between him and those who do not love to say that Faith is an Instrumental Cause is more verbal than real for he doth not say that Faith is the Instrumental cause of our Justification that indeed had been to ascribe too much unto Faith but the Instrumental cause receiving Christ and his Righteousness upon which follows Justification now we all acknowledge Faith to be of an apprehensive receptive nature and that it is the Instrumental means whereby we apprehend and receive Christ and his Righteousness that we may be Justified and our using that Instrumental means as the Lord hath appointed is the receptive condition to which the Promise of Justification is made Here then seems to be a meer difference in words when we mean the same thing Lastly for sincere Obedience he holds it to be in some sense a cause of obtaining Eternal Life which is more than we have ascribed to it in calling it a Condition for a Condition as such hath no causal Influence Ibid. lib. 2. cap. 1. pag. 199. His own Words in the said Book are these Our Obedience indeed is not the principal or meritorious cause of Eternal Life For we receive the right of this life and the life also it self from the Grace and Gift of God for the sake of Christ apprehended by faith Rom 6.23 The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. But yet it is a cause some way administring helping and moving forward towards the possession of this life whereof we had the right before for which reason it is called the way in which we walk to Heaven Eph. 2.10 And it promotes our life both of its own nature because it is some degree of life it self still tending to perfection and also by vertue of God's Promise who hath promised Eternal Life to those who walk in his Commandments Gal. 6.8 He that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting For though all our Obedience while we live here is imperfect and contaminated with some mixture of sin Gal. 5.17 The flesh lusts against the spirit yet through Christ it is so acceptable unto God that it is crowned with a most great reward The Promises therefore made to the Obedience of the Faithful are not Legal but Evangelical although by some they are said to be of a mixt nature In all this Ames ascribes as much to sincere Obedience and makes it as necessary to Salvation as we do If we say it is a Condition he sayes it is in some sort a Cause of obtaining the poffession of Eternal Salvation And sure to be so a Cause is as much at least as to be a Condition Next let us see what Dr. Twiss faith to these things Indeed he is so clearly on our side that if the Authour of the Letter had been acquainted with his Writings he would have been wiser than to have mentioned his Name in this Cause For thus he writes We say that pardon of sin and salvation of Souls are Benefits purchased by the death of Christ to be enjoyed by Men but how Answer to a Booke called The Synod of Dort and Arles reduced to practice pag. 16. not absolutely but conditionally to wit in case and onely in case they believe For like as God doth not confer these on any of ripe years unless they believe so Christ hath not merited that they should be conferred on any but such as believe and accordingly profess that Christ dyed for all that is to obtain pardon of sin and salvation of Soul for all but how not absolutely whether they believe or no but onely conditionally to wit provided they do believe in Christ Again Men are called upon to believe and promised Ibid. pag. 28. that upon their Faith they shall obtain the Grace of Remission of sins and Salvation and these Graces may be said to be offered unto all upon Condition of faith Again As touching the Benefits of pardon of sin Ibid. page 152. and Salvation procured by Christs death we say that Christ died to procure these for all and every one but how not absolutely for then all and every one should be saved but conditionally to wit upon Condition of faith so that if all and every one should believe in Christ all and every one should be saved Again It is untrue that we must have a sufficient assurance Ibid. pag. 154. that Christ died to procure pardon of sin and salvation of soul absolutely for him whom we go about to comfort it is enough that Christ died to procure these Benefits for him conditionally to wit in case he believe and repent and of this we have a most sufficient assurance Again We say not here that any thing becomes true Ibid. pag. 163. by the Faith of him that believes it but onely this that the benefit which is procured for all and every one upon a Condition becomes his and peculiarly his alone who performeth the Condition Again Now Eternal Life we know Ibid. pag. 171. is ordained by God to be the portion of Men not whether they believe or not whether they persevere in Faith Holiness and Repentance or no but onely of such as believe repent and are studious of good Works for it is ordained to be bestowed on Men by way of reward of their Faith Repentance and good Works Again The Promises assured by Baptism Ibid. pag. 189. according to the Rule of God's Word I find to be of two sorts Some are of Benefits procured unto us by Christ which are to be conferred on us conditionally they of this first sort are Justification and Salvation for Abraham received Circumcision as a Seal of the Righteousness of Faith Circumcision therefore was an assurance of Justification to be had by Faith if such were Circumcision to the Jews we have good reason to conceive that such is Baptism unto us Christians for as that was unto them so this is the Sacrament of Regeneration unto us And good reason the Sacraments which are Seals of the Covenant should assure that unto us which the word of the Covenant doth make Promise of Now the word of the Covenant of Grace doth promise unto us both Remission of sin and Salvation upon Faith in Christ This by our Doctrine we promise unto all and assure unto all as well as they do by theirs If all and every one should believe we nothing doubt but they should be justified and saved On the other side if not one of ripe years should believe I presume our Adversaries will confess that not one of them should be saved Again Justification and Salvation is promised in the Word Ibid. pag. 190. and assured in the Sacraments upon performance of a Condition on Mans part Now the Condition of Justification and Salvation we all acknowledge to be Faith Thus Dr. Twiss frequently in the foresaid Book And that this was his setled Judgment will appear by what he wrote afterwards in the Year
obtained Hence Paul saith Rom. 8.13 If ye live after the flesh ye shall die And Heb. 3.12 Take heed lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God We do not therefore think that the Act it self of believing repenting and mortifying the flesh doth effect or merit the conservation of Justifying Grace because all these things are done by us faintly and imperfectly sometimes also through the Prevalency of some great Tentation they are as it were choaked and oppressed but we say that God himself of his free Mercy preserves the Regenerate in a state of Grace and Salvation whilst they walk in these wayes As therefore for the preservation of Natural Life it is necessarily required that a Man carefully avoid Fire Water Precipices Poysons and other things which destroy the Health of the Body so for the preservation of Spiritual Life it is necessarily required that a Man avoid Vnbelief Impenitency and other things that are destructive and contrary to the Salvation of Souls which cannot be avoided unless the opposite and contrary Actions be exercised But these Actions do not preserve the Life of Grace properly and of themselves by touching or producing the very effect it self of preservation but improperly and by accident by excluding and removing the cause of destruction Thus we have at large refuted the Authour of the Letter his Second Errour against the Purity of Christian Faith and have fully and clearly proved the Covenant of Grace to be Conditional This we have done first by clear Scripture Secondly by certain and evident Reason grounded upon Scripture Thirdly by Testimonies of Orthodox Divines and First by Testimonies of the Antient Doctors of the Primitive Church Secondly by Testimonies of Divines of the Reformed Churches both at Home and Abroad and particularly by the Testimony of the Divines of the Famous Synod of Dort Whence it is as clear as the Sun that we preach no new Arminian Gospel in this great Point of the Covenant of Grace and consequently that the Authour of the Letter is a false Witness in Matter of Fact who hath proclaimed us to the World to be Preachers of a new Arminian Gospel on the account of our Doctrine in the point of Justification If after all this he should say that though we have proved the Covenant to be conditional and Faith to be the receptive applicative condition of it yet we have not proved that Faith justifies as a Condition We Answer That look by what place of Scripture he shall ever be able to prove that Faith justifies as an Instrument and a hand by the same shall we prove that Faith justifies as a receptive applicative condition For as we said before we take a receptive applicative Condition and a moral foederal instrument to be one and the same thing So did the Westminster Assembly of Divines before us And in this sense which alone is justifiable we hold Faith to be both an Instrument and a Condition with respect to Justification And if that will please our Authour we shall grant him that Faith is a hand and not only a hand but an eye and a mouth too an eye to look unto Christ crucified John 3.14 15. John 6.40 Isa 45.22 And a mouth to eat and drink and feed on his Crucified Flesh and Blood John 6.35 50 51 53 54 55 56 57 58. We shall conclude this Answer with the Testimony of Two Learneder and Wiser Men than our Authour seems to be The first is the Reverend Mr. Lukin a Worthy Judicious Congregational Minister in his Life of Faith printed above Thirty years ago Lukin 's Life of Faith p. 24 25. For the question about the Interest of Faith in our Justification whether it justifie as an Instrument or as a Condition I think saith he it deserves not half the words that have been used about it they are both of them School-terms and not found in the Scripture and should not therefore disturb the peace of the Church especially seeing both Parties at variance are agreed in the thing but not in the formal notion under which they do conceive it and I think both lides are so far agreed that Faith may be called an Instrument allowing much impropriety of speech and that it may be called a Condition while we thereby do not suppose any such thing as merit Thus Mr. Lukin Now we heartily accept of this expedient for the calming of the Tempest which the Letter hath raised We will never desire the Authour to call Faith a meritorious condition for we never called it so our selves if he will grant us that it is but improperly an Instrument of Justification The other is the Learned Turretin that famous Calvinist Professor of Divinity lately at Geneva who writes thus Caeterum non anxiè quaerendum putamus an fides instrumenti notionem induat in hoc negotio c. Turretin Instit part 2. loc 16. quaest 7. p. 737. But we do not think that it is curiously to be enquired after whether Faith put on the nation of an Instrument in this matter of Justification or likewise of a condition as it seems to some men For nothing hinders but both notions may be ascribed to it provided Condition be not taken for that in consideration whereof God justifies Man in the Covenant of Grace after the manner that works were the Condition of Justification in the Legal Covenant For in this sense it cannot be called a condition unless we come over to the Socinians and Arminians who will have Faith or the Act of believing to be accepted by God for perfect Righteousness which we have but now resuted But taking the word Condition in a large sense for all that which is required on our part to obtain that benefit whether it have the notion of a cause properly so called or only of an instrumental Cause for as that Condition hath the relation of an Instrument so that Instrument hath the nature of a Condition on our part without which Justification cannot be obtained Thus Turretin to which we fully agree except that we think he gives too much to Faith in conceiving it to be an instrumental cause of Justification yet since he says that it is no cause properly so called it follows necessarily that it is not properly an instrumental cause and so hath no proper causal influence upon the act of Justification and if so then it is but improperly an instrument as Mr. Lukin saith and so the whole Controversie comes to nothing but a strife about the propriety or impropriety of a word which Turretin plainly saw and therefore confessed that Faith is so an Instrument as to be a Condition and so a Condition as to be an Instrument of Justification And taking the word Instrument in a moral Sense for a means of receiving the benefit of Justification for Christ's sake only we do unfeignedly affirm as Turretin doth that a sincere Faith is both the Instrument and Receptive
fully expresses our sense and to which we heartily subscribe Agreeable to this is that which we find in Mr. Rutherford's Examination of Arminianism Chap. 13. Pag. 594. That a Promise that we shall persevere in Faith and obtain Eternal Salvation though we walk after the Flesh and lead a wicked life may be called a dissolute Promise but that we do not maintain an absolute Promise of perseverance in that dissolute sense for though the Promise of perseverance in Faith be absolute yet it is always joined with an absolute Promise of perseverance in Holiness and Obedience and as it is necessary to Salvation that Elect Believers continue in Faith so it is necessary that they continue in Holiness and Obedience And if for some time there happen to be an intermission of Faith and Obedience there must be a renewing of them again that we may obtain Salvation and this renovation of our Faith and Obedience is the effect of the absolute Promise but not the obtaining of Salvation without and before the renewing of our Faith and Repentance and returning to our Obedience This is plainly Rutherford's sense And indeed he goes further than we have done in that he ascribes an inferiour kind of Causality to Obedience and good Works in order to the obtaining of Eternal Salvation for which he quotes Calvin Bucer Examen Armin. cap. 12. Zanchy and Voetius yea he quotes the Apostle Paul 2 Cor. 4.17 saying that our light Afflictions which are but for a Moment work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of Glory In the Pages 531 532 533. of that Book Again he says expresly That the hope of Eternal Life ex eo vana esse colligitur si non innitatur sincerae obedientiae tanquam fulcro secundario 1 Johan 3.3 is hence proved to be vain and groundless if it be not upheld by sincere obedience as a secondary slay or prop. Pag. 592. of the same Book And in another Book he saith that it is a new Heresy of Antinomians to deny a Conditional Gospel it is all one Survey of Antin Part II. p. 63. as to belye the Holy Ghost who saith He that believeth shall be saved and he that believeth not is condemned already Spanhemius likewise a very Learned Divine and zealous against the Arminians in his Disputation at Leyden concerning the five controverted Articles saith in the 34th Thesis or Position Omnibus equidem externè vocatis annunciatur promissio Evangelii non tamen absolutè sed conditionatè si resipiscant credant The Promise of the Gospel is indeed preached to all that are outwardly called yet not absolutely but conditionally if they believe and repent And Thes 36. For as it is in vain that a great Good is ready at hand to us unless we either take and receive or fulfil the Condition which is required in the Covenant and Promise of it so that infinite benefit of Redemption is in vain purchased for us by Christ except we embrace it with a sure confidence and performe Faith and Repentance unto God requiring them as the terms of the Covenant John 3.16 Acts 2.38 And to draw towards a close with the Testimonies of some of our own English Divines we find that Dr. Robert Abbot writing against Thompson saith Abbot contra Thomsoni Diatrib de Intercis Justif p. 212. Credi non debet remissio peccatorum ante poenitentiam poenitere aliquem de peccato non potest quod nondum est c. It ought not to be believed that Remission of sins is before Repentance and a Man cannot repent of a sin that is not yet committed c. Again Remission of sins is never decreed for any of ripe years without Repentance nor is it ever granted upon another Condition that is another dispositive Condition the Faith therefore of Remission should not anticipate Repentance c. Neither let us think that without Repentance we ought ever to say Forgive us our trespasses c. And because our Authour saith that God hath blessed England with an Ames and Twiss against the Arminians Let. p. 13. p. 27. and that we neglect and despise them we will alledge some Testimonies out of their Writings by which the World may judge whether those two great Divines be for him or for us in this cause And first for Dr. Ames in his Answer to Grevinchovius page 138. he sayes Quòd fides haec non sit volitionis ipsius divinae conditio sed salutis assequendae tantùm hanc ego sententiam meam esse fateor veramque cum Deo praestiturum me confido That this faith of ours is not the condition of Gods will it self but that it is only the condition of our obtaining Salvation I confess this to be my opinion and I trust with Gods help that I shall prove it to be true We observe here that Ames distinguisheth between Gods will of our Salvation and our Salvation it self which is the object of his will As for the first to wit God's Will Faith is not cannot be the Condition of God's Will because it is Eternal and Absolute and cannot possibly depend upon any Condition whatsoever But the second to wit our Salvation the object of God's Will it may have and hath a Condition and God hath absolutely willed that it should have and depend upon a Condition and that Faith should be the Condition on which our obtaining of it doth depend This is his meaning and we agree with him in it The same Authour in another Book his Marrow of Divinity saith That the Promises of the Gospel are without any discrimination proposed unto all together with a Command to believe Medul Theologiae Lib. 1. cap. 26. pag. 112. but they are not performed unto all because Men themselves fail in performing the Condition But unto the Elect the Condition is given that the Promises may be performed to them Which he proves by three Scriptures Eph. 2.8 Acts 5.31 and chap. 11. ver 18. whereof one proves Faith and the other two prove Repentance to be the Gift of God Whence it is most evident that he thought Repentance as well as Faith to be the condition of the Gospel-Promises Again in the same Book and next Chapter he says This Justification is for Christ considered not absolutely Ibid. cap. 27. pag. 118. in which sense Christ is also the cause of effectual vocation but for Christ apprehended by faith which faith follows effectual calling as its effect and goes before Justification as the Instrumental Cause apprehending that Righteousness of Christ upon which Righteousness so apprehended Justification follows In this Passage we highly approve the order in which he placeth things as putting effectual calling in order of nature before faith and Faith before Justification But where he saith that Faith is the Instrumental Cause apprehending the Righteousness of Christ for which we are Justified some possibly may think that he ascribes too much unto Faith yet we think that the difference
that more and worse is feared which what it should be we cannot imagine unless it be that they fear we will at last renounce Christ and Christianity But to this we will say with David 2 Sam. 16.12 it may be the Lord will look upon our case and requite us good for this reviling Dr. let p. 12. Downame Bishop of Derry whom our Authour also commends in his Letter shall next come in for a Witness on our behalf who in his Book of the Covenant of Grace saith The promises of the Gospel cannot be applyed to any aright but only to those who have the condition of the promise page 134 135. which is the justifying Faith For the Gospel doth not promise Justification and Salvation to all but to those only who have a justifying Faith Therefore a Man must be endued with justifying Faith before he can or ought to apply the promises of the Gospel to himself For as Salvation is promised to them that believe so damnation is denounced to them that believe not Mark 16.16 John 3.16 18. Again No man ought to apply the promise of the Gospel to himself who hath not the condition of the promise ibid. page 153. unless he will perniciously deceive himself For as he that believeth shall be saved so he that believeth not shall be condemned page 154. Again As we daily sin so we must daily ask forgiveness Prayer being the means that God hath ordained to that end Object Yea But saith the Papist ye forsooth have already full assurance of the remission of all your sins not only past but also to come Answ It is absurd to imagine that sins be remitted before they be committed and much more that we be assured they are remitted before they be either remitted or committed That indeed were a Doctrine to animate and to encourage Men to sin But howsoever the Pope sometimes forgiveth sins to come yet God doth not When God justifyeth a man he giveth him remission of sins past Rom. 3.25 As for time to come we teach that although Christ hath merited and God hath promised remission of sins of all the faithful unto the end of the World notwithstanding remission of sins is not actually obtained and much less by special Faith believed until Men do actually believe and repent and by humble and faithful Prayer renew their Faith and Repentance For as God hath promised to the faithful all good things But how Matt. 7.7 8. To them that ask Luke 18.13 14. that seek that knock So also remission of sins Neither is it to be doubted but that remission of sin though merited by Christ though promised by God though sealed unto us in the Sacrament of Baptisme is obtained by the effectual Prayer of those who believe and repent for whom Christ hath merited it and to whom God hath promised it in his Word and sealed it by the Sacrament even as the obtaining of the rain which God had promised 1 Kings 18. ver 1 41. and the Prophet Elias had foretold is ascribed to the effectual Prayer of Elias James 5.16 18. To Bishop Downames we add the very Learned and Pious Gatakers Testimony When â—altâ—arsh the Antinomian had objected and said either place Salvation on a free bottom or else you make the New Covenant but an old Covenant in new terms Do this and live believe this and live repent and live obey and live Gataker replies This is frivolous because as hath been shewed Gatakers shadows without Substance page 49. Salvations free bottom is no way impeached by such conditions as these required and scandalous because therein the Apostles Doctrine is not covertly but directly challenged as overthrowing and razing the foundation of free Grace For what is believe on the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved but believe and live Or what is repent that your sins may be done away but repent and live Or what is He is the Authour of Salvation to all that obey him but obey and live And I demand again what this amounts unto whether it be any other than blasphemy to say that the Apostles by such their Doctrine did not place Salvation upon a free bottom but brought in the old Covenant again in new terms Sir Dare you say in your new revealed Mystery believe not and yet live repent not and yet live obey not and yet live Again We may truly say that you and yours are they that either cannot or will not see the Wood for Trees Ibid. page 57. the conditions on which Salvation by Christ is propounded though in the Gospel they do every where occur and offer themselves will ye nill ye to your eyes With Gataker we joyn Mr. Ball who in his Treatise of Faith recommended by a Preface of Dr. Sibbes saith Balls Treatise of Faith part 1. page 86. The promise of remission of sins is conditional and becometh not absolute until the condition be fulfilled This is the word of Grace Believe in the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved When doth this conditional proposition become absolute When we believe what That our sins are pardoned No but when we believe in Christ to obtain pardon which is the thing promised upon condition of belief Again The priviledge of Grace and Comfort which comes to the Soul by believing must be distinguished from the Condition of the Covenant Ibid. page 89. which is required on our parts before we can obtain pardon Again We can teach no Faith to Salvation but according to the rule of Christ Repent and believe the Gospel no remission of sin Ibid. page 136. but according to the like Rule Luke 24.47 Acts 2.37 38. But Faith seeketh and receiveth pardon as it is proffered in the word of Grace Repentance is necessary to the pardon of sin as a condition without which it cannot be obtained not as a cause why it is given Luke 13.3 1 John 1.9 Acts 11.18 If Mercy should be vouchsafed to all indifferently the Grace of God should be a boulster to mans sin c. Lastly We conclude this head of our defence with the Testimony of the Synod of Dort We have already shewed that the Geneva Divines in that Synod gave it in under their hands and were therein approved by the Synod That the Covenant of Grace is conditional We might be large in shewing the like of many others but we will confine our selves for brevities sake to the Embdan Bremen and English Divines their Suffrages recorded in the Acts of the Synod First The Embdane Divines in the Synod said That God required the same conditions from those that were in Covenant with him under the Old and New Testament to wit Faith and the obedience of Faith Act. Synodi Dord part 2. page 93. Gen. 12. Abraham believed God and the Apostle â—in Rom. 4. Teaches that we are saved by the same Faith Gen. 17. Abraham is commanded to walk before God and be perfect The same is every where
without just reason we think to satisfie them we may well say what is a great truth that the habitual Seminal Principle of Faith is a qualification of the Person to be justified and that the actual Exercise of Faith is the receptive applicative Condition of Justification This is our first Reason 2. Reason The seminal abiding Principle of Faith is a holy disposition of the Soul whereby it is inclined and fitted to elicit and produce the Acts of Faith This is clear because it is in a special manner the gift of a Holy God and the fruit of his Holy Spirit who cannot be the Authour of any Seed Disposition Inclination or Habit in the Soul of Man but what is good and Holy But now that Seminal abiding Principle of Faith is before Justification This is clear as the Sun because it is before the Act of that Faith whereby alone we are said to be justified and that it is before the justifying act of faith we thus demonstrate That which concurs to the producing of the Act is before the act since it is in part the cause of the act and the cause as such must always be in order of Nature at least before the effect and it implies a contradiction that it should be otherwise But the Seminal abiding Principle of Faith concurs to the producing of the Act of justifying Faith for it is given unto us for that end that it may fit us for inclines us to and help us in acting Therefore it is before the Act of justifying Faith and consequently before Justification it self Here then we have found a Holy Seed and Principle put by God into the Soul before Justification And therefore it is utterly false which the Letter saith that there neither is nor can be any good or holy thing in the Soul or any real change wrought on the Soul before Justification 3. Reason The Act of Justifying Faith is a good and holy thing since it is the effect of God's Holy Spirit and the first Fruit of the foresaid Holy Seed of Faith in the Soul But so it is that even according to our Authours own Principles the Act of Faith is before Justification For as was observed before he says out of Gal. 2.16 We believe that we may be justified and if so then it is evident that our believing is in order of Nature at least before we be justified 2. He holds that Faith is the Instrumental cause of Justification and lays great stress upon that Notion as if it were the great fundamental of his Religion he likewise finds great fault with us for not holding with him that Faith is the Instrumental cause of Justification Now according to this Opinion of his he cannot avoid the placing of the Act of Faith before Justification because it is the Act of Faith that receives Christ and his Righteousness and that is the instrumental cause of Justification But all the World knows that every proper cause as an instrumental cause is in its kind is in order of Nature before its effect Either then some holy good thing is in us before Justification or Actual Faith is no holy good thing and his instrument wherewith he makes such a noise is good for nothing but to blow the Coals of Strife and Contention 4. Reason Before a Man can be justified by Faith there must be a real and holy change in him because of an Unbeliever he must become a Believer and that cannot be without a real change and a holy one too Now that a Man from being an Unbeliever must come to be a Believer in Christ before he can be justified by Faith in Christ is self-evident for how can a Man be justified by Faith in Christ who yet hath no Faith in Christ he must then have Faith before he can be justified by Faith But how shall he get this Faith Can he get Faith whilst he still remains in Unbelief that is impossible For Unbelief either signifies not believing or it signifies positive disbelieving and 1. If it signifie not believing it stands in a contradictory opposition to believing and contradictions are utterly inconsistent Can a Man believe in Christ and not at all believe in Christ at the same time We hope our Authour will not be so ridiculous as to go about to reconcile contradictions 2. If Unbelief signifie positive disbelieving disbelieving in power and prevalency then it stands in a contrary opposition to believing and two contraries in power and prevalency are likewise utterly inconsistent in the same subject at the same time A Man that is in the very Act of positive disbelief and under the power and prevalency of it cannot possibly have an actual Faith in Christ at that time Therefore that an Unbeliever may get actual Faith in Christ and be justified by that Faith he must of necessity be changed really and effectually changed he must be changed from being an Unbeliever to be a Believer he must come off from his sin of not believing or of disbelieving unto the practice of his Duty of believing in Christ that he may be justified by Faith But this cannot possibly be without a real change nay this coming off from the sin of Unbelief to the Duty of Believing is a real change and a holy change too therefore there is and must be a real holy change in Man in order of Nature at least before his Justification by Faith in Christ This is as certain and evident as that Two and Two make Four Yet our Authour finds fault with us for making it a part of our new Scheme that there must be a real change in a man let page 30. that he must be changed from his Unbelief that he may come to Christ by Faith for Justification And elsewhere he says That it is the experience of every Believer that every one who believeth on Jesus Christ page 11. acts that Faith as the chief of Sinners And if so then it follows by necessary consequence that every one who believes on Christ acts that Faith as an Unbeliever for according to him unbelief is the chiefest sin so he writes expresly That Vnbelief is the most provoking to God page 15 16. and the most damning to man of all sins Unbelief then is the chiefest sin and if so certainly the Unbeliever must be the chiefest Sinner and the Believer who acts his Faith as the chief of Sinners must act his Faith as an Unbeliever And that is a very odd way of acting Faith to believe as an Unbeliever Yet no man can help it for if our Authors Doctrine be true it must be so and cannot be otherwise because it is that which the experience of all Believers witnesseth unto and as he writes page 24. The Believer or Accepter of Christ in the very act of believing or accepting of Christ expresly disclaims all things in himself but sinfulness and misery And if he do so then he disclaims that is renounces his Faith it self in
Church or Rome and is in it and held by some of its Bishops at this day And we know the Possibility or impossibility of the thing hath been matter of not disputes amongst their Schoolmen Witness Vasque◠in 1◠2dae Dispur 206 207. Suarez l. 2. degratiâ Cap. 22 23. Becan in Summâ Theolog. partis 2dae part 1. Tract 4. de justificat Cathol Cap. 3. q. 5. § 26. Bezant Duval Meratius if our Authour please to Consult those Popish Schoolmen he may find some Arguments that may be of some use to him and may help him to perswade the People to believe that God may forgive them their Sins before there be any saving change of their Hearts and any Holy Seed or Principle or Grace put into them or any Gracious Disposition or Qualification wrought in them by the Spirit of Christ And the People may if they please go on to drink in that Pelagian Popish and Arminian Doctrine taking it upon our Authors Word to be a part of the pure Christian Religion and of the Doctrine of Justification by free Grace without good Works and Holy Qualifications or any thing that looks like them But for our parts we declare that we are for the Doctrine of the Synod of Dort in the Point of a real Holy Change and Holy Qualifications before Justification and cannot but prefer it before that Pelagian Opinion which some People are so fond of and they must not expect that ever we will humour them in that matter unless our Authour will solidly answen our Arguments and give us better Arguments for his Opinion than we have here given for ours As for what he saith to that purpose in his Letter we can therein find nothing of any weight as r. in Page 9. We say not quoth he that there is an actual partaking of Christs fulness of Grace till we be in him by Faith though this Faith is also given us on Christs behalf Phil. 1.29 And we believe through Grace Acts 18.27 Thus he Argues to prove that all the Grace we receive from Christ comes from our being united to him by Faith and so that we cannot actually partake of the Grace of Christ before our Union with Christ by Faith Now if this be so we demand of him concerning this being in Christ by Faith or which is the same thing this union with Christ by Faith either it is effected by the Grace of Christ or without the Grace of Christ by the meer Power of Nature Not the Second to wit without the Grace of Christ by the meer Power of Nature For 1. That is rank Pelagianism or Semipelagianism at least 2. It is contrary to what he says in the same place that the Faith by which we come to be in Christ is given us on Christs behalf and that we believe through Grace The First then is that which he doth and must choose to say to wit that our Union with Christ by Faith is effected by the Grace of Christ And then it is self-evident that that Grace of Christ which Effects Faith in us and the Union with Christ by Faith is before Faith and the Union by Faith because the Cause always is and must be in Order of Nature before the Effect And further if the Grace of Christ by which we believe first in him and are united to him be before that Faith and Union by Faith then we receive that Grace from Christ before we be in Christ by Faith and we receive it to this end that our faculties may be fitted and prepared yea and powerfully helped actually to believe and by believing to be actually united unto Christ thus our Author is caught in a Net of his own making he blows hot and cold out of the same Mouth and contradicts himself most foully in saying that we do not actually partake of Christs fulness till we be in him by Faith and yet that we have that Faith and Union by Faith from the Grace of Christ as the cause thereof for certainly that Grace is a part of Christs fulness and if he give it us and we receive it from him for the producing of Faith and Union with him by Faith then we actually partake of his fulness before we be in him by Faith That People therefore may no more be puzzled with such self-confounding and contradictious Stuff we desire them to consider 1. That all our Supernatural Grace is from Christ by his Spirit this we are all agreed in 2. That yet all Supernatural Grace is not from Christ after the same Way and Manner for there is some Grace from Christ before Union and in Order to Union and some Grace is from Christ united from Christ now in actual Union with our Souls by Faith of the first sort is the first preventing Grace the Grace by which we are Effectually Called the Grace by which we are disposed and prepared to believe and by which we do actually believe and by so believing answer the Call receive Christ into our Hearts and come to be actually united unto him This Grace being the cause of Faith and of the Union by Faith is before Union with Christ and so cannot possibly be from Christ considered as united to us by Faith Though then all our Grace be from Christ yet it is notoriously false that it is all from him as ours already by Faith for preventing Grace which is before Faith is not drawn from Christ by Faith as also Faith it self we mean the first Principle and first Act of Faith is not drawn from Christ as already ours by Faith for then Faith would be both before and after it self which is contradictious non-sense and impossible Of the Second sort is all subsequent Grace the Grace of Justification of Progressive Sanctification and Perseverance yea all that Grace whereby Gods Select People being once called according to his Purpose are fitted for and brought unto Glory is from Christ united from Christ in actual Union with our Souls by Faith Augustin writing against the Pelagians above 12 hundred years ago Angust Epist 105. hath cleared up this matter in few Words writing thus to Sixtus Ita sine Spiritu sidei non est rectê quispiam crediturus nec sine spiritu orationis salubriter oraturus non quia tot sint spiritus sed omnia haec operatur unus atque idem spiritus dividens propria unicuique prout vult quia Spiritus ubi vult spirat sed quod fatendum est aliter adjuvat nondum inhabitans aliter inhabitans nam nondum inhabitans adjuvat ut sint fideles inhabitans adjuvat jam fideles That is So without the Spirit of Faith no man will ever believe aright nor without the Spirit of Prayer will any man ever pray in a saving manner not that there are so many Spirits but one and the same Spirit doth all these things dividing unto every man that which is proper to him as he will for the Spirit breaths where he will
But it must be confessed that the Spirit doth otherwise help before he doth inhabit and otherwise when he doth inhabit in the Soul for before be come to inhabit in the Soul he helps men that they may be Believers but when he doth inhabit and dwell in the Soul he helps them who are Believers This one Distinction of Austins attended unto would help People to understand this matter and to answer all that our Authour saith against any real change or Holy Seed Disposition or Qualification wrought in the Soul before it be justified For our Blessed Lord by his Holy Spirit first prepares and qualifies and makes us meet to be an Habitation for himself and then he comes unto us by the same Spirit and dwells in us and abides with us for ever Ephes 2.22 and 3.17 and 1 Cor. 3.16 Now the first of these is in Order before Justification God by his Spirit and Word first makes us such as his Word requires us to be that we may be justified he savingly enlightens our Minds and enlivens our Hearts he gives us a Seed of Faith and a Holy Principle of Light Lise and Love and by an influence of actual Grace causes us freely to reduce the said Seed and Principle into Act and so actually to believe and repent which when we do through Grace then he justifies us on the account of Christs satisfactory meritorious Righteousness imputed to us And after that we are effectually Called and thereupon are become Penitent Believers and are justified and reconciled the Lord gives us his Spirit and by his Spirit he comes and dwells in us he strengthens and encreases the Grace that he had begun in us and makes us more and more Holy in Heart and Life This is that which is commonly called Sanctification and follows after Justification and through Christs dwelling in us by his Spirit is carried on from one decree to another till it have attained its gradual Perfection and be consummated in Glory Let. p. 11. But he objects 2. Shall we tell Men that unles they be Holy they must not believe on Jesus Christ nor venture on him for Salvation till they be qualified and fit to be received by him This were to forbear Preaching the Gospel at all or to forbid all Men to believe on Christ for never was any Sinner qualified for Christ nor is it possible that ever any Sinner should be qualified for Christ We Answer our Author had said a little before in the same Page That every one who Believes on Christ acts that Faith as the chief of Sinners that is believes as an unbeliever as was before proved to be his meaning by his own express Words if his Words be expressive of his Mind And now by the Question which he puts to us here he seems plainly to be of Opinion that every man must believe as an unbeliever or else no man can ever believe at all and Ministers must give over Preaching the Gospel for they can never preach it as it should be preached unless they tell People that they must Act their Faith as the chief of Sinners that is they must believe as unbelievers for either we must tell People that they must believe as Unbelievers or else that they must not believe till they be first Holy and that is that they must never believe at all because it is impossible for them to be Holy till after they have believed in Christ and be united unto him by Faith This is plainly the sense of our Authors Words and the force of his Reasoning which puts us in mind of what Calvin says out of Augustin de bono perseverantiae Cap. 22. Calv. Instit lib. 3. Cap. 23. § 14. that there are insulsi doctores gratiae some foolish Preachers of Grace and surely if any they are to be accounted such Preachers who in effect tell People that they must believe as unbelievers or else they must not believe till they be first Holy and that is they must never believe at all But is there no way to avoid this foolish senseless way of Preaching Our Author thinks there is not we on the contrary are perswaded that there is a way to avoid it and in our Judgment it may thus be easily done we tell People that they must believe in Christ not as Unholy Unbelievers nor yet as Holy with that Holiness which is the effect of Believing and follows after Faith in Christ but by ceasing to be Unholy Unbelievers and by becoming Holy Believers and if they ask us how this can possibly be done we answer Not by Power of Nature but by the Power of Gods special Grace if they ask further How they can obtain that special Grace before they believe and be in Christ by Faith since all Grace is derived from Christ by Faith we answer that all Grace indeed is derived from Christ but it is a most notorious falshood that all Grace is derived from Christ by Faith for the first special Grace which is the Cause of Faith and whereby we believe in Christ is not from Christ by Faith but it is from Christ before Faith and it is given us by the Holy Spirit of Christ to work Faith in us and to bring us into Union with Christ by Faith if they say that even according to this way People must still believe before they are Holy and so must believe as not being yet Holy We answer that is true in one respect and false in another It is true that People must believe before they are Holy with that Progressive Holiness which is the effect of justifying Faith and follows after Justification but it is utterly false that People do believe or can believe savingly before they are Initially Holy before they are Holy with that first beginning and Principle of Holiness which consists in removing the ill Disposition of our Faculties and in giving our Faculties a right spiritual Supernatural Disposition and fitness for the Act of Believing this Holy Principle concurs to the producing of the Act of Faith and so must be in Order before it and then the Act it self of Faith which is an Holy Act must be in order before Justification Therefore it is utterly false that there can be no Holiness at all in any kind or degree before Faith and Justification by Faith since before actual Faith there is the Holy Seed and Principle both of Faith and Repentance and of other Graces too and in order of Nature there is an Holy actual Faith before Justification and this is a Truth so clear that our Author himself sometimes could see it as Pag. 21. Where he says that no man can do any thing that is good till Gospel Grace renew him and make him first a good man this is very true if it be rightly understood thus No man can do any thing that is spiritually supernaturally and savingly good till Gospel Grace that is internal special Grace renew him and make him first a
cause of the eternal ruin of the Souls of the Generality of them to whom or amongst whom the Gospel is preached John 3.19 4. That there are certain Internal Spiritual Effects wrought in and upon the Souls of Men whereof the Word preached is the immediate Instrumental cause which ordinarily do precede the work of Regeneration or real Conversion unto God And they are reduceable unto Three Heads 1. Illumination 2. Conviction 3. Reformation The first of these respects the Mind only The second the Mind Conscience and Affections And the third the Life and Conversation These are attained by the inward influence of the Holy Spirit upon mens Souls concurring with the Word to make it effectual unto those ends All these things may be wrought in the minds of men by the dispensation of the Word and yet the work of Regeneration be never perfected in them Yea although they are good in themselves and fruits of the kindness of God towards us they may not only be lost as unto any Spiritual advantage but also be abused to our great disadvantage Then Pag. 196. The Dectrine says he concerning these things hath been variously handled distinguished and applyed by many Learned Divines and Faithful Ministers of the Gospel Unto that Light which they received into them from the infallible Word of God they soined those experiences which they had observed in their own hearts and the Consciences of others with whom they had to do which were suitable thereunto And in the dispensation of this truth according to the measure of the gift of the Grace of Christ which they severally received they had an useful and fruitful Ministery in the World to the Converting of many unto God ☞ But we have lived to see all these things decried and rejected Thus Dr. Owen concerning Dispositions previous to Regeneration whose sense upon the whole we have here briefly and faithfully represented unto all into whose hands this may come And in the first and latter part of this long quotation we have transcribed his own words By all which we see that Dr. Owen received and approved as true good and useful the foresaid Doctrine of the English Divines at the Synod of Dort concerning Dispositions and Preparations before Regeneration and seems to have said it with some grief that he had lived to see all these things decryed and rejected to wit by some Arminian Divines of the Church of England And would it not have grieved him a little more to have seen all these things decryed and rejected also by Nonconformists that pretend to be the only party of Protestants who adhere to the old pure Doctrine of the best Reformed Churches when at the same time and in the same thing they join with the new Divines as Dr. Owen expresly calls them that is with the Arminians against the Synod of Dort and the old Doctrine of the Church of England But you may say doth our Author do so doth he decry and reject those Preparations and Dispositions before Regeneration and Conversion which our Divines maintained in the Synod of Dort and which Dr. Owen maintained after them against modern Arminians We answer if he doth not decry and reject them what means all that which he writes in the 12 page of his Letter against all Preparations and Dispositions before a saving and justifying Faith Surely he took wrong measures if the thought that those dispositions might be admitted before Regeneration and Conversion but not before a saving and justifying Faith For it is simply impossible and implyes a contradiction that they can be before Regeneration and first saving Conversion but they must be also before saving and justifying Faith So that either he must contradict himself after his usual manner if he hold the foresaid dispositions to be before Regeneration and Conversion but not before saving justifying Faith or if he affirm that they are neither before Regeneration and Conversion nor yet before saving Faith which is necessarily implyed in Regeneration and Conversion then indeed he doth not contradict himself but he doth that which is worse he contradicts the Truth and the Synod of Dort with Dr. Ames Dr. Twiss and Dr. Owen who all maintain this Truth that the said preparatory dispositions are before Regeneration and Conversion and so before a saving justifying Faith If he says that he doth not deny them to be before Regeneration and Saving Justifying Faith nor to be dispositive thereunto but that he only denies them to be dispositive unto Justification We Answer 1. That then he yields the Cause and comes over to us for we do not say that any thing before Regeneration and saving justifying Faith is or can be immediately Dispositive unto Justification but that the foresaid Preparations are Dispositive unto Regeneration and Conversion which are in Order before Justification 2. Then he is as much bound to Answer his own Argument against their being Dispositive unto Justification as we are for his Argument is this that nothing a Man doth before saving justifying Faith can dispose him for Justification because it is all Sin and Sin can never dispose a Man for Justification Now if this be true if all that a Man doth before saving justifying Faith be Sin if it be vain labour and an Acting of Sin and therefore cannot dispose him for Justification then for the same Reason it cannot dispose him for Regeneration and saving justifying Faith for it is self-evident that that which is vain labour and nothing but Sin can no more dispose a Man for Regeneration than for Justification Indeed Sin can dispose a Man for nothing but for Sin and Punishment and if that which is vain labour could dispose a Man for Regeneration and Conversion it would at once be both vain labour and not vain labour it would be vain labour for so it is said and supposed to be and it would not be vain labour because it disposes a Man for Regeneration and Conversion and that is not vain labour which is useful to so good an end as the Regenerating and Converting of a Man is But 1. our Author Objects the 13th Article of the Church of England To which we Answer 1. That the English Divines at the Synod of Dort understood the Articles of their own Church much better than our Author doth and yet they found nothing in the 13th Article against Dispositions before Conversion wrought in Sinners by the Word and Spirit of Christ 2. The Article speaks only of Works done by Infidels without any Grace of Christ at all and without any Inspiration of the Spirit Now it is Confessed that such Works are not pleasant to God See the 10th Art nor are they Dispositive unto Regeneration and Conversion But the Works which the Synod of Dort Ames Twiss and Owen affirm to be Preparatory and Dispofitive unto Regeneration and Conversion are not such Works they are not works done by the meer Power of Nature without any supernatural Grace at all but they are Works done
the Lord himself hath taught us by his holy Spirit in the Canonical Scriptures And therefore if the Scriptures be true this Doctrine cannot be false but is and must be true and it is very strange and wonderful if all true Christians be afraid to dye in the Faith of the true Doctrine of the Holy Scriptures We rather think that if they be not delirious but have the use of their Reason they are not true Christians but meer Hypocrites that renounce the foresaid Doctrine of Justification and are afraid to stand to it at Death We are sure that good Hezekiah was not afraid to stand to this Doctrine when he justly apprehended himself to be under the Sentence of Death since we find it written in Isa 38.3 4. That he prayed thus unto the Lord Remember now O Lord I beseech thee how I have walked before thee in Truth and with a perfect Heart and have done that which is good in thy sight c. And God was so far from being displeased with this his Prayer that he most graciously accepted it and shewed himself so well pleased with Hezekiah that he gave him a further Lease of his Life for fifteen years and Sealed the Lease with a Miracle a thing we do not find that ever the Lord did for any other Man before or since We have also read of many in History and have heard of others and have our selves known some who have not been afraid to stand to our Doctrine aforesaid at Death but have died comfortably in the Faith of it As for our selves we live in the Faith of it and desire to die also in the Faith of it and as we account it our Duty to stand to it in Life and at Death so we trust and hope that if the Lord be pleased to preserve to us the use of our Reason and to continue to us the Presence of his Spirit and Assistance of his Grace we shall be enabled to perform our Duty in owning at Death and if he call us to it in Sealing with our Blood the said true Doctrine of Justification which we have preached to his People in the time of our Life As for our Author we hope he agrees with us that Christs Righteousness is never to be renounced but always to be trusted to and relied upon as the cause of our Justification and Salvation both in Life and at Death What then would he have us to renounce If it be our own Merits he knows very well that we admit not the very possibility of any proper Merits of our own and that we renounce all Confidence in such a Chimera as much as he or any Man can do If it be our own good Acts or Works as the Cause of our Justification He may know by what we have said before that we renounce as much as he doth and something more too all causal Influence of any good Acts or Works of ours upon Justistification If it be Faiths being the Condition of Justification that he would have us to renounce That we can never do either in Life or at Death for the Reasons we have given before Besides he himself ascribes as much and we think something more to Faith in the matter of Justification than we do for he maintains Faith to be the Instrument of Justification and if it be a proper Instrument it must have an Instrumental Causality upon Justification and so must be an Instrumental Cause and to be an Instrumental Cause is more than to be a Receptive Condition of Justification If we may be afraid then to stand to it at Death that Faith is the Condition of Justification he may have more Cause to be afraid to stand to it at Death that Faith is the Instrument of Justification But we suspect his meaning is that we will and must be afraid to stand to it at Death that Repentance is a Condition necessary to Justification and that perseverance in Faith and in the Practice of Repentance and Holiness is necessary to the obtaining Possession of Eternal Salvation and if this be it indeed which he thinks we and all sensible men must be afraid to stand to at Death and therefore must renounce we cannot but judge the Man to be under a strong Delusion for First The Scripture is as full and clear for the Truth of these things as it is for the Truth of any other Article of the Christian Faith Secondly We have the Concurrent Judgment of Divines both Ancient and Modern agreeing with us in the same Truth as we have proved at large Thirdly We have heard of many and have known some who upon their Death-bed have bitterly lamented and bewailed that they had not repented of their Sins in time that for and through the Meritorious Righteousness of Christ they might have obtained Pardon and Justification but we never heard of or knew any who upon their Death-bed lamented and bewailed that they had repented too soon in order to their obtaining Pardon and Justification through Christs Meritorious Righteousness The like we may say of the Necessity of a Holy Life in Order to the obtaining of Eternal Salvation through Christ many have most lamentably bewailed on their Death-bed their own Folly and Wickedness in not preparing themselves for Happiness by the Practice of Holiness without which no Man shall see the Lord. But we could never hear of any who on their Death-bed lamented and bewailed that they had held the Erroneous Opinion that the sincere Practice of Holiness is necessary to the obtaining of Salvation and Happiness through the Merits and Mediation of Jesus Christ On the contrary the Generality of People that are serious and sensible they then acknowledge the Necessity of sincere Repentance in Order to the obtaining Pardon of Sin and the Necessity of Holiness in Order to the obtaining of Salvation and Happiness through Jesus Christ our Lord. So abominably false is it that no sensible man dare stand to our Doctrine at his Death that the quite contrary is true and no knowing sensible Man but will gladly stand to it and own it with all his Heart except such Nominal Christians as are Conscious to themselves that they are Hypocrites and unconverted Sinners and fear that if the Gospel be true they shall certainly be damned And therefore they may possibly some of them at least flatter themselves with the Hopes that God for Christs sake will Pardon and Justifie them before and without Repentance and save them without Holiness But we dare not humour such People nor flatter them however they may flatter themselves and therefore we must in faithfulness to Peoples Souls tell them from God that except they repent they shall perish and that without Holiness they shall never see the Lord so as to be Happy in the sight of him And for the Hypocrites Hope of being pardoned without Repentance and of being Happy without being Holy it shall certainly perish with himself His Hope shall be cut off and
requisite that in the Justification of a Sinner contrition be present and that necessarily charity and vertuous life must follow yet doth the Scripture attribute onely remission of sin unto the mercy of God which is given onely for the Merits of Christ and received solely by Faith Paul doth not exclude those vertues to be present but he excludeth the merits of those vertues and deriveth the cause of our acceptation into the grace of God onely for Christ. If we could all be so wise and humble as to learn of that holy Man and to follow him as he learned of and followed Christ and his Apostles we might yet defeat Satan as to the foresaid Plot that he is carrying on to ruine us But alas it grieves us to the heart that some Ministers by not watching against that most subtile malicious enemy of God and Man have suffered themselves to be imposed upon so far as to turn 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Accusers of the Brethren who stand up for God and Man in opposition to Satan and faithfully tell the People that they must through Grace truly repent of their sins in order to obtain the pardon of them And particularly we are truly sorry that the Authour of the Letter from a Minister in the City c. should have medled in this matter and that he should become Accuser of the Brethren especially of those pious Young Men who gave themselves up to the work of the Ministry in difficult and dangerous times without any visible encouragement thereunto from any thing in this World and also against groat visible discouragements both from the World and the Devil What have those Younger Brethren done to provoke this Brother who is himself also one of the younger sort to become their Accuser Some of us who are Older than they have known several of them these many years and yet never knew any evil by them nor heard any evil of them Since we first knew them it hath to us looked like a Token for good to his People in this Nation that the Lord hath raised up so many young men and hath spirited and to such a degree gifted them for the Ministry under such discouraging circumstances But now after all that God hath done for and by those Brethren notwithstanding the presence of God with them and the blessing of God upon their Labours up starts one who calls himself a Minister in the City and accuses them of being Corrupters of the pure Gospel of Christ of new vamping an Arminian Gospel and obtruding it on the People Let. pag. 10. to the certain peril of their Souls that believe it Yea he raiseth the Charge higher in pag. 13. and saith That Judicious Observers cannot but already perceive a coincidency between their cause and that of those two Pests of the Church Pelagius and Arminius and do fear more when c Here is an high Charge indeed but where is there any evidence for all this One would think that no Man who pretends such relation unto Christ and such seriousness in Christian Religion as this Man doth should dare thus to accuse his Brethren and fellow-Ministers of such horrid Crimes without clear and certain evidence whereby he can prove them guilty For if Men be suffered to accuse one another of atrocious Crimes without being obliged to prove their accusation no Man will be able to preserve his Good Name nor will it be possible for Men to live peaceably together in any Society Civil or Religious This Brother therefore ought to have been made to prove his accusation that the Churches might have been delivered from those young Hereticks if he had proved them to be such Or if he had failed in his proof that the Churches might know what spirit he is of who hath kindled a Fire in the Church by traducing the Ministers of Christ and falsely accusing them of Heresie But some may possibly say Hath he not by his printed Letter proved them guilty of Arminian and Pelagian Heresie To which we answer that no Man of Judgment who reads it can see any such proof in it nor indeed see just cause to harbour any such Thought of them if he but know the Men accused have heard their Doctrine and seen their manner of life and if withal he understand what Pelagianism and Arminianism are It is true he boldly accuses them of Arminianism and Pelagianism and of preaching a new Gospel and to make the simple People believe that his accusation is well grounded he saies that Judicious Observers perceive their cause to be coincident with that of Pelagius c. That they are reserved and do not yet speak out upon such and such points and that they hold such things as are utterly inconsistent with the Freeness of Gods Grace in Justifying Sinners by the Satisfaction and Merits of Christs Blood These things are often affirmed or insinuated throughout the Letter but none of them proved A Monster or a Man of Straw of his own making is set up to represent the Brethren and then he calls upon the People to come and see with what a Spirit of Zeal he hews it all in pieces This is a way of writing that is taking with weak well-meaning People Let. p. 14 15 30. and his holding Repentance not to be necessary in order to the obtaining pardon of sin may be pleasing to Satan and very taking with Hypocrites but no body of Judgment and Understanding can ever think that this is the way to prove the foresaid Accusation in matter of fact For our parts we have diligently considered every Paragraph of his Letter and in it all cannot find one proof of the said Accusation And after all we believe in our consciences that the Brethren accused are innocent of the Crime he lays to their charge Indeed we know assuredly that several of them are innocent thereof and till the contrary be proved and appear we must think so of them all We would have all Men to do so by us in case we were falsely accused and it is but just and reasonable that we do as we would be done by If we should happen to be mistaken as to any of the Brethren whose cause we plead we err on the safer side 1 Cor. 13.5 for charity thinketh no evil True Love will not suffer a Christian heart to entertain a deliberate Thought of his Brother that he is an ill Man or an Heretick without sufficient evidence that he is so We have met with no such evidence either in the aforesaid Letter or any where else and therefore we must still think that the accused Brethren are innocent of the Crime they are charged with and that the Accuser of them if he be a good man yet hath done a very ill thing in standering the Lords Ministers and we heartily pray God to give him repentance and forgiveness for Christs sake And that the World may see and that this Brother himself may see how rash and
pleased him This Proposition is self-evident for it is of the very Essence of Free-will in God the First and Freest Agent that in all external temporal things which fall under his Free-will he might have done them or not have done them he might have done them thus as he doth them or he might have done them otherwise than he hath done if he had pleased But antecedently to his free Purpose and Decree the whole ordering of the Covenant of Grace and of its terms and receptive Condition depended upon God's Free-will and Soveraign Pleasure Hence the Gospel is called the Mystery of God's Will and the Revelation of the Gospel unto us is said to be the making known unto us the Mystery of his Will according to his Good Pleasure which he hath purposed in himself Eph. 1.9 Now if the whole Mystery of the Covenant of Grace depended on God's Free-will then the ordaining of this or that to be the receptive Condition of the Covenant depended on his Will also and so antecedently to the free Purpose of his Will there was no natural necessity that Faith alone and no other thing should be the receptive Condition of the Covenant 2. It is not yet past Dispute amongst Divines Whether antecedently to God's free Purpose and Decree to save us by the Satisfaction and Merits of Christ alone he might not have freely purposed and decreed to have pardoned and saved us some other way Amongst our Reformed Divines Calvin Twiss and Rutherford and others were of this Opinion yea even Dr. Owen himself was once of this Opinion though afterwards he changed his mind in that as he did in other things witness what he wrote in his Book called The Death of Death in the Death of Christ Or A Treatise of Redemption c. Book II. Chap. II. Page 57. The Foundation of this whole Assertion seems to me to be false and erroneous viz that God could not have Mercy on Mankind unless satisfaction were made by his Son It is true indeed supposing the Decree Purpose and Constitution of God that so it should be that so he would manifest his Glory by the way of vindicative Justice it was impossible that it should otherwise be for with the Lord there is neither change nor shadow of turning Lam. 1.18 1 Sam. 15.29 But to assert positively that absolutely and antecedently to his Constitution he could not have done it is to me an unwritten Tradition the Scripture affirming no such thing neither can it be gathered from thence in any good consequence if any one shall deny this we will try what the Lord will enable us to say unto it and in the mean time rest contented in that of Augustin though other ways of saving us were not wanting to his Infinite Wisdome yet certainly the way which he did proceed in was the most convenient because we find he proceeded therein Thus Dr. Owen in that Book and though he unsaid this again and embraced that Opinion which he then called an unwritten Tradition yet there are other Learned Divines of that same Opinion at this Day Mistake us not for we do not say that we are of it but that some are and that the matter is not yet past dispute And the Consequence which we infer is undeniable that if God antecedently to his Constitution and Degree could have pardoned and saved us some other way without the Satisfaction and Merits of Christ then surely he could have offered and promised us Pardon and Salwation without the Condition of Faith in Christ and upon what other Condition he pleafed 3. Though we grant that upon supposition that God would pardon our Sins and save our Souls it did not consist with the Glory of his Justice and Honour of his Law and Government to do it without Satisfaction for the Offence we had given and the Dishonour we had done him by our Sins and therefore it was necessary not onely from the free purpose of God's Will but also from the nature of his vindictive governing Justice that Christ by suffering in our stead should satisfie his Justice for our Sins yet doth it not follow at all by any natural necessity arising immediately from the essential nature of Faith without any appointment and constitution of God's Will that Faith because it is of a receptive nature and nothing else shall be the Condition upon the performance whereof Christ with his Satisfaction and Merits shall be not only offered but given unto us For as Dr. Owen saith very well in his little Book of the Trinity and Satisfaction of Christ pag. 208. The satisfaction made for Sin being not made by the Sinner himself there must of necessity be a Rule Order and Law-constitution how the Sinner may come to be interested in it and made Partaker of it for the consequent of the freedome of one by the suffering of another is not matural or necessary but must proceed and arise from a Law-constitution Compact and Agreement Now the way constituted and appointed is that of Faith or believing as explained in the Scripture Thus Dr. Owen To which we add that the Scripture explains it thus Gal. 5.6 That in Christ Jesus neither Circumcision nor uncircumcision availeth any thing but Faith which worketh by Love From this Passage of Dr. Owen and the Argument contained in it it is most evident that it doth not arise immediately and necessarily from the receptive nature of Faith that it is the Condition of the Offer and Promise but from the Will of God constituting and appointing it to be the Condition Faith's receptive apprehensive nature is but a remote Reason of its Conditionality and doth but make it fit to be the Condition if God please to make it so And it is God's Will and Law-constitution onely which is the nearest and formal Reason of its Conditionality and which doth immediately and formally make it to be the Condition of the Covenant Joh. 6.40 This is no new notion of ours we find it long agoe before many of us were born Walaeus Doctor and Professor of Divinity in Leyden in his Enchiridion Religionis Reformatae pag. 112. said that Fides nos Justificat sed relativè considerata quia haec est Voluntas Dei ut qui credit in Christum ejus meriti fiat Particeps Faith Justifies us but relatively considered because this is the Will of God that he who believes in Christ shall be made Partaker of his Merit And not onely Mr. Baxter but Cartwright also pag. 179. of his Book against Baxter agrees with him in acknowledging this Truth his Words are these The Reason why Christs Righteousness cannot Justifie except it be apprehended by Faith is this That God doth require Faith of us Faith I say apprehending Christ and his Righteousness believe in the Lord Jesus Christ that so we may be Justified Gods Will is properly the cause yet there is a congruity in the thing it self an aptitude you grant in the nature of Faith It is of an
have everlasting Life And Art 6. he sayes that Faith embraces and appropriates to ones self Christ and all that is in him for since be is offered us to be possessed by us with this condition if we believe in him one of the two thâ—n must necessarily be to wit either that all is not in Christ which is necessary to our Salvation Or if all be in him then he possesseth all things who possesseth Christ by Faith And in his short Confession Art 10. Itaque meritò concludere possumus in uno Jesu Christo contra omnia mala quae conscièntias nostras terrere possunt praesentissima remedia reperiri Sed addenda est conditio si ista remedia nobis applicemus Therefore we may justly conclude that in one Jesus Christ there are found soveraign infallible remedies against all the evils that can terrifie our Consciences But this condition must be added if we apply those remedies to our selves We see Beza put it into his Confession of Faith as an Article of his Belief that the Gospel Covenant hath a Condition and is conditional The same Authour in his little Book of Questions and Answers the First Part to the Question You say then that Good Works are necessary to Salvation he Answers that if Faith be necessary to Salvation then Good Works are likewise necessary to it non tamen ut salatis causam yet not as the cause of Salvation for we are justified and therefore live onely by Faith in Christ but as something that is necessarily joined with Faith as Paul saith they are the Children of God who are led by the Spirit of God Rom. 8.14 And John that he is righteous who doth righteousness 1 John 4.7 So that it plainly appears they are contentious Men who condemn the necessity of Good Works as a false Doctrine Thus Beza And we do no more say that Good Works are necessary as the cause of Salvation than he doth nor do we any more than he say that Good Works without Faith are the necessary Condition of obtaining Salvation On the contrary we say that Faith is the Spring of all our good Motions and runs through them all and that it is Good Works done from a Principle of Faith and Love which are the necessary Condition of obtaining Salvation Lastly To the Question What then if Faith be first given to a Man at the point of Death For this seems to have been the case of the penitent Thief who was crucified with Christ What good Works can such a Man do Beza Answers Yea the Faith of that Thief in a most short time was unspeakably energetical or effectual and operative for he reproved the other Thief for his blasphemies and wickedness he abhorred his own Crimes with a firm and most wonderful Faith he acknowledged Christ to be an Eternal King and prayed unto him as a Saviour under the very ignominy and shame of the Cross when all his own Disciples were silent and spoke not one word for him he did also openly rebuke the Jews for their Cruelty and impious Expressions But so it is that Confession of sin Prayer to God the Father through Christ and thanksgiving are the most excellent Works of the First Table which in no Man can be wholly separated from Faith And although some may be so prevented by Death as not to have power to shew forth any works of the Second Table yet in such a Man Faith is not therefore to be esteemed idle and unfruitful because it hath Love conjoined though not in Energie and Act yet in Power and Principle Thus far Beza To which we agree as we said before In such extraordinary cases God requires no more of Men as absolutely necessary to their Salvation than they have time and strength to perform but accepts the will for the deed through Jesus Christ 2 Cor. 8.12 Our next Witness is Mr. Fox the Authour of the Book of Martyrs The World hath been told already in the defence of Gospel-Truth pag. 35. that holy Mr. Fox in his Latine Book of Christ freely Justifying maintains that Faith is the proper receptive applicative Condition of Justification and that Repentance is the dispositive Condition it is that which prepares us for receiving Justification But some who read that Discourse of his in the Book of Martyrs which our Authour directs them unto may possibly object that in the second Volume of the Book of Martyrs pag. 192. he saith The Promise of Life and Salvation is offered unto us freely without any Condition We Answer It is true he doth say so but he means that it is without any Meritorious Legal Condition and all such Conditions we reject as much as he did or any Man can do as appears by what we have said at large in giving account of our Judgment concerning the Conditionality of the Covenant That this was Mr. Fox's true meaning appears from his own Words in the same Page a few Lines after The Voice of the Gospel saith he differeth from the Voice of the Law in this that it hath no Condition adjoined of our meriting but only respecteth the Merits of Christ the Son of God If our Authour will not admit of this explication of Fox's Words that he only rejected all Meritorious and Legal Conditions but will needs have it that he absolutely rejects all Conditions of the Covenant of Grace both Legal and Evangelical then we must say that he hath little respect to the Memory and Credit of Mr. Fox since he makes him most shamefully to contradict himself And was he fit then to write a Book of Martyrs or to be himself a Witness for the Truth against the Papists Can he be justly admitted to bear witness against others who by self-contradiction is a false Witness against himself Truly we should be loath so to expose that good Man to the scorn of the Papists and therefore we positively affirm that he doth not contradict himself at all because the Conditions are of different kinds which he denies and affirms He denies that there are any properly meritorious legal Conditions of the new Covenant and so do we He affirms that there is a proper Evangelical Condition to wit Faith and constant Confession They are his own Words in his Latine Book aforesaid And we join with him in affirming the same And now we do further make it known to the People that Mr. Fox in the said Book concerning Christ freely Justifying doth grant that after we are freely justified by Faith in Christ sincere Obedience to Christ's Commandments is necessary to retain or not to lose our Justification These are his own Words Quod autem dici solet per obedientiam retineri justificationis gratiam Page 369 370. ut hoc concedatur aliquo modo non tamen hinc c. As for that which useth to be said that the Grace of Justification is retained by Obedience though that be granted in some sense yet it doth not follow from hence that Justification
Saints but they raise up the fallen again that they be not ruined For the promises also are expresly extended unto the Righteous sometimes fallen into sin Psal 37.24 and 89.30 31 32 33 34. The same Authour writing against the Papist upon the same subject saith Fides tune dicitur justificare cum actum proprium c. Faith is then said to justifie when it can exercise Pareus lib. 1. de amissione gratiae cap. 7. prope finem and doth exercise its proper act of Receiving Remission of sins but a Faith that is sick wounded oppressed with the filth of the flesh and as it were bound with the fetters of sin doth not exercise nor can it exercise this act and a little after But God doth not impute sin to the just that are fallen to wit when they repent but before they repent he doth indeed impute sin to them by inflicting temporal punishments and unless they repented he would impute sin to them by inflicting also eternal punishments And he thus concludes Tune igitur fides in lapsis habitualiter tantion manens propriè justificans dici aut eos justificare non potest Therefore Faith then remaining habitually only in the lapsed it cannot properly be said to be justifying or to justifie them Thus far Pareus Whereby we plainly see that he held the Covenant of Grace to be conditional as we do that Faith and Repentance are conditions of it especially Faith is the main condition by the acts whereof we are justified and receive Remission of sin not by the habit because it is the Act and not the Habit that receives Christ and Remission of sins through him 2. He held that after Justification sincere Obedience to the Lord in the avoiding of wilful presumptuous sins of Omission and Commission is a Condition so necessary to the obtaining of Eternal Salvation that without such Obedience either continued without intermission or after some notable intermission of its acts and weakning of its habit renewed again by new acts of Faith and Repentance Salvation cannot be obtained nor Damnation avoided 3. That though there be such conditions required of the Elect in order to Justification and of the justified in order to Salvation yet they are not uncertain as to the event but shall through special effectual Grace be infallibly performed and the Elect and Justified shall be eternally saved This was the Gospel that Pareus preached and the Synod of Dort approved And it is that and no other which we preach also Therefore it must needs be a great falsehood and slander that we preach a new Arminian Gospel We find likewise that the Divines of Geneva Deodat and Tronchin in the Synod of Doâ—t were for the conditionality of the Covenant of Grace in the sense before explained for thus they write in their suffrage concerning the second Article Fides est revera conditio novi foederis respectu ordinis inviolabilis a Deo instituti Act. Synod Dondrect part 2. page 132. c. Faith is indeed the Condition of the new Covenant in respect of the inviolable order instituted by God but it is also a promised gift of the new Covenant and an effect of our ingrafting into Christ In these words 1. We observe That in the Judgment of those Divines approved by the Synod of Dort God by his absolute Will hath instituted a conditional order between the antecedent and subsequent blessings of the new Covenant 2. That Faith is the Condition ordained by God for obtaining the subsequent blessings of the Covenant such as Justification Pardon of sin c. 3. That it is not habitual Faith or the first habitual seminal permanent principle of Faith but it is actual Faith because they say that it is the effect of our ingrafting into Christ but the first seminal permanent principle of Faith is not the effect of our ingrafting into Christ otherwise we should be ingrafted into Christ before we have so much as the least seminal principle of Faith since the cause must be before the effect Therefore to avoid that absurdity we think they meant that our ingrafting into Christ begins in the Spirits working in us the seminal principle of Faith which concurs to the producing of the Act of Faith which being our formal vital Act though produced by the Vertue of the Seminal Principle and the effectual influence of the Spirit is the Condition of the Covenant performed by us and withal is the effect of our initial ingrafting into Christ The same Doctrine is believed and professed at Geneva at this day Witness what was lately Taught and Published by Turretin Professor of Divinity there In Page 196. of that Book he saith that Christ requires Faith in God's Promises and Obedience to his Commandments Turrotin Institut Theologiae Eleâ—ct Part. 2. Edit Genev. 1688. as the Duties and Conditions of the Covenant And in the same Page he saith that The form of Words wherein the new Covenant is expressed I will be your God and you shall be my People comprehends both the Benefits promised on God's part and the Duties required on our part And first he explains at large what promised Benefits on God's part are implied in the Words I will be your God Secondly he shews what Duties required on our parts are implied in the Words you shall be my People After he had in general opened the meaning of the foresaid Form of the Covenant he comes to particulars and in the 29. Paragraph he sayes The Principal Duties required of us are Faith and Repentance Faith which embraces the Promises and Repentance which fulfils the Commandments Faith answers to the Promise of Grace believe and thou shalt be saved Repentance is commanded Lege Evangelicâ by the Evangelical Law walk before me and be thou perfect Gon. 17.1 For as on God's part there are two principal Benefits of the Covenant Remission of sins and the writing of the Law in the Heart so on Man's part two Duties ought to answer unto them to wit Faith which applies unto us the Remission of sins and Repentance or the study and endeavour of Sanctification which reduces into practice the Law written in the Heart by walking in God's Statutes which Christ meant when he said Mark 1.25 Repent and believe the Gospel In Page 202. he puts the Question Whether the Covenant of Grace be conditional and what are the Conditions of it And in Answer to it he distinguishes between several sorts of Conditions and as we have done shews that in some sense it is not Conditional and then he concludes that in another sense it it Conditional and Page 203. he proves it by three Arguments 1. Because it is proposed with a Condition expressed John 3.16 36. Bom. 10.9 Acts 8.37 Mark 16.16 And frequently in other places 2. Because if it were not conditional there would be no place for Threatnings in the Gospel which cannot be denounced but against those who neglect to performe the Condition prescribed For the
1634. in Answer to Mr. Hoards Book called Gods Love to Mankind which Answer was Printed after his Death by Mr. Jeanes a very Learned and Zealous Calvinist in the Year 1653. at Oxford The Ministers of the New Testament Twiss against Hoard pag. 194 195. are called Ministers not of the Letter but of the Spirit that is not of the Law the Ministry whereof is not the Ministry of the Spirit but yet this is rightly to be understood to wit of the Spirit of Adoption for undoubtedly even the Ministry of the Law is the Ministry of the Spirit also but of the Spirit of Bondage to hold Men under fear It is called the Ministry of Condemnation and the Reason hereof I conceive to be because God doth not concur with the Ministry of the Law by the Holy Spirit to work any Man to the performance of the Condition of the Law which is exact and perfect Obedience But thus he doth concur with the Ministry of the Gospel namely by his Spirit to work Men to the performance of the Condition thereof which is Faith in Christ and true Repentance therefore the Letter to wit of the Law is called a killing Letter but the Gospel is joined with a quickening Spirit and therefore Piscator conceives that the Gospel in this place is called by the Name of the Spirit So then the Gospel giveth Life by the Spirit which accompanieth the Ministry thereof c. And in the same Book he saith Some Benefits are bestowed upon Man only conditionally though for Christs sake and they are the pardon of sin and salvation of the Soul Page 154. and these God doth confer only upon the Condition of Faith and Repentance Now I am ready to profess and that I suppose as out of the Mouth of all our Divines that every one who hears the Gospel without distinction between Elect and Reprobate is bound to believe that Christ died for him so far as to procure both the pardon of his sins and the Salvation of his Soul in case he believe and repent But there are other Benefits which Christ by his Obedience hath merited for us namely the Benefit of Faith and Repentance for it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell Col. 1.19 And he hath blessed us with all Spiritual Blessings in Christ that is for Christs sake Eph. 1.3 And God works in us that which is well-pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ Heb. 13.21 And therefore seeing nothing is more pleasing in Gods sight on our part then Faith and Repentance even these also I should think God works in us through Jesus Christ And the Apostle prays in the behalf of the Ephesians Eph. 6.23 for Peace and Faith and Love from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ that is us â—â—interpret it from God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as an efficient Cause and from the Lord Jesus Christ God and Man as a meritorious Cause thereof Now I demand whether this Authour can say truely that it is the constant Opinion of our Divines that all who hear the Gospel whether Elect or Reprobate are bound to believe that Christ died to procure them Faith and Repentance Nay doth any Arminian at this Day believe this or can he name 〈◊〉 Aâ—minian that doth avouch this Again Glory and Salvation God doth not will that it shall be the Portion of any one of ripe Years absolutely but conditionally to wit if he repent and believe And in case all 〈◊〉 page 174. and every one of the World should believe and repent all and every one how notorious Sinners soever they be found shall be saved such is the sufficiency of Christ's Merits I say this is true not of them onely who are invited to the Wedding Mat 22. Nor of them onely to whom St. Peter speaketh Acts 3.26 Or of them onely of whom our Saviour speaketh Mat. 23.37 But of all and every â—ne throughout the World And it is as true that none of them shall be saved if they dye in Inâ—idelity and Impenitency This God himself signifieth to be his will by his Promise Acts 2.38 39. on the one part and on both parts Mark 16.16 And as God signifieth this to be his will so indeed it is his will according to our Doctrine and there is no colour of Imposture or Simulation in all this In like sort as touching the Grace of pardon of sin this also God offers unto all that hear the Gospel but how not absolutely but conditionally in case they believe and Repent and it is God's will that every one who believeth shall have his sin pardoned none that I know either thinketh or teacheth otherwise whether he falleth out either to be Elect or Reprobate though how to distinguish Men according unto this difference 〈◊〉 know not I leave that unto God Now like as we say God doth signifie his meaning to 〈◊〉 that as many as believe and repent shall have their sins pardoned and their Souls saved So if it can be proved that there is no such meaning in God then in my poor Judgment it cannot be avoided but that God must be found halting in his Offers But for my part I acknowledge such a meaning in God neither have I to this Hour found any one of our Divines either by Word or Writing to have denyed this to be the meaning of God Again Whereas he Hoard fashioneth our Doctrine so as if we said that God hath decreed at no hand to save them to whom he promiseth Salvation upon Condition of Faith this is a notorious untruth Ibid. pag. 177. and such as implieth manifest contradiction For to say he hath resolved at no hand to save them is as much as to say that he hath resolved to save them on no Condition But if he hath promised to save them in case they believe undoubtedly he hath resolved to save them upon Condition of Faith Onely God's Resolution to save them is not held in suspence considering that from Everlasting he well knew who would believe and who would not c. Again It is true Baptism is ordained that those which do receive it may have the Remission of their sins but not absolutely but conditionally to wit in case they Believe and Repent as appears both in that place Acts 2.38 Ibid. pag. 201. and Rom. 4.11 and Baptism as a Seal doth assure hereof onely in case they Believe and Repent and therefore none of Ripe Years were admitted unto Baptism until they made Profession of their Faith and as for Infants they were also antiently said to be Baptized in Fide Parentum By all these Passages quoted Word for Word out of Dr. Twiss it is as clear as the Light at Noon-day that he held the Covenant of Grace to be Conditional and particularly that the Promise of Justification and Pardon of Sin is Conditional and that Faith and Repentance not Faith alone nor Repentance alone but Faith and Repentance together are
of Christian Questions and Answers To the Question how we can be truly said to have all gifts from Christ received by Faith since if Christ be apprehended or received by Faith Bez. lib. quaest Resp p. 1. 149. 49. pag. edit 1587. then Faith it self must go before that apprehension or reception He Answers If thou consider the order of causes I confess that the principle or beginning of Faith and that also true Faith goes before the apprehension of Christ and therefore that it is not given to them who are already ingrafted but who are to be ingrafted By this passage we see likewise that Beza never thought that all saving Grace flows into us from Christ already united to us But that before Union he gives us saving Grace by his Spirit whereby we may be united to him Christ by his Spirit first apprehends and takes hold of us and sits us for and brings us into actual Union with himself and this Grace is in the order of causes before the Union on our part and so is before our Justification If our Author had understood and considered all this that we have quoted out of Beza he would never have thought it impossible that we can have any true Grace any Holy Disposition or Qualification before we be in Christ and justified by Faith in him For it is plain that we have the Grace from Christ whereby we come to be in Christ and Christ to be in us And if it were not so it would be impossible for us ever to be actually in Christ at all or to be justified by Faith in him Our Third Witness is Mr. Fox in his Book De Christo gratis justificante Although saith he it be an undoubted Truth That Faith in Christ the most high Son of God page 307. alone without works hath the Vertue and Power of justifying as appears from the most clear words of Paul and the Examples of Saints but yet it doth not put forth this its justifying Vertue and Power upon all praeterquà m in eos quos idoneos solùm invenit suscipiendae Divinae gratiae but only upon those whom it finds fitted or qualified for receiving the Divine Grace or Favour of Justification And that is the humble and Penitent as he shews in the following Section Where towards the end of it in page 310 he says Praeparat quiâ—tem poenitentia inateriam ad suscipiendam Justificationem c. Repentance indeed prepares the matter for the receiving the Grace of Justification That is it prepares the Soul for receiving Justification not as an inherent form in the Popish Sense but as a rich Priviledge and Favour bestowed upon those who are disposed and qualified for it by Repentance And that it is not only a Legal but an Evangelical Repentance which he speaks of is evident from what he saith at large in that Section and especially from the Testimonies of Scripture which he brings to prove it Such as Psal 34.18 Isa 57.15 Our Fourth Witness is Rollok whom we made use of before and to whom Bodius his Scholar in his Commentary on the Ephes p. 1081 gives this Testimony That he was a Man quo nemo nostra aetate Christum Jesum vel penitiùs imbiberat vel aliorum animis efficacius instillabat Then whom none in our Age either had drunk in Christ Jesus more deeply or thoroughly into his own heart or more Powerfully conveyed him into the hearts and Souls of others This Holy and Orthodox Minister of Christ in his Book of Effectual Calling saith page 3 4. That in effectual Calling considered as it is internal Duplex est Dei Gratia sive operatio in cordibus nostris c. There is a two-fold Grace of God or operation in our hearts The first Grace is whilst God by his Holy Spirit creates a new and heavenly light in the mind before involved in darkness which neither saw nor could see the things of the Spirit of God 1 Cor. 2.14 In the Will wholly perverted and turned away from God he creates a rectitude and lastly a new Sanctity in all the Affections Out of this Creation there exists or ariseth that which is called the new Creature that which is called the new Man which after God is created in Righteousness and true Holiness Ephes 4.24 The second Grace or the second Operation of the Spirit is the act of Faith it self or an action proceeding from the new Creature page 5. the action of the enlightned mind in knowing God in Christ the action of the sanctified Will in embracing or apprehending God in Christ Here the principal Agent is the Spirit of God himself the secondary Agent is the Humane Soul it self or rather the new Man and the new Creature it self in the Soul and its faculties In this second Grace which is the action or work of Faith we are not now meerly passive page 6. but being acted by the Holy Spirit we act being excited to believe we believe In one word with the Holy Spirit operating we cooperate and are workers together with the Holy Spirit Now he cap. 34. p. 258. tells us afterwards in the same Book that all this and more than this even the Holy Change that is wrought in the Soul by a true Evangelical Repentance is before Justification For saith he Repentance belongs to the place concerning Effectual Calling Repentance goes before Justification as Faith and Hope go before it From all which we observe that in the judgment of Rollock there is a real change made in the Soul before it be justified and that it is prepared for Justification by God's working in it an Holy Principle or disposition whereby it is inclined and enabled to produce the act of Faith whereby it receives Christ that for his sake and through his Righteousness it may be justified We might bring Dr. Ames and Dr. Twiss for our Fifth and Sixth Witnesses for they are of the same Opinion with Rollock as to this matter save that Rollock took the Word Regeneration to signifie the same thing with Sanctification which comes after Effectual Calling and Justification whereas they took Effectual Calling and Regeneration to be two words which signifie the same thing to wit the first saving change which is wrought in the Soul when a new Seminal Principle of Spiritual Life is put into it and it is brought off from Sin and the World unto Christ and unto God through Christ that it may be justified by Faith in his Blood This appears to have been their Judgment by what we have already quoted out of them upon the former head Let but any that can read in Ames his Marrow of Divinity the Twenty Sixth Chapter of the first Book concerning Vocation as likewise the Tenth Chapter of his Reply to Grevinchovius concerning the Nature of Faith where he proves That God by his Spirit puts a Seminal permanent Principle of Grace into the Soul at its first Conversion and that before any act of saving
per suos Ministros c. When the Voice of God by his Ministers so founds outwardly in the Ears of the Body that together with it the Spirit of God inwardly fits or prepares the Mind of the Hearer that it may be able to understand and Efficaciously disposes the Will to Assent or rather Consent Then they proceed to the next Tertium est fides vera c. The third is true Faith to wit when from Effectual Calling there arifeth the Knowledge of Salvation understood and again Assent follows that Knowledge and that such an Assent as applies the Promise of the Gospel to the Believers own Conscience c. Lastly They say that the fourth and fifth means are the Effects of true Faith in the Elect and they are Justification and after that Sanctification and Perseverance to the end From this Testimony of the Embdane Divines it is as evident that in their Judgment there are some Holy saving Preparations and Dispositions in the Souls of Gods select People before they be justified as it is evident that the second is before the fourth for Effectual Vocation whereby those Holy Dispositions are wrought in the Soul is the second and Justification is the fourth between which actual Faith comes in as the Third So that if we can but reckon two three four and can understand that if the second be before the third it must be also before the fourth then may we see that there are some Holy Dispositions and Qualifications in the Soul arising from Effectual Calling before Justification This was read in and approved by the Synod and therefore here we have again the Testimony of the whole Synod of Dort for Holy Dispositions and Qualifications in the Soul before Justification It would be almost endless to run over all the Suffrages of the several Colledges of Divines and to quote what they have said to this purpose therefore we shall pass that as superfluous and conclude with the Testimony of our own Brittish Divines which is to be seen in their Collegiate Suffrage translated into English and Printed in the year 1629. Their Words are God doth regenerate by a certain â—inward and wonderful Operation The Suffrage of the Divines of Great Brittain Art 3.4 pag. 70.80 81. the Souls of the Elect being stirred up and prepared by the foresaid Acts of his Grace and doth as it were create them anew by infusing his quickning Spirit and seasoning all the Faculties of the Soul with new qualities Here by Regeneration we understand not every Act of the Holy Spirit which goes before or tends to Regeneration but that Act which assoon as it is there we conclude presently or as the Original hath it it may presently be rightly affirmed This man is now born of God This Spiritual Birth presupposes a Mind moved by the Spirit using the Instrument of Gods Word whence also we are said to be born again by the incorruptible Seed of the Word 1 Pet. 1.23 Which must be observed lest any one should idlely and slothfully expect an Enthusiastical Regeneration that is to say wrought by a sudden Rapture without any foregoing Action either of God the Word or Himself Furthermore we conclude that the Spirit regenerating us doth convey it self into the most inward Closet of the Heart and frame the Mind anew by curing the sinful Inclinations thereof and by giving it strength and a formal Principle In the Original it is Principium formale Or Active Power to produce spiritual and saving Actions Ephes 2.10 We are his Workman-ship created in Christ Jesus unto good works Ezek. 36.26 I will take away the stony Heart and give you an Heart of Flesh From this Work of God cometh our Ability to perform spiritual Actions leading to Salvation as the act of Believing 1 John 5.1 Whosoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God Of Loving 1 John 4.7 Every one that loveth is born of God Lastly all works of Piety John 15.5 Without mere can do nothing Again Upon the former habitual Conversion Pag. 83.84 followeth our actual Conversion wherein out of our reformed or changed Will for the Original is ex mutata Voluntate God himself draweth forth the very act of our Believing and Converting and this our Will being first moved by God doth it self also work by turning unto God convertendo se ad Deum and Believing that is by executing eliciendo producing withal it s own proper lively Act. We say that God doth not only work that habitual Conversion or Change for the Word in the Original is Mutationem whereby a man gets new Spiritual Ability to Believe and Convert but also that God doth by a certain wonderful Efficacy of his secret Operation Pag. 85. extract out of our regenerated Sanatâ cured Will the very Act of Believing and Converting So the Scripture speaketh in divers places John 6.65 The Father giveth us Power to come unto the Son that is to Believe Phil. 1.29 To you it is given to Believe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the very Act of Believing 2 Tim. 2.25 God giveth Repentance This Action of God in producing Faith doth not hinder Pag. 86. but rather is the cause that the Will doth work together with God and produce its own Act and therefore this Act of Believing howsoever it is sent or given from God yet because it is performed by Man is Attributed to Man himself Rom. 10.10 With the Heart man believeth unto Righteousness 2 Cor. 4.13 I believed therefore have I spoken Again This Action of God doth not hurt the freedom of the Will but strengthen it Pag. 87.88 Here we deny that by the Divine Operation there is any wrong offered to the Will or any hurt done to it for it is in the Original negamus loesionem voluntatis for God doth so work in Nature even when he raiseth and advanceth it above its proper Sphere that he doth not destroy the particular Nature of any thing but leaves to every thing it s own Way and Motion in actione producenda in producing its Action When therefore God worketh in the Wills of Men by his Spirit of Grace he makes them move in their own natural way or course that is freely and then they do the work the more freely by how much they are the more effectually stirred up by the Spirit of God John 8.36 If the Son make you free you shall be free indeed 2 Cor. 3.17 Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is Liberty Verily it seemeth incredible to us that God who made our Wills and gifted them with Liberty should not be able to work on them or in them after such a manner as that he may produce any good Action by them without hurting their Nature that is freely Ut quamlibet bonam actionem per easdem illaesâ earum naturâ hoc est liberé eliciat By these passages quoted out of the Suffrage of our Divines in the Synod of Dort it is most evident that
of the difficulty of believing so in the Name of the whole Fraternity of Unbelievers I thank you for your great kindness to them and for this sweet and comfortable Doctrine if it be true which you have taught us all in your Letter which I hear is much cryed up by some Women in London who love rest and ease Now we might have all rested quietly together were it not for those you call the New and Young Divines whom you have charged with Pelagianism This was not wisely done of you for you have thereby awakened them from their rest and it is to be feared that by loud Recriminations they will disturb you and us both and proclaim the secret to the World that you your self are Confederate with Pelagians Semipelagians and Unbelievers For it is undeniable matter of Fact that it is a branch of Pelagianism and the very Root and Heart of Semipelagianism That Men can believe in Christ with a justifying Faith by the Power of Nature without the Supernatural Grace of God And if your similitude hold good men not only can believe but which is more they cannot possibly choose but they must of Necessity believe without the help of Grace unless they be hindered by a Miracle exciting them to Act and Work and to cease from rest Sir how you can come to Rest and Peace with those brisk Young Divines whose Age inclines them to Action more than to Rest I do not pretend to know but this I know that upon your foresaid Principle the Unbeliever and you are agreed and if you will be stedfast and stand to your Principle we shall live together in perfect quietness and never more differ about Believing Thus we have given an account of our Authors Way and Method of Converting an Unbeliever to Faith in Christ which is more than a resting on Christ for it is a Grace whereby we assent to Jesus his being the Christ the Son of God and only Saviour of Men and Consent to take him for our Prince and Saviour and as such receive him on his own Terms and then rest relie and trust on him for Justification c. We have shewed also what a weak and ridiculous way and Method it is and how easily an Unbeliever may Answer all that he hath said in the 16. and 17. Pages of his Letter mentioned before except a few at his first setting out he hath hardly made one right step in the whole course of that Advice which he takes upon him to give unto Ministers how they ought to deal with Unbelievers in labouring to Convert them unto Faith in Christ He hath plainly betray'd our Cause to the Unbeliever who hath brought him by his last Objection to take up with a Piece of Pelagianism and with the grossest Semipelagianism that hath been heard of in the Christian Church so weak is he not wicked we hope that he could think of no other way to Answer that Objection but by denying that Faith is any Work at all though therein he shamefully contradicts himself and the express Word of God and by affirming that it is a resting in such a sense as imports that it is neither Work nor Act but a meer Cessation from Working and Acting a doing nothing at all and from thence he labours to shew the Unbeliever that it is not difficult to believe and illustrates it by such a similitude as will make any considering man who reads it and understands the use he makes of it to think that he must be a Semipelagian who holds that a man can believe unto Justification without any Subjective Supernatural Grace of God at all Whereas he ought to have acknowledged the Truth of the Objection that it is indeed difficult and impossible too for a natural man by the power of nature ever to believe but that it is possible and easy too by the Grace of God And then he should have directed the Unbeliever unto the means whereby Grace to believe is ordinarily obtained from God through Christ and should have advised him to wait and continue waiting on God in the use of his appointed means and particularly to be much in praying as well as he can for Grace to help in time of need and desiring the prayers of Christs Ministers and People But not a word of this nay instead of advising the Unbeliever to use Gods means and seek the Grace of Faith from God through Christ he gives him to understand that Faith is nothing but a resting from all work and action and that it is no more difficult to believe than it is for a weary Traveller to lye down and rest when he is so tyred that he can neither stand nor go And after he hath told the Ministers that they ought thus to resolve the doubts and answer the arguments of Unbelievers he hath the confidence to conclude that by such reasonings with an Unbeliever from the Gospel the Lord will as he hath often done convey Faith to him and joy and peace by believing This is like all the rest the Conclusion and the Premises are at irreconcileable variance with one another The Conclusion saith that the Lord will convey Faith to the Unbeliever by the reasonings in the premises and yet one of those reasonings is that Faith is nothing but a resting and such a resting as signifies a Cessation from all actings and that an Unbeliever needs no more help to believe than a weary Travellour needs help to lye down and rest when he is so tyred that he can neither stand nor go We think it is a sort of Blasphemy to say wittingly and willingly that such reasonings as some of those we have noted in the 16 and 17 Pages of the Letter are either in and from the Gospel or that the Lord makes use of such self contradicting confounding fulshood as means of conveying Faith into the Hearts of his people And because in this part of his Letter he speaks to us that are Ministers and either bids us tell the Unbeliever so and so or else he affirms that we do tell him so and so we must declare to the World that we will follow his advice no further than we find it agreeable to Scripture and Reason which sometimes we do find and oftentimes the contrary as we have proved but as for what he affirms that Ministers tell the Unbeliever that Faith is not difficult that it is no more difficult to an Unbeliever than lying down is to a man when he is so tyred and weary that he can neither stand nor go we protest we are none of those Ministers we never did and through Grace never will tell any Unbeliver such an abominable falshood We know no other Ministers but our Author that Preaches such Doctrine and we have endeavoured to make him ashamed of it in hopes to bring him off from it We trust that after we have thus publickly declared against our Authors Way and Method of Converting Unbelievers to Faith in Christ and
if he be ignorant of this matter of fact let not his ignorance make him boldly deny it before he know what evidence there is for the Truth of it We give him these two Arguments to prove the Truth of this matter of fact that Pelagius denyed universal Redemption 1. It is known and acknowledged by all who have any understanding of these matters and our Author himself knows it That Pelagius denyed Original sin from whence it follows by necessary Consequence that he must needs also deny Universal Redemption of all Mankind For Infants that dye in their Infancy before they commit any actual sin are a considerable part of Mankind the Infants who from the beginning of the World have dyed and who daily do dy and hereafter will be dying to the Worlds end and that both within and without the Church before they commit any actual sin will make up a vast number even many Millions of the race of Mankind But Pelagius denyed that these Infants who so dye in their Infancy have any sin either Original or Actual to be redeemed from and therefore he must needs deny also that they were Redeemed and consequently he must needs deny universal Redemption of all Mankind Where there is no manner of sin there is no manner of punishment due for sin and consequently no room for Redemption by the Blood and Death of Christ either from sin or punishment But Pelagius denied that Infants who dy in their Infancy have any manner of sin or that any manner of punishment is due to them for their sin Therefore Pelagius denyed that such Infants are Redeemed by the Blood and Death of Christ either from sin or punishment and consequently he denied universal Redemption 2. Our Second Argument to prove the truth of this matter of Fact is from the testimony of Augustin who is a very competent witness because he lived at the same time with Pelagius and wrote against him and confuted his Errors and Heresies Now Augustin in his writings against Pelagius and his Disciples testifies plainly that they denyed universal Redemption on the account aforesaid For thus he writes Contra duas Epistolas Pelagianorum lib. 2. ad Bonifacium cap. 2. Manichaei dicunt Deum bonum non omnium naturarum esse creatorem Pelagiani dicunt Deum non esse omnium aetatum in hominibus mundatorem salvatorem liberatorem Catholica utrosque redarguit c. The Manicheans say That the good God is not the Creator of all natures The Pelagians say That God is not the Purifier the Saviour the Deliverer or Redeemer of all Ages among men But the Catholick Church refutes them both defending both against the Manichaeans the Creature of God least any nature should be denyed to be made by him and also against the Pelagians that the human nature which is lost in all Ages might be sought out and saved Again the same Augustin in several other of his Books proves against the Pelagians from 2 Cor. 5.14 both that all mankind even Infants who dy in their Infancy Lib. 20. de Civit. dei cap. 6. contra Julian lib. 6. cap. 4. are guilty of Original sin and also that in some sense all are Redeemed by the death of Christ In the Second Book of his imperfect Work against Julian a Pelagian Bishop Chap. 28. having alledged 2 Cor. 5.14 15. We thus judge that if one died for all then were all dead And that he died for all c. He adds Unde colligitur quod dicit Apostolus ergo omnes mortui sunt pro omnibus mortuus est Dic apertè mortui parvuli non sunt qui peccatum nullum habem morte pro se Christi in quâ baptizentur non opus habent Jam dic evidenter quod latenter sentis quoniam saâ—is prodis tuâ disputatione quod sentis From which words we gather or inferr for what the Apostle saith Therefore all are dead and he Christ died for them all say plainly Infanâ—s are not dead who have no sin They have no need of the death of Christ for them into which they should be baptized Now speak out evidently that which thou thinkest secretly for thou do'st sufficiently discover by thy Disputation what it is that thou thinkest By this and the forgoing passage of Augustin it is very evident that the Pelagians first denied that Infants had any Original sin Secondly That Christ died for Infants to Redeem them either from sin or punishment of sin For though they declined to speak out and say plainly that Christ died not for Infants yet they really believed and held it for a truth that he did not dy for Infants to Redeem them because they were not guilty of any evil either of sin or punishment from which they could be Redeemed By these two Arguments our Author and others may plainly see that the Pelagians denied universal Redemption by the blood-shedding and death of Christ And this being so how is it possible that we should be middle-way-men who hold universal Redemption and yet that our cause should be Coincident with that of Pelagius who denied universal Redemption Surely our Author cannot think both these things to be true of us without supposing us to believe both parts of a contradiction at once But whatever he himself may be able to do as to believing of contradictions he is greatly mistaken if he think that we have so strong a Faith or so wide a Swallow For we that know our selves much better than he doth declare sincerely that we were never Masters of such a Faith as can believe known contradictions and that we could never make both ends of a contradiction meet so as to be able to swallow them down both at once Either then our Author knew that the Pelagians deny Original sin and universal Redemption or he knew it not if he knew that they deny both how can he be excused from lying against his Conscience in telling the World in Print such a known untruth and contradictious falshood that we are Middle-way-men and that our cause is Coincident with that of Pelagius that is that we are for the middle-way and the extreme way for the middle-way and not for the middle-way at the same time But if he knew not what the cause of Pelagius was and is with what Faith and Conscience could he say that our cause is Coincident or is the same with the cause of Pelagius Is it lawful for him and his judicious Observers to defame the Ministers of Christ and to charge them with Pelagian Heresie and Confederacy with Pelagian Hereticks when they do not well know what the Pelagian Heresie was Hath our Author a priviledge boldly to affirm what he doth not know nor understand And is he fit to inform the people of that which he is ignorant of and wherein he needs to be informed himself We expect the People for whose Information he pretends to write will be more just and reasonable than to believe the Calumnies
necessary in order to a true participation of the Righteousness of Christ and therefore to communion with Christ Mark 1.4 15. Lake 13.3 5. whereby being turned from sin and the World through the change of our Mind and Will we may be converted unto Christ and close united unto him and to the end we may obtain Remission of sins in him and from him and may be cloathed with his Righteousness and Holiness 1. Here we see that Zanchy held Repentance to be antecedently necessary in order of Nature to the obtaining of Remission of sins through the Righteousness of Christ 2. That by Repentance we are turned from sin and the world and changed in our Mind and Will From which Premisses this Conclusion necessarily follows that before we be Justified and our sins forgiven there must be a real change in us and our Minds and Wills must be turned from sin and the World This is a hard saying to those who would have their Justification and pardon and likewise their sin and the World altogether But though it be hard it is true and good and that not meerly because Zanchy saies so but because he proves it by the plain Word of God who can neither deceive nor be deceived Mark 1.4 15. Luke 13.3 5. And if we may believe the same Zanchy this is not only true and good Law but it is likewise true and good Gospel For says he de Evangelio juxta significationem in Ecclesiâ receptam usitatamque credimus nihil aliud esse quà m c. Concerning the Gospel according to the signification received and commonly used in the Church Zanch. de Relig. Christ Vol. 3. p. 509. we believe that it is nothing but an Heavenly Doctrine concerning Christ c. to wit that Mankind is redeemed by the Death of Christ so that free Remission of all sins is prepared for or is ready for all Men modo resipiscant c. so that or on condition that they repent and believe in Jesus Christ These words of Zanchy are so plain they need no Commentary to make them plainer We wish our Authour do not himself despise Zanchy for their sake since in those few words he hath comprehended the whole Summ of the new Gospel so called which is a good deal above Sixteen Hundred years old Zanchy in the same place says Tria sunt Evangelii capita quae a nobis exiguntur ut praestemus poenitentia in deum c. There are three heads or principal parts of the Gospel which we are required to do Repentance towards God Faith in Jesus Christ and a studious care to observe whatsoever Christ hath commanded And again The Gospel saith he requires only these three things That being touched with a serious grief for all the sins of our whole Life we desire from the heart that our mind and all our affections may be changed and renewed by God unto an obedient complyance with his Divine Will And that this may be done that we ask it of God by Prayer and use our own endeavours in order to the effecting of it Then that embracing Christ with a true Faith c. In all this it is evident that Zanchy requires something else besides Faith to be done by us in order to our obtaining Justification and pardon of Sin as also declares that after we are justified we must endeavour to do all things whatsoever Christ hath commanded Yea he saith that not only the Law of God but the Gospel of Christ requireth all these things And elsewhere in his Miscellanies he says That if after Justification the Saints fall into wilful sins against Knowledge and Conscience they must renew their Faith and Repentance and return unto the Lord and to their Obedience or else they cannot be saved but are undone for ever To Zanchy we may add the Testimony of Musculus that Holy and Learned Divine in whom God's special care of his faithful Servants appeared in an extraordinary manner but because it is so notorious that Musculus is for us that we cannot think our Authour is so ignorant of matters of fact as not to know it we shall quote but one short passage out of him Musc Loc. Commun de Remiss peccat Sect. 6. Discernendum est inter eam gratiam Dei quae nullas habet adjectas conditiones eam quae conditionaliter confertur ad quem modum peccatorum nobis remissio contingit We must distinguish between that Grace of God which hath no conditions annexed to it and that which is given conditionally after which manner we obtain the remission of sins Sharpius also gives in his Testimony for us in the matter we are treating of See his Book of Justification written in the Year 1609. Where page 98 he says in foedere gratiae duo sunt 1. Substantia c. Sharpii Tract de Justif edit Genev. 1618. There are two things in the Covenant of Grace 1. The substance of the Covenant which is that Righteousness and Salvation is given unto the Church through Christ The 2d Is the Condition annexed to the Covenant if the Members of the Church believe And 172 The promise of Eternal Life is otherwise conditional than by the perfect fulfilling of the Law For it is said he that believeth shall be saved Acts 16.31 Mark 16.16 and page 174. Licet ista sint conditio sine qua non non tamen salutem efficiunt Although these things to wit Love and Holyness and Continuance therein are a condition without which we are not saved yet they are not the efficient cause of Salvation And page 177 178 We grant it follows from Rom. 10.10 That Confession of Christ with the mouth is necessary to Salvation because by this way and means we must go to Salvation or to Heaven page 207. Good Works are necessary that we may escape Temporal and Eternal punishments which God threatens to inflict upon the Transgressors of his Law Rom. 8.13 1 Thess 4.5 6. page 69. The conditions of the promises are Faith Repentance Patience c. Finally page iii. God doth not forgive sins but to the penitent though not for their Repentance but for the merit of Christ And a little after spiritualis vita c. As Spiritual Life is given us freely in Christ by Faith only so it is preserved and cherished by Prayer Repentance and other Spiritual Exercises The professors of Leyden in their Synopsis of purer Divinity first published in the Year 1624 taught the same Doctrine Witness what they write in the said Book Synops purior Theol. edit 3. Lugduni Batav 1642. p. 271. Thes 29. Non omnem conditionem negamus in Evangelto N. Test requiri ad salutem Requiritur enim conditio fidei novae obedientiae quae ubique urgetur c. We do not deny that any condition is required unto Salvation in the Gospel and New Testament For there is required the condition of Faith and new Obedience which is every where urged But these
conditions are freely given by God neither if they be sincere do they by their imperfection hinder our Salvation which proceeds from another cause Here we see those four Learned Doctors Polyander Rivet Waleus and Thysius held that not only Faith but new and sincere Obedience is the condition of obtaining Salvation so that both together make up the one intire condition of the Gospel Gomarus another Learned Professor of Divinity in the Netherlands a Member of the Synod of Dort saith That the Gospel is called God's Covenant Quia mutuam Dei hominum obligationem Oper. Gomari par 3. disp 14. Thes 29. page 52. de vitâ aeternâ ipsis certâ conditione dandâ promulgat because it promulgates the mutual obligation of God and Men concerning the giving them Eternal Life upon their performing a certain condition And it is called the Covenant of God de salute per Christum gratuitâ concerning free Salvation by Christ because God in the Gospel of meer Grace publisheth and offereth unto all men whatsoever on condition of true Faith not only Christ and perfect Righteousness in him for Reconciliation and Eternal Life but also he promiseth unto his Elect and perfecteth in them the prescribed Condition of Faith and Repentance Here we see Gomarus holds Repentance to be part of the intire Condition of the Gospel Covenant Whereunto agrees the Testimony of Pemble Pemble of Justifying Faith Sect. 2. Chap. 1. page 22. who saith The Condition of the Covenant of Grace required in them that shall be justified is Faith Believe this and live is a compact of the freest and purest Mercy wherein the Reward of Eternal Life is given us in favour to that which bears not the least proportion of worth with it So that he that performs the Condition cannot yet demand the wages as due unto him in severity of Justice but only by the Grace of a free promise the fulfilling of which he may humbly sue for Ibid. page 24. And again Although saith he the Act of Justification of a sinner be properly the only work of God for the only merit of Christ Yet is it rightly ascribed unto Faith and it alone forasmuch as Faith is the main Condition of the New Covenant which as we must performe if we will be justified so by the performance whereof we are said to obtain Justification and Life Here it is observable that Pemble saith That Faith is the main Condition of the Covenant of Grace which implies there is some Condition besides but subordinate to Faith And this we do firmly hold that Faith is the main Condition because it is the only receptive applicative Condition to which Repentance the dispositive Condition and all our after-Obedience is subordinate Perkins another of those Divines whom we are said to despise gives his Vote also for the conditionality of the Covenant of Grace Witness what he writes in his Reformed Catholick In the Covenant of Grace two things must be considered Reformed Catholâ— point 4. of Justif the manner differ 2. Reason 1. The Substance thereof and the Condition The substance of the Covenant is That Righteousness and Life Everlasting is given to God's Church and People by Christ The Condition is That we for our parts are by Faith to receive the foresaid benefits And this Condition is by Grace as well as the substance And in his little Latine Tract of Predestination and the Grace of God which Dr. Twiss defended against Arminius Perkins de Praedest gratiâ edit Cant. An. 1598. pag. 130. in his Book called Vindiciae Gratiae he says Gratia secunda est vel imputata vel inhaerens Imputata est in Justificatione cujus pars remissio peccatorum c. The second Grace is either imputed or inherent Imputed Grace is in Justification whereof a part is Remission of sins and this Justification and Remission with respect to sins past remains firm and will so remain for ever That saying of the Schoolmen is most true Sins once remitted never return But when any true Believer hath fallen into some grievous hainous sin the pardon of that defection or backsliding is indeed purposed and decreed by God yet it hath no actual existence at all on God's part nor is it received at all on mans part till he repent Yea if he should never repent which yet is impossible for that one sin he would be damned as guilty of Eternal Death For there is no new pardon of any new sin without a new Act of Faith and Repentance This passage of Mr. Perkins implies to the full all that we have said concerning the necessity of Repentance as the dispositive condition of obtaining the pardon of our sins and concerning the necessity of sincere Obedience continued from a Principle of Faith and Love or after any notable backsliding renewed by new Acts of Faith and Repentance as the Condition of getting possession of the Heavenly inheritance Of the same Judgment was Pareus for thus he writes in his Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans Fidem inserit ut doceat fidem esse conditionem sub quâ Christus nobis datus est propitiatorium Pareus in Rom. 3.25 The Apostle inserts Faith in the 25th verse to teach us that Faith is the Condition under which Christ is given us for a propitiation And again in the writing against the five Arminian Articles which he sent to the Synod of Dort not being able to go himself by reason of Age and which was read in highly approved by Act. Synod Dord part 1. p. 264. and recorded in the Acts of the Synod he says that Conditio certaminis precum vigilantiae omnino est necessaria ad perseverantiam The Condition of fighting and praying and watching is altogether necessary unto perseverance But then he adds in opposition to the Arminians That the said Condition is wrought in the faithful by the Spiâ—it of God which he proves from Deut. 30.6 Jer. 32.40 Ezek. 36.27 1 Pet. 1.5 c. And to what the Arminians said that the Condition is commanded and not promised he answers Promissiones de ipsa conditione fidei precum perseverantiae in fidelibus per spiritum Dei efficiendâ disertè loquuntur c. The promises plainly speak of the Condition of Faith Prayer Perseverance as that which is to be effected in Believers by the Spirit of God Nor doth it follow that the effecting of the Condition is not promised because it is commanded and required of the faithful For it is also commanded that they fear God and walk in his Commandments and yet God promiseth I will put my fear in their hearts c. I will cause them towalk in my Statutes c. But it is commanded not that they can of themselves but that they ought to perform it that so being sensible of their own weakness they may know what they ought to ask of God neither yet do these promises wholly exclude the great or small lapses and sins of the