coâ—senting with him I confesse I can hardly think it worth my labour yet something must be done this only being premised which hath also been before observed That when our Protestants sometimes say the word faith in this Proposition we are justified by faith is to be taken objectively they intend not to exclude faith it selfe from its concurrence to our Justification as Mr. Eyre doth for we have shewed in the first Chapter their unanimous consent in making faith the instrument or condition of our Justification But only to deny it to be the matter or meritorious cause of our Justification which they truly say is only the righteousnesse of Jesus Christ who is the object of our faith So that we are justified by Christ as the meritorious cause of our Justification and yet by faith as the instrument or condition upon which the righteousnesse of Christ hath effect upon us to our Justification And so I come to prove that faith is to be taken subjectively for the grace or act of faith not objectively for Christ throughtout the Apostles discourse for Justification by faith SECT II. 1. SUch an Interpretation of the words as makes non-sense of most §. 3. of the Scriptures which speak of Justification by faith is not to be admitted But to put faith for Christ beleeved on makes non-sense of most of those texts which speak of Justification by faith Ergo. For proof of the minor we shall begin where the Apostle begins to dispute for Justification by faith Rom. 3. 21 22. But now the righteousnesse of God without the Law is manifested even the righteousnesse of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ put faith for Christ believed or and the words run thus Even the righteousnesse of God which is by Christ of Jesus Christ or put it for the righteousnesse of Christ and they run thus Even the righteousnesse of God which is by righteousnesse of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all that beleeve Almost the very same words doth this Apostle use Phil. 3. 9. That I may be found in him not having my own righteousnesse but that which is through the faith of Christ the righteousnesse which is of God by faith Where in like manner if faith be put for righteousnesse we must reade the words thus Not having my own righteousnesse but that which is through the righteousnesse of Christ the righteousnesse which is of God through righteousnesse I hope the Reader doth not expect that I should spend time in confuting these absurd paraphrases I count that sufficiently done in mentioning them In the same Chapter to the Romanes ver 25. Whom God hâ—â—h set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood According to Mr. Eyre we must reade it Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through Christ in his blood or at best through righteousnesse in his blood But his blood being here set forth as the object of the faith mentioned in the text the blood of Christ must be made the object of his righteousnesse if by faith be meant righteousnesse which will resolve the words into a pretty piece of sense Again ver 26. God through the death of Christ is said to be the Justifier of him that beleeveth in Jesus What 's that of him that christeth in Jesus or what is it It is an easie matter to say that faith is put for Christ or his righteousnesse but the mischief is the substantive cannot be varied into a verbe or participle to make an intelligible Proposition for example We are justified by faith that is will Mr. Eyre say by Christ or his righteousnesse But then change the substantive into a verbe or participle and give me the sense of it As He that beleeveth in Christ is justified If faith be put for Christ what is it to beleeve in Christ or what do we mean when we say We are justified by faith in Jesus Christ We are justified by Christ in Jesus Christ or by righteousnesse in Jesus Christ This latter I confesse hath a more tolerable sound but not a grain more of sense For when we say We are justified by faith in Christ Christ in that Proposition is the object of faith and we the subject But if faith signifie righteousnesse then Christ is the object of his own righteousnesse Of the non-sense of this Interpretation the Reader shal see more in that which follows 2. Justification by Christ or his righteousnesse was finished in his death according to Mr. Eyre Ergo if faith signifie Christ or his righteousnesse we were justified by faith as soon as Christ was dead But many yeares after Christs death there were many who were to be justified by faith Rom. 3. 30. It is one God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the future tense which shall justifie the circumcision and uncircumcision that is Jewes and Gentiles by faith which is the application of the general Conclusion ver 28. We conclude That a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the Law Ergo they were not justified by faith as soon as Christ was dead 3. But because Mr. Eyre by his marginal Annotation referres us §. 4. to Rom. 4. let us make some enquiry into that Chapter And if we prove that faith in that Chapter is meant of the act not of the object this controversie is ended We begin with the third verse Abraham beleeved God and it was imputed to him unto righteousnesse What can be more plain then that it was Abrahams believing which was imputed to him of the sense of that phrase we have spoke already even as when it is said of Phineas Psal 106. 30 31. Then stood up Phineas and executed judgement And it was imputed to him unto righteousnesse I appeal to common sense whether his executing of judgement were not the thing that was imputed to him unto righteousnesse or if something be to be understood which is not expressed let every mans fancie be left to its liberty to supply what he sees sit and we shall be much the better for the Scriptures 2. The same is also delivered more generally of all believers ver 5. To him that worketh not but beleeveth his faith is imputed to him unto righteousnesse If there had been no more spoken in all the chapter this had been enough to prove that by faith here is meant the act not the object For 1. It is the expresse letter of the text To him that worketh not but believeth 2. That faith is here meant which is a mans own before it be imputed His faith is imputed to him unto righteousnesse But the righteousnesse of Christ is no mans before it be imputed If it be let us know what act that is distinct from imputation and antecedent to it by which Christs righteousnesse is made ours 3. That faith is here meant which is so a mans owne as that in individuo it is no bodies else But Christs righteousnesse is not so any one mans as to be no bodies
notion includes shame and sorrow and self-abhorrency c. which faith precisely doth not As to the Conclusion of this paragraph which concernes my subscription to the testimony to the truth of Jesus Christ a book so called I do not remember that ever I subscribed it in this or any other County The second Argument is this To interpret Justification by faith §. 9. that faith is a necessary antecedent condition of Justification gives no more to faith then to works of nature as to sight of sin legal sorrow c. for if these be conditions disposing us to faith and faith a condition disposing us to Justification then are they also conditions disposing us to Justification for causa causae est causa causati Answ This Argument at the long run overthrows all humane contracts at least it fights as strongly against them as against us Titius gives a hundred pounds per annum to Sempronius upon conditon he give two pence a week to Maevius This two pence cannot be paid unlesse the silver be digged out of the mines and melted and stamp't and delivered out of the Coyners hand c. Ergo Sâ—mpronius his giving two pence a week to Maevius is not the condition of his holding his 100. li. per annum at least no more then the mine or bank is Is not this gallant Logick 2. I deny that legal sorrows and the sight of sin c. are necessary conditions disposing to faith because God hath not promised to give faith if we be convicted or legally sorry These Preparations are necessary physically not morally because the soule cannot seek out for life and salvation in another while it hath confidence of sufficiency in its selfe If any man beleeve without these he shall be saved notwithstanding 3. The answer therefore is that the things which are necessary naturally are not the conditions of gift but those only which are made necessary by the will of the Donour h L. conditiones eztrinsec F. de cond demonstr and so doth the Civil Law determine Caius gives Seius all the fruits that grow upon his farme the next year it is necessary that fruits grow upon the farme or else Seius cannot have them yet Caius his gift is not conditional but absolute 4. As to that logical axiome Causa causae est causa causati Mr. Eyre knows it must have more limitations then one or else 't is dangerously false But in the present case 't is altogether impertinent for neither are legal preparations the cause of faith nor faith the cause of Justification but the condition only and so the causa causatum may go whistle The third Argument is this that by which we are justified is the §. 10. proper efficient meritorious cause of our Justification Faith as a condition is not so Ergo. Answ I deny the major Mr. Eyre proves it by a threefold Argument 1. By the use of these Propositions particles he would have said by and through in ordinary speech which note a meritorious or instrumental cause As when we say A souldier was raised by his valour a tradesman lives by his trade 2. From the contrary phrase as when the Apostle denies that a man is justified by works and by the Law he excludes works from any causal influxe into our Justification Now that which he denies to works he ascribes to faith 3. From other parallel phrases in Scripture where we are said to be redeemed justified and saved Per Christum per sanguinem per mortem per vulnera Answ These are i De Justif l. 1. c. 17. Bellarmines wise Arguments to prove that faith doth justifie per modum causae dignitatis aut meriti by way of causality worth or merit which it seems Mr. Eyre accounts unanswerable otherwise he would not have brought them again upon the stage in an English dresse when our Protestants have beat them off so often in Latine 1. To the first I deny that the particles By or Through are alwayes the notes of a cause meritorious or instrumental How many times do we finde them in one Chapter where they are not capable of any such signification Heb. 11. 5. By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death and ver 11. Through faith Sarah received strength to conceive seed ver 30. By faith the walls of Jericho fell down ver 33. By faith they stopped the mouthes of Lions ver 35. Women by faith received their dead raised to life again with many other passages in that Chapter That it is the grace of faith which is here spoken of appears from the description of it ver 1. will Mr. Eyre grant the Papists that faith was the meritorious cause of these effects I hope then he will no more reproach me as popishly affected It may be he will say it was the instrumental cause But let him shew how What instrumental efficacy did faith put forth in Enochs Translation did it either subtilize or immortallize his body or how was faith an instrument in throwing down the walls of Jericho It is naturally impossible agere in distans to act upon an object which the Agent toucheth not formally or virtually or what efficiency did faith put forth upon dead bodies to raise them to life again These effects are no otherwise ascribed to faith then as the condition upon which they were wrought and without which they could not have been wrought according to Gods ordination As it is said concerning the Lord Jesus That he could not do many mighty works in his own countrey because of their unbelief Mark 6. 5 6. with Matth. 13. 58. Not that their faith had contributed any thing to his ability but that their unbelief by vertue of Gods ordination made them uncapable of being the subjects for and amongst whom those works were to be wrought To the second I deny that Justification is ascribed to faith in the §. 11. same sense in which it is denied to works though it be the same Justification as to its common nature which is ascribed to that and denied to these and therefore cannot be meant of a Justification manifested to conscience as Mr. Eyre interprets it when he comes to particular places 'T is confessed that when the Apostle denies that a man is justified by works he excludes works from any causal influx into our Justification But it will by no means follow that when he ascribes it to faith he doth therefore acknowledge faith to be a cause No more then the like opposition in Scripture doth denote the same kinde of cause on both sides Râ—m 9. 8. Nâ—t the children of the flesh but the children of the Promise are counted for the seed and ver 11. Not of works but of him that calleth and ver 16. Not of hâ—m that runneth but of God that sheweth mercy and Rom. 11. 6. Not of works but of grace Estne inter Pontisicios quisquam tam excors â—t audeat affirmare in istis oppâ—sitioniâ—us
since that o De traduct peccat ad vitam thes 5. 6. Conditio reconciliationis a parte nostra est Christi receptio the condition of reconciliation on our part is our receiving of Christ which must first be done Cum ex ea tanquam medio praerequisito reconciliatio ineatur because it is a means praerequisite to our reconciliation As for Dr. Twisse if he were capable of receiving any addition of honour by my testimony I should be more ambitious to perform it then Mr. Eyre could be desirous of the favour of his p Ep. dedic most noble Senatours I may not deny that I had bestowed some paines in comparing the Doctours expressions in several places but it pleased God to stir up a far better hand q In his Preface to Mr. Gâ—ayles book Mr. Constant Jessop a learned faithful suffering servant and Minister of Jesus Christ to do the Doctour the honour of vindicating his judgement and doctrine from those general misreports and misapprehensions that went abroad of him Something I should alsospeak concerning Mr. Eyres marginal quotations which are many of them false as I was once intended to have shewed the Reader in a List But considering that the difference of Volumes or Editions in which his Authors are extant may breed a mistake of some and that the Printer tells us Mr. Eyre was not able to overlook the Presse and so through the errour of that others might be mistaken I have thought fit to forbear 3. As for this my Reply though the Authors above mentioned and Mr. Eedes besides who yet hath misrepresented me in reporting that I deny faith to be an evidence of our Justification coming all out so long before me may seem to make my undertaking needlesse yet I was loth to deceive the expectations of so many as had so long waited for my Reply The truth is I had soon drawn up the summe of my answer so far as I was sure that I understood Mr. Eyre aright That I made no more haste to the Presse the Reasons were 1. The incessant emploiments I have had both at home and abroad which have made me uncapable of following works of this nature so close as they should be 2. The frequent and long-continuing bodily infirmities which have kept me from writing many weeks together 3. While the controversie was hot I was willing to see whether any thing would come out pro or con that might occasion any new enquiries I hear of none but Mr. Robertson who threateneth us with a few pedantick Scoticismes and Mr. Crandon against Mr. Baxter whom for the report I had heard of the man I greedily desired to reade But lighting by accident upon his discourse about the afflictions which befal the godly in this life I found him vox praeterea nihil and so leave him to those Readers who can be edified by his melody Mr. Eyres Comment upon the title page of my Sermon I passe over His digression in chap. 2. about publick disputes with the Ministers will have some more cautions before it passe for canonical if ever it be his lot to be exercised in that way as much as some worthy Ministers have been in some Churches which I have known In my Reply to his Arguments I have faithfully set down the strength of his argument though not every word in every place And so Reader I commend thee and this my writing unto the blessing of him who will one day owne it for his truth and thee for a childe of truth if thou walk in it BENJAMIN WOODBRIDGE THE METHOD OF GRACE IN THE JVSTIFICATION OF SINNERS CHAP. I. An Answer to M. Eyres 6. chap. The Question stated Justification what Justification by Faith what The consent of Protestants in making Faith the condition of Justification Or an instrumental cause thereof Proved also by the confessions of several Churches SECT I. IN our entrance upon the discussion of the present Question namely whether a sinner be justified in §. 1. the sight of God before he beleeve or not till he beleeve I must crave leave to digresse a little from Master Eyres method who first gives his answer to those Texts produced in my Sermon for proof of our Justification by Faith in his fifth Chapter and then states the Question in his sixth and seventh I shall therefore first examine those two Chapters beginning here with the former and so proceed to the entire Vindication of my Sermon by it selfe In the stating of the Question these three things are to be dispatched 1. What Justification is 2. What it is to be justified by Faith or what is the office of Faith in Justification 3. What is meant by the phrase In the sight of God or before God when we enquire concerning the Justification of a sinner before God or in Gods sight For the first when we enquire what Justification is it is supposed §. 2. that the word Justification is taken properly in sensu formali not in a diminutive comparative or tropical sense Analogum per se positum stat pro famosiori significato The Reason why I observe this is because Master Eyre pretends to his Reader that I have no lesse then yielded the cause when I grant a Justification purposed of God and merited by Christ before Faith So then saith he pag. 147. by his own confession Justification in a Scripture sense goes before Faith which is that horrid opinion he hath all this while so eagerly opposed pag. 101. challengeth some one text of Scripture to prove that Justification doth in no sense precede the act of Faith Whereas I doubt not but the world may be said to be from eternity in some sense namely in reference to the counsel and purpose of God And he that is never justified at all simply may yet notwithstanding be said to be justified in some sense that is comparatively as being lesse unjust then another Jer. 3. 11. And many of those who are now alive and never yet tasted of death may neverthelesse be said to be already risen from the dead in some sense to wit in Christ the first fruits of them that slept And Justification it self may be called condemnation in some sense for the Scots say a man is justified when he is hanged and the word seemes to be used in a sense not much unlike Rom. 6. 7. He that is dead is justified from sinne If Master Eyre do indeed think which I am perswaded he doth not that the Question between him and me is whether the wit of man cannot invent some sense wherein Justification may be said to go before Faith he should have acquainted his Reader with it here in the â—stating of the Question and not have kept him ignorant of any such controversie between us till he is come towards the later end of his book Wherein the particular nature and formality of this glorious blessing §. 3. of Justification doth consist is more particularly debated in
Quibus condition bus peccata remittantur per tot passim Musculus m System Theol. tom 2. pag. 247. ad obj 5. Promissiones Evangelii semper requirere Conditionem fidei dâ—mus Brochmand n Thesâ— Salmur parâ— prior de Justif Thes 37. fide igitur justificamur non tanquam parte aliqua Justitiae c. sed tanquam Conditione foederis gratiae quam à nobis Deus exigit loco conditionis foederis legalis the Professors of Somers in France o Sâ—hol in Luc. cap 11. Deus promisit nobis remissionem cum hac Conditione si nos prius remiserimus proximo c. Piscator p Opeâ— Tom. 1 pag. 420. 4â—3 vide loca Wallaeus q In Thoms Diatâ—ib pag. 148. Promissiones de fine sunt conditionaâ—ae c. vide locum passim Abbot r Christ Theol. lib. 1. cap 22. ad Thes 2 Promissio remissioniâ— peccatorum vitae aeteâ—â—ae sub conditione fidâ—i c. Wendeline s Of the Covenant pag 66. and elsewhere frequently onely mislikes the tearme in some respect because it seemes to take away all causality from Faith in the matter of Justification and therefore chuseth rather to call it an Instrument then a Condition Ball t Treatise of Justif Sâ—ct 2. cap. 1. Pemble u In Eph. 2. pag. 250. Bayne x Voâ—st loc com â—x cap. 3. ad Rom. pag. 23 Tit. 6. Mr. Blake of the Covenant cap. 6. pag. 26. Mr. Bulkley of the Covenanâ— part 4. cap. 1. and many others All which being considered I shall neither account it Popery nor Arminianisme to maintaine that Faith is the condition of our Justification before God till Master Eyre hath proved that it cannot be made a condition but it must withal be made a meritorious cause or that to make it the condition of the imputation of Christs righteousnesse to a sinner be to deny that Christs righteousnesse is at all imputed to a sinner or to affirme that God of his grace doth accept of Faith as our legal righteousnesse which is a palpable contradiction None of which he hath performed in his book nor ever will do When he distinguisheth those that take Faith objectively from those that make it an instrument in Justification it is a distinction without §. 6. a difference on purpose to impose upon the Reader as if they were two sorts of Authours whereas the very same men that take Faith objectively for Christ beleeved on do yet universally make Faith an Instrument in our Justification Our Protestants do indeed maintaine against the Papists and that most truly that the righteousnes of Christ is the meritorious cause of our Justification or the righteousnesse for which we are justified but the same Authours do as unanimously affirme that Faith is the instrumental cause thereof though otherwhile they call it a condition and most use the words promiscuously Thus y Instit l. 3. c. 14. §. 17. Calvin z Epist 45. p. 210. Beza a Loc. com clas 3. cap. 4. §. 47 48. Peter Martyr b Explic. cat par 2. q. 61. 3. pag. 399. Vrsine c Thes Theol. cap. 35. 11. Junius d Synt. Theol. l. 6. c. 36. p 456. Polaenus e De Justif per. fid cap. 4. §. 64. Sect. 6. §. 153. Gerhard f Enchyr. Theol. p. 134. Hemmingius g Synops pur Theol. disp 33. 27. the four Leyden Professours h In Heb. pag. 486. Hyperius i Meth. Theol. p. 227. Sohnius k Harm Evang. p. 279. Exam. Conc. Trid. ses 6. Kemnitius l Loc. Com. 31. 33. Bucanus and all the rest that ever I read both Lutherans and Calvinists voting concurrently for Faiths antecedency to Justification At last Mr. Eyre gives us his own sense of Justification by Faith in §. 7. these words My sense of this Proposition we are justified by Faith is no other then what hath been given by all our ancient Protestant Divines who take Faith herein objectively not properly and explain themselves to this effect We are justified from all sinne and death by the satisfaction and obedience of Jesus Christ who is the sole object or foundation of our faith or whose righteousnesse we receive and apply to our selves by Faith Yet I say it doth not follow that it was not applyed to us by God or that God did not impute righteousnesse to us before we had Faith If Mr. Eyre had concluded as he began leaving out the exception which brings up the rear and understanding our ancient Protestants in their known sense this one sentence had confuted all his book and saved me the pains of such an undertaking It is most true that our Protestants maintaine that we are justified by the obedience of Christ as the meritorious cause of our Justification and it is as true that they maintaine a sinner to be justified by Faith as the instrument or condition of his justification Nor can I finde one amongst the ancient Protestants that did ever dreame of a Justification by the righteousnesse of Christ without Faith no though for the most part they place Faith in a particular assurance To the single testimonies already mentioned let us adde a few more out of the Confessions that the difference betweene our Protestants and Master Eyre may the better appear We begin with the m Oâ—thodox Tig. eccles Minist confess Tract 2. fol. 43 44. Tigurine Confession Nullis humanis vel operibus § 8. vel meritis sed per solam Dei gratiam id est per sanctam illam crucifixi filii Dei passionem innocentem mortem homines justitiam consequi peccatis mundari docemus quod mortis Christi innocentiae meriti participes tunc reddamur cum Dei filium nostrum esse propter peccata nostra ut nos nimirum justos beatos redderet mortem subiisse vera constanti fide credimus To the same purpose the n Corp. Synt. Confes fid p. 45. Helvetian Confession Propriè ergo loquendo c. To speak properly God alone doth justifie us and justifies us onely for Christs sake not imputing to us our sinnes but imputing to us his righteousnesse But because we receive this justification not by any works but by faith in Gods mercy and in Christ therefore we teach and beleeve with the Apostle that a sinner is justified by Faith alone in Christ not by the Law or any works Therefore because Faith receiveth Christ our righteousnesse and attributes all to the grace of God in Christ therefore Justification is ascribed to Faith principally because of Christ and not because it is our work to the same purpose pag. 89. § 13. The o Gallic confess ibid. p. 105 §. 20. French Confession agrees Credimus nos c. We beleeve that by Faith alone we are made partakers of this righteousnesse as it is written that he suffered to obtaine
imputation be ab aeterno non-futura then is it ab aeterno undeprivable of its futurity for nothing but that which is future can be deprived of its futurity and if it be future ab aeterno then it cannot be made ab aeterno non-future for to be future and non-future ab aeterno is a contradiction 3. But if Mr. Eyre by his privative non-imputation mean no more then a positive act by which that punishment is kept off which is or will become due to a sinner I answer farther That the very essence of the pardon of sin consists in making that punishment undue which before was due and consequently in freeing the sinner from all actual suffering for sin for the remission of sin is opposed to the retaining of it John 20. 23. or else in preventing that that punishment shall never become due which otherwise would be due If in the former sense sin be pardoned from eternity for non-imputation and pardon are all one both in Mr. Eyres sense and of the Scriptures Rom. 4. 7 8. then cannot punishment become due in time but it is from eternity non futurum debitum even as the pardon of sin present and actually committed makes that punishment remaines no longer due to a person which till then was due And if it be from eternity a non-futurum debitum then neither can it be pardoned from eternity pardon being essentially a discharge from punishment due actually or in futurition nor if it could can that pardon be an act of grace because it is no grace to pardon him who neither is nor never will or can be punishable Yet here Reader distinguish of the duenesse of punishment which may arise either from the nature of sin in it self and in this sense it is impossible that sin should be pardoned either from eternity or in time because it is impossible but that sin should be in it selfe punishable or worthy of punishment even as on the contrary vertue is in it self essentially laudable or rewardable Or it may be the act of God by his Law making punishment due to the sinner or obliging the sinner unto punishment for his sin and in this sense only is it pardonable and if it be actually pardoned from eternity then is punishment made from eternity non debita which as I said before destroys both the substance and grace of pardon let us see if we can clear it by Mr. Eyres comparison This Will of God saith he is like the will of a man not to require that debt that shall or is about to be contracted Come on then Titius knows that Caius will be indebted to him and his purpose is before-hand not to require this debt I ask Is this purpose the pardon of the debt or no if not the cause is yielded if it be we will suppose that Titius makes this purpose within himself in the moment A the debt will be contracted in the moment C. All the space of time that is between A and C the debt is not actually a debt but only future If then this future debt be forgiven in the moment A then from thenceforth it ceaseth to be future and so cannot exist in the moment C because for a debt to be forgiven is to be made no debt if it be forgiven at present it is none at present if it be forgiven for the future it is not in futurition to be a debt 4. I will only adde this That according to Mr. Eyres own principles punishment doth never become due to the Elect so as that they stand obliged before God to suffer for any of their sins for that which in the protasâ—s of the similitude is a debt between man and man is a sinners obligation to punishment in the reddition Now Mr. Eyre denies that an elect sinner is at any time unjust simply and absolutely but only in a diminutive sense that is unjust by nature or of himself but positively just by grace at the same time which is but the carcasse of unrighteousnesse making the sinner unrighteous no otherwise then as it were materially he doing that which on his part is sufficient to oblige him to condemnation but he is never formally unjust because the grace of his Judge prevents his actual obligation Ergâ— he doth never stand actually obliged to the suffering of punishment nor is ever actually and formally indebted And whose debt then it was that Christ paid or what debts they are which we are to pray for forgivenesse of Matth. 6. 12. I must confesse I cannot tell which is all I shall need to speak of that second sense in which some may take the pardon of sin Nor will I adde any more animadversions upon these passages though I had once intended it because some have been mentioned already before and others we must make use of in that which follows SECT IX SO much for Mr. Eyres first Proposition upon which I have been §. 26. necessitated to dwell the longer because his discourse is so perplexed and intricate In that which follows I shall be more brief His next Proposition is this If Justification be taken not for the Will of God but for the thing willed to wit our discharge from the Law and deliverance from Punishment so it hath for its adequate cause and principle the death and satisfaction of Jesus Christ Answ The substance of this Proposition I could gladly close with but something is first necessary to be animadverted 1. Whereas Mr. Eyre here makes the satisfaction of Christ the adequate and as in his Explication he tells us often the immediate cause of our Justification if by adequate and immediate he mean only in genere causae meritoriae I consent because there is no other meritorious cause that comes between the death of Christ and our Justification But if he mean that the death of Christ is simply the adequate and immediate cause then I deny it because the act of God as Justifier comes between the death of Christ and our Justification Rom. 3. 25. 26 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood that he might be just and the Justifier of him that believeth on Jesus And the Lord Jesus himselfe also as Lord of soules and having all judgement committed to him by the Father joynes in putting forth the same act of Justification which was merited in his blood as we before observed 2. Mr. Eyre hath been disputing hitherto that Gods Will not to punish is our Justification That by which we are secured from wrath discharged and acquitted from all sin and wrath yea that it was a real discharge from condemnation an actual and compleat non-imputation of sin But now he tells us that the death of Christ is the adequate and immediate cause of our discharge from the Law and freedome from punishment I think for my part it is beyond mans ability to invent or utter more palpable contradictions To be secured from wrath and not secured acquitted
revelation or enthusiastical inspiration the expression were much more tolerable 4. To the instance of a Malefactour that may be pardoned though he do not know it till a great while after I answer in the words of k Christ set forth p. 26 â—7 Reverend Dr. Godwin Gods Promises of forgivenesse are not as the pardons of a Prince which meerly contain an expression of his royal word for pardoning But as if a Prince should offer to pardon a Traitour upon marriage with his childe whom in and with that pardon he offers in such a relation So as all that would have pardon must first seek out for his childe and thus it is in the matter of believing The Promises hang all upon Christ and without him there is no interest to be had in them He that hath the Sonne hath life 1 John 5. 12. Thus the Doctor To Acts 13. 39. Mr. Eyre answers That the Apostle shews §. 14. the excellency of the Gospel above the Law in that 1. The Law did not cleanse from all sin 2. And but in an external typical manner 3. And that by sacrifice after sacrifice c. Rep. All which things I readily grant Yet 1. Some kinde of pardon there was under the Law which did necessarily suppose a coming unto those sacrifices Heb. 10. 1. The people were not first pardoned and then came to the offering of sacrifice or to the Priest So doth also the more perfect pardon under the Gospel necessarily presuppose a coming by faith to the true High-Priest the Lord Jesus that sinners may partake therein 2. When the Scriptures do so constantly require faith unto Justification and faith only for proof of which Mr. Eyre confesseth my Concordance would furnish me with many more places then I have taken notice of I will never be brought to beleeve that it is required as a consequent of Justification for all Christian graces and duties are required as consequents as well as faith even by Mr. Eyres grant Nor yet that by Justification is meant our knowledge and assurance that we are justified because unto that also many other things may be required and not faith only As for example self-examination and proving of our selves 2 Cor. 13. 5. diligence in adding one grace to another 2 Pet. 1. 5 6 7 10. a good conscience towards God and man and a keeping of the Commandments of Christ 1 John 3. 20 21. John 14. 23. love of the brethren 1 John 3. 18 19 14. and the like And thus much for the Vindication of the Texts proving Faith's antecedency to Justification By all which the Reader may see that when I said the only answer made to these Texts was That Justification is to be understood of that which is evidenced in conscience this account is true and perfect though Mr. Eyre tell him it be very imperfect there being not one of all the places mentioned but what he answers to by such a temperament of the word Justification It was therefore necessary that I should prove that when the Apostle pleads for Justification by faith he is to be understood of Justification before God and not of that which is in the Court of Conscience To which end I advanced foure Arguments in my Sermon the asserting of which against Mr. Eyres exceptions is my next undertaking CHAP. IV. An Answer to Mr. Eyres eighth Chapter and part of the Ninth His saying and unsaying Many Arguments proving that when we are said to be justified by faith faith is to be taken proving that when we are said to be justified by faith faith is be taken properly for the faith in us and not for Christ Faith and works how opposed in the matter of Justification That we cannot be said to be justified by faith in reference to faiths evidencing our Justification virtually or axiomatically or syllogistically Sinners according to Mr. Eyre the causes of their own Justification Nor is Justification taken properly in all the Scriptures as he expounds it SECT I. THe first Argument proving that when the Apostle §. 1. pleads for Justification by faith he is to be understood of Justification before God or in the sight of God and not in the Court of Conscience is this The Question between him and the Jewes was not whether we were declared to be justified by faith or works but whether we were justified by faith or works in the sight of God And he concludes that it is by faith and not by works Rom. 3. 20 21. Gal. 3. 11. All this Mr. Eyre grants but will have the Apostle by the word faith to understand not the act or habit of faith but the object scil Christs righteousnesse or righteousnesse imputed His reason is because else there were no opposition between faith and works seeing faith or the act of believing is a work of ours no lesse then love Yet when the Apostle disputes for Justification by faith Gal. 2. 16. and that in a direct opposition to works and for the imputation of faith unto righteousnesse Rom. 4. still as opposed to works ver 4 5. we were told that justifying and imputing were the manifestation of Justification and Imputation But now we have another answer which overthrows the former namely that faith is to be taken for Christ and his righteousnesse What aileth thee O Jordan that thou art turned backward Yea he will not allow that the Apostle hath any question with them about the time when or the conâ—tion upon which we are justified Yet I think all men besides himself will grant that his designe is to shew the way and meanes by which a sinner may come to be justified Though I confesse I see not how Mr. Eyre can grant this For if the Justification of all that are justified be absolute and perfect in the death of Christ as he supposeth then from that time there can no way be prescribed to a sinner no counsel given him what course to take that he may be justified Only he may be told that if he be justified the way to know it is to beleeve And when the Jewes say We must be justified by works and the Apostle By faith they are both out for we are justified by neither And the Gentiles were in an errour in seeking to be justified by faith as well as the Jewes in seeking it by works if they seek any thing more then to know that they are justified But because Mr. Eyre doth so often take Sanctuary at this notion §. 2. that saith is put for its object Christ and his righteousnesse though he give us not one text that may convince us of it we must of necessity examine the truth of it And yet when I consider how presumptuous and irrational the conceit is in it selfe and how solidly already confuted by Mr. a De reâ— onâ— pâ—c par 2. l 1. c. 15. Wotton who also hath set down the testimonies of no lesse then fourty Authours Fathers and Protestants besides Papists all
4 5. To him that worketh the reward is imputed of debt But to him that worketh not but believeth c. Not working is opposed to works Beleeving is not working with the Apostle Ergo believing is opposed to works Judge then who will for I am indifferent in so just a cause whether the Apostle contradict himselfe or Mr. Eyre him 2. The opposition between faith and works in the matter of Justification stands thus according to Scripture That he that worketh doth himself effect that righteousnesse for which he is justified personal and perfect obedience being that which the Law requireth of every man to make him just before God And hence righteousnesse by works or by the Law is called our own righteousnesse Phil. 3. 9. Rom. 10. 3. But he that believeth doth by the gift of God partake in the righteousnesse of another even of the Lord Jesus Christ for which only he is justified And hence righteousnesse by faith is opposed to our own righteousnesse Phil. 3. 9. Not having my own righteousnesse which is of the Law but that which is through the faith of Christ the righteousnesse which is of God by faith So that he that is justified by works is justified for his own sake but he that is justified by faith is justified for anothers sake §. 9. But because this is the total summe of all Mr. Eyre hath to say for the abuse of the word Faith from its own native sense to a tropical I shall set down my answer more fully I distinguish therefore 1. Of works 2. Of the particle By. 1. Works are taken largely for any humane action and so no doubt but faith is a work so is laughing crying speaking reasoning and the like 2. Strictly for that obedience by which the righteousnesse of the Law is fulfilled really or in conceit and so they are uncapable of an ordinability to or of being made the conditions of our Justification by the righteousnesse of another In this sense doth the Apostle take works when he opposeth them to faith b Vid Conraâ— Vorst Schol. in loc Rom. 4. 4. To him that worketh the reward is imputed of debt and ver 2. If Abraham were jâ—stified by works he hath whereof to glory Both which Propositions were false if works were any thing lesse then perfect legal righteousnesse for he had said before that there is no glorying for a sinner before God * Vid. Joh. Piscat Schol. in loc ex Olev Calvin Rom. 3. 23. Not that I think the Jewes themselves who sought righteousnesse by works did conceive they were able so to keep the Law as not at all to sin but rather thought such was their blindnesse that the Law was sufficiently kept to Justification if they forbore the outward acts of sin and performed the outward act of duty c Joseph Antiq. Jud. l. 12. c. 13. Joh. Reynol Coâ—f with Hart. ch 7. D. 4. p. 264. neglecting the inward purity of heart d Sic Mâ—rmon in 〈◊〉 Te 〈…〉 or if their good works were more then their evil works or finally if they did perform those ceremonial observances which were required in the Law for the expiation of sinne Matâ—h 19. 18 19. and 23. 25 26 27 28. Luke 18. 11 12. Phil. 3. 6. Against which conceit of theirs the grand Argument which the Apostle opposeth is this That all had sinned against the Law Rom. 3. 19 20 23. and therefore none could be justified by the Law for it is written Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the Book of the Law to do them Gal. 3. 10 11. Now works being taken in this strict sense it is manifest that faith is not works no e Fidem non esâ—e opus Viâ— Câ—mâ—ron prâ—lect in Mâ—â— 16. â—7 opâ—r p. 47 48. nor a work as being no part of that obedience which the Law requires to make a man righteous as the Apostle expressely witnesseth Gal. 2. 12. The Law is not of faith that is requires not faith in order to Justification but the man that doth them shall live in them 2. When we speak of Justification by works and of Justification §. 10. by faith the particle By hath not the same sense in both Propositions But in the former it denotes works to be that very righteousnesse for which a person is justified in the latter it denotes faith to be the meanes or condition upon which we receive the gift of Christs righteousness Of the use of that particle in such a sense the Reader shall finde many instances in answer to Mr. Eyres ninth Chapter When then he disputes that if we are justified by faith in a proper sense we are justified by works because faith is a work I deny the consequence with the proof of it The former because to be justified by faith is to be justified by the righteousnesse of another through faith as the condition of the application and donation of it unto us but to be justified by works is to be justified by and for a righteousnesse wrought by our selves The latter because faith is not a work as the Apostle useth works that is no part of that righteousnesse for which we are justified What can be objected against this the Reader will meet with in the following discourse In the mean time I desire him to have recourse hither for answer to this Argument in all the following places which are very many wherein it is objected against me that I may not be forced to multiply tautologies even unto nauseousnesse SECT IV. THe second general Argument proving that Justification by §. 11. faith is not meant of the evidence or knowledge of our Justification is this It cannot be imagined how faith should evidence to us our Justification but one of these three wayes Either as an Argument affected to prove it or axiomatically or syllogistically which termes because Mr. Eyre reproacheth me with their obscurity we shall endeavour to explain as we come to them But we cannot be said to be justified by faith in reference to faiths evidencing our Justification in any of these three wayes Ergo we cannot be said to be justified by faith because of faiths evidencing our Justification This Reader is the summe and scope of my second Argument which I have here set down distinctly that thou mayest not be lead into a mistake common to Mr. Eyre with some of my own friends as themselves have told me as if I had denied all use of faith in evidencing Justification which is as farre from my judgement as the East is from the West I confesse I have little cause to blame Mr. Eyre or others for being thus mistaken because there is an ellipfis in my words which might give some occasion of such a misapprehension for whereas it is said in my Sermon page 3. It is a most unsound Assertion that faith doth evidence our Justification before faith The full sentence should have been
Brookes Heaven upon earth page 65 66. heard of in such a condition If it be said we may be mistaken in men I acknowledge it But withal I am not bound to beleeve impossibilities and contradictions If I must beleeve that it is possible for them to have true faith even whiles they have not the least spark or twinkling evidence of Gods justifying pardoning love then I cannot beleeve Mr. Eyres affirmation to be universally true That wheresoever there is faith there is some evidence of Justification And me thinks he should not have expected that we should take his word against Scripture and experience both 2. Yet if all this were granted it comes not up to our case when the Scriptures say He that believes shall be justified it surely speaks of a Justification which is the same equally unto all that beleeve And for Mr. Eyre to say every one that believes hath some evidence of Justification though it may be not so much as another is to say one believer may be more justified then another which we desire him to prove the Scriptures imply the contrary Romanes 3. 29 30. and 4. 23 24. and 10. 12. The second Argument to prove that we are not said to be justified §. 13. by faith in respect of faiths evidencing our Justificarion as an effect was because faith is not the effect of Justification for if it be then we may as truly be said to be faithed by our Justification as to be justified by our faith and in stead of saying Beleeve and thou shalt be justified we must say hence-forward Thou art justified therefore beleeve Mr. Eyre answers That he sees no absurdity at all in saying That faith is from Justification causally That grace which justifies us is the cause and fountain of all good things and more especially of faith 2 Pet. 1. 1. Phil. 1. 29. Rep. Is it then no absurdity to set the Scriptures upon their heads we are said in Scripture to beleeve unto righteousnesse or Justification Rom. 10. 10. and were it no absurdity to say we are made righteous or justified unto believing when the Apostle saith Heb. 10. 39. we are not of them who draw back unto perdition but of them that beleeve unto the saving of the soule Surely the particle unto doth in both sentences denote the issue and consequence in the former perdition of drawing back in the latter salvation of believing 2. Faith cannot be the effect of Justification if Justification be what Mr. Eyre sayes it is namely the eternal Will of God not to punish precisely for a Will determined precisely to a non-punition is not the cause of faith unlesse Gods not punishing be our believing 3. And what an Argument have we to prove faith to be the effect of Justification That grace which justifies us is the cause of all good things and particularly of faith Ergo Justification is the cause of faith This is Logick of the game The grace that justifies us is also the grace that glorifies us shall I therefore infer that glorification is the cause of faith I did therefore truly say that according to this doctrine we must §. 14. not say Beleeve and thou shalt be justified but rather thou art justified Ergo beleeve No saith Mr. Eyre because 1. It is not the priviledge of all men 2. We know not who are justified no more then who are elected Though faith be an effect of Election yet we may not say Thou art elected therefore believe 3. When the cause is not notiâ—r effectu we must ascend from the effect to the cause Rep. Indeed to be justified is not the priviledge of all men yet Justification is to be preached as a priviledge attainable by all men if they will beleeve which yet it cannnt be if Justification be the cause of faith and not the consequent 2. It is also true that we cannot say Thou art elected therefore beleeve neither may we say Beleeve and thou shalt be elected But we may and must say Beleeve and thou shalt be justified therefore the case of Election and Justification is not the same The third answer I understand not nor I think no man else at least how it should be applied to the present case and therefore I say nothing to it My last and indeed the main Argument for proof of the position §. 15. namely that we cannot be said to be justified by faith in respect of faiths evidencing our Justification as an Argument or particularly as an effect is this because then it will unavoidably follow that we are justified by works as well as faith works being an effect evidencing Justiâ—ication as well as faith Mr. Eyre answers 1. By retortion That this follows from my opinion for if we be justified by the act of beleeving we are justified by a work of our own For answer to which I refer the Reader to the second and third Sections of this chapter If works be taken largely for any humane action faith is a work but it is as I may so call it an unworking work for to beleeve and not to work are all one with the Apostle as we have shewed before out of Rom. 4. 4 5. His second answer is a large grant that works do declare and evidence Justification and therefore I take notice only of the last line of it wherein he quotes Rom. 1. 17. and Gal. 2. 16. as proving faith to declare and evidence Justification to conscience Of Gal. 2 16. I have already spoken largely and have proved that the Apostles words We have beleeved that we may be justified cannot have this sense we have beleeved that we may know our selves to be justified And I wonder Mr. Eyre doth not see how he stumbles again at the common rock of contradicting himself in alleging that text He here acknowledgeth that works do evidence our Justification but the Apostle there doth altogether remove works from having any hand in the Justification there spoken of Ergo The Justification there spoken of is not the evidencing of Justification The words in Rom. 1. 17. are these Therein namely in the Gospel is the righteousnesse of God revealed from faith to faith That is as the Apostle expounds himself chap. 3. 21 22. In the Gospel is manifested the righteousnesse of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all that beleeve from beleeving Jewes to believing Gentiles for that questionlesse is the meaning of those words from faith to faith as is manifest by comparing them with the foregoing ver 16. The Gospel is the Power of God to salvation to every one that belâ—eveth to the Jew first and also to the Greek But how this proves that to be justified by faith is to have the evidence of Justification in our consciences I cannot divine At last Mr. Eyre gives us his direct answer or rather something §. 16. like an answer and denies that works do evidence Justification as well as faith where
article But he is sound in the faith of the Resurrection that believes all men shall rise though he do not believe that himself shall rise for he believes as much as the Scripture reports If it be said that a man cannot assent to the one but he must assent to the other I think so too But the ground of it is because it is against reason not because it is against faith and therefore the Conclusion is partly of reason not purely of faith which was that I was to demonstrate The Conclusion is there can be no way imagined in which faith may be said to evidence our Justification but one of those three mentioned Mr. Eyre proposeth a fourth but we have shewed that it must be reduced to one of these three and so differs in name only not in thing But we cannot be said to be justified by faith in reference to its evidencing our Justification either of these wayes Therefore faith must be said to justifie in some other respect then that it doth evidence Justification or else we cannot be said to be justified by faith at all SECT VIII MY third Argument comes next in place That Interpretation §. 32. of the phrase which makes us at least concurrent causes with God in the formal act of our own Justification is not true The Reason is because our Justification by faith in regard of the formal act of pronouncing us just is in Scripture attributed wholly unto God Rom. 8. 33. and 4. 6 8. But to interpret our Justification by faith meerly for a Justification in our own consciences is to make us at least concurrent causes with God in the formal act of our own Justification Ergo it is not to be admitted Mr. Eyre before he answers the Argument reformes my expressions and sayes That he doth not say that Justification by faith is meerly a Justification in conscience faith is sometimes put objectively for Christ c. Rep. Whether meerly or not meerly is an impertinent quarrel he doth it too frequently and to those most eminent texts mentioned before in my third Chapter which speak of Gods justifying sinners by faith in Jesus Christ he answers meerly so And as for his putting of faith objectively for Christ we have already shewed at large what injury it offers to the plain and pure Word of God But I must tell him it is most intolerable dealing to build so large a discourse as is the greatest part of his book upon two Supporters which have no place in Scripture to set their feet on The one is when he pleaseth to interpret Justification for the manifestation thereof The other when he pleaseth to put faith for its object Christ When such a weight is laid upon these foundations had it not been necessary to shew us the places to clear and vindicate them where these words must have this sense and no other But to the answer for this is nothing but a delay This it is The pronouncing of us just is not the formal act of our Justification but the imputing of righteousnesse which is the Act of God alone Ministers may pronounce us just without robbery done to God So doth faith declare to our consciences the sentence of absolution c. Rep. The Argument is wholly yielded and the sinner thereby §. 33. made his own Justifier 1. Let the formal act of Justification consist in what it will it matters not much in the present case The Justification which in Scripture is said to be by faith is wholly and only ascribed unto God as the Justifier Rom. 3. 30. and 4. 6 8. and 1. 17. and 3. 22 24 25. and 8. 33. Gal. 3. 8. and all the places that speak of Justification by faith which all suppose it to be Gods peculiar Royalty to justifie us through faith therefore cannot be interpreted of Justification in our own consciences that is of our justifying our selves without setting up our selves in the Throne of God Is this the man that reproacheth me in the face of the world as a friend to Papists for maintaining faith to be the condition of Justification because he thinks it will follow thence that men may be said to justifie themselves But I see one may better steal a horse then another look over the hedge 2. My expression of Gods pronouncing us just I acknowledge to be a little too narrow as most properly denoting that Justification which is by sentence at the day of judgement but I do therein also include Justificationem juris the act of God by the Law of grace that is the Promise of the Gospel giving us right to impunity and eternal life for the sake of Christ And this is formalissimè the imputation of Christs righteousnesse The righteousnesse of Christ is imputed to believers in their Justification inasmuch as that for his merits they are reputed just before God saith r Medul theol l. 1. c. 27 thes 12. Dr. Ames Now that Justification which is in Scriptures said to be by faith is formally an imputation of righteousnesses and a non-imputation of sin Rom. 4. 2 5. compared with ver 6. 11 24. Ergo by Mr. Eyres concession it is only Gods act and no creature can be joyned with him therein without robbery done to him But we do joyne with him by faith in imputing righteousnesse to our selves if imputing righteousnesse to believers be their knowing by faith that righteousnesse is imputed to them as we heard Mr. Eyre interpreting it before in answer to Rom. 4. 24. 3. If there be any sense wherein Ministers may be said to justifie §. 34. sinners yet it cannot be in that sense wherein God is said to justifie them that beleeve for that is an act proper to himself I acknowledge the Apostles are said to remit and retain sins John 20. 23. namely s Vid. Calv. in loc Altham concil loc pugn cap. 194. Dr. Reynolds Conference with Hart. Ch. 2. Divis 3. pag. 65. because it comes to passe upon every one according to the Word which they preached He that believes shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned As the Prophet in a like sense is said to be set over Nations and Kingdomes to root out and to pull down to build and to plant Jer. 1. 10. Yet was it not they but the Word which they preached which did justifie or condemn and that also received all its efficacy immediately from God So that remission of sins is ascribed to the Apostles but as moral instruments Such as they also were in raising the dead healing the sick converting of sinners and the like All which works were wrought immediately by God himself immediatione virtutis without any contribution of vertue or efficacy from man But when we are said to be justified by faith if the meaning be that by faith we know our selves to be justified in this case faith hath a true proper immediate and real efficiency in our Justification And it
is every whit as proper yea and more proper to say we know by faith that we are justified then to say we know by God that we are justified the former expressing the effect from its relation to its particular cause the latter to the universal I cannot see unlesse God give me an eye and concurre with it in the act of seeing yet is it more proper to say I see then that God sees so neither can I know that I am justified unlesse God give me faith and concurre with the act of it to discover it to me yet am I more properly said to justifie my self then God to justifie me if by my Justification be meant my knowledge that I am justified And whereas Mr. Eyre granteth faith to be the instrumental cause §. 35. of our knowing our selves to be justified I see not how it can consist with his Divinity It is a principle with him as we shall see anon that no act of Gods can be an act of free grace which hath any cause in the creature But to manifest to me that I am justified is an act of free grace Ergo my faith cannot be the cause of it no not instrumentally The Assumption is proved from all the places mentioned in Chap. 3. to prove that we are justified by faith All which speak of Justification by free grace and Mr. Eyre interprets every one of them of the manifestation of Justification And now we should dispute the great Question Whether faith be the condition of Justification But because there is one and but one Argument more proving that Justification by faith cannot be understood of the manifestation or knowledge thereof I shall first make good my ground there and then try out the other by it self SECT IX MY last Argument therefore was this If Justification by faith §. 36. must be understood of Justification in our consciences then is not the word Justification taken properly for Justification before God in all the Scriptures for the Scriptures speak of no Justification but by faith or works the latter of which is Justification before men and the former in our consciences according to Mr. Eyre To this Mr. Eyre answers chap. 9. § 10 11 12. and his answer is 1. That Justification in conscience is Justification before God Yet himself told us Page 61. before that the sight of God in this Question may not be understood of Gods making it as it were evident to our sight that we are justified for then the distinction of Justification in foro Dei in foro conscientiae would be a meer tautologie Secondly saith he If faith be taken metonymically then Justification by faith is Justification before God for it is a Justification by the merits of Christ to whom alone without works or conditions performed by us the Holy Ghost ascribes our Justification in the sight of God Rom. 3. 24. Eph. 1. 7. Rep. I deny that faith is any where in Scripture put for Christ in the Argument of Justification though it include him as its object whether his name be mentioned or no. In universalibus latet dolus Give us some particular place or places where the word must be necessarily so understood and we will beleeve it 2. Rom. 3. 24. speaks not of any Justification by Christ without faith but most expressely and syllabically of Justification by Christ through faith ver 25. whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood And that faith here cannot be taken objectively is already proved Yet if it had not been mentioned it will by no means follow that it must be excluded seeing there are multitudes of places besides where it is mentioned The same I say to Eph. 1. 7. That the remission of sins there spoken of is by faith for the Apostle having said that we have remission of sins through the blood of Christ according to the riches of the grace of God he shewes the way in which grace communicates this blessing both to Jew and Gentile namely by the efficacy of the blessed Gospel calling them both to one and the same faith and thereby to a common interest in the same blessings ver 8 9 10. though these blessings be given to the Jew first and afterward to the Gentile ver 12 13. and therefore Paul Bayne observes from ver 8. That God giveth pardon of sins to none to whom he hath not first given wisdome and understanding that is whom he hath not taught to know and beleeve on his Christ Howbeit if faith had not been here mentioned it must yet needs have been supposed because the Apostle writes to those Ephesians as unto Saints and faithful in Christ Jesus ver 1. To whom as such do all spiritual blessings belong ver 3. according to the purpose of Gods Election ver 4. So that hitherto we have no intelligence of any Justification before God mentioned in Scripture but by faith His third answer is by way of retortion upon that expression of §. 37. mine That the Antinomians may reade their eyes out before they produce us one text for it namely where there is any mention of Justification before God but by faith He retorts That I acknowledge a threefold Justification and yet neither of them by faith in my Sermon page 23. Rep. But I do not acknowledge that either of them is properly and formally the Justification of a sinner before God Nor yet that either of them is called by the name of Justification in Scripture but only that our Justification may be considered as purposed of God merited by the death of Christ and exemplified in his Resurrection 2. He tells us That we have no plain text for many of our dictates As 1. That justification doth in no sense precede the act of faith Answ Mr. Eyre knows well enough that this is a dictate of his own and that it is no part of the quarrel between him and me as I observed page 1. and in his very last words mentions three senses in which I yield Justification may be before faith But we seek a text of Scripture wherein the true proper formal Justification of a sinner is made antecedent to faith If there be any such text why is it not produced if there be none why is it not yielded Our second dictate is That Christ purchased only a conditional not an absolute Justification for his Elect. But where is this said or by whom it is by vertue of the Purchase of Christ that we are justified when we have performed the condition of believing The third that our Evangelical Righteousnesse by which we are iustified is in our selves Answ This refers to Mr. Baxter whose judgement Mr. Eyre represents as odiously as he can But he knowes Mr. Baxter hath produced many Scriptures and reasons for proof of it which Mr. Eyre should have answered before he had complained for want of a text The fourth that the tenour of the New Covenant is If thou
idem planè genus causae utrinque notari Is any man amongst the Papists so sottish saith k Bell eneâ—v Tom 4. c. 4. p. 3â—6 dued Dr. Ames as that he will dare to affirme that in these oppositions the same kinde of cause is signified on both sides The like I say to the third when we are said to be justiâ—â—ed by Christ by his death by his blood c. the particle By doth denote the proper meritorious cause of our Justification But that it may not in other sentences signifie some other Argument as well as a cause must remain to be proved till the time when we are to expect Mr. Eyres Rejoynder SECT III. THe fourth Argument succeeds To make faith a condition morally §. 12. disposing us to Justification makes us at least concurrent causes with God and Christ in our Justification Answ I deny it utterly A double Argument Mr. Eyre presents us with for proof 1. We should not be Justified freely by his grace if any condition were required of us in order to our Justification for a condition whensoever it is performed makes the thing covenanted a due debt which the Promiser is bound to give and then Justification should not be of grace but of debt Answ Gladly am I come to this objection and I shall give it a large answer not for any strength there is in it but because Mr. Eyre pretends in his title-page and the inscription of his book throughout to oppose the ancient Protestant doctrine of Justification by faith upon the quarrel of free grace And it is upon the point the total summe of all he hath to say for his neoterick notion but they may be taken with words that will The place which he alludes to in the objection is Rom. 3 24. Being justified freely by his grace But which of these two words is it that excludes conditions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 grace or freely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l Vide â—rist Rhet. l 2. c 7. Grace as it is a vertue or affection in man is that which enclines us to bestow of what we have to them that are indigent and necessitous not for any thing we have received nor for any profit and advantage we expect by what we give from him to whom we give but that he may be beneâ—â—ted by us Accordingly it is accounted great and the Scriptures amplisie the grace of God from the same Arguments either in respect of the persons that receive our gratuities if they be extream m Ezek 16. pertot Rom. 5. 6. indigent and impotent or in respect of the things given if they be Eph 7. Rom. 5. 7 8. and v 6. 0 1 John 4. 19. John 3. â—6 great difficult or seasonable or in respect of the giver if â—e be the first or only or principal But surely this grace doth not exclude all manner of conditions Jacob sent a present to Esâ—u that he might sinde grace â—â— in his sight Gen. 32. 5 21. and 33. 8. the LXX 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Prov. 3. 3 4 Let not mercy and truth forsake thee So shalt thou finde 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 grace in the sight of God And the Apostle exhorts that we come to the throne of grace that we may finde grace Heb. 4. 16. Is grace any whit the lesse gracious because we are required to seek it that we may finde it Rom. 4. 16. Therefore it is of faith that it may be by grace And more places which we shall mention below The Adverb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is but a qualification of the former and expresseth §. 13. the freenesse of grace by removal of worth and sufficiency in the person who of grace receives a benefit Thus Mat. 10. 8. Freely you have received freely give 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As their power cost them nothing but was freely given them so should they do good with it freely without payment or recompence So the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 expresseth an act which is only from the will and inclination of the Agent without any sufficient external meritorious cause Psal 35. 7. Without cause have they hid for me their net Psal 69. 4. They hate me without a cause and 119. 161. Princes have persecuted me without a cause David saith He will not offer to God gratis or of that which cost him nothing 2 Sam. 24. 24. Thus servants went out freely when they did not purchase their liberty but it was given them without price Exod. 21. 2 11. as also the p L. mandatum F. mand contra C. L. 6. 7. §. Non est ignotum Civil Law determines And what in Isa 55. 1. is called a buying without money is expounded Rev. 22. 17. A taking of the water of life freely So that unlesse it can be proved of which more presently that all conditions whatsoever are meritorious causes proportionable in value to the benefit a man obtains upon performance of the condition the name of free grace will prove but an empty noise and a cloak of errour We must therefore with our Protestants distinguish of conditions §. 14. Thus q In disp de satisfact p. 365. Cameron Si multae conditiones requiruntur in justificandis quae habent proportionem cum justitiâ Dei concedo Sed si conditiones quae requiruntur in justificandis nullam habent proportionem cum justitiâ Dei nego inde effici justificationem non esse ex mera gratia nam non excluduntur conditiones omnes sed eae quae possunt habere rationem meriti The sense of which words is given us by r Comment in Ep 250. Paul Bayne There are some conditions whereon they only interceding we promise and undertake to do a matter or bestow a kindnesse on any As Go with me to such a place and I will give thee hidden treasure or come to me to morrow and I will give thee a hundred pounds There are other conditions which have the reason of a cause meritorious such do not only intercede but deserve upon contract as much as we promise As Do my work well and I will pay you truly c. Thus he s Gerhard de Evang. cap. 3. §. 26. Quando Evangelicas promissiones conditionales esse negamus non quamvis conditionem sed in specie conditionem nostrorum meritorum excludimus Alia igitur est conditio fidei à conditione operum illa non opponitur gratuito dono haec verò opponitur In eundem seâ—sum Rolloc de vocat p. 16. and others to the same purpose A distinction which we are necessitated to make use of though it distinguish rather the matter of a condition then the formal nature of it for if any condition be proportionable to the reward promised that is not because it is a condition but because it is t Aliae sunt conditiones praeter causas efficientes Ames contra Bellarm. de neces oper ad salut
life and no more In the former it is of a great deal more worth and value then in this because proportionable to a greater reward Yea and it will be impossible that there should be any cheating in buying and selling or any other contract if things of themselves unequal become forthwith equal by vertue of a contract Suppose a man give a great price for a Jewel and the Jewel prove counterfeit yet by vertue of the contract it becomes equal to the price he gave for it and the buyer may not complain of the injustice of the couzenage Several other Arguments may the Reader see to this purpose in learned a De Just Act. c. 63. Voss The sâ—de bon oper merit p. 72. Davenant Here it may be demanded whether works in the first Covenant §. 18. were proportionable to the reward promised which with some limitations I shall answer affirmatively But because Mr. Eyre gives me here no occasion to speak to it but urgeth it strongly in another place the Reader must have patience till he come thither In the mean time let us see whether it cannot be proved that a gift may be given of grace and yet upon condition 1. I put this case Philemon promiseth Onesimus upon condition he will acknowledge that he neither hath nor can merit any good of him but rather that for his thievery and several other injuries which he hath done him he hath deserved to be quite cast out of his favour that he will forgive former injuries and moreover make him heire of all he hath That he may give it upon such a condition is unquestionable for a man may make what he will the condition of his owu gift Voluntas regit conditiones saith the b L. in conditionib F. de Cond domonstr Law Onesimus accepts and performes the condition I do ask whether he do thereby merit his Masters favour and estate or no If not the question is yielded if so then contradictions and impossibilities may be true For he confesseth that he neither hath nor can merit any thing of his Master and yet in so saying he doth merit even all his Master is worth Now faith is a condition of like nature as being an act of self-dereliction a kinde of holy despaire a renouncing of all worthinesse in our selves as Mr. Eyre expresseth it page 76. and this doth the Lord require as the condition of our partaking in his pardoning mercy Jer. 3. 12 13. I am merciful saith the Lord and I will not keep anger for ever only acknowledge thine iniquity that thou hast transgressed against the Lord thy God But let us search the Scriptures Jer. 18. 7 8. At what instant I §. 19. shall speak concerning a Nation and concerning a Kingdome to pluck up and to pull down and to destroy it If that Nation against whom I have pronounced turn from their evil I will repent of the evil which I thought to do unto them A famous instance we have of it in Nineveh against which Jonah cries Yet fourty dayes and Nineveh shall be overthrown Jonah 3. 4. In the former place God gives us a general rule to understand his threatenings as having a tacite condition of repentance by which the evil threatened may be escaped Otherwise Janas had spoken false in the Name of the Lord in threatening destruction to Nineveh within fourty dayes for the city was not then destroyed but upon their repentance what the Lord promised in Jeremy he performed upon them Jon. 3. 10. God saw their works that they turned from their evil way and God repented of the evil that he had said he would do unto them and he did it not c Vide Krakevitz in loc p. 341. Repentance then if God be a God of truth and cannot lie is the condition of our deliverance from threatened evils suitable to that of our Lord Luke 13. 3. Except you repent you shall all likewise perish Yet Gods saving men Nineveh in particular upon their repentance is an act of his grace not of their merit and unto that grace of God doth Jonah ascribe it Jon. 4. 2. I knew that thou art a gracious God and merciful In like manner is Israels deliverance from the judgements threatened ascribed to the free grace and mercy of God as the only cause though not without their own repentance and returning unto God as the condition thereof Joel 2. 12 13 14. So 2 Chron. 30. 19. For if you turne again unto the Lord there 's the condition your brethren and your children shall finde compassion before them that lead them captive so that they shall come again into this land for the Lord your God is gracious and merciful there 's the cause and will not turne away his face from you if you return to him Deut. 4. 30 31. When all these things are come upon thee even in the latter dayes if thou turne to the Lord thy God and shalt be obedient to his voice for the Lord thy God is a merciful God he will not destroy thee neither forsake thee c. So chap. 30. 2 3. Indeed the word grace or gracious is not expressely mentioned in this text but mercy is which is tantamount to it and likely they go both together as before Jonah 4. 2. Joel 2. 13 14. 2 Chron. 30. 9. Exod. 34. 6. And if their returning unto God be here denied to be the condition of their deliverance from destruction of which notwithstanding the mercy and grace of God is asserted to be the only cause I must professe for my own part I shall think it a hard matter to prove that there is one intelligible sentence in all the Scripture yea and let me speak my judgement freely though I detest the Papists doctrine of merits yet if Mr. Eyre will make good his position d Donationi potest apponi conditio nec ideo minùs pura vera donaâ—io dicitur dummodo ex illa commodum non accedat donanti Greg. Tholos Syntag juris l 28 c. 7 §. 7. â—x C. L. 8. tit 55 that every condition is a meritorious cause it must of necessity be granted that they have done more for the proof of merits then all the protestants on earth will ever be able to answer for I do not know one Protestant but yields that there are many Promises of grace which yet are conditional And thus much for the first Argument by which Mr. Eyre endeavours to prove that we are concurrent causes with God in the formal act of our own Justification if faith be made the condition thereof The second succeeds and that is this If faith be a condition §. 20. morally disposing us for justification we should then be concurrent causes with the merits of Christ in procuring our Justification for the merits of Christ are not a physical but a moral cause Now by ascribing to faith a moral causal influxe in our Justification we do clearly put it in eodem
I thus proposed If we are justified in Christ then we are justified before we beleeve But we are justified in Christ Ergo. This Argument Mr. Eyre proposeth more at large in his answer to my Sermon shewing withal how each part was proved in his conference with me concerning which I am able to give the Reader no account having so perfectly forgotten the method he used in proposing and prosecuting his Argument the summe is Christ was justified in his resurrection as a common person Ergo the elect were then justified in him My answer to this in my Sermon is large and distinct The summe is if justification be taken properly I deny that we were justified in Christ if improperly I deny that it will follow that we were justified before faith because we were justified in Christs resurrection no more then it will follow that because we are said to be risen with Christ Ergo men are risen from the dead before they are borne or dead or while they are lying in their graves But because M. Eyre hath taken my answer in pieces let us see what he doth animadvert upon each part of it First then I say we may conceive of a threefold justification 1. A justification purposed in the decree of God Gal. 3. 8. 2. A justification purchased and impetrated in the death of Christ Heb. 9. 12. 3. A justification exemplified in the resurrection of Christ who himself was justified in his own resurrection and thereby became the exemplary cause of justification to beleevers by virtue whereof themselves shall also be justified in due time c. What says Mr. Eyre to this 1. He infers in general that then by my own confession justification in a Scripture sense goes before faith The vanity of which triumph we have already discovered chapt 1. § 2. should I say that our glorification may be conceived as purposed of God as purchased by Christ as exemplified in his glorification I should not count him worthy of a reply that should inferre that I had therefore yeelded glorification to be before believing Mr. Eyre therefore foreseeing that I would deny either of these to be actual justification tells his Reader before hand that That were a poore put off because omnis justificatio simpliciter dicta congruenter exponenda est de justificatione actuali Analogum per se positum stat pro famosiori significato When we speak of justification simply there is no man but understands it of actual justification Which makes me beleeve his report concerning his book at least some parts of it that it had cost him but little paines for I cannot see how such observations could cost him much I mention justification cum adjecto with a limitation and in the close of my answer oppose each branch of my distinction to justification simply so called and this I may not be allowed to do because of Analogum per se positum c. Nextly He speaks something on each member of the distinction §. 2. and says 1. That which I called justification purposed in the decree of God is real and actual justification Ans Thou hast then thy choise Reader whether thou wilt beleeve the Apostle or M. Eyre The Text quoted Gal. 3. 8. says thus The Scripture foreseeing that God would justifie the Gentiles through faith preached before the Gospel unto Abraham The justification here spoken of is surely justification simply so called because it is put by it self without any Term of restraint or diminution and M. Eyres rule is Analogum per se positum stat pro famosiori significato And this justification according to the Apostle was a thing foreseen a thing that God would do a thing before the existence of which the Gospel was preached to Abraham all which notwithstanding M. Eyre will have the eternal decree of God to be our justification But of this we have spoken already as also of what he notes upon the second branch of the distinction The great exception is against the third branch wherein I say that §. 3. Christ in his resurrection being himself justified became thereby an exemplary cause of a justification future to them that should beleeve I did little expect so much vehemency and acrimony in opposing this as I meet with in M. Eyres answer to it 1. Saith M. Eyre there is not the least hint thereof in holy writ the Scripture no where calls our Saviour the example or patern of our justiâ—â—cation Rep. If the Question be concerning a name or term where doth M. Eyre find in Scripture the Term of a common person in which he so much delights attributed to Christ 2. If concerning that which is equivalent surely the Term of an exemplary cause is every whit as agreeable to Scripture as the other for in all spiritual and eternal blessing we beare the image of the heavenly Adam 1 Cor. 15. 49. and we are predestinated to be conformed to the image of Christ from the beginning to the end of our faith Rom. 8. 29 17. Now wherin we bear Christs image therein was he an exemplary cause for to an exemplary cause no more is required then that another thing be conformed to it as its image and exist by virtue of it which I desire the Reader to observe because M. Eyre doth often confound an example with an exemplary cause as if there were no difference between them If then we in our resurrection and justification bear the image of Christ then he in his resurrection and justification was the exemplary cause of ours And whereas M. Eyre says that Christ in his works of mediation was not an exemplary but a meritorious cause it is not universally true For the resurrection and ascension of Christ were acts of Christs as Mediatour and yet in them he was not the meritorious cause of any thing He proceeds thus It was needlesse Christ should be a patern §. 4. of our justification for this patern must be of use either unto us or unto God Not to us because we do not justifie our selves not to God because he needs no patern to direct him Rep. The disjunction is imperfect for it was needful for the glory of Christ as the Apostle expresly witnesseth Rom. 8. 29. Them he also did prâ—dâ—stinate to be conformed to the image of his Son that he might be the first born among many brethren It is no small part of Christs glory to be the first begotten from the dead and a person so farre advanced above all others that their highest glory shall consist in a conformity to him and in being fashioned according to his image 2. It is also of as much use to us in all respects as if we are said to be justified in Christs resurrection as a common person whether we respect the evidence which his resurrection gives or the influence which it hath upon our justification And whereas Mr. Eyre saies it can be of no use to us because we do not justifie our selves
so farre forth as they have other conditions or causes they are not the effects of purpose The existence and order of the things purposed is from Gods purpose For example he did purpose that first he would give up his Sonne to death for us then call us then justifie us then glorifie us and had there been nothing else but Gods purpose these foure had been the simple successive effects of his purpose but had not had the relation of cause and effect amongst themselves That Christs death merits our salvation is not from Gods purpose but from the convention between the Father and him That faith is the condition of justification and glorification is from the promise of grace made with us That glorification is also a reward is from the same promise That it is not only a consequent but an effect of our justification ariseth from the nature of that act as being an adjudging unto glory that it is an inheritance is because it is given by Testament Wherefore all these purposed acts of God may be considered either simply ratione existentiae in respect of their existence and so they have no other cause but his purpose or quoad modum essendi according to that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 habitude or relation which they have one to another in their execution arising either from the nature of the things themselves or some Law Covenant and constitution of God and thus they are not the effects of his purpose But I have been two long in my reply to this answer of Mr. Eyres A word more to prove that Gods eternal purpose is not the New Covenant and I passe on That Covenant which is of the same common nature with those §. 15. Covenants that are wont to be made amongst men doth not consist ◠Vide Less de Iust jur lib. 2. cap. 13. D. 1. 5. Grot. dejure Belli lib. 2. cap. 11. 2. in the meer will or purpose of God The New Covenant or Covenant of Grace is of the same common nature with those that are wont to be made amongst men Ergo the New Covenant doth not consist in the purpose of Gods minde or will The proposition is certain Because whether Mr. Eyre will allow Gods Covenant to be a Covenant properly so called or will rather call it a promise it is certain there are no Pacts Conventions Covenants Stipulations Restipulations Testaments Pollicitations Promises or Contracts of any kinde made amongst men which consist in the internal purpose of the minde and therefore if Gods Covenant or Promise be of the same common nature with these neither can that consist in his purpose The assumption is supposed by the Apostle Gal. 3. 15. Brethren I speak after the manner of men though it be but a mans Covenant yet if it be confirmed no man disannulleth or addeth thereto and ver 17. And this I say that the Covenant which was confirmed before of God in Christ c. Where the whole strength of the argument lyes upon this supposition that the covenant made with Abraham was a true formall Covenant or Promise such as usually passeth between man and man See to the same purpose Heb. 9. 15 16 17. many more arguments I could adde if need were SECT III. The direct answer to the Argument and the proof of it out of §. 16. Heb. 8. I thus delivered in my Sermon In the Covenant as recorded in Heb. 8. There are three things of distinct consideration the confusion of which so it should have been printed not the conclusion and so it is printed in the second Edition of my Sermon is the only support of Mr. Eyres Argument 1. There is the matter and blessings of the Covenant on Gods part I will be their God and they shall be my people 2. The bond and condition of it on our part and that is faith in those words I will put my Lawes in their mindes c. In these two things is the tenor and formality of the new Covenant They that believe the Lord will be their God and they shall be his people 3. There is also a promise and declaration that God will work this condition by which men shall have an interest in this Covenant and a right and title to the blessings of it I will put my Lawes into their mindes that is I will give them faith which faith is not promised as an effect of the Covenant already made but as a means by which we are brought into Covenant and thereby invested in a right to all the blessings of it c. That this is the true meaning of the text Reader thou shalt see proved below In the mean time according to my promise take a farther Explication of the words which I shall set down in distinct propositions that Mr. Eyre may see what little ground my words afford him of all his wonderments and paratragediations Prop. 1. The Old and New Covenant so called ver 8. and 13. §. 17. are not two Covenants opposed in their nature and substance but one and the same Covenant of grace under an Old and New Administration This many learned men have proved and our Divines generally grant it and Mr. Eyre himselfe for one in this his seventeenth Chapter § 2. and therefore I set it downe without farther proof Prop. 2. Therefore that which is called the New Covenant and described ver 10 11 12. doth not containe the form and tenour of the Covenant of grace but only the differences between the Old Covenant and the New and the matter wherein the latter excells the former And that the name of a Covenant is given to it doth not alter the case it being so frequent in Scripture to use the name of Covenant when not the forme but the matter or quality and efficacy of it is signified 2 Cor. 3. 14. Rom. 9. 4. 1 King 8. 21. Hos 2. 18. Job 5. 23 c. Prop. 3. The differences between the Old Covenant on the one side and the new on the other are thus stated in the text The Old in generall is called faulty ver 7 8. and the faultinesse of it described in two particulars 1. That it could not give strength and ability to the people to fulfill it and by consequence 2. That it could not make them blessed in the favour and enjoyment of God ver 9. They continued not in my Covenant and I regarded them not saith the Lord. In respect of which it is elsewhere called weak and unprofitable and unable to make any thing perfect chap. 7. 18 19. compare also Rom. 8. 3. and Gal. 3. 21. On the contrary the New Covenant in general is called better ver 6. and its betternesse beare with the Anglicisme expressed in two opposite respects 1. That it should minister ability and strength to keep Covenant 2. And by consequence perfect the people in the favour and enjoyment of God ver 10. I will put my Lawes into their minde And I will be
the following discourse Yet that the Reader may know what Justification it is which we speak of I shal here speak something briefly for explication of it leaving whatsoever is controverted to be proved in its proper place Justification then by our late Reverend a Larger Catech pag 94. in 12. Assembly is thus defined An act of Gods free-grace unto sinners in which he pardoneth all their sinnes accepteth and accounteth their persons righteous in his sight not for any thing wrought in them or done by them but only for the perfect obedience and full satisfaction of Christ by God imputed to them and received by Faith alone This for substance is the Justification which the Question speaks of if thou wouldest have it Reader more particularly take it as followeth The efficient ut quod of our Justification is God himself that justifieth §. 4. and his grace the efficient ut quo for he justifies us freely of his grace Rom. 3. 24. Jesus Christ also as King and Lord of life is joyned by special commission with the Father in his great Act of justifying sinners John 5. 22. 26 27. Acts 5. 31. Matth. 28. 18 19. with Mark 16. 15 16. and Luke 24. 47. The righteousnesse and obedience of Jesus Christ is the onely meritorious cause of our Justification but whether his active or passive obedience either or both I do not dispute nor do I account it needful because all the active obedience of Christ was passive for it was part of his humiliation that being b See Bp. Usher Imman pag. 10 at the end of his Body of Divinity a Son he would subject himself to the payment of that tribute of obedience which was due onely from servants and all his passive obedience was active for he laid down his life of himself John 10. 18. The formality of Justification consists as I take it in a legal discharge of a sinner from his obligation to punishment and a donation of right and title to eternal life which discharge and gift because it was merited by the obedience of Christ without any contribution of merit from the sinner himself is truly called the c Christi justitia in justificatione fidelibus imputatur quatenus ejus merito justi coram Deo reputamur Ames Medul Theol. l. 1. c. 27. th 12. imputation of Christs righteousnesse and this is the sense of that phrase in the use of our Divines And these things I here take for granted reserving the proof of what is disputable in them to its proper place SECT II. THe second and more material labour is to explain in what sense §. 5. we are said to be justified by Faith Mr. Eyre gives us five senses of the phrase first of those that take Faith in a tropical and figurative sense as thus We are justified by Faith i. e. by the obedience and righteousnesse of Jesus Christ in whom we believe and upon whom we rest for life and righteousnesse Secondly of those which say we are justified by Faith instrumentally and relatively Thirdly Of the Papists who ascribe a meritoriousnesse to Faith and do also make our Justification to be by inherent righteousnesse or doing of righteous actions Foutthly of the Arminians who explode the word Merit and deliver their opinion to this effect That God in the legal Covenant required the exact obedience of all his Commandments but now in the Covenant of Grace he requires Faith which in his gracious acceptation stands instead of that obedience to the Moral Law which we ought to performe Fifthly of those that say that Faith doth justifie as a condition or Antecedent qualification by which we are made capable of being justified according to the order and constitution of God The last of these is that which I contend for according to the explication given of it in my Sermon pag. 9. 10. which why Master Eyre should account a new opinion and charge it here upon Master Baxter and elsewhere upon Doctor Hammond as the first parents and patrons of it I know not much lesse why he should so very often accuse it as a piece of Arminianisme and Popery seeing it is a thing so well known that the Synod of Dort and almost all our Protestants do very frequently call Faith the condition of our Justification d De reconcil pecc par 1. l. 2. cap. 18. pag. 99. 100. Mr. Wotton doth purposely dispute for it and hath saved me the labour of transcribing the testimonies of many famous Protestants who say the same either in expresse termes as Fox Perkins Paraeus Trelcatius G. Downham J. Downham Schaâ—pius Tho. Mathewes or equivalent as Calvin Aretius Sadeel Oleviaâ— Mâ—lancthon Beza to whom I might adde e Disser de morte Christi pag. 63. Est autem hic ordo stabilitâ—s haec conditio expresse posita in â—vangelio quod reconciliationis gratia beneficium vitae aeternae ad peccatores ex morte Châ—isti redundaret si crederent Idem in praelect de Just Habit. act pag. 395 396. Davenant f Collat. cum Til pag. 6â—7 â—taque in vocatione aliam habet fides rationem quam in Justificatione nam in Justificatione conditio est praerequisita ut ita dicam in vocatione gignitur fusius in Disput de satisfact pag. 365. Cameron g Praelect Controv. 2. de not Eccles Q. 5. pag. 331. in 4. Cum primùm credo tum justus sum cum justus sum tum credo veluti si malefico cuiquam veniz cum hac conditione proponatur si eam amplecti velit c. Praelect de Sacram. cap. 4. Promissio gratiae conditionalis est requirit enim fidem c. Whitaker h De vocat pag. 16 17. Reliquum est ut videamus foederis gratuiti conditionem ea auâ—em sola est sides Deus promittit justificationem vitam sub conditione fidei passim Rollock i Syntag. Theol. l. 4. c. 10. de Evang. pag. 1106. Promissiones Evangelii de remissione peccatorum vita aeterna pertinen quidem ad omnes homines non tamen abâ—olutè sed sub conditione apprehensionis per fidem infra ibid. verum absolutae tamen non sunt sed hac conditione circumscriptae ut credant in Christum Grotius k De Evang Decad. 4 â— 1. pag. 238 Proposuit enim Deus Christum propitiationem nimirum ut is esset râ—conciliatio nostra propter quem placatus nos adoptat in filios Dei Verum non alia ratione quam per fidem in ejus sanguinem id est si credamus c. Bullinger l De remiâ—s peccat cap. 6. pag mihi 621. Discernendum inter eam gratiam Dei quae nullas haber adjectas conditiones qualis est quòd sâ—lem suum producit super bones malos pluitque super gratos ingratos eam quae conditionaliter confertur ad quem modum peccatorum nobis remissio contingit cap. 4.
came not to satisfie the justice but only to manifest the love of God whereas saith he we say that notwithstanding the Will of God not to punish his Elect the Law must needs be satisfied for their sins no lesse then for the sins of others And 2. Their notion who upon this ground have asserted the eternal being of the creature c. Answ Here is the foundation of all the following obscure discourse which I perceive Mr. Eyre had rather we should take for granted then he be put to prove I do therefore deny 1. That Justification doth any where in Scripture signifie Gods eternal Will or Purpose not to punish of which more presently 2. That it is any where in Scripture put pro re volitâ for the thing willed formally and under that habitude or relation Justification is the discharge of a sinner from his obligation to punishment whether it were willed or not willed from eternity is but extrinsecal and accidental to the Act it selfe 3. That Justification is any where used in Scripture for the effects of Justification though I deny no man the liberty of making use somtimes of such a trope but we are now enquiring de nomine concerning the use of the Word The Apostle makes that one Act of Election the cause of all spiritual blessings Eph. 1. 3 4. of which our Justification is one ver 6 7. no lesse then Adoption ver 5. which is an Act of the same common nature with Justification and by some eminent d See Dr. Reignolds Life of Christ page 402. Divines made a part of it and that suitably enough to Scripture phrase even when it is made consequent to our faith John 1. 12. Gal. 3. 25. with 4. 5 6. 4. Our discharge from the curse is either our discharge from an obligation to it or from our actual suffering it In this latter sense it is indeed an effect of Justification but in the former sense it is the very life being and forme of it unlesse it be understood passively and so that also may be called an effect of Justification because the immediate effect of a discharge active is a person discharged These observations Reader thou wilt finde useful in the following debate That absurd conceit as he calls it that some have inferred upon §. 5. an eternal Justification viz. that then Christ came not to satisfie the justice but only to manifest the love of God is so natural a consequence of his doctrine that it will never be put off with a cold Negatur And I presume Mr. Eyre is not ignorant that it is a maine principle upon which the Socinians deny the satisfaction of Christ And if he will owne what himselfe hath wrote in this book he must joyne with them He affirmes that Gods eternal Will not to punish is the very essence of Justification page 64. 2. That by this Will men are secured from wrath and discharged and acquitted from their sins that it is a real discharge from condemnation an actual and compleat non-imputation of sin page 67. § 6. upon which premises I demand Whose debt did Christ pay his own That 's little lesse then blasphemy Ours why our bond was cancelled long before and our selves discharged and acquitted from all sinne and death really actually compleatly if Mr. Eyres doctrine be true And where then is any place left for satisfaction e De satisfact p. 119. Grotius hath well observed Obligationis destructio liberatio dicitur Hanc praecedere potest solutio sequi non potest quia actus nullus versari potest circa id quod non existit amplius To the same purpose f In tert Tho. tom 1. disp 4. sect 8. p. 58. edit Venet. Suarez Propriè non dicitur satisfactio quae post remissionem debiti sit sed quae fit ad debiti remissionem Est enim remissio debiti terminus satisfactionis non principium ut communi sensu omnium hominum constat Nec dici potest eandem peccati remissionem quae facta fuit gratis ante satisfactionem postea etiam fieri per satisfactionem quia repugnat idem debitum gratis remitti per justam solutionem But what need we the testimony of man the testimony of God is greater The text is plain Heb. 10. 18. where remission of sin is there is no more offering for sinne Ergo if sin were remitted from eternity Christ neither did nor could make any satisfaction If it be said that God did discharge us upon the foresight of Christs satisfaction I beleeve it to be most true of all the godly that lived before Christ but Mr. Eyre that makes this discharge to be an immanent not a transient act in God will not may not endure that it should be caused by the foresight of Christs satisfaction The next grosse mistake which Mr. Eyre tells us some have fastened §. 6. upon the doctrine of eternal Justification is theirs who upon this ground have asserted the eternal being of the creature thus If men are justified from eternity they are from eternity And I confesse Mr. Eyre hath well removed this consequence if his principle be good that esse justificatum is a terme of diminution But verily if the Scriptures have rightly informed us in the nature of Justification I do not see how the consequence can be avoided for Justification is one of the most eminent blessings contained in that Promise I will be their God So Paul Rom. 3. 29 30. Is he the God of the Jewes only and not of the Gentiles also yea of the Gentiles also seeing it is one God who shall justifie the circumcision by faith and the uncircumcision through faith Now God is not the God of the dead but of the living Matth. 22. 32. And if not the God of the dead who yet live as to their soules then much lesse is he the God of them that are not nor never were Ergo he doth not justifie them that are not Again He that is justified is blessed Rom. 4. And he that is blessed from eternity is from eternity for he that is not is neither blessed nor miserable To say he is blessed from eternity in Gods intention is no more then that there was a preparation of blessednesse for him in Gods intention which I readily grant and it profits Mr. Eyre nothing But it little concernes me to make good the foresaid consequence something more of it the Reader shall finde a little below in the mean time we come to the great Question whether Justification consist formally in the Will or Purpose of God not to punish SECT III. THe Will of God as Divines are wont to distinguish is either §. 7. voluntas beneplaciti or voluntas signi The former is the Intention Decree or Purpose of God concerning some Act of his owne to be done by himselfe in his due time The latter to confine it to our present use is his signal legislative revealed royal Will by which
told them If Christ were not risâ—n they were yet in their sins seeing they were discharged and acquitted from them so long before 3. His intercession is also vain for he lives to intercede for us to save us from wrath Rom. 5. 9 10. Heb. 2. 17. and 7. 25. We are secured from wrath before sayes Mr. Eyre 4. Our preaching is vain for we are to preach to every creature under Heaven That except they beleeve they shall be damned Mark 16. 15 16. and multitudes even all the Elect are secured from wrath before 5. It doth also imply a contradiction that a man should be acquitted from sin who was never a sinner or discharged from condemnation who was never condemned If it be said the Elect were sinners and condemned in Gods fore-knowledge Mr. Eyre is better read in Dr. Twisse then to be ignorant of what inextricable inconveniences that answer is liable to But let us heare Mr. Eyres proofes of his Assumption God saith he loved the Elect from everlasting and his love is velle dare bonum c. Answ Which as was observed before is one of the g Vid. Croll Cont. Grot. cap 5. par 6. 7. cap. 1 p. 1. Socinians weapons by which they attempt the ruine of Christs satisfaction against which our Divines have provided sufficient armour A love of benevolence or good will moving God to seek out a way of satisfaction to his own Justice and of Justification of a sinner we readily grant h Vid Joh. Cameron oper p. 361. f. But his love of friendship and well-pleasednesse with a sinner was not from everlasting but in time as being a consequent of the death of Christ in whom he hath made us accepted Eph. 1. 6. as Mr. Eyre doth not only yield but contend below from Mat. 3. 17. and so saith the Apostle Rom. 9. 25. I will call her beloved who was not beloved out of the Prophet Hos 2. 23. and as for the text which Mr. Eyre quotes Ezek. 16. 6. I cannot divine to what end it is unlesse it be to finde me work seeing the love there spoken of is manifestly temporal ver 8. and the life mentioned ver 6. in the latter is the flourishing and honourable condition unto which God had raised Israel both in respect of their Politick and Church-State who were originally the fewest and meanest of all people and in a spiritual sense is the life which he breaths into sinful soules But what Mr. Eyre would inferre from hence himselfe best knows In short I readily grant that Gods eternal love doth concurre ut causa universalis prima as the first universal cause not only to our Justification in time but to all other our spiritual blessings but an universal cause produceth nothing without particulars and the quality of the effect is not to be ascribed to the universal but to the particular cause 2. Mr. Eyre is proving that Gods velle non punire is that act by which we are discharged and acquitted from sin and secured from wrath I wish he had shewed me how this Conclusion issues from these premisses His Argument in forme must run thus Gods eternal love discharges the Elect from sin and secures them from wrath Gods velle non punire is his eternal love Ergo. The major is already disproved The minor if understood of the love of God in whole confounds Election and Justification which yet Mr. Eyre is careful to distinguish a little below for what is Gods Election but his Love or his velle dare bonum If of the Love of God in part the Argument will run thus That which is part of Gods eternal love is a sinners discharge from sin Gods velle non punire is part of his eternal love Ergo. If the major be true Gods purpose of giving Christ of calling sinners of sanctifying them yea of afflicting them and of administring any Providence towards them which in the issue proves for their good may as well be called their Justification as his velle non punire 3. Mr. Eyre hath already granted at least verbo tenus that notwithstanding the Will of God not to punish the Elect the Law must needs be satisfied for their sins no lesse then for the sins of others If this be true then the eternal act of Gods Election in it selfe considered gives the Elect themselves no more security from wrath then if they had not been elected Surely that concession will never be reconciled with the doctrine here delivered But we come on to Mr. Eyres second proof and that is from §. 10. Scripture Rom. 8. 33. Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods Elect The Proposition is either an universal Negative No Elect person can be justly charged with sin or an universal affirmative All elect persons are free from the charge of sin Answ Mr. Eyre should have put in the Apostles answer to the Question and then he had prevented mine The words are these Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods Elect It is God that justifieth Hence it follows either negatively that no elect person being justified can be effectually charged with sin or affirmatively that all the elect that are justified are free from such a charge free I say not because elect but because justified for the charging of sin is manifestly opposed not to their Election but to their Justification but that their Justification is their Election or any part of it or contemporary with it as I may so speak is an inference without any foundation in the text 2. Yea it cannot be inferred according to Mr. Eyres principles though we should grant the Election here spoken of to be that which is from eternity of which presently for the Justification here spoken of is that which is grounded in the death of Jesus Christ Who shall condemn it is Christ that died But the eternal Justification which Mr. Eyre is pleading for from the text is not grounded in the death of Christ for it is an Act in God from eternity Now observe Reader that Mr. Eyre denies Christ to have merited the Act of Justification but only the effects I would know then whether the Apostle speak of the Act or effects of Justification in those words Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods Elect if of the Act then the Elect were from eternity unchargeable and whose charge then did Christ beare and why doth Mr. Eyre all along tell us that our discharge from the curse is the fruit of Christs merits yea and what more as to the tâ—rminus à quo of our salvation I say what more could Christ merit possibly then that we should not be chargeable with sin And if that were done before by an eternal act there will be no effects of Justification left for Christ to merit as to our deliverance from sin But if the Justification here spoken of be meant not of the act but of the effects Mr. Eyre will grant me without
farther disputing that this place is insufficient to prove that Gods eternal purpose of not punishing is our Justification 3. But I am out of doubt that the Elect here are not so called in reference to Election from eternity but rather in reference to election temporal as our l Dr Twisse in â—orv defens Arm. Cont. Til. pag. 202. Divines distinguish namely in respect of their effectual separation unto God and forsaking the conversation of the world and their admittance through faith into a state of favour and precious esteem with God as election doth sometimes signifie in Scripture See 1 Cor. 1. 26 27 28. James 2. 5. 1 Pet. 2. 4 6. The reason is plain because such Elect are here meant who were the present objects of the worlds reproaches injurious sentences false accusations and slanders c. for whose comfort in this their suffering condition the Apostle speaks these words to assure them that all the malice and abuses of the world should do them no harme so long as God justified them and approved of them Compare ver 21 35 37. And this also is the intent of the words in the Prophet who speaks them as in the Person of Christ when he was delivered up into the hands of wicked men Isa 50. 8 9. Now the Elect themselves before Conversion have their conversation according to the course of the world and are not the objects of persecution from the world Eph. 2. 23. SECT IV. WE have heard what Mr. Eyre can say for himself Before I §. 11. go any farther I shall set down a few Arguments to prove that the essence of Justification doth not consist in Gods eternal Will or Purpose of not punishing And first from the efficient cause Justification is such an act whereof Jesus Christ our Mediatour as Lord and King is the efficient cause with God the Father He is also the meriting cause as Priest by the offering or sacrifice of himself But of this we speak not now Acts 5. 31. John 5. 19 22 26 27. Luke 24. 47. and other places before quoted But Jesus Christ our Mediatour as Lord and King doth not will or purpose with God from eternity not to punish sinners The reason is plain because himself from all eternity was purposed of God to be Lord and King Ergo Justification doth not consist essentially in the Will or Purpose of God not to punish 2. Justification is an act of God purposed Ergo it cannot consist in his purpose The reason is because else God must purpose to purpose which is inconvenient The Antecedent is almost the words of the Apostle Gal. 3. 8. The Scripture foreseeing that God would justifie the Gentiles through faith preached before the Gospel to Abraham We have scarce more evidence of any truth upon which we lay the weight of our salvation then this text affords us of the point in hand saying that God would justifie in the future tense making Justification the object of divine foresight affirming the Gospel to have been preached to Abraham many yeares before it 3. If there be no such act in God at least that we may conceive of as velle non punire precisely and formally then our Justification cannot consist in that act the reason is plaine because then our Justification were precisely nothing But there is no such act in God that we may conceive of as velle non punire precisely Ergo. For proof of the Assumption Reader thou must remember that the foregoing Argument proves that there was in God from eternity a will to justifie believers in time that is 1. To discharge them from the obligation of the Law by which that punishment becomes legally undue which before was legally due and hence it follows 2. That they are not punished de facto so that impunity simply is no part nor effect of Justification but as following upon a legal disobligation otherwise every sinner in the world that were not presently punished were justified The impunity of a sinner therfore that it may be an effect or part of Justification must be considered with its modus as the impunity of a person discharged from the obligation of the Law for God doth so free us from punishment as may be without the least prejudice to the truth or justice or authority of his Law Accordingly I affirme that God never purposed not to punish precisely praescindendo à modo as impunity is severed from the manner in which it is given but he purposed not to punish modo congruo in a congruous way by disobliging first from the threatning of the Law and thereby giving them a legal right not to be punished and not to let them go unpunished while the Law stands in full force against them 1. That which was never executed was never purposed But never sinner went unpunished while the Law stood in full force against him Ergo. The Proposition is unquestionable In the Assumption Mr. Eyre will agree with me for he contends that all the Elect were discharged from the Law and had a right given them to impunity in the death of Christ and no elect person ever had or shall have impunity in any other way Ergo it was never purposed that they should have it in any other way that is that it was never purposed precisely that they should not be punished 2. Gods Purpose and his Laws will else be at enmity one with another for if he purpose not to punish precisely praescindendo à modo and yet do punish then he crosseth his purpose and if he do not punish the Law being supposed to remain in full force he is unfaithful if not also unjust as some k Dr. Oâ—en â—â—atr de Just vind learned men think 3. If non-punition l Vid. Tâ—oiss â—ind dâ— prâ—dest lib. 1. par 1. digr 9. c. 1 2 3. 4. precisely tend not to the glory of Gods grace then did he not will precisely not to punish for such a will were neither of the end nor of the meanes but non-punition precisely is no congruous meanes to glorifie Gods grace Ergo. For if a man had continued obedient and had never broken Gods Laws in the least tittle his impunity had not been of grace but of debt Rom. 4. 4. as it is with the holy Angels at this day Therefore we cannot conceive of any act in God purposing precisely not to punish in which yet Mr. Eyre placeth the very formality of our Justification 4. If Justification be velle nâ—n punire then condemnatiâ—n is vâ—ll◠§. â—â— punire for oppositorum eadem â—st ratio But condemnation is not velle punire Shall I need to prove this who ever said that Gods eeternal purpose of punishing men for sin was condemnation 'T is an expression that neither God nor man will owne so farre as I can finde Dr. Twisse is known to reject it often not without some passion and detestation Condemnation is every where in Scripture made an act of justice Rom.
nothing for never man was nor ever shall be the better for this supposed Will of God precisely of not punishing for if it produce us any good it is either from eternity or in time Surely from eternity we are never the better for it if in time what is that good I suppose it will be said freedome from punishment Well But doth it effect this freedome mediately or immediately mediately it can do nothing for it is determined precisely to a non-punition and containes not a preparation of any subordinate cause for the effecting of our deliverance Election indeed may very well concurre to our discharge wrought by the death of Christ because it is a pre-ordination of Christ himself and of all other more immediate causes that work in their several orders and dependances for our dâ—scharge If immediately then the death of Christ interposeth no cauâ—ality for the effecting of the said freedome of which notwithstanding Mr. Eyre asserts it to be the adequate and immediate cause in his next Proposition 3. To give a peculiar name to the volition of one part of the meanes as distinct from the volition of all the rest unlesse there be some special reason of such denomination is but to impose upon our understandings for why may not Gods Will of sending Christ of publishing the Gospel of renewing our natures of raising our bodies of glorifying our whole man each of them deserve a more proper and significant name then Election as well as his Will not to punish for as to the act of this Will eâ—dem mâ—do se habet circa omnia objecta volita it respecteth all the meanes willed equally and in the same manner the persons to whom this impunity is willed lay under no other consideration as the objects of this will then as they are the objects of the will of calling sanctifying glorifying so that neither from the act nor the object is there any reason of such denomination Indeed the objects I mean the media volita of election and reprobation being contraries in the utmost degree and irreconcileable in the same person our weak understandings do therefore conceive of those acts as differing specie and accordingly we diversifie their names But the objects of Election being amongst themselves consentanies and subordinate in their execution one to the other and having no other entity or modality before their own existence in time then precisely ut volita it is altogether beyond the reach of my understanding to imagine any reason why the volition of one meanes should have a name proper to it self incommunicable to the volition of any other means willed by the same act to the same end 4 But the answer yields as much as the objection seeks for it grants Justification to be part of election namely Electio ad impunitatem Whereas 1. Scripture-Justification is a forensical act say all our Protestants against the Papists I spare quotations because the thing is too well known to be denied This cannot be affirmed of Election 2. The object of Election is neither a sinner nor a righteous person precisely but one that is not for we are chosen before the foundation of the world Eph. 1. 4. before we have done good or evil Rom. 9. 11. but the object of Scripture-Justification is a sinner Rom. 4. 5. whether believing or unbelieving we dispute below 3. Election is not properly an act of mercy but of absolute dominion and liberty Scripture-Justification is every where reported as an act of mercy Psal 51. 1. Luke 1. 78 79. Matth. 18. 33. Luke 18. 13 14. Heb. 8. 12. Eph. 2. 4 5. Ergo Justification is not Election nor any part of it If it be said that the name of pardon and Justification in these and other places signifies not the act but the effects I shall refer to my vindication of the next objection which is as followeth SECT VI. THe second objection therefore is this Justification imports a change in a persons state ab injusto ad justum Which cannot be §. 15 attributed to the decrees of God I shall divide Mr. Eyres answer into two parts First saith he if Justification be taken for the thing willed viz. the delivery of a sinner from the curse of the Law then there is a great change made thereby he that was a childe of wrath by nature hath peace and reconciliation with God But if we take it for the Will of God not to punish then we say Justification doth not suppose any such change as if God had first a Will to punish his Elect but afterwards he altered his Will to a Will not to punish them Rep. Plain dealing is best in a good cause If Mr. Eyre had told me roundly that the effects of Justification make a change in a persons state but the act doth not I had then known what I had to do But I know not very well what to make of these lines 1. The objection in forme is this Justification imports a change in a persons state ab injusto ad justum But velle nen punire or any other eternal purpose of God makes no such change of a persons state Ergo To say now that the Will of God not to punish supposeth no such change is to yield the Conclusion that therefore it is not Justification 2. What means he by a sinners delivery from the curse of the Law either it supposeth that a sinner doth actually suffer the curse of the Law or some part of it till Justification deliver him but this he denieth of such persons for whom Christ hath satisfied namely the Elect page 60. 61. § 2. or it supposeth an obligation of such persons by Law unto future punishment till they be justified But this he denieth too of the same persons page 110. 111. § 2 3 5. and what it is to deliver a sâ—nner from the curse which he neither suffers at present nor is obliged to suffer for future I want an Interpreter to tell me 3. Nor can I tell in Mr. Eyres sense what it is to have peace and reconciliation with God If he meane it of peace of conscience through the sense of reconciliation himselfe will deny that that is the immediate effect of our delivery from the curse for faith apprehending reconciliation doth intervene and that as a true proper cause of such a peace If he mean it of a state of peace and reconciliation before God he should not need to ascribe that to the thing willed seeing the erernal Will of God is most sufficient unto that according to him as being a real discharge from condemnation an actual and compleat non-imputation of sin and he layes it down for an undeniable truth That the Elect were in Covenant with God before the foundations of the world page 170 171. 4. The great change which he speaks of made by this delivery from the curse of the Law viz. That he that was a childe of wrath by nature hath peace and reconciliation with
God this great change I say is a huge nothing for saith he a little below to be just and unjust is not properly a different state before God but a different consideration of one and the same person The Elect themselves then even when believers are children of wrath by nature yea of the Saints in glory considered according to what they are by nature it may be said that they are children of wrath And is not that a great change from wrath to reconciliation which leaves a man every whit as much a childe of wrath as he was before 5. I beleeve with Mr. Eyre that the Will or Purpose of God makes no change in a persons state but I wonder what he meanes by the reason added As if saith he God had first a Will to punish his Elect but afterwards he altered his Will to a Will not to punish them As if God could not will a mutation in the creature without a mutation in his own Will He made the world by his Will and he also wills the dissolution of it after such a period of time this is a mutation in the world but none in God In like manner he may will that the elect for a time shall stand obliged by Law to the suffering of condemnation and yet also will that after a time this obligation shall cease and all this without any change in his will But we shall prove hereafter that is not the Will of Gods purpose but his declared Lawes by which a sinner is constituted just or unjust But let us come to a more close encounter Justification saith the §. 16. objection imports a change of a persons state ab injusto ad justum And if Scriptures be intelligible by the sons of men it cannot be denied Rom. 5. 8 9. While we were yet sinners Christ died for us much more then being now justified in his blood we shall be saved from wrath through him Whether we are justified by the blood of Christ without faith or through faith we reserve to be debated in its proper place for the present it sufficeth us to observe from hence that Justification makes a change in a persons state ab injusto ad justum in sensu forensi And what can mans reason require more for proof of it then these words afford Had the Apostle said You were sometimes cold but now you are hot you were sometimes servants but now you are free you were sometimes enemies but now you are friends he would scarcely be accounted a reasonable creature that should deny such expressions to import a mutation from one terme to another And must not then the like change be signified when he saith You were sometime sinners but now you are justified especially if we consider which I perceivâ— all men do not observe that the word sinners by which the Apostle expresseth their state before Justification doth not signifie precisely transgressours of the Law for even they that are justified are in that regard sinners 1 John 1. 8 10. Nor yet only and precisely such as are under the reigning power of sin though it be true that all the unjustified are so because their sinful condition is here opposed not to Sanctification formally but unto Justification And they of all men that maintain Justification to be perfect in the death of Christ may not so understand the word sinners in this place For these Romanes for example were not sinners after their Justification in that sense in which the Apostle tells them they were sinners befâ—re their Justification for the time of their being sinners is directly opposed to the time of their Justification But if they were justified immediately in the death of Christ it is beyond dispute that sin might and did reigne in them after this Justification even until the time of their Conversion unto the faith By sinners therefore in this place are meant such sinners as were by Law bound over to condemnation and had not at present any right to deliverance from wrath for that right was given them in their Justification as appears by the Apostles arguing à majori ad minus being now justified 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 how much more shall we be saved from wrath Nor is it unfrequent in Scripture by the word sinner to signifie a maâ— obliged to punishment see 1 Kings 1. 21. Gen. 43. 9. Rom. 5. 15 Gal. 3. 22. especially as m Inâ—iâ— l. 3. c. 11. â— 3. Calvin well observes according tâ— the Hebrew Dialect Vbi etiam scelesti vocantur non modò qui sibi conscii sunt sceleris sed qui judicium damnationis subeunt Neque enim Bersabe 1 Reg. 1 21. dum se Solâ—monem dicit fore scelestos crimen agnoscit sed probro se filium expositum iri conqueritur ut numerentur inter reprobos damnatos Hence the Hebrew n Vid. Joâ— Merâ—er Hâ—u Aâ—n w. iâ— Gâ—r 43 9. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sin doth sometimes signifie precisely an obligation yea when it results from a fact which is not sinful As the Nazarite that was defiled against his will by the touch of a dead body is yet commanded to offer a sin-offering the LXX 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the reason is added because he sinned by the dead Numb 6. 11. that is Reus est tacti cadaveris And what was offered for the cleansing of leapers and of men and women for natural and unavoidable defilements is called an offering 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lev. 14. 19. and 15. 15 30. If now Mr. Eyre shall say that when the Apostle sayes much more §. 17. being now justified c. he speaks not of the act but of the effects of Justification I reply 1. It is not lawful for man to teach the Holy Ghost to speak The Apostle tells us that God commendeth his love towards us in giving Christ to die for us while we were sinners that we might be justified in his blood ver 8 9. therefore that which in God is the cause of our Justification in the blood of Christ is his love and so to be called 2. If yet it shall be said that that love of God is our Justification then whereas it is said God so loved us as to justifie us in the blood of his Sonne it must be said henceforward God so justified us as to justifie us in the blood of his Sonne which is ridiculous 3. If temporal Justification in the blood of Christ be but the effect of a former Justification which was from eternity what an empty noise hath the Apostle made in amplifying the love of God in giving Christ to die for the Justification of sinners and enemies whosoever is justified is not a sinner in the Apostles sense of that word but righteous not an enemie but reconciled 4. The Apostle if his judgement may be taken doth thus distinguish the act and the effects of Justification that the act is that by which of sinners we are made
just the effect which follows upon it is that we shall therefore be saved from wrath It seemes the distinction between the velle and the res volita in the matter of Justification was unknown to him 5. And his discourse supposeth that the love and grace of God is nothing so much commended by giving the effects as by putting forth the act of Justification for herein God commends his love towards us that while we were yet sinners he gave his Son to death for our Justification and then as a lesser matter he infers much more being now justified we shall be saved from wrath So also ver 10. Now if by Justification in Christs blood be meant the effects and not the act of Justification then the love and grace of God is nothing near so great in justifying us through the blood of Christ as in justifying us before without his blood But this is most notoriously false as is manifest not from this text only but from all the Scriptures which proclaim that temporal Justification which we have through the blood of Christ to be an act of greatest love and richest grace Rom. 3. 24 25. and 5. 20 21. Eph. 1. 6 7. and 2. 4 5 6 7. 1 Tim. 1. 14. Tit. 3. 4 5 6 7 6. The effects of Justification follow upon the act by moral necessity and without impediment Ergo the Justification here spoken of is not the effect precisely but the act The reason of the consequence is because the Justification mentioned in the text follows not upon any simple precedent act of Justification but is set forth as an act of such moral difficulty that it required no lesse then the precious blood of the Son of God to remove the obstructions and hindrances of its existence and to make it to exist The Antecedent is proved from his manner of arguing à majori ad minus being now justified much more shall we be saved implying that salvation follows as it were necessarily upon the position of the act of Justification Yea and I appeal to Mr. Eyre himselfe or any man else whether that act be not unworthy of the many glorious titles and epithets which are every where in Scripture put upon Justification and consequently unworthy of that name which being put in actu completo can yet produce no good effect to a sinner nor set him one degree farther from wrath then he was before unlesse some other more sufficient cause do interpose to midwise out its effects This mindes me of another Argument and that is this 7. Justification is not an act of grace simply but of powerful grace or of grace prevailing against the power of sin for this is that which creates the difficulty and so commends the excellency of the grace of Justification that it is the Justification of sinners Were it the Justification of such as had never sinned but had been perfectly righteous there were no such difficulty in that And therefore in the following part of the Chapter the Apostle expresly declares the quality of this grace in justifying us in that it abounds and is powerful to justifie above the ability of sin to condemn ver 15 17 20 Ergo the Justification here spoken of is the very act of Justification or there is no such thing at all for if we place it in a simple eternal volition there could be no moral difficulty in that no more then in the will of creating the world because from eternity there could be no opposition or hindrance for an act of grace to overcome 8. The Justification merited by Christ is not the effect but the act The reason we shall shew anon because it is absurd to make Christ the meritour of the effects when the act is in being before his merit But the Justification here spoken of is that which is merited by Christ Ergo I might also argue out of the following part of the Chapter from the opposition between Justification and the act of condemnation which passeth upon all men by vertue of the first transgression and therefore sure cannot consist in any eternal act of Gods will and from the method there used in comparing Adam and Christ and of our partaking first in the image of the first Adam in sin and the effects thereof before we be conformed to the image of the second Adam in Justification and the effects thereof but these Arguments out of the text it self shall suffice Other Scriptures also there are in abundance which testifie that Justification §. 18. doth make a change in a persons state ab injusto ad justum As Col. 2. 13. You being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh hath he quickened together with him having forgiven you all trespasses To be dead in sins in this place is clearly to be dead in Law that is to be obliged by Law to the suffering of death for sin for it is opposed to that life which consists in remission of sin or Justification so 1 Cor. 6. 11. such were some of you but ye are justified of which place more hereafter See also Rom. 3. 19 20 21 22 23 24. and 5. 18 19 20 21. Eph. 2. 12 13 14 15 16. And indeed all the places of Scripture which speak of Gods justifying sinners If there be found out a new Justification which the Scriptures are not acquainted with may they have joy of it that have discovered it But I hasten to the second part of Mr. Eyres answer The change of a persons state ab injusto ad justum ariseth from the Law and the consideration of man in reference thereunto by whose sentence the transgressour is unjust but being considered at the Tribunal of grace and cloathed with the righteousnesse of Christ he is just and righteous which is not properly a different state before God but a different consideration of one and the same person God may be said at the same time to look upon a person both as sinful and as righteous as sinful in reference to his state by nature and as righteous in reference to his state by grace Now this change being but imputed not inherent it supposeth not the being of the creature much lesse any inherent difference c. Answ These words are mysteries to me and I confesse have occasioned §. 19. me more perplexity and vexation of thoughts then all the book besides Before I can give any answer to them I must make some enquiry into the meaning of them And for avoiding of confusion in the words just and unjust their importance in this place is no more then to have or be without a right to salvation and life Now to be unjust by nature or in our selves may be understood in a threefold sense 1. Positively and then the meaning is that for the sin of nature or for mens sinfulnesse in themselves they stand obliged before God to the suffering of eternal punishment This is so far from being Mr. Eyres meaning that I suppose
it is the very thing which he intends to deny by these obscure expressions as he also often doth in other parts of this book for it is impossible that a man should stand before God obliged to punishment and disobliged at the same time 2. Or purely negatively as denying nature to be the cause of our Justification But neither do I think this to be Mr. Eyres meaning because the sense will be so pitifully jejune for thus to be just by grace and unjust by nature is no more then that it is grace and not nature which justifies us and he that sayes a man is justified by grace and not by a piece of bread and butter or by the flying of the clouds over his head speaks every whit as much to purpose 3. Diminutively in sensu diviso secundum quid that if we suppose there were no act of grace to hinder men must needs be condemned there being in themselves sufficient cause of condemnation and in the Law sufficient power to oblige them to it but the grace of God doth hinder both the one and the other from coming forth into act so that they never stand actually obliged to the suffering of punishment notwithstanding their own sinfulnesse and the Lawes rigour This if any thing must be our Authours meaning as best suiting with what he sayes here and elsewhere as page 111. § 5. By nature or in reference to their state in the first Adam the Elect were children of wrath they could expect nothing but wrath from God And again beleevers considered in themselves and as they come from the loines of Adam are sinful and cursed creatures And again page 113. § 7. The Law shews not who are condemned of God but who are guilty and damnable in themselves if God should deal with them by the Law Let us see then what Mr. Eyre would have this I think it is That there is in all men even the Elect themselves sufficient cause of condemnation that is sufficient cause on their part why they should lose all right to salvation and life and be actually damned and also that there is nothing wanting in the nature and constitution of the Law which is required in a Law to make it able to binde or oblige men even the Elect themselves unto punishment And all this is true questionlesse But it is withal affirmed that the Elect by the gracious and eternal act of Gods Will are absolutely just before God and by the same Will is the Law though broken by them disabled from binding them actually unto punishment So that they are said to be unjust by the Law or in themselves or by nature not that they are at any time absolutely unjust or without all right to life for they are supposed to be absolutely just from eternity but as it were materially because if the foresaid act of Gods Will had not prevented they had been unjust simply and absolutely Against which doctrine I have several things to oppose 1. In §. 20. general whereas the intent of it is to prove that a sinner may be justified and unjustified both at once it is manifest that these words are used in some other sense then what the Scriptures are wont to take them in because to be a sinner and to be righteous to be justified and to be condemned to have ones sins retained and remitted according to Scripture are contraries and never agree to the same person at the same time John 3. 17 18. Rom. 8. 1 33 34. and 5. 8 9. John 20. 23. 1 Cor. 6. 9 11. and many other places 2. If an elect sinner be never unjust but in this respective diminutive sense then it is impossible for the act or effects of Justification to make any change upon him because it is impossible but that he who is justified meerly of grace should be unjust in himself even glorified Saints are to all eternity unjust by nature or of themselves or in reference to their state in the first Adam 3. If this be the whole of a sinners unrighteousnesse then by the Law of nature sinners are not unjust simply and universally so as to have no right at all to life but only in some respect so as to have no right by that Law which they have transgressed But all sinners are universally unjust by the Law of nature which I thus prove 1. If Adam while he continued obedient had by his obedience a right to life and had no right at all but by his obedience according to the Law then upon his disobedience he became universally unjust by the same Law The reason 's plain because if there be but one rule of righteousness in being then he that is not righteous by that rule is not righteous at all Sublat â causà totali tollitur effectus totaliter But Adam whiles he continued obedient had by his obedience and by the Law a right to life and had no right at all but by his obedience Ergo. The Assumption is thus confirmed If Adam had any other right then by the Law then it must be by some grace of God But this cannot be according to Scripture because to have a right by grace and works too is inconsistent according to Scripture Rom. 11. 6. If by grace then not of works otherwise grace is no more grace If by works then not of grace otherwise work is no more work How long Adam continued innocent I cannot tell If but half a day if but half an houre it is all one to my purpose it being concluded by Divines that Adam and Eve one or both were saved and therefore were elect and Adams case was then the case of all men one as well as another he being as it were the epitome of all mankinde in what he did and in what befell him 2. The Apostle also witnesseth that the Gentiles whiles they continued in their Gentilisme were all of them equally alienated from God Col. 1. 21. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 separate from Christ strangers from the Covenant of Promise and without hope Eph. 2. 11 12. till by the faith of that Gospel which the Apostles preached ver 20. they ceased to be any more strangers and forreigners and became fellow-Citizens with the Saints and of the houshold of God ver 19. Had the Apostle spoke these words concerning reprobate Gentiles I am perswaded it would never have come into any mans minde no not Mr. Eyres himselfe to deny but that they did signifie those Gentiles to be without all right to life and salvation and other priviledges immunities and dignities given by the great Charter of the Gospel to the City and Family of God But the Apostle doth here describe the miseries of a Gentile state and therefore of every one that was a Gentile for their condition is equally the same till they turne Christians Ergo these Gentiles that now beleeved were yet sometimes without all right to life that is they were universally unrighteous or unjust
as the righteous But I will puzzle my selfe no longer with these ambiguous Oracles SECT VII THe third objection succeeds and that is this If justification be §. 22. an immanent act in God it is antecedent not only to faith but to the merits of Christ which is contrary to many Scriptures that do ascribe our Justification unto his blood as the meritorious cause Mr. Eyre answers That although Gods Will not to punish be antecedent to the death of Christ yet for all we may be said to be justified in him because the whole effect of that Will is by and for the sake of Christ As though electing love precede the consideration of Christ John 3. 16. yet are we said to be chosen in him Eph. 1. 4. because all the effects of that love are given by and through and for him Reply Here again I must complain of Mr. Eyres mincing Had he said the Act of Justification goes before the death of Christ but the effects follow he had spoken plainly But when we are disputing that Gods Will is not our Justification because our Justification according to Scripture is a fruit of Christs merit which an immanent act of Gods Will cannot be to tell us now that indeed Gods Will is antecedent to Christs merits is to yield the Argument that therefore it is not our Justification for nothing more certain from Scripture then that our Justification is the fruit of the merits and blood of Christ Rom. 3. 24 25. and 5. 8 9. and 4. 25. and 8. 3 4. 2 Cor. 5. 19 21. Gal. 3. 13 14. Eph. 1. 7. Col. 2. 13 14. Heb. 9. 12 22. and 10. 14 18. and sundry other places 2. It is also unworthy of the precious blood of the Sonne of God to ascribe no more to it then that it merits the effects of our Justification seeing it is a farre lesse matter to purchase the effects then to purchase the act which is the cause of them as I have before observed from the Apostles manner of arguing Rom. 5. If while we were sinners Christ died for us much more then being now justified shall we be saved from wrath 3. It is also no little undervaluing of the glorious blessing of Justification to suppose it so impotent as that it cannot produce its own effects nor do the sinner any good at all unlesse the Son of God interpose by his death to make it effectual I desire to speak of spiritual things with feare and trembling But I am not afraid to say such a Justification as this is not worth grammercy If it be objected that I may say as much of Gods electing love for neither doth that produce its effects without the death of Christ I answer no such matter for the death of Christ it selfe and all other particular causes of our salvation are the effects of election which it selfe produceth in their respective subordinations But Justification is a particular cause determined precisely to a non-punition which yet it cannot effect Nor doth Mr. Eyre himself make the death of Christ an effect of Justification and if he did he must reade the Scriptures backward but of this more by and by 4. I deny that the effects of Justification can be merited without the act for this eternal Justification according to Mr. Eyres theologie is an actual and real discharge from all sin and condemnation a compleat non-imputation of sin and imputation of righteousnesse Therefore it is impossible but that by this act the Elect must have a right given them to deliverance from wrath which is so evident that himselfe contendeth that the Elect even whiles they are in actual rebellion against God have a right to salvation grounded in the Purpose of God page 122. And what then did Christ merit for them Not a right to deliverance from wrath for that they have already and o Vid. Aquiâ— 1. q. 62. 4. â— 12. q. 1 â—4 5. â— 3. q. 19. 3. â— Nullus meretur quod jam habet what one hath already that cannot be afterwards merited Christ is dead in vain as to the purchasing of this right if they had it before Upon this ground do our p Jun. Animad in Bell. l. 5. c. 10. Divines deny that Christ merited any thing for himselfe because there was no advancement of soule or body but was due to him upon an antecedent title Nor yet doth Christ merit the continuance of this right for it is impossible it should be forfeited for a man can forfeit nothing with God but by sin and sin if it be pardoned as here it is supposed to be even all sins and that from eternity hath no strength to work such a forfeiture no more then if it never had been committed Nor doth he merit the possession of that which they have a right to for the effect of merit is properly acquisitio juris the acquiring or obtaining of the right it selfe q Duranâ— â— 2. dist 5 q 3. 8. Nullus meretur id quod est suum sed per meritum facit quilibet ut aliquid efficiatur ei debitum per consequens suum quod ei prius non erat debitum nec suum Indeed men may by violence be kept out of the possession of that which is their own But God is not wont to deny possession where himself hath given a right and if sinners have from eternity a firme and valid right to life and salvation Christ should not need to have put himself to the expence of his blood to have purchased possession Wherefore the effects of Justification being inseparable from the act Christ merited the act as well as the effect or else he merited neither The comparison brought in for illustration makes the matter worse §. 23. then it was before For 1. It is utterly false that all the effects of Gods electing love are given for the merits of Christ for the giving of Christ to death is an effect of Gods electing love and yet Christ did not merit his own sending into the world 2. That the parallel may consist it must be first supposed that the intention of particular meanes have particular names as so many particular acts or causes and then determined that Christ merited not those acts but their effects As for example That Gods intention to make us his children is our Adoption and Christ merited not our Adoption but the effects thereof His intention to sanctifie us is our sanctification and Christ merited not our sanctification but the effects of it His intention to glorifie us is our glorification and Christ merits its effects even as his intent to pardon us is our Justification and Christ doth afterward merit the effects but not the act Thus must the comparison run or it leaves the matter darker then it found it If Mr. Eyre will not allow of this let him acknowledge his doctrine to be without parallel 3. The effects of Christs merits are also the effects of Gods electing love
because the merits of Christ themselves are the effects of the same love and the cause of the cause is also the cause of the thing caused But if our Lords death had been only from his own will not pre-ordained of God in the decree of election all the benefits purchased by it must have been ascribed to it as the first cause and Gods Will of bestowing them had not been causal but meerly concomitant or consequent Now his will not to punish containes not a preparation of any subordinate cause for the effecting of this impunity Ergo if Christ merited it it must be ascribed to him as the principal and only cause and not to Gods Will of not punishing because that Will of God is not the cause of the merits of Christ as being determined precisely to a non-punition And so there will be the effects of Justification without an act or the act of Justification produceth its own effects but by accident or rather doth not produce them at all but stands by without efficacy whiles another cause doth the work Therefore herein also the comparison halts The fourth and last objection which Mr. Eyre makes against himself §. 24. is this We may as well call Gods Will to create Creation and his Will to call Calling and to glorifie Glorification as his Will to justifie Justification His answer is Creating calling and glorifying import an inherent change in the person created called glorified which forgivenesse doth not it being perfect and compleat in the minde of God Rep. 1. The answer contradicts it selfe for it yields it to be a proper speech to say that God doth will or purpose to justifie even as proper as to say he doth will or purpose to create to call to glorifie and yet beares us in hand that Justification is perfect and compleat in the minde of God Whatsoever is purposed is future If it have already an actual existence it is not capable of being purposed to exist But the immanent acts of Gods minde are not future but from eternity 2. Though Justification do not make an inherent change yet it makes an adherent change as was largely proved from Scripture but now even as if a Malefactour be condemned and afterwards pardoned his condemnation and pardon make an adherent change that is a relative though he remain the same man that he was and be not changed inherently and really And I wonder why the purpose of an act which makes an adherent relative change should be called by the name of that act rather then the purpose of such an act which makes an inherent real change should be called by its name Ars posterior utitur prioris operâ— Morality supposeth nature 3. It is true that Creation c. do make an inherent change But the question is whether we have not as much ground from Scripture to understand those words as signifying not the act but the effect of Creation c. as Mr. Eyre hath to interpret the word Justification in Scripture for the effects not for the act Suppose a man should be so void of sobriety as to say the words Creation Vocation Glorification and what of like nature signifie not those several acts but their effects what could Mr. Eyre say against it To say Creation c. makes an inherent change is to say nothing for it will quickly be answered that the effects of Creation Vocation c. do make an inherent change not the acts If he tell me the words are never used in Scripture but as importing such a change I answer still as he doth of Justification that the words where-ever they are to be found in Scripture are to be understood of the effects not of the act If he yet say that it is contrary to all our Protestant Divines I say so too Et nomine mutato narratur fabula de te Thus much for the vindication of the foure objections which Mr. Eyre proposeth against himselfe He concludes this discourse thus SECT VIII HOwever were it granted that there was in God from everlasting §. 25. an absolute fixed and immutable will never to deal with his people according to their sins but to deal with them as righteous persons this controversie were ended Answ Such a purpose I acknowledge in God to justifie his Elect when they should beleeve and being justified not to deal with them as sinners but as with righteous persons yet so as that they are equally with others obliged by the Law to punishment till they do beleeve and subject actually to the bearing of the temporal penalties of sin If this will satisfie Mr. Eyre let him make his most of it But let us see how it ends the controversie First saith he Gods non-imputation of sin to his Elect is not purely negative but privative being the non-imputation of sin realiter futuri in esse as the imputation of righteousnesse is Justitiae realiter futurae in existentia 2. This non-imputation of sin is actual though the â—â—n not to be imputed be not in actual being So is the imputation of righteousnesse 3. This act of justifying is compleat in it selfe Answ If the begging of the question be the ending of a controversie we have done It is here supposed that the aforesaid Purpose of God is the imputation of righteousnesse and the non-imputation of sin which should have been proved and not begged And therefore the foundation failing there needs no more to be done to demolish the superstructure yet a word or two of that also 2. I say therefore that an eternal actual privative non-imputation of future sin is either non-sense or a contradiction let Mr. Eyre take his choice and consider withal what he is like to make of Justification at last for that which is only future can be deprived of nothing but its futurity and if it be ab aeterâ—o deprived of its futurity then it is ab aeterno non futurum and if ab aeterno non futurum then it is ab aeterno undepriveable of its futurity for that which is never future is never capable of being made non-future unlesse we could in eternity concâ—â—e one moment wherein it is made future and another moment wherein it is made non-future which cannot be because in eternity there is neither prius nor posterius Now this privative non-imputation of future sin what doth it privare Not the futurity of sin for then there never was nor shall be any such thing as sin in the world for nothing exists in time which before its existence was not future That then which this non-imputation is privative of must be the imputation of sin to a person cui debitum est imputari for that is the habit which only is contrary to it for as the privative non-imputation of sin present and in actual being is privative only imputationis nunc debitae so the like non-imputation of sin future is privative only imputationis futurae debitae The Argument therefore returnes for if this
and not acquitted discharged and not discharged what can be more contradictorious or who can conceive what is that security discharge and acquittance from all sin wrath punishment condemnation which yet leaves a man under the power of a condemning Law and without freedome from punishment till Christ buy it with the price of his blood 3. Our discharge from the Law and freedome from punishment may be understood either de jure in taking off our obligation unto punishment and this cannot be the effect of the death of Christ for Mr. Eyre doth over and over deny that the Elect did ever stand obliged by the judgement of God to the suffering of punishment as the Reader shall largely see below in the debate of John 3. 18. and Eph. 2. 3. or it may be understood de facto in the real and actual removal of all kindes and degrees of punishment but neither can this be the effect of the death of Christ by it self or with the former The Purpose of Gods Will saith Mr. Eyre chap. 10. § 10. pag. 108. secures the person sufficiently and makes the Law of condemnation to be of no force in regard of the real execution of it So that what is left for the death of Christ to do I must professe I cannot imagine seeing the act of our Justification and our disobligation from wrath and our real impunity do all exist by vertue of another cause But for further confirmation of this Proposition Mr. Eyre refers us to chap. 14. where we shall wait upon him and say no more to it till we come thither His third Proposition is this Justification is taken for the declared sentence of absolution and §. 27. forgivenesse and thus God is said to justifie men when he reveales and makes known to them his grace and kindnesse within himselfe Answ Understand Reader that when we say Justification is a declared sentence of absolution it is not meant of a private manifestation made to a particular person that himself is justified or pardoned but of that publike declared Law of faith namely the Gospel it self which is to be preached to every creature under heaven He that believeth shall not perish but shall have everlasting life By which Promise whosoever believeth shall receive remission of sin 2. I wonder Mr. Eyre will not give us throughout his whole book so much as one text wherein Justification must signifie a manifestation or declaration made to a person that he is justified and yet tell us here that Justification is so taken If he mean it is so taken in Gods language let him shew where if in mans I will not dispute with him how men take it And as to that text Gen. 41. 13. me he restored but him he hanged which Mr. Eyre doth here instance in to prove that things in Scripture are said to be when they are only manifested if he had consulted Junius he would have told him that the word He relates not to Joseph but to Pharaoh Me Pharaoh restored but him that is the Baker he hanged The following part of this Chapter is spent in a discourse concerning §. 28. the several times and wayes in which God hath manifested his Will of non-imputing sin to his people In which there is nothing of distinct controversie but what hath its proper place in the following debate some where or other And most of what he sayes may be granted without any advantage to his cause or prejudice to thâ— truth there being no act of grace which God puts forth in time but declares something of his gracious purpose as every effect declares and argues its cause And so our Justiâ—â—cation it selfe declareth that there was a purpose in God to justifie because he acteth nothing but according to his purpose I shall not therefore make any particular examination of this remnant of the chapter though there be many things therein which I can by no meanes consent to but set down in the following Propositions how far I consent to each of his 1. I consent that God hath declared his immutable Will not to impute sin to believers in his Word and particularly in the Promise given to our first Parents The seed of the woman shall break the Sâ—rpents head 2. That Gods giving of Christ to the death for our sins and his raising of him up for our Justification doth manifest yet more of the same purpose 3. That baptisme sealing to a believer in act or habit the remission of sins past and entring him into a state of remission for the future doth also further declare something of the same purpose 4. That the same purpose of God is sometime or other in some measure manifested to most true Christians by the work of the Spirit But whether every true Christian hath a full assurance of this purpose of God towards himselfe or any immediately upon their first believing at least in these dayes I am in doubt 5. And that our Justification in the great day of judgement doth most fully perfectly and finally declare the same purpose as being the most perfect compleat and formal justification of all And so much for a discovery of the genius and issues of Mr. Eyres doctrine I come next to a vindicaiton of my own CHAP. III. My Reply to Mr. Eyres fifth Chapter His exceptions against the beginning and ending of my Sermon answered Rom. 5. 1. vindicated And the Antecedency of faith to Justification proved from Gal. 2. 16. and Rom. 8. 30. and Rom. 4. 24. and other places of Scripture SECT I. FOr proof of our Justification by faith the doctrine §. 1. insisted on in my Sermon I advanced several places of Scripture to which Mr. Eyre shapes some answer in his fifth Chapter which we shall here take a view of that the Reader may yet better understand how unlike Scripture-Justification is to that eternal Justification which Mr. Eyre pleads for But before he gives his answer to particular places he thinks fit to informe the Reader that I began my Sermon and concluded it with a great mistake The mistake in the beginning is that I said the Apostles scope in the Epistle to the Romanes was to prove That we are justified by faith i. e. that we are not justified in the sight of God before we beleeve and that faith is the condition on our part to qualifie us for Justification which is a mistake I intend to live and die in by the grace of God The Apostle tells us himself that his scope is to prove that both Jewes and Gentiles are all under sin Rom. 3. 9. and that by the deeds of the Law neither Jew nor Gentile shall be justified in Gods sight ver 20. that so he may conclude Justification by faith ver 28. and if this be not to prove that men are unjustified but by faith I know not what is And that faith here is to be taken properly we prove at large below If this be not the Apostles scope
not have saved him without his reading and much lesse would his reading have saved him without that favourable Law yet his life is a thousand fold more worth then his reading of two or three lines and therefore he owes a thousand times more thanks to his Prince for giving him his life upon such a condition then to himself for reading supposing his reading to have been the purchase of his life If a man sell a farme to his friend for five hundred for which another would have given him a thousand what more common then to say He hath given his friend five hundred in the buying 3. But in sober sadnesse doth Mr. Eyre think the welch man speaks §. 25. properly in his God blesse her father c That were a jest indeed How comes it then to be a ridiculous object if there be not some h pleasing deformity in it that flatters the fancie and surprizeth k See Sie râ—de la Câ—ambre Charact. of the Passions ch 4. of laughter p. 210. the soule so moving laughter And what can that deformity be except the welch idiome but the fallacy of non causa pro causa putting that for the cause which is not the cause as we are wont out of Cicero when we see a little man girt with a great sword to transplace the Subject and the Adjunct and say who tied that man to that sword Had the welch man cried as he was bid God blesse the King and the Judge the propriety of the speech had spoiled the jest and deprived it of that facetiousnesse and lepidity which now causeth us to make merry with it A certain discovery that the speech is not proper nor the condition of reading the cause of his pardon the speech becoming ridiculous upon no other account but because it would insinuate that to be the cause which was no more then a condition But the serious judgement of all offendors who escape death by this means and the wisdome of our statâ— determining it to be an act of royal grace and favour to pardon a man on this condition might one would think be of as much authority as one welch mans word It is true indeed the Law nor the Judge could save him unlesse he read nor will God save us unleâ—â—â— we believe Heb. 3. 19. They could not enter in because of unâ—eliâ—f Not through defect of power or mercy in God which are both inâ—inâ—te but because he hath confined himself in the dispensation of pardon and salvation that he will bestow it upon none but them that believe Is it therefore not of grace because not without faith Whereas the Apostle sayes It is of faith that it might be of grace Rom. 4. 16. In that which followes I finde nothing which is not answered already §. 26. or must not be answered in due place for whereas Mr. Eyre sayes that the performance of the condition makes the conditional grant to become absolute the words are ambiguous If he mean it makes it absolute as that without which it had never been absolute I grant it if he mean it makes it absolute by contributing any direct causality I deny it for upon performance of the condition the conditional grant doth indeed become absolute not by the worth or efficacy of the condition but by the will of the Promiser that upon the existence of such a thing or action will be obliged and not without it We have already given several instances of conditions which have nothing of worth in them to engage the Donour and therefore cannot be the cause of the gift for nothing can produce an effect more noble and excellent then it selfe Nor doth it receive any addition of intrinsecal worth by being made the condition otherwise we might work as rare feats by the influence of our wills as l Magnet cure of wounds Van Helmont thinks may be wrought by the magick of the fancie 'T is but willing a pin to be worth a pound and it shall be done And when he addes in the next place that if faith be the condition of the New Covenant in such a sense as perfect obedience was the condition of the old man must needs be his own Justifier if he mean such in the matter and particular nature of the condition It is true if he mean such in the common nature of a condition it is false for we have shewed before both from Reason and Scripture Divines and Lawyers that some kinde of conditions are so far from being inconsistent with grace as that they advance it rather As suppose some benefit of very great value be bestowed on a worthlesse person upon condition that he acknowledge the rich superlative grace and love of the Donour to be the only cause of it Finally thus he speaks As in the old Covenant it was not Gods threat that brought death upon the world just so in the New if it be a conditional Promise it is not the Promise that justifies a beleever but the beleever himself The answer is ready Death came into the world by sin as the culpable meritorious cause but sin could not have slain us but by the Law 1 Cor. 15. 56. Rom. 5. 13 14. Ergo. It is not warily said that Gods threat did not bring death upon the world 2. And when Mr. Eyre hath proved that our performance of the Gospel-conditions hath the same proportion to our salvation as sin hath to our destruction the Papists shall thank him Rom. 6. last The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Mens not-accepting of the grace of God may make that grace without effect as to themselves 2 Cor. 6. 1. Rom. 3. 3. But that therefore their acceptance is the cause of Gods being gracious to them is wilde reasoning And as to worthy Dr. Kendal out of whom Mr. Eyre quotes these passages he hath publickly enough and in Mr. Eyres hearing for one declared himself to be no enemy against conditions of Justification or salvation That he that is pardoned upon his reading doth not pardon himself §. 27. I proved thus because then he must concurre either to the making of the Law which gives pardon upon such a condition or to the pronouncing of the sentence of absolution upon himself according to that Law This Mr. Eyre saith is an impertinent answer because the question is not whether a man did concur in making the Law and Rule of his Justification but whether he had any causal influxe in producing the effect thereof Rep. My answer if he will call it so was very pertinent as to the case of an offendor saved by his Clergy whose pardon is perfected by a Law which gives the remote right and sentence passed according to that Law which produceth his immunity it selfe If then the said offendor cause his own pardon it must be by concurring some way or other to the production of one of these The case is altogether
charity is cedendo de jure suo by bearing an injury and parting with that right which a man hath to require satisfaction and if God forgive after this manner the case is too plaine to need proofe that the satisfaction of Christ is of no use at all to make way for the forgivenesse of sin but rather a hindrance and contradiction thereunto Mr. Eyre cannot be ignorant that the whole weight of the cause between the Socinians us depends upon the truth of that which he here denies namely that condemnation and justification are the Acts of God as Rector and supream Judge of men If he will but review Cameron Gerhard Crotius Suarez or any other Papist or Protestant who is accounted to have wrote judiciously and orthodoxly upon that point he will see that they fetch the foundation of their defense from this very principle §. 14. 4. Rom. 5. 8. and Eph. 2. 4. The texts alledged to prove that Gods forgivenesse is no lesse an act of charity then mans prove it not They shew indeed that our justification in actu exercito is an effect of the love of God it being his love only which moved him to send Jesus Christ to purchase justification for us and thereupon to bestow it on us but with the preservation of the honour and authority of his Law Neverthelesse the same justification is an Act compleat in its kind nature definition and essentiall constitution without that love of God Even as a King out of special affection to a malefactour condemned suppose it be his owne sonne may find out a way to satisfie for his offence and consequently to discharge him here the discharge doth not exist but by virtue of the Kings love and good affection yet the pardon it selfe in actu signato for its kind and nature is a rectoral judicial act not of private charity 5. Mr. Eyre yeelds at last that God in the act of forgivenesse §. 15. may be looked upon as a Judge yet as such a judge as proceeds by no other Law then his owne will Where either the former part contradicts all that hath been hitherto said about Gods forgiving men as private men forgive personal injuries for as no man in the very same Act can be looked upon as a Judge and a private person for there cannot be two formal principles of the very same action so neither can God or the latter part contradicts the former for he that hath no other rule but his own will is neither a Judge who proceeds g L. A divo Pio. ff de re judic L. 7. ff ad leg Jul. Râ—pâ—tâ—nd exformula according to the prescription of Law nor an Arbitratour who determines ex aequo bono according to the equity of the cause depending 2. When he says God proceeds by no other Law then his own will if he mean by no other Law then what is of his own making it is true but if he mean by his own will as distinguished from a Law properly so called the Apostle contradicts him Jam. 4. 12. There is one Lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy And hereby doth the Lord justifie the equity of his own dispensations in punishing and pardoning because he doth neither pro libitu but according to his own declared Laws Ezek. 18. 18 23 25 29 30. He doth not punish meerly to satisfy his own will as if he delighted in punishment ibid. v. 23 32. Lam. 3. 33 34 35. but according to the exigency of mens demerits so hath he declared that he will by no means cleare the guilty Exod. 34. 7. Which yet by his absolute liberty and soveraignty he is free to do if he had not confined himself to a Law M. Eyre answers secondly The promulgation of an act of §. 16. grace is for the direction and limitation of Judges and Ministers of State But in the justification of a sinner God hath no need of such an act because he is the sole Judge and justifier himself and therefore the purpose of his will secures the person sufficiently and makes the Law of condemnation of no force in regard of the reall execution of it Rep. If we can have no better answers then these yet we must be content for ought I see 1. Doth Mr. Eyre mean that the onely end of promulgation is the direction of inferiour officers If so why doth he mention another in his very next answer If not why doth he pretend that a Magistrate cannot pardon his subjects involved in common guilt by a promulged Act because one end of promulgation is the direction of inferiour Ministers of State 2. h Vid. Greg. Sayr Clav. Reg. liâ— 3. cap. 1. §. 12. Azor. Instit moral par 1. l. 5. cap. 3. Some degree of promulgation is essential to a Law Will unrevealed is will not Law It cannot rationally be imagined that Magistrates should intend to oblige their subjects by that will which they never intend to reveale and surely will without obligation is no Law And the first and immediate effect of this Law if it be a Law of grace is to give offendours a right to impunity any Act or Law to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding The direction of inferiour Judges is but the secondary use of it and in the case between God and us of no use at all because himself is both Lawgiver and Judge reserving each mans cause to his own peculiar cognizance for if it be for their direction what doth it direct them in surely in the administration of justice which consists in giving every man his due But impunity is not due to offendours but by virtue of some Act of grace Ergo the first effect of such an Act is to constitute such a right 3. It is necessary that such a generall pardon as is the Act of the supream Judge and Lawgiver should be by a Law of grace not that God needs it as Mr. Eyre insinuates but because the nature of the thing requires it If God forgives by the purpose of his will then he doth not forgive as a Rector Mr. Eyre hath before granted that his purpose not to punish is included in the decree of election as part of it but election is neither an Act of justice nor of mercy but of absolute dominion and liberty So that the summe of these sayings is this Though God forgive as supream Judge yet it is not necessary that he should forgive as other Judges do because he may forgive as he is not a Judge viz. by the secret purpose of his will And yet as God may very improperly be said to need that which is most conducible to the glory of his Government so is it needfull in respect of himself that his judgement whether of justification or condemnation proceed according to his revealed promulged Laws Himself doth hereby vindicate the equity of his dealings and Government over men as was before observed out of Ezek. 18. throughout
adde Dâ—ut 30 from v. 11. to the end of the chapter §. 17. 4. And whereas Mr. Eyre tells us again that the Purpose of Gods Will doth sufficiently secure the sinner and make the Law of condemnation to be of no force as to the real execution of it we have before shewed at large the mischievous consequences of this doctrine If this be so to what purpose imaginable did Christ die at least there was no need he should die to redeem us from the curse of an abrogated Law which by an eternal Act was made of no force at all to condemne Before when the satisfaction and merits of Christ lay at stake for the credit of an eternal Justification Mr. Eyre was content to yield them this honour that they purchased the effects though not the act of Justification which effect he told us was our non-punition But here he tells us that the purpose of Gods Will doth sufficiently secure us from punishment which though I confesse it be more rationally spoken because that act is most unworthy to be called the cause of our non-punition or non-condemnation which is not able to effect it without the help of another more sufficient cause yet is it most perniciously spoken as not leaving so much as the effects of our Justification and by consequence excluding both act and effects from any dependance upon the merits of Christ for their existence 2. Were Adam and Eve either or both obliged by the Law to punishment upon their disobedience or no If not their sin did them no harme nor was there any truth in that severe commination In the day you eat thereof you shall surely die and it is past dispute they died by force of that Law and all their posterity to this day Rom. 5. 12 13 14. 1 Cor. 15. 22 56. And if so then was not that Law made of no force by the eternal purpose of God for if that Purpose of God do not hinder but that men are legally obliged to condemnation upon breach of the Law neither will Gods Justice and Faithfulnesse permit that they go unpunished unlesse his Law be satisfied some other way Numb 23. 19. God is not a man that he should lie neither the Son of man that he should repent hath he said and shall he not do it or hath he speken and shall he not make it good Therefore it is that we have before denied that there is in God any purpose precisely of not punishing 3. The Supreme Magistrate may neglect the execution of Laws with impunity to himselfe because if he be Supreme he is not accountable to any other humane authority but not without such a Prostitution of the authority of his Lawes and the honour of his own Government to contempt and obloqâ—y as God will never endure to be cast upon Himselfe or his Law by men or devils His Honour and his Lawes are dearer to him then a thousand worlds M. Eyre answers thirdly the publishing of an act of grace is for the § 17. comfort of an offendor rather then for any need the Magistrate hath thereof as the act of Oblivion was a real pardon when it passed the House So the publication of the New Covenant was for the comfort of Gods Elect and not for their security in foro Dei Rep. Our question is not precisely what is the end of promulgation but what is the effect of the Law promulged which say I is to give offendors a right to impunity which Mr. Eyre cannot deny though it be very true that such a Law be also for the comfort of an offendor namely secondarily and consequenter for it comforts him in that it gives him a right to deliverance from deserved punishment His right and his comfort are not opposites but both the effects of the same Law and the latter subordinate to the former so that hitherto there is nothing that contradicts me 2. It is also true that it is not the Magistrate who needs an act of grace but offendors need it for if the same authority which bound them under punishment do not also discharge them from it they cannot legally escape it 3. When it is said the Act of Oblivion was a real pardon when it passed the House it hath reference to what I said in my Sermon That a Vote in the House or a Declaration that an Act of Pardon shall come out is no legal security to a Delinquent by which I intended to declare that neither the Purpose of God within himself but the Law of grace which in time he established according to his eternal purpose was that act which pardoned the sinner which if Mr. Eyre would have contradicted he should have affirmed that the meer purpose or resolution of the House to make such an Act is that very pardon which dischargeth Delinquents The Act it self being once passed may be yielded to be a Law as being the declared will of the Lawgivers constituting a right to impunity though by printing writing or proclamation it be afterwards made more publick Neverthelesse I expected some proof that it is a compleat Law before publishing if after the pâ—sâ—ng it had been i Nic. vig. de Drâ—is Iust Jur. c. 1. p. 8. c. 2 p. 1â— ordered not to be published till some moneths or a yeare after I much question whether in that interim it had been Law or no though I am not so well acquainted with the customes of our own Nation as to determine peremptorily The Senatus-Consulta amongst the Romanes had not the force of a Law before publishing But it is quite besides our question to debate what promulgation is necessary to the compleating of a Law It cannot be denied but that when subjects are involved in common guilt as all the world is before God their pardon must be by Law which is as much as I needed or intended for illustration of the way and manner of Gods forgiving us by the Gospel or Law of grace He that believeth shall not perish but shall have everlasting life which because Mr. Eyre denies not disproves for that 's impossible it being a truth of God we shall yet farther evince by the following Arguments SECT III. ANd first from Mat. 28. 18 19. compared with Mark 16. §. 18. 15 16. And Jesus came and spake unto them saying All power is given to me in heaven and in earth Go ye therefore into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved but he that believeth not shall be damned from hence I inferre 1. That God hath given unto Christ the Kingdome and Government over all men 2. That this Government containes a power of remitting sins 3. That this power is exercised in enacting that gracious Law He that believes shall be saved for so doth the Lord speak Go ye therefore into all the world c. which particle therefore I have borrowed from Matthew ver 19. and put it into
ministration of righteousnesse is the ministration of that Law or Word that justifies the effect being put for the cause in like manner Ergo Justification is by Law 6. To this purpose speaks the same Apostle Rom. 1. 16 17. I §. 23. am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth â—o the Jew first and also to the Greek for therein is the righteousnesse of God revealed from faith to faith That which I observe is 1. That the Gospel is here called the Power of God to salvation that is a mighty and effectual instrument of salvation as Expositors agree 2. That the power for which the Apostle here extolls it is in that it saves them that beleeve 3. That Justification is here included yea and primarily intended in salvation in which large sense the word salvation is often taken elsewhere Rom. 10. 9 10. Eph. 2. 8. Tit. 3. 5. Luke 7. 48 50. for the reason why he calls it the Power of God to salvation is because it reveales the righteousnesse of God upon all that beleeve Hence 4. The Gospel is the Power of God unto Justification as it is the revealed declared Will of God concerning the Justification of them that beleeve m Vid Calv. Com. in loc Quia nos per Evâ—ng lium justificat Deus because God justifies us by the Gospel I cannot better expresse my minde then in the words of Beza Hoc ita intelligo c. This saith he I so understand not as if Paul did therefore only commend the Gospel because therein is revealed and proposed to view that which the Gentiles before were ignorant of namely that by faith in Christ we are to seek that righteousnesse by vertue of which we obtain salvation of God and the Jewes beheld afar off and under shadows but also because it doth so propose this way of Justification as that it doth also really exhibit it that in this way it may appear that the Gospel is truly the Power of God to salvation that is a mighty and effectual instrument which God useth for the saving of men by faith Thus he simply and historically to declare that some men are justified is not enough to denominate the Gospel the Power of God to salvation but it is required withal that it have authority to give right to salvation to them that beleeve it Therefore the Gospel wherein is manifested the righteousnâ—sse of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ is called the Law of faith Rom. 3. ver 21. 22 27. compared 7. Justification by works should have been by that Law Do this §. 24. and thou shalt live and if those words cannot be denied to have authority to give a right to life to them that fulfilled the Law upon what pretence of reason is the same authority denied to the word of faith Beleeve and thou shalt be saved Rom. 10. 5 8 9. To conclude Therefore is the Gospel called n Heb. â— 8. a Scepter of Righteousnesse o 2 Cor 5. 19. a Word of reconciliation p Eph. 1. â—3 a Gospel of salvation q Rom. 8. 2 3. Dav Par. ibid. a Law of the Spirit of life that makes free from the Law of sin and death r Isa 61. 1 2 3. an opening of Prisons s See the Reverend and most incomparable Dr Reynolds in Ps 110. p. 140. and a proclaiming of liberty to Captives because God doth thereby justifie sinners I had also drawn up foure Reasons from the nature of Justification proving that it must be by Law but because I since finde the substance of them in Mr. Baxter Red. Digr page 141. 142 143. I shall therefore desire the Reader to have recourse to him for his farther satisfaction herein and shall excuse my selfe from the paines of transcribing my own Argâ—ments CHAP. VII A Reply to Mr. Eyres eleventh Chapter John 3 18. and Eph. 2 3. vindicated All unbelievers under condemnation Ergo none justified in unbelief SECT I. MY second Argument by which I proved that men are not justified before faith was this They that are under condemnation cannot at the § 1. same time be justified But all the world are under condemnation before faith Ergo none of the world are justified before faith Mr. Eyre first enters a caution against the major which I had briefly and as I thought and yet think sufficiently proved in my Sermon in these words Justification and Condemnation are contraries and contraries cannot be verified of the same subject at the same time Justification is a moral life and condemnation a moral death a man can be no more in a justified state and a state of condemnation both at once then he can be alive and dead both at once or a blessed man and a cursed man both at once What that the Apostle describes Justification by non-condemnation Rom. 8. 1. and opposeth it to condemnation as inconsistent with it on the same person at the same time ver 33 34. and are at as moral enmity one with another as good and evil light and darknesse Upon these grounds I said that the Proposition must needs be true This as if I had not so much as pretended any reason for it Mr. Eyre tells his Reader is my confident assertion but in the mean time never goes about to remove the grounds upon which it stands This is a sad case but who can help it Yet he will grant the Proposition with this Proviso That these seeming contraries do refer ad idem i. e. to the same Court and Judicatory not otherwise for he that is condemned and hath a judgement on record against him in one Court may be justified and absolved in another He that is cast at common Law may be quitted in a Court of equity He that is condemned in the Court of the Law may be justified in the Court of the Gospel Rep. Which is very true otherwise our Justification were no pardon But I would ask Are these two Courts coordinate and of equal power or is the one in power subordinate to the other If the former how shall a man know whether he be cast or absolved as in our own case If the Law be of as much power to condemne as the Gospel is to justifie how shall a man know whether he be condemned or justified or what sentence shall a poor soul expect when he is going to appear before Gods Tribunal if of absolution why the Law condemnes him if of condemnation the Gospel justifies him and which of these two shall take place But if the one be subordinate to the other then the sentence of the superiour Court rescindes the judgement of the inferiour and makes it of no force and so the man is not absolved and condemned both at once This is the very ground of u L. 1 ss de Appellâ—â— L. Si qâ—is 〈◊〉 appeales from any inferiour Judicatory to a higher
the non-imputation of their sin in the death of Christ but they were not therefore presently reconciled and their sin non-imputed as we have shewed from the text before God laid the foundation of a future reconciliation in the death of Christ The sixth That what I grant yields the question viz. The immediate reconciliation of sinners upon the death of Christ For if Christ by the shedding of his blood paid the total and full price for our deliverance from the curse of the Law then were we actually set free from the obligation of it for when the debt is paid the debtour is free in Law Answ I deny the consequent and the proof of it Christ purchased our Glorification must we therefore needs be glorified as soon as he was dead that is to say many hundreds of years before we are borne And if he purchased one benefit to follow not till many yeares after the price was paid might he not also purchase another and particularly our deliverance from the curse of the Law to follow after a like distance of time 2 The reason or proof is most impertinent Christ cannot purchase our deliverance from the curse unlesse the said deliverance follow presently and immediatly because the debt being paid the debtour is presently discharged As if I should say the payment of the debt doth presently discharge the debtour Ergo men cannot purchase reversions 3. The payment of the debtour doth presently discharge him but if it be not the debtour himself which makes the payment but some other he is not discharged ipso facto as we shall shew anon And now Reader I shall acquaint thee with the Reasons why §. 19. I interpret those words Rom. 5. 10. We were reconciled to God by the death of his Sonne not of our actual and compleat reconciliation but of that which is purchased and so the meaning of the words we were reconciled will be this that our reconciliation was then purchased yea and also perfect ex parte causae on Christs part so that nothing can now hinder our actual personal and perfect reconciliation with God but our own refusing to be reconciled God having constituted a most sufficient cause of our reconciliation in the death of Christ 1. From ver 8. and 9. While we were yet sinners Christ died for us much more then being justified now by his blood c. What in ver 9. is called Justification that in ver 10. is called reconciliation and for Christ to die for us while we were sinners ver 8. is all one with what is said ver 10. When we were enemies we were reconciled by his death But the time of their Justification is expressely separated from the time of Christs death for them by the particle now While we were yet sinners Christ died for us but we are justified now which particle now though it have several senses in Scripture as we shall shew by and by yet here being put after the participle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and separated from the Conjunction ◠by the interposition of two entire words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and expressely opposed to the time past when we were yet sinners must therefore needs be an adverbe of time And the time it notes is their present time of Conversion and believing opposed unto that whole time wherein they were yet sinners And so the whole sentence runs thus most pertinently to the Apostles scope If while we were yet sinners under the power and condemnation of sin Christ died for us much more then being justified now that we are believers by his blood c. Accordingly if the particle now be borrowed from ver 9. and repeated in ver 10. the whole sense of the verse will be this If while we were enemies we were reconciled sc causaliter quantum ad meritum unto God in the death of his Sonne much more being now viz. since we are believers reconciled quoad effectum we shall be saved by his life and so the first reconciled signifies that which is ex parte Christi and the second that which is ex parte nostri the former reconciliation in the cause the latter in the effect Just as this same Apostle distinguisheth the same word 2 Cor. 5. 19 20. God was in Christ reconciling Be ye reconciled And surely faith must be supposed to the reconciled in the second part of the verse or it is of no use at all to salvation for the Apostles discourse supposeth that there is a necessary and immediate connexion between reconciliation and salvation so that he that is reconciled is immediately capable of being saved Much more being reconciled we shall be saved But no unbeliever is immediately capable of being saved though Christ have died for him for he must believe first as Mr. Eyre himself will grant If it be said that faith it selfe is part of our salvation the Objector must suppose that the Apostle speaks of himselfe and the Romanes as of unbelievers to this sense much more being reconciled we shall have faith given us which is unreasonable to suppose 2. And that our being reconciled in the death of Christ is to be understood §. 20. in reference to the sufficiency of what Christ hath done in order to our reconciliation appears farther from the comparison of contraries by which the Apostle illustrates this whole doctrine from v. 12. to the end of the chapter Look then as by vertue of Adams disobedience death passed upon all mankinde as soon as they are the children of Adam so by the obedience of Christ is reconciliation obtained by which all that are borne of Christ by faith are reconciled unto God Now if a man should say All men are dead in Adam as in ver 15. though he speak of the effect as wrought yet he must be understood as intending no more then that the cause of all mens death was in being as soon as Adam sinned for surely men cannot be dead before they are borne or have a being so when it is said men are reconciled in the death of Christ the word reconciled must be understood in like manner as noting the vertue of the cause not the effect as already produced I know Mr. Eyre thinks that all men were actually quoad effectum condemned in Adam But I would he would make this probable yea or conceivable for I confesse my dull head cannot apprehend it though I do easily conceive how we may be said to be condemned in him causally for the common sin of our nature namely that the causes of our condemnation were then in being which do certainly produce the effect of condemnation upon us as soon as we exist But condemnation is a real transient act Ergo it supposeth its object really existing but it is unconceivable how men should really exist five or six thousand yeares before they are borne Seeing then our reconciliation in the death of Christ by the Apostles own Explication is
it is a strange kind of reason Cannot a soul by faith behold the certainty and glorious effects of his justification notwithstanding all the opposition of sense and reason by looking on Christ justified as an exemplary cause to whom himself also shall be conformed in one time Secondly Mr. Eyre argues against it thus He that pays our debts §. 5. to the utmost farthing and thereupon receives a discharge is more then a paterne of our release Rep. More then a patern of our release Is this all Mr. Eyre contends for upon what pretence then doth he oppose me I acknowledge Christ to be the meritorious cause of our release in his death and not only the exemplary cause of it in his resurrection As to the thing which I think Mr. Eyre intends I have told him often that Christ entred into an obligation of his own to make satisfaction for our debt from which obligation he was discharged in his resurrection God acquitting him as having paid as much as was demanded But if Christ had power to do what he would with his own then was it in his power and his Fathers to give us the effect of this satisfaction when and upon what tearms they pleased and to suspend our discharge notwithstanding Christ were long before discharged till himself should sit down at the right hand of Glory and give it us with his own hand according as sinners in successive generations come to him for it M. Eyre hath often said the contrary but proves it no where His third Argument chargeth high magnis tamen excidit ausis §. 6. take it at large If Christ were only a patern and example of our justification then was he justified from his own sins and consequently was a sinner which is the most horrid blasphemy that can be uttered The reason of the consequence is evident for if Christ was but a patern of our justification then was he justified as we are Now we are justified from our own sins which we our selves have committed Rep. 1. This the charge this the proofe But because M. Eyre is so carelesse of what he speaks let us see whether the matter be mended according to his own principles He then doth not only acknowledge but contend that the elect were justified in Christ as a common person Now what is a common person It is a general tearm and should have been described more plainly then it is but something he speaks of him § 1. Whatsoever is done by or to a common person as such is to be attributed to them in whose steed he stands and § 4. 1. The act of a common person is the act of them whom he represents The summe is A common person is he that represents another both in what he doth and in what is done to him Now then thus I proceed If Christ were justified as a common person then was he justified from his own sins and consequently was a sinner which is the most horrid blasphemy that can be uttered The reason of the consequence is evident for if Christ was justified as a common person then was he justified as we are for a common person is he that represents another both in what he doth and in what is done to him Now we are justified from our own sins which we our selves have committed Ergo. Let M. Eyre answer this for himself and he hath answered for me But because he hath put me out of hope of the former I will do the latter presently 2. In the mean time I will propose one thing to M. Eyres consideration If the justification of Christ as a common person were actually and formally the justification of the elect then are not the elect justified of grace but of works which is the most horrid contradiction to the Gospel that can be uttered the reason of the consequence is evident because Christ was not justified of grace but of debt Ergo if that act of justification which passed upon him be that which justifies us then are not we justified of grace But to M. Eyres Argument if it may so be called I deny his consequence §. 7. as evident as it is and the proofe of it To the former I say that Christs resurrection was his discharge from his own obligation which he voluntarily undertooke to suffer and satisfie for our sins and therein he became the exemplary cause of a like discharge which should follow on them that beleeve from that obligation which comes upon them involuntarily and necessarily because of sin To the proof I say that Christs Justification was such as ours is in regard of its common nature and effects which is sufficient to the agreement of the example and counterpart as the sacrifices of old represented Christ dying though he were a man and they were beasts not in its principle and special nature Surely it will not be denied that we beare the image of Christ in our resurrection from the dead but then will Mr. Eyre say he was raised as we are now we are raised from corruption Ergo he also was raised from corruption which is as horrid a contradiction to Scripture as can be uttered Psal 16. 10. or he was raised by his own power John 2. 19. Ergo if we in our Resurrection are conformed to him then are we also raised by our own power which is blasphemy as bad as the other that makes Christ as bad as sinners this makes sinners as good as Christ Did M. Eyre think it possible to convince mens understandings by such Argumentations as these His fourth Argument is upon the point all one with this and hath been answered already over and over in that wherein it differs from this His fifth Argument is That I recede very far both from the §. 8. meaning and expressions of all our orthodox writers who do constantly call our Saviour a common person but never the exemplary cause of our justification particularly my Grandfather Parker de descens lib. 3. sect 49 50 53. Rep. 1. I did not think before nor do I now that the affirming of Christ to be an exemplary cause of all those spiritual heavenly blessings which God bestows on us had been to deny him to be a common person The Scriptures call him the first borne amongst many brethren Rom. 8. 29. The first borne of every creature Colos 1. 15. the first fruits of them that slept 1 Cor. 15. 20. phrases importing that there are many others who by his power shall be conformed to his image in all his heavenly perfections which is all I seek by the tearm of an exemplary cause But he that calls Christ the first borne the first begotten the first fruits is so far from denying him as that he doth suppose him to be a common person in regard that the proper import of these phrases is to teach us that he hath received excellent blessings not for himself but for others also The reason why I use the tearm of an
exemplary cause rather then of a common person I give the Reader a little below 2. And that our Divines do usually call Christ a common person is a thing so well known that M. Eyre should not need to have quoted my Grandfather Parker to convince me of it He should have shewed that they call him so in such a sense as cannot be expressed by the tearm of an exemplary cause So doth not my Grandfather at least in the point of Christs resurrection of which he there speaks not a word but m Do descens lib. 4 sect 75. elsewhere saies with Athanasius Anima Christi descensum suum ad inferos peregit ab inferis resurrectionem produxit ut nostrae resurrectionis imaginem concinnaret which in sense is the very same that I say concerning Christs becoming an exemplary cause in his resurrection 3. Nor are our Divines such strangers to the use of that expression as M. Eyre represents them n Sound Beleev pag 79. 80. edit 1653. M. Shepheard useth it verbatim There is saith he a merited justification by Christs death and a virtual or exemplary justification in Christs resurrection as our head and surety So o Med. Theol. l. 1. c. 23. th 16 17. Dr. Amese finis resurrectionis fuit ut se justificatum alios justificantem ostenderet 5. ut resurrectionis nostrae tam spiritualis quà m corporalis hypostasin exemplar initiatio fieret Christus enim exemplaris causa est nostrae resurrectionis ut à morte resurgens p Lud. Croc. s Theol. l. 2. cap. 12. p. 353. So others His last Argument is that this expression savours rankly of Pelagianisme §. 9. and Socinianisme For they make the second Adam a meer paterne and example of our reconciliation Rep. I have read indeed concerning the Pelagians that they deny the propagation of Adams sin any otherwise then by imitation and that the Socinians say Christ shews us the way of salvation by the example of his own life I know But if I who thankfully acknowledge our Lords merits and satisfaction and live by the faith thereof am yet guilty of Pelagianisme and Socinianisme for affirming that as in all things else so in his justification he had this preeminence above others as not only to be justified himself but to become the justifying cause of others after his own paterne and similitude I am content to beare the reproach of both SECT II. IN the next place I gave the Reader an account why I used the §. 10. tearme of an exemplary cause rather then of a common person in these words I use the tearme of an exemplary cause rather then of a common person because a common person may be the effect of those whom he represents as the Parliament of the Common-wealth but Christ is such a common person as that he is the cause of those whom he represents in every thing in which he represents them This excuse saith M. Eyre is both fallacious and impertinent Fallacious because it seems to intimate that an exemplary cause doth expresse as much as a common person which is clearly false for the act of the exemplar is not the act of the Imitator as the act of a common person is the act of them whom he represents Parents are examples to their children not common persons Rep. Know Reader first that we are not now speaking of our active voluntary imitation of Christ in duties of obedience but of our being passively conformed and fashioned like him in the participation of his spiritual blessings according to our condition and capacity Thus in our justification do we bear his image and partake in his likenesse who as he was the first borne from the dead so is he the first borne of them that are justified forasmuch as his resurrection was his justification And as our resurrection from death whensoever it shall be exists by virtue of his Joh 14. 19. He being risen as the first fruits of them that slept 1 Cor. 15. 20. So also doth our justification 2. This being premised I adde that to say that Christ in his resurrection was the exemplary cause of our justification is far more pertinent and significant then to say we were then justified in him as a common person especially according to M. Eyres use of that tearme of which more presently the reason is ready because the former phrase expresseth the influence which his justification hath upon ours and the dependance which ours hath upon his which the latter doth not for to be justified in another as a common person doth neither declare his justification to be the cause of ours nor ours the effect of his could we have delegated a person to have received from God that sentence of absolution in our names as Israel sent up Moses into the mount we had all of us been justified as immediately as himself nor had our justification had any dependance upon his though we had then been justified in him as a common person 3. Wherefore as to the tearme of a common person concerning which I have made a more toylesome search into the civil law and those few Civilians which I have then the moment of the matter requires it may be understood in a double sense either 1. fictione suppositi when a person by a kinde of civil metempseuchosis doth so represent another in what he doth or is done to him as that the same things are said to be done by or to the person whom he represents As Ambassadours represent the person of the Princes that employ them what they do as such is reputed the act of the Prince that sends them forth and what is done to them as such is reputed as done to him We do or receive that which our Attorney doth or receives in our name Or 2. Ex re gestâ when a person doth that in the effects of which be they good or evil others partake as well as himself Thus the punishment of high treason is common with the Traitour to his children though he do not represent them neither in offending nor in being punished Thus a Surety payes his money as a common person because the Debtour as well as himself if no compact hinder hath the benefit of a discharge though he do not represent the debtour in making payment In this latter sense I readily acknowledge that Christ was a common Person in his Death and Resurrection because we receive the benefit of both in our measure and kinde as well as himself And in this sense an exemplary cause expresseth as much and somewhat more then a common person But Mr. Eyre will have Christ to be a common person in the former §. 11. sense and that as well in his Death as his Resurrection That he was so in his death I deny roundly The reason is that for which Mr. Eyre chooseth to call him a common person rather then an exemplary cause because saith he the act of a
common person is the act of them whom he represents But Christs satisfaction merits redemption and perfect obedience are not our act so as that we can be said to have satisfied merited redeemed our selves perfectly obeyed the Law and borne the curse thereof things for ever impossible for sinners to do Rom. 8. 3. and 5. 6. Ergo they are not representable as doing of them Would Mr. Eyre would give an example amongst men of a common person representing others in such an act which is impossible for them to put forth But the Scripture is expresse that as it was by the one offence of one man that all are condemned so is it by the one righteousnesse of one Jesus Christ that all are justified Romanes 5. 17 18. The Resurrection of Christ I acknowledge to be of another consideration §. 12. and that he may with much more reason be said to be a common person in his Resurrection then in his death Nevertheless neither in that do I approve the tearme unlesse it be understood in the second sense mentioned for the reason already given And to what Mr. Eyre addes of Parents being examples to their children he must again remember that I am not contending that Christ is the example but the exemplary cause of our Justification Sodom and Gomorrah are set forth for examples of what judgements God will execute upon such sinners but they are not exemplary causes thereof This for the fallacie 2. Saith Mr. Eyre it is impertinent because Christs discharge §. 13. may be ours though we did not choose him but God did constitute and appoint him to be the Head Surety and common Person to the Elect. We did not choose Adam and yet his sin was imputed to us Answ 1. Nor do I intend any thing more in changing the terme of a common person into that of an exemplary cause then to expresse that preheminence which Christ hath as in all things else so in his Justification which the terme of a common person is so farre from doing as that it supposeth the just contrary for the action or passion of a common person is not so properly his own as his whom he represents As what an Ambassadour doth is not so properly his own act as the Kings and what is done to him as such is more properly done to the King then to him In like manner if Christ were raised precisely as a common person representing us then are we properly the first risers from the dead and his Resurrection hath no causal influence at all upon ours 2. That God appointed his Sonne to be the Head Surety and common Person of the Elect is a contradiction if a common person be taken in Mr. Eyres sense for one that represents others in what he doth and in what is done to him Christ is undoubtedly a Head and Surety to the Elect so the Scriptures call him and both expressions imply a causal influence of life from him to us But the common Person described as such is neither Head nor Surety because the operations of a Head and Surety are his own peculiarly none other do the like and therefore are not capable of being represented in doing of them the case is the same in what he receives or in what is done to him as Head and Surety 3. Concerning Adam I do also deny that he is fitly called a common person in Mr. Eyres sense of that phrase and in what sense we may be said to have sinned in him we have already largely opened His sin is indeed imputed unto us not that it is imputed to us that we have done it or committed it for that is in it selfe an errour of falshood and besides is contrary to the Apostle who supposeth this sin to be imputed unto many who never sinned after the similitude of Adams transgression neither in individuo nor in specie Rom. 5. 14. but because by vertue of that sin we his children stand obliged to the suffering of death natural he being the common Parent who by Covenant received righteousnesse and life to be communicated to his children if himself continued obedient otherwise to lose it both to himself and us That the Reader might see how inconsequent Mr. Eyres argument §. 14. is inferring our Justification before saith from our Justification in some sense in the Resurrection of Christ I said we may as justly inferre that our Resurrection is past already because we are risen in Christ as that our Justification is past before we beleeve because we are in some sense justified in Christ We are also in some sense sanctified in Christ Rom. 6. 6. 1 Cor. 1. 30. yet we may not infer Ergo we are sanctified before faith In answer to this Mr. Eyre speaks many words to little purpose the summe of them is Our personal Resurrection necessarily supposeth our life and death But to our actual discharge there needed no more then the payment of our debt c. Rep. The difference between our Resurrection and Sanctification on the one hand and Justification on the other is plain and obvious but the whole strength of Mr. Eyres Argument lieth in this one thing that we were justified in Christ as a common person Now if our rising in Christ as a common person will not infer that our Resurrection is before faith then neither is our Justification proved to be before faith because we were justified in Christ as a common person and if we were justified simply in his Resurrection â—t must be upon some other account then because we were justified in him as a common person 2. Therefore Mr. Eyre doth tacitly deny not publickly for feare of the people that we are risen in Christ as a common person Christ saith he fully merited our Resurrection to glory in which respect we are said to be risen with Christ a strange and unheard of interpretation that we should be said to be raised with Christ because he in his death merited our Resurrection which might have been true though himself had never been raised but Mr. Eyre might easily foresee that as he interprets our Resurrection in Christ so might we interpret our Justification in Christ rising a phrase not used in Scripture but admitted by me as agreeable or not contrary thereunto not for our Justification in him as a common person but for his merit or purchase of our Justification Truly this doth Mr. Eyre own too though very privately and thereby quite and clean desert his whole argument in the very next words It is saith he no such absurdity to say Christ hath purchased our Râ—surrection though we are not risen as to say he hath purchased our discharge and yet we are not discharged for to say a debt is discharged and yet justly chargeable is a contradiction Purchased why I thought we had been now disputing whether the discharge of Christ as a common person in his Resurrection were really and formally the discharge of sinners and not whether he purchased
our discharge in his death But some men had rather speak nothing to purpose then nothing at all As to the reason added we have already shewed at large in what sense Christs death may be called the payment of our debt A debtour cannot discharge a debt and yet that debt be justly chargeable upon him but that another may not leave a full and sufficient price in the Creditors hand that he may discharge his debtour some time after that price is paid or upon some condition to be performed by him I shall beleeve when I see not words but power and argument which I have long in vaine expected from Master Eyre The Conclusion therefore and summe of my Answer was this Justification §. 15. is either causal and virtual or actual and formal we were causally and virtually justified in Christs Justification but not actually and formally Mr. Eyres answer is nothing but a repetition of several things already confuted concerning the imputation of our sins to Christ and the payment and satisfaction in his death but upon the distinction it self he fixeth nothing By all which I perceive he is weary of his argument drawen from Christs Justification in his Resurrection to prove ours I speak of a Justification virtual and causal in Christs Resurrection and he answers I know not what concerning Christs death Yet the latter part of the answer deserves a little consideration I grant saith Mr. Eyre that the death of Christ doth justifie us only virtually but the satisfaction in his death doth justifie us formally And therefore Christs dying for us or for our sins his reconciling us to God and our being justified are Synonyma's in Scripture phrase Rom. 58 9 10. Rep. 1. The distinction here proposed I never reade before nor can I understand now viz. How we are justified virtually in the death of Christ as it was his death not as it was a satisfaction in whole or part If the meaning be that there was that vertue and worth in the death of Christ as made it satisfactory which no mans death else could be for want of the like worth yet is the speech strangely improper As if a broken undone debtour seeing a very wealthy man that hath many thousands more lying by him then his debt comes to should say his debt is virtually paid or himself virtually discharged by that mans money 2. To say that Christs satisfaction doth justifie us formally is to deny our Justification formal to be Gods act for it was not God but Christ that satisfied or that it doth at all consist in the pardon of sin for Christ did not satisfie by having any sin pardoned to him or that he was justified before us yea rather we are first justified if his satisfaction justifie us formally because himself was not properly justified till his Resurrection I have often read that Christs satisfaction justifies us materially being that matter or righteousnesse for which we are justified never till now that it justifies formally 2. The next observation that Christs dying for us or for our sins and our being justified are Syâ—â—nyma's in Scripture is most plainly refuted by Scripture Rom. 4. 25. who was delivered namely unto death for our sins and rose again for our Justification In the next place Mr. Eyre undertakes the answer of an objection §. 16. not made by me but by some others and it is here brought in by head and shoulders without the least occasion offered saving what Mr. Eyre hath made to himself by forgetting his own argument and the right prosecution thereof and deflecting from our Justification in Christ as a common person to the Purchase of Justification in his blood Neverthelesse because the truth is on the objectours side and Mr. Eyre in answering contradicts himself let us see what is said The objection is this 2 Cor. 5. 21. Christ was made sin for us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that we might be made he doth not say that thereby we are made the righteousnesse of God in him Ergo the laying of our sinnes on Christ is only an Antecedent which tends to the procuring of our Justification and not the same formally Thou seest Reader that the scope of the objection is to prove that the death of Christ is the meritorious cause of our Justification which Mr. Eyre after frequent acknowledgements of the truth of it doth now plainly deny and that of Justification not as signifying the act but the effects What have we heard so often of Christs procuring meriting purchasing Pardon and Redemption when he is here denied to have done any thing tending to the procuring of our Justification But let us see Mr. Eyres answer it consists of three parts 1. Saith he That this phrase that we might be or be made doth not alwayes signifie the final but sometimes the formal cause as when it is said That light is let in that darknesse may be expelled Rep. But in this sense is that phrase very rarely if at all used in the New Testament and improperly wheresoever it is used and thrice in this chapter but a little before used in its most obvious sense verse 10. 12 15. and in this text cannot have that sense which Mr. Eyre here mentions because himself acknowledgeth in his very next answer that the imputation of our sins to Christ and of his righteousnesse to us do differ But the Apostle in this verse speaks of the imputation of our sins to Christ and of his righteousnesse to us Ergo the making of him to be sin for us and of us righteousnesse in him is not formally the same Mr Eyre 2. Though the imputation of our sins to Christ and of his righteousnesse to us differ yet the imputation of sin to him and non-imputation of it unto us is but one and the same act of God Rep. 1. I must needs say this is to be wise above what is written The Apostle supposeth the imputation of righteousnesse and non-imputation of sin to be one and the same act differing only in respect of the terminus à quo ad quem Rom. 4. 6 8. David describeth the blessednesse of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousnesse without works Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin 2. Mr. Eyre argued not far before that God promiseth nothing in his Covenant which Christ hath not purchased But non-imputation of sin is the special blessing promised in the Covenant Heb. 8. 12. for the pardon of sin and the non-imputation of it is all one Rom. 4. 7 8. Ergo it was procured in the death of Christ 3. According to the model of this distinction the death of Christ procures the imputation of righteousnesse but not the non-imputation of sin that is it procures positive blessings but not the destruction of or our deliverance from the evil and miseries of sin which makes our Lord but halfe a Saviour 4. Would Mr. Eyre had told us what is that imputation of righteousnesse which
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we are wont to render Covenant or Testament may be taken in such a signification which appeare not either in the Old or New-Testament unlesse where they are used Metonymically or Metaphorically or other wayes tropically in any other sense then of a Law or a Testament or a Convention And most strange that he should also tell us gratis that it is called an everlasting Covenant 2 Sam. 23. 5. not onely a parte post but a parte ante not onely as hauing no end but also as not having beginning when the Hebrew word will by no means enforce it and it is most certaine that that Covenant made with David had a beginning recorded 2 Sam. 7. 16 19. and all the places mentioned in the margine as Gen. 17. 7. c. Do also speak of such everlasting Covenants as we know were not without beginning And whereas Mr. Eyre doth afterwards acknowledge that notwithstanding this Covenant be eternall yet there are more especially three periods of time wherein God may be said to make this Covenant with us As 1. Immediately upon the fall of Adam 2. At the death of Christ 3. When God bestowes on men the benefits of the Covenant If we are properly in Covenant from eternity there is no act of God in time by which we are brought into Covenant nihil agit in simile therefore these three periods of time are but three degrees of manifestation that we are in Covenant Accordingly as I argued before in the matter of Justification so now in the matter of the Covenant If the Covenant of grace consist essentially in Gods eternal purpose of blessing the elect then is not the word Covenant that Covenant I mean by which the elect are saved taken properly in all the Scriptures forasmuch as it no where signifies the foresaid purpose A thing as incredible and abominable as the former But let us farther examine this undenyable truth If the foresaid §. 14. purpose of God be the Covenant of grace then Christ did not obtaine by his death that God should make a Covenant with the elect But the consequence is false and Socinianisme Ergo so is the Antecedent Mr. Eyre answers Though we do not say that Christ procured the Covenant he might have added and therein we agree with the Socinians yet we say the effects of the Covenant or the mercies themselves were all of them obtained by the blood of Christ as deliverance from the curse inherent holinesse c. Rep. Such a salve for the honour of Christs merits I remember we had before in the matter of Justification viz. That Christ merited the effects of Justification not the act even as he merited the effects of election but not the act As if the reason were the same between a particular univocall cause such as Justification is determined to a particular kind of effect which causes do alwayes produce their effects immediately without the intervention of any other cause and an universal cause of severall heterogeneous effects such as election is and therefore produceth nothing but by the sub-serviency of those severall kinds of causes ordained to their severall kinds of works But the like distinction here between the Covenant and its effects is of worse consequence if I mistake not Therefore against Mr. Eyres answer I have these things to object 1. It makes void the death of Christ for if the elect before the death of Christ haue a foederall right to the blessings of the Covenant then they are righteous before his death for to be righteous by righteousnesse imputed and to have right to blessednesse are inse parable But Christ is dead in vain if righteousnesse comes by any other way or cause then his death Gal. 2. 21. 2. If the Elect are in Covenant before the death of the Mediatour they must have the blessings of the Covenant whether he die or no for every Covenant induceth an obligation in point of faithfulnesse at least upon the Covenanter to fulfill his Covenant If then God have made a Covenant before the death of Christ with the Elect what should hinder their receiving these blessings without his death Either God is unable to fulfill his covenant but he is Almighty or he is unfaithful but he is a God that keepeth covenant or our sin hinders but he hath covenanted before the death of Christ that sin shall not hinder for pardon of sin is a special branch of the covenant Or finally he hath covenanted to give us these blessings through the death of Christ and no otherwise But then we are not in covenant before the consideration of Christs death and besides which I most stick at then the whole reason why God should punish his deare and only Sonne so grievously is this it was his pleasure so to do But surely he that doth not afflict men meerly because he will Lam. 3. 33. would much lesse deal so with his Son 3. Either Christ and his merits are part of the blessings of this covenant or no. If they be then it is false that Christ merits all the effects and blessings of the covenant for he did not merit that himself might merit or be by his death the meritorious cause of our blessings If not then the New-Covenant is never a whit better or more excellent then the Old The first covenant was faulty because it could not bring sinners to perfect happinesse Heb. 8. 7 8 9. and 7. 19. Rom. 8. 3. If the New-Covenant cannot give us the blessednesse it promiseth unlesse Christ merit and bring forth the effects thereof then is it altogether as impotent and unprofitable as the old a faire advancement of the Covenant of Grace 4. Nor can I conceive how this eternal Covenant can consist with what Mr. Eyre hath hitherto been disputing for viz. That the New Covenant was made with Christ he performed the conditions and we receive the benefit Christs death was either the condition of the Covenant or of the effect of it Not the former if it consist in Gods purpose Mr. Eyre knows how our Divines disgust a conditional purpose in God And how it should be the condition of the effects when it is not the condition of the Covenant it self I cannot reach I know Mr. Eyre will tell me that there are no conditions of Gods purpose and yet there may be and are conditions of the things purposed But then that purpose is not a covenanr properly so called Metaphorically it may be it may so be called but then it is such a Covenant as is neither made with man nor with Christ but with God himself being no more then his own resolution within himself And yet the foresaid position viz. That there are no conditions of Gods purpose though there are causes of conditions of the things purposed had need of a distinction too for so farre forth as they are the effects of purpose they have no other cause or condition and
the words of Mark arguing manifestly from the right and authority which he had received to the lawful exercise of it in making and ordering to be published that Law or Act of Pardon whereof he doth then and there appoint his disciples to be Ambassadours I confesse I cannot imagine what can here be said unlesse it be one of these two things Either 1. That remission of sin is not contained in that salvation which is here promised to them that believe But this me thinks should be too harsh for any Christians eares to endure seeing it must contain all that good which is opposed to condemnation and therefore primarily remission of sins which is also expresly mentioned by the other Evangelists Luke 24. 47. John 20. 23. and by the Apostles in the execution of this their commission as a prime part of that salvation which they preached in the Name of Christ Acts 2. 38. and 3. 19 c. Or 2. That those words He that believes shall be saved are a meer description of the persons that shall be saved which I think is the sense that Mr. Eyre somewhere doth put upon them but this to me is more intolerable then the former partly for the reasons mentioned before chap. 5. and to be mentioned hereafter partly because according to such an interpretation the words will be no more then a simple affirmation or relation of what shall come to passe whereas by their dependance upon the foregoing All power is given to me in heaven and in earth it is manifest that they are an authoritative Sanction of the Lord Christ's an act of that jurisdiction and legislative power which he hath received from the Father and so the standing rule of remission of sins 2. If it be by the Promise of the Gospel He that believes shall not perish §. 19. but shall have everlasting life If I say it be by this Promise that God gives sinners a right to impunity and eternal life then by this Promise he justifies them But by the foresaid promise doth God give sinners a right to impunity and eternal life Ergo. The Proposition I passe as manifest by its own light The Assumption is delivered in several Scriptures Thus Paul Gal. 3. 18. God gave the inheritance to Abraham by Promise Ergo it is by Promise also that a right to life is given to all that have it This Promise is either particular or general The former it is not for God doth not now make any particular Promises to particular men such as was his Promise to believing Abraham Ergo it must be the general Promise wherein the same blessings as were given to Abraham are proposed to all men to be obtained by the same faith that Abraham had and by the same Promise given them when they believe which Promise is that before mentioned of life and salvation by faith in Jesus Christ the Apostle himself being Interpreter ver 22. But the Scripture hath concluded all under sin that the Promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe The same doth he assert at large Rom. 4. 13 14 16 23 24. 3. The Lord Jesus sayes expressely John 12. 48. That the §. 20. Word which he spake shall judge unbelievers at the last day If a judgment of condemnation be ascribed to the Word in reference to unbelievers how can it be denied a judgement of Justification in reference to believers Non potuit magis splendido elogio extolli Evangelii authoritas quà m dum illi judiciâ— potestas defertur Conscendet quidem ipse Christus Tribunal sed sententiam ex verbo quod nunc praedicatur laturum se asserit saith Calvin upon the place Yea the Lord ascribes to the same Word a judgement of Justification ver 50. And I know that his Commandment is life everlasting that is the cause of it as Moses also speaks Deut. 32. 47. i See also Deuâ— â—â— v 15 â—â— It is your life though God be the principal cause and the Word but the k Vid. Synops pâ—r theol disp â—3 §. 10 Down of Jâ—stif c. â— â— 5. â—libi passim instrumental and therefore the power which it hath of judgement it hath from hence that it is the Word of God ver 49. For I have not spoken of my selfe but the Father which sent me he gave me a Commandment what I should say as the instrumental cause works not but in the vertue of the principal To this plain testimony let me adde an Argument as plainly deduced from it If judgement shall passe at the last day according to the Word then the Word is that Law which is the rule of judgement and by consequence to one is given by the Word a right to life and another is obliged to condemnation by the same Word But the antecedent is most true Ergo so is the consequent It is the work of judgement to give unto eâ—ery one according to what is due to him by Law if then a judgement of Justification passe upon any some Law of grace must be supposed according to which it becomes due for such a gracious sentence to passe upon him 4. And this is that which the Apostle James saith chap. 4. 12. §. 21. There is one Lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy Beza observes that in foure ancient Greek Copies l As also in the Kings MS. See Dâ— Hammond Annot. in loc as also in the Syriack and the Latine Interpreter the word Judge is extant There is one Lawgiver and Judge who is able to save and destroy that is to whom pertaines the soveraign right and power of saving and destroying But whether the word be expressed or no it is surely implied for the Apostles scope is to disswade us from judging one another ver 11. because there is one Lawgiver to whom the power of judgment and so of absolving and condemning of saving and destroying doth appertain Now he that saves as a Lawgiver saves by absolution and he that absolves as a Lawgiver absolves by Law Ergo God absolves men that is pardons and justifies them by Law And when he shall judge all men at the last day his judgement whether of salvation or destruction shall proceed according to Law 5. Adde to this that the Apostle commends the excellency and glory §. 22. of the Gospel that God doth thereby justifie 2 Cor 3. 9. For if the ministration of condemnation he glory much more doth the ministration of righteousnesse exceed in glory The ministration of condemnation is that which ver 7. he calls the ministration of death written and engraven in stones His scope is to shew the excellency of that Gospel which himself and other Apostles did preach and publish to the world above the ministration of the Law committed to Moses As then the ministration of death and condemnation was the ministration of that Law which did condemn unto death the effect being put for the cause so the