extend to the Justification must extend to if perfect § 41. But no man is perfectly and absolutely just or justifiable For instance 1. If we be accused to have sinned we cannot be justified directly against this Accusation but must plead guilty by Confession For factum non potest fieri infectum and that Fact will for ever be culpable Adam did sin will for ever be a true assertion The Guilt of fact or fault is never done away in it self that it was really a fault and that we really did it will be an everlasting Truth Of which more afterward § 41. 2. If the Accusation be That in Adam we deserved Death it must be confessed Yea temporal Death and correcting Punishments are not only deserved but inflicted and not pardoned nor we justifiable herein § 42. 3. If the Accusation be that we deserved to have Abatements of Grace With-holdings of the Spirit and abatement of what Glory we might else have had all this must be confessed § 43. 4. Yea if it be said That our Sin primo instanti deserved Hell it must be confessed and against all this there is no direct Justification § 44. But against these Accusations we must be justified 1. If it be said that we are of Right to be damned or have no Right to Heaven but to Hell this must be denied And we must be justified by these several Causes 1. Because God's Iustice and the Ends of the violated Law are satisfied by Christ and by his Righteousness a free Gift of Pardon and Life are merited for us 2. And this free donation is the Law that we are to be judged by which giveth us Christ to be our Head and Pardon and Life with him § 45. 2. If it be said That we are Unbelievers impenitent or unholy and did not fulfill the Conditions of the Covenant of Grace we must deny it and be justified against this by our Faith Repentance and Holiness it self or else we must be condemned and perish for nothing else will do it § 46. And seeing it will be the work of the day to judge men as performers or non-performers of the said Conditions of the Law of Grace therefore it is that the Scripture speaketh so much of inherent or performed Righteousness and of Christ's judging men according to their works that is their works which are the performance of that Condition § 47. To be judged according to our Works is to be justified or condemned according to our Works For to be judged is the genus and to be justified or condemned are the species Iudging is justifying or condemning § 48. While all are agreed that all men shall be justified or condemned according to their Works it is unreasonable to quarrel at that height that many do about the syllable BY whether men be justified and condemned by their works as if according to them and by them had a different sence when as to judicial justification the sence is the very same though as to the making of men just the sence may differ § 49. We are commonly agreed that no man is justified by Works in any of these following sences 1. No man is justified either constitutively or judiciarily by his Works done according to the Law of Innocency that is by perfect personal Obedience and Love because we have it not 2. No man is justified constitutively or judiciarily by his Works done according to the Mosaical Iewish Law as such 3. Much less by any Works of his own or other mens invention which he accounteth good and are not so 4. No man is justified by any Works set in opposition to or competition or co-ordination with Christ but only in subordination to him and his Righteousness by which we are redeemed and for which we are all first conditionally pardoned and justified by the Law of Grace 5. No man could be justified by his Gospel-Obedience or his Faith if he were to be judged by the Law of Innocency as not redeemed 6. No man's Faith or Obedience will justifie him in Judgment against this accusation Thou art a Sinner or this Thy sin deserved Death Nor as one that hath fulfilled all the preceptive part of the law of Christ. 7. No Works do justifie us as meriting Life of God in proper commutative Justice 8. No man is justified by Tasks of working as contradistinct from believing and trusting on Free Grace or by external works without Christ's Spirit and spiritual Evangelical Duties 9. No good Work or Act of Man was a Condition of God's giving us a Redeemer or giving us a conditional justifying Law of Grace 10. Man's true Faith and Repentance is not before the Grace which worketh it and therefore is no Condition of that Grace 11. Man's antecedent common Works while he is impenitent merit not properly the special Grace which causeth Faith and Repentance 12. We have no Works that are acceptable to God but what are the fruits of his Spirit and Grace § 50. And on the other side we are agreed 1. That we are justified by the Works of Christ as the Meritorious Cause of our Justification 2. That the Justification purchased and given us by Christ is given us by a Law or Covenant of Grace which giveth as God's Instrument Right to Impunity and to Life to all true penitent Believers And therefore he that is justified according to this Law of Grace from the charge of Impenitence and Unbelief must be justified by his Repentance and Faith materially as being the Righteousness in question as is aforesaid 3. That without Holiness none shall see God And if any be accused as unholy and on that account no Member of Christ or Child of God or Heir of Heaven his Holiness must be the matter of his Justification 4. That though our Faith Repentance and Holiness be no universal absolute Righteousness yet they are that on which the judiciary Scrutiny must pass and which will be the question of the great day on which our Life or Death will depend as on the Condition or moral Qualification of the Receiver 5. That in this sence all men shall be judged by Justification or Condemnation according to their Works or what they have done that is as they have performed or not performed the Conditions of that Law of Grace which they were under as aforesaid 6. That therefore they that will be justified at last must trust in Christ that redeemed them and be careful to perform the Conditions of his Law of Grace and both must concurr 7. That that which is the Righteousness which must justifie us in Judgment is the same that must now constitute us just 8. That when our Right to Salvation is the thing in question to be judged that which justifieth our Right to Salvation justifieth the Person as to that Right and so far the same thing is the Condition of our Right to Salvation and to our Justification 9. And if any with Augustine will mean by Iustification God 's making us such
Flesh and the Devil and take God and Glory for thy all § 18. Christ's own righteousness being not essentially given to us in it self but given for us and to us in the Effects to say That the receiving of that which is not given is the only justifying act of Faith is to say That we are not justified by Faith at all But if they mean the Effects of Christ's Righteousness then it is but to say We are justified by no act of Faith but by consenting to be justified by Christ's Merits Which is not true § 19. They contradict themselves that make Christ's Priestly Office the only Object of Justifying Faith and yet make his whole Righteousness and Merit that Object For who knoweth not that all Christ's Righteousness was not performed by him only as Priest § 20. And Christ's Priesthood hath many other actions belonging to it besides his Merits offered for us Even his present Intercession Which must be excluded if Christ's Righteousness here as under the Law were the only Object of this Faith § 21. II. The second Question I had never troubled the World about so much as I have done had I not found too many Protestants scandalize the Papists by laying too much on the Nation of Instrumentality ill explained But the judicious are here all in sence of the same mind § 22. For by an Instrument they mean not 1. an instrumental efficient Cause of Justification 2. Nor of making Christ's Righteousness ours For we give it not to our selves 3. But they take the word Instrument mechanically or less accurately and tell us that they mean a receiving Instrument as a Boy catcheth a Ball in his Hat But so as that it is a moral Instrument that is both materially a moral act and the Instrument of a moral not physical reception § 23. But when they have all done they do but entangle and trouble themselves and others with an unapt Logical notion For as it is so easie to confute the gross Conceit That Faith is an instrumental efficient Cause either God's or Man's of our Justification which I have done so oft that I will here pretermit it so this Notion of a Passive Instrument is unapt because 1. The Act of Assent is essential to this justifying Faith as well as Acceptance and so is Trust which yet are no more Instrumental in reception than many other Acts even Love Desire Hope 2. Because our Consent to other things as well as to be justified and our Faith in God the Father are as truly the Condition of our Iustification as our Consent to be justified 3. And because this Metaphorical use of the Word Instrument leadeth people to dream of proper Instrumentality and misleadeth them from the apter Notions The Covenant-Donation is the justifying Instrument § 24. I conclude therefore summarily 1. Faith as Faith in the Father Son and Holy Ghost in the Sence of the Baptismal Covenant is the apt Matter to be the Condition of our Justification by the Gift of that Covenant 2. If Justification be taken for making us just Performers of the Conditions of the Covenant of Grace so Faith justifieth us 1. Constitutively initially as it is the beginning of that Righteousness it self 2. And by a moral efficiency as it is a cause of Love and Obedience 3. If Justification be taken for the Gift or right to Impunity and Life in and with Christ so Faith is the Condition of it and no otherwise justifieth 4. But if any will call this by the name of a Submerit with the Ancients meaning but that it meriteth Justification as a Child meriteth a piece of Gold from his Father by putting off his Hat and saying I thank you and humbly taking it instead of scornful or neglectful refusing it I will not quarrel with any such § 25. But remember that as wise men seldom make any thing a Condition of a gift which hath no worth in it to please them so God saw and put such a worth or aptitude in Faith or else he had not so much as commanded it § 26. But yet a Condition simply as such signifieth neither Merit nor Causality at all but only the terms on which the gift shall be suspended till they be performed And so the performance of a Condition as such is no efficien 〈…〉 of the gift but a removing of the suspending impediment § 27. Therefore Dr. Twisse oft calleth Faith Causam dispositivam justificationis which belongeth not to the efficient but material or recipient Cause and the true Legal Notion of its next Interest in our Justification is its being Conditio praestita and the true Logical Notion is to be Dispositio moralis materiae sive subjecti recipientis call it Causam vel Conditionem dispositivam as you please And I think this Question needs no more § 28. III. As to the third Question the truth is obvious That Christ's righteousness is imputed and yet Faith is imputed to us for righteousness in several Sences that is each is reputed to be to us what indeed it is Two things make up the Sence of Faith's being imputed to us for righteousness 1. Faith is really the Condition of the Covenant of Grace which whoso performeth he is righteous against the Charge of Non-performance of that Condition and it is reputed our subordinate Evangelical personal righteousness 2. And supposing Christ's Merits and our Redemption by him this Gospel-righteousness is all that is required of us on our parts instead of all that perfect Obedience which the Law of Innocency required So that our Faith taken in the Scripture-sence is our real righteousness related to the Condition of the New Covenant and instead of a more perfect righteousness of Innocency forasmuch as after Christ's Redemption is required to be performed by our selves § 29. This no Christians that are sober can deny as to the thing And as to the Name it is plain to the impartial that will see that Paul Rom. 4. 22 23 24. and Iam. 2. 23. by Faith means Faith it self indeed and not only Christ the Object of Faith as some affirm with too great Scandal read over the Texts and try what Sence it will be if you put Christ instead of Faith § 30. Obj. But it is not Faith in and of it self that 's meant but as connoting the Object Ans. The latter clause is true it is Faith as connoting the Object Christ But the former is a contradiction For Faith it self essentially connoteth the Object If you speak not of Faith in genere for it is not any kind of Faith that is our righteousness but of the Christian or New Covenant Faith in specie who knoweth not that the Object specifieth it And therefore if it be Christian faith as connoting the Object it is Christian faith as Christian faith § 31. But will any sober Christian deny that 〈…〉 ur righteousness in one sence and Faith 〈…〉 inate 〈…〉 in another and that both are accord 〈…〉 ed to us
out of their Churches which should be the Porch of Heaven is the way to be shut out themselves of the heavenly Jerusalem If those that have long reproached me as unfit to be in their Church and said ex uno disce omnes with their Leader find any unsound or unprofitable Doctrine here I shall take it for a great favour to be confuted even for the good of others excluded with me when I am dead Jan. 21. 1691. Richard Baxter THE CONTENTS Chap. 1. HOW to conceive of GOD. Pag. i. Chap. 2. How to conceive of the Trinity in Unity p. vii Chap. 3. How to conceive of the Hypostatical Union and Incarnation p. xxiii Chap. 4. How to conceive of the Diversity of God's Transient Operations p. xxx Chap. 5. Whether any point of Faith be above 〈◊〉 contrary to Reason p. xxxii Chap. I. Prefatory Who must be the Iudge of Controversies The true Causes of the Divisions of Christians about Religion p. 1◠Chap. 2. The Doctrines enumerated about which they chiefly disagree p. 22 Chap. III. Of God's Will and Decrees in general Th. Terms and several Cases opened p. 2◠Chap. IV. Of God's Knowledge and the Differenc◠about it p. 4◠Chap. V. Of Election and the Order of Intentio◠and Execution p. 3◠Chap. VI. Of Reprobation or the Decree of Damnation the Objects and their Order p. 4◠An Answer to Mr. Polhill of Futurition p. 4◠Chap. VII Of God's Providence and predetermining Premotion Of Durandus's way p. 7◠Chap. VIII Of the Cause of Sin What God doth and doth not about it p. 82 Chap. IX Of Natural Power and Free-will p. 89 Chap. X. Of Original Sin as from Adam and nearer Parents p. 94 Chap. XI Of our Redemption by Christ what it doth how necessary p. 89 Chap. XII Of the several Laws and Covenants of God p. 99 Sect. 1. Of the Law or Covenant of Innocency made to Adam Divers Cases p. 113 Sect. 2. Of the Law of Mediation or Covenant with Christ When and what it was p. 121 Sect. 3. Of the Law or Covenant of Grace in the first edition What it was p. 126 Sect. 4. Of the same Law with Abraham's Covenant of Peculiarity and the Mosaical Iewish Law of Works p. 132 Sect. 5. Of the Law or Covenant of Grace in the last edition the Gospel Divers Cases about it opened p. 138 Chap. XIII Of the universality and sufficiency of Grace What Grace is How far universal and sufficient p. 154 Chap. XIV Of Man's Power and Free-will since the Fall Adrian's Saying That an unjustified man may love or chuse God's Being before his own What to ascribe to Grace and what to Free-will in good p. 173 Chap. XV. Of Effectual Grace and how God giveth it Doubts resolved p. 181 Chap. XVI Of the state of Heathens and such others as have not the Gospel What Law the Heathen World is under and to be judged by Whether any of them are justified or saved The Heathens were the Corrupters of the old Religion and the Jews of the Reformed Church Mal. 1. 14 15. and Sodom's Case c. considered p. 188 Chap. XVII Of the necessity of Holiness and of Moral Virtue p. 203 Chap. XVIII Of the necessity of Faith in Christ where the Gospel is made known p. 212 Chap. XIX Of the state of Infants as to Salvation and Church-membership p. 216 Chap. XX. Of the nature of saving-Saving-Faith its Description and Causes p. 226 Chap. XXI Of justifying Righteousness Iustification and Pardon The several sences of the words and several sorts of them Our common Agreement about them p. 238 Chap. XXII Of the Imputation of Righteousness Christ's righteousness in what sence ours and imputed and in what sence not p. 256 Chap. XXIII How Faith justifieth and how it is imputed for Righteousness Several questions about it Repentance c. resolved p. 267 Chap. XXIV Of Assurance of our Iustification and of Hope What Assurance is desirable What attainable What Assurance we actually have Who have it The nature and grounds of it Whether it be Divine Faith p. 279 Chap. XXV Of Good works and Merit And whether we may trust to any thing of our own 1. What are Good Works 2. Whether they are necessary to our Iustification or Salvation 3. Whether they are rewardable or meritorious 4. What is their place use and necessity 5. Whether to be trusted to p. 282 Chap. XXVI Of Confirmation Perseverance and danger of falling away 1. Whether all Grace given by Christ be such as is never lost 2. Whether that degree be ever lost which to Infants or Adult giveth but the posse credere 3. Whether any lose actual justifying Faith 4. Or the Habit of Divine Love and Holiness 5. Whether some degree of this may be lost 6. If Holiness be not actually lost is the loss possible 7. Whether there be a state of Confirmation above the lowest Holiness which secureth Perseverance 8. Or doth Perseverance depend only on Election and God's Will 9. Whether all most or many Christians are themselves certain of their Perseverance 10. I◠such Certainty fit for all the justified 11. Is it unfit for all and doubting a more safe condition 12. Doth the Comfort of most Christians rest upon the Doctrine of Certainty to persevere 13. Doth the Doctrine of eventual Apostasie inferr Mutability in God 14. Why God hath left the point so dark 15. What was the Iudgment of the ancient Churches herein 16. Is it of such weight as to be necessary to our Church-Communion Love and Concord p. 300 Chap. XXVII Of Repentance late Repentance the time of Grace and the unpardonable sin p. 314 BOOKS Printed for and Sold by Iohn Salusbury at the Rising Sun in Cornhil A Rational Defence of Nonconformity wherein the Practice of Nonconformists is vindicated from promoting Popery and ruining the Church imputed to them by Dr. Stillingfleet Bishop of Worcester in his Unreasonableness of Separation Also his Arguments from the Principles and Way of the Reformers and first Dissenters are answered And the case of the present Separation truly stated and the blame of it laid where it ought to be and the way to Union among Protestants is pointed at By Gilbert Rule D. D. The Christian Laver Being two Sermons on John 13. 8. opening the nature of Participation with and demonstrating the necessity of Purification by Christ. By T. Cruso Six Sermons on various occasions By T. Cruso in 4◠The Conformists Sayings or the Opinion and Arguments of Kings Bishops and several Divines assembled in Convocation A new Survey of the Book of Common-Prayer An END of Doctrinal Controversies c. CHAP. 1. How we may and must conceive of GOD. § 1. A True Knowledge of God is necessary to the Being of Religion and to Holiness and Glory No man can love obey trust or hope beyond his knowledge Nothing is so certainly known as God and yet nothing so defectively known Like our Knowledge of the Sun of which no man doubteth
of his own proper Law or Covenant of Mediation which is materially 1. His habitual 2. and actual Perfection in Resignation Obedience and Love 3. and therein his Humiliation and offering himself a Sacrifice for sin 4. And all this exalted to acceptable Dignity by the Conjunction of the Divine Perfection § 23. The Donative Covenant of Grace to Man being but a meer Instrument of Donation and Condonation that which procured it is the procuring Cause of Pardon and Life that is Christ's meritorious Righteousness § 24. Though this Covenant pardon and justifie no man till he perform the Condition and be a capable Subject by that moral Disposition yet when that Condition is performed its performance maketh us but meet Recipients and it is still the meritorious Righteousness of Christ for which we have the free gift of Pardon and Life for the performance of the Condition doth but remove the receptive Incapacity of the Patient and the suspension of the Donation § 25. Iustification signifieth 1. making us righteous and judicially justifiable 2. Iudicial Justification 1. By Plea 2. By Evidence and Witness 3. By Sentence 3. Using us as Righteous by Execution Or 1. Constitutive 2. Iudicial and 3. Executive Iustification § 26. No man of common Understanding will deny the real difference of these three And if the Name only be questioned no man will reasonably deny That in humane use the name is accordingly applicable to each And that use of it is easily proved also in the Scripture 1 Cor. 6. 11. Tit. 3. 7. Rev. 22. 11. c. And the word Righteous and Righteousness is so frequently used in Scripture for that called Inherent or Self-performed Righteousness incomparably oster than in any other Sence as will help to inform us what Constitutive Iustification is And if any dislike the Name let them call it Making us righteous if that will please them better than the word justifying § 27. Constitutive Iustification is ever first God never judged a man righteous that was not righteous § 28. No man on earth is righteous by the Condition or by the rewarding Part of the Law of Innocency Not by the Condition as performed for that Condition is perfect perpetual personal Innocency which no man hath nor is any righteous in conformity to the Precept unless secundum quid as a damnable Sinner's less unrighteousness may be called Righteousness Nor is any one justified by the Retributive or Promissory part of that Law because perfect Innocency is its Condition § 29. Though that Law perfectly justifie Christ who perfectly fulfilled it we are not therefore righteous in the sence of that Law or justified by it because Christ fulfilled it of which more anon Because the sence of the Law was not Thou shalt obey or another for thâ—e It never mentioned a vicarious Obedience But thou thy self shalt perfectly obey § 30. We are justified from or against the curse of that first Law by deliverance or grace but it is by a Redeemer and not by that Law § 31. The Causes of our whole Iustification whose parts were before-mentioned are these 1. The constitutive Causes called Material and Formal are before opened being divers in their divers parts In brief our Righteousness now is our Interest in the meritorious Righteousness of Christ and our own performing of the Conditions of that Interest or of the New Covenant by his Grace and thereupon our Right to Impunity and Life or to Salvation from destructive Punishment and to Glory 2. The efficient Causes are 1. Principal God 2. Mediatory and meritorious Christ and his Righteousness 3. Instrumental as to our jus ad impunitatem gloriam the Condonative and Donative Covenant 4. The material Dispositio receptiva of this Right is our Faith and Repentance or performance of the Covenant's Condition hereof 5. The principal Cause of this Faith or Disposition is the Holy Ghost 6. The instrumental is the Word 7. The mediate Agent is Man § 32. That Justification which consisteth in our jus impunitatis quoad poenam damni sensus our right to impunity as to Loss and Sense is the same thing with Pardon of sin whether you take both actively or passively § 33. Obj. If the Law of Innocency as a Covenant ceased upon Adam's Fall no man but he and Eve was ever under it And if so they deserved not Damnation for any Sin but final Unbelief and Impenitency according to the Law of Grace And if so no such desert is forgiven them by Christ. § 34. Ans. The Law of Grace taketh in the Law of Nature naturae lapsae though not on the Terms of the first Covenant as it was naturae integrae for preservation of Innocency And still all that God commandeth is our Duty and all that he forbiddeth is Sin and every sin deserveth death in the nature of it for it cannot be Sin and not deserve Punishment but the difference is That under the Law of Innocency it was Desert unremedied but now it is Desert with present Remedy or an affixed Pardon to every penitent Believer So much of the Law of Nature remaineth as maketh Punishment due in primo instanti naturae conjunct with a Pardon which maketh Impunity due in secundo instanti As if the King should grant a future Pardon by a Law to every man that will list himself in his Wars under his Son lest in primo instanti their faults deserve punishment while they are daily pardoned § 35. II. Publick judicial Iustification for private I pass by is virtually in the Law or constitutive Justification before described For when a man is righteous the Law justifieth him virtually And this is the sence that we are said to be justified by Faith in primarily in Scripture A Believer is made just indeed and so is justifiable in Iudgment that is justified virtually by the Law As we use to say The Law doth justifie such a man § 36. 2. But actual judicial Iustification is principally by our Iudge and subordinately by Christ as our Advocate by Plea and by Evidence and Witness which is chiefly by the Righteousness of the Cause laid open to all the World § 37. It is by the Law of Grace the edition which men lived under that Christ will judge the World Therefore we must accordingly judge of his Justification § 38. Seeing the thing to be judged of is the meritum causae the Merits of a man's Cause therefore the same may be the meritorious Cause and the material of this judicial Justification and they err that take this for an Absurdity § 39. Though the great end of God's Judgment of Man will be to glorifie his own Iustice Mercy and Wisdom and to glorifie Christ's Righteousness yet the Cause of the day which is to be decided is not whether Christ be righteous but We Nor whether he fulfilled his mediatorial Law which is presupposed § 40. Iustification being related to real or possible Accusation so many things as the Accusation may
as the Iudge will justifie by Sentence and Execution then our Conversion is part of that Justification 10. That Scripture sometimes taketh Justification in that sence and most frequently by Righteousness meaneth that which consisteth in our Acts and Habits In all this there is no place for Controversie or Disagreement § 51. They that say That we must have inherent and performed Righteousness but that no man is at all justified by it must take justifying in some particular limitted sence which therefore they should explain by distinction or else they speak gross contradiction For it is no Righteousness if it constitute not the owner righteous so far or in that point nor yet if the owner may not be justified by it in Iudgment against the accusation of being in that point or so far unrighteous If he that doth Righteousness is righteous that Righteousness will materially justifie him against the false accusation of the contrary § 52. Yea while they make Faith Repentance and Holiness but Signs and Evidences of our right to Life-eternal they thereby allow it some place in Justification For Evidence hath its place in Judgment And they are moral Evidences and not physical only § 53. If men understood how atheological and perilous it is to conceit that either Faith or any thing of ours no though we were innocent is any proper efficient Cause of God's own internal acts in our Justification and would understand that all can be no more than dispositio receptiva which Dr. Twisse calls causa dispositiva a meer receptive Aptitude which is but the Qualification causae materialis that is of the Subject to be justified it would presently lead them out of their vain Contention about Faith and Gospel-Obedience herein and shew them how each in several respects and instances qualifie Man for the beginning or continuance of Justification or for Right to Glory § 54. It seemeth strange to some to find the whole Old Testament and all Christ's Sermons and all the other Apostles inculcating inherent and performed Righteousness as that which Men must be judged about to Life or Death and yet to find Paul so oft pleading against Justification by Works But if we will take the Scripture together and not by incoherent scraps the reconciliation is evident Man is now sinful and condemned by the first Law and is now under a Law of Grace that freely giveth Pardon and Life through a Redeemer to those that believingly accept the Gift according to its nature and consent by Repentance to turn to God and live a holy life in sincerity Now God doth through all the Scripture tell us That no one shall pass with God for a just man or be saved that will not do this but shall be condemned further for refusing it And thus he that doth Righteousness is righteous and all shall be judged according to their works thus required by the Law of Grace To deny this is to deny the scope of the whole Scripture and the Government of God But Paul disputed against those that taught that the Gentiles must be proselyted and keep the Law of Moses or else they could not be accounted just men nor be saved And he proveth that the Gentiles being under the Law of Grace may pass with God for just men and be saved if they Believingly accept the Gift of Grace according to its nature and consent by Repentance to turn to God and live a holy life in sincerity though they keep not the Jewish Law Yea further that though the Jewish Fathers were obliged to keep that Law it was as it belonged to the Covenant of Grace and of Faith and that before that Law was given Abraham and others were just and saved by Faith according to the universal Law of Grace and that the Task of Works according to the Mosaical Law will of it self make no man just or savable and consequently no other Task of Works which would make the Reward to be not of Grace but of Debt and is opposed to or separated from Redemption and the free condonation and donation of the Covenant of Grace This is the plain drift of Paul § 55. Works of Evangelical gratitude love and obedience according to the Law of Grace subordinate to and supposing Redemption and the free gift of Pardon and Life to penitent believing Accepters are those that Christ and Iames and all the Scripture make necessary to Salvation and our Consent and Covenant so to obey is necessary to our first or initial Iustification and our actual Obedience to the Continuance and Confirmation of it But a Task of Works either of Moses's Law or any other set against Redemption and free Grace or not as aforesaid duly subordinate to them is disclaimed by Paul and all Christians as that which can constitute no man just in God's account nor such a one as hath right to Salvation § 56. I verily think that were their verbal and notional differences discussed and men understood themselves and one another it will prove that this aforesaid is the true meaning of almost all Christians and that they agree in this sence while they mischievously contend about ill or unexplained words § 57. What I have said of Justification is mostly true of Pardon of Sin Pardon is threefold 1. Constitutive which is God's giving us a Right to Impunity This is God's act by the pardoning Covenant or Law of Grace 2. By Sentence judging us so pardoned 3. Executive taking off or not inflicting Punishment deserved § 58. God's non punire and nolle punire not-punishing and his will not to punish are true pardon when the Sinner and Sin and Guilt are pre-existent But they are no pardon before because not capable of such a relation and denomination for want of a real terminus Therefore God's eternal will to pardon or his not punishing man from Eternity before Man was Man or sinful must have no such name which afterward it may have without any change in God but in man only § 59. Some worthy men say that Pardon is not Justification nor to be pardoned is to be righteous and that Righteousness is never taken in Scripture for Pardon but many score or hundred times for our performance of our Duty according to the Law of Grace Therefore they would have Righteousness and Pardon still distinguished § 60. But I have plainly before proved that Righteousness hath many parts and the word many sences and though Pardon be not that Righteousness which consisteth in a Conformity to the Precept and so is not our universal Righteousness yet Pardon is passive that Righteousness which consisteth in our right to Impunity both as to the punishment of Loss and Sence And Pardon with Adoption or the Gift of Life is that Righteousness which consisteth in our right to Life eternal § 61. 1. All mens sins are pardoned potentially and conditionally in the Law of Grace 2. No mens sins are pardoned actually as to a right of Impunity till they are penitent
Miracles Therefore a Servant of Christ may most comfortably suffer Martyrdome for his testimony to the Deity Christianity the Life-to-come or Charity and Justice against Malice and Persecution and Cruelty which even a Miracle would not justifie more than for a disputable Opinion § 20. It 's a great Question How a true Prophet might be known antecedently before his Prophecy was fulfilled And it 's of great moment to consider the difference between a Legislative Prophet and a meer particular Message Moses and CHRIST the Legislators confirmed their Laws and Word by multitudes of uncontrouled Miracles For Life and Death lay upon mens Obedience or Disobedience to them And if a Prophet did reprove any Sin against that Law the Miracles that confirmed the Law did justifie them But if it were but a Prophecy about some other temporal Event as Ieremy's of the Captivity it needed no Miracle for it was but a temporal Suffering that followed the not believing them The Law of God which should here be handled I shall speak of afterward CHAP. VIII Of God's causing or not causing Sin § 1. HOw certainly the Doctrine of the necessity of immediate efficient physical predetermining Premotion doth make God the principal Cause of all Sin I have so oft shewed and so fully proved that I shall here be very short upon that Subject § 2. To say that God is the principal determining Cause of every sinful act with all its Objects and Circumstances called the materiale peccati and also the Cause of the Law that forbiddeth it and the Person that committeth it is to make him the chief Cause of Sin as far as it is capable of a Cause even of the formal Cause § 3. To say That such a Cause is the Cause only of the Act but not of the Obliquity is absurd because the obliquity is a Relation necessarily resulting from the Law and Act with all its modes and circumstances And the obliquity can have no other Cause § 4. To say That God willeth and loveth and causeth Sin not as Sin but for good ends and uses is to say no more for God than may be said for wicked men if not for Devils save only that God's Ends are better than theirs § 5. To say That God willeth not Sin but the Existence and Futurity of Sin is but as aforesaid to say that He wills not Sin as Sin or sub ratione â—ali but that it exist for better ends or else it is a contradiction For to will or cause Sin is nothing else but to will and cause the existence of Sin § 6. They that say That God willeth the Existence of Sin as it is summe conducibile to the Glory of his Justice and Mercy yea and that per se and not only per accidens do wrong the Glory of God's Holiness and Wisdom A Physician can love his own skill and compassion and the honour that cometh to him by curing a Disease without loving or willing the Disease it self but only supposing it as an Evil which he can turn to Good § 7. They that say That God is the Cause indeed of our Sin but is no Sinner himself because he is under no Law say nothing in the latter but what all grant and nothing in the former but what God's Church doth commonly abhorr excepting some few singular presumers § 8. They that hold That God doth by immediate physical efficient predetermining Premotion principally and unresistibly cause every sinful act with all its modes and circumstances do certainly deny all certainty of Faith and so subvert all Christianity For the formal Object of all Divine Faith is God's Veracity that God cannot lye if God could lye our Belief could have no certainty Now God speaketh to us but by inspired men and not by an essential voice of his own And if God cause as aforesaid all the Lyes that ever were spoken by Men or Devils in the World then no man can be sure that he doth not so by Prophets and Apostles or that ever they say true And God's Veracity then is gone § 9. They that think â—o evade this Evidence by the difference of Predetermination and Inspiration and say God inspireth no Lyes though he predetermine all by physical Premotion do labour in vain For 1. No man can ever prove that any Inspiration doth interest God more in the Act or Lye than physical Predetermination doth For how can God be more the Author of any Act than by effectual premoving the Creature to act it and that by immediate physical Predetermination What doth Inspiration do but so move the Mind Will and Tongue of a Prophet No man can name more that Man is capable of 2. But if there were a difference we are not capable of understanding that difference so well as to prove that God can cause all the Lyes in the World by predetermining Premotion and yet can cause none by Inspiration shall none believe him that know not this difference 3. And were it intelligible it would be only to inspired men themselves So that I am past doubt that we must part with all Certainty of Christianity and of all Divine Belief if we receive this Doctrine of Predetermination because the objectum formals fidei is then gone § 10. They that say that if we make not God the Predeterminer to every act in specie morali and in every comparative respect and mode we shall make Man a God by making him a Causa prima do thereby as much conclude God to be the first and principal predetermining efficient Cause of every wicked Habit as of Malignity or Hatred of God c. because a Habit hath as much Entity as an Act Therefore if it deifie Man to make him the first Cause e. g. of a Lye or Murder in specie then so it will do to make him the first Cause of the Habit. § 11. If it be as impossible for Man to do any thing but what he doth or not to do all that he doth without God's foresaid predetermining Premotion as it is to be Gods or to overcome God or make a World then if Men are counted Sinners and condemned it is for not doing such impossibilities for not doing what God alone can do or for not overcoming Almighty premoving Power § 12. â—t cannot rationally be expected that they that believe that God is the chief Cause and Willer of all Sin should think it very bad or themselves bad for it or that when God hath unresistibly made all men to sin he yet hateth it and sent his Son into the World to testifie his Hatred by dying for it and that he is serious in all that he saith against it in his word nor that such men should hate it and rather die than sin § 13. Therefore as the Church of God hath ever abhorred to make God the Cause of Sin and kept up the sence of the Evil of Sin for our hatred of it and departing from it and our Humiliation as a
Word of God And I think that I have elsewhere proved that Generative Traduction of Souls and yet God's present yea immediate Causation of their Essence which may be called Creation are here Consistent Which here I must not now repeat Vid. Meth. Theol. and Reasons of Christian Religion CHAP. XI Of our Redemption by Christ. § 1. SIN having made Man guilty and depraved unfit for duty and felicity odious to the most Holy Righteous God and lyable to his Justice the eternal Wisdom and Word of God did interpose and by Mercy did save Man from the deserved rigour of Justice promising Actual Redemption in the fulness of time and on that supposition giving fallen Man a pardoning and saving Law or Covenant of Grace with answerable help of his Spirit and Means and outward Mercies fitted to his Recovery and Salvation § 2. But God would not have this Recovery and Salvation to be perfect at the first but gave Man a certain proportion of Common Deliverance and Mercy binding him to a Course of Duty in the performance of which he should receive more by degrees till he were perfected As Phisicians cure their Patients § 3. Therefore God did enter into Judgment with fallen Man and did sentence him absolutely to some degree of Punishment even to Labour Pain the penalty of the Cursed Earth and finally to Death which Temporal Punishment God would not remit nor give him a Saviour to procure the pardon of it but only to the Faithful to turn all this unto their Benefit and to deliver them from the greater everlasting Sufferings § 4. And their own sinful pravity and privation of Holiness and communion with God which also was their greatest punishment by Consequence God would not at once nor in this Life perfectly save them from and therefore accordingly pardoned them their punishment but by the forementioned degrees For he is not perfectly pardoned or saved who is yet left under so much penalty § 5. Some thinking it hard that for 4000 Years the World should have no Existent Mediator and that an Existent Faith in the future Mediator should be more necessary than an Existent Mediator and his Work and thinking withal that it would solve many Textual Difficulties objected by the Arians and explain the Appearances of Christ to the Patriarchs have conceived that Christ hath a threefold Nature viz. The Divine Nature a created Super-Angelical Nature to which the Divine Nature was united before the Incarnation and the Humane Nature assumed at the Incarnation and that so we had an Existent Mediator from the time of the Fall But whatever conveniences this Opinion may seem to have I find no satisfactory proof of it in Scripture nor that the Christian Church did ever hold it And it is overmuch boldness to take up so great a Doctrine as a third Nature in Christ which the Church of Christ was never acquainted with And the Texts that seem to be for it are capable of the common Exposition § 6. If any think that this was the Judgment of abundance yea the most of the Antient Writers before the days of Arius because they have such unhappy expressions of Christ which the Reader may find truly Collected to his hand by Petavius de Trinitate and that it is fitter to Expound them as speaking only of Christ's second Nature than to account them all Arians or to honour the Arians by making them on their side I answer I leave every Man to his own judgment upon perusal of the Fathers words allowing all Charity that hath sufficient ground But I cannot perceive that these Writers talk of any more Natures in Christ than two and pious ends must be served by no Fictions and Untruths I think that we must rather gather with Petavius there that the Votes in the Nicene Council tell us that then the greater part of the Church were against Arius and therefore they were so before because they held in so great a point the Faith which they had received from their Fathers And that the greater part of Writers might differ from the greater part of the Church And withal these Writers having more than other men to do with the Heathen Philosophers and Orators who were prejudiced against the Doctrine of the Trinity did shun their Offence by too much stretching their speeches to that which they thought they could easilier digest which gave Arius his advantages The Conclusions either way are harsh and sad but I leave others better to avoid them § 7. The Deity it self may not unfitly be called our REDEEMER before the Incarnation though not so fitly a MEDIATOR and though Redemption by Christ's Death and Merits in the Flesh was not then wrought Because the word Redeeming is oft taken for a merciful Delivering though without a price and also because the Price was promised from the beginning But thus the word REDEEMER is equivocal signifying either the Deity as a promising undertaking Saviour or the Mediator who was promised and who performed the undertaken means § 8. The MEDIATOR himself being purely the Gift of the Divine Love and Mercy it was no inconvenience that God then had all the Glory and that Faith then acknowledged no other existent Saviour but God himself the infinite Good § 9. It troubleth men much to open how Christ was any true Cause of our Pardon and Salvation as a Mediator before his Incarnation And what his merits sacrifice and intercession could do before they did exist And the common Answer is That Moral though not Physical Causes may cause before they exist and so operate as foreseen foredecreed or willed But these Logical notions must not be used to put off the Question instead of satisfactorily answering it This tells us not whether by a Moral Cause they mean a True Cause of some moral Being or something morally called a Cause which indeed is not so but quasi causa Nor yet whether they mean a Cause efficient final or constitutive Nor yet whether they mean a Cause of any thing in God or only of some following effect § 10. It must be concluded that Christ's merits sacrifice and Intercession make no real Change in God his Understanding or Will and therefore have no such Causality § 11. But God's Promise first and Christ's Merits and Sacrifice next make a Change in the state of things laying that Ground-work or necessary Antecedent and Condition upon which it becometh meet right and just for God to give the rest of his mercy which this is the Condition of and the true meritorious Cause And so the Change was neither on GOD nor immediately on Man but for Man on the state of things which God and man were both concerned in It is a causa ordinis while that is done first which is prerequisite to what is to follow And it is a causa rei benefici◠while it not only removeth moral Impediments of our Pardon and Salvation but also setteth matters in such a state in which it becometh congruous
meet right and just for God to pardon and save us which is a remote disposing the fall'n sinner to be a due Recipient of God's following promised Grace And thus it is in both senses a moral Cause as it is a Cause of our Right and of Congruity and as it is though not indeed yet morally reputatively or Quasi causa physica realis of our Pardon Grace and Salvation by making them become just right and due And being thus far a Cause of the effects ad extra per extrinsecam denominationem ex connotatione relatione ad objectum it may be called with cautelous sobriety a Cause of God's own Intellections and Volitions For though in themselves they are God's Essence yet for God to know us to be redeemed and to will our present Pardon and Salvation as Redeemed ones are words that speak more than God's Essence as in it self and include the termination of his Acts on these Objects as such and so denominate God's Essence distinctly from the Objects which else would never be distinguished nor have but one name being really but one § 12. Yet all these diversifying distinguishing denominating Causes of God's Intellections Volitions and Operations must not even denominatively or relatively be counted or called Efficient Causes of God's Acts nor strictly final but objective And therefore here it must be considered what Cause an Object is which Philosophers are not well agreed in But I think I may safely say That as to moral acts the Object is to be reduced to such a cause materialis or constitutiva as they are capable of not of the Act as an Act but as this act in specie denominated from the receptive terminating matter or object And though to Man to know this or that and to will this or that ad extra seem somewhat really different or modally at least from knowing and willing our selves or some other Object yet in God it is not to be called ex parte sui a real or modal difference at all § 13. Yet I assert not that the Ratio prima of all these Diversities of the Divine Acts is ex terminis seu recipientibus For the first Reason is in and of God himself For it is God that maketh all diversities of Effects and Changes and so it is from those divers Effects of his own Will that his Will is relatively ex connotatione termini diversly denominated But that in God which is the Ratio prima diversitatis is not divers but his one simple essential Will so that it is the diversity of Objects which is the immediate Reason of distinguishing God's acts of which before § 14. These things premised I come nearer to the Question if that which existeth not do truly cause it must be either efficiently constitutively or finally The two first are denied by the common Reason of Mankind That which is not cannot effect Nothing can do nothing And to say it is not is to say it constituteth not And as it is certain that causa finalis non efficit yea is but causa metaphorice operans so it is certain that no Creature causeth any thing in God no not finally § 15. Those that say That Christ and his death and merits did not cause before Existence in esse existenti but in esse cognito as constituting the Divine Idea's 1. Must remember that the esse cognitum as they call it is no esse rei cognita at all Therefore if only the esse cognitum do cause then it was not Christ and his Merits that caused 2. In Man for an esse cognitum to cause his further acts is but for one Thought to cause another Thought or a Volition or Nolition And these Thoughts and Volitions are really divers and constituted by reception of intromitted Objects But God is no Recipient nor knoweth any Object as we do by intromission Nor hath he any such Thoughts or Idea's of Creatures as are really divers ex parte Dei but only by extrinsick denomination § 16. If it be said That then God should know nothing till it is because a denomination must be from something and nothing can be no Object or terminus and so of his Will I Ans. 1. God doth not know any thing as existent now which doth not exist now But our Now is in his Eternity and his Eternity without partition comprehendeth all our Times prae and post ab and ad are Prepositions of no signification in and of Eternity but only In And therefore as Augustine saith his Prescience is but his Science so denominated from the Order of Objects but noteth not any difference in him who hath neither prae nor post How this is to be understood without making the Creature eternally exist I have elsewhere fully opened § 17. That plain truth therefore which must here satisfie us is That God who is the first efficient and ultimate final Cause of all things and caused by none did of his free abundant Mercy undertake the saving of sinful Man and notwithstanding his Threatning and Man's Defect resolving to make advantage of our Sin and Misery for the Glory of his Wisdom Love Mercy and Justice he promised that the Eternal Word should in due time assume Man's nature and therein do and suffer that which should glorifie him more than Man's Perdition would have done and which should make it just and meet for him to save the Guilty both inceptively at the present under the Promise for 4000 years and afterward more fully at Christ's Incarnation and finally to perfect all in Glory So that the Work of our Salvation is one entire frame composed by Divine Wisdom and Love where one part is the Reason of another though none be the Cause of any thing in God And Christ's Mediation though coming after 4000 years yet was then to do that which should make it meet and right and just for God to pardon Sin before Even as in a Building the several parts may be the reason of each other because they must be all compaginated and fitted to their relative places and uses And though the Foundation make not the Superstructure it upholdeth â—itâ— And as Aquinas briefly faith Deus non propter hoc vult hoc sed vult hoc esse propter hoc nothing is the Cause of God's Will but it is God's Will that one thing shall be for another And when all his Work must be one Frame the part last made may be a reason of the former And so Christ's merits and sacrifice though after 4000 years perform that for which it became just and meet before for God to pardon Sinners For though it was not then existent yet besides the Decree the Promise Prediction and Publication made it useful to its ends in respect to GOD and Man § 18. So then though the Cause be not truly a Cause till it exist and though all the Pardon and Salvation given for 4000 years was before the existence of the merits and sacrifice of
habits and acts in specie as circumstantiated by immediate necessitating or unresistible premotion and yet taketh not away their Liberty because he maketh them will and not nil the sin These do but play with the name of Free-will and are confuted as aforesaid from the instance of Adam and from the scope of Scripture and do subvert the Foundations of Christianity To will is the proper act of my will and if he that moveth me by prime physical efficiency to will the circumstantiated act of Sin deprive me not of my Liberty because it is willing that he maketh me do then if Men or Devils had Power to make me will Sin as I cause my Pen to write or the Fire to burn this or that it would be no loss of Liberty But of this more largely elsewhere CHAP. XV. Of Effectual Grace and how God giveth it § 1. AS I said before about Sufficient Grace so here about Effectual the first thing to be done by Disputers is to agree what that is which they here call Grace as the Subject of the Question And as I there shewed 1. It cannot or must not be God's essential Will or Power for that is simple and immutable and not in it self save relatively distinguishable into sufficient and effectual 2. An Efflux or vis which is neither God nor the Effect there is none or none proveable 3. It is not Faith it self that is meant here by Grace for it is the Grace that effecteth Faith and it were absurd to ask what Faith is effectual to make or cause it self This is true both of the Act and Habit. The meaning is not what Habit of Faith is effectual to the Act nor what Act to the Habit or it self but what Grace of God is effectual to cause both Act and Habit. 4. Therefore there is nothing left to be meant by Grace but the two things before mentioned viz. 1. The gracious Means or second Causes appointed by God to cause our Faith 2. The first moving Impress on the Soul as it is antecedent to Act and Habit supposing that such there is though some deny that there is any such thing § 2. And for the first all means will be uneffectual without God's inward Operation by his Spirit He must work on the Speaker and on the Hearer to make means effectual as is agreed on But whether as God worketh in Naturals according to the aptitude of natural second Causes so he work Faith and other Graces by a settled proportion of Concourse agreeable to the Aptitude of gracious second Causes or Means of Grace is a Question too hard to be boldly and peremptorily determined by us that are in so much darkness § 3. But it seemeth to us that God would not have made it so great a part of his Government to establish a Course of Means if he did not intend to work ordinarily by them and according to their fitness Christ is the chief Means and instituteth the rest Scripture Ministers Example good Company merciful Providences Afflictions Meditation Books Prayer Sacraments c. are all appointed for such effects And if God would ordinarily work immediately without means what need all these This teacheth Infidels to say that he may do it without Christ. The Spirit first indited the Word as we cut a Seal to be the instrument of Impression and then by that word doth work on Souls § 4. But if God did tie himself not only ordinarily but alwaies to apt means no mortal could say what means is sufficient and what is insufficient and what is more than sufficient even necessarily efficacious For the means 1. are very many and more than we can take notice of and if one be wanting it may render the rest insufficient or uneffectual how excellent soever in themselves 2. And that means is fitted to one Hearer that is not fitted to another All have not the same temptations hindrances prejudices objections weaknesses nor obstinacy And God only knoweth when means are adequately fitted to the desired effect upon mens Souls § 5. And though many of the means operate ex parte sui necessarily yet so do not all For Preachers and Instructers are free Agents and so it must be other effectual means that must first move them to do their Duty for a Sinner's good Which who can judge of § 6. But God is the Arbitrary Absolute Lord of all means and therefore he can change and dispose of them as he pleases and yet work by them So that the Effect is nevertheless from God's free or arbitrary Volition though he never went beyond the aptitude of means When even a silly man can turn the natural course of Water and Wind to move his Mill or Sails at his pleasure without any alteration of their natures A Fisher can use his Bait as may serve his end and a Physician can vary his Medicines to cure the Disease without changing their nature or curing without them § 7. But there is no question but God can work without means and Intellectual Souls being so near to the first Cause it is utterly uncertain to us whether in Works of Grace God have not a double operation on the Soul one by his appointed means and another by immediate Influx and if it be so how these concurr to one and the same effect and also how God doth immediately move Souls are all past Man's reach and should be acknowledged above our Disputes § 8. II. God hath more inward operations on Man's Soul than one or two whether with means or without to bring us to Faith and Repentance The mind must be enlightened the dull faculties must be excited especially Conscience and Will and the Will must be touched with the gust of Divine Love to breed a holy Complacency in good and many Impediments must be removed some by outward acts of Providence and some by inward Grace And where Impediments are not removed no doubt but there needeth more of the other Acts of Grace to bring such a Soul to Faith and Repentance than in one where there is less resistance § 9. And seeing that Recipitur ad modum recipientis and the disposition of the Recipient hath so great a hand as common Experience telleth us in almost all the Changes in the World what wonderful variety of Effects doth the same Action of the Sun produce throughout the World by the diversity of receptive dispositions Therefore no mortal man can say when the efficacy or success of Divine Grace is more to be ascribed to the Preparatory Disposition of the Recipient by a former act of Grace and when more to the present moving Influx nor what proportion these alwaies bear as comparable And what man dare say that he can search out the waies of God § 10. When we know so little of the secret Energies of natural Principles nor how God produceth Animals in the Womb nor how he causeth our Food to nourish us nor how any of our Senses do
that save him 2. The Godfather may be an Hypocrite and mean nothing that he promiseth and shall the Child be saved by his Lye that damneth the Lyer himself 3. Why should a Promise of future Education save a Child that must die to morrow or ere long 4. But if it be the meer opus operatum of Baptizing that must save that may be a Profanation when unduly applied and the Priest's sin that damneth himself cannot save others § 11. 8. Some lay the hope upon Ancestâ—rs Faith and say That if the Great Grandfathers or others before them were faithful the Infants shall be saved But then are all Men saved for Noah's Faith Or how far must our Confidence ascend § 12. 9. Most of the Anabaptists with us hold That there is no Promise nor Assurance of the saving of any particular Infants in the World either Christians or Heathens but only that God electeth some whom he will sanctifie and save and reprobateth others whom he will damn without any notice given to the World who they be or how many or how few So that we cannot say that he will save Ten or that he will damn Ten of all the World nor have the Faithful any more promise than Heathens of the Salvation of their Infants and so are not to baptize them § 13. 10. The commonest Opinion among the English Calvinists is That God hath made no certain Promise of the Salvation of any particular Infant but by his general Promise of mercy to the Seed of the Faithful hath given us cause to hope that more of them than of others shall be saved and therefore that they are by Baptism to be entred into the visible Church as we baptize the Adult while we are not certain but they may be Hypocrites § 14. But I think this would not warrant their Baptism nor give us any certain hope of any ones Salvation God hath but one Covenant of Grace which giveth us Christ and Life and God hath ordained no Baptism but what is for the Remission of Sin and making us Members of Christ if we have the Conditions of Right to Baptism The Adult profess Faith and Repentance if they have them in sincerity and consent with the Heart as well as the Tongue they are certainly pardoned If they are Hypocrites and consent only with the Lips they have notoriously the Qualification which the Church must require and so are received to outward Communion but not that which God requireth to Remission and Salvation But if an Infant be the Child of a true Believer he hath all that God and the Church require And therefore if he be to be baptized he is certainly put into a state of Life because no Condition is wanting on his part § 15. 11. Others say That the Children of all Christians Sinners or Hypocriâ—es if baptized are in a state of Pardon and Salvation and that God will not punish the Child for the Hypocrite or prophane Parents Sin But by that rule Heathens Children should be in as safe a case because God will not punish them for their Parents sin Either something on the Parents part is a Condition of the Child 's Right or nothing If nothing Heathens and Christians Children are equal If something it must be true Faith as to God's acceptance For whatever the Church must do that knoweth not the Heart it is incredible that God should have such a Covenant Thy Child shall be saved if thou wilt though lyingly offer him to me tho thou shalt be damned for that Lye § 16. 12. That which I acquiesce in is this That God who visited Adam's Sin on all his Posterity hath in the Covenant of Grace also so joined Infants to the Parents that till they have a Will to chuse for themselves their Parents may chuse for them and dispose of them for their good and God taketh them as Members of the Parents so far And so he hath made many express Promises of mercy to the Faithful and their Seed and Threatnings to the Wicked and their Seed And that this Mercy cannot be consistent with their Damnation for it is to be their God and to love and bless them which cannot stand with damning them And God having but one Covenant seeing they are in the same Covenant with their Parents and not another if it give Pardon to the Parents it doth so also to the Child of whom no Condition is required but that he be offered by a believing Parent to God whose Acceptance is Salvation § 17. Therefore I think that the Synod of Dort truly conclude Act. 1. 17. That faithful Parents need not doubt of the Election and Salvation of their Children dying in infancy The Covenant certainly pardoneth and saveth them § 18. But this is not only because they are born of their Bodies nor yet is their Faith the efficient Cause of it but there are two things go to qualifie the Receiver as the dispositive Condition that is 1. That he be the Child of a faithful Parent who devoteâ—h himself sincerely to God 2. And that he be by the Parent devoted to God by Consent that he be in the mutual Covenant Which virtually all the Faithful do that have Infants because they devote themselves and theirs to God to the utmost of their Capacity And the Recipient Subject being thus qualified God Covenant pardoneth him as the efficient Instrument by signifying God's Will § 19. Though the Promise here be not so plain I deny not that all true Proprietâ—rs whose own the Child is here be as Parents § 20. God having not made the Case of Infants so plain to us as our own that are Adult there are difficult Objections against this way but as it seems to me much more against all the rest § 21. The grand Objection is That then some Infants lose a state of Salvation when they come to age Ans This will follow but far haâ—der things from all the rest But 1. This was thought no Absurdity for a Thousand years after the Apostles when I cannot prove that any one man thought that none of the Adult themselves fall away from true Sanctification and right to Life When even Augustine the famous Defender of Election and Grace against Pelagius thought that all the Elect only persevered and that more were justified and sanctified than were Elect and that the rest all fell away 2. Davenant answereth this That Infant-grace may be lost and yet not the Grace of the Adult Because it is but a Relative Regeneration and an Extrinseck Remission of Sin that giveth them Right to Impunity and Life or if they are said to have the Spirit it is not in a fixed Habit of Grace If you say They cannot be saved without real Holiness I answer § 22. 3. Distinguish of Holiness and of the Season of it 1. Infants have not actual Faith nor necessarily a proper Habit which is a disposition to facile acting that same act But a semen a Seed as Amesius
Slave and also promiseth him great Possessions and Honours in a Kingdom in the East Indies or at the Antipodes if he will leave his Servitude and his Country and all that he hath there and go with him in his Ship and patiently endure the Sea-trials till he come thither Here he must 1. believe that the Prince hath paid his ransome 2. That he is a wise man and knoweth what he promised and skilful to conduct him safely through all the perils of the Seas 3. That he is an honest man and intendeth not to deceive him 4. That he is sufficient or able to perform his word 5. And if upon this belief he trust him he will let go all and venture in his Ship and follow him And here one tells him that the Ship is unsound another tells him that the Prince is a Deceiver unable to perform his Word or unskilful or dishonest and some way untrusty and another tells him that small matters in his own Country are better than greater with so much hazard and sets out the dangers and terribleness of the Seas Now if the man be ask'd Do you believe or will you trust me or will you not here every one by believing and trusting knoweth that a practical Trust is meant which lieth in such a confidence as forsaketh all and taketh the promised Kingdom for all his hope Such is our Saving Faith § 12. As many Acts and many Objects go to constitute Saving Faith so if you will logically anatomize it all these following must be taken in § 13. 1. The principal Efficient Cause is God the Father Son and Holy Ghost respectively according to their several operations § 14. 2. The Instrumental Cause is the Word of God and the Preaching and Preachers of it or Parents Friends or some that reveal the Word unto us § 15. 3. Subordinate auxiliary means are Providential Alterations by some awaking Judgments or inviting Mercies or convincing Examples c. § 16. 4. The Soul of Man in all its three Faculties Vital-active Intellective and Volitive is 1. the Recipient of the Divine Influx and then 2. the immediate Efficient or Agent of the Acts of Faith § 17. 5. Preparatory Grace and Duty is ordinarily Man's Disposition as he is the Recipient of God's Grace and the Agent of believing But God is free and can work on the unprepared but it is not to be taken for his ordinary way § 18. 6. The formal Object of the assenting Act of Faith is veracit as Dei revelantis the Veracity or Truth of God revealing his Will § 19. 7. The formal Object of the accepting and receiving Act is the Goodness of the Benefits offered us by the Covenant as offered § 20. 8. The formal Object of our Trust or Affiance is God's fides Fidelity because of his aforesaid Veracity in promising and his Power Wisdom and Benevolence as a Performer and this full Act comprehendeth all the rest It is God's Trustiness § 21. 9. The material Objects of the assenting Act in genere are all God's Assertions or Revelations More especially the Gospel or the Christian Faith objective according to the Edition of the Covenant which we are under § 22. The Essentials of our objective Christian Faith constitute the Essence of our active Saving Faith and the Integrals of it constitute the Integrity § 23. And it is of great importance to distinguish here as to the Word and Objects between 1. the signa or words 2. the signification or sence 3. the things matter or incomplex objects as distinct from words and sence viz. God Christ Grace Heaven Goodness Iustice Men c. And to hold 1. That the words are not necessary for themselves but for the sence and therefore Translations or any words which give us the same sence may serve to the being of Saving Faith 2. That the sence it self is not necessary for it self ultimately as if Holiness lay in notions but for the things which that sence revealeth viz. God to be loved and obeyed Christ to be received the Holy Ghost to be received and obeyed Holiness and all Grace to be received loved used encreased our Brethren to be loved Heaven to be desired c. All sence will not bring us to the reception of the things for all is not apt but any that doth this which must be divine and apt will constitute us true Believers § 24. 1. The material Objects of our acceptance and consent are the Word of God commanding offering and promising and the good of Duty and Benefit commanded offered and promised that is All that is given us in the baptismal Covenant God the Father and his Love the Son and his Grace and the Holy Ghost and his Communion The Father as reconciled and adopting us the Son as having redeemed us to teach rule justifie and save us the Holy Spirit to sanctifie comfort and perfect us § 25. 11. The material Object of our Trust or Affiance is God himself the prime Truth Power and Good and Christ as his Messenger and our Saviour and the Holy Ghost as the Author of the Word and the Word as being the Word of God You must pardon us as necessitated to call God a material Object analogically for want of words § 26. 12. The ultimate or final Objects of Saving Faith are 1. God himself the ultimate ultimum that is the perfect Complacency of his will in his Glory eternally shining forth in our Glory and the Glory of Christ with all the Church triumphant 2. Next to that This Glory it self which is a created thing and the Perfection of the Universe and of Christ's Church and our selves in which it consisteth And therein our own Perfection and our perfect sight love and praise of our glorious God and our Redeemer 3. And next under that the first fruits of all this in this World in the foresaid love of the Father and Grace of the Son and Communion of the Holy Spirit and the Church § 27. If therefore we were put to give a full description of Saving Faith we must be as large as this following or such-like in sence viz. The Faith which the Adult must profess in Baptism as having the Promise of Justification and Salvation is a sincere fiducial practical Assent to Divine Revelations and especially to the Gospel revealing and offering us God himself to be our God and reconciled Father Christ to be our Saviour viz. by his Incarnation meritorious Righteousness and Sacrifice Resurrection Doctrine Example Government Intercession and final Judgment and the Holy Ghost to quicken illuminate and sanctifie us that so we may live in the Love of the Father the Grace of the Son and the Communion of the Holy Spirit and of the Christian Church being saved from our Enemies Sin and Misery initially in this Life and perfectly in eternal perfect Glory With a fiducial acceptance of the Gifts of the Covenant according to their nature and a sincere federal Consent and with a sincere
Conclusion helped by Grace whereof the major only is de fide He that believeth is justified but not the Minor I believe Therefore we usually call it a fruit of Faith § 42. Some incautelous Divines in the heat of Dispute do indeed say That it is de fide divina or a Divine Word that I am a true Believer And Chamier too unhappily goeth about to prove it by saying That it is the Word of the Spirit in us which is the Word of God As if the Spirit spake in us new Articles of Faith or a new Word to be believed whose work in those that are not inspired Prophets is but 1. to cause us to believe that Word already given 2. To be a witnessing Evidence that we are God's Children by making us holy as he is holy as similitude witnesseth a Child to be his Fathers 3. And to help us to discern that Holiness or Evidence and to exercise it and to gather Comfort from such discerning it and exercise § 43. We now commonly disown all such Assertions I meet with no sober Divine that owneth them because we grant that Conclusio semper sequitur partem debiliorem But yet we find that those few that call it de fide do most of them mean no more but that it 's partly de fide because the Major Proposition is so and so they differ but about a Logical Notion § 44. Some have said indeed beyond-Sea That a man cannot believe and not know it but we know thousands may believe and yet doubt whether it be a sincere and saving sort of Faith But I have written so many Books of these matters that I here add no more CHAP. XXI Of the nature of Righteousness Iustification and Pardon § 1. THE Controversies about Justification have made a great noise but I think that those de re are few in comparison of those de nomine even among all sorts of Christians and the confounding them by unskilful Heads who have made the ignorant believe that those which are but de nomine are de re hath kindled foolish Wrath and quenched Christian Love and taken up poor Souls with a deceitful Zeal who have thought that they were contending for great and necessary Truths when it was but for Logical Notions Names and Modes of Expression over-commended to them by their several Teachers § 2. The Words Iustice Righteousness and Iustification are very ambiguous used in many sences in the Scriptures and in the Writings of Divines and in the common use of men which I have opened in so many Books and so largely as shall here excuse my breviâ—y The Sences which we are now most concerned to take notice of are these following § 3. Righteousness is considered materially or formally Materially it is 1. immediately 1. A righteous Action 2. A righteous Disposition or Habit 2. And thence a righteous Person § 4. Righteousness materially is 1. in some or other particular Action 2. Or in the main bent of Heart and Life 3. Or in Perfection The first denominateth the Person Righteous in hoc or secundum quid The second denominateth him a sincerely Righteous Man The third a perfectly Righteous Man § 5. In the notion of the material Cause is included also the Comparative or Relative State and Proportion of Actions When the Action is duly qualified and modified in its physical Nature and Circumstances it is materially just § 6. The form enquired of is Quid morale And it is the Relation of the Action and Habit and Person as congruous to the justitia mensurans or the Rule of Righteousness The Rule or Law first maketh jus vel debitum and saith This shall be your Duty and your Neighbour's Due and declareth God's Due And the jus being constituted by the Law natural or positive that which agreeth to it is jâ—stum So that Righteousness formally is a moral Relation resulting from the physical mode and relation of Actions and Habits as compared with the Law or Rule A moral Relation founded in a physical Congruity § 7. Righteousness is both materially and formally distinguishable as towards God or Man Materially as it is God or Man that we deal â—ustly or injuriously by Formally as it is God himself or Men ruling under him who give us Laws and make the debitum vel jus or dispose of Propriety § 8. Righteousness towards God being Relative to his Laws is to be distinguished according to the several Laws that men are under and according to the several parts of the Law which give the word divers Sences § 9. 1. Righteousness as related to the Precept as such is nothing but Obedience whether partial sincere or perfect He that doth righteousness is righteous § 10. 2. Righteousness related to a meer Condition of Pardon or Salvation c. is the performance of that Condition which may be the Causa judicanda § 11. 3. Righteousness as related to the premiant or donative part of the Law or Promise is our jus ad praemium our Right to that Reward or Gift § 12. 4. Righteousness as relative to the penal part is our jus ad impunitatem or when punishment is not due to us according to that Law § 13. 1. Righteousness as related to the Precept of the Law of Innocency is materially perfect personal continued Obedience to our Creator § 14. 2. Righteousness as related to the Condition of that Law is the same because nothing but the said perfect Obedience is there made the Condition of Life § 15. 3. Righteousness related to the rewarding part of that Law is right to that Life which is there promised that is to God's Love and Felicity § 16. 4. Righteousness related to the Penalty of that Law is a Right to Impunity as to the Death which it threatneth to Sinners § 17. 1. Righteousness as related to the meer preceptive part of the Law of Grace is also perfect Obedience for the future not Innocency as to the time past for even Christ maketh perfect Obedience our Duty though he pardon sin § 18. 2. Righteousness as related to the Condition of the Law of Grace is sincere Faith and Repentance as the Condition of our first Right to the present Gifts of the Covenant and also sincere Love and Obedience to the end as the Condition of our final Iustification and Glory § 19. 3. Righteousness as related to the Reward of the Law of Grace is our Right to our Relation to the Father Son and Holy Ghost and all the Gifts of the Covenant Christ Grace and Glory § 20. 4. Righteousness as related to the penal part of the Law of Grace is our Right to Impunity as to the Punishment threatned specially by that Law § 21. The meritorious Cause of both these last our Right to Impunity and to Life is the Righteousness of Christ for the sake of which the Condonation and Donations of the Covenant of Grace are given us § 22. This Righteousness of Christ is his fulfilling the Conditions
Believers or consent to the Covenant of Grace if at age 3. These penitent Believers sins are pardoned virtually before they are committed supposing them but Sins of Insirmity but this is properly no Pardon nor so to be called because it is but the position of those things which will cause Pardon hereafter To be only virtual is not to exist but to be in causis But it is too grosly inferred hence by some That it is not God then that actually justifieth but Man that performeth the Condition as if the Condition which is but a suspension of the Donation and the performance a removal of the suspending Cause were the donative Efficient and so the Receiver were the Giver As if he that opened the window were the Sun or efficient Cause of the Light or he that lets off a Crossbow by removing the Stop were the spring that effecteth the motion of the Arrow § 62. Neither Pardon nor Justification are perfect before death For there are some correcting Punishments to be yet born some Sins not fully destroyed some Grace yet wanting more Sins to be forgiven more Conditions thereof to be performed The final and executive Pardon and Justification are only perfect CHAP. XXII Of the Imputation of Righteousness § 1. THE great Contentions that have been about this Point tell us how needfull it is to distinguish between real and verbal Controversies The opening of the Doctrine of Redemption before Chap. XI hath done most that is needful to the solution of this Case we are commonly agreed in these following Points § 2. 1. That no man hath a Righteousness of his own performance by which he could be justified were he to be judged by the Law of Innocency that is all are Sinners and deserve everlasting Death § 3. 2. That Jesus the Mediator undertook to fulfil all the Law which God the Father gave him even the Law of Nature the Law of Moses and that which was proper to himself that thereby God's Wisdom Goodness Truth Justice and Mercy might be glorified and the ends of God's Government be better attained than by the Destruction of the sinful World and all this he performed in our Nature and suffered for us in our stead and was the second Adam or Root to Believers § 4. 3. That for this as the meritorious Cause God hath given him power over all Flesh that he might give eternal Life to as many as are drawn to him by the Father and given him Joh. 17. 2. He is Lord of all and all power in Heaven and Earth is given him Matth. 28. 19. and he is made Head over all things to the Church Eph. 1. 22 23. Rom. 14. 9 And for these his Merits a Covenant or Law of Grace is made to sinful Man by which all his sins are freely pardoned and Right to Impunity and Life is freely given him if he will accept it and penitently turn to God § 5. 4. Whenever a man is pardoned and justified or hath Right to Life this Law of Grace doth it as God's donative Instrument And whoever is so pardoned and justified it is for and by these Merits of Christ's Righteousness § 6. 5. But Christ doth initially pardon and justifie none by this Covenant but penitent Believers and therefore hath made it our Duty to repent and believe that we may be forgiven and have right to life as the Condition without which his donative and condonative Act shall be suspended § 7. 6. God never judgeth falsely but knoweth all things to be what they are And therefore he reputeth Christ's meritorious Righteousness and Sacrifice to be the meritorious Cause of all mens Justification who are justified and of the conditional Pardon of all the World 2 Cor. 5. 18 19 20. and as sufficient and effectual to the assigned ends as our own personal righteousness or suffering would have been and more though it be not so ours as that of our own performance would have been nor so immediately give us our Right to Impunity and Life but mediately by the Covenant § 8. 7. And as God reputeth Christ's Righteousness to be the prime meritorious Cause for which we are justified by the Law of Grace as afore-said so he truly reputeth our own Faith and Repentance or Covenant-consent to be our moral Qualification for the gift and our Holiness and Perseverance to be our moral Qualification for final Iustification and Glory which Qualification being the matter of the Command of the Law of Grace and the Condition of its Promise is so far our righteousness indeed and oft so called in the Scripture as is aforesaid § 9. 8. Therefore God may in this Sence be truly said both to impute righteousness to us and to impute Christ's righteousness to us and to impute our Faith for righteousness to us in several respects § 10. Thus much being commonly agreed on should quiet the Minds of Divines that are not wise and righteous overmuch and it beseemeth us not to make our arbitrary Words and Notions about the Doctrine of our Peace with God to be Engines to break the Church's Peace seeing Angels preached to us this great Truth That Christ came into the World for GLORY to God in the highest and for PEACE on Earth and for GOOD-WILL or LOVE from God to Man or mutual complaâ—ency and his Servants should not turn his Gospel into matter of strife § 11. That which we are yet disagreed about is the Names and Notions following As 1. What is meant by the Phrase of Imputing in several Texts of Scripture as Rom. 4. 11. That righteousness might be imputed or reckoned to them also Ans. The words seem to me to have no difficulty but what men by wrangling put into them To have righteousness impuâ—ed to them is to be reputed judged or accounted as righteous Men and so used the cause being not in the Phrasâ— it self but fore-described § 12. So what is meant Rom. 4. 6. by imputing righteousness without works Ans. Plainly reputing or judging a man righteous without the works which Paul there meaneth § 13. So what is meant by Not imputing sin Psal. 32. 2. 2 Cor. 5. 19. Rom. 5. 13. Lev. 7. 18. 1 Sam. 22. 15. 2 Sam. 19. 19. Rom. 4. 8 Ans. Not-judging a man as a Sinner guilty of punishment not charging his sin upon him in Judgment which is as 2 Sam. 19. 19. c. because he is not truly guilty or as Rom. 4. 8. c. because he is forgiven § 14. 2. What is meant by imputing our Faith to us for righteousness But of that more purposely anon § 15. 3. Whether imputing Christ's righteousness to us be a Scripture-phrase Ans. Not that I can find § 16. 4. Whether it be a fit or lawful Phrase and whether in so great matters departing from Scripture-phrase and pretending it necessary so to do be not adding to God's Word or the cause of Corruptions and Divisions in the Church and an intimation that we can speak better than the
Holy Ghost Ans. God hath not tied us to use only Scripture-words or Phrases and use may make them convenient and needful for some times and places which else are less significant or congruous And in this case I see not but that the Phrase is lawful well explained But if any will pretend their own Phrases to be more necessary than they are and will calumniate those as not Orthodox who will not use them or subscribe to them I cannot justifie such from the guilt of Presumption and Injury to the Church the Truth and Christ and the Love of Brethren § 17. 5. Whether they that affirm That Christ's Righteousness is imputed to us or those that deny it are to be accounted Orthodox Ans. Perhaps both if they both hold the same sound Doctrine under various Phrases And perhaps neither if by their various Phrases each mean something that is unsound § 18. They heinously err who deny Christ's Righteousness to be so far imputed to us as to be reputed the meritorious Cause of our Pardon and Right to Life or our Justification performed by our Mediator as the Sponsor of the New Covenant for our sakes and his Sufferings in our stead as is afore-expressed § 19. And they heinously err and subvert the Gospel who say that Christ's Righteousness is so imputed to us as that God reputeth or judgeth Christ to have been perfectly holy and righteous or obedient and to have suffered though not in the Natural yet in the Legal or Civil Person of the Sinner or Believer as their strict and proper Representer and reputeth us to have been perfectly holy righteous or obedient in Christ as our Representer and so to have our selves fulfilled all righteousness in and by him and in him to have satisfied Justice and meriâ—ed Eternal Life and Christ's Righteousness to be ours in the same sence of Propriety as it was his own For his Divine Righteousness is the Essence of God and his Humane his Habits Acts and Relations which are the Accidents of his own Person only as the Subject and cannot be in another as is after shewed § 20. Though most of us now leave this Doctrine to the Antinomians or Libertines yet so many Protestants formerly have seemed to own it by their unmeet Phrases in extreme opposition to the Papists or at least to come too near it as hath greatly scandalized and hardened their Adversaries and injured the Reformed Churches § 21. The Person of our Mediator was neither in the Sence of the Law or in God's account properly the person of the Sinner Christ and we are distinct persons § 22. Had we been perfectly holy innocent and obedient in Christ it would follow 1. That we are justified by the Law of Innocency as having perfectly done all that it commanded us which is not true It is by the pardoning Law of Grace that we are justified § 23. 2. That we have no need of Pardon nor of Christ's Sufferings for our Pardon nor of Prayer for Pardon nor any means for it for he needeth no pardon that is perfectly innocent § 24. 3. Therefore they assert Contradictions when they say that we both perfectly obeyed by and in Christ and yet suffered or satisfied in or by him for our Disobedience § 25. 4. It would follow that all penalties even corrective laid on us by God are injuries or no penalties because we are innocent § 26. 5. And that God's denying us any helps of his Spirit and permitting the remnant of our Sin yet unhealed and the weakness of our Graces are an injurious denying us our Right § 27. 6. It would follow that we have present Right to the present possession of the whole Reward both Grace and Glory and that our delay is our wrong because he that is supposed to have done all that the Law maketh his Duty from his Birth till his Death hath right to the Reward by the Law or Covenant § 28. 7. And it would follow That no Duty could be required of us as a Condition of any Benefit purchased by Christ nor any sin charged on us so far as to be indeed our sin because we are reputed perfectly holy and innocent § 29. Many other such Consequents I pass by and other Arguments against this Opinion and the Confutation of the contrary because I have done it all elsewhere especially in a peculiar Discourse on this Subject and in my Disputations of Justification § 30. Christ's own Righteousness habitual or actual is not ours as it is his in strict sence in it self as if we were the Proprietors the Subjects of his Habits or the Agents of his Acts For it is impossible that the Accidents of several Subjects should be the same § 31. And the form of Christ's Righteousness is therefore no more ours than the Matter For Righteousness in Christ and Righteousness in each Believer are distinct Righteousnesses § 32. Many Divines have pleaded That Christ's Righteousness is the form of ours and others that it is the Matter and others that it is the meritorious Cause and have too much troubled the Church with Logical Notions The meritorious Cause it is undoubtedly and they that say That it cannot then be the material Cause must consider that we mean that it is the Matter of the meritorious Cause And had we been innocent our selves would not our Innocency have been both the Matter of our righteousness or Merit and the meritorious Cause of our right to Life § 33. But this supposeth that the Matter of the Gospel subordinate righteousness which consisteth in that Repentance Faith and Holiness which is required in us to our right to life is to be found in our selves and not in Christ for us § 34. But the form of Christ's righteousness cannot be the form of ours as is aforesaid but it is the form of that which is the meritorious Cause of ours But what need have we of thâ—se Disputes § 35. The Not imputing of sin is called also by some the Form of Iustification and by others that and the Imputation of righteousness conjunct and by others that and God's accepting us as righteous others call these the Matter of Iustification and thus mens Logick ill-managed troubleth the Hearers which I would not mention had it not been necessary to disintangle them § 36. They that will dispute what is the form of Iustification must first confess the Ambiguity of the Word and tell us in which Sence they take it There are so many things that are truly the form of Iustification taken in many Sences that without such distinguishing to dispute of the form of Iustification is worse than to say nothing Iustification taken actively as the Act of the Iustifyer hath one form Iustification passively taken for the state of the justified hath another form And â—â—ch of these are subdivided into many Acts and many Effects which have each their form The Act of pardoning sin is one thing and therefore hath one form The Act of
to it For Hope may be exercised upon probabilities and most usually it is so § 12. Strong Probability with little reason of doubting may cause such strong Hopes as may cause us to live and die with comfort If doubting be small and Hope be great the Peace and Ioy will be greater than the fear and trouble § 13. Bellarmin's Moral Certainty is more than most Christians attain to and his and other mens Concession thereof tell us That in this Point our difference is less than those have thought who have said it was sufficient Cause of our Separation from Rome § 14. While we are certain that this World is fading Vanity and that there is no hope of Felicity on Earth and that therefore Godliness can cost us the loss of nothing but Vanity a Faith short of Certainty and mixt with doubting about the very Truth of the Promise it self and Life Eternal may engage a man savingly in a holy Life and the forsaking of all for the hopes of Glory And such doubting even of the Life to come or of the Gospel as keepeth not men from trusting to it for their Felicity and seeking it above all and forsaking all for it will keep no man from Salvation though it be his sin and the cause of other sins Much more may this be done when men doubt not of God's Word or the State of Glory but only of their own Sincerity Justification and Salvation CHAP. XXV Of good Works and Merit and trusting to any thing of our own § 1. HEre are several Controversies that trouble our Peace but few of them that are so great as they are commonly imagined As 1. What are good Works which indeed is of great weight and the chief in which we really differ about Works 2. Whether they are necessary to Justification or Salvation 3. Whether they are meritorious or rewardable 4. What place they have and what is their use and necessity 5. Whether we may trust to them § 2. I. It is one of the Devil 's chief Policies in the World to cast out Christ's Interest by its Counterfeits To expugn true Wisdom by counterfeit Wisdom and true Faith by counterfeit Faith and true Zeal and Piety by counterfeit Zeal and Piety and true Unity and Concord and Peace by their Counterfeits and true Worship Ministry Discipline by their Counterfeits and true Comfort by counterfeit Comfort and so also it is by counterfeit good Works that good Works are oft cast off § 3. The measure of all created Goodness is the Will of the Creator who is the prime essential Good and no Work of Man is morally good but what is made so by the Will of God that is 1. Efficiently by his operative Will 2. Directively by his commanding Will And 3. Finally and Objectively by his pleased or fulfilled Will. Man's Wit Will or Interest cannot serve to make any action morally good § 4. He that intendeth God's Honour and the pleasing of his Will and the good of his own or others Souls or the safety of Religion or the Church or State and useth means hereto not commanded or any way appointed him of God much more if directly forbidden doth not a Work that is truly good but only secundum quid § 5. Could we be sure that such a Work would save Souls or save Church or State or our Neighbours lives it would not make it morally a good Work but only make the Effect to be physically good to others that are benefited by it § 6. Therefore to build Churches or Hospitals to feed and cloath the Poor to save Mens Lives to preach the Gospel are all such as finally do a physical good and they are the matter of moral good but forma denominat Those Actions are not morally good unless 1. done in obedience to God's commanding or ruling Will 2. And finally to please his Will § 7. Those Priests therefore that set carnal ungodly Sinners Fornicators Murderers Gluttons Drunkards Lyers Perjured c. on expiating their Sins by good Works without teaching and perswading them to that internal repentance and Conversion of their Wills and holy devotedness to God by which their Works must have a right Principle End and Form do but delude men and cheat them by flattery into perdition § 8. Much more pernicious is it to take Sin Folly and Superstition for good Works and look to be saved by that which deserveth Damnation and to expiate sin by sin such are the Works of Persecuters that think they serve God by unjust killing or imprisoning his Servants or causeless silencing his faithful Ministers such were the Wars of the Croâ—sadâ—'s against the Waldenses and Albigenses and such are the Works of the Inquisition and their persecuting Executioners such are Rebellions that have fair Pretences as were those against the German Emperors Fredericks Henry c. and of many of such Agents oft against the Kings of England such hath been the zealous killing of Kings and burning of honest desirable Dissenters and such is the alienating Mens Estates from better Uses to maintain a supernumerous sinful vicious idle Monastery or their prelatical needless Pomp and Pride or to buy Pardons or Masses for departed Souls or to build useless Structures to the Honour of some Saint or Angel or to set up useless Formalities and Shadows as Candles by day-light and abundance such And such are long Pilgrimages to the Shrines of such as the Pope hath Canonized and to visit Relicks and the carrying about of Relicks with an ungrounded carnal considence in them with many such like § 9. So wosully hath the Papal Party and not they only but in too great a measure the Greeks Moscovites Armenians Syrians Coptics Abassines and most of the Churches corrupted the Christian Religion by their useless or seducing Fopperies called good Works that they have among them defiled its Purity rejected its Primitive Simplicity obscured and dishonoured its Glory and made it seem contemptible to Mahometans and Heathens and made it less fit to destroy sin and frustrate Satan and to please God and to sanctifie and save mens Souls § 10. II. Were all Sects and Parties of Christians well agreed what Works are truly good it would be a shame to us should we not agree in the main how far they are necessary when the Case is so plain throughout the Scripture I think we are commonly agreed as followeth § 11. 1. Perfect Obedience is not of absolute necessity to Salvation because we are under a Covenant that hath easier terms § 12. 2. The Works of the Mosaical Jewish Law are neither necessary necessitate praecepti vel medii that Law not binding us as such § 13. 3. Obedience to Man's Laws is not necessary when the matter is forbidden us by God's Laws or when they are Laws without power that is such as men have no Authority to make § 14. 4. No Works of special Grace are antecedently necessary to our reception of that Grace oâ— of its necessary means
the power of the Devil to deceive men These men rejecting the last convincing means of Faith are left by themselves remediless § 20. But 2. the Papists and many Ancients say That by not forgiven is meant only very hardly and rarely but most Protestants expound the words absolutely as they run which the Reader will think most probable I leave to his consideration § 21. Some think that the Novatians denied all pardon to such as committed any great sin after Baptism but Albâ—spinaeus Petavius and others have truly proved that it was not so but only that they denied Power in the Church to pardon such Backsliders which yet no doubt was their Error seeing as God on his part pardoneth men as oft as they truly repent so the Church must pardon as far as belongs to them such as seem truly to repent But frequent gross sinning doth so much disprove mens verbal repenting that such mens credit being forfeit their words are not to be taken till they amend their lives THE END Vid. Vit. Georg. Anhalt Buchaltrin in Mâ—lc Adam Such a noise do the Histories of Church-Faction make about Nestorians Eurychians Monothelites c. that will not permit â—s to pass by these points ☞ These five preceding Chapters were on Emergent Occasions written about Twenty years after the rest of the â—ook save one Chapter Chap. 5 Pardon the disorder of not handling the Law before Sin It is for young Readers sake who would have all God's Laws opened together â—â— give Light to each other Of the divers sorts of Freedom of Will and the fuller opening them see my Methodus Theologiae and Cath. Theol. Dr. Twisse frequently well openeth this * Of this I have published a Disputation which proveth it Mr. W. Fenner put his Opinion for the Traduction of Souls into his Catechismes But the Publisher left that out And where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is taken for a Testament the Parts and Acts are the same with the Relation of it to the Death of the Testator who as his last Will giveth such gifts on such Terms And Christ did put his Commands unto his Testament John 14 15 16. * John 12. 32. John 7. 39. 6. 60 61 62 63 54. Joh. 5. 22 23 24 25. Joh. 10. 2 3 4 7 8 11 14 15 16. 2. 16 c. Heb. 13. 20. Joh. 6. 33 34 35 48 51 53 63. 8. 12 13. 10. 10. 11. 25. 14. 6 7. 20. 31. Rom. 5. 17 18 19 20. 8. 1 2 3. Col. 3. 3 4. 2 Tim. 1. 1. Tit. 1. 2. 2 Pet. 1. 3. Joh. 12. 25. 17. 2 3. Tit. 3. 5 7. 1 Joh. 1. 2. 2. 25. 5. 11 12 13 20. 1 Tim. 1. 16. Joh. 4. 14. Gal. 6. 8. †Mat. 28. 19. Joh. 17. 1 2 3. Rom. 14. 9 10. Eph. 1. 20 23. Phil. 2. 7 9. Joh. 5. 22. Col. 1. Joh. 3. 16 38. Mat. 28. 20. Eph. 4. 7 8 c. Rom. 8. 9. 2 Tim. 1. 7. Rom. 8. 1 â—o 28 34. Heb. 7. 25. Rom. 8. 30 35. John 3. 18 19. Matth. 28. 20. Heb. 10. 29 2. 3. Acts 15. 10. Gal. 5. 1. Rom. 7. 8. 3 4. Gal. 3. 4. 5. Heb. 7. 10. Rom. 3. 4. 5. Mat. 5. John 17. 2. 13. 3. Matt. 28. 19. Rom. 14. 9. John 5. 22. Eph. 1. 23. * Though this be said before a new Case here causeth me to repeat it Of Sufficient grace See of this my Discourse of Saving Faith * Some say that God's meer will causeth man's act as willing it without any other Influx or Impress on Man's Will save our Act it self effected But though it be only God's essential will which is the first Cause yet the thing received by us from God seemeth to be a certain Impress Impulse or vis or Disposition to act in order of Nature before the act it self which Impress sometime is made uneffectual by a prevalent Indisposition or Resistance of the Will * Though before I shewed that this seemed not necessary to all acts of Man will not overthrow Durand Exod. 34. 5 6 7. Heb. 11. 6. Act. 13. 48. Mark 16. 16. Joh. 3. 36. Joh. 14. 6. Ro. 10. 10. c. Mat. 11. 27. Luk. 10. 22. Mat. 16. 17. Rom. 1. 16 17. 1 Cor. 2. 10 c. 2 Cor. 4. 3. Rom. 8. 1 9 13. Luk. 19. 10. Luke 24. Zech. 14. 20 21. 2 Tim. 1. 9. Heb. 3. 1. 1 Pet. 1. 15 16. 2. 5 9. 2 Pet. 3. 11. Exod. 19. 6. Deut. 7. 6. 26. 19. 28. 9. Isa. 62. 12. Rom. 11. 16. 1 Thes. 5. 23. Eph. 1. 18 19. Act. 26. 18. 1 Cor. 3. 17. 7. 14 34. Luk. 14 26 27 31 33. Heb. 12. 14. Col. 1. 22. Eph. 1. 4. 5. 27. 1 Peâ— 1. 16. Eph. 5. 27. 4. 16 c. * Col. 1. 10. 1 Thess. 2. 4. 1 Iohn 3. 22. Heb. 13. 21. Col. 3. 20. Heb. 11. 5. †Luk. 1. 75. Eph. 4. 24. 1 Thess. 4. 7. Heb. 12. 10. Rom. 8. 1 9. Phil. 4. 8. 2 Pet. 1. 3 5. Pro. 12. 4. 31. 31. 29. See the full proof in my two Disput. of Original Sin ☜ In two Treatises for Infants Church-membership and in my Review of Infant-Baptism ☜ Gen. 6. 9. Hos. 14. 9. Heb. 10. 38. 12. 23. Luke 1. 17. 2. 25. 14. 14. 15. 7 Matth. 10. 41. 2 Pet. 2. 8. 1 Tim. 1. 9. Rom. 5. 7. Mat. 13 17. 1 Jo. 3. 7. 1 Pet. 3. 12. 4. 18. Heb. 11. 4. Mat. 13. 43. 25. 37. 46. Rom. 10. 6 10. 8. 4. 10. 6. 13 16 19 20. 5. 17 21. Rom. 2. 26. Act. 10. 35. Luk. 1. 75. Mat. 5. 6 20. * Against Dr. Tully's Accusations * Dr. Kendal Act. 12. 21. Of this more before How far Infants Grace is loseable ☜ See Mr. Hales of the sin against the H. Ghost and Paraphrase on Matth. 12. lately published