bear a proportion to such glory or reward The Scriptures which plainly affirms the former exclude the latter making it a matter of free promise in the original and the gift of God together with mans work as especially to the Romans St. Paul doth Now being made free from sin and become Rom. 6. 22 23. servants to God ye have your fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life For the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ There is nothing therefore more consonant to reason nothing better reconciles the seeming jarrs of the ancient Fathers before and about the time of Austin with that more wary and exact state and defence of the Question concerning Gods election of man upon pre-vision of Faith and Obedience alwayes including Christs obedience and merits and the freeness of his Grace in electing And nothing reconciles the Scriptures more clearly than the opinion which allows God to be the sole reason of his own will and the author of his Grace of Sanctification and Salvation also and yet holdeth such an order between these that God doth not choose any man to his free and immerited Grace of Salvation but through and upon consideration I do not say valuable and proportionable in weight and worth but in nature of the state of Sanctification going before Does not St. Paul render it as a reason why God was to be glorified in his Saints when he came to take vengeance of his adversaries Because our testimony among you was believed And did not the Master of 2 Thes 1. 10. Mat. 20. 2. the Vineyard who is Christ fore-ordain a penny to the Labourers in consideration of their labour foregoing Doth not St. James say the very Jam. 1. 12. same in these words Blessed is the man that endureth temptations for when he is tried he shall receive the Crown of life which the Lord hath promised to them that love him Surely that which man promiseth upon a condition he doth not ordinarily bestow before that condition be performed but ordains it to follow upon it And to the same purpose speaks St. John too in the Apocalypse Be thou faithful unto death and I will Rev. 2. 10. give thee a Crown of life But perhaps they think there remains some force in Calvins argument still against this and that God must be obnoxious to that imprudence that ordinary men are not if he did not first propound the end and then make all means to conform and conduce to it so that man should first be ordian'd to his end of glory or misery before he is All this I grant and yet grant them nothing and this is all they are like to get from confounding the inward and secret acts of God with his outward or the Decrees of God with the execution of them as Twiss notoriously doth in Twissius Animadvers in Collat. Arm. cum Jun. p. 1 2. his entrance to the Animadversions on the Conference between Arminius and Junius It is certain that God doth decree a man to his end before he is but doth he ordain him to such an end before he ordains him to
to him as were his Disciples for whom he there particularly prays the argument would be of the greater force but it is not so any more then it is true in all respects what Christ saith of himself in St. Matthew I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel So Matth. 15. 24. that as Christ before his resurrection shewed himself very nice how he dealt the Word of Life to the Gentiles so might he at the same time declare a more special desire of the salvation of his elected Servants than of others For we know which is another answer how the Scripture frequently by a note of Denyal doth not intend an absolute exclusion of a thing but comparative only as where God says I will have mercy and not sacrifice Christ prayed not for the world so intensly and particularly or at that time Therefore he prayed not at all is no good consequence And no more is that which is made from an adequateness of the Death of Christ to the actual application of the merits of the same death by such intercession as Prayer So that though Christ did not actually pray for all yet he might dye for all according to the distinction of a twofold Quantum in Medico est sâ—nare merit aegrotum Ipse se interimit qui pâ—aecepta Medici â—â—servare non vult Aug. in Joan. cap. 3. 17. Exhibition of Christ abovesaid For Christ was exhibited as an efficacious Means of Salvation and as an efficacious Cure A precious Antidote or Salve is in its own nature and the intention of the Compounder equally operative and effectual to all Persons in like manner affected All men naturally were involved in the same evil alike affected and infected And Christs Death and Passion alike soveraign to all persons and ordained for all And the difference in the first Case and the second is only in the actual Application thereof For as many as receive that are certainly cured And the Scripture tells us As many as receive him Christ to them gave John 1. 12. he power to become the Sons of God to them that believe in his name Therefore the main enquiry is much more about the difference and variety outward then in the means it self And how and whence it comes to pass that the Death and Passion of Christ are so applyed to one above another that to one they become actually efficacious and to another in aptitude and general institution only If in answer to this doubt we shall say That by Faith and Repentance we are made partakers of Christ we shall answer most truly but not sufficiently because the same difficulty returns upon us How some believe and embrace Christ and are made partakers of his benefits and not others seeing so great salvation is tendered to all Here it is absolutely necessary to take in the Grace of God and his free love towards Mankind in some sense at least by all that will be accounted Christians and not by wisdome make void the Cross of Christ For supposing that God hath made a free and general Covenant with Mankind which Covenant neither is nor can as it is a Covenant be simple and inconditionate so far as nothing should be required thereby of Man to the being capable of the benefit of it it will of necessity follow that the knowledge of this Covenant of Grace must be had by such as receive any benefit thereby For else how is it possible that they should fulfill in any manner the Condition required were it no more than some will make it to receive it by Faith without any more ado then to believe themselves into Gods Grace and Favour by a tacite internal act And this and no more being supposed that such love and gracious purpose for which no natural Cause can be found out to certifie or satisfie any man in the truth thereof were ordained for any specially it must be known by Revelation and not Ratiocination And all extraordinary Revelations besides and above what Nature can discover are purely Acts of Grace and not of Work And therefore why God doth reveal his Gospel to one people or person and not to another can have no other original Cause then the Beneplacitum Good pleasure of God as is plainly Matth. 11. 27. affirmed by Christ himself Neither knoweth any man the Father but the Son and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him And before I thank v. 25. thee O Father Lord of Heaven and Earth because thou hast hid those things from the wise and prudent and revealed them unto babes And in St. Peters Matth. 16. 11 1 Cor. 2 14. case Flesh and bloud hath not revealed this unto thee And St. Paul saith The Natural man cannot know the things of God because they are spiritually discerned From whence it is manifest that though God hath decreed the Salvation of a man by Christ yet this general intention cannot possibly take effect without a super-added Act of Free Grace whereby this Reparation is made known Again it follows That there is no obligation upon God antecedent to his own will and inclination moving him to reveal the same and that only out of Congruity not of Justice or Necessity as supposing a decree given to Man which would be wholly unprofitable and vain without such revelation But why one Man or Nation should be blessed with this gift rather than another there is not so much as congruity to be fairly alledged or reasonably offered And as this is the first act of God on the understanding of Man towards his restitution so is the second act of Man flowing mixtly from his Will and Understanding both altogether owing to Gods Grace and that is believing what before he knew For that this is necessary no doubt can be made or that this is the true cause of being profited or not by Christ St. Paul thus writing For unto us was the Gospel preached as well as unto them Hebr. 4. 2. but the word preached did not profit them not being mixed with Faith in them that heard it This diversity is very great but what is the cause of it is not agreed upon For if any shall say It comes from the difference found in Christ as Mediatour he is known to be mistaken by what is said If any one shall say It proceeds from the will and free Election of Man he falls into a worse absurdity for the will of man as free acts or works nothing at all but as determined either by its self or by some other And if by it self either simply and absolutely or joyntly with another cause And this cause must be either taken from somewhat outward as the object duly propounded or inward by way of efficiencie But it cannot be any outward object presenting it self only as a final cause which hath only a moral and not natural influence For if it be demanded to what end such an inward act of the will
is exercised it may very properly and truly be said because of the good discerned and affected in the object But if it should be asked How the Will is moved and by vertue of what ability it so moves to that object there could be no greater incongruity than to affirm That the object was the cause of it For here the efficient cause is sought after As when a man goes to Church if doubt should be made why he goes to Church it were easily answered because he apprehends a spiritual good in that act this is the final cause but doth this give his leggs strength and his nerves and sinews power to walk Sure no man will say so This then is that we enquire concerning the wills inclination to and election of spiritual things not why or to what end for the end is the same to all mens wills but by what means it is fitted and enabled to move thitherward rather than the contrary ways The answer to this must if a man will speak appositely be taken from the efficient cause Now this sufficiencie or efficacie in the will is either natural and common to all which all modest Divines explode or adventitious and of free undeserved and undesired Grace and Gift of God Hence another ascent is made towards the Question of the manner of acceptation of grace and mercy objectively taken For as it is plain that God putteth a difference and not Man between the understanding of one man and another revealing that to one which he doth not to another And of those that know the truth putting a difference between the wills of men in that some that have known the saving truth have rejected it and others embraced it as is yet farther manifest from St. Paul to the Romans What Rom. 11. 7. then Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for but the Election hath obtained To some then who know the truth God gives Grace to some he doth not or scarce discernable A third step to this then must be about the degree and essicacie of this first Grace of God preventing and preparing the will to such noble ends which it could never of it self affect or desire And whether God doth give the like Grace at least in proportion to all he hath so far called illuminated and affected as to have spiritual principles of Life and Motion or not It were too curious to enquire here about the Arithmetical proportion or quantity because that all mens constitutions and dispositions are not alike and therefore like more even timber or plyant clay may be wrought into due form by less forcible means but Whether considering all disparities and disproportion in the matter the influence fashioning the same be of it self sufficient to any one called and outwardly elected to the truth Or whether there be any sufficient Grace which is not efficacious and consummative of the end which is the thing denyed by Jansenius against a stream of Adversaries But Thomas who next to Augustine ruled these Disputes most of all and that upon Austin's doctrine and grounds sayes no less and so do such as stick close to him notwithstanding the strong opposition made by a Modern Order who think to change the world and make it take all doctrines from them to the contempt of their Predecessors and the recalling the exil'd Tenets of Pelagians and such as serve though at a distance under him They profess against him and hold for him They deny his Conclusions but approve and justifie his Principles and Premisses from which they certainly follow Neither can they give St. Augustine a good word whom none openly before them ever presumed to confront in that manner Or if they do speak kindly of him yet they take their own course and speak their own upstart sense For do they not place God as an idle Spectatour yea a servile Attender of the wills self-determination first and then bring him in as Auxiliarie to its Actions This is rancide Divinity yea and Philosophy too Do they not fall directly into that Opinion of Origen confuted by Thomas against the Gentiles thus Certain men not understanding Thomas cent Gent. l. 3. c. 89. how God causeth the motion of the will in us without prejudice to the liberty of the will in us have endeavoured to expound these Autorities above-mentioned in his former Chapters amiss as to say God causeth in us To will and to do in that he giveth us power to will but not so as to cause us to do this or that as Origen expounds it in his Third Periarchon defending Free will against the foresaid Autorities And from hence the Opinion of some seemeth to have proceeded who said Providence was not concerned in those things which related to Free will that is Elections but external matters only who are confuted by that one place of Esay Thou Isaiah 26. 12. also hath wrought all our works in us Whether these words of the Prophet may not be eluded I will not dispute but they plainly declare that according to Thomas his mind All our inward motions as well as outward acts and effects are governed by God For the immediate concurse of God being generally granted by Philosophical Divines necessary to the Act of limited and necessary causes whose principle is more certain and operative then Free Agents are What honest or sober doubt can be made of the immediate hand of God in moving the will free and void of such natural Laws and Propentions as irrational Agents are compelled by There seems much less use of it here than there It may be they fear Gods hand should light so heavy upon the will of Man as to hurt the Freedome of it Which were to be feared indeed if God so concurred with Free Agents as with Natural and proportioned not his Influences agreeable to the subject but surely God worketh not so rudely Or if the Act of God being as natural to the Creature as its own yea unseparable from that of the Creature were not a Total cause together with the Creatures of such Elections But as Thomas saith It is apparent that not in the like 〈◊〉 l. 3. c. 70. manner an effect is ascribed to the Natural Cause and to the Divine Power as if it proceeded partly from God and partly from the Natural Agent but it is wholly from both in a diverse respect as the whole effect is attributed as well to the Principal Agent as the Instrument Thus he From whence we conclude the Grace of God is not given in a common manner or competently to leave the will still separately without particular excitations and prae-motions effectually and immutably as Thomas speaks inclining it to embrace Christ exhibited in the Means of Grace And that no man originally causes himself to differ from another in electing good But supposing the like proportion of Grace given to two persons equally otherwise qualified the reason why one refuses the Good and chooses the Evil is not
God in Christ Jesus necessary to a Christian Sanative Grace and Operative or Healing and Helping Grace The soul of Man being maimed and disabled by his Fall must have a Grace to cure and restore the broken state thereof before outward means can avail to the enabling it to be obedient and to perform acts of a new and spiritual Life adding That it would be all one for to offer Grace to the soul of man so diseased as it would be to offer a pair of Spectacles to a blind man or a staff to him whose leggs be broken And I wonder much to find him charged by a very learned Authour of late that he hath not given us the true efficient cause of the wills of obedience wherein as he well observes consisteth the principal difficulty of all but only the Formal and wherein the efficacie of Grace consisteth For he that shall consult his Fourth Book De Gratia Christi cap. 1. and so on will easily perceive he Id. Tom. 3. lib. 3. c. 1. makes it to be The Grace of God sweetly and unutterably delighting by which the Will is prevented and bowed to will and do whatever God hath ordained it should do and will Surely this is much more than a formal Cause whereby a thing actually is whatever it is And in this manner is the true Believer made partaker of the benefits of Christs Death and Passion to his Sanctification and Justification CHAP. XVIII Of the effect and benefit of Christs Mediation in suffering and rising again seen in the Resurrection of Man The necessity of believing a Resurrection The Reasons and Scriptural Testimonies proving a Resurrection Objections against the same answered OF the Justification and Sanctification of a man by Christ we have heretofore spoken it remains now for the Conclusion of this First Part that we here speak of the most perfect and noble effect of Christs mediation seen in the salvation of Man or his state of perfect Restitution in bliss to which Grace here in this life is but a Prelude and an Introduction And to this end the immediate way hereunto the Resurrection is to be explained as a principle Article of Christian Faith For this also is an effect of Christ our Mediatour as St. Austin witnesseth in these words The Resurrection Aug. Tract 23. in Joann John 6 54. of souls is effected by the eternal and immutable substance of Father and Son but the Resurrection of the Body is by the temporal and not co-aeternal Dispensation of the humanity of the Son And St. Ambrose speaks well to this Ambros de Fide Resurrect Illi quidam qui dicunt animas c. purpose They who think that souls are immortal do not sufficiently pacifie me while they redeem me but in part For what great favour can it be to me when I am not wholly delivered What life can that be if the work of God in me must perish Where is Gods justice if the same natural end be to the just and wicked in common They that would therefore make sure work against infidelity bring their grounds for this point from the Gentiles themselves whom they would convert to this opinion But both the artificial and inartificial arguments reason and testimony of the most famous Philosophers not taken from and grounded upon Divine Revelations will certainly be found insufficient For surely it may be said of the profession of this Article of Faith what Christ saith of Peters confession of him Flesh and Bloud hath not revealed it unto thee For what the Heathen invented of their own heads concerning the Immortality of the Soul if that they invented and not rather received from others better informed they soon corrupâ—ed into an opinion of Transmigration and shifting of Possessions as men do Farms when their Lease is expired or as Liquor is transfused from vessel to vessel For so much one of their principal words imports used to signifie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their meaning And of the Bodies Resurrection little or nothing do we read amongst them But this is the chief point in our Christian Faith and this is that which the ancient Fathers contend for proving there is no proper resurrection but this as particularly the Constitutions of the Apostles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Cons Apost Lib. 5. c. 6. Epiphan Lib. 2. Haeres 64. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Theodoret. Haeretic Fabular lib. 5. cap. 19. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Athanas de Incarnatione 2 Macch. 7. 9. Heb. 11. 35. 2 Kings 4. Wisd 3. Resurrection say they is of things that were fallen Which solid argument is also used by Epiphanius shewing that because the Body only properly falls to earth therefore it is the body chiefly we are to believe shall be raised again And therefore the Athanasian and Nicene Creeds as supplements to the Apostolical express the body in particular and the flesh to be restored And however fair and laudable attempts are made by the Ancients to perswade rather then prove a Resurrection from the several prettie Analogies found in nature of things perishing and after a while returning again to their pristine beauty and perfection yet not to except against them particularly How can we suppose they who knew little of the true God should understand so much as Gods people who had not this revealed in direct terms but in types and shadows and resemblances which have a more litteral and historical sense than this would be And it hath exercised the Pens of learned men both wayes to enquire Whether the Jews generally believe any more than Pythagoras or Plato might have learnt of them a life after the dissolution of the body and a state of bliss after a just and miserable life and death in this world all which as they prove not the Resurrection of the body which is the chief point of Christian Faith The expressions in the Book of Maccabees of the Mother expecting to have her children raised again especially taking the Comment of St. Paul upon that Text as is generally believed along with it though it may well be understood of those more Canonical Histories relating how the Shunamites son was restored to Life again by Elisha And the many divine sayings in the Book of Wisdome do declare a great and glorious prerogative belonging to the Just and Righteous above the wicked in the world to come but what is said may be restrained to the Immortality of the Spirit of men little or no mention being made of the Resurrection of the Body Yet in Esdras we have these words expresly Wheresoever thou findest the 2 Esdr 2. 23. dead take them and bury them and I will give thee the first place in my Resurrection But this Book is not received by the Romanists themselves and in all probality was much later then the rest however it may be said to deliver the current opinion of that Church then And in Maccabees there 2 Macc. 7. 14. is mention