of rich glasses set in artificiall order and able to dazle the eye of the beholder what pity is it that any one of them should meet with a knock and be broken and so the beautifull order in which they were placed be on a suddain marred yet if such a thing should fall out it were no great wonder Pretinesse and strength are rarely twins and we speak of prety things but rarely long in the present tense before their perishing by weaknesse forceth us to take up another tone and to tell that there was such a delicate toy but if we seek it the place thereof is not to be found It is possible such a stroke may befall the image that Mr. Baxter hath here set up in imitation of that of Nebuchadnezzar Dan. 2. 31 32 33 c. it hath clay in the feet cannot goe without halting if it meet with a stone to crush its toes it may possibly fall all to shivers Himself seems to doubt of it therefore prepares himself to defend it as seeing it cannot defend him or it self So saith he in the Explication B. Here it will be expected that I answer to these Questions 1. Why I call the Gospell the Instrumentall cause 2. Why I call Christs satisfaction the Meritorious cause and the Causa sine qua non 3. Why I make not Christs righteousnesse the Materiall cause 4. Why I make not the imputation of it the formall cause 5. Why I make not faith the Instrumentall cause 6. Why I make it only the Causa sine qua non To these Quaeries it will be expected saith he that he answer But what if other besides these exceptions be made though it be in his power to deny his answer yet it is not in his choice or authority to restrain any from excepting 1 Perhaps some may except why he in asserting God to be the principall efficient cause of Justification lets it passe so nakedly without an adjection of any of his attributes so leaving it doubtfull whether it be the grace or the justice the love or the hatred the mercy or the wrath of God that is the efficient of Justification We may easily answer our selves as to this question It is not Gods but Mr. Baxters justification whereof the causes are here assigned such as the Scriptures are unacquainted with a justification of his own devising defining and distinguishing himself and none before himself that I know was in every point acquainted with it No marvell then if he speak differingly in setting forth the causes of his from our Divines in laying down the causes of Gods justification And indeed it is a difficult question to determine whether his justification if it were at all granted to be of God might challenge more properly the love or the hatred the grace or the justice of God for its womb It being a justification that leaves all men under the curse under the wrath of God both in life and in death untill the very day of Judgment as we have found him disputing most profoundly in and under his 9. Thesis A justification that gives only a titular title without actuall and absolute possession of any greatest or least benefit to the justifyed which according to Mr. Baxter is the same thing as if we should say to the unjustifyed A justification more unpossible to be apprehended and held then was the first justification by works that was held forth upon possible tearms exacting from a living man only continuance in the works of life this upon unpossible as respecting our present state of infirmity offering to a dead soul righteousnesse and life upon condition the dead soul will quicken and arise from the dead to fetch it thence whither if it come it must still abide empty as it came untill the day of Judgment and then Mr. Baxter will come again to tell us more of his minde whether it be at all attainable I do not at all injury the man in saying he offers justification to a dead soul c. upon condition the soul will quicken it self For let there be found but one clause in his whole book that implyeth a concurrence and effusion of grace from God more to the quickning and justifying of Peter and Paul then of Cain and Judas of the damned then of the saved Or what doth he lesse that brings in works to justification then destroy grace to set up justification after the order and rule of strict justice Or when Mr. Baxter is so exact in enumerating the Procatarcticall or outwardly moving causes to what purpose doth he jumpe over the Proegumene or inward moving cause viz. the grace love and mercy which is within God himself but to imprison it in darknesse and eclipse its glory that mans righteousnesse might have the praise which pertains to God alone 2 It may be also questioned why amongst all the causes of justification here assigned there is no mention made of union and communion with Christ when as our Divines following the rule of the Word makes our union with him the very chief cause and ground of our being justifyed or declared to be justifyed according to the Gospell justification 1 Joh. 5 12. Phil. 3. 9. 1 Cor. 5. 19. and a multitude of other Scriptures which they alleadge and if there were the least need I might here quote a score What else but an evill eye maligning the praise of God and of his Christ suppresseth in silence and suffers not to appear in the chain of the causes of justification this link of union with Christ Is it not that he will make our faith and works yet out of Christ the cause of our union with Christ and not this the ground of the other 3 To come to those questions which Mr. Baxter answereth because he conceives it will be expected 1. About the instrumentall cause we question not what he goes about to answer why he cals the promise or grant of the new Covenant or the Gospell the instrumentall cause of justification actively considered but 1. Why he makes it the only instrumental cause of justification howsoever considered For this grant and promise doth by it self no more justifie the beleevers then the infidels the justifyed then the unjustifyed Doth not God also make the spirit his instrument of justifying by declaring and unfolding the doctrine of the Gospell and evidencing and witnessing to the soul remission and justification together with the love and grace of God from which this justification floweth Why doth he stifle the working of the Spirit from having to do in this great work except either with the Sadduces he denies the being or with the Socinians the divinity and divine operation of the Spirit or else to leave open a door to let in justification by the flesh not by the Spirit by the strength of mans free will without the preventing helps of the Spirit of grace Or as justification is taken passively for our being justifyed in our selves why is not faith put as an
expresse phrase of Scripture 3. From the nature of the thing For the effect is ascribed to the severall causes though not alike and in some sort to the conditions especially me thinks they that would have faith to be the instrument of justification should not deny that we are properly justifyed by faith as by an instrument For it is as proper a speech to say our hands or our teeth feed us as to say our meat feedeth us I shall not have need to speak much to this passage because Mr. Baxter hath before said and I have answered to the greatest part of it in examining his 23. Thes with the explication thereof Here as there I shall defend against him that it is not faith as it is righteousnesse but Christs righteousnesse by which we are said to be justifyed The first reason which he brings to evince the contradictory and contrary conclusion hath been there examined and I will not here actum agere To the second 1. He should have quoted that Apocryphal Scripture which saith He that beleeveth shall be justifyed as if he were not already justifyed I finde it not in the Canonicall 2. Those Scriptures which say we are justifyed by faith say not that we are justifyed by it as it is our righteousnesse or any part of our justifying righteousnesse and those that say it is imputed to us as Mr. Baxter will have it for righteousnesse have been sufficiently spoken to under Thesis 23. And by the way Mr. Baxter is not ignorant that the originall text may be more properly rendred unto or to righteousnesse then for righteousnesse and that the old translation and most of our Protestant Divines so render it neither have I met with any one that declares his dislike of that version And from the text so read what Mr. Baxter can suck out to stablish the righteousnesse of faith not as the same but as a collaterall with the righteousnesse of Christs satisfaction to justification I understand not 3. To his Only only and only I answer 1 That it is not the first time that Mr. Baxter hath taken the boldnesse to teach the holy Ghost to speak properly and fully 2 When the holy Ghost saith That the bloud of Christ cleanseth from all sin 1 Joh. 1. 7. that whosoever is washed therein needs no other washing Joh. 13. 10. that he is the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world Joh. 1. 29. that by his one offering he hath for ever perfected them that are sanctifyed by taking away their sins and iniquities Heb. 10. 14 17. That he is made of God righteousnesse to us 1 Cor. 1. 30. that he was made sin for us that we might become the righteousnesse of God in him 2 Cor. 5. 21. That he is all in all Col. 3. 11. Will Mr. Baxter elude all these and a whole century more of the like Scriptures with this evasion yea Christ hath done and is all this in part to us leaving the other part of righteousnesse not perfected by him to be supplyed by faith his collaterall to our justification Or when it is said There is salvation in no other nor any name else given us under heaven by which we may be saved besides Christ Act. 4. 12. and the Apostle professeth it his whole labour to be found in Christ not having his own righteousnesse which is of the Law but the righteousnesse which is through the faith of Christ the righteousnesse which is of God by faith so making Christ put on for righteousnesse the righteousnesse which is through the faith of Christ the righteousnesse which is of God by faith not severall kinds of righteousnesse but one and the same righteousnesse which he opposeth there to his own inherent righteousnesse which he excludeth are not these speeches equipollent to that which Mr. Baxter requireth the Christ only or the righteousnesse of Christ only It is but a flourish wherewith he concludes this argument about the constant expresse phrase of Scripture For let him either produce one Scripture that affirmeth faith by any inherent righteousnesse in it self or of her own conveyed into us to contribute somewhat to our Justification or else confesse his errour to be derived from the scriblings of Bellarmine Socixus Grotius and Arminius where this Doctrine is to be found and not from the Scriptures of Gods inspiration that are wholly against it To his third reason I can say nothing because I understand nothing of his meaning therein or if I doe understand it nothing needs to be said because it hath nothing for himself or against us But to that which he addes of his thinking 1. Let him say whether by them that he saith would have faith to be the instrument c. he doth not mean all the Protestant Churches both Lutherans and Zuinglians or Calvinists as they are by some distinguished whether the best that have opposed them herein have not been the Arminians and from what Rome or Hell these first drank in their opinion he is not ignorant having fished in the same pools after them 2. When he thinks these should not deny that we are properly justifyed by faith as an instrument I answer 1 If they will not deny it will Mr. Baxter with them confesse it 2 The word properly is vox aequivoca a phrase may be said to be proper as it is enough fit and proportioned to declare the meaning of the speaker and in this sense we deny not that faith as an instrument subservient to the principall efficient doth so properly as an instrument can justifie us in our selves or to our own consciences Again it may be said to be proper in opposition to a tropicall way of speaking and in this sense we cannot say that faith doth so properly justifie specially in that extent wherein Mr. Baxter and his Masters will have it to justifie without a trope in the phrase of speaking which I would shew if it were pertinent to the question I shall spare to transcribe at large his next section which he puts under n. 4. of his Explication Because if he meant singly and precisely as he speaks all might be granted in a positive sense without prejudice to our cause or advantage to his viz. that faith doth directly and properly justifie in and to themselves those that were before justifyed in Christ as it is in a good sense the condition of the new Covenant and a means or instrument of Gods stamping by his commandement and promise to the attainment of this justification For this denyeth not that truth which before he kicked at that faith doth so justifie also in regard of that usefull and essentiall property which it hath above all other gifts of grace to be instrumentall to apprehend Christ for righteousnesse Nay even for this cause hath God either ordained and commanded faith to this end because it hath this property or because he hath ordained and given to it this property therefore he not only requireth but
kept in Gods memory to impute them every moment as fast as they are committed For one of these last milstones tyed to the neck of the poor offender sinks him into hell as surely as if all that are removed had their weight returned upon him with that one to sink him 3. If God hath remitted and justifyed a beleever from the sins which he hath committed and not from the sins which he foreknoweth they will commit but imputeth or will impute them then is the same person both justifyed and unjustifyed at the same time and God at the same time both loveth the same person to eternall life and hateth him to eternall condemnation which were no lesse absurdity then to attribute two contrary wils acting in God at once and so the same person be declared in his own conscience at the same time both in the state of life and in the state of death of life in respect of the sins past forgiven through Christ of death in regard of the sins to come not yet forgiven Secondly In Christ or as Mr. Baxter terms it Thesis 43. in Christs own justification either all sins are forgiven to the elect or none at all When having done their Law and paid their debt Christ appeared in the most holy place in the heaven at Gods mercy seat to mediate with his bloud for them he either received acquitance from and forgivenesse of all the sins which his elect in after times should commit and so in Christ their sins to come were forgiven or else no sin was forgiven for as yet they were not in being therefore neither were their sins yet committed But he received then in their names a full acquitance and forgivenesse of their sins as hath been before shewed therefore of their sins before they were committed and they were forgiven before they had offended Hence some of our Divines thus reason if since Christs satisfaction any sins be imputed any more to the elect they must be such as Christ hath or hath not expiated with his bloud and made satisfaction for to Gods justice if such as Christ hath expiated then notwithstanding that God imputes the sin yet the person to whom he imputes it is in grace and favour with God and the full penalty of his sin while imputed is paid to God but this were injustice not incident to God to impute a debt which is fully paid him If such as Christ hath not satisfyed for then the faith of an elect person obtains at Gods hands forgivenesse or the not imputing of such sins for which Christ hath not satisfyed Gods justice and so there shall be here remission without the shedding of bloud and justification out of Christ or faith and Gospell obedience shall be the price and ransome of their soules All which is most absurd Therefore the sins of the elect yet uncommitted are in Christ as fully forgiven as those that are already committed Thirdly If Mr. Baxters meaning be when he saith the sin is not forgiven before it be committed that the beleever hath not a singular apprehension of the forgivenesse of every singular sin before it be committed and that God hath not declared to his conscience the forgivenesse of every singular offence i. e. this evill which at this and that evill which in that hour of his life he shall drop into I acknowledge in this sense neither are any of our sins future forgiven nor many of our sins past For who in this case knoweth not only how oft he shall erre but also how oft and wherein he hath erred in this respect the generall pardon sealed in Christ bloud to us though it mention not every singular errour of our lives contained under the generall is alsufficient for us But perhaps Mr. Baxters meaning is that Christ hath not purchased to the elect a plenary and absolute forgivenesse but hath conditionally dyed for all if they shall beleeve and obey and upon this condition runs the hope of pardon as to the sins which they shall commit unto their lives end their renewed sins being dayly pardoned upon the continuance and dayly renewing of their obedience and so this Thesis runs in the same channell with the 43 44 45. Positions and for this cause I have annexed it to them Neither do I speak any thing to this Position in this sense here because it is prevented by what hath been already said in the examination of what he hath said there And too much hath been said both to those and this Position in which nothing but Magisteriall assertions without proofs are to be found CHAP. XXIV Arg. Mr. Baxters new Modell of the causes of Justification examined and first his dispute about the efficients and the materiall and formall causes thereof MR. Baxter in his 56. Thesis disputeth very Logically though but little Theologically of the causes of justification and because he thinks them all Athenians whom he hath a lust to corrupt viz. such as spend their time in nothing else but in telling or hearing some new thing Act. 17. 21. therefore looking aside from that which all the soundest i. e. with him the Antinomian Divines have said upon this Argument and disdaining it with a squint eye as too rustick and not enough pretty and dialecticall himself presents me with a new case and order of causes from the forge of his fancie viz. some sole and some sociall some single and some double some proper and some improper causes some causes that are causes and some causes that are no causes without further particularizing take him thus in his own words B. Thesis 56. By what hath been said it is apparent that justification in title may be ascribed to severall causes 1. The principall efficient cause is God 2. The instrumentall is the promise or grant of the new Covenant 3. The Prâ—catartick cause so far as God may be said to be moved by any thing out of himself speaking after the manner of men is fourfold 1 And chiefly the satisfaction of Christ 2 The intercession of Christ and supplication of the sinner 3 The necessity of the sinner 4 The opportunity and advantage for the glorifying of his justice and mercie The first of these is the meritorious cause the second the morall perswading cause the third is the objective and the fourth is the occasion 2. Materiall cause properly it hath none if you will improperly call Christs satisfaction the remote matter I contend not 3. The formall cause is acquiting of the sinner from the accusation and condemnation of the Law or the disabling the Law to accuse or condemn him 4. The finall cause is the glory of God and of the Mediator and the deliverance of the sinner 5. The Causa sine qua non is both Christs satisfaction and the faith of the justifyed It must be granted that he is not a man of delicacies hath a dull eye and dry brain whosoever is not enamoured with so fair a shew of causes like a cup-bord
himself Sol. We make not man a stone nor degrade him into a dead block we grant of him that actus agit He hath not lost his free-will but all possibility of being saved by it all the spiritualnesse of it that without a new reparation of it it can will nothing in matters of salvation concurrent and conforming with the will of God But all mans actings of his faith when he is so renewed and moved by the prime cause is but to the receiving and application of his justification evidencâ—d to him As it is Gods instrument and acted by God so it is Gods evidence to manifest to him his justification It is Mr. Baxtâ—r and his fellowes that by their doctrine make mâ—n self-justifyers Teaching that Gods justification is conditionall and the alone instrument of God therein viz. the Gospell holds forth the same universally to all no lesse effâ—ctually to them that reject it then to them that embrace it But that it is a mans faith and obedience begun and continued in untill the day of judgment that makes this justification to be the justification of each singular person that is to be justifyed and so Gods instrument of justification justifyeth but conditionally i. e. no one singular man actually and absolutely It 's man that by his faith and works makes Gods universall justification to be his proper justification and Gods conditionall justification to be his actually and absolutely It is God that justifyeth all with a common and conditionall justification but it is every mans task to make and his own act when he hath made this justification to be really and undoubtedly his Therefore he doth but gaze here to finde a moate in his brothers eies fastening the beam in his own B. 3. For as Aquinas the action of the Principall cause and of the instrument is one action and who dare say that faith is so Gods instrument 4. The instrument must have influx to the producing of the effect by a proper causality and who dare say that faith hath such an influx into our justification I couple these two together because they are as twins that shew no malignity in their faces but are by Mr. Baxter made to carry fire in their tails Who dares to say and who dare say What if we should say it must we expect a broken head from the Challenger Is it but a word and a blow with him Or doth he affright us with Gods judgments from saying it is it his meaning who hath so little fear or conscience towards God as to offend him and derogate from his glory in saying it O that there had been but a moytie of the reverence and conscience toward God to annihilate man and advance the glory of Gods grace in Mr. Baxter which aboundeth in many of those whom he here opposeth he then surely would have cast this pernicious pamphlet of his into hell-fire if it had been possible rather then published it to the nulling of Gods and deifying of mans righteousnesse But to the matter we dare and that in the fear and presence of God to aver 1. That the declaration of a man to his own conscience and evidencing to his soul that he is justifyed in Christ to be the one and same action of God the principall cause and of faith the instrument The declaration and manifestation of justification to the soul is here the action God as the principall cause doth it by faith his evidence and instrument faith as the instrument and evidence doth it from God as the principall cause in manner before expressed God healed Naaman of his Leprosie by the water of Jordan as his instrument did many wonders in Egypt and in the Sea and in the wildernesse by Moses his Rod as his instrument subverted the wals and Towers of Jericho by the instrumentall subserviency of mens voices and the sound or winde of Rams horns and Trumpets Christ gave sight to the blind man by a plaister of clay applyed to his eyes Will he not acknowledg all these wonders to be the actions both of God the principall cause and of these so feeble instruments also The despicablenesse of the instruments and means do not spoyl God of but visibly attribute unto God the whole glory of his grace and power which in the use of more noble instruments would not appear so sensibly unto some apprehensions much more is the same action the action both of God and faith his instrument and this without all seeming ground of contradiction when we attribute not to faith any instrumentality under God to the working or effecting but only to the declaring and evidencing to man his justification before effected and compleated in God and in Christ And 2. That faith as Gods instrument hath influx in its kinde to produce this effect the evidencing of mans justification to himself by a proper causality I mean not Mr. Baxter I thinke means not by a causality that is naturally its own and proper to it but by a proper causality which God hath given it in appointing and using it as his instrument to produce the effect Will deny any this to be true of the forementioned instruments He that made them his instruments begat in them a causality and power instrumentally by and under him to produce those effects Indeed to Mr. Baxter in respect of his principles that denies Justification as an immanent act in God constituting and accepting us righteous and will have this to be done only by a temporaneous and transient act of God by the grace of the new Covenant these assertions must seem to have some monstrosity upon their faces that faith should be so the instrument of God in justifying or making us just Yet such as he can easily swallow because on the other side his justification is but an universall conditionall justification i. e. a justification in a possibility or impossibility but not at all in being and that faith should be termed the conditionall instrument of God in producing a conditionall justification I see not why it should set the man in a chafe he puts the dare to it therefore I suppose to make it too hot for the swallowing of weak and fearfull Christians To them that know whosoever are justifyed in themselves that is declared to be such within their own consciences the same were justifyed in God in Christ from all eternity so that faiâ—t is Gods instrument only to evidence them to themselves and in themselves justifyed not to justifie them in Gods mind and will for there they are justifyed without instruments there is nothing formidable nor rough in these assertions The objection which he addes by which he pretends we seek to evade we own not neither have we need in the defence of truth to seek evasions Let him name some one of his some that have so objected a passive instrument of justification or else leave us to conclude that the objection is of his own head partly to take advantage thereby yet
Wherefore puts he the soul for the man but to cheat in stead of informing his reader If any say faith is the instrument of the soul he speaks by a Synecdoche putting the part the chief essentiall part of man for the whole man after the common use of the Scriptures and why may not the severall faculties of the soul be as well mans instruments as the severall members of the body It is not unproper to call the eye the instrument by which man seeth or his ear the instrument of hearing or the the tongue of speaking or the hand of working c. and why should it be then unproper to call the faculties of the soul the instruments of man to act those offices by each faculty to which each faculty is appropriated Or when faith is infused into the soul doth it disinstrument the faculties thereof that they become no more instrumentall to man in their places Nay it makes them instrumentall to work henceforth upon spirituall as before upon naturall and morall objects And this also answereth his second reason why the habit of faith cannot fitly be called our instrument because saith he the holinesse of the faculties is not their instrument I grant it but this is not the question That which he was to disprove is that faith makes not the faculties of the soul into which it is infused instrumentall to the applying of Christ to justification The Compasse is the Mariners instrument by which to steer his ship yet would it be nothing instrumentall to this purpose were it not touched with the Loadstone that points it to the North-pole so are the will and understanding instrumentall to the receiving of Christ and justification in and by him not by any innate power in themselves but as they are touched and pointed directly by faith to the bloud of Christ for justification as to the doctrine of Christ for illumination and to the Spirit of Christ for sanctification And for this cause we call not so much the faculty of the soul the instrument as faith because faith makes it instrumentall to justification The power and disposition which it hath to this act being not naturall from it self but supernaturall from faith infused into it and working on it In stead of answering in order to every particle of what he addeth it shall suffice to discover his Sophistry by which he seeketh to elude a sacred truth of the Gospell in all that he saith upon this Argument and this will be enough in answer to all that he saith yea manifest him unworthy of an answer As before he first maketh all the instrumentality or causality whether proper or improper of faith to consist in the act of faith or faith actuated as if the Chirurgeons instruments were not his instruments while they lie by him but then only while he actually useth them in the severall offices to which they are appointed and faith were no longer an instrument if an instrument of justification then while it is actually receiving Christ and so the same man should be justifyed and unjustifyed oft in the same day in the same hour being no longer justifyed then while faith is in the act of applying Christ And 2. In contracting the whole man yea Christian into a soul as if we did make such a faculty of the soul the souls and not the mans instrument to receive Christ which himself knoweth to be the meaning of no one of them against whom he fighteth but a slanderous and subtle trick of his own devising to make their doctrine seem absurd in an alien sense which in their own sense he can in no wise confute So 3. Here he further sophisticateth and perverteth their doctrine in contracting the whole man not only into a soul which he had done before but into some one or two faculties of the soul into which faith is infused and inherent as in its subject as if they taught that faith is the instrument of a faculty and not mans instrument The holinesse of the faculties is not their i. e. the faculties instrument saith he but themselves rectifyed The absurdities therefore which he infers as consequents of such an assertion are the consequents of his slander not of their doctrine None ever taught faith to be the instrument of a faculty or instrumentall to justifie a facultie but mans instrument and nstrumentall to justifie man 4. In supposing it as a thing granted that faith in the soul or faculties of the soul is nothing but the holinesse of such faculties or their being rectifyed and not a being distinct so distinct as may be called their instrument a doctrine well agreeing with his principles who makes sanctification the condition of justification and no further attributes any thing to faith but as it is a part of our sanctification Pag. 195. n. 5 6. and thorowout this whole Treatise but altogether denied by the Protestant Churches which ascribe not to faith any instrrumentality to justification as it is a part of our holinesse and rectitude but as by a supernaturall virtue which it infuseth into the soul to carry it out to Christ to God in Christ for remission and reconciliation Otherwise godlinesse hope love meeknesse and all other the fruits of the Spirit should justifie us equally with faith because the holinesse and rectitude of the soul consisteth no lesse in these then in faith And this is the thing in question if we grant it all is granted which the worst of Jesuites seeks or Mr. Baxter in this whole book contends for so that to make the whole thing in question a known and granted conclusion from which he will prove a particle in question is too grosse and un Baxterlike a Sophism he is wont to spin finer webs what make such course threads in his fingers And why saith he Not so distinct is faith a being distinct from the faculty in which it is Even this that it is a being distinct from the essence of man speaks it capable of an instrumentality to mans justification especially God having appointed and fitted it to that end much more of being an instrument in generall for mans use which is all that Mr. Baxter should have denyed when he denies it to be the faculties instrument 5. In reiterating the soul for the whole man and annexing captious words to it Who ever called habits or dispositions the souls instruments Thus he playes the Sophister to make the instrumentality of faith ridiculous as if we affirmed it instrumentall to justification quatenus as it is and only in this respect because it is a habit or disposition of the soul when contrariwise we ascribe this power and office to it as it is a virtue or gift of grace endewed with this property from the author of it to cleave to Christ and draw forth the soul with it to Christ for justification as hath been before expressed and in this office it hath no other habit power or disposition of the soul naturall or infused
the New Man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness Eph. 4. 20. 24. If Mr. Br. had been taught of God as the truth is in Jesus I should think he would not have put at least upon deliberation left in print such a question and bold Cavill against the Apostle yea against Christ himself Object But if good works will neither justifie nor save me why should I do them and not take the liberty to do what I list Answ The voyce of a Rebel against God who if hee may not serve God to his own ends will not serve him at all and professeth openly that he doth all that he doth in Gods work not for Gods sake but for his own sake An Objection more deserving to be answered with a Thunder-bolt than with Scripture-reason Yet may there be alledged many other most holy and honourable ends for which we are to do good works though we be not justified and saved by them These I had thought here to have particularized but the work is swoln already to a bignes and dimension never intended at first And this Task hath been already so fully performed by so many of our Protestant Writers in answer to the Papists that I should but glean after them to say a little but begin a new work if I should say all that they have sayd and might be said to this purpose I therefore transmit the Reader for his full satisfaction to read Calv. Instit lib. 3. Cap. 16. Zanch. Confess Fidei pro se sua Familia bound with his Miscellan Vrsin Catech. Quest 91. Catech and his Quest 5. upon that Question Tylenus Synt. part 2. disp 46. Th. 8 9 10 11. where is to be read too short an abbreviation of the three former But M. Perkins in one of his works I remember though at present I am bereaved of them all hath the very same words of Zanchy translated into English in answer to this question And since these whole hundreds both of English and forreign Divines have after Zanchy and Perkins delivered the same things in substance with them though some more largely some more compendiously so that to the exercised Reader it will be superfluous for me to write any thing upon the same subject I shall conclude all in the words of Augustine as more needing his Apology than himself where he useth it Lib. de Spir. Litera Cap. 35. Haec egi libro isto loquacius fortasse quà m sat est Sed contra inimicos Gratia Dei paraeùm mihi dixisse videor Nihil que mihi tam multum dicere delectat quam ubi mihi Scriptura ejus plurimum suffragatur id agitur ut qui gloriatur in Domomino glorietur in omnibus gratias agamus Domino Deo nostro sursum corda habentes unde a patre luminum omne Datum optimum omne donum perfectum est that is These things have I treated of in this Book it may be with more than enough plenty of words and language But I seem to my selfe to have spoken little against the Enemies of the grace of God And I take delight to be large in speaking about nothing else so much as when both the Scripture doth most give its testimony with me and the question treated on is that hee which glorieth may glory in the Lord and that in all things we may give thanks to God having our hearts lifted up to the Father of Lights from whom every good and every perfect gift discendeth He it is that freely justifieth us by his Grace To him be the praise and glory of all and let his Kingdom come and be speedily inlarged throughout the world that from all parts thereof there may be a joyfull acclamation of Saints Amen Amen FINIS A TABLE of the Generall and Chief Heads of Doctrine Treated of in this Booke A WHether the To credere or Act of beleeving be that by which we are justified part 1. p. 164. and onward to p. 181. p. 363 364 Mr. Br. to shew that both Papists and Arminians are met together in his owne brest teaaheth both that it is our justifying Righteousnesse and imputed to us for Righteousnesse his Reasons to prove it examined ibid. p. 166 c. More of Act viz. Immanent and Life A short Animadversion upon Mr. Brs dispute of Christs Active and passive righteousnesse in order to Justification Part 1. p. 21. to 25. Afflictions befalling the Saints not parts of the Curse but fruits of Gods Love Part 1. p. 35. to 37. What they are in their nature ib. p. 44 45 Antinomians their first rise originall and what their Tenets then were part 1. p. 263 264. Their growth and what hath been in these latter yeers charged on them as errours ib. 264 266. What of all wherewith they have been charged is errour indeed ibid. p. 267. to 271. 273. Who are such in Mr. Brs Kalender Pref. p. 7 8. part 1. p. 271 272. His Fraud under this Nick-name to make odious the Gospel and all true Protestants Pref. ibid. part 1. p 274. In the midst of his Invectives against imaginary he hath more then all men besides honoured the reall Antinomians part 1. p. 162 163. and declared himself really one of them p. 277. Exotick Arts how far usefull in Divinity Pref. p. 14. to the 17. They are incompetent to be Rules and Judges in purely Gospel matters ibid. and in some following pages and part 1. p. 341. What evils have followed such use and abuse of it Pref. 24 c. How abasingly the Scriptures speak of it as so abused Pref. p. 22 23. More viz. Sophistry Authority of men viz. Faith B Bellarmine and Mr. Br. speak the same things in the point of Justification part 2. p. 25. 31. Bullingers judgment of mingling prophane Arts in teaching with the Gospel pref p. 42 43. C Mr. Brs new Modell of the Causes of Justification and Salvation examined part 1. p. 314 c. And 1 of the principall efficient Cause ib. p. 316 317. 2 Of the instrumentall Cause ib. p. 317 318. 3 Of th◠procatarctick Causes ib. p. 318. to 321. 4 Of the naturall Cause and the Protestant doctrine defended against his cavils ib. p. 323. to 327. 5 Likewise of the formall Cause ib. p. 327. 329. The Protestant doctrine that Faith is the Instrument or Instrumentall Cause of Justification viz. Gods effective and mans receptive Instrument largely defended against Mr. Brs Sophisms ib. p. 330. to 348. Whether Faith be the Causa sine qua non ib. p. 356 357. Works cannot be the causa sine qua non part 2. p. 110 111. Charity the Rule of judging one another and by what evidence it must judge part 2. p. 93 94. What it is to take half and what to take whole Christ to justification part 2. p. 184 186. What to make Christ our All in Preaching part 2. p. 291. More viz. Grace 293. Whether Justification run upon Conditions
Part 1. p. 277. to the 286. More of Justification see Bellarmine Repentance Faith Works Condition Scripture Lord Prayer Forgiving Love Easie Christ Papists Paul Cozen Grace Causes Reconciliation Degrees K. The kingdome and pardon of God and of Christ are one and the same Part 1. p. 228 229. L. VVhether beleevers are under the Law as a Covenant of works largely discussed against Mr. Br. part 1. p. 61 to 97. Protestants reasons for the Negative ibid. p. 62-66 Mr. Brs Sophistry in stating the question ibid. p. 66-70 The Law not repealed as a Covenant of Works to any but in a right sense nulld to beleevers part 1. p. 71-74 The vanity of the distinctions fallaciousness of the Arguments which Mr. Br brings to prove the Affiâ—mative ibid. p. 75. to the 97 Many abuse the Law in preaching it first not onely to kill but then also to make alive again Pref. p. 11 12. Distinguishing the same works into works of the Law and works of the Gospel viz Paul and Moral Law-giver vid. Lord. Legal or Law teacher vid. Gospel Secular Learning see Arts Sophistry Tertullion Bullinger The doctrine of Faith gives not the Reins to carnall Liberty Part 2. p. 286. to the 295 The doctrine of Mr. Br so accusing it doth se ibid. p. 170 171 c. Do and Live whether and in what respects the voyce of the Gospel and in what sense to work for Life not from Life or from Life not for Life are either and both sound doctrine Part 2. p. 137. to the 153. 158. Part 1. p. 179. Whether Christ Justifie as our Lord and Law giver and that it follow thence we are justified by works as well as by Faith Part 2. p. 64. to the 84. How farr and in what sense onely the affirmative may be granted ibid. p. 79. The question stated ibid. p. 65. Mr. Baxters Arguments to prove the affirmative answered ibid. p. 71. to 84. VVhether Love cooperate with Faith in Justifying Part 2. p. 37. 40. Our Acting from Love to God denieth not a regular Love to our selves Part 2. p. 293 294. M. Mr. Brs Magisteriall and usurped Authority in saying without proving Part 2 p. 252 253. Marks vid. Evidences Metaphysicks see Arts. Mr. Brs doctrine of Merits examined in which he shews himself as high-flown a Papist as any of the Jesuits Part 1. p. 186. to the 194. An Admonition to such Ministers as inconsiderately suck up Mr. Brs doctrines Part 1. p 59 60. What the Moral Law is as considered in it self and in what sense taken Part 1. p. 197-199 VVhat Relation it hath to the severall Covenants ibid. p. 201 202 c. Why the Gospel continues it as a Rule and that it can be no more repealed or abrogated than God un-Godded ibid. p. 199 200 203-206 N. Novelty or Newnes of words and phrases used oft for the Vshering in of errors Part 1. p. 128 129. O. Obscuring see Darkening How all the Offices of Christ concur in our Justification yet nothing concludible thence for Justification by works Part 2. p. 63 64. Origen how great a Scholar and how great an abuser of his Learning and corrupter of the Gospel Pref. p. 33 34. P. VVhether our doctrine by excluding works from justifying be a stumbling block to Papists hindering their conversion and an occasion given to many learned men to turn Papists and therefore unsound Part 2. p. 188 to 197. Mr. Brs doctrine compared with the worst of the Papists and found one and the same with theirs Part 2. p. 215. to p. 222 His doctrine compared with such of the Papists as write more moderately found worse than theirs ibid. p. 223. to the 229. VVhether his doctrine contradicts Pauls or not ibid. p. 234. to the 258. His first Reason refuted viz. that Pauls question was what is the proper Righteousness by which we are justified but his own by what means we may attain this Righteousness though they answer differently to these differing questions they consent in Judgements ibid. p. 239 to the 250. His 2 reason that Paul excludes the works of the Law not of the Gospel vain and Popish ibid. p. 251. to the 257. His 3 reason that Paul under the word Faith implyeth works and obedience vitious in the same kinde with the former ibid. p. 257 258. It is no sound reason that Christ commands not the Perfect Righteousness of the Law because Mr. Br seeth no Reason why he should require what he enableth no man to perform Part 1. p. 215. 217 VVhat Reasons thereof may be given ibid. p. 216 217. Perfect See Sincere and Righteousness Person vid. Work Philosophy vid. Arts. Whether Mr. Brs doctrine be as he contendeth free from Popery Part. 2. p. 209 to 215. VVhether it be possible for us to perform a Righteousness perfect to Justification Part 1. p. 194. 196. Whether and in what sense Praying for pardon may be said to be a condition of pardoning and justifying Pa. 2. p. 31-33 Promises see Qualifie Punish and Punishment vid. Curse and Affliction VVhether Mr. Br hold for Purgatory Part 1. p. 54-56 Q. Promises of life made to persons so and so Qualified describe the Justified but demonstrate not for what they are justified Part 2. p. 40 41. 269. Rules given by our Divines for the right understanding of such promises to persons of such qualifications P. 2. p. 112 c. Quotations without the words of Scripture or shewing how he would argue thence why so frequent with Mr. Br. P. 2. Cha. 2 3 in the beginning thereof R. Whether ReconciliatioÌ„ denotes the same thing with or different from Remission and Justification Part 1. p. 227 228 308 309. VVhether and in what Respects sin may be Remitted before it be committed Part 1. p. 310. to the 313. Whether and in what sense Repentance may be said to officiat in Justifying Par. 2. p. 26. to the 31. Scripture seemingly asserting it examined ibid. What Legal Repentance is ibid. p. 26. What the life promised and death threatened under the Law to this legal Repentance are ibid. p. 26-28 What Gospel Repentance is and how manifold ibid. p. 29-31 Sometimes one with Faith ibid. p. 29 30. In what sense life is promised to it ibid. Repentance either in its large or strict sense how it giveth life ibid. p. 28 29 30. Mr. Brs doctrine of a twofold Righteousness absolutely necessary to Justification the one Legal the other Evangelical this in our selves that in Christ and his Reasons to make good 1 his phrase 2 his matter examined and refelled Part 1. p. 119. to p. 143. His dispute that his doctrine is not derotory to Christ and his Righteousness proved fallacious and false Part 2. p. 259. to the 265. VVhether Righteousness be a Reall Being or else but a Modification of a Being Part 1. p. 149 150. 159. to 161 VVhether the Scripture call men Righteous only for performing the Cnnditions of the New Covenant Part 1. p. 144. to 163.
Divines to have sought an evasion Opera quidem legis saith he quatenus sine fide gratia Campian geruntur nihil habere quod ad justitiam conferant Caeterùm opera sanctorum Hominum cùm ejusmodi non sint sed fide gratia referta ideo justificari dicuntur verè coram Deo ex operibus suis non tamen tanquam suis i. e. The workes of the Law as they are done without Faith and Grace have nothing to contribute to Justification nevertheless the workes of godly men are not of that kind but replenished with Grace and Faith therefore are they sayd to bee justified by their workes yet not by workes as theirs but as wrought by the grace of God in them So also Vega the Monk Duplex est Justificatio altera ex gratia operandi infusa Andr. Vega de Just vag 751. altera ex debito Legis seclusa Gratia Excluditur ergo Justificatio illa quae fit seclusa gratia non Justificatio illa quae fit ex operibus gratia adjutis c. i. e. There is a two-fold Justification one of the Grace to work infused into us the other of the debt of the Law without Grace to enable That Justification is excluded which is sought after without Grace not that Justification which is of good works holpen by Grace And Hosius to Hosius elude that of the Apostle We are not justified by works Verum inquit ex operibus iis quae legis sunt aut quae liberi Arbitrii nostri propria existunt quae cum laborant imperfectione nihil ad justificationem conferunt i. e. It is true saith he of those works which are of the Law or done in the strength of Free-will only which in regard they have their imperfection cannot avail to Justification But as for such works as flow from our Free-will as it is set in operation by the over-powering of Gods Grace He concludeth otherwise Not to trouble our selves with what these Sophistical pratlers speak every and each of them severally let us take them collectively in one bunch and body as Mr. Pemble in his Treatise of Justification brings them in both head and tayle great and small thus disputing against Justification by the righteousness which is in Christ without any righteousness of our own intermixed Against this Doctrine they have two exceptions saith Mr. Pemble Pemb. Treat of Just if page 37. 1. That we are not justified by any work of our own viz. that we our selves do by our own strength without the help of Grace But yet we may be justified by some work which we doe viz. by the ayd of Grace such is the work of Faith 2. That wee are not justified by any workes of our own i. e. by any works of the Law but by a work of the Gospel such as Faith is we may be justified By this time it is enough evident that Mr. Baxter fights the Popes battel with the Popes weapons that as he maintaines the Popes cause so he rankes and files himself with the souldiers of the Popes Army who then can give any reason why hee should not be thought as sure a friend either to Christ or at least to Antichrist as are the Priests and Jesuits Onely if for no other yet for this cause Mr. Pemble deserves the brand of an Antinomian which in the following part of his Tractate Mr. Baxter gives him pag. 173. for disgracing this sophisticall shift which is common to other Papists with Mr. Baxter telling us in the fore-quoted place that this distinction of works done without Grace and works done by Grace was devised by one and consequently followed by others that had or have neither Wit nor Grace being a trick to elude the force of such Scriptures as exclude indefinitely all works from Justification c. A spightful speech thus at once to cast dirt in the faces both of Mr. Baxter and all his fratres or Fryars of the holy Mother Church of Rome No marvel if Mr. Baxter though he smooth him somtimes for his own ends yet doth carry him in mind to fit him a penny-worth for it when he thinks he hath caught an advantage against him Neverthelesse though Mr. Baxters ingenuity and plaine dealing seldom keep him company in this dispute and controvâ—rfie yet his subtilty and sophistry fail him never In his former positions before examined he affirms that besides the imputed righteousness we must have a personal righteousness inherent in our selves as absolutely necessary to salvation and justification Here now to make that his assertion sufferable he minceth it in its termes and in this Thesis calls it a performance of conditions and in the Explication an Acting of Duties what before he had called justifying righteousnesse Yea further tels us that some think it a self-ascribing and derogating from Christ to affirm our selves to be but the Actors of those Duties though we professe our selves to do it only by the strength of Grace When contrariwise the question is not about either the requisitenesse of Gospel duties nor about the strength by which they are to be performed herein if Mr. Baxter meaneth as he speaketh wee are agreed but about their office and end to which they are to be performed whether these duties are conditions of our Justification and that the end of our performing them ought to be that we may be justified by the righteousness which consisteth in their performance Doth hee meane to tune up a Palinodiam to recant and eat up his former assertions that he doth here so lenifie the roughness and correct the extravagancy both of his words and matter before delivered Nothing less but hee throws sugar after his poyson both that it may goe down the more quietly what he hath given already to his unwary Readers to drink and that they may be ready without suspition to drink deeper and more deadly draughts of the same poyson which thorow the whole sequele of this his Treatise he makes his business to temper for them I shall there answer more fully where he speakes more fully In the mean time all may see his dealing here to be not faire and logicall but fallacious and sophistical He tels us in the conclusion of his Explication that He will not digress from his intended subject so far as to enter here into a disquisition of the nature and workings of that Grace which doth enable us to perform these conditions but refers us to Parkers Theses de traductione peccatoris ad vitam What that Mr. Parker or his work is I know not But that Mr. Baxter will not here deliver his own judgement I think he doth well For if his judgement in the doctrine of Gods Grace working unto mans conversion and sanctification be not more sound then about the operation of the same Grace to mans Justification his silence will be farre more acceptable then his best argumentations to chaste ears and spiritual minds And little cause have we to expect any
us with the leaven of the Papists He saw these 2 Theses which I have examined together viz. Perfection Merits of works if they should come together one in the neck of another without any Calm betwixt them would make so terrible a sound as would be enough to waken and startle all that were but sleeping and not dead for fear the Pope or the Devill had been come to assault them Therfore to keep all quiet he interposeth this Thesis and its explication in which he pulls the ears of our Divines for saying that God doth justifie first our persons and then our duties and actions pag. 134. deinceps in the explication telling us it is a doctrine of dangerous consequence many wayes and except we will take it in his that is in the Popish sense it smells rankly of Popery setts up Justification by works from the very thought whereof he starts startles away as affrighted Notable dissimulation not of a learner but of one learned in the Trade Clodius accusat Maechos Catilina Cethegum He that affirms our Righteousness equall with the righteousnes of Christ to justification that entitles it a perfect righteousnes a meritorious righteousnes is the first man in all the world that fears of the advancing of Justification by works by them whom he hateth for oppugning it If there were that which he calls danger in this phrase or doctrine of setting up such a justification would not himself be the first man to kisse it to eat it up to promote it What is it that makes him to disrelish the phrase so extremely is it not that it inverts his order in Justification that he would have the works to justifie the man when contrariwise this doctrine makes the justification of the person to be the ground of the acceptance of his obedience Is it not the very depth of Satan from which he is moved to guise disguise himself to act Satans part with all guile and subtlety to betray the Saints of Christ and the truth of Christ to damning Popery and yet here and there to transform himself into an Angel of Light a Minister of Righteousnes to blinde the eyes of the simple that they may not espy him untill they be taken in his snare and lost for ever As for the doctrine or phrase it self he knowes our Divines mean this onely when they say God doth justifie first our persons and then our duties actioÌ„s viz. That God having first justified their persons from all the guilt that was upon them doth thenceforth also justifie them in refâ—rence to all the duties which thorow Christ the Mediator they shall perform unto God not imputing to them the imperfections thereof so that they may rest Confident of Gods accepting both the performers and the performance in and through Christ the beloved In this respect and not as Conditions of the New Covenant as Mr. Br dreameth doth the Gospel teach our works to be accepted of God There is yet one link of the Popish Chain wanting without which it will be unperfect and unusefull If it were granted that there is 1 a personall righteousnes of Gods own appointment necessary to justification 2 That this righteousness consisteth in ouâ— own Faith and sanctification or good works 3 That it is a perfect and 4 a Meritorious Righteousness yet all this cannot be effectâ—all either to save or deceive us unless it be a righteousnes also possible for us to perform Thaâ— he may not be wanting therefore to the Popish Cause in any one branch of Popish doctrine he addeth this also Thesis 27 in these words pag. 141. Bax As it was possible for Adam to have fullfilled the Law of Works by that power which he received by Nature so is it possible for us to perform the Conditions of the New Covenant by the power which we receive from the Grace of Christ To which he adds in the Explication pag 142 c. Bax This possibility is to be understood not in Relation to the strength of the Agent But in the Relative sense the Conditions of the New Covenant are possible to them that have the assistance of Grace So that strength which was in Adam to fullfill was a power which he received by Nature But the strength by which we perform is the power which we receive from the grace of Christ If any should have asked him what that grace of Christ is the man was very Coy he could but he would not tell whether it were a Pauline or a Pâ—lagian Grace a grace equally extended both to the Elect and the Reprobats or a grace peculiar to the Elect a grace that comes no further than the ear or a grace operating upon the heart also c. He had other fish to fry and had not the leizure to stay câ—ack these nutts now He bids us to turn over many volumes and specially Parkers Theses to search if possibly we can finde what Mr. Brs judgment would be many years after in this poynt But it is easie to perceive the mans meaning by his gaping in many passages of this book We should have had all this in rank and file in his much promised Tractate of Vniversall Redemption by which as by a second famous atchievement he meant to endear himself to his holy Father but that unluckily there is one of his own spirit step into his Holinesses Parlour to present him with this gift and so anticipated this favour which Mr. Br would have had entire to himself so that now the expected advantage being lost he not using to open his Commodities to sale a day before the Fayr we might possibly for a couple of Capons obtein to know his meaning herein In the mean while it must needs be his intent in reserving to himself what he meant by grace to puâ— upon us a kind of impossibility to say readily yea or nay to his asserted pâ—ssibility of performing the Conditions of the New Covenant by a power which he leaves us uncertain of knowing what it is As for the two fold opposition which he puts in his Thesis 1. between the conditions of the Old Covenant New 2. Between the power which Adam had by nature and the power which we have by the Grace of Christ there is nothing but a windy sound of words therein to deceive his reader into an opinion that he hath some honest and sound meaning in what is here posited or said For neither doth he make any real difference between the conditions of these two Covenants but makes our own Righteousnesse consisting in faith and works to be the substance of the conditions of both Covenants onely he puts a supposed difference in the measure of them One an imaginary perfection of sincerity in doeing them answering to what the New Covenant requireth the other an absolute and gradual perfection in doing them without the least particle omitted or committed besides or against the rigorous exaction of the Old Covenant And this
adoption Or lastly is his meaning that our union with Christ is the foundation not only of remission justification and reconciliation which do restore the offender into the same state of freedome and favor which we had lost and faln from but also of Adoption and of a far higher advancement then that from which he fell herein I shall not dissent from him But why then doth he so transpose his words as to make the stream of Gods operations to run backward if not to make mans qualifications the ground of his union with Christ his faith and good works by which he is justifyed to be if not the cause yet the antecedent of this union and not this union to be the cause or antecedent of his both justification and holinesse So much I thought fit to interpose here that this Thesis of Mr. Baxter might not serve as a bridge to carry over the reader captive unto some fallacious untruths in the after-part of this his Tractate contained Hence now let us passe to the 55 Thesis which hath not a totall disagreement with the former that have been examined in this Chapter but a dependence upon them B. Thesis 55. p. 211. Before it be committed it is no sin and where there is no sin the penalty is not due and where it is not due it cannot properly be forgiven therefore sin is not forgiven before it be committed though the grounds of certain remission be laid before The strength and evidence of this reasoning will the better appear if we lay by it another to the same tune and upon the same terms It cannot be denyed to be as good an argumentation as this if I should thus argue Before it be committed it is no sin and where there is no sin there is no penalty due and where it is not due it cannot properly be required therefore the sins that have been committed since the death of Christ had not their penalty born by Christ before they were committed and consequently Gods justice remains unsatisfyed for the sins of all that have been committed since the death of Christ and every offender is to bear the condemnation of them in his own bosome though the grounds of certain remission were laid before in God except another Christ be sent from heaven to bear or the same Christ again to bear the penalty of the sins after they are committed Whether this argumentation doth not carry in it as great if not greater likelihood of reason then Mr. Baxters I leave to every rationall man to judge And thus when a proud lust possesseth us to reason from our own brain and not from Gods word we easily reason our selves into hell Neither do I see how Mr. Baxter according to this reasoning can ever look to be justifyed or saved except by one of these two wayes either by asserting his own righteousnesse which hitherto with his fellowes he hath made but a collaterall with the righteousnesse of Christ to justifie and save to be at a pinch all-sufficient and effectuall to perfect the work without Christ as it is with partners in a Trade and buying and selling of wares what one doth both do and what bargain one makes both must stand to it Or else by canonizing the Popish masse to offer therein Christ often unto God as a sacrifice for the expiation and forgivenesse of his sins when he hath committed them sith Christs offering himself was in no wise the bearing of the penalty or satisfying of Gods justice for his or our sins because not then committed But let us see whether in any sense the reasoning of Mr. Baxter here may be made good or taken up as tolerable Not to mention here Gods forgiving of sins as an act immanent in God from eternity For this would but make Mr. Baxter startle he is no more patient to hear this voice then was Caligula at the voice of Thunder his bloud riseth at it as do theirs at the sight of a Cat whose natures have an antipathy to that poor creature that never meant them hurt Let us consider forgivenesse and pardon in tearms and wayes as himself granteth a possibility of giving and receiving it And First in foro conscientiae at the bar of God in the conscience of man to which he most limiteth and contracteth remission and justification May not the offender apprehend and apply to himself the pardon of his future as well as of his past and present sins through the Lord Christ in some sense 1. In respect of the seed of all the sins which he shall through infirmity commit in the time to come of his life I mean his corrupt nature or originall defilement and sin from which as from their naturall source all their acts of sin spring every true beleever is and may apprehend himself pardoned this the very Papists acknowledge denying originall sin and defectivenesse to have any mortality of sin in it because the guilt thereof is purged from the soul by the bloud of Christ at his very first admission and entrance into Christ as they say In this respect I doubt not but Mr. Baxter will confesse that all their after acts of sin are remitted in their seed and womb to beleevers before they be committed 2. In respect of Gods not imputing them to the person that shall offend so the sins not yet committed are forgiven to every elect person God hath laid on Christs score all the sins of the elect committed or to be committed and satisfyed his justice for them upon Christ who in their names hath paid the penalty of all therefore their consciences are discharged neither sins past nor sins to come shall be any more imputed to them There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus Rom. 8. 1. There is dayly new sinning why not also subjection to condemnation because the person being in Christ though subject to a necessity of sinning yet through the justification of his person is exempted from the further imputation of sin so committed unto condemnation He that beleeveth hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation Joh. 5. 24. He comes dayly into the acting of new sins how is it that he comes not into a subjection and obligation to condemnation by those sins but because they were forgiven to the offender before therefore not imputed to him when committed It is one chief priviledge of the new Covenant Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more Now where remission of these is there is no more offering for sin Jer. 31. 38. c. Heb. 10. 17 18. speaks the holy Ghost here only of sin past and not of those to come that they which are within the new Covenant have remission of them then 1. The same person hath some sins forgiven and some not forgiven by Christ that which is past is remitted that which is to come is retained 2. Then the priviledge is no priviledge if only sins past are not remembred but sins to come are
instrumentall cause also But this Mr. Baxter will answer anon and I shall wait on him to hear how satisfactory his answer is 2. Whether in his answer to the Question as he puts it when he makes a mans lease or deed of gift and a Kings pardon to have their force from the hand and seal annexed to it is it not much more implyed that the grant of the Gospell without hand and seal put to it is not a sufficient instrument to the justifying of any man For the grant of the Gospell is made to the world indefinitely but when faith as the impression of Gods hand upon the soul and the Spirit witnessing and sealing to the conscience thou art the person to whom the justification generally proposed in the Gospell doth particularly belong and so are applyed by God as true accessary evidences to the grant of the Gospell to terminate justification upon the soul of man can Mr. Baxter deny these being acts of God distinct from the word of promise to be instrumentall to justification as properly and fully as the said promise and grant 3. To his Procatarctick causes which in the Thesis he giveth viz. so far as God may be said to be moved by any thing out of himself speaking after the manner of men saith he I aske 1 Whether God may be moved in his will by any thing out of himself If so whether then something out of God do not give magis minus increase and diminution to God For every change of Gods will is a change of God himself and what shall it avail any to be justifyed by a mutable God that to day will justifie to morrow unjustifie againe being apt to take impression of change from things without him yea if a God mutable then in truth no God but one of the Pagans Idols or Puppets Or how little doth his additionall cause help him to speake after the manner of mâ—n he ought not to speak a lie for God to please men much lesse to lie against God to fashion himself to the manners of men foolish or wicked men If he say God cannot be moved by any thing out of himself how can he excuse himself from being a slanderer of the most high God by devising and asserting here 4. causes out of God moving him to justifie us having before wilfully suppressed in darknesse the riches of Gods grace within himself alsufficient without any auxiliary strength from the creature to move him How preposterous is he herein to the order of nature making the fruit to bear the tree and not the tree the fruit What lesse doth he in making Christs satisfaction and intercession the sinners supplication and desire of supply and the opportunity or advantage for the glorifying of his justice and mercie the causes of Gods will and gracious willings when contrariwise Gods gracious will is the cause of all these 2 Whether he jears at the invaluable means of our salvation or else that he thinks himself matching cocks for the game that he counterpoiseth the highest perfections of Christs mediatorship with mans vanity how unsufferable is it to see him putting into the one scale a precious pearl into the other a peppercorn or cherry stone To match Christs intercession with the sinners supplication To make the feeblenesse of man a collaterall and concause in the same order and degree of efficacy to justification with the vertue of Christ glorifyed It is to be acknowledged that the nothingnesse of the one is of as full validity as the omnipotency if I may so terme it of the other to beget new love new purposes new acts in Gods will This is that which God himself cannot do not because it is a work above his power but beneath his nature and perfection to work or to be capable of the working of any new impressions or changes in his will Neverthelesse this excuseth not Mr. Baxters vilifying of Christ in mating his intercession with the sinners supplication as if the former were a star of the same magnitude with the latter like that profane fellow that twisted together Religion and Cheese 3 Not to trifle away time upon every trifling word of Mr. Baxter I demand of him why seeing in the Explication pa. 215. he acknowledgeth that Procatarcticall or outwardly impulsive causes have properly no place with God he doth yet in his Thesis here fetch about again his four impulsive causes to marke them with severall names in their foreheads in Aristotles print is it not a testimony under his own hand that he will rather play and dance about God as if he were a meer may-pole then lose the ostentation of one least peece of his wit and art 4 Though I mean not to contend about the meritorious causality of Christs satisfaction because in this he hath as well many orthodox writers as Papists speaking in the same tone with him neverthelesse I should deny his assertion unlesse he he will grant me these 4. or 5. suppositions 1. That so far as justification is an act eternall and immamanent in God Christs satisfaction is not the meritorious cause of it 2. If in some other respect it be the meritorious cause that God doth therein merit from himself For the satisfaction made to him is of his own proper money himselfe paid the price in delivering his Sonne for our sinnes the body which Christ offered for us was given him by the Father to offer in our behalf 3. That this merit must in no wise hinder but that the entire benefit of justification must come to us freely without money and without price 4. That it is but unproperly termed merit even then when it respecteth the discharge which God giveth into a mans conscience it being so called metaphorically as our state in sin is considered as a state of debt which when Christ our surety hath paid for us he hath so far merited only as the payment of our debt may be said to deserve that we should receive a full acquittance from the debt In which Mr. Baxter goeth yet further that it was so paid that the Creditour might have chosen to accept it for satisfaction much more to have given us a full acquittance and discharge So that in relation to him and his principles it is lesse properly merit then to another 5. That Christs satisfaction is more properly to be called Gods foundation of this our new relation of justifyed persons upon which he hath inabled himself to justifie us in mercie without any seeming diminution of his justice and truth These things granted me I dismisse Mr. Baxter with his meriâ—orlous cause 5 When he cals Christs intercâ—ssion and the sinners supplication the morall perswading cause c. I demand whether there were such a totall deficiency or so great a scarcity of morall reason in God that it needed a begetting or quickning by perswasions from without him or whether he were so flinty aâ— that without strong perswasive reasons he could not be induced
to melt out his mercy in justifying us How then was he in Christ reconciling the world to himself before all such actuall intercession and prayers 2 Cor. 5. 19. 6. The like might I say of his objective and occasionall causes that objects and occasions have their being and qualifications from Gods either directive or promissive providence that they may serve to his eternall and absolute volsitions and purposes not that they work any new thing in the will and purposes of God for then like the Masse-priests should they be the creators of their Creator 4. To his second Question Why he cals Christs satisfaction both the Meritorious cause and the Causa sine qua non If he had not I should not have made it a question But because he delighteth both to put the question and to answer it I shall not permit his answer wholly to passe without a short reply B. Pag. 215. That it is the Meritorious cause I know few but Socinians that will deny He must needs mean few Baxterians that are not also Socinians i. e. few of them that with him deny justification to be an eternall immanent act in God For Mr. Baxter himself whether he be or be not a Socinian will and must grant that if justification be and as far as it is an eternall immanent act in God Christs satisfaction neither is nor can be the Meritorious cause thereof But as we look to the justification as in time applyed and declared to the soul and conscience which Mr. Baxter calleth the justification of the new Covenant and the Scriptures justification by faith of this justification I will not contend with him but Christs satisfaction though no where in the word totidem verbis so termed yet may enough properly be termed the Meritorious cause But why he will also have it called the Causa sine qua non a blinde man may easily see his reason what else doth he drive at but to put it in the same order of Causality with faith and good works which also in the whole sequele of this Treatise is with him the Causa sine qua non and consequently to make Christs sufferings and mans qualifications collaterall causes of Justification Hereunto pertaineth his extolling the cause sine qua non and exalting the praise thereof above other causes Pag. 216 217. not so much to attribute it to Christs satisfaction as preparatively to deifie and equalize with Christ the meritorious perfection of mans righteousnesse which he is bringing in as a rivall of Christ for the honor of justification and herein he will rather turn Cynick then leave the praise of man in his justification any one inch beneath the praise of Christ For hereunto pertaines his Quare me non laudas qui dignus sum ut accipiam Plus enim est meruisse quam dedisse beneficium If God be to be praised for giving justification why not I that am worthy to receive it for it is more honourable to have deserved then to have given a Benefit How well this agreeth with that which he hath in and under his 24 26 27. Theses I leave the Reader to consider and how fully he speaks it out in the following doctrine of this book we shall see more fully afterward Yea when he here puts Christs satisfaction in the same kind of causality with faith and works which he here cals the Causa sine qua non elsewhere the conditions of justification and Thesis 62. pronounceth faith to be the principall and works the lesse principall condition what place doth he leave for Christs satisfaction but to be a footstool to our faith and works Ob. Yes he reserves the entire praise of merit still to Christs satisfaction alone Answ Not so for though in words he sometimes asserteth Christs satisfaction to be the merit of our justification yet he makes the worthinesse of our own righteousnesse to be that which makes both Christs merit and justification merited to be ours and so we out-merit Christ deserving not only justification but Christ the meriter and the merit of Christ to be made ours In this he is worse then the Papists They give the praise of our mâ—rit to Christ he hath merited saith they a power â—o our works to merit This man contrariwise that neither Christs merits nor justification the fruit of it becomes ours untill we by our merits and worthinesse have put our selves into the possession of it so according to the Papists the efficacy of mans merits depends upon Christs merits according to Mr. Baxter the efficacy of Christs merits as to this or that justifyed person depends upon a mans own merits as in the fore quoted Thesis he manifesteth himself Let all men judge whether his ambition bends not to be more then an approver even an eminent improver of Popery 5. To his third question somewhat also In the Thesis where he gives us the order of the causes of justification to set up his own not Gods justification he saith B. Materiall cause properly it hath none if you will improperly call Christs satisfaction the remote matter I contend not And in the explication pa. 214. against what he had said in the Thesis he supposeth it will be questioned B. 3. Why he makes not Christs righteousnesse the Materiall cause And pag. 217. He thus answers the question B. Christs righteousnesse cannot be the materiall cause of an act which hath no matter If any will call Christs righteousnesse the matter of our righteousnesse though yet they speak unproperly yet far neerer the truth then to call it the matter of our justification We have here as elsewhere a Momus among the Gods a curious and carping Critick against not only Ecclesiasticall but Canonicall writings also no farther owning what they speak then as they speak it in a dialecticall dialect so setting Aristotle above Christ and weighing all the sentences of the Gospell in the scales of Logicall terms and maxims and Socinus-like submitting all the truths of the Gospell to reason yea to the rules of Aristotles logick or reason Justification is an act saith he and there is no matter of an act ergo it hath no materiall cause Christ therefore and his Apostles yea all the Doctors of the Church that speak after the Scriptures are dunces delivering a vain Theologie not truely Theologicall because not after the Peripateticks precepts totally Logicall But what law of Medes and Persians can binde the holy Ghost never to mention justification but strictly under the consideraration of an act Will Mr. Baxter deny it sometimes to be used in a passive sense Or what he saith of faith Thesis 62. may it not more truly be affirmed of justification That as a whole Country oft takes it name from the chief City so may all the privileges and benefits of the Gospell from justification so that when it is named all the rest are implyed and named under it The thing in question I acknowledge Mr. Baxter granting what he grants is
not of great moment but the supercilious haughtinesse of the man puft with the opinion of his secular learning so high as to puf and pif at so many excellent Divines for learning and holinesse to many of which he is not worthy to be an Amanuensis is unsufferable I shall therefore as briefly as I can expresse upon what grounds our Divines and how far they make the righteousnesse of Christ the matter of our justification as near as I may upon good probabilities conjecture The Doctrine of justification by Christ is no where in the four Evangelists held forth under the name of justification or justifying Many both Parables and clear doctrines that proceeded from the lips of Christ do indeed in other words fully display it specially John the Evangelist who made it more his task to record the doctrine then the acts of Christ because he saw those historifyed somewhat largely by the other three Evangelists which had written before him Eagle-like mounting on high to the contemplation of his Celestiall and Divine nature and doctrines very exactly sets it forth but under other words naming it Life eternall Life everlasting Life He that beleeveth in the Son hath everlasting life Joh. 3. 36. Is passed from death to life Joh. 5. 24. Hath eternall life Joh. 6. 54. My flesh which I give for the life of the world Joh. 6. 51. And ye will not come to me that ye may have life Joh. 5. 40. Except ye eat my flesh and drink my bloud ye have no life in you he that eateth me shall live by me Joh. 6. 57. In all which and many other texts of this Evangelist none can deny but by life is to be understood chiefly if not only life in law the life of justification not that of glory which is to be received above but that of grace here For so those Scriptures point out a life here in this present world enduring everlastingly to all eternity and not a life here only to be hoped for and hereafter to come into our fruition Neither do I find the word justifie used but once by Luke in the Acts of the Apostles Nor yet at all in any one of the Epistles of the Apostles St. James only excepted in one Chapter but by the Apostle Paul alone Yet the substance of justification was the chief doctrine in all their Epistles handled but the same set forth under the name of Salvation saving life and other phrases which our Saviour himself used And these phrases also doth St. Paul use as equipollent with the word Justifying in all his Epistles Now the reason why this Apostle more then the rest treats of this doctrine under the name of justification I conceive to be this Because he was forced to handle it by way of controversie against the false Apostles some professing some rejecting Christ that taught justification and salvation by the works of the Law in part and not by faith only whom therefore he must needs in his disputes treat with in their own tearms and words Their Argumentation against the Apostle as may be gathered from the Apostles answers ran in this tenour and to this effect That righteousnesse alone which justifyeth or maketh a man perfectly righteous saveth But the righteousnesse of the Law is that righteousnesse alone which justifyeth or maketh man perfectly righteous at least by procuring proper righteousnesse to him therefore that alone saveth The Apostle here granteth the proposition that no other righteousnesse but that which justifyeth or maketh a man perfectly righteous saveth But denyeth the assumption that the righteousnesse of the Law only or at all justifyeth or maketh a man perfectly righteous Because only the perfect doers of the law are perfectly righteous not the hearers But no man can perfectly do it And contrariwise proveth that the righteousness of the Gospel which he cals the Righteousnesse of God the Righteousnesse of faith the Righteousnesse of God by faith which consisteth in Christs satisfaction imputed to us is the Righteousnesse which justifyeth and maketh perfectly righteous because it cleanseth from the guilt and freeth from the imputation of all sin and unrighteousnesse Rom. 1. 17. 3. 5 21 22 25 26. 4. 3 5 6 11. 5. 17 18 21. 9. 30. 10. 3 4 6. 2 Cor. 5. 21. Phil. 3. 9. In all which places and in many other the Apostle having rejected the righteousnesse of works from being asserteth the righteousnesse of God in Christ by faith to be the righteousnesse the matter and substance of the righteousnesse by which we are justifyed This he illustrateth Rom. 5. 19. by a comparison between Adam and Christ Adams disobedience and Christs obedience As by the disobedience of one man many were made sinners so by the obedience of one shall many be made roghteous the ones disobedience was not only the merit but also the matter of our sin as far as sin is capable of matter the very sin it self which being imputed to us as being in him without any personall and actuall sin of our own makes us sinners So the obedience of Christ in offering himself a sacrifice for sin and giving satisfaction to Gods justice in obedience to that positive command of the Father which required it was and is not only the merit but also the matter of that righteousnesse which being imputed to us as being in Christ without any personall obedience of ours added to it constituteth us righteous and justifyed in Gods acceptance or is that for by and in which the Lord pronounceth us just and justifyed to our own consciences Such is the frequent dispute of the Apostle about the substance and matter of that righteousnesse by which we are justify ad which he concludes not to be a righteousnesse inherent in us but this Righteousnesse inherent in Christ but imputed to us and apprehended by faith to justification whom God hath set forth as a propitiation for our sinnes through faith in his blood Rom. 3. 25. And this is all that I finde our Divines to mean in saying the righteousnesse or satisfaction of Christ is the materiall cause of our justification defending against the Papists as the Apostle did againsts the Pharisees that the matter of the righteousnesse which God accepteth and imputeth to us in justifying us or unto righteousnesse and justification is this righteousnesse of Christ only not the righteousnesse of works Mr. Baxter in rejecting the phrase 1. As rude and not Logicall 2. As at the best unproper doth first accuse the Apostle and secondarily them that follow his Apostolicall doctrine and phrase of this rudenesse and impropriety of language One of them speaks out the minde of the rest Deus justitiam i. e. Obedientiam satisfactionem Sevarpius â—rs Th eol â— justif â— 925. Christi nostram facit ac pro nostra ducit c. atque ita nos antequam justos pronunciet justos facit God makes the righteousnesse i. e. the obedience and satisfaction of Christ ours
or between the not accusing or condemning of a man and the not imputing any thing to him to his accusation and condemnation CHAP. XXV Arg. of the Causa sine qua non or the condition or the instrumentall cause and whether faith be the instrument And in what sense it is so The absurdities wherewith Mr. Baxter chargeth this doctrine removed and those that follow his doctrine in part particularized TO the first Question we must apply our selves somewhat more fully because in answer to the former Questions Mr. Baxter seems to me to have aimed chiefly to the ostentation of his wit and Logicall both acutenesse and profoundnesse to make himself thereby admired and formidable But in answering this and the next he collects in one all his subtilty and Sophistry â—o beguile and deceive if it were possible the very Elect. And indeed if he carry these two Questions in captivity to his own sense and purpose he shall thereby make at least a seeming way by which to introduce all his Popish soul-subverting errours about justification which follow and hang as at the tayle of these Questions His words in the Thesis are B. The Causa sine qua non is both Christs satisfaction and the faith of the justifyed As much as he thought would be objected against his putting Christs satisfaction in the same place and degree of causality as a collaterall with faith he hath spoken to in his answer to the second Question and the firmnesse of this his answer hath been there examined But what concernes faith that which he thinks he shall be opposed in he formes into two Questions Explication pa. 214. 1. Why he makes it not the Instrumentall cause 2. Why he makes it the Causa sine qua non The former which is his 5. Question he applies himself to answer pa. 219. in these words B. To the fift Question perhaps I shall be blamed as singular from all men in denying faith to be the instrument of our justification But affectation of singularity leads me not to it 1. If faith be an instrument it is the instrument of God or man Not of man for man is not the principall efficient he doth not justifie himself 2. Not of God for 1. It is not God that beleeveth though it 's true he is the first cause of all actions 2. Man is the causa secunda between God and the action and so still man should be said to justifie himself 3. For as Aquinas the action of the principall cause and of the instrument is one action and who dares say that faith is so Gods instrument 4. The instrument must have influx tâ— the producing of the effect of the principall cause by a proper causality and who dare say that faith hath such an influx into our justification Here I know not whether we have more of the subtle serpent or of the roaring Lyon 1. He useth his winding Sophistry to intangle 2. His daring threats to them that being not intangled will be so bold as to contradict him Let us examine what efficacy there is in either or both these and first in his Sophistry To insinuate or as the Apostle saith to creep into the hearts of his Readers to deceive them he tels us Perhaps he may be blamed as singular from all men in denying faith to be the instrument of justification It seems he doubted that some of his Readers for lack of acquaintance with many Authours upon this subject would not or could not take notice that it is a new doctrine which he here delivereth and so he should be robbed of the glory of his new invention That the praise thereof might therefore wholly redound to him he tels them he is the first of men that ever saw and taught Faith not to be the instrument of justification that herein he is singular from all men Bâ—t had he not rubbed his forehead that with open face he thus vindicateth to himself that which he hath received from the Priests and Jesuites Let him name himself singular and abhorrent from all Protestants yea from Christ and his Apostles not from all men he is singular and alone in this and most his assertions from the Orthodox from whom but holds it in common with the whole herd of Antichrist to whom he is fallen Doth not Bellarmine deny that faith can truly be said to justifie us except it doth obtain and in some sort merit Justification from God Do not all his brethren with one voice shake off the instrumentall causality of justification and make it as a perfect quality or good work to merit it A two fold subtlety yea falshood is there to be found therefore in this his insinuation 1. That he affirmes himself singular in this point to catch after an usurped praise to himself as if he had seen what none in the world before him had seen 2. In pretending it to be a new doctrine thereby to draw disciples after him in a time wherein the ears of men itch after new in disdain of sound and true doctrines But further to insinuate he tels us that affectation of singularity leads him not to it We beleeve him without oath or protestation It is not the desire of them that are of his hair to trudge single but accompanied with a whole Brigade of disciple under their conducting and seducing unto Rome But let us come to his Arguments B. If faith be an instrument it is the instrument of God or Man But of neither of these Ergo not at all an instrument His Proposition or Major we grant him And it were enough and full to that which can be expected to refell his reasons which he brings for the proof of the minor Yet because my drift is not so much to answer him as to stablish some weak and unwary Christians against his impostures I shall endeavour first to confirm what he denyeth and seeks to shiver and then to examine the strength of reason which he brings against us When he saith in the Minor that faith is the instrument neither of God nor Man in justification What if I should undertake to prove and defend it to be the instrument of both He speaketh here of Justification as taken Passively declared to and termined upon the conscience For if we should mention justification as taken meerly Actively for that internall eternall and immanent act in God not transient upon an extraneous subject but hid in God before the world was or any justifyed or unjustifyed persons began to live or be Mr. Baxter would be ready to deal with us as did the Jewes with Steven Act. 7. 57. stop his ears and cry out against us with a loud voice Blasphemy blasphemy Yet in this sense we acknowledge that saith is neither Gods nor Mans instument of justification But in that sense which alone Mr. Baxter here taketh justification for that gracious act of God by which he dischargeth for Christs sake the sinner from condemnation by vertue of the new
he hath out of Schiblers Mâ—taphysicks sound enough I acknowledge as Schibler proposeth it in Thesi but fallacious and misapplyed by this man to his Hypothesis Yet what ever it be though not the least portion of Gods word in it let us examine the strength of it It is the principall efficient of the act or effect that worketh by the instrument saith he but man is not the principall efficient therefore worketh not in this businesse by instruments or instrumentall helps I answer 1. not only in resevence to this but to that which also followeth in his Argumentation We are to distinguish between instruments that they are of two kinds effective or receptive Effective so is a knife the instrument of cutting Receptive so is the hand the instrument of receiving Mr. Baxters Arguments are applyed to the former only not at all to the latter For 1. Of an Effective instument it may be said the knife cuts and the Man cuts likewise But a Receptive instrument hath a double relation 1. To the giver 2. To the receiver As if a rich man give a great treasure to a poor man he receiveth it in his hand the receptive instrument of the poor mans inriching is his hand Now if a man should argue as Mr. Baxter doth the hand if it be an instrument it is an instrument either of the giver or receiver not of the receiver for he doth not inrich himself he is not the principall agent inriching not of the giver for he doth not receive any riches but the act of the hand is to receive therefore the instrument of neither nor at all an instrument Who sees not the vanity of such an Argument Yet such is this paralogism of Mr. Baxter I say therefore that the Canons of an instrument which he citeth out of Aquinas and Schibler hold only of effective not of receptive instruments Yet as faith is Gods effective instrument to justifie man and not himself as Mr. Baxter trifleth so these Canons hold of it also in the sense before specifyed 2. I deny the Assumption or Minor he proves it thus Man doth not justifie himself This is an equivocation and besides the question None ever made man the causa prima of his justification none I mean of all those whom Mr. Baxters disputes against Himself indeed and his followers asserting the perfection and merit of mans righteousnesse consisting in faith and good works and affirming that this righteousnesse of man and in man doth give him title to the righteousnesse which is by Christ cannot well be cleared from making man the first tause of his justification But we speak nothing tending to this purpose and in no other sense do we say that man acteth to his justification but by this apprehending and applying to himself the justification of God And in this respect man is not only the principall but also the sole efficient of apprehending or receiving Christ to justification and faith his alone receptive instrument therein by the instrumentall subsurviency of his faith in receiving Christ We make it not mans instrument of Christs satisfaction or of Gods acceptation or of his declaring but only of our applying it to our soules That it is not Gods instrument he hath these reasons to prove B. 2. Not of God for 1. It is not God that beleeveth though it 's true he is the first cause of all actions A meer bull with which he jeers and scoffes not only at all the Protestant Divines but also at Christ and his Apostles as poor sorry animals and asses unworthy to be answered with reasons but with absurd non-sense 1. Faith in one was never used or ordained to be an instrument of justifying another much lesse faith in God to justifie man 2. He can conclude nothing else hence but this God beleeveth not therefore God is not justifyed or discharged from condemnation by the new Covenant 3. He doth in the Magisteriall confidence of his heart implicitely accuse Christ his Apostles and faithfull Teachers in his Church to hold that God is the instrument of our justification that the Principall agent and the instrument are the same thing that the instrument must be in the Agent or cannot be his instrument so that faith must be Gâ—d himself for whatsoever is in God is God himself the immanent acts of God are Gods acting These are all but slanderings of the Lords servants to make odious the doctrine which they deliver 4. We make faith in man not in God Gods effective instrument which he infundendo creat creando infundit and having wrought it in the soul he doth put it also in acting thereby to evidence to man his justification As some great and munificent Lord having laid up a great treasure for one of his poorest and most abject servant in some secret place tels him first what he hath done bestowes it fully and freely upon him but the servant not finding it is never the richer because he hath not the possession of it At length the Lord lights a torch guides his servant to the secret place and by the light of the torch shewes him the treasure which before in the minde and purpose of the doner was wholly his bids him to see and possesse Here the torch is that Lords instrument by which he discovered to his servant the treasure and evidenced him to be indeed enriched So and much more compleatly is faith Gods instrument by which he justifies us to our selves i. e. declareth and evidenceth us to be just and justifyed B. 2. Man is the causa secunda between God and the action and so man should be still said to justifie himself Either I understand him not or he speaks words without matter or words that are nothing to the matter in hand He is speaking of justification as of a transient act of God upon man in time This act of God we acknowledge no other but Gods declaring and evidencing man to himself justifyed Gods manifestation or pronouncing his justification to his conscience How man in this act of God should be the causa secunda between God in the action he explaines not and I perceive not That man is the causa secunda between God in the application of justification so manifested I deny not But in this doth man no more justifie himself then is above expressed Or because it is faith in man which we pronounce to be Gods instrument of justifying is therefore man causa secunda or a self-justifyer nay faith even in man is Gods Creature and the same nothing of mans essence Not of our sâ—lves it is the gift of God Ephes 2. 8. May not God lay up his own instruments where it pleaseth his will and wisdome for his own use or ceaseth it to be Gods instrument or in Gods hand when it is laid up in the heart of man for his good Obj. But faith acts not in man without man as the second cause acting it and by such acting his faith man should justifie
a corrivall with it 6. He at last deals no lesse sophistically in his comparisons You may as well call saith he a mans life his instrument of acting or the sharpnesse of a knife the knives instrument as to call our holinesse or habituall faith the instrument of receiving Christ The aptitude of a cause to produce its effect cannot be called the instrument There is no parity in the Comparison Life to acting and faith to receiving of Christ are not Mr. Baxter will not say they are in one and the same kinde and order of causes and effects Besides one of the effects is put with the other subtlely left without an object as if the receiving of Christ were no more then and altogether as naturall to man as receiving indefinitely any naturall object so that albeit this Comparison may stand in some parity with a naturall and civill faith without the object Christ annexed to it yet the divine faith whereof we hear speak is of an another an upper and higher region and agrees not in motion with the naturall life or with the naturall or civill faith The one moves its course and operation in a way that God by nature hath prescribed and the other in the way which God by grace hath prefixed Their orbs are severed and not confounded either with other As for the other Comparison the sharpnesse of the knife Nothing else undoubtedly but the sharpnesse of M. Baxters wit could have devised it Is then faith in man no more then sharpnesse in a knife What good then might a ship-load of whet-stones and grinding-stones do among the Turks to make them Christians The sharpnesse of the knife is not any thing really distinct from the knife it is otherwise with the faith of a man The knife is mans instrument the sharpnesse thereof is but the aptitude of the instrument by which man as the efficient produceth the effect How shall this square in the Comparatum Man must be the principall efficient cause what will he assigne to be the instrument whereof faith is the aptitude to produce the effect But I fear of transgressing by following him that Parvis compâ—nere magna solebat That dares with audacious arrogance to measure the bottomlesse ocean in his fist and to try Celestiall and Spirituall things in the scales of Nature and to compare not with the Apostle spirituall things with spirituall 1 Cor. 2. 13. but with carnall profanely making the Mysteries of Christ to be rather the whetstone of his wit then the object of his reverence and ballast of his conscience I shall forbear here to add my judgment concerning what faculty or faculties of the soul are the subject of faith Whether faith may be more properly said to receive Christ by the faculty or the faculty by faith How far faith in the habit and how far in the act may be said to justifie These and other things may come more properly to be handled afterward then in this place It shall suffice that here notwithstanding Mr. Baxters winnowings yet faith faileth not from being our instrument of applying or receiving Christ Eightly The latter which he maketh his sixth Question Why he maketh faith the Câ—usa sine qua non he thus endeavours to maintain as it followeth in the nâ—xt Chapter CHAP. XXVI Arg. Mr. Baxters further dispute upon the same Subject examined and answered B. Pag. 223. TO the 6. and last Qâ—estion I answer Faith is plainly and undeniably the condition of our justification The whole tenour of the Gospell shewes that And a condition is but a Causa sine qua non or a medium or a necessary antecedent Short and in compasse of words little is it which he here speaketh yet if we look to the matter thereof in it two things are principally to be examined 1. That he makes faith the condition of justification and what he means by that term 2. That he cals it the Causa sine qua non He means questionlesse the same thing by both but the words differ and he useth both as by both together so by either part to get advantage to his cause Therefore I shall examine them severally To the former I have spoke somewhat largely before in the examination of his 13 14 15 17 18 19 20 43 44 45. Theses as he gave me occasion in these severall positions to answer what he there asserted of conditionall justification I have therefore here the lesse to speak referring the reader to what hath been spoken before Yea in this point I should be totally silent because Mr. Baxter in words speaks no more here then what some of our most sound and godly Divines have spoken before him that faith is the condition of justification were it that Mr. Baxter meaneth as they mean For though in the best meaning of the best men the propriety of the terms or phrase may be much questioned and give occasion of much dispute yet traversing controversies about words when there is agreement in the substance to which both parties drive is in my apprehension a businesse so far tending to distractions and breach of union among the Saints that it is the last and least Trade I am confident that ever will befall me to drive But in this point though Mr. Baxter here speaks in words what some of ours have said and do say still and that without any detriment that I can see to the Gospell Yet his meaning and theirs are in no lesse antipathie then a Hawk and a Heron and that as in other lesser so principally in these particulars of moment 1. By faith they mena our application or faith as it is our instrument of applying Christ and the grace of God in Christ to our justification he by faith means not only the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere as a part of our inherent righteousnesse but as a generall and common word that compriseth within it self all good qualifications and good works whatsoever as elsewhere and specially in and under his 70 71. Theses he declareth himselfe so that he makes and under the word Faith understandeth all these as equall conditions with faith of our justification 2. By condition they mean that which being once attained and once fixed upon Christ speaks us absolutely justifyed for ever So that in calling faith the condition of justification they mean we cannot be justifyed without it but having once by faith apprehended Christ we are by it united and joyned to Christ and by force of our union with him are thenceforth absolutely and irrevocably pardoned and accepted as righteous in Gods fight He cals it so a condition as that it continues still a condition justifying us only conditionally and not absolutely so that it leaves our estate still one and the same no more justifyed and pardoned when beleevers then when unbeleevers For by the satisfaction of Christ we are before faith cometh conditionally justifyed if we beleeve and when faith is come we remain still but conditionally
or conditionall offer thereof to us Nor any thing to the justified and actually declared just in themselves Justification is no longer in a conditionall offer to them but in its absolute being within them Whatsoever therefore he addeth there pag. 43 44. is wide from the question being not limited to the Justification of the New Covenant which is the subject of his Treatise which here he shunneth and talketh extravagantly about sanctification because he cannot confute the absolute justification but that it doth and will stand and standing will not admit a conditional justification to stand with it and by it in its beeing though the offer thereof before it is in beeing be conditionall And this is all which at length he concludeth pag. 45. of the conditionall Covenant of Grace which without all this circuition would have been granted him viz. that it is propounded and offered to mankinde conditionally if they will beleeve and without this faith none hath or shall have the benefit and comfort thereof to themselves and in themselves because all these that do not or shall not being in a capacity to beleeve are reprobates and as many as are elect shall come to Christ and beleeve in him as hath been before shewed What he addeth for the application may have some pertinency to the matter there objected but it hath none to the thing here in question Therefore I passe it by as not concerning us 2. To his Causa sine qua non briefly thus 1 In so tearming Faith he denyes faith to be any cause at all of our Justification for that is but Causa â—quivoca or nomine tenus or titulo tenus hath but the name not the nature of a cause hath no causality upon gives no influx into the effect 2 Neither whatsoever it be is Faith the Causa sine qua non of Justification in that sense as Mr. Baxter taketh and defineth it either in his stricter or larger definition except he will say that no Infants are justified who do not cannot accept Christ much lesse so beleeve as in his larger definition he sets forth faith 3 Faith is not the Causa sine qua non of our justification in God no nor yet in Christs Justification as he tearms it for these are antecedaneous to our faith and our faith not an antecedent to it 4 At the utmost it can be but the Causa sine qua non of Gods declaring and evidencing of our selves to our selves justified and this justification Mr. Baxter so disdaineth and snuffs at that he will not own it much lesse mention it Yet can he not with all his Sophistry name any other act of justification in this life whereof faith can be proved to be the Antecedent Medium or Causa sine qua non 5 Why doth he call faith and all the conqualifications wherewith he loadeth the shoulders thereof and all the works which he makes its Concomitants the Causa sine qua non as if all these with their Colaterall in the other scale of his ballance Christs satisfaction did make up the one and sole Causa sine qua non of our justification can none else be named Besides other the weaknesse and infirmity of the Law to justifie as it removes the impediment of justifiablenesse in Gods Court of strict Justice For had there been a Law given which could have given life verily righteousnesse should have been by the Law Gal. 3. 21. and sin which removes the same impediment might more properly and socially then Christs satisfaction have been placed on horseback in the same saddle of Causa sine qua non had not Mr. Baxter thought Christ would blesse but these would have defiled this golden saddle of his own either making or appropriating to this use and so bespattered and undressed the righteousnesse of his Qualifications and good works that they would never more become fit to ride on horsback in procession with the Holy Wafer Thus his condition and Causa sine qua non must be new modelled ere they will be Canonicall But see we here the mans wit which never fails him at a dead lift What he cannot act by power he seeks to compasse by a stratagem Because he cannot cover the nakednesse of his assertion he labors to make bare ours and cast filth in it that having diverted the eyes of his Reader thither he may forget the vanity of his Condition or Causa sine qua non And thus he doth it B. Here by the way take notice that the samemen thus blame the advancing of Faith so high as to be our true Gospel Righteousnesse Posit 17 20. and to be imputed in a proper sense Posit 23. do yet when it comes to tryall ascribe far more the faith then those they blame making it Gods instrument in justifying In examining all these quoted Theses I have shewed both who they are which blame him or at least his doctrine which was born before ever he commenced such a Doctor viz. All the Orthodox Protestant Divines and Christians and withall for what they blame it viz. as it is Papism Socinianism and at the best Arminianism 3. To which I have also made out their just grounds of blaming it as may be there seen yet to cheat his Reader he cals these those very men as if there were some few contemptible Antinomians lately sprung up when himself knows them to be all the Churches of Christ which since the Reformation have been called Protestants But of what blasphemy or evill fact doth he accuse them That they ascribe more to Faith then those they blame making it Gods instrument in justifying Yea but we have seen or thought we had seen at least just grounds for their so doing how doth Mr. Baxter aggravate it to make it odious B. 1. And so to have part of the honour of Gods own Act. Fie upon the Hugonets and Lutherans if this be true who then will not run from them at Mr. Baxters heels to Rome But the Scriptures make Balaams Aâ—se Gods instrument to rebuke the madnesse of the Prophet Namb. 22. 28 30. 2 Pet. 2. 15 16. The Raven his Instrument to feed Elijah 1 King 17. 6. The brazen Serpent his instrument of healing the Israelites bitten with firie Serpents Joh. 3. 14. Numb 21. 9. The Assyrians his instruments of chastising and reforming his people Isa 10. 5. c. and the very Devil his instrument of trying Job Job 1. 12. and of executing his pleasure upon Ahab 2 King 22. 21 22. Shall we now fall foul with the Scriptures and accuse them that they ascribe part of the honour of Gods own acts to the Asse the Raven the Serpent the Assyrians the Devil by affirming these to be the instruments by which God acted Doth not the seeblenesse of the means and instruments speak out the whole honour of the action to pertain to the Lord Was it to honour his slaves and abase his freemen and subjects the Lords Israel that Solomon made the former
he hath enough manifested himself B. Some think that Faith may be some small low and impulsive cause but I will not give it so much though if it be made a Procatarctick objective cause Iâ— will not contend If he mean any other difference between the impulsive and the Procatartick objective cause besides that which is between the Generall and the Speciall it is past my skill to understand him or to comprehend what he denies and what he grants no doubt either he would not be understood or else he attributes to his righteousnesse of faith and good works an excitation but not an impulsion forsooth of the Grace of God actually to justifie those whom he beholdeth Schild Metaph li. 1. câ— 44. N. 24 25 40. fairly dressed therewith and so the beauty of the object enamors God to love and justifie And what more doe the Pâ—pists teach and so our justification as Gods act is but in posse till our righteousnesse as a sufficient cause brings it into esse or act Thus far of Mr. Baxters causes of Justification in which if he hath illustrated or confirmed any truth of God God is much beholden to him and Aristotle for it For distrusting the succour of the Scriptures he hath left them and brought nothing else but Logical and Metaphysical notions and reasons to prove all that which he hath said CHAP. XXVII Arg. Whether the sinner be justifyed only by the act not the habit of faith And whether it be not ordained to this use by reason of the usefull property which God hath infused into it to receive Christ Whether and in what sense a man may be said properly to be justifyed by faith In which also some things are intermixed about Mr. Baxters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Credere and conditions of Justification B. Thes 57. IT is the act of faith which justifyeth men at age and not the habit yet not as it is a good work or as it hath in it self any excellency above other graces but 1. In the neerest sense directly and properly as it is the fulfilling of the condition of the new Covenant 2. In the remote and more improper sense as it is the receiving of Christ and his satisfactory righteousnesse It is not for nothing that Mr. Baxter puts here a restriction upon justification by the Act of faith limiting it to men of age Are then elect infants that die before they attain age and strength of reason to put forth their faith into act justifyed only by the habit of faith It seemeth then that the hue and crie hath apprehended the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere as to them and laid it fast from justifying them Again if they are justifyed by the habit of faith as a habit of inherent grace though not such as he here denyeth to have an excellency above other graces what difference doth he put between Justification and Sanctification Doth he not speak the same things here with the Papists Yea in a higher dialect then any of them For they grant to Infants justification only by the washing of Christs bloud conferred upon them in Baptism without any qualification of their own But this man if he thus say justifies them by an inherent righteousnesse of their own But if Infants are justifyed without the act of faith and yet not by its habit how are they then Justifyed but by that which he calleth Christs own justification as a publick person at his resurrection which notwithstanding he utterly denyed Thes 42. and its Explication and if they are so justifyed will it not follow then that justification by the act of faith is Gods declaring and mans applying of his justification to his present comfort and full assurance which Mr. Baxter explodeth as an unsufferable conclusion But dying Infants are to have no use of this present comfort and full assurance therefore it sufficeth them to be justifyed in Christ though not in themselves Lastly or do they depart hence unjustifyed because without actuall beleeving and receiving of Christ and so shall be justifyed in the day of judgment because at the resurrection they shall actually beleeve What a crie do the poor souls in the interim then make in that Limbus insantum And why may not then according to Origen all the Devils and reprobates in hell be then justifyed and saved also because then they may actually beleeve and according to Mr. Baxter the condition of justification lasteth untill that day B. Explication That faith doth not properly justifie through any excellency that it hath above other graces or any more usefull property may appear thus To the excellency of faith above other graces I have nothing to say But to the reasons which he brings to deny the more usefull property of it I shall speak briefly B. 1. Then the praise would be due to faith No more then when God gives us meat the praise of our nutriment and life is due to our teeth because they have a more usefull property to grind and chew the meat then our eyes or ears B. 2. Then love would contend for a share if not a priority This is only said and not proved or declared upon what grounds love should contend B. 3. Then faith would justifie though it had not been made the condition of the Covenant 1. We denie faith to be the condition of the Covenant in Mr. Baxters sense If he would have spoken directly to them against whom he argueth he should have said Then faith would have justifyed though it had never been appointed and given of God as an instrument to receive Christ the justifyer And then we should answer 2. That it is so much as if he had said Then our teeth would have nourished and preserved life although God had never appointed and given them to us as instruments to chew the nourishing meat And thus the Caveat that he addeth becomes uselesse viz. B. Let those therefore take heed that make faith to justifie meerly because it apprehendeth Christ which is its naturall essentiall propertie For none affirmes faith to justifie meerly because it apprehendeth Christ without considering also Gods ordering and fitting it to this office together with his promise and the virtue laid up in Christ to justifie all that do by faith so apprehend him B. That it is faith in a proper sense that is said to justifie and not Christs righteousnesse onely which it receiveth may appear thus 1. From a necessity of a twofold righteousnesse which I have before proved in reference to the twofold Covenant 2. From the plain and constant phrase of Scripture which saith he that beleeveth shall be justifyed and that we are justifyed by faith and that faith is imputed for righteousnesse It had been as easie for the holy Ghost to have said that Christ only is imputed or his righteousnesse only or Christ only justifyeth c. if he had so meant He is the most excusable in an errour that is led into it by the constant
would have passed currantly We cannot so suppose for one absurd supposition being granted a thousand more will follow after Mr. Baxter begins too low in his suppositions Let him here advance a stair higher with us and suppose first a truth before he supposeth that which is false and unpossible in respect of that truth that must necessarily be presupposed viz. That God before his Covenanting with man had decreed within himself Salva Justitia without obscuring at all his Justice to make known on the vessels of mercy i. e. in justifying and saving miserable sinners whom he had before prepared to glory the riches of his glory i. e. the praise of the glory of grace Rom. 9. 23. Ephes 1. 6. that himself and his free grace should be all and man nothing to his justification and salvation and to the end that his justice might appear still in all its lustre had taken full satisfaction from his own Son here to manifest the freenesse of his grace the all to our happinesse residing in his meer mercy and the nothing in our selves I see not what other condition or means besides faith God could have put out of which mans proud heart would not have arrogated something to himself to have swoln therewith and so the glory of Gods grace should have been obscured Or doth Mr. Baxter see farther then the Apostle He tels us It is of Faith that it might be by Grace Rom. 4. 16. If by other means it might have been and yet by grace there would be a notable flaw in the Apostles arguing which limits it to faith that it might be of grace To the same purpose are those many Scriptures in which he affirms it to be by faith that all mans boasting may be excluded implying that if it had not been only by faith there would have been something of man in it clowding the glory of Gods grace and giving to man occasion of boasting that there is something of his own to his justification and so to glory partly in himself and not wholly in the Lord. So Mr. Baxters arguing If God had put some other condition no doubt it would have justified is one and the same with this If God had acted against his own purpose and betrayed the glory of his Grace no doubt it had been betrayed But the former supposition is no lesse absurd then the latter And almost so much at the full Mr. Baxter either to toll on his Reader into more snares which afterward he layeth by his magnificent elogies of Gods grace or from the throws and checks of an accusing conscience speaketh in the following part of this Section Yet so that he cannot cease from the interweaving of mans works with Gods grace unto Justification which because he doth more fully and grossely in the following part of this Tractate I shall here forbear to anticipate what there is to be said by way of answer to him The next Position is of neer cognation with this his words are these B. Thesis 58. The ground of this is because Christs righteousnesse doth not justifie us properly and formally because we beleeve or receive it but because it is ours in Law by divine donation or imputation This is plain in it self and in that which is said before How this is plain in that which is said before we have before examined how it is plain in it self we are here to examine To omit how after Mr. Baxters Principles the righteousnesse of Christ can be said to be ours by divine donation and imputation when he holds it no otherwise by Gods donation ours then the wilde Goose is his his if he can catch her and as long as he can hold her so his as it is every ones else as well as his if they can take and hold her For she is the worlds Goose and proper to no one before one hath taken her and no longer that ones then while he holds her if he let her go she is the worlds Goose again If Mr. Baxters righteousnesse be stablished upon such a law donation and imputation let it be his not mine I shall not contend with him for a share in it because the Lord offers me a righteousnesse of a better Covenant established upon better promises Heb. 8. 6. But to let this passe When M. Baxter saith the ground of this is what meaneth he by this That no doubt that went before in the former Position But in it are many things and which of them is plain upon this ground in his meaning I cannot easily judge because to my understanding no one of them is upon this ground plain Nay upon this ground no man living is justified in this world For it is not ours saith he by beleeving and receiving it but by divine donation And this donation he will not have to be confirmed untill all the conditions be compleated and that is not untill the world be ended But to give my best conjecture of his meaning I think he will be understood that the two last clauses of his former Thesis are plain upon this ground viz. 1. That Faith doth justifie properly as a condition c. 2. Improperly as it doth receive Christ The ground saith he is this because c. Here by the way we may take notice of the mans subtilty and sophistry in shifting from one tearm of Art to another Thes 57. he tels us that faith doth properly justifie thus and improperly thus but in the Explication he foysteth in the word formally and formall pag. 230 231. and here Thes 58. puts both together properly and formally as if there were no other proper cause and reason but the formall cause and reason of a thing and that every proper cause were the formall cause And thus whatsoeverr Scripture saith illiterately Christ himself after Mr. Baxters proper language should not be a proper cause of our justification And who sees not the end of this his project If he be put to it he layes a ground for the diverting of the whole dispute from the Scriptures unto Philosophy Logick and the Metaphysicks where there may be a cavill about the nature of the formall cause so long untill both sides be out of breath and in the end both parties be as wise to Justification as in the beginning This is the calamity of the Church in these times that they which hold themselves the chief Doctors and eminent lights thereof darken every sacred truth with the mist of humane Learning cast upon it in stead of clearing it to the comprehension of Gods babes and sucklings No marvel then if the justice of God hath stirred up among us so many Earth-born and Earth-bred Meteors persons of no learning Ranters and Enthusiasts I mean like Balaams Asse to rebuke the madnesse of these Prophets And doubtlesse either by these or some other the Lord will prevail against them if they shall not cease to pervert with Elymas the plain ways of God Now to the matter it self about which
on which wrought the cure such are the operations of Christ and faith in the cure of the soul as here in the cure of the body 3. From 1 Gâ—r 30. 31. Christ is of God made unto us Righteousnesse viz. to Justification That he which glorieth may glory in the Lord. God hath made him righteousnesse but how to us or our righteousnesse that it may be of his donation to us Mr. Baxter must answer by faith else farewell his condition but if by the act of faith as our righteousnesse in fulfilling â—he condition or otherwise then an instrument to apprehend the righteousnesse of Christ to justification then have we somewhat of our own righteousnesse wherein to glory all would not be the Lords that we might glory in him alone 4. To this I might add also the phrase which the Apostle useth that we are justifyed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by faith through faith as an instrument and never 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for our faith or upon our faith as for a cause or upon a condition fulfilled as some of our Divines have well observed I proceed to the next position B. Thesis 59. Justification is not a Momentaneous act begun and ended immediately upon our beleeving but a continued act which though it be in its kind compleat from the first ' yet it is still in doing till the finall justification in the judgment day All this together with most of the Explication may be granted as being capable of an Orthodox sense 1. That justification as an act immanent in God is such as is here described is confessed But Mr. Baxter is deaf in this ear 2. That our justification in Christ is such in some sense we also grant but neither will he listen to this 3. Therefore if he would take off all ambiguity of his words and declare his sense to be the same with the sound we would grant to him also that such is our personall justification in our selves which he owneth only for justification For as it is an act of God it is never interrupted or dissolved till the day of judgement though as it is taken Passively there may be many interruptions of our sense and apprehension of it But his Thesis is faced like Janus lookes two wayes at once is set forth in such words as will more properly admit of an evill then a good sense And that he speaks them after the Remonstrant not the Protestant dialect is too probable though not infallibly evident from these reasons to be meant in an evill sense 1. Because he delivers it in the Arminian phrase For so his St. Episcopius Justificatio est actus continuus qui est Episcop Disp 22. Thes 12. de Justif durat quamdiu durat ipsius conditionis requisitae praesentia interrumpitur vero semper toties quoties actus praestantur ejusmâ—di qui cum vera fide conscientia bona consistere nequeunt i. e. Justification is a continued act which is and dureth as long as the presence of its requisite condition continueth but is interrupted so often as such acts are done which cannot consist with true faith and a good conscience To the continuance of justification Mr. Baxter here speaketh the same thing with him and though as to the interruption of it he speaks here as out of a cloud yet compare with this his 45. Thesis and you will have the whole of Episcopius from the pen of Mr. Baxter 2. Because his words do seem here to suppose a Magis minus in its active acceptation or sense It is not begun and ended immediately saith he but is still in doing in a way of perfecting untill the judgment day 3. His restriction added to the compleatnesse or perfection thereof at the first It is compleat at first saith he but in its kind which restriction makes the compleatnesse of justification incompleat and its perfection imperfect till the day of judgment as himselfe hath expressed himselfe before Thesis 41. These things from the position it self From the explication will follow 4. The heartlesse and comfortlesse proof that he brings to prove the continuance of this justifying act making it to reach only to the Genera singulorum not to the singula generum to such a kinde of men not to any singular man or individuall person upon earth to Beleevers but not to this or that beleever So that the holiest Saint if at any time his faith in some temptation faint and cannot be brought to sensible acting is left destitute of all comfort from the Gospell or new Covenant after Mr. Baxters principles It justifieth onely so long as faith actually receiveth Christ if faith through infirmity cease to act he gives the distressed soul no comfort that God continueth to justifie 5. From the first use of instruction which he draweth from this position This sheweth us saith he in the first place with what limitation to receive the assertion of our Divines that remission and justification are simul and semel performed his meaning is that we must understand them in this assertion to deal as Mr. Baxter is wont viz. to say one thing and mean another Not to think as they speak but to equivocate and retaine a mentall reservation within themselves That our justification is begun and perfected both at once and together but all this is but suo genere in its kinde that is conditionally even as the Usurer frankly and freely forgave to his debtor all that he owed him but with this limitation that if he were not paid the whole debt to day he would cast him in prison to morrow there to lie untill he should pay the whole forfeiture But because Mr. Baxter is disposed here to lisp and not to speak alowd and plain his minde we shall leave him to his humour and proceed to hearken to him where he speaketh plainly and without parables Mr. Baxters APHORISMS EXORIZED AND ANTHORIZED OR An Examination of and Answer to a Book written by Mr. Rich. Baxter Teacher of the Church at Kederminster in Worcestershire ENTITULED Aphorisms of Justification THE SECOND PART By JOHN CRANDON an unworthy Minister of the Gospel of CHRIST at Fawley in Hantshire LONDON Printed by E. C. 1654. Mr. Baxters APHORISMS Exorized and Anthorized OR An Examination of and Answer to a Book written by Mr. Rich. Baxter Teacher of the Church at Kederminster in Worcestershire ENTITVLED Aphorisms of Justification THE SECOND PART CHAP. I. The following Doctrine of Mr. Baxters Book reduced to some few heads and the question between him and the Protestants about Justification by works stated HItherto we have been busied about the view of Mr. Baxters swelling which the more and the farther we gazed on the more it increased and after a long expectation of an issue at length the imposthumated matter breaks out in the sight of all men to the offence of all spiritualized men Justification by workes This is the declared and professed Subject of all the following part of this
unlesse it be consented unto in calculum fidei non venire opera sed prorsus Idem ibid. §. 18. separanda esse i. e. that works have nothing to do in the borders of faith to justifie but must be wholly separated from it and proceeds that the Law and faith are here opposed Therefore because works are required to the righteousnesse of the one ergo sequitur ad hujus justitiam non requiri it follows therefore that they are not required to the righteousnesse of the other and further in the same place Herein the Gospell differs from the Law quod operibus non alligat justitiam sed in sola dei misericordia collocat that it binds not righteousnesse to works but placeth it in the sole mercy of God And Fides sine operum adminiculo c. Faith without any proppage of works resteth wholly upon mercy And that wherewith he concludes this Section That the righteousnesse by which we are justifyed is not ushered into our possession by works nec operando nos eam consequi sed vacuos accedere ut eam recipiamus i. e. not that we attain it by working but come with our hands empty of all works to be filled with it With those agreeth Ph. Melanchthon Evangelium offert remissionem per imputationem justitiae vitam aeternam sine conditione legis aut operum nostrorum i. e. the Gospell offers remission by the imputation of righteousnesse and eternall life without condition of the Law or our works Again Vulgo imaginantur homines Evangelium esse promissionem conditionalem at ab hac imaginatione abducendi sunt i. e. Men must be drawn off from that vulgar imagination that the Gospell is a conditionall promise And upon Rom. 4. Credens est salvus sola fide sine operibus Neque nostra obedientia aut causa est aut conditio propter quam accepti sumus coram Deo i. e. He that beleeveth is saved by faith only without works Neither is our obedience either a cause or a condition for which we are accepted before God So Zanchius in Hos 2. 21. Notandum est hanc esse simplicem Evangelicam sine omni conditione promissionem Hic nihil exigit Deus sed simpliciter promittit quod velit ipse c. This is a simple and Evangelicall promise which is without all condition where God requireth nothing but simply promiseth what he pleaseth As for Luther it is superfluous to cite him being every where so full both in the positing and confirming of this doctrine let but his Sermon upon Tit. 3. 5. be read he shall be there found calling it devillish doctrine and the teachers thereof Hypocrites who teach salvation to be far off and not already attained and to be sought for by works concluding Quicunque salutem non ex mera gratia per fidem ante omnia opera c. whosoever receives not salvation out of meer grace by faith before all works he shall never be saved I had a purpose to have annexed the Testimonies of some more of the Chieftains against Antichrist but there is no need Mr. Baxter for his part is not a Zizca warreth not by other mens eyes seeth and knoweth against whom he levelleth is not ignorant that all especially the more antient and unsophisticated worthies of all the Churches speak the same things and in the same tone with these against the Papists Neither was it my purpose to deal at all in this passage with Mr. Baxter but to shew the vanity of some Pharisaicall Cabalisticall Sophisticall but little Scripturall and Theologicall Rabbies who with Anti-evangelicall spirits partly to set up again a Babell or Babylon of works as a mount against Antinomianism as they term the liberty and purity of the Gospell and partly in a prostrate devotion wherewith they sacrifice to every Barbarism and Aphorism of exotick arts to which they must submit though it be to the denying of the whole word of God for fear they should not be reckoned Scholars are ready to gallop after Mr. Baxters Sophisticall Lectures into the very Lateran of Rome not knowing whence they run nor whither whose company they leave and whose they follow such levity and giddinesse hath taken their head-pieces that as having gotten a professed Protestant Divine to lead them into the worst sink of Popery they run with head and shoulders thronging who shall be foremost so no doubt if under the profession or misprision of a Jesuite Paul himself should descend to preach again and maintain the Doctrine of the Gospell in all its verity power and purity and not in a dialecticall phrase they would throw it back in his face as Jesuiticall and devillish For without such lightnesse and emptinesse it were impossible for them to be so suddenly and easily whirled into an applause of an assertion so grosly and palpably Popish and Damning by a peevish veneration of the learning and holinesse of the Penman thereof As if among the Jewish Scribes and Pharisees and Popish Monkes and Jesuits there were not to be found in depth of Learning and strictnesse of Legall righteousnesse many to whom this man may possibly serve and but serve as a shaddow But it sufficeth here to have manifested that the Doctrine of Mr. Baxter is totally the same in this particular with the doctrine of the Jesuits Or if in any respect we shall find it in what remains to be examined not wholly the same I doubt not but in every such difference which we shall meet with to demonstrate that it is far worse then theirs Or if it be not so let him produce any one knowing man within any of the Protestant Churches except he will make the Concision of Socinians and Arminians the true Protestants that hath ever taught or held this doctrine CHAP. III. The first Argument for Justification by Works drawn from Scriptures examined The Scriptures cited prepared to Mr. Baxters hand by the Papists and the Protestants answer to all the Arguments drawn from those Scriptures by the Papists by him concealed and the abhorrency of those Scriptures from the conclusion which they are brought to prove demonstrated HAving in part supplyed what Mr. Baxter would have buryed here in silence some of the Scriptures and Arguments from Scriptures which are brought by the Protestants to remove works from having concurrence with faith in the businesse of justifying let us now examine the Scriptures which he quoteth to prove their cooperation with faith to justifie Here as I said we meet not with words but figures partly therefore because he maintains the same assertion with the Papists partly because the Scriptures which he quoteth are all such as the Papists have urged before him against us so that he hath taken them up at the second hand as they were collected to his hand by the Fryers and Jesuits himself not expressing how he would argue from those Scriptures I conceive it is his desire that we should understand he means so to argue
is more adoe then come in and sit down and take what we have a minde to God hath put all his Sons offices into the condition to be received and submitted to Either all or none must be accepted And if all be in the condition then the receiving of all must needs justifie upon the grounds that I have laid down before It is not a new thing to see heresie usurping the chaire to condemne truth of errour The reasoning here is wholly carnall and naturall besides the rule of the Gospell When he calls faith a naturall way of receiving the mercy offered by Christ and our own worth and works implyedly the spirituall way how doth he put light for darknesse and darknesse for light giving to the truely spirituall cause of renewing that of the Apostle 1 Cor. 2. 14. The naturall man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God c. Can Heaven and Hell be more opposite either to other then the Apostles doctrine to Mr. Baxters The Apostle cals the way of faith alone the Spirit and the way of works superadded to faith for justification the flesh Gal. 3. 3. Is it Flesh or Spirit in Mr. Baxter that makes him a contradictor of the holy Ghost speaking by the Apostle The way of faith is the way of grace supernaturall Flesh and bloud cannot reveal it unto us but our Father which is in heaven But the way of works is beneath grace dictated by nature it self therefore naturall but so that all the force of nature cannot effectuallize it to justification It is a slander that he puts upon the Orthodox whom he hateth therefore represents them as Noddies and Simpletons pretending that they teach faith to be nothing but an accepting of pardon and accepting of holinesse c. Nay we make neither pardon nor holinesse nor the c. but Christ Jesus the object of our faith adhere and cleave to him for all yet not confounding his benefits or the means by which he applyeth them but wait by faith at the severall sluces by which he conferreth his severall benefits to receive the washing away of our guilt by the effusion of his bloud and holinesse or sanctification by the effusion of his Spirit and not contrariwise holinesse by his bloud and pardon by the effusion of his Spirit So we repair by faith to Christ for all because in him as in the spring is all yet so as that in coming to him alone that hath all we come to the Sun of righteousnesse for light to the fountain for life and to the Spirit of sanctification which flowes from him for holynesse He cryes against separation and makes it as I have shewed for union and makes confusions Where doth he mention any office or operation of faith to sanctification or use of sanctification but to justification or what is faith with him but a compound of all endowments works and duties And thus he confounds faith and works Christs righteousnesse and mans righteousnesse morall honesty and Gospell sanctification of all together making up one linsy-woolsy justification or righteousness to justification which the Spirit of God never revealed but the spirit of Mr. Baxter hath hatched What he speaketh of Christ stablishing his office either is above my understanding or else is not at all to his purpose And what of accepting as under the notion of accepting or as under the notion of a condition hath been enough spoken to in what was before said about the instrumentality of faith All that followeth is wholly averse from and adverse to the doctrine of the Gospell Jewish and Popish For what meanes he by our title in Law and the wedding garment but the whole furniture of works and duties done in obedience to a supposed legislative authority of Christ Without these and before these to take possession i. e. to dare to adhere to Christ for justification is usurpation and an incurring of Gods vengeance for usurping Thus beating off from Christ sinners chief sinners for whom Christ hath dyed How doth the spirit of the rejected Jewes work upon this man when they heard of righteousnesse and Act. 22. 21 22 23. salvation offered to the Gentiles a common and profane people that were not holy how did they stretch their throats and rend their clothes in a zeal against this indignity So this man hearing of the justificition of Publicans and sinners hath his eye evill because God is good tears himself with anger crying usurpation vengeance hell-fire why because they had not put on the filthy rags of mans righteousnesse which he cals the wedding garment and thereby gotten title to Christ before they were so bold as to beleeve in him and girded on their own gaol-clothes first and then have put on Christ upon them that their own righteousnesse might have been neerest the heart and Christs righteousnesse at a further distance as having no efficacy but from our own righteousnesse effectuallizing it Unto all this I shall use only that oracle of the Lord Christ The Publicans and harlots enter into the Kingdome of God before these Pharisaicall justiciaries and whited sepulchers Let Christ alone be my wedding garment I leave all that unrighteous righteousnesse which Mr. Baxter would wrest out from the Kingly office entire to Mr. Baxter to compleat his righteousnesse to justification I know no other title to the justification of the new Covenant which the chief sinners must look after before they possesse it but the grant of grace in the new Covenant and their closure by faith with Christ in whom God presents himself to justifie and reconcile them to himself One voice of my Bride-groom crying Whosoever thirsteth i. e. is dry and empty of all good in himself let him come to me and whosoever will let him drink of the well of the water of life freely Rev. 22. 17. is of more force with me then ten thousand contradicting voices such as this of Mr. Baxter There is more adoe then come in and sit down and take what we have a mind to If this man had the imaginary place of Peter to be Porter of heaven how quickly would he forfeit his place by repelling those whom alone Christ will have admitted and admitting those that Christ will have repelled Christ admits beleevers not doers this man rejects all beleevers that are not doers before they are beleevers The rest that he saith here is sacrificed to his Goddesse the Lady Condition A deity that the Scriptures never knew nor yet all the whole University of Athens They erected an Altar indeed to the unknown God Act. 17. 23. see the depth of Mr. Baxter he hath found the Antipodas which the old Mathematicians wrote of but could never find the deity which the learned Athenians worshiped but worshiped they knew not what This Goddesse Condition by some help of the Socinians and Arminians hath M. Baxter brought to light and invested her with more glittering ornaments then they had wit to do only he hath not yet
built a Temple and there enthroned her for all men to fall down with him and worship her Yet of this Almighty power he proclaimes her that she binds the hands of God and Men the one cannot give the other cannot receive without her mediation Neither the eternall Father nor the eternall Son can shew the least mercy to a poor sinner nor the sinner partake of one crumb of mercy from the Father by the Son unlesse this great Lady Condition say Amen to it so high and so to vast a bignesse hath the Man already stretched her Yet is he still adding and in this place he is nayling in the offices of Christ into her bulk But because this Colossus is only from his own brain and nothing of Gods Word brought to own one piece of it let us leave him admiring if not adoring his fabrick or figment and refer our selves to answer when he brings any thing from Gods Word We have seen by this time the invalidity of the Assumption of Mr. Baxters Argument and of all the Reasons which he brings to prove it either to give proppage to his own assertion or any way to shake and weaken ours I am to examin also the consequent and consequence of his Proposition And here I deny both that other works and duties are required with faith to justification and all consequency hereof from this supposition that Christ in all his offices is the object of faith as justifying This Mr. Baxter layeth down first in and under his 72. Thesis pag. 266. deinceps His Thesis runs thus B. As the accepting of Christ for Lord which is the hearts subjection is as essentiall a part of justifying faith as the accepting of him for our Saviour So consequently sincere obedience which is the effect of the former hath as much to do in justifying us before God as affiance which is the fruit of the latter The Antecedent of this Position is nothing else but the reassuming of his former Assumption with a short explication and a short obscuration added to it His obscuration in this that he names justifying without the adjection there used as such we will understand him here meaning what there he speaks else we run from the question His explication that here he unfolds what he meant there by accepting Christ for Lord viz. the hearts subjection to Christs Legislative power or his commanding of woeks and obedience In this sense we deny still that the accepting of Christ for Lord is an essentiall part of justifying faith as such And all that which he seems further to bring for the confirmation thereof pa. 287 288. is but the saying over again of what he had said before and a little prattle of Physicall and morall Philosophy which is as fit to explain to us the mystery of Christ faith and justification as a net is to hold fast the winde and yet if all his reasoning thence were granted his cause is as naked and weak with it as without it The rest is nothing but words his own words his bare affirmations wherewith we have been so much wearied that the very thought of them is offensive We expect Gods word let him bring it or hold his peace The consequent of this Thesis which is also the consequent of the proposition of the Argument which we are here examining he puts here more fraudulently then I rendered it there viz. that sincere Obedience doth as much justifie as affiance that as the fruit of our accepting Christ for Lord and Law-giver as much as this which is a fruit of accepting Christ for our Saviour How slippery is falshood and how full of evasions Let him speak positively and plainly hath such obedience any thing to do in justifying us I should not lie if I should say I have conquered so many Armies taken so many Towns in and brought so much gold from the West-Indies as Mr. Baxter yet though I speak no lie I cannot be excused from speaking vanity in saying it for neither of us have done it But let us see whether there be more positivenesse in his poofs then in his affirmations In his 288. pag. thus he speaketh to it B. That obedience is as neer a fruit of faith as affiance is evident if you take it for the obedience of the soul in acts that are no more remote from the heart then affiance is and so is the obedience of our actions externall in its formall respect as obedience though not in its materiall because the imperate acts are not all so neer the fountain as the elicite If by this profound reasoning there be any that will not be persuaded to be a Christian of Mr. Baxters painting let him continue to be not only almost but altogether a Christian of Christs making and he shall never sustain damage thereby to his conscience or salvation The question is not here how neer or how remote a fruit of faith obedience is but whether the neerest or most distant fruits thereof considered as Mr. Baxter doth as our acts or deeds nor yet whether these acts as close to and remote from the heart nor whether imperate or elicit acts but whether such acts are at all appointed of God to justification We deny it and Mr. Baxter brings nothing to prove it Yet not to suffer the lesse exercised and informed Reader to depart unsatisfyed nor to roll up in darknesse and silence any truth of the Gospell proper here to be cleared I shall manifest in what respect Mr. Baxters assertion may be here warily granted Christ as Saviour and satisfier i. e. by the sacrifice of his death hath made a way for sinners to God yea made himself the way and is in respect thereof made to us of God righteousnesse This he did principally not only as our high Priest the other offices were not excluded This was not the whole work that he was sent to do He must bring into the way also that he hath made all that are to be saved in it and by it Joh. 10. 16. And having brought them he must also enable them to bring forth fruit to God by being their sanctifier Joh. 15. 5. Rom. 7. 4. 6. in these works he acteth principally as our Prophet and King To bring us into communion with him and into that way which he hath made through himself to righteousnesse and blessednesse as our Prophet he teacheth and as our King commandeth but as Priest Prophet and King effectuallizeth his teaching and commands by his Spirit In this respect his commands to us of coming by faith into union with him of adhering to him and reposing our selves wholly upon him for righteousnesse and life we grant that Christ as our King commanding as far as we look to the thing commanded viz. faith in his bloud alone for justification is an eminent instrument of our justification and as he effectuallizeth the merits of his death to us may not be unproperly made the object of our faith as justifying But
in his other forementioned operations upon us by his Word and Spirit not only to teach and command but also by his infinite power to enliven us to bring forth fruits of so great a salvation and to walke worthy of it in all holinesse and righteousnesse and exactnesse to fulfill all duties and works of Christian obedience In this he is to be made indeed the object of justifying faith or which is the same of sanctifying faith yet not at it justifyeth but as it sanctifyeth We should not a little maim both the office of faith and the benefits which we have by Christ if we should restrain them all to justification Nay Christ is made unto us as well sanctification as righteousnesse and faith adhereth as fast to Christ for the one as the other else is it not a legitimate but bastard faith Neverthelesse Christ is not in the same respect the object of faith as sanctifying and of the same as justifying Because this is Mr. Baxters supereminent Argument in which himself seems most to trust and by which so many learned Ministers do even professe themselves staggered and astonished I shall omit nothing unexamined that he speaketh in the affirming or confirming of it lest any should take occasion to say that the strongest part thereof is not because it could not be answered Therefore have I left out nothing of what he hath said to the other Proposition though many things were unworthy of Animadversion To the consequent of this Proposition he speaketh more in his next two Theses viz. 73. 74. what is inserted in these two Aphorisms more fit to be examined under another notion I shall here forbear to transcribe leaving it for its proper place What is to the present purpose he thus expresseth B. Thes 73. pa. 289. Faith only doth not justifie in opposition to the works of the Gospell but those works do also justifie Thes 74. Both faith and works justifie in the same kind of causality viz. as Causae sine quibus non or mediate and improper causes or as Dr. Twisse causae dispositivae c. The like may be said of Love and of others in the same station These are but meer affirmations and contain no reasons to confirme only in the latter Thesis seemingly at least is produced the authority of that Antinomian Dr. Twisse but with so fine a conveyance as that he may be kept in or left out at pleasure if Mr. Baxter be dealt with to make good his allegation of him He knowes the name and authority of Dr. Twisse to be great and amiable as an eminent servant of Christ and patron of his truth He concludes therefore that his assertions will be swallowed with the more facility having such an authority to sweeten and fortifie them Therefore so interserteth his Testimony that his Reader may suppose Dr. Twisse to affirm works to be causas dispositivas of justification I neither have read all that Dr. Twisse hath written neither do I so far trust my memory as to deny it flatly and peremptorily Yet by knowing Dr. Twisse aright I am as confident that Bellarmine hath taught the righteousnesse of justification to be meerly by imputation and our justification only by faith as that Dr. Twisse hath any way affirmed works in this or any other respect to prevent or operate to our justification If he did why doth not Mr. Baxter quote the place as elsewhere he doth very diligently when the Testimony of the Author makes for him or why in the end of his Appendix where he sucks out of Dr. Twisse and others all that he thinks may make for his advantage doth he not cite this so pregnant a Testimony But he hath left to himself an evasion that when he hath beguiled whom he can with such an authority being found at last he can answer his meaning is the term or phrase viz. causa dispositiva upon some other not to this Argument is that which Dr. Twisse useth I finde him indeed calling works causas sine quibus non or dispositivas salutis of our salvation or glorification never of our justification And so far is he from attributing under this term what Mr. Baxter attributeth that he seriously abandoneth it So he expresseth himself Vind. Lib. 1. Par. 2. Sect. 2. Proxime finem Vix majus pâ—ceatum est quam justificationem quaerere ex operibus and almost in the next words Nullum opus Deo gratiuâ— acceptius est quam sibi justitiae suae in negotiosalutis renunt iare et in Christo unice confidere But come we now to that which he speaks for confirmation the first part consists in prefacing His own conscience telling him that it is a Pharisaicall Popish principle which he hear positeth he forelayes his Proeme to the proofe thereof thus B. I know this is the doctrine that will have the loudest out-cries raised against it and will make some cry out Heresie Popery Socinianism and what not For mine own part the searcher of hearts knoweth that not singularity affection of novelty nor any goodwill to Popery provoketh me to entertain it but that I have earnestly sought the Lords direction upon my knees before I durst adventure on it and that I resisted the light of this conclusion as long as I was able but a man cannot force his own understanding if the evidence of truth force it not though he may force his pen or tongue to silence or dissembling That which I shall do further is to give you some proofs c. First here a word to such Ministers as being more the disciples of men then of Christ and better versed in Sophistry then Divinity do only not deify Mr. Baxter maintaining all his doctrine in this book to be the doctrine of all the Protestant Churches Why do they anger the man in charging him with so low a spirit that he hath nothing but what is common with him and the most eminent lights in the Church will not he be offended at it doth he not here in some kind pronounce himself a dissenter and that what he here asserteth is that which the Protestant Churches detest as heresie doth not himself even before experience what acceptance his book would have as it were proclaime himself in this point departed from us into the Tents of Papists and Socinians As to Mr. Baxter 1. We have before granted to him that he gives no cause of suspicion that affection of singularity and novelty hath drawn him into this opinion For he is not herein singular nor is his doctrine new but such as the Phariâ—ees in Christs time and the false Apostles in the Apostles times and the worst of Hereticks from thence unto our dayes have unanimously pestered the Church with Yet in this I appeal to Mr. Baxter whether some affection of repute by being a deviser of a new way and new Arguments for the confirmation of this old Popish Socinian doctrine hath not possessed him 2. Whether the searcher of
1 c. some name James the son of Alpheus the Brother of Christ and one of the 12 Apostles others James sirnamed Oblias or the Just of whom Jâ—sephus writeth the Author of it adhuc sub judice lis est Or that the matter method and if I may so speak spirit of this Epistle sounds not in one harmony with the rest parts or books of the new Testament but rather after the writings of the books under the old Covenant or after such as stuck still to the old Covenant as Philo Judaeus and others all which Mr. Baxter better knows to have been by many objected then I know how satisfactorily to answer it By these and other reasons some have expunged it from the Catalogue of Scriptures which are of divine inspiration and have reduced it into the kind and number of writings that are usually termed Ecclesiasticall in a good sense not disagreeing any where from the Canon yet not of that dignity as to be accepted as a part of the Canon it self I shall leave these things to be disputed by others and examine the testimonies which Mr. Baxter hence alleageth what and how far it makes for him as the authority of the holy Ghost himselfe Here it is remarkable that Mr. Baxter who followes the Jesuits every foot and inch in the interpreting of this and all other Scriptures from which he would with them set up justification by works like a man made all of zeal perks up to terrifie us from an interpretation contradictory to the text and from using apparent violence to it implying that all the Protestant Churches and Saints which have stood in the defence of the faith of Christ against the Papists now almost 200. years have dealt thus sacrilegiously in robbing this Text of its due sense And the Fryers and Jesuites alone good men have stood up as the fast friends of Christ to maintain this truth of Christ and the spirit and meaning of this Scripture against the violation of the sacrilegious hands of these hereticall Protestants And that himself is now at last stirred up by the Spirit that hath wrought so powerfully upon the Jesuits to vindicate and set forth the true meaning of this Text with the same fidelity and sincerity which they his Masters have used before him Therefore to excite all men to gaze on his ingenuity and sincerity and to admire him as the one alone man among Protestants raised up to undeceive all the Churches that have so long strayed from the holy mother Church he thus like wisedome it self uttereth his voice B. Pag. 297. I dare not teach the holy Ghost to speak nor force the Scripture nor raise an exposition so far from the plain importance of the words without apparent necessity but here is not the least necessity there being not the least inconvenience that I know of in affirming justification by works in the fore explained sense i. e. in the sense which Mr. Baxters sense and reason without any help of Scripture hath devised Men seldome are bold with Scripture in forcing it but they are first bold with conscience in forcing it as one M. Baxter who with onespell hath forced all the large and divine disputes of Paul about justification into a cherristone and hurld it at the feet of his St. Sense there to do homage or to be trampled into the dirt After this his protestation of his integrity zeal and tendernesse of conscience in interpreting Scriptures and the impression which he feels or feigns in his soul which the heretick Protestants have made by not expounding this Scripture in the same words which the Jesuits do Let us see with what tendernesse and fear himself in the next words speaketh of it B If it were but some one phrase dissonant from the ordinary language of Scripture I should not doubt but it must be reduced to the rest But when it is the very scope of a Chapter in plain and frequent expressions no whit dissonant from any other Scripture I think he that may so wrest it as to make it unsay what it saith may as well make him a Creed of his own let the Scriptuee say what it will to the contrary What is this but with the Papists to make the Scripture a nose of wax If St. James speak it so over and over that justification is by works and not by faith only I will see more cause before I deny it or say he means a working faith He that in all this can see one least spark of that professed sincerity which he protesteth in himself and requires in others worthier then himself let him make it out I can see nothing else but fraud doublenesse and falshood 1 When he sayeth that it is the very scope of a Chapter and not only some one phrase that here holds forth justification by works before God it is the same which he hath from Bellarmine Bel. lib. 1. de justif cap. 15. Scopus Jacobi saith he fuit demonstrare fidem veram atque Catholicam ad salutem sine operibus non sufficere c. i. e. The scope of James in his Chapter was to shew that a true and Catholick faith is not sufficient without works to salvation and with as much truth and fidelity doth this man speak it as did the other from whom he learned it This being no more the scope of this Chapter or of James in it then to deny the salvation which is by Christ and to set on men to seek it by the Law 2 That this phrase of justification by works in Mr. Baxters sense is no whit dissonant from any other Scripture whether he means difference in sound or difference in substance is as very a paradox as if he had said that contradictories are not dissonaÌ„t For if this doctrine after Mr. Baxters sense must stand as true doctrine and for the Gospell of Christ then must we cast away almost if not altogether all the other Scriptures of the new Testament as hereticall and limit our selves to this alone and to Mr. Baxters glosse in it to learn true righteousnesse and the way to life For how vain empty and audacious his annihilating of Pauls doctrine about justification with one breath is we shall see in its proper place and finde that he destroyes the genuine scope and meaning of that Apostle in many of his Epistles to sacrifice all to his imaginary scope of James in some few words here delivered 3 When he tels us of wresting and making a Creed c. he proclaims to the World that all the Protestant Churches which have constantly defended justification by faith without works i. e. by Christ Jesus apprehended by faith without concurrence of works c. have wrested and violated the Scripture set up a Creed of their own in despight of the Scriptures speaking to the contrary For what he cunningly and seemingly fastens upon one Mr. Pemble he layes to the charge of all the Protestant Churches there being not one
himselfe our Divines give an interpretation to this one passage that may declare it though it hath a seeming yet not to have a reality of dissent from the rest Because if this be Canonicall and from the H. G the H. G. cannot contradict himselfe In expounding this dispute of James therefore the Protestants take notice of a two fold homonymy of words one in the word Faith the other in the word Justifying both which Paul and James use but use them the one in one and the other in another sence so that though they seeme somwhat to differ in words yet in sense they speake the same thing 1. They say as when Paul speakes of Faith to justification by Faith he meanes a true and lively Faith which fetcheth power from the merits of Christ to Iustifie and from the spirit of Christ to Sanctifie so Iames here battereth under the name of Faith a bare profession and boasting of Faith which some Hypocrites leaned on to Iustifie them being wholly destitute of Faith indeed that is alive and effectuall to draw from Christ matter both to Iustification and Sanctification 2. They say that as Paul takes the word Iustifying for remission and absolution before God so James takes it as oft as he requires here works to Iustifie for the declaration of the truth of our Faith and Iustification before men Yet let not this their distinction if it may fitly be so termed and exposition bee taken up unlesse it hath sufficient grounds from the Text to beare it up I shall begin first with the latter because Mr. Baxter there begins That Justification by works is by James understood the declaring us to man to have true Faith and to be Iustified by it they bring these reasons to prove 1 James himselfe even in expresse words affirming it ver 18 Shew me thy Faith without thy workes and I will shew thee my Faith by my works where he tels us that by Iustifying he means the shewing or declaring our Faith and Justification not to God but one to another And thus he denieth Faith which is not Shewed by works to Iustifie i. e. to Shew or declare us to men Iustified 2. ver 21 where he saith was not Abraham our Father justified by works when he had offered Isaack his Son upon the Altar doth he speake of Gods Iustifying Gen. 15. 6. him or declaring him to be justified unto men Not the former for God had justified him by Faith many yeares before and there was no diâ—uption according to Mr Baxters doctrine in the intervall by any apostacy made by Abraham that of justified he became unjustified and needed here to be justified anâ—w How then was hee justified by offering his Sonn Can there be any other way not repugnant to reason devised but this that God here by proving and bearing him up in so searching a proof and Temptation to shew so matchless an act of obedience did declare to the world that his Faith was in sincerity his feare and love unfained so that all must be restrayned from charging him with selfe respects and Hypocrisy in all the professions that he made towards God Or what less is to be drawn from those wordâ— from Heaven Gen 22 12. upon this act of Abrahams obedience Now I know that thou fearest God seeing thou hast not witheld thy Son thy onely Son from me Did not God know what was what himselfe had wrought in Abrahams hart before this tryall of him doth he need outward actions to manifest to him what is in the heart within M. B. so much cleavs to theÌ„ that make all things which God doth to flow from his prescience that he will not ungod God so much as to deny that he knew as perfectly before as after tryall Why saith he then now I know but to intimate that now he had given a strong evidence both to the present and future generations to know that God knew and therby to convince men of all ages that they also must know the truth of Abrahams Faith feare and justification 3. The same might bee said of Rahabs justification by workes in receiving the Messengers and letting them forth another way ver 25. Did such a work as this justifie her before God or obtain to her remission of sins and deliver her from everlasting vengeance when there cannot be the least probable conjecture that shee had then any Faith in Christ or had ever heard of a Christ to come Then let us disclaime that Fabulam de Christo as one of the Popes termed the Gospell Righteousness is by workes without Faith without Christ and Stapletons glosse â—apleton Anrid p. 82 83. upon Pauls Iustificamur fide i. e. non absque side we are justified by Faith i. e. not without Faith because Faith is necessary to justification though not without works sufficient to it must be rejected as too Evangelicall And then also how shal Mr Baxters Thesis not fal which makes workes collateralls with Faith in Christ to justification workes can do it without Christ But if all this intrench upon Blasphemy then was shee justified by workes to men to the Israelites who by this Act toward them had so farr evidenced her fidelity to them and their cause that thereupon shee was taken into Covenant with them delivered from the ruine which befell Iericho and after as it were adopted or naturallized into the Common-wealth of Israell Ye have one part of the exposition and the grounds of it which Mr Baxter concealed that the unwary reader might despise it as groundlesse Mr Baxter opposeth it tellâ— us it is false and it may appeare thus B. p. 294. The Worlds Iustification frees us but from the worlds Accusation to which it is opposed And therefore it is but either a Iustification from Mans Laws or else a particular Iustification of us in respect of some particular Facts or else an usurped Iudgement and sustification for they are not constituted our Iudges by God and therefore wee may say with Paul it is a small thing with me to be judged of you or of mans judgement And so a small thing to be justified by men from the accusations of the Law of God But the justification in James is of greater moment as appears in the Text. For 1. It is such as salvation dependeth on ver 14. 2. It is such as followeth only a saving Faith But the world may as well justifie us when we have no faith at all I therfore affirm 1. That the world is no lawfull judge of our righteousness before God c. 2. Nor a competent capable judge and cannot passe any certain true sentence c. 3. If they could yet works are no certain Medium or evidence wherby the world can know us to bee righteous For there is no outward work which an hypocrite may not perform and inward works they cannot discern c. So that if it bee not certain that the Text speaketh of justification before God I scarce know
From the attributes that he gives to the faith to which he denieth justification viz. a dead faith ver 17. 20. 26. A faith of Devils ver 19. But a dead and Devillish faith are not a true Gospel faith but at the best a figment and counterfeit thereof 4. From the similitude by which he illustrateth his disputation If a man in a pretence of charity speaks comfortable words to his hungry and naked brother Alas poor soul be cloathed be filled but ministreth nothing to him for his refreshing will any call that flourish of words true charity Is it any more then a paint therof So also of him that saith hee hath faith but evidenceth it not by its fruits c. The verball faith doth no more profit to justification than the verball charity to sanctification If one of these in the mind of the Author be true charity then according to the minde of the Author also the other is true Faith 5. From the object of that Faith which James excludeth from Iustification Mr. Baxter acknowledgeth that the object of justifying Faith is Christ Thes 66 -68 and their explication But let him shew that James doth here expresly or impliedly in any one passage of his dispute make Christ the object of that Faith which he excludes from justification or any other object than the Faith of a meer Heathen or Hypocrite may pitch upon viz. generall truths that there is a God c. else let him grant from his owne principles that it is not true Faith but an unprofitable Historicall Faith as some terme it which is here excluded Thus have our writers in answer to the Papists Cavills expressed the minde of James in this place or rather from him selfe declared what himselfe expresseth to be his minde and this they expresse not as Mr. Baxter perverts them by some one but by both of these interpretations viz. of the word justifying and the word Faith manifesting out of James himselfe that as oft as in this dispute he attributes justification to works he speaks of justification i e. the declaration or manifestation thereof to men As when vers 21 Abraham and ver 25. Rahab and ver 24. A man indefinitely are said to be justified by works he meanes they are so manifested and declared by their works to us This is a usuall phrase not only in Scripture but in our common expressions and our common talk I will justifie what I have spoken or done i. e. I will declare it make it appear to be all good true and just I will justifie him from all that is layd to his charge i. e. I will declare and prove him just and free from all that he is charged with Again where hee denieth justification to that dead faith that worketh not by love that by faith he means a false profession and counterfeit of and not the true justifying faith and who among us ever said that to say I have faith never expressing the power and fruits of it can justifie a man So there is nothing to be found in James crossing the Protestant yea Evangelicall and Apostolicall conclusion that we are justified in our consciences before God by faith alone without works i. e. by a living and working not a dead faith yet without works can we not be declared and manifested just unto men That which Mr. Br. hath spoken against the former part of this interpretation viz. justification before men we have found to be either less or worse than nothing To the other viz. the denying of justification to faith that is a counterfeit a false profession of faith hee saith nothing and why because hee hath not what to say Therfore he stifles it in darknes will not have his Reader hear of it for then actum est he must run to S. Francis or some other Saint S. James leaves him in the mire It is no lesse ludicrous than fallacious that he turns the state of the question another way and danceth round about it never comming to that which our Divines answer 1. Having devised pag. 294. that we say James speaks of works as justifying our faith not our persons he doth pa. 296. goe about to prove that works justifie the person not the faith only And who ever denied this position Doe not wee all say that the holy life declares the truth of faith and therin justifieth as to men the professor of it from all hypocrisie in making such a profession 2. pag. 297. he falls foul with the Ghost of sweet Mr. Pemble for saying that by Faith and works Iames understands a working Faith And after a sharp chiding without examining his Reasons the matter whereof I have before examined at length p. 298. fetching breath he offers him peace and friendship upon condition that he will arise from the grave say what Mr. Baxter saith But despairing of that and concluding if he should rise again from the dead he would still say with the Protestant Churches and Writers that Fides solùm justificat non autem fides sola Faith alone justifieth but not that Faith which is alone without works because that alone faith is not a true Faith he 3. Makes a transition to fall out with all Protestant Churches for attributing too much to Faith in making it instrumentall to Iustification that when Believers are said to receive Christ Io. 1. 12. and to receive abundance of Grace and of the gift of Righteousnesse Rom. 5. 17. wee will not say they receive this Christ this gift of his Righteousnesse to Iustification without any receiving instrument but make Faith the instrument by which we receive the same p. 299. A most pernicious Doctrine to Mr. Baxters Cause If it stand Mr. Baxters Iustification by workes in the same relation with Faith as its Concause must needs fall and tumble downe to hell for works will not be bowed into any instrumentality to co-operate with Faith in receiving Christ and his righteousness When contrariwise if we would say as he doth and which we must take his word without any further demonstration to bee true then in despite of Paul and the Holy Ghost our justification should be parted between faith and works and Mr. Brs. new Gospel stand the Gospel of Grace being wholly taken out of the way as unprofitable But in all that he saith hee diligently keeps off from speaking a word to what our Divines say in proving from James himselfe that he means not true faith when hee denies to the counterfeit or profession of it any efficacy to justifie and let the conscientious Reader judge whether he doth this in zeal for Christ or against him Let none except that possibly hee never read any of them that have thus expounded James What one of them hath he then read Nay I rather question what one of them hath he not read or with what one thing is he unacquainted that any of them hath written He is a stranger to Mr. Br. that will accuse him of little reading
dead from further labouring and moving to this end For what righteousness what works can bee sufficient to such an atchievement So obedience to the Faith is nipt in the very budde where there is a sense and conviction of a mans naughtiness and nothingness 3. By taking off the spirits of a Christians love joy and alacrity in beleeving and serving when a humble and selfe-denying soul is once choaked with Mr. Baxters Doctrine that all the benefit which he hath or can have by Christ is to be only a probationer for justification and life even to his dying day that till then hee is but conditionally pardoned and conditionally adopted that Gods love to him may be anon turned into hatred his sinnes againe imputed and himselfe hurried into hell That his safety still depends upon his own works righteousnes no peny no Pater noster that the grace of God is let to farme for fine and rent no one promise of the word in all this his Booke being alledged by Mr. Baxter which I can remember of any support which the beleever shall receive from God in the state of Grace but all Selfe doe and selfe have This Doctrine eyther benummeth and freezeth up all a poore Christians love and delight in serving God emasculating his spirits to obedience or reduceth him under a yoke of bondage making him to worke possibly but in feare not of love as under the rod or rather in the fire fearing death and hell all his life time And whether this bee saving in Mr. Baxters accompt obedience or disobedience let them that are spirituall judge 4. By turning the very obedience of his Disciples into disobedience and rebellion The best works done to be justified by them and for them are the greatest abhomination in Gods accompt his Grace and Salvation are either denied or refused when wee bring works to appropriate it to us Rom. 4. 4 5. what is righteousnesse in its matter is sin in its end Therefore shall wee finde still that whosoever are admitted to those that seek to ingratiate themselvs by their good works though done in Christs name are hurled off from Christ I am not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance I know you not depart from mee yee workers of iniquity More joy for one sinner that repenteth than for ninety nine just persons that need no repentance For a more full and satisfactory answer to the Argument contained in this Quere I leave the Reader to the perusing of the Protestant Divines that have written upon this Subject and abundantly refuted this calumny of the Papists what I have here said is rather an addition to them then a full answer to the Quere which I leave to be fetcht from them What he speakes in the Amplification of this Quere needeth no large examination First he grants That love and thankfulness should be enough to hold us to obedience and duty and will bee so when all our ends are attained in our ultimate end then wee shall act for these ends no more c. How untowardly doth this passage and and another passage of the former Quere hang together what he pronounceth here that love and thankfulnesse should be enough to hold us to duty without doing for justification and salvation and that which here should be and hereafter shall be our perfection the same he affirmes there if practiced will undoubtedly damne the Practicer So according to Mr. Baxter if a Christian endeavour sincerely to do what he should and to come as neere in this life as it is possible to the perfection which he shall enjoy in the future hee shall undoubtedly bee damned for it Who then goes about to drive obedience out of the world he or they whom he opposeth What use is to be made of the affections of feare desire hope and care to the attainment of our great ends hath been enough discussed in the examination of the former Quere and would be a meere Tautology here to do it againe Let it be proved once that God hath left Justification by workes to be a motive to obedience it shall be granted to bee a help to the destroying of Obedience to take downe this one Motive But if contrariwise Justification of sinners by Works and Morall Obedience bee erected not by God but by the Devill Mr. Baxters neither Sophistry nor Oratory shall induce us to leane upon the Devils crutch both to the forfeiting of our Justification and turning our Obedience into sin CHAP. XII Whether the doctrine of justification by Faith without workes be a soul-cozening doctrine or harden the people in a soul-cozening Faith what the doctrine of Faith which the Protestant Churches holde is and how farr from deserving this Calumny with something about the facility or difficulty to perswade the multitude to such a Faith HIs fourth Quere by which as by another Argument he goeth about to make odious and to destroy justification by Faith without works runs thus B. pag. 326. Doth it not much confirme the world in their soul cozening Faith surely that Faith which is by many thought to justifie is it that our people doe all most easily embrace that is the receiving of Christ for their Saviour and expecting pardon and salvation by him but not withall receiving him for their Lord and King nor delivering up themselves to be ruled by him I meet not with one but is resolved in such a Faith till it be overthrowne by teaching them better They would all trust Christ for the saving of their soules and that without dissembling for ought any man can discerne Are all these men justified c. A Chip of the same blocke with the former in the use of it Mr. Baxter as he hath learned of them from whom he hath received it levels against the very heart of Christ and his Gospell Had hee said with Iames that to say we have Faith and not to have workes is to cozen our souls I should have said with him But in that he speaketh not of a soul-cozening profession of Faith but layeth so horrid an imputation upon Faith it selfe this gives us cause to examine what Faith he meaneth that we may be able to discern whether that Faith or else Mr. Baxter by defaming it goe about to cozen our souls and so embrace the true friend and reject the Cheater This cozening Faith according to Mr. Baxter must needs bee that which squareth not in its nature and manner of justification with the justifying Faith viz. that Gospell Faith which neither as a deed and worke as a worke of Morall duty and worke of our owne righteousnesse of our perfect and meritorious righteousnesse doth begin and but begin to inright us to Christ and justification by him leaving to eyther vertues and works to perfect it but as an instrument ordeyned and given us of God by which we receive Christ alone offering up himselfe a sacrifice for us to bee cur whole righteousness to justification and that without
works are required to it viz. The fear of God hope in his mercy Love Repentance a desire to receive the Sacraments a purpose to lead a new life and keep the Commandements under this lâ—st speciall they comprize all good works whatsoever Nay so far are both parties from this Faith that Faith onely justifieth that Both teach we are justified by Works only For 5 We are justified by the Act of Faith which is a work and a Law so that if we are not justified by works Faith it self must be excluded from justifying Though we are not justified by any works i. e. by any works of the Law yet by a work of the Gospel such as Faith is we may be justified 6 Our Adversaries i. e. the Protestants consent together in this that good works are not necessary to salvation otherwise than by the necessity of their presence but that they have not any relation to salvation as merits or causes or conditions thereof c. We contrariwise say that good works are necessary to a righteous man unto salvation by way of causality or efficiency because they effect or work salvation 7 When the Apostle saith we are justified by Faith and not by Works there is to be understood a Synecdoche in the words of Paul that when he saith we are justified by Faith hee meaneth not without works but by Faith and works together so that Faith is put for Faith works of Faith 8 The good works of justified men which effect their Justification are absolutely just and in their Mode or manner perfect 9 So the perfection of our righteousnes and Justification is not from Faith but from works For Faith doth but begin Justification and afterward it hath assumed to it self Hope and Charity it doth by these perfect it 10 Good works merit without all doubt yet not by any intrinsecall vertue and worth in themselves but by vertue of Gods promise A promise made with a condition of work brings to pass that he which performs the work is said to have merited the thing promised and may challenge the reward as his debt in Law 11 The Hereticks teach that it is unpossible for a righteous man to fullfill Gods Law The Catholicks teach that it is absolutely possible for a righteous man to fullfill it by the help of Gods Grace and Spirit of Faith and Charity infused into them in their Justification 12 The contrary doctrine which denyeth Justification by works and the Merit of works is a pernicious doctrine an enemy to all good endeavours good works invites all to a licentiousness of sinning and to transgress without fear or shame what evil will he fear or what good will he not despise who thinks faith alone sufficient to righteousness 13 Though a man hath received the infusion of grace and the Spirit of Faith and Charity and is now justified yet he is under the penalty and curse of the Law still For Christ hath given and God hath taken satisfaction onely for the fault but not for the punishment so that when God hath fully pardoned the fault he may and will inflict the punishment upon the offender 14 Yea this punishment remains upon the Justified both inlife and death and after death in Purgatory 15 For the Righteous or Justified man is so under the obligation of Gods Law that except he shall fullfill it he shall not be saved 16 Because our Justification being still conditionall even after we are Justified may be somtimes lost somtimes reteined now had and then lost and after recovered yea and lost again as we do hinder or not hinder the Grace of God 17 No man can be assured of his eternall Election that he is ordeined of God to life or of his perseverance in grace to the end and consequently not of his salvation For the Scripture in express words teacheth that Salvation depends of the condition of works But no man can certainly conclude that he shall do much less persevere to do all that Christ hath Commanded 18 It cannot be that the Righteousness of Christ be imputed to us in that sense that by it we may be called and be formally righteous although it be true that Christs merits be imputed to us because God hath made them ours by donation and we may offer them to God the Father for our sinns because Christ hath taken upon him the burthen of making satisfaction for us and of reconciling us to God the Father yet the denomination of righteous persons is from the intrinsecall righteousnes in themselves 19 Though we are justified by the works which the Law commandeth yet are we not justified by them as they are works of the Law but as they are Evangelicall and works of the Gospel done in the strength of Christ and by the power of renewing grace powred upon the Elect by Christ under the Gospel 20 Love or Charity is the form of Justifying Faith so that when faith doth Justifie it justifieth by charity as its form which gives it its life and motion so that if Faith justifieth love justifieth either in an equality with it or more than it 21 Justifying Faith consisteth in the Assent of the judgement to all things which are written in the word of God No other faith is required of any But an implicit Faith is sufficient in the Laity and ignorant which are not acquainted with the Scriptures in whom it is enough to beleeve as the Church beleeveth i. e. as their Clergy teacheth and beleeveth though they do not explicitly and in particulars know what the Church beleeveth BAXTER JVstification is two-fold either in Trident. Conc. Sess 6. c. 6 7 8. Tilet in Apol p. 237. in defeÌ„s Trid. Conc. adversus ChemnitiuÌ„ part 1. title of Law or in sentence of Judgment In this later having out-runn the Papists to meet with them again he looks back to the former and makes it two-fold thus Justification in title of Law is to be considered either in its first point possession or in its after continuance and accomplishment The later he makes entire consequently in the way of opposition there used the former to be put in part Aph. p. 302. 311. The first point and possession of Justification I acknowledg to be by faith alone without either the concomitancy or co-operation of works Iidem Ibid. for they cannot be performed in an instant But the continuance and accomplishment of Justification is not without the joynt procurement of obedience Aphor. p. 302. The righteousness of the New Covenant i. e. in his sense faith and works is the only condition of our interest in and enjoyment of Bel. l. 1. de purg cap 14 Sect. 4. Ratio 4. Bell. lib. 4. de Just c. 2. the Old i. e. of the righteousness of Christ to justification Both these righteousnesses are absolutely necessary to salvation Aph. Thes 17. 19. 60. and from thence every where untill the very end of his Book The bare Act of beleeving is
required to justification Or Mr. Br. that without craving leave of Paul by such gross distinetions goes about to make him unsay what he hath said and the world to believe that in all what he wrote of Justification hee meant to be understood on the contrary to what hee speaketh 6. If we bring works at all to procure justification by Christ we do by evacuating the grace of God and merits of Christ to our selves oblige put a bondage upon our selvet to fulfil the whole Law legally in its perfection else can we never be justified but abide under the Curse for ever For he that worketh requireth the reward as a debt in law and not as a gift of grace therefore except his work be so perfect as that it can in strict justice save him hee can never attain salvation as by comparing together these Scriptures will be evident viz. Gal. 5. 3 4. 3. 10. Rom. 4. 4 5. 9. 30 31 32. 7. As to the rules or qualifications which he gives to covenanting and obedience that it may be sincere they are in substance meerly legal the Name of Christ being only put in stead of the Name of God And who is there not only of the Jesuits Socinians with the Arminians from whom he borroweth most of his principles but even of the reall Antinomians whom he pretends to oppose who in all those particulars thinks not himself or gives not cause to all to think them as sincere as Mr. Br what ground have we to conclude but that they know the ends nature and conditions of the Covenant so truly and obey with so much deliberation and as little fittishness and rashness so seriously without dissimulation and slightness so freely intirely and singly aâ— Mr. Br. doth Thus every stigmatized Heretick in his own way bringing with him such a sincerity of obedience shall thereby be possessed of the investiture of Christs righteousness though he seek it in his own not in Gods way by his own righteousness and not by Faith alone which alone God hath stamped with an aptitude and efficacy to this work B. 2. The Law saith he requireth obedience and doing by its own righteousness to justifie us but the Gospel requireth it as a Medium to acquire to us Christs Righteousness by which wee may be justified So that the one requires works to justifie us withoutt the other the same works to justifie us by a Mediator This he saith so frequently in substance that it were lost labour to quote the places And it hath been almost so oft answered as said Therefore I shall referr the Reader to the places where it hath been answered and specially to the examination of those his disputes in which he labours to cleer his doctrine from all tincture of Popery from all contradiction to Paul and from being derogatory to Christ his righteousnes Here only I add that this doctrine is the same with that of the most legal Pharisees against whom the Apostle so much inveigheth wishing them accursed cut off for troubling the Churches therwith Gal. 1 9. 5. 12. For they arrogated to themselves alone part in Christ his Righteousnes because of their own personall righteousness in the works and obedience which the Law requireth resisting the Gentiles denying to them all possibility to partake in the Justification which is by Christ by means of Faith alone except they also fulfilled the righteousnesse which the Law required to give them right to him and it Yea Mr. Br. with these ascribes more to works than the very unbeleeving Pharisees For these claymed Justification only by their works but he and the beleeving Pharisees challenged for their works right both in the Justifier and in his justification also For Causa causae est etiam causa causati As farr as they ascribe to their works a Causality to make Christ theirs they make them causal to render the Justification which is by Christ theirs also B. 3. That neither is his Doctrine legall nor doth he ascribe too much to works because he maketh Faith and obedience to be but a Condition or a Mâ—dium or a poor improper Causa sine qua non of our Justification Aph. pa. 223 224. and our doing no part of satisfaction for our unrighteousness for this hee seems to have ascribed before to our sufferings in bearing the Curse but to be our Gospel-Righteousness or the Condition of our participation in Christ who is our legall Righteousness so of all the benefits that come by him App. p. 78. I say that subjection and obedience justifie 1 Not as works simply considered 2 Nor as legall works 3 Nor as meritorious workes 4 Nor as good works which God is pleased with 5 But as Conditions to which the free Law giver hath promised Justification and life Nay your i. e. the Protestants doctrine ascribeth farr more of the work to man than mine For you make Justification an effect of your own Faith and your faith an instrumentall cause of it and so make your self your own Justifier And you say your faith justifieth as it apprehendeth Christ which is the most intrinsicall essentiall consideration of Faith so faith hath much of the Honour But while I affirm that it justifieth only as a condition which is an extrinsicall consideration and alien from its essence and Nature I give the glory to him that freely giveth mee life and that made so sweet a condition to his Covenant and that enableth me to perform the said Condition App. pag. 120 121. All this hath been oft and fully examined before in its place also and how little truth there is in any part or parcell thereof discovered It would be weariness to the flesh and vexation to the Spirit but to look so often upon his great Goddess his Queen of Heaven CONDITION as he blesseth her O that his conscience had been so well acquainted with Christ as his fancy is with this Idoll he would not then have pestered the Church with such an imaginary Deity nor prostituted all that is called God at the feet of such a Proserpina I am weary any more to attend to him making the will of God i. e. God willing conditional and so the immutable God a conditional God the salvation of Christ conditional so Christ a conditional Saviour or the witness seal of Christ a conditional seal and witness and so the Holy Ghost a conditional Spirit of Adoption or the gospel of righteousness forgiveness and life a conditional Gospel and consequently nulling all thâ—se and pronouncing them no God no Christ no Holy Ghost no Gospel For a conditional proposition doth Nihil ponere and after Mr Brs. principles it is in mans righteosness to give or destroy the actual existence of every of these But I leave to him that delights therein to bury himself in this guâ—ph I conceive my self obnoxious to censure for spending and spilling so many words already to shew the deformity and
Gospel Condition and necessary Antecedents to be really but a Cloke to hide his diminution of Christ and exaltation of sinfull man A Syrens song to draw poor souls to dash against the Rocks and be drowned in the gulph Why had he not made our works conjunctly vvith Christs satisfaction in his Thes 56. the procatarctick and meritorious cause of our Justification as well as he doth the satisfaction of Christ conjunctly with our Faith or obedience in the same Thesis the Causa ssne qua non thereof Had he so done could he have ascribed more to vvorks under the name of a Meritorious cause then he doth under the title of a poor improper Causa sine qua non But by so doing he should have shewed himself in the light when contrariwise he that doth evill hateth the light neither cometh to the light lest his deeds should be reproved Let now any of his Disciples produce I will not say one Arminian but one Socinian Papist yea or Jew that ascribes more to works then this man in derogation from Christ and Grace else let him cease to be a follower of him or openly and ingenuously profess that he followeth him as a Jew Papist or Socinian and consequently that he hath made not Mr. Br. but Mr Brs Masters his Master also in the doctrine of Justification And that in advancing self so high as to affirm he meriteth no less fully and properly then Christ himself hath or could have done For his merits are in order to Gods ordinate not naturall justice But to shew the vanity of his distinction here how carelesly he eludeth the holy Scriptures as meer shaddows and play-games the Apostle denyeth man in this or that or in any sense to be justified by works He saith not Not by works as the efficient or meritorious cause or as the Medium or Antecedent or Condition or Causa sine quâ— non lest any man should boast but positively and peremptorily not by Works as by Faith yea not by works in any acceptation upon any score and accompt Mr. Brs chippings therfore have no more force then a chip to make the Holy Ghost to unsay what he hath said And it is as good sense as if I should say Mans bread doth not apparrell him as it is the maker or matter or instrument or merit of his clothing but as it is the antecedent or medium or condition or Causa sine qua non of his apparrelling when contrariwise it doth not at all in any sense apparrell him CHAP. XXIV Mr. Baxters Sophism to prove that his Doctrine of Justification by Works doth not at all derogate from the Doctrine of Faith examined and found to be meer vanity BEcause the Scripture attributeth Justification to Faith without works and to Faith in opposition to works excluding works and requiring Faith alone to apprehend the Righteousnesse which is by Christ and denominating it the Righteousnesse of Faith Rom. 4. 11. The Righteousnesse which is of Faith Rom. 9. 30. 10. 6. in opposition to the Righteousnesse of works He easily seeth that he shall be excepted against for his antiscripturall doctrine in making Faith and works Concomitants in the same kind of causality and procurement of Justification Therefore he makes it his sixth task to vindicate this his doctrine from all derogation from Faith and from all unscripturall confounding of Faith and works together To prove himself as innocent in this as in all the rest he brings these Reasons B. Thes 62. 1 Because though he makes Works and Faith to be the Conditions of our Justification yet according to Scripture phrase Faith may be called the onely Condition of the New Covenant 1 Because it is the principall Condition and works but the lesse principall And so as a whole Countrey hath oft its name from the chief City so may the Conditions of this Covenant from Faith 2 Because all the rest are reducible to it Either being presupposed as necessary Antecedents or means or conteined in it as its parts properties or modifications or else implyed as its immediate products or necessary subservient means or consequents All without Book one of Mr Brs Mysticks that hath no one sound of Gods word patronizing or favouring it Witnesse Mr. Br. who neither in his Thesis nor in its Explication hath alledged one Scripture to make it good Is Pythagoras come among us in a new body speaking nothing but Parables and Paradoxes which vulgar capacities can no more comprehend then they can Plato's Idea's or Democritus his Atomes If so it shall be needfull for him to injoin upon his Schollars as he did of old five years dumbnesse or silence Els if the mouth of a very Asse should be open it would rebuke the madnesse of the Prophet for delivering things so contradictive to the word to himself and to reason 1 To the word and the Holy Ghost speaking by it who every where opposeth Faith and works as to Justification making them to exclude not to infer or imply either the other By faith therefore not at all by works not by works therefore by faith alone But this man puts them in a conjunction makes Faith and works together the Condition of our justification from thence to conclude that Faith is the onely Condition and justifieth alone So much a greater Artist is Mr. Br. then the Holy Ghost and so ambitious of the praise of wisedome that he thinks himself to be but a vulgar idiot if his wisdom be not stretched Nine whole words by measure beyond and above the wisedom of the Holy Ghost 2 Contradictive to himself For Aph. p. 300. He denyeth that which he calleth an idle Concomitacny of works with Faith that they onely stand by while Faith doth all and concludes that they act together with faith in the same kind of causality to procure Justification and so denyeth that we are justified by Faith onely Here contrariwise he denyeth all such co-working of works with Faith but that faith may be said to be the onely Condition and to justifie onely 3 Contradictive to reason also and yet this next to Condition he seems to honour as the greatest God it must be to the Goats and sheep of the mountains not to Christs sheep to men that have reason that Mr. Br. must deliver this doctrine That we are justified not by faith alone but by works also yet it stands nevertheles as a firm Maxim faith is the onely condition or justifieth alone If the lips were shut and sealed up yet reason would use a ventriloquy or force a way thorow the ears to reclaim against such an absurdity If I should so reason of Condemnation the contrary to Justification that when the blind lead the blind and both fall into the ditch when seducers pervert those that are made to be taken and destroyed and so all utterly perish and are damned That tho all are damned yet it is but the leader and seducer alone that is damned he for all that he hath