a person capable of salvation on our part required It is a penitent and petitioning Faith whereby we receive the Promises of mercy but we are not justified partly by prayer partly by Repentance and partly by Faith but that faith which stirreth up godly sorrow for sin and enforceth us to pray for pardon and salvation Faith is a necessary and lively instrument of Justification which is amongst the number of true causes not being a cause without which the thing is not done but a cause whereby it is done The cause without which a thing is not done is onely present in the action and doth nothing therein but as the eye is an active instrument for seeing and the eare for hearing so is faith also for justifying If it be demanded whose instrument it is It is the instrument of the soul wrought therein by the Holy Ghost and is the free gift of God In the Covenant of works works were required as the cause of life and happinesse but in the Covenant of grace though repentance be necessary and must accompany faith yet not repentance but faith onely is the cause of life The cause not efficient as works should have been if man had stood in the former Covenant but instrumentall onely for it is impossible that Christ the death and blood of Christ and our faith should be together the efficient or procuring causes of Justification or salvation Rom. 3.21 22 28 30. Gal. 2.16 17. Rom. 4.2 3. When the Apostle writeth that man is not justified by works or through works by the Law or through the Law opposing Faith and Works in the matter of Justification but not in respect of their presence Faith I say and works not faith and merits which could never be without doubt he excludes the efficiency and force of the Law and works in justifying But the particles By and Of do not in the same sense take Justification from the Law and Works in which they give it to faith For faith onely doth behold and receive the promises of life and mercy but the Law and Works respect the Commandments not the Promises of meer grace When therefore Justification and life is said to be by Faith it is manifestly signified that faith receiving the promise Deut. 7.12 10.12 Jer. 7.23 Lev. 19.17 18. Luk. 10.27 Mark 12.30 doth receive righteousnesse and life freely promised Obedience to all Gods Commandments is covenanted not as the cause of life but as the qualification and effect of faith and as the way to life Faith that imbraceth life is obediential and fruitful in all good works but in one sort faith is the cause of obedience and good works and in another of Justification and life eternal These it seeketh in the promises of the Covenant those it worketh and produceth as the cause doth the effect Faith was the efficient cause of that precious oblation in Abel Heb. 11.4 7 c. of reverence and preparing the Ark in Noah of obedience in Abraham but it was the instrument onely of their Justification For it doth not justifie as it produceth good works but as it receiveth Christ though it cannot receive Christ unlesse it bring forth good works A disposition to good works is necessary to Justification being the qualification of an active and lively faith Good works of all sorts are necessary to our continuance in the state of Justification and so to our final absolution if God give opportunity but they are not the cause of but onely a precedent qualification or condition to final forgivenesse and eternal blisse If then when we speak of the conditions of the Covenant of grace by condition we understand whatsoever is required on our part as precedent concomitant or subsequent to Justification repentance faith and obedience are all conditions but if by condition we understand what is required on our part as the cause of the good promised though onely instrumental faith or belief in the promises of free mercy is the onely condition Faith and works are opposed in the matter of Justification and salvation in the Covenant not that they cannot stand together in the same subject for they be inseparably united but because they cannot concur or meet together in one and the same Court to the Justification or absolution of man For in the Court of Justice according to the first Covenant either being just he is acquitted or unjust he is condemned But in the Court of mercy if thou receive the promise of pardon which is done by a lively faith thou art acquitted and set free and accepted as just and righteous but if thou believe not thou art sent over to the Court of Justice Thus far Mr. Ball. In which words of his the blood of Christ faith in his blood repentance and works have all of them their due place assigned them The blood of Christ as the alone efficient procuring cause Faith as the instrument giving interest and making application Repentance as a necessary qualification of the justified person in order to glory In this which is the good old Protestant doctrine God loseth nothing of his grace but all is free in the work Christ loseth nothing of his merit it stands alone as the procuring cause Faith receives all from Christ but takes nothing off from the free grace of God or Christs merits God loseth nothing of his Soveraignty and man is not at all dispensed with in his duty God is advanced in his goodnesse and Soveraignty man is kept humble thankful and in subjection no place being left for his pride or gap open for licentiousnesse A Digression concerning the Instrumentality of Faith in Justification HEre I cannot passe by that which Mr. Baxter hath animadverted on some passages of mine in the Treatise of the Covenant concerning the Instrumentality of Faith After I had spoke to our Justification by Faith in opposition to Justification by works in several Propositions of which he is not pleased to take any notice I infer pag. 80. These things considered I am truly sorry that Faith should be denyed to have the office or place of an instrument in our Justification nay scarce allowed to be called an instrument of our receiving Christ that justifies us Mr. Baxter not acquainting his Reader at all with the premises immediately falls upon this inference making himself somewhat merry with my professing my self to be truly sorry for this thing telling me I was as sorry that men called and so called faith the instrument of justification as you are that I deny it acquainting his Reader with his Reasons which he would have to be compared with mine which he passes over in silence 1. No Scripture doth sayes he either in the letter or sense call faith an instrument of Justification This the Reader must take on his word and it should further be considered whether he do not in the same page contradict himself where he saith It is onely the unfitnesse or impropriety of the phrase that he
or proper passive reception that it is therefore called receiving it self and it is therefore as I think called so because it is so and that it hath its concurrence and way of efficacy for possession I think few except Mr. Baxter will deny It followes Yet still I say if any will please to call it an instrument in this sense I will not quarrel with him for the impropriety of a phrase especially if some men had the same ingenuity that others have that say it is but Instrumentum Metaphoricum There is not I hope so much ingenuity desired as to smother or blind their reason If it be a metaphorical instrument there must be some real analogy between it and an instrument properly so called in doing that which is done by an instrument and when an instrument is as is affirmed an efficient An instrument without any efficiency at all is a strange kind of Metaphor It had been better to have held to the old dialect of Equivocal There followes But to say saith he that the act of Faith is the instrument of Ethical active reception which is that which I argued against is to say receiving Christ is the instrument of it self It will sure rather follow that Faith is the instrument of the soul in receiving Christ We say faith receives as we say the hand takes Faith is the instrument of the soul and not of it self in receiving Christ That faith is the eye and hand of the soul are Scripture Metaphors or the sword kills but we mean the man receives by the hand and the hand kills by the sword and so we mean the soul receives Christ by faith I explained my self in giving instance in mens usual language concerning faith which is rejected with no little disdain affirming that these speeches Faith is the eye of the soul the hand of the soul are Metaphors of meere humane use forgetting it seems that ever the Scripture said that Moses by faith endured as seeing him that is invisible or that the promise of the Spirit is received by faith If I had added that faith is the foot of the soul they had all been Metaphors of Divine use I urge Scripture texts We receive remission of sins by faith and an inheritance amongst them that are sanctified is received by faith Act. 26.18 To which is replyed If by signifie an instrumental cause it is either alwayes or sometimes You would not sure have your Reader believe that it is alwayes if but sometimes why do you take it for granted that so it signifies here This I might well retort If it signifie and an instumental cause sometimes why is it not made appear that it does not so signifie here But I confesse that by hath not alwayes such signification Bartimeus sate by the high-way-side begging in which place by is no instrument but when the particle by hath reference to that which hath immediate reference to a principal cause and sometimes is put to the principal cause it self I suppose nothing else but an instrument can be intended when Christ is said to be set forth a propitiation through faith in his blood Rom. 3.25 and that we are justified by his blood Rom. 5.9 I know not how the blood of Christ can be a principal cause and faith not denote an instrument I said why else is this righteousnesse sometimes called the righteousnesse of faith sometimes the righteousnesse of God by faith but that it is a righteousnesse which faith receives To this is replyed It is properer to say Credens recipit credendo the believer by believing receives it then to say faith especially the act receives it Here is an egregious subtilety It is more proper to say I receieve a gift by my hand then to say my hand receives it of the same stamp with another where it is said that Scripture sayes That we are justified by faith yet denyed that Scripture sayes that faith justifies But be it so that is properer does not Scripture speak as improperly Eye hath not seen Eare hath not heard It had been as much properer to have said No man hath seen with his eye or heard with his ear I quote Ephes 3.17 Christ dwells in us by faith and Gal. 3.14 We receive the promise of the Spirit through faith There I say Scripture speaks of faith as the souls instrument to receive Christ Jesus and to receive the Spirit from Christ Jesus and I am answered You odly change the question we are speaking of faiths instrumentality in receiving a right to Christ or Christ in relation and you go about to prove the reception of his Spirit or graces really or himself objectively and so we have a large discourse of Christs dwelling in us But is it not to the purpose to shew that the phrase by faith notes instrumentality which these texts make good and does not Christ dwell in us to more purposes then one Is it not to all purposes that by faith we receive him And then our receiving right to him is not here excluded I said the instrumentality of it in the work of justification is denyed because the nature of an instrument as considered in Physical operations doth not exactly belong to it which if it must be alwayes rigidly followed will often put us to a stand in the assignation of causes of any kind in moral actions To this is replyed I said 1. The action of the principal cause and of the instrument is but one action is not this true of moral operation as well as Physical To this I answer I think here some demurre might be put and scarce believe that it will be fully made good that the action of the principal agent and the instruments which are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are alwayes exactly one though the act of the instrument may be in such cases Interpretatively called the act of the principal agent as David is said to have slain Vriah with the sword of the Ammonites Saul I am sure was of an other mind when intending the death of David he said Let not my hand be upon him but the hand of the Philistines 1 Sam. 18.17 But in case it be granted what hath he gained He adds 2. I say the instrument must have influx to the producing of the effect of the principal cause by a proper causality that is in suo geneâ—e Demanding Is not this true of moral operations as well as Physical Then yeelding that it is true Moral causes may be said to have a lesse proper causation then Physical c. And this lesse proper causation I doubt not but may be found in faith and as proper a causation as an instrument of this nature will bear I say The material and formal causes in justification are scarce agreed upon and no marvel then in case men mind to contend about it that some question is raised about the instrument c. To this there is much spoke telling me what he would have me to have concluded
as signum voluntatis divinae being a manifestation of Gods pleasure concerning the justification of a sinner is sufficient So farre I shall willingly grant That which is to be asserted is 1. That this manifestation of Gods pleasure or signum voluntatis divinae before mentioned is the first ground work on which the whole work of justification is bottomed and goes before those graces but now mentioned which Mr. Baxter makes antecedent to justification This is plain The termes on which God will justifie must be understood before men can be brought to accept and come up to them 2. This manifestation of Gods will thus made knowne and by the power of the Spirit applyed to the soul in an unjustified condition works to humiliation regeneration faith and by faith to justification 3. This manifestation of Gods pleasure being applyed to a man already humbled regenerate and in faith finds him as we have heard before in a justified posture Though Faith in nature goes before justification as the cause before the effect yet they are in that manner simul tempore that none can conceive a believing man in an unjustified condition that so there should any intervall or time passe for conveyance of right by Gospel-grant to justification 4. This Gospel-grant or manifestation of Gods mind being thus tendred as before to a regenerate believing soul serves for ratification and confirmation of his justified condition to make good to such a believing son or daughter that their sinnes are forgiven To apply these assertions to our present purpose This manifestation of Gods pleasure Gospel-grant or signum voluntatis divinae or whatsoever else we call it in the first consideration justifies not Going before that which is antecedent to Justification as we see it does it cannot justify In the second consideration it works indeed to justification But if we yield this to Mr. Baxter he will not accept of it for he saies he does not thus speak of it and in this consideration it justifies not without faith but works faith in order to Justification By this man is preached forgivenesse of sins and by him all that believe are justified In the third consideration it justifies not seeing it finds the work done to its hands and onely serves for the work of assurance as in the last place is asserted So that all that can be said of this Gospel-grant donation or conveyance of right so often by Mr. Baxter mentioned in this work is 1. To make known Gods mind on what termes justification may be attained 2 By the power of the Spirit through faith to work it and finally to assure ratify and confirm it I shall the refore close this dispute if I may be allowed so to stile it in the words of Chemnitius in his Common place de justificat mihi pag. 797. octavo Having spoken to the causes of justification he saith It is altogether necessary that there be application made of these causes to the person to be justified Omnino verò necesse est fieri applicationem harum causarum ad personam justificandam Nam quotquot receperunt eum his fecit potestatem filios Dei fieri Joan. 1.12 3.33 Et Modus seu medium applicationis seu apprehensionis docendi gratiâ vocatur causa instrumentalis Duplex autem est causa instrumentalis 1. Docens Patefaciens Offerens et Exhibens beneficia justificationis per quam Deus nobis communicat illa bona et haec est vox Evangelii et usus sacramentorum vel sicut veteres loquntur verbum vocale et visibile For as many as received him to them he gave power to be made the Sons of God John 1.12 and 3. v. 33. And this manner or medium of application or apprehension speaking to mens capacity is called a cause instrumental And this instrumentall cause is twofold 1. Teaching Opening Offering and Exibiting the benefits of justification by which God doth communicate unto us those gifts And this is the Word of the Gospel and use of Sacraments or as the Ancients speak the Word vocal and visible 2. Receiving or apprehending 2. Recipiens seu apprehendens quâ nobis applicamus illa bona quae in Evangelio offeruntur ita ut eorum participes reddamur Est igitur quasi manus Dei traders et hominis manus suscipiens id quod traditur Supra autem testimonia et annotata et explicata sunt solam fidem non ulias alias vel qualitates vel opera in nobis esse medium applicationis whereby we apply those gifts to our selves which are offered in the Gospel that we may be made partakers of them There is therefore the hand of God as it were delivering and the hand of man receiving that which is delivered And testimonies are both observed and above explained that onely faith sand no other qualities or works in us is the medium of application SECT VI. A fourth Corollary from the former Doctrine AS Christians must see that they be aright principled in this Gospel-doctrine of the righteousnesse of faith Christians must get assurance that they do act according to these principles so also they must get assurance that they act according to these principles which I might urge respective to all that which is required of a man of Gospel-righteousnesse But having already spoke to that purpose in pressing the necessity of the answer of conscience unto Sacramental engagements I shall here onely urge it respectively to that grace which immediately interests us in this righteousnesse which is the grace of faith as we see in the Text which is confest to be the grace that receives Christ even by those that deny the instrumentality of it in our Justification If this righteousnesse which is our Justification be the righteousnesse of Faith then those that are void of faith must needs be wanting in this righteousnesse and Christ being the end of the Law for righteousnesse to those that believe those that persist in unbelief never attain to this end And howsoever zealous they may otherwise appear yet they come short of righteousnesse for life and salvation Giving assent to all Gospel-truths perhaps upon the principles of their education they may not onely have the repute but also enjoy all outward priviledges of believers yet wanting that work upon their will or if you please in their affections to receive Christ and close with him they yet have not Christ nor life in him and therefore upon this account there is all reason to hearken to that of the Apostle Especially to see to their faith 2 Cor. 13.5 Examine your selves whether ye be in the faith prove your own selves Know ye not your own selves how that Jesus Christ is in you except ye be Reprobates In which words we see the Apostles exhortation and his reason annext The exhortation calls us to self-examination to a self-tryal an inquisitive experimental tryal The question to be put or thing to be proved or brought to upon
many more Adversaries then you His work was published before yours and if you intended to publish no other doctrine How could you know that yours was like to blast your reputation with most Divines as in your Printed Letter you tell Mr. Tombs Pag. 409 When his work has mâ—ch advanc'd and not blasted his reputation at all In this Apology you tell me Pag. 16. of four great errors of the Protestant party in the doctrine of Jâ—stification aâ—quitting English Râ—form rs in one of them only And all except that one Davenant is as guilly as any The first is That the formall cause of our Righteousnesse is the formall Righteousnesss of Jesus Christ as suffering and perfectly obeying for us And if this be an error no man is more chargeable then he with it He makes this the title of his 28. Chap. de Justit habit (a) Imputatam Christi obedientiam esse causam formalem Justificationis nostrae probatur The imputed Righteousnesse of Christ is proved to be the formall cause of our Justification Making it good in that Chapter by 11. Arguments and answering contrary objections Having confirm'd it with Arguments he proceeds in the next Chapter to back it with Authorities And quoting Justin Martyr in the first place he thus comments upon him (b) Hic aptrtè doc et Justinus Martyr non modo mortem satisfactionem imputati ad poenam delendam sed ipsam conversationem ejus seu obedientiam activam imputari nobis ad peccatum obliterandum Here Justin Martyr doth evidently teach that noâ— only the death and satisfaction of Christ is imputed to us to take away our punishment but also his conversation and active obedience is imputed to us to take away sin Pag. 374. The like we may find Pag. 378. upon occasion of quotation out of Cyrillus Alexandrinus The next error charged upon Protestants by you is about the way and manner of our participation of this Righteousnesse which the Divines say is by imputation And so Davenant says as we have already heard asserting against Bellarmine the greatest necessity as he speaks of it Pag. 32. Quoting against him Scriptures for it explaining Protestants meaning in it (c) Nos vero hâc imputatione justificationem sitam putamus non eo nomine solum quod Christus nos regit justitiâ suâ sed multò magìs quia donat nos justitiâ suà Neque dicimus Deum nos pro justis habere solummodo quia tectos conspicit justitia Redemptoris nostri sed quia ex sua ordinatione omnes credentes atque in unam personam cum Christo coalescentes justitiae ejus obedidientiae veré participes factos We think saith he that Justification is placed in this imputation not only because Christs covers us with his Righteousnesse but much rather because he freely conferrs his righteousnesse upon us Neither do we say that God accounts us as just only because he sees us Cloathed with the Righteousnesse of our Redeemer but because he sees by his own ordination all believers united into Christ as one person made truly partakers of his obedience But perhaps you are most offended with that which you put in the close of your Charge of this error upon Reformers That we are hereby namely by imputation of this Righteousnesse esteemed legaliter to have fulfilled the Law in Christ Which in your account is so high an error that with you it is one of the pillars of Antinomianisme And qâ—oting these words from a Reverend Brother whom sometimes at least you have had in high esteem That as in Christs suffering we were lookt upon by God as suffering in him So by Christs obeying of the Law we are beheld as fulfilling the Law in him You appeaâ—e to youâ— Reader whether it be true or tolerable Yoâ— seem to think that the naming it is enough to work a deep dislike if not detestation of it And if Davenant here be not as blame-worthy as he I am much mistaken See his third Argument for confirmation of his Thesis before mentioned Pag. 364. (d) Deus ex intuitu obedien 〈◊〉 per Christum praestitae usque ad mortem crucis nos liberavit à poenâ debitá legis transgressoribus imputando nobis hanc alterius satisfactionem perinde ac si nostra fuisset Ergo ex intuitu obedientiae per Christum praestitae usque ad impletionem legis nos donabit illis beneficiis quae promittuntur legis observatoribus imputando nimirum nobis hanc alterius justitiam quasi etiam nostra esset God in beholding the obedience performed by Christ even to the death of the Crosse delivers us from the punishment due to the transgressors of the Law imputing this satisfaction of another to us even as though it had been ours Therefore in beholding the obedience of Christ yeelded even to the fulfilling of the Law he confers these benefits upon us which are promised to the observers of the Law that is by imputing to us this righteousnesse of another as though it were ours And much more to this purpose And afterwards further explaining himself he sayth (e) Quemadmodum iutuitu imputatae satisfactionis Deus nos liberat ab ira poena quasi nos illam satisfactionem in propriis personis exhibuissemus Sic intuitu legis à Christo pro nobis impletae acceptat nos ad vitam proemium gloriae quasi nos nostrâ personali justitiâ legem implevissemus As upon sight of this imputed satisfaction God doth deliver us from wrath and punishment as though we had made satisfaction in our own persons So upon sight of the Law fulfilled by Christ for us he accepts us unto life and glory as though with our own personall Righteousnesse we had fulfilled the Law The third error which is charged upon Protestants is that from which English Reformers are acquitted The fourth is About the formall reason of faiths interest in Justification Which Protestant Reformers say as you observe from them is as the instrument This indeed Davenant doth not put to the question and purposely handle that I know as he does the former Yet we find him fully asserting it Answering Bellarmines objection that (f) Instrumentalem semper agnoscit non autem formalem nisi quatenus sub nomine fidei includit objectum fide comprehensum Quasi diceret Christi obedientiam fide apprehensam esse causam formalem Justificationis nostrae Luther made faith the formall cause of Justification he saith that Luther alwaies acknowledged it the instrumentall but not the formall unlesse under the name of faith he include the object apprehended by faith as though he should say that the obedience of Christ apprehended by faith is the formall cause of our Justification Where we plainly see Davenants mind 1. That that which apprehends and applies the righteousness of Christ for justification is the instrumentall cause in it 2. That faith apprehends and applies this righteousness of Christ for
justification and consequently with him Faith is the instrument So also Determinat 37. pag. 165. (g) Huic fiduciae in Christum mediatorem tribuimus instrumentalem vim justificandi potius quam illi actui hominis peccatoris Quia constat eo modo justificari homines quo gloria divina maximè illustretur honor salutis nostrae ad solum Deum referatur Atqui ab aliis virtutibus aut operibus statuunt hominem justifioari in justificationis negotio gloriam salutis humanae non integram Deo relinquunt sed merito suo aliquâ ex parte adscribunt We attribute saith he this instrumentall power of justification to this trust in Christ the Mediator rather then to any other act of sinning man because it is manifest that men are justified that way by which the glory of God may be most illustrated and the honour of our salvation given to God alone But they that affirm that man is justified by other vertues or works do not leave the whole glory of man's savation in justification alone to God but ascribe some part unto themselves You are highly displeased with all those that will have no other condition of our justification at the day of judgement then affiance in Christ's righteousness If you allow faith to begin it yet you will have works at any hand to perfect it Here he is as full as anywhere against you Quoting two passages out of Hilary Chap. 29. p. 377. Of which we may make use anon he thus expresseth himself (h) Solent Jesuitae justificationem fidei ascribere sed non solo Hunc errorem taxat Hilarius quando dicit Sola fides justificat Initium etiam justificationis fidei tribuunt sed non consummationem Atille longè aliter justum fides consummat Jesuites are wont to ascribe justification to faith but not to faith alone Hilary taxes this error when he saith Faith alone justifies They attribute saith he the beginning of justification to faith but not the consummation But Hilary far otherwise Faith consummates the just We have heard your sense of the danger of that opinion That faith in Christ as giving himself in Satisfaction for us is alone the justifying act And we shall hear how confident you are that all antiquity is against it as against the instrumentality of faith in justification and the interest of works as consummate in judgement If you please to read Davenants 37. Determinat You shall see him as fully against you as Chemnitius Amesius Prideaux Bernard Anselmus or any other that you can look upon as your greatest adversaries My third argument to assert this position laid down Sect. 2. of this Postscript he there makes his first which I saw not till I was come hither else I might have made other use of it And see how he expresses himself pag. 164. (i) Jam quod spectat ad pro prium illud speciale objectum in quod fides respicit eo ipso articulo quo accipit justificationem à Deo certum est in historicâ narratione creationis aut gubernationis non posse animam ream invenire hanc peccatorum remissionem Vnde Aquinas In ipsâ justificatione peccatoris non est necesse ut cogitentur caeteri articuli sed solum cogitetur Deus peccata remittens Deinde in mandatis comminationibus legis multo minùs invenitur hoc speciale objectum Nam talis consideratio ex se nihil gignit quam terrores c. Restant igitur dulces promissiones Evangelicae de favore gratuitâ peccati remissione per propter Mediatorem in quas dum fides respicit peccator fiduciam concipit in hunc oblatum sibi Mediatorem recumbit divinae misericordiae se justificandum subjicit atque inde justificationis beneficium protinùs consequitur Now as to that speciall proper object at which faith looks in that very instant in which it receives justification from God it is certain that the guilty soul can not find remission of sins in the historicall narrative of creation or providence Whence Aquinas In the justification of a sinner it is not necessary that other articles be thought upon but that God be thought upon pardoning sin And in the commands and threats of the Law this speciall object is much less found For this consideration begets nothing else but terrors c. Therefore the sweet Evangelicall promises of the favour and free pardon of sin by and for the mediatour onely remain upon which whil'st faith looks the sinner conceives hope relies upon this mediator offered to him yields himself to divine mercy for justification and thereby attains the benefit of justification And this he backs with three Arguments You tell me Apol. p. 24. It must needs be known that the faith which is the justifying condition is terminated on Christ himself as the object and not on his Righteousness which he gives in remission Giving in your reasons To which in their due place I have spoke And you may see Davenant as full against you here as any where ca. 23. de Justit habit p. 317. (k) Accipere autem dicimur hoc donum manu fidei quae applicat nobis Christi justitiam non ut nostra fiat per modum infusionis aut inhaesionis sed per modum imputationis Atque demiror Papist as non posse intelligere quomodo per fidem Christi justitia nobis applicetur qui putant se intelligere quo modo per indulgentias Pontificias Christi sanctorum merita sive vivis sive mortuis assigentur We are said to receive this gift by the hand of faith which applies to us the righteousness of Christ not that it should be made ours way of infusion or inhesion but by way of imputation And I wonder saith he that Papists cannot understand how the righteousness of Christ is applied to us by faith who think that they understand how by the Popes indulgencies the merits of Christs and the Saints are applied to the quick and dead As also chap. 28. p. 371. (l) Nihil usitatius quam causae applicanti illud tribuere quod propriè immediatè pertinet ad rem applicatam Quia igitur fides apprehendit applicat nobis Christi justitiam id fidei ipsi tribuitur quod reipsa Christo debetur There is nothing more usual then to ascribe that to the cause applying which properly and immediately belongs to the thing applyed Therefore because faith apprehends and applies the righteousness of Christ to us that is attributed to faith that indeed is due to Christ Where we plainly see that according to him Faith applies the righteousness of Christ and that it is an applying cause and what cause except instrumentall I cannot imagine Much more might be brought out of this Reverend Author to this purpose But this is enough to let us see that there is not any so fair and full accord between you And if I should be put to name two
oppose it to works and not to other sects giving clear instances 2. They object That in the use of this particle sole the Fathers exclude all works going before Faith and Regeneration and denying only that the works of Infidels and unregenerate do justifie This Rule Franc. à Sanctae â— Clara doth produce out of Casalius but plainely enough signifies that it will not satisfie This Chemnitius also overthrowes by severall cleare testimonies out Origen and Ambrose 3. They object That by the particle sole the Fathers do exclude ceremoniall works and not all works which indeed is unworthy of answere the Law of Ceremonies being antiquated before their daies 4. Seeing none of these will hold Franc. à Sancta Clara produceth another Rule out of Aquinas Quando aliquod commune multis tribuitur specialiter alicui illud provenit aut quia in illo excellentissimè reperitur aut quia primò reperitur in Quaest de veritate Quaest 14. artic 5. ad 12. When any thing that is common to many is attributed specially to one that comes to passe either because it is most eminent or because it is first in it which Rule might serve with some reason as applyed to this purpose for answer both to Scripture-texts and testimonies of Fathers in case they only said that we are Justified by Faith But when the Scripture doth not barely give it to Faith but denies it to works and the Fathers do not only say that Faith Justifies but that Faith only Justifies and particularly exclude works this Rule therefore can do nothing here So that I conclude that Faith hath its office in Justification which other graces have not which is not by you denied And that this office is ascribed to Faith in words implying an instrumentality as in Scriptures so in the Fathers an no other office peculiar can be found for it according to your Confession therefore according to Scriptures and Fathers it Justifies as an instrument Before I go off this head let me mind you of that of Dr. Prideaux which you may find Lect. 5. de Justific Pag. 146. * Arminio minimè placuit ait ejus inter pres Corvinus quod fides dicitur instrumentalis Justificationis nostrae causa Bonâ igitur fide dic Armini pro tuo acumine qua ratione fides Justificat It did not saith he please Arminius as his interpreter Corvinus says that Faith should be called the instrumentall cause of our Justification Whereupon he addresses himself to him Tell us in good earnest O Arminius how it Justifies May not I put the same question to you He speaks for Arminius oâ—t of an Epistle of his to Hippolitus à Collibus the Palsgrave's Ambassadour The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere hoe est actum fidei dicit imputari in justitiam idque proprio sensu non Metonymicè quatenus objectum apprehendit in Ep. ad Hippolitum à Collibus principis Palatini legatum i. e. the act of Faith is imputed for Righteousnesse and that in a proper not a Metonymicall sense as it apprehends the object which he there refutes But it will not serve you to answer thus For with you works justifie and yet you confesse that Faith hath its peculiar way and prerogative which agrees not to works in Justification We must either then yeeld that it Justifies as an instrument or shut it quite out from the office of Justification or plainely confesse we know not what office it hath in this work notwithstanding Scripture speaks so much of it and still in those words which in mens common Language denote an instrument The second That Faith in Christ quâ Lord is not the Justifying act is with you as the former a notorious novelty and comes within the same Challenge And if the Contention be alone about the termes in case it be yeelded what would you be advantaged Seeing I doubt not but we may say that it was never in Terminis by the Ancients put to the question and so you in affirming that Faith in Christ quâ Lord is the Justifying act are in as notorious a novelty as we on the other hand in denying it you can no more find the one in the Ancients then your adversaries can find the other But if the question be about the thing it self I doubt not but many testimonies may be easily produced In order to which the state of the question as it is laid down between Protestants and their adversaries is to be looked into which is Whether the whole word of God be the object of Justifying Faith or the speciall promises of mercy in Christ Thus Bellarmine states it Lib. 1. de Justificatione cap. 4. and saith that the Heretiques restrain it to the promise of speciall mercy but Catholiques will have the object of Faith to be as large as the whole word of God Here Protestants yield somewhat to Bellarmine somewhat they deny They yield that the Faith which Justifies looks upon the whole word of God as its object that it believes the History of the Creation the narrative of the years of Mathusaleh the floud of Noah that it acknowledges the equity of all Gods Commands and a necessity of obedience but not as Justifying We willingly grant that Justifying Faith is an obedientiall affiance yet it is the affiance and noâ— the obedience nor yet the assent to truths formerly mentioned or the like that acts in Justification Your self say that obedience is only the modification of Faith in the first act of Justification and the reforming party of Protestant Divines say the same in the consummation of it Now that these promises of speciall mercy or the blood of Christ held out in the free promises is the speciall object of Faith in this act of Justification and that it justifies as it applies such promises and doth interest the Soul in this blood may I suppose be made good by diverse testimonies Let that of Ambrose be consulted Lib. 1. Cap. 6. de Jacobo vitâ beatâ Non habeo unde gloriari in operibus meis possum non habeo unde me jactem ideo gloriabor in Christro Non gloriabor quia justus sum sed gloriabor quia redemptus sum Gloriabor non quia vacuus peccati sum sed quia remissa sunt peccata Non gloriabor quia profui neque quia profuit mihi quisquam sed quia pro me advocatus apud patrem Christus est sed quia pro me Christi sanguis effusus est Facta est mihi culpa mea merces redemptionis per quam mihi Christus advenit Propter me Christus mortem gustavit fructuosior culpa quam innocentia Innocentia arrogantem me fecerat culpa subjectum reddidit And that of Gregory in Ezek. Hom. 7. Justus igitur advocatus noster justos nos defendet in judicio quia nos ispos cognoscimus accusamus injustos Non ergo infletibus non in actibus nostris
Rome in it Page 227 Whether Infants were saved by their Parents faith and how before circumcision Page 26 27 28 Severall propositions laid down Page 29 c. Infant-Baptisme Severall benefits of it Page 185 c. See Baptisme Infirmities Men Covenant not with God to be above all infirmities Page 392 Meer infirmities no Covenant-breaches ibid. Their happiness whose sins are not above infirmities Page 393 Sins above infirmities and towards presumption ibid. See Sin Institution A word of institution necessary to the being of Sacraments Page 58 Repetition and explanation of this word of institution singularly usefull Page 59 All Sacramentall rites must be of divine institution Instrument Faith The instrumentality of Faith in justification asserted Page 437 Scripture Texts holding out the instrumentality of Faith as in other actions so in justification Page 444 Whether the action of the principall cause and of the instrument in Morall operations is alwayes one Page 445 The unanimous consent of Protestant writers that Faith is an instrument ibid. c. Faiths instrumentality makes not man the efficient cause of his justification Page 438. 464 Faiths instrumentality in receiving Christ being granted its instrumentality in justification cannot be denied Page 441 Faith is the instrument of the soul and not of it self in receiving Christ Page 443 Instruments of meer reception and further operation distinguished Page 448 Faith an instrument of the proper reception of Christ Page 460 It is the instrument both of God and man in the work of justification Page 448. 487 The grant of the New Covenant is not an instrument of justification solely sufficient Page 466 Concauses instrumentall have efficacy one from another Page 470 Instruments Cooperative or Passive Page 474 Whether the word be a passive instrument or Cooperative with the Spirit ibid. An instrumentall effiâ—iency ascribed to Faith respective to Salvation Page 486 Arguments for the instrumentality of faith in justification Page 485 Proofs from Antiquity for its instrumentality in justification Page 628 c. See Faith Justification The relative change in it necessarily presupposes a reall Page 447 God and man not co-ordinate causes in it Page 449 In justification of man God acts not without man Page 446 Quaeres put in what sense the grant of the New Covenant is said to be solely instrumentall in the work of justification Page 478 Arguments against the sole sufficiency of the grant of the New Covenant for justification Page 489 Justification by Gospell grant and by the sentence of the Judge how they differ Page 556 557 Justification at the day of judgement not specifically distinct from that which precedse Page 558 The Father appoints the termes of justification and salvation Page 559 Paul treats directly and industriously of justification by faith Page 576 Justifying Faith which is short of justifying gives title to Baptisme Page 163 c. Severall arguments vindicated Page 120 c. Exceptions examined Page 143 Additionall arguments to prove it Page 161 Covenanting and justifying not Synonima's Page 135 136 None able to Baptize if justifying faith onely give admission Page 160 Jurisdiction Admission to the Lords Supper is no act of jurisdiction Page 253 Arguments evincing it ibid. c. Objections answered Page 262 K. Knowledge A necessary prerequisite in faith Page 500 Knowledge distinguished Page 501 See Ignorance L. Law ANd Covenant are not to be confounded Page 598 Law Morall Arminians Socinians and Papists oppose the perfection of the Morall Law Page 601 Authorities of Protestant writers for the perfection of the Morall Law Page 602 Arguments evincing the perfection of the Morall Law Page 603 Objections answered Page 605 There is no sin that is not condemned in the Morall Law Page 603 In what sense the preceptive part of the Morall Law is a perfect rule of righteousness Page 605 c. Actions are denominated good or bad from the Law onely Page 613 Men are denominated really and not equivocally righteous that imperfectly obey the Morall Law Page 614 The Law commanding duty and the end of the duty are not opposite but subordinate Page 614 Law nature What meant by the time of the Law of nature Page 24 No Sacraments appointed of God during the time called the Law of nature Page 24 c. Scripture silence a probable argument Page 26 Jesuites arguments herein examined ibid. The preceptive part of the Law of nature delivered to Moses and as used by Christ whether they differ Page 600 Leiturgy Divine ordinances must not stand or fall upon the want or fruition of any set leiturgy whatsoever Page 308 Leiturgy of the Church of England taken into consideration ibid. c. 1. As to the work it self Page 308 2. As to the sanction put upon it Page 309 Life What meant by it in the Covenant of works Page 11 Not barely an animall life ibid. c. The tree of life had not any naturall power to answer its name Page 12 Lord. Faith in Christ qua Lord is not the justifying act Page 554 The position at large discussed Page 555 c. Lords Supper See Sacraments Supper Lunatick Persons uncapable of any benefit by the Lords Supper Page 229 M. Man His first originall is in sin Page 363 Arguments evincing it Page 364 In mans restitution his nature must be healed and his guilt removed Page 366 The healing of his nature and the removall of guilt is the work of Christ Page 366 Manna Whence it hath its name Page 523 The time it continued with Israel Page 524 Miraculously provided ibid. A fable concerning it ibid. Of a Sacramentall nature Page 525 No standing Sacrament Page 526 Meanes Their necessity for our help in the way of faith and obedience Page 17 Objections answered Page 17 18 Mediatour See Christ Metonymies Frequent in Scripture Page 572 Marriage The Matter Page 540 Form Page 540 Minister Page 540 Reasons evincing it to be no Sacrament Page 541 Minister Allegations for a Ministers sole power in admission to the Sacrament Page 251 Inconveniences objected against it answered Page 262 A Ministers prudence in this work to see with more eyes then his own Page 272 Where an Eldership is erected to make use of them ibid. To make scrutiny into mens knowledge with all tenderness Page 273 Not to refuse but upon known crimes ibid. When he cannot in this do what he would he is to do what he is able Page 274 Ministerial Dispensation of Sacraments a part of the Ministeriall function Page 277 Whether Ministeriall dispensation be of the essence of Sacraments Page 277 c. Gospell order transgrest when Sacraments are not dispenced by a Ministeriall hand Page 278 Doctor Abbots and Mr. Hookers judgement in it ibid. Mixt. Lawfull to communicate in mixt congregations Page 314 Arguments evincing it ibid. c. Morall Perfection or imperfection is in reference to a rule Page 592 Duties naturally Morall bind all Page 195 Where a positive command is given there is a Morall tye to obedience ibid See Law
in whom by faith remission of sins may be obtained I know but that it is a signe either that we do believe or that we have remission of sin otherwise then upon our believing to which this engages but not presupposes I know not Simon Magus had not Baptisme to signifie that all his sins were forgiven but that by faith in the Name of Christ he might be forgiven Mr. Cobbet sayes well Vindication pag. 54. The initiatory seal which holds true of the other seal is not primarily and properly the seal of mans faith or repentance or obedience but of Gods Covenant rather the seal is to the Covenant even Abrahams Circumsion was not primarily a seal to Abrahams faith of righteousnesse but to the righteousnesse of faith exhibited and effected in the Covenant yea to the Crvenant it self or promise which had believed unto righteousnesse hence the Covenant of grace is called the righteousnesse of faith Rom. 10. I confesse it is a symbole of our profession of faith but this is not the faith spoken to neither is remission of sins annext unto it Secondly That which necessarily supposeth conversion and faith doth not work conversion and faith But the Sacrament of the Lords Supper supposeth conversion and faith The Minor is proved Mar. 16.16 Act. 2.38 Act. 8.36 37. ver 41. Act. 10.4.7 All which texts are spoken of Baptisme and not of the Lords Supper To that text Mar. 16.16 I have spoken fully Treatise of the Covenant pag. 243. To that Act. 8.36 37. I have spoken pag. 244. To that of Act. 2.38 I have spoken pag. 396. and ther is no need that I should repeat what I have said For Act. 2.41 They that gladly received his Word were baptized It speaks no more then ready acceptation of the tender of the Gospel and whether this necessarily implyes saving faith let Ezek. 33.31 Matth. 13.20 21. Gal. 4.15 be consulted For Act. 10.47 Can any man forbid water that these should not be baptized who have received the holy Ghost as well as we it proves that men of gifts from the Spirit have title such gifts gave Judas a title not onely to baptisme but Apostleship such a faith may be had and sanctification wanting Thirdly That which gives us new food supposeth that we have the new birth and Spiritul life and that we are not still dead in trespasses and sins But the Sacrament of the Lords Supper gives us new food Ergo. Ans 1. Metaphors are ill materials to make up into syllogismes 2. A difference may be put between ordinary food and living and quickening food It may be true of the former but not of the latter 3. The Word as well as the Sacrament gives us new food 1. Pet. 2.2 and yet presupposeth not new life If any reply that the Word is more then food it is seed as well as food and it gives not new life as food but as seed I answer that the Sacrament is more then food There is a Sacramental work preceding our taking and eating which some say may be done to edification and profit by those that are not admitted to be partakers where they divide I may distinguish and there Christ is set forth to the aggravation of sin to carry on the work of contrition and compunction Fourthly That Ordinance which is instituted onely for believers and justified persons is no converting but a sealing Ordinance But this Sacrament is instituted onely for believers and justified persons The Minor is proved Circumcision was a seal of the righteousnesse of faith Rom. 4.17 much more then Baptisme and if Baptisme much more the Lords Supper Ans Upon this account it must needs follow that as Abraham was a justified man so Ishmael was justified also who according to the mind of God and in obedience to his commands was circumcised Gen. 17.23 yea every Proselyte that joyned himself to Israel and every male in Israel according to this Interpretation must be justified 2. Howsoever Abraham was a justified person yet his Circumcision in that place is not made a proof of his justification but a distinct text of Scripture Gen. 15.16 quoted by the Apostle ver 3. And that Scripture setting out his justification to be by faith and not by works the Apostles words onely shew that the Sacrament of Circumcision sealed the Covenant not of works but of faith so that Mr. Cobbets words quoted in answer to the first argument are a full answer here Fifthly The Apostle argues that Abraham the Father of the faithful and whose justification is a pattern of ours was not justified by Circumcision Circumcision was not the cause but the sign of his justification Therefore no Sacrament is a cause of our justication Ans Though animadversions might be made on these words yet if any will put them into form I shall grant the conclusion when I say the Sacrament as an Appendix to the Word may have its influence with the word upon a professor offaith to work him to the truth of faith I am far from saying it is any cause of justification I look on faith no otherwise then as an instrument in the work and the Sacrament as an help and not the principal to the work of faith Sixthly There is an argument drawn from the necessity of examination which before hath received an answer Seventhly That Ordinance unto which none may come without a wedding garment is no converting Ordinance But the Supper of the Lord the marriage feast of the Kings Son is an Ordinance unto which a man may not come without a wedding argument Ans 1. Arguments drawn from parables must be used with all tendernesse But in this Argument here is much boldnesse to make this Ordinance that marriage-feast 2. We shall find if we look to the scope of it that this feast is the fruition of Christ in his Kingdom as appears by those words that give occasion to the Parable of the Supper Luk. 14.15 And when one of them that sate at meat with him heard these things he said unto him Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God Now those that pretend a forwardnesse towards it and are not prepared and fitted for it according to the scope of the Parable shall be cast out from it This therefore may fairly prove that none that appear in Ordinances and yet remaine in their sins shall come to heaven But it no more proves that a man cannot get saving good by this Ordinance then it proves that a man cannot get saving good by the Word The VVord may lay as fair a claime to this wedding feast as the Lords Supper Eighthly That Ordinance which is not appointed to work faith is no converting Ordinance But the Sacrament of the Lords Supper is not appointed to work faith Ergo. The Assumption is proved Rom. 10.14 Faith cometh by hearing hearing by the Word of God then not by seeing if by the Word then not by the Sacrament Ans If faith comes by hearing will
how great things they ascribe to the body of Christ received if no barre be put which they understand of the Sacramental bread is very well known But as some have observed where poyson growes providence takes care that there be antidotes found so none of these ever appeared in the Church but some by the good hand of God have stood up in opposition How mightily did the Prophet Jeremy oppose himself against that over-high opinion that the Jewes in his time had of Circumcision Jer. 9.25 26. As also Paul making use of his authority against the Jewes in his time and disputing at large against it Rom. 2. And the Apostle Peter foreseeing it seems that Baptisme would be set up as high among Christians as ever Circumcision was among the Jewes makes it his businesse to prevent it Having affirmed that Baptisme saves he is careful to let us know that it is not by its own power but by the resurrection of Christ that is Faith in the Resurrection and further explains himself that it is not the outward act alone but as answered with an inward work that hath that power as you have heard And Popish Schoolmen making it their work as we have heard to advance Sacraments to that height Protestant Writers in a sull stream have appeared to set them on their right bottome and to make it appear what it is that Scripture attributes to them and what in their right use may be expected from them Calvin's words lib. 4. instit cap. 14. Sect. 14. are high and notable having opposed the doctrine of nuda signa which makes Sacraments to be bare and naked signs On the other hand saith he b Rursum admonendi sumus ut isti vim Sacramentorum enervant usumq prorsus evertunt ita ab adversâ parte stare alios qui arcanas nescio quas virtures Sacramentis affingunt quae nusquam illis à Deo insitae leguntur Quo errore periculosè falluntur simpliciores et imperiti dum et Dei dona quaerere docentur ubi reperiri minime possunt et à Deo sensim abstrahuntur ut pro ejus veritate meram amplexentur vanitatem Magno enim consensu Sophisticae Scholae tradiderunt Sacramenta novae legis hoc est quae in usu nunc sunt Ecclesiae justificare et conferre gratiam modo non ponamus obicem peccati mortalâ—s Quae sententia dici non potest quà m sit exitialis et pestilens eoque magis quod multis ante saeculis magna Ecclesiae jactura in bonâ orbis parte obtinuit Planè certe diabolica est nam dum justitiam cirra fidem pollicetur animas in exitium praecipites agit deinde quia justitiae causam à Sacramentis ducit miseras hominum mentés in terram sâ— apte sponte plus satis inclinatas hâc superstitione illigat ut in spectaculo rei corpore ae potius quam in Deo ipso acquiescant we are to be advertis'd that as those weaken the efficacy of Sacraments and utterly overthrow their use so there are others on the other hand that assign I know not what vertue to them such that we never read that God ever put into them which errour saith he dangerously deceives the simple and unlearned Whilest they are taught to seek the gifts of God where they cannot be found they are by degrees drawn from God to imbrace meer vanity instead of truth For the Schooles of Sophisters with great consent have taught that the Sacraments of the new law that is those that are now in use among Christians do Justifie and confer grace provided that we put no barre of mortal sin Which opinion saith he hath been of more deadly danger than can be spoken and so much the more because for many Ages to the great losse of the Church it hath prevailed It is certainly saith he devillish for whilest it promiseth Justification without Faith it casts soules headlong to destruction And upon that account because they derive the cause of righteousnesse or Justification from the Sacraments by this superstition they so ensnare the poor soules of men over-much of their own accord inclined to earth that they had rather rest in a corporeall element than in God himself This is his entrance upon the dispute That which he hath further upon it in four whole Sections is very well worth the reading The consent of other Writers of his time and that have followed after him as a cloud of witnesses might be produced but this as the Reader hath heard is already done to my hand And when some of reverend esteem and singularly deserving in the Church of God have gone overmuch on this hand as soon as it was carried abroad in Manuscripts a learned Manuscript of Mr. Gatakers met with it and afterwards appearing in print as a Posthumous work this as soon as it came to the Authors cognizance by his zeal to the truth followed it And let me here adde to that which hath been said that if nothing else yet experience might correct this over-high conceit of the work of Sacraments That which we evidently see is not wrought by Sacraments we cannot believe they are assign'd of God to work This Proposition hath certainly reason in it They certainly do that office which God hath assign'd and appointed them But we evidently see that they do not actually work all that they figure out even where according to these there is no bar put therefore there is no cause to believe that they are design'd of God for it Here I might instance in their failing in the work of remission of sin in Infants seeing when they come to growth we oft see them in that way of sin that stands not with actual forgivenesse But I know that many that here are adversaries confesse an intercision of Justification and therefore this is not against them and others that admit not that doctrine speak of a double Justification one for the state of Infancy another of those that are of growth upon their acceptation of Christ by faith and therefore though sins be remitted in Infancy and afterward upon their acting of sin charged here is no such intercision of justification which Arminians hold and their adversaries oppose I shall therefore wave this and instance in the failing of Baptisme in the work of regeneration which is as well figured out in Baptisme as that other of remission of sin Baptisme comes not alone to remove the guilt but also to correct the power of original corruption and so to work in us a freedome from the power of sin as well as the pardon of it And in case Baptisme effects this work how is it that sin in Infants is so apt to shew it self that as soon as they act they are so readily prone to act that which is evill When Saul said he had done the Commandment of the Lord Samuel had a confutation ready What means then sayes he this bleating of sheep and lowing of oxen in mine ears that
mentions and not the sense 2. Saith he I knew I had much Scripture and reason against it but I find no reason from him but that which some know that I have urged Terminis Terminantibus before his Aphorismes ever came to light and had I not been able to have given my self satisfaction I had been in that opinion if not before him yet before I had any light from him to lead me to it That horned Argument of his that if faith justifie as instrument it is either as an instrument in the hand of God or in the hand of man with his reasons against both I have made use of argumentandi causâ before any work of his saw the light 3. The instrumentality of faith makes not man the efficient cause of his own Justification I thought it saith he of dangerous consequence to say that man is the efficient cause of justifying and pardoning himself and so doth forgive his own sins And I think every honest man should be of that mind and I shall wait the time when proof shall be made that Justification by faith in opposition to works makes man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The efficient and that Justification by works gives it to God onely If this be once made good I shall be more sorry than ever for holding such self-exalting and man-advancing doctrine as Justification by faith and that ever I opposed that self-denying man-depressing doctrine of Justification by works and shall hence forth conclude Where is boasting then It is excluded by what Law of faith Nay but by the Law of works There is added Yet all this had never caused me to open my mouth against it but for the next viz. I found that many learned Divines did not onely assert this instrumentality but laid so great a stresse upon it as if the main difference betwixt us and the Papists lay here For in the doctrine of Justification it is say they that they fundamentally erre and we principally differ and that in these four Points Four great errours laid to the charge of Reformers 1. About the formal cause of our righteousnesse which say these Divines is the formal righteousnesse of Jesus Christ as suffering and perfectly obeying for us or as others adde in the habitual righteousnesse of his humane nature and others the natural righteousnesse of the Divine nature 2. About the way and manner of our participation therein which as to Gods act they say is imputation which is true and that in this sense that legaliter we are esteemed to have fulfilled the Law in Christ 3. About the nature of that faith which justifies which most of our forreign Reformers say is an assurance or full perswasion of the pardon of my sin by Christs blood 4. About the formal reason of faiths interest in Justification which say they is as the instrument thereof Adding his own censure I doubt not but all these four are great errours Of how dangerous consequence soever it is that man should be made the efficient of justifying and pardoning himself yet it had pass'd without controll if worse than this had not been vented by the learned of the reformed Religion It is yet well that when the ignorance of all his professed Antagonists is of that eminence that yet so many learned are on their party Those learned errours should be taken into further consideration and some that are learned have entred the lists with Mr. Baxter in them The second of these great errours he tells us is true and how a great errour can be true I cannot tell unlesse his meaning be that it is truly an errour which is as high an equivocal speech as any that is fastened upon the Scriptures And when this second is true I cannot see and I think few of his Readers will see how the first to which it relates can be false If it be true that by Gods imputation of this righteousnesse of Christ we are legalitèr esteemed to have fulfilled the Law in Christ then that is true also that they say that Christ is our righteousnesse or that the righteousnesse of Christ of meer grace is made ours And how much good will is here shewen to the reforming part is too manifest in making one Party amongst them to hold The natural righteousnesse of Christs Divine nature is not our Justification that the natural righteousnesse of the Divine nature is our Justification as Bellarmine did before him and is answered by Davenant de just habit p. 313. That in this all the Churches of the Protestants have exploded Hosiander It being his singular opinion and another sayes This opinion was almost like Jonas his gourd that did presently wither As for the third the charge is upon our forreign Reformers onely and not upon all that have idly busied their learned heads in this bad cause They onely say that saith is a full perswasion of the pardon of my sins by Christs blood I shall request from him therefore a Latine Treatise for their better information in this thing and not to trouble Controversies in English with that in which his English Antagonists stand right himself being witnesse Neither is it all forreign Divine that go that way Gomarus putting it to the question saith That there be some of those that have opposed Papists on either part All forreign Reformers make no faith a full perswasion and himself determines with them that side in this with our English Reformers Tom. 2. pag. 371. So that in these three our English Reformers at least stand fully acquitted That which followes I doubt not will be the trouble of many of his Readers That which troubled me saith he was this to think how many thousand might be confirmed in Popery by this course and what a blow it gave to the reformed Religion For who can imagine but that young Popish students will be confirmed in the rest of their religion when they find that we erre in these and will judge by these of the rest of our doctrine especially when they find us making this the main part of the Protestant cause what wonder if they judg our cause naught It is a greater wonder that old Popish students have not discovered this to their novices but have left this work to Mr. Baxter to give them light in this in which Reformers so erre and unreformed Papists stand right so that it must be his work not Bellarmines Stapletons Suarez or any others to unreform But lest this should be a stumbling block to offence that so eminent a man that is like if himself may be heard to draw away so many speaks out such Language let us oppose against him on the other hand Albertus Pighius whom those of his party as Peter Martyr saies loc com pag. 541. made their Achilles and thought that he alone by his subtile wit had pierced into the inward Mysteries of truth So that I hope I am not too low in my comparison Pighius
of further operation Instruments of meer reception and further operation distinguished that which is objected holds of instruments wholly operative not of those that are meerly receptive A man receives a gift with his hand as the lame man was ready to do when he expected something from Peter and John Act. 3.5 and he earnes his living with his hand as Paul did when in some exigents his hands ministred to his necessities Act. 20.34 In the former mans hand concurres to his enriching but he enriches not himself as in the later The denomination is from the fountaine whence all flowes not from the hand that accepts or the cistern that doth receive There is added In my judgement this doctrine should not be made part of our Religion nor much stresse laid on it if it were true because it is so obscure It seems then that not I but our Religion is the author of this so high a contradiction so that I cannot defend Religion but I am put upon it to assert such contradictions and who layes greatest stresse upon that which is not obscure and dark I leave to the Reader of Mr. Baxters Aphorismes and Apology to determine It followes That man concurres as a ready agent who doubts but doth that prove him or his faith the efficient cause of his own pardon and justification Do I or doth our Religion make man or faith the efficient cause of his own pardon and justification Quote some words of mine or some Article of faith in any of the Protestant Confessions that affirmes it were some others in my stead they would highly rhetoricate and tell the world what would be said when they are dead But this is my comfort when I am dead Religion will stand up for its own defence that the concurrence of a ready agent hath somewhat of efficiency in it I think none can deny and that such concurrence that I have mentioned can rise to be the efficient I think Faith is the instrument both of God and man in the work of justification very few will affirm And to bring my self into that which he before hand charges to be so absurd I said And because it is the instrument of man in a work of this nature it is also the instrument of God As some have observed a communication of titles between Christ and his Church the Church being called by his name so there is a communication of actions in these relative works Christ dwells in our hearts by faith Ephes 3.17 We believe and not Christ and yet faith there is Christs instrument whereby he takes up his abode God purifies the hearts of the Gentiles by faith Act. 15.17 They believed and not God yet faith is Gods instrument in the work of their purification So on the other side the Spirit is Gods work yet we by the Spirit do mortifie the deeds of the flesh Rom. 8.13 Here Mr. Baxter first takes in hand the thing that I assert and when he hath done falls upon the proof which is first to quarrel with the conclusion and then to take the premises into consideration 1. It is said If this be indeed true God and man are not coordinate causes in Justification that it is mans instrument of justification and Gods both then both God and man are causae principales partiales by coordination making up one principall cause This he thinks I will not affirm and this indeed I do deny upon the reasons afore laid down it is mans instrument for concurrence in it but not of principall efficiency to produce it In case I had affirmed he gives in his reason of denyal of it in a Similitude of an absolute donor in which I grant the conclusion and therefore shall not trouble the Reader with it As to the proof that I bring he first excepts against that which I say others have observed and say This communication of titles 1. is very rare 2. uncertain whether ever and goeth about to take off that text 1. Cor. 12.12 But this being Heterogeneous to the work in hand I shall let his exceptions alone only pointing him out one another text with which if he please he may take like pains Jer. 23.6 Jer. 33.16 Compared After much ado to find out my meaning he resolves But it is like you intended to have said that there is a common or mutuall attribution of each others actions or one is intitled to the actions of the other and so mean only a communication of the name quoad modum producendi and not of the actions themselves And who but he that would seek a knot in a Bul-rush could have thought of any other but as the titles of one are observed by some to be attributed to another so the actions proper to one are attributed to the other Then a Dilemma is brought against me either this is in an improper figurative way of speech or it is proper and grounded in the nature of the thing and either of both is excepted against I say the action of one is said interpretative to be the action of the other because he makes use of it to do his own work or bring about his own purpose To the instance that I gave that Christ dwells in our hearts by faith he saies there is not a word to prove that there is a relative indwelling But Mr. Br. very well knowes that I did not oppose relative in this place to reall as intending to hold forth any effect wrought by Christs indwelling but the opposition is so absolute as I exprest my self I do not say that justification is directly spoke to in that place yet there is a proof I think sufficient that Christ makes use of our act to effect his own work which is as much as I intended elsewhere Mr. Br. is so free as to yield that faith is an instrument to receive Christ How Christ is said to dwell in us by faith but here he stickles hard to deny it but let us take notice of his concessions Christ saith he is said to dwell in us by faith 1. Formaliter Faith being the principal part of that grace which dwelleth in us And so we might say he dwells by Love Hope Meeknesse Patience which I think no Scripture or Orthodox Writer sayes 2. Conditionaliter Faith being a condition of our right to the Spirit abode But it is so a condition as it is withall an instrumentall condition It is not barely said if you believe I will give you my Spirit which might imply barely a condition as it is said turn at my reproof and I will pour out my Spirit upon you but it is said we receive the promise of the Spirit by faith 3. Efficienter As the act of faith doth directly cause the encrease and so the abode of the habit And is it may we think a principal or is it an instrumental efficient If an instrumental I have what I desire and I am sure he will not say it is
these words I know you had not leisure to write them in vain and meerly to fill paper 1. I may fear there was a worse end in the reply then barely to fill paper In contentions of this nature it is easie for great wits voluble tongues and nimble pens to be more then vain And here is scarce fair declaring to cut off my words before any full period and so render them to the Reader That my meaning cannot be seen till he have gone over three or four Sections interlaced with needlesse triflings 2. If Mr. Baxter know as he sayes that I will not own such an argumentation as he there frames without so much as colour of sense in it which were vain to repeat what was his end but meerly to fill up paper or somewhat worse in framing of it A Reader of half Mr. Baxters wit if he look on my words as they lye in my Treatise and not as mangled by his divisions may easily see another way of argumentation and such that carries sense and I leave to the Reader whether or no it carries strength And for his satisfaction Tht Authors argument against the sole-sufficiency of Covenant grace as instrument in justification I thus put it into forme That which often failes of obtaining the end for which it is employed and never can attain to it without the concurrence of some other with it is no sole instrument in any work But the Gospel or Covenant-grant often failes of attaining that end of justification when it is to that end published and imployed and never can obtain it without the concurrence of somewhat further to be joyned with it Ergo it is no sole instrument in the work Mr. Br. signifies that it may still be the same thing and have the same aptitude to produce the effect even when it is not applyed I answer then Mr. Kendall hath well told him it is an instrument aptitudinaliter and is no instrument in actual being but when the end is obtained and then it is no sole instrument being not sole in producing the effect Mr. Baxter takes it for granted that it alwayes hath its effect when it is employed and I took it for granted that it is often employed and the effect not produced but I did not then think that Mr. Baxter had meant an application to convey right where right is already in possession I added When the Minister is a Minister of condemnation and the savour of death to death there the Gospel becomes an instrument of condemnation and death and so comes short of justification To this is replyed 1. So it is if there be no Minister where it is known any way 2. I speak of Gods grant or promise in the Gospel you speak of his commination 3. If the threat be the proper instrument of condemnation à pari the promise or gift is the proper instrument of justification I grant his first and he threapes kindnesse with me in the two last he will have me to speak of the threat onely when I speak as well as he of Gods grant or promise Gospel promises are a savour of death to many This is a savour of death unto death unto many It is as great an evil to sleight a Promise as to disobey a Command or neglect a threatning his third therefore migt well have been spared but that I intend not to trifle away time I could easily shew him if I had spoke of threat a great disparity I added which should not have come in thus dismembred The efficacy that is in the Gospel for justification it receives by their faith to whom it is tendred To this is replyed Darkly but dangerously spoken and reasons given For it is possible you may mean that it receives it by faith as by a condition sine qua homo non est subjuctum proxime capax and so I grant the sense There is no possiblity that I should mean so having sufficiently as he after observes declared my self to the contrary if I understand his sine qua non frequently found in his writings which men eminently learned professe they do not It followes Dangerously for the words would seem to any impartial Reader to import more viz. That the Gospel receives its efficacy from faith or by faith as the instrument which conveyeth that efficacy to the Gospel It is my meaning that the word is inefficacious without faith and that faith renders it efficacious not by infusion of any new power into it but raising up the soul with strength to answer it which is not barely said but proved But my bare speech must first be censured and then my proof in a disjunct way at pleasure as we shall see dealt with A reason is rendred why for the truths sake and my own these words have never been seen For if faith give the Gospel its efficacy 1. It cannot be as a concause instrumental coordinate but as a superiour more principal cause to the subordinate By Mr. Baxters leave I do believe that concauses instrumental may receive efficacy one from another The thred hath efficacy from a needle and is a concause instrumental to sow up a rent or to make a seam or hem The line gives efficacy to the anglers hook to take a fish I believe he hath seen a knife touched with a Loadstone fetch up a needle from the bottome of a vessel of water Here the hand is the principall agent or the man using his hand The knife is the instrument yet such an instrument as receives efficacy from the spirits of the Loadstone as a concause instrumental The Gospel works no more without faith then a knife in this thing can work without a Loadstone It followes 2. If it were the former that is meant yet it were intolerable For which reasons are given but how these hang together I know not His former now spoken to was brought in as the first in order to disprove what I had said taking my words in the second sense which he gives of them and this which is in order the second is to shew by three reasons that in case they be taken in the first sense which he himself professedly grants yet it were intolerable seeing therefore that I take it not in that sense and if I did he grants the sense there is no cause that I should trouble my self with his Reasons I added in way of proof Heb. 4.2 Unto us was the Gospel preached c. 1 Thess 2.12 13. To which is replyed But where 's your conclusion or any shew of advantage to your cause I must speak nothing it seems but syllogismes in form and he that cannot here make up a syllogisme and find out a formall conclusion is a very Infant in Logick In the first Text the Apostle as he sayes speaks of the Words profiting in the reall change of the soul and our question is of the relative Heb. 4.2 Vindicated And what shew of proof is there that it is
our heart the grace of justification and so also the Ministers of the Church and others which teach us the way of salvation Dan. 12.3 Gomarus Matth 5.4 pag. 46. denying any affections or work of man preceding faith to be the procuring cause of justification and affirming that faith it self is no such cause but an instrument onely gives this reason e Nullae hominum affectiones ac praeparationes nullaque opera fidem antecedentia justificationis causae nedum proreantes esse possunt imo nec fides ipsa causa illius est procreans cum ealaus soli gratiae Dei ac merito Christi efficaciae Spiritus sancti comperat Rom. 3.24 28. Ephes 2 8. sed tantum instrumentalis That honour belongs onely to the grace of God and merit of Christ and efficacy of the holy Ghost so far are these Divines from excluding the Spirit from having any hand in this work such a Gospel instrumeâ—â—ality as that it should do nothing at all on the souls of men I have not before read or heard of As it tenders conditions so it is employed to work the conditions that it tenders It makes known the mind of God that men believing have right to Christ and in him to justification and it works faith for justification onely believers saved by it and it is the power of God and not nudè signùm voluntatis divinae to salvation And as the Simile brought by Mr. Baxter of a Fathers bequeathing by his testament an hundred pound a peece to each of his sons To one on condition he will aske it of his elder Brother and thanke him for it to a second and third upon conditions at pleasure with this demand upon it Do any of these conditions give power to the testament No yet the testament doth not efficaciter agere till they are performed why is that saith he because all such instruments work morally onely by expressing ut signa the will of the agent and therefore they work both when and how he will and it is his will that they shall not work till such a time and but upon such termes c. He might easily see how little this serves to our present purpose 1. That which he speaks of is a bare testament and no more but the Gospel as elsewhere I have shewed is a Covenant truly so called and not barely a testament 2. Those Legacies are such gifts that each son would be apt to imbrace being ready to put a sufficiently high estimate upon them But this Gospel-gift if nothing further be done will for ever lye contemned and neglected 3. The will is a meer instrument of donation leaving the Legatee to himself to accept or refuse The Gospel is the instrument of Gods power by the Spirit to change the heart and work upon the will for acceptance 4. These testament-legacies presuppose the condition not yet performed and so the Legatee without all right upon Testament-termes But Mr. Baxters Gospel-donation supposes the conditions already done and the soul upon that account in full possession before this Gospel-donation comes It conveyes right to a believer and if he be a believer as hath been abundantly shewed he is in present possest of Christ his righteousnesse and justification by him And whether or no I have acquit my self from the double charge brought against me I shall leave to the Readers consideration 1. If there be an instrumental efficiency ascribed to faith in Scripture in a work in which there is as much of God and as little of man seen as in the work of justification then there is no reason but that faith also hath an instrumental efficacy in the work of justification This is clear The reason given why faith should have no instrumental efficacy is because this takes from God who alone is the efficient and ascribes to man who is justified and doth not justifie himself But an instrumental efficiency is ascribed in Scripture to faith in a work on which there is as much of God and as little of man as in the work of justification This is clear in miraculous cures wrought upon diseased persons The work upon them was Gods not mans They were cured and did not cure themselves yet an instrumentall efficiency is ascribed to their faith If those words spoke to the two blind men Matth. 9.29 According to your faith be it unto you nor that of Paul concerning the creeple at Lystra That he had faith to be healed Act. 14.9 nor yet that of Christ to the Canaanitish woman Matth. 15.28 O woman great is thy faith be it unto thee as thou wilt will not hold it out which yet seem to speak very much this way other graces were qualifications yet none but this is taken notice of yet that to the woman with the bloody issue is full Matth. 9.22 Mark 5.34 Thy faith hath made thee whole not onely made whole by faith which is an exception against faiths justifying but faith made her whole Quemadmodum fidei ascribit Christus quod mulier soluta est à morbo corporis ita certum est fide nos consequi remissionem peccatorum adoptionem filiorum Dei juxta doctrinam Evangelii words speaking as much of instrumental efficacy as may be The conclusion then followes That faith hath its instrumental efficiency in justification likewise Pareus his notes upon the words are worthy observation As Christ ascribes it to faith that the woman is healed of the disease of her body so it is certain that by faith we obtain remission of sins and adoption of children of God according to the doctrine of the Gospel 2. If there be an instrumental efficiency ascribed to faith in Scripture respective to salvation then there is an instrumental efficacy ascribed to faith respective to justification This is plain nothing can instrumentally work to salvation that takes not in justification But an instrumental efficacy is ascribed to faith respective to salvation Luk. 7.59 He said to the woman Thy faith hath saved thee In the context there is a full proof of the Major The great priviledge which she of grace received there is the forgivenesse of her many sins and this is acribed to her faith The Minor is fully proved Her great love is mentioned as a consequent of this grace received But it is ascribed to her faith as that which had its alone efficacy Thy faith hath saved thee As we are saved by faith or through faith Ephes 2.8 so faith saves The conclusion then followes that faith hath its instrumental efficacy in justification 3. That which puts a man into possession of that from which justification necessarily and inevitably followes that is either a principal efficient or an instrument in justification This cannot be denyed He that puts me into a place to which a plentiful livelihood is necessarily annexed is either the efficient or an instrument of my livelihood But faith puts into possession of Christ from whom justification necessarily followes
one many are made righteous 5. That way that Christ took to bring us to God our faith must eye and follow But Christ by death the sacrifice of himself brings us to God 1 Pet. 3.18 Christ also hath once suffered for sins the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God 6. As Christ frees us from the curse so he justifies us and in that notion our faith must look unto him for justification This is plain Justification being no other but our acquittall from the curse which is the sentence of the Law of Moses Acts 13.38 But Christ frees us from the curse in suffering as a sacrifice not ruling as a Lord Gal. 3.13 Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law being made a curse for us for it is written Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree I said in my Treatise of the Covenants there are severall acts of justifying saith Heb. 11. but those are not acts of justification It is not Abrahams obedience Moses self-denyal Gideons or Sampsons valour that was their justification but his blood that did enable them in those duties by his Spirit Paul went in these duties as high as they and I doubt not but he overtopt them yet he was not thereby justified Here are many exceptions taken 1. At the phrase an act of justification with much ado made to know my meaning when I had thought all had well enough understood it You would fancy that I mean that justification it self acts speaking of it not as an object but an efficient but I must acquaint you that it implies that justification acts when I speak of the acts of justification as it doth that harvest works when I speak of harvest-work I mean acts tending to justifie or exercis'd in or about justification 2. It is demanded Who knows whether you mean that none of those acts Heb. 11. are acts of justification The proper importance of your words say you is for the former but that say you is a dangerous untruth giving in v. 13. as an exception against it Answ I intended the generality of those acts there ascribed to faith in that indefinite speech of mine which you cannot make necessarily to be universall You have justly made exception of one vers 13. which in my ministeriall way preaching on those words I have interpreted as you say our Divines do It seeâ—s by you that I have our Divines in the rest siding with me 3. You tell me you should not in my judgement have called Abrahams obedience Moses self-deniall Gideons valour acts of justifying faith Are these acts of faith If you mean say you that these acts are fruits of faith it is true or if you mean that an act of faith did excite the soul c. Answ And should the Apostle have then said that they were done by faith Is not this his error as the former is mine I pray you what was that work of faith that the Apostle mentions 1 Thes 1.3 Faith wrought and acted somewhat 4. You demand what mean you to say obedience and valour was not their justification Answ If no act of faith sano sensu by an ordinary Metonymy may be said to be justification make then a comment upon the Apostles words Rom. 4.3 where to overthrow justification by works and to establish justification by faith he sayes Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness which is as much as it was his justification That which is a prevalent plea in any Court to obtain justification is not unfitly called justification Faith in Christs blood is such a plea and therefore not unfitly called our justification Your fifth and sixth need not to have been put into two Then how come you to say next say you that it is Christ's blood The blood of Christ is the meritorious cause of our justification c. But I thought the contest in your dispute had been which is the justifying act of faith and which not And therefore when you denyed those in Heb. 11. to be acts of justification which I am forced to interpret justifying acts I expected to find the true act asserted but in stead of that I find the opposite number is The blood of Christ Is this indeed the controversie Whether it be accepting Christ as Lord or the blood of Christ that justifieth Never was such a question debated by me in the way here intimated I am wholly for you if this be the doubt Hâ—re you meet with the greatest advantage that I think in my Treatise you any where find when I say these acts were not their justification and put in opposition but his blood who did enable them to duties by his Spirit it should have been faith in his blood who did enable them to these duties but each one may see and some have said that before we read this objection of yours that it is plain that I meant it Sâ—venthly you tell me It would prove an hard task to make good that there are several acts of justifying faith by which we are not justified without flying to great impropriety of speech Answ I believe you think that justifying faith includes in it all those kinds of faith that Scripture mentions as Faith Dogmatical or Historical and in all that had the gift of miracles Faith-miraculous They had not one faith whereby they had their interest in Christ and another whereby they gave assent to Divine truths and a third whereby they wrought miracles And to say that we are justified by such assent or they by such miracles I think were a speech more then improper You say further That by justifying faith I must mean the act habit or renewed faculty And I wonder you could have it in your thoughts that I should mean the last Then you would willingly engage me in a dispute whether that the acts and habits of mans soul are of so distinct a nature that where the acts are specifically distinct by the great distance and variety of objects yet the habit producing all these is one and the same To which I say no more for answer but that I shall take it for granted till I see as yet I do not convincing reason against it Eighthly you tell me that 1 Cor. 4.4 is nothing to our business Paul was not his own justifier Though he knew not matter of condemnation sensu Evangelio for no doubt he knew himself to be a sinner yet that did not Justifie him because it is God only that is his Judge Answ I believe that you give a right comment on the Apostles words as to the first branch He was one whose heart as John speaks condemn'd him not but your reason why he was not therby justified is very strange Because say you that it is God onely that is his Judge And thus then the Apostle argues God onely is Judge to justifie But my innocency or integrity is not God Therefore it doth not justifie It seemes that Abrahams works
Where world in the first place signifies the earth in the second place men on the earth 2 Cor. 5.21 Him that knew no sin he made sin for us Where in the first place sin is taken properly in the latter place by a Metonymy 2 Chron. 35.24 And they brought him to Jerusalem and he died and was buried in one of the sepulchres of his Fathers and all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah In the first place Jerusalem is taken for the City in the second place for the Inhabitants of it And so also Matth. 2.1 3. There came wisemen from the east to Jerusalem When Herod the King heard these things he was troubled and all Jerusalem with him With further instances which there may be seen concluding that therefore the supposition of the adversaries is false that the repetition of the same word must be allwaies in the same sense 3. No doubt say you but Paul and James handle two distinct questions but not the two that you here expresse Paul speaks of meritorious works which make the reward of debt and not of grace if you will believe his own description of them Rom. 4.4 But James speaks of no such works but of such as have a consistency with grace and a necessary subordination to it I prove it The works that James speaks of we must endeavour for and perform or perish Paul excludes not only works of merit but all works from Justification supposing time but the works that Paul speaks of no man must endeavour or once imagine that he can perform viz. such as make the reward to be of debt and not of grace To this I answer 1. That if Paul speaks only of meritorious works then according to you he speaks of no works at all for there are none such no not in Angels Confess Chap. 3. § 6 Paul speaks in the place quoted of works where there is a reward of debt and yet speaks not as I conceive of works of merit seeing as he mentions none such so there are none such He exclude then works to which a reward is due vi promissi rather then meriti As Eph. 2. he excludes boasting of works done by the help of grace for there is a matter of boasting in these as we see in the Pharisee Luk. 18.11 2. If Paul had here spoken of works of merit and I must believe him so elsewhere he speaks of other works and there both you and I are to believe him likewise 1. He speaks and excludes all the works that we have done Tit. 3.5 Which he universally opposes to Justification by free grace v. 7. and it is of faith that it may be of grace Rom. 4.16 2. He speaks of and excludes all those works or that righteousnesse which is not the righteousnesse of God by faith Phil. 8.8 9. that is all the righteousness that is inherent in us and not in Christ alone and made ours by faith therefore he is called the Lord our Righteousnesse Jer. 23.6 and said to be made of God unto us righteousnesse 1 Cor. 1.30 3. He speaks of and excludes all those works which the Law commands Rom. 3.20 Now there is no work of grace but the Law gives it in charge yea the Law commands to take in grace wheresoever there is a tender of it for our assistance Requiring a duty it requires all necessary helps to it And therefore Chemnitius observes that when the Apostle excludes the works of the Law from Justification his intention is to exclude the highest and noblest not only done by Pharisees or unregenerate persons but Abraham David or the most eminent convents 4. He speaks of and excludes all those works that any man in the highest pitch of grace can attain unto in the place quoted 1 Cor. 4.4 I know nothing by my self yet I am not thereby Justified He knew no matter of condemnation say you sensu Evangelico he then kept up to that which God in the Gospel-Covenant calls for And yet he is not thereby justified Though God will not condemne a man of that integrity through grace yet this doth not justifie This place saith Cartwright on the words is the death of your Justification by works For if Paul knew nothing by himself in that wherein the Corinthians might suppose him most guilty and was not so much as in that point Justified before God who is he that dares to Justifie himself before God in any work And Fulk on the words Paul doth acknowledge that he is not Justified by his faithfull service and labour in the Gospel therefore no man can be Justified by his works done of grace in as great perfection as can be done of mortall man If the whole discharge of Paules ministeriall function wherein he took heed to himself and to his doctrines was not such where by he could be Justified How then could Abraham be justified in offering Isaack or Rahab in her hiding of the spies If the Apostle therefore do exclude works of merit we see what works he also excludes with it You futher say Paul speaks indeed of faith collaterally but of Christs merits and free grace directly and purposely So that the chief part of Pauls controversie was Whether we are justified freely through Christs merits or through our own meritorious works But James question is Whether we are Justified by faith alone or by faith with obedience accompanying it and both as subordinate to Christs merits Answ Some will think that you judge faith not worthy to be named but on the bie Who can be of your mind that reads the Apostle speaking so often Paul treats diversly and industriously of Justification by faith and so fully to the office of faith in Justistification but that his scope is no lesse to shew what justifies ex parte nostri which it still faith then what that is that justifies ex parte Dei which is grace or ex parte Christi which is his blood or merit Pauls question you say is of the meritorious cause of our Justification James his question of the condition on our part If you are in the right Paul certainly was much defective in his Logick We think the question in debate is to be put into the Conclusion see how he concludes Rom. 3.28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the works of the Law Inferences are made and consectaries drawn from that which is mainly in dispute and not from that which is collaterally mentioned and upon the bie onely touched upon Now he concludes from the doctrine of Justification by faith mentioning as we see Justification ex parte nostri peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ Rom. 5.1 You further say Paul speaks of Justification in toto both in the beginning and progresse but especially in the beginning but James speaks only of Justification as continued and consummate and not as begun For both Abrahams and every mans was begun before works of obedience I Answer
of them I confess I have not seen as Polycarp Tatianus Macarius Athenagoras Vigilius as I have severall others that you mention not and I would fayne see what they have either for or against the Protestant belief Those that have not treated at all on this subject as in some of them that you name I am told by Dr. Prideaux that Christ is scarce mentioned or have spoken upon it only be the by are as much as nothing their names might as well have been spared as mentioned Mr. T. hath done as much for his Antipadobaptism in naming some of the Antients that never appeared for Infant-Baptism when they have not at all spoken to it and their contemporaries have asserted it 6. Whether the present Church of this age in which we live taking in our Fathers that lived within this happy 150. years since the Romish yoke hath been cast off be not as considerable and as much to be heeded in this controversie as all of those in your list mentioned if you should put in yet more to encrease so far as names could do it both weight and number They were subject to error and humane frailty as well as the Church that is and of late was They were not able to decide their own Controversies but laboured as well as we under contentions and divisions they were seldome unanimous but often at difference not only with others but themselves Nay have not our Writers the far greater advantage 1. Being far above yours in number go through Protestant Learned Writers within this Compasse of time and we shall find your List of names far exceeded 2. They have fully debated the cause and in publick Assemblies determined it in Confessions openly professed it Considered of and answered arguments against it turning over every stone to find out the truth in it so it cannot be said of the Fathers in your List mentioned and Nil tam certum quam quod ex dubio certum The Fathers that wrote before Pelagius have not been thought of that account nor so meet Judges in the point of Grace and Freewill having no adversary and therefore spake more loosly as Austin Prosper Fulgentius and those that followed who were by the adversary put upon the study of it Quid opus est ut eorum scrutemur opuscula qui priusquam ista haeresis oriretur non haebuerunt necessitatem in hâc aifficili ad solvendum quaestione versari quod proculdubio facerent si respondere talibus cogerentur The greatest Doctors at some times saith Dr. Fr. White Treat of the Sabb. p. 89. before Errors and Heresies are openly defended are not neither can be so circumspect in their writing as to avoid all forms and expressions all sentences and propositions all and every tenet which in after times may yield advantage to the adversaries of truth Quoting Austin de Praed Sanct. cap. 14. To what purpose should we search into their works which before this heresie arose had not need to busie themselves in the answer of this difficult question which doubtless they had done if they had been put to deal with such adversaries This we may fitly apply to this point of justification we are beholding the opposites of it for a more industrious fifting of it and more cleer light in it Paul had never spoke so much to assert a resurrection had there been none in that age that had denyed it Hâ—d not Popish School-men perverted the doctrine of justification Protestant Divines had never appeared with that zeal and fervor of Spirit in it And the Fathers doubtless had been more exact in their Treatises of this point had they seen it as we have done perverted and abused 7. If Fathers and all Antiquity were so abhorrent from the instrumentality of faith in justification How is it probable that any singularly verst in Antiquity so as to have few parallels and no way affected to the Protestant doctrine in the point of justification but averse from it and siding with the adversary should own the instrumentality of faith and argue for it if Antiquity were so averse from it he that takes it up is sure either ignorant in Antiquity or much engaged in his affections to the Protestant party But such there have been that can neither be challenged as ignorant nor suspected for partiall engagement that yet assert the instrumentality of faith witness Bp. Montague In whatsoever he hath otherwise been thought defective and detected by Bp. Carleton Dr. Featley and others yet he hath ever been of eminent name for an Antiquary For his averseness to the Protestant Doctrine of justication let not onely his adversaries speak that have appeared against him but Sanct. Clara our adversary who Problem 26. quotes Montagues Appeal Chap. 6. to prove the justification of a sinner consists in the inward work of grace inherent agreeable as he sayes with the holy definition of the Councill of Trent Now that this great Antiquary and friend of our adversaries appears for the instrumentality of faith in the work of justification see his Appeal cap. 9. part 2. putting it into his title that God doth justifie originally and faith instrumentall and reasoneth for it in the Chapter it self These things being prâ—mised as to the first concerning the Instrumentality of Faith Proofs from antiquity for the instrumentality of faith I thus argue They that are for justification alone by faith without limit or distinction as excluding all whatsoever else in man they are for that which we call the instrumentality of faith in justification But Antiquity is very large for justification alone by faith without limit or distinction as excluding all in man except faith in this work Therefore Antiquity is for that which we call the instrumentality of faith in justification Here the Proposition is first to be proved and then the Assumption The Proposition I â—hus prove To be justified by faith alone plainly holds forth somewhat peculiar to faith which is not found in any other grace this none can deny and you confess pag. 96. of your Confession Conclus 29. But nothing else can be faiths peculiar work distinct from other graces but to be an instrument in this work This is cleer This peculiar work or office of faith must be either to be an instrument in this work or else a Conditio cum quâ or causa sine quâ non or else somewhat more noble then all of these as the formal meritorious cause c. But it s peculiar office cannot be meerly to be Conditio cum quâ or causa sine quâ non both these equally belong to the works of Sanctification Though they be all present together saith our Book of homilies yet they do not justifie together pag. 15. At the same instant that God justifies saith Davenant he infuses inhaerent grace which yet he denies to be any cause but an Appendix to our justification de Justit habit cap. 23. pag. 315. Bellarmine sayes That Protestants agree in this
that good work are not necessary to Salvation but onely by a necessity of presence lib. 4. de justit cap. 7. That necessity by his confession Protestants then acknowledge and he intends justification as is plain by the Subject he hath in hand Here then is nothing peculiar to faith to be meerly conditio cum quâ or causa sine quâ non Nâ—ither can we ascribe any more noble causality as to be a formall or meritorious cause as needs not to be proved The asserting of justification by faith therefore denotes that which we make an instrument in justification Now that the Antients assert that we are justified alone by faith putting in that exclusive particle that Papists are wont to say is not in Scriptures nor Fathers may be made good 1. By manifold authorities asserting it 2. By multitude of quotations Our Book of Homilies having quoted severall Scripture-Texts for justification by faith alone addes And after this-wise to be justified onely by this true and lively faith in Christ speaketh all the old and Antient Authors both Greek and Latine Ser. of Salvation par 2. pag. 16. And the Rhemists charging Protestants to foist the word onely into the Text in Rom. 3.28 Fulk replies You were best to charge all the Antient Fathers which use this term of whom we have received it to be Foysters and excluders of the Sacraments and good works The particle alone by faith in the article of justification was not first devised by us saith Chemnitius but was alwayes used with great consent in all Antiquity as examples out of the writings of the Fathers do demonstrate which sentences of the Fathers saith he are gathered by Robert Barnes Aepinus Bullinger Otho Corberus c. Loc. de justif pag. 772. Octavo And Chamier Panstrat Cathol Tom. 3. lib. 22. c. 5. having quoted Scripture that faith alone justifieth concludes so the Scripture is cleer with us The Fathers in order are to be reckoned up by me before I examine the exceptions of adversaries The induction of quotations yet remaines and I had it in my thoughts to have set down the words themselves which for the most part are very express but I find that that would be tedious to my self and wearisome to the Reader and divers of the Authors quoted to my hands I have not I shall content my self therefore to poynt out the Authors quoting them and the places quoted Ambrose in Roman 1. Rom. 3. Rom. 4. Rom. 20. 1 Cor. 1. Galat. 1. Galat. 3. and Sermon 45. if it be Ambroses is quoted by Chemnitius in the place mentioned who sayes that Ambrose repeats that exlusive particle onely fifteen times By Eckhardus Compend Theol. lib. 2. cap. 3. pag. 391. By Chamier loco citato Hilary lib 6. de Trinit Can. 8. in Matth. 21. is quoted by Chemnitius ibid. Fulk in Rom. 3.28 Chamier ibid. Davenant and Prideaux lect 5. Hieron in Rom. 4. Rom. 10. in Galat. 2. Galat. 3. is quoted by Chamier and Eckhardus ibid. Origen lib. 3. in Rom. cap. 3. and lib. 4. is quoted by Fulk Eckhardus and Chamier ibid. Chrysostome in 1. Cor. 1 Rom. 3. Hom. 7. in Tit. 2. Hom. 3. Rom. 4. Hom. 8. Galat. 3. Serm. de side lege naturae is quoted by Chamier Eckhardus Fulk Davenant de Justit habit cap. 29. pag. 378. and Prideaux Lect. 5. pag. 164. Athanasius Orat. contra Arrianos is quoted by Eckhardus ibid. Basil Hom. de humil 51. is quoted by Fulk Eckhardus Chamier Davenant ibid. Nazianzen Orat. 22.26 is quoted by Fulk Eckhardus Chamier ibid. Theodoret in Rom. 3. Ephes 2. is quoted by Eckhardus as also Therapeuticon Sept. by Chamier Bernard Serm. 22. in Cant. Epist 27. is quoted by Chamier Eckhardut Isychius in Levit. 14. lib. 4. is quoted by Chamier and Eckhardus Theophilact in Galat. 3. is quoted by Chamier and Chemnitius Sedulius in Rom. 3. Rom. 4. is quoted by Chamier and Chemnitius Primasius in Rom. 4. Rom. 8. is quoted by Chamier and Eckhardus Victor Mar. lib. 3. in Gens is quoted by Eckhard Fulk in Rom. 4. Petrus Chrysologus Ser. 34. Prosper Aquitan Epigram 9. are quoted by Chamier Ruffinus is quoted by Fulk Beda in Psal 77. pag. 71. by Davenant and Bp Vsher de statu success Eccles cap. 2. pag. 46. Gennadius in Rom. 3. Haymo in Rom. 1. Lyra in Galat. 3. Gloss Ordinaria in Epist Jac. is quoted by Chemnitius Theodolius in Rom. 3. Fortunatus in Expos Symboli Epiphanius in Ancor Phylast in Catal. Irenaeus adversus Haeres lib. 4. Haeres 5. Maxentius de fide are quoted by Eckhardus And because Papists say that Austin uses not this exclusive particle onely therefore Chemnitius tells us that it is used by him in Serm. Quadrages as also in his exposition of these words Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness which is in his 68. Serm. de tempore lin 1. also Tractat. 8. Tractat. 42. in Johan Contra duas Epistol Petil. lib. 3. Serm. 40. de verbis domini Chamier addes In octoginta tribus quaestionibus Quaest 76. Exposit in Galat. 3. Chemnitius having quoted these testimony that I have mentioned under his name addes we may then truly say with Erasmus that this word sole which is followed with so great clamours in this age in Luther is reverently read and heard in the Fathers So that we see a peculiar interest that faith hath in justification which belongs to no other grace And therefore it is no wonder that you who forsake all the reformed Churches that unanimously make it an instrument in justification are at such a stand as you are in Conclus 29. and 30. of your Confession what office in justification to assign to it you confess you cannot hit upon the true and full difference in the point of Conditionality in this work between saith and obedience which is no marvail seeing you oppose that which is indeed the difference and Faiths peculiar office which is the instrumentall interesting us in Christ by way of acceptation or apprehension as Isychius in the place quoted saith Sola fide apprehenditur non ex operibus The grace viz. of justification is apprehended by faith and not by works which is as plain a testimony as may be for the instrumentality of this grace Chemnitius yet further notes the way that Papists take to evade these testimonies Objecting that the Antients used that particle sole otherwise then we do and returns his answer 1. That they use the word sole or alone to exclude all other sects intending no more but that it is alone the Christian Faith and not the Jewish or Turkish that leads to Justification and Salvation And this rule Franc. à Sancta Clara produces from Vega Pag. 191. with no other approbation but that it is sometimes true and Chemnitius quite overthrowes it making it appear that when the Fathers speak of the application apprehension or acceptation of remission of sins by Faith they still
seed The latter is an inherent quality infused by regeneration by which the man is brought into conformity with the Law of God The former according to them and him in that Treatise gives title to Baptisme even where the latter is wanting Those words therefore were more then needed If men be once taught that it is a faith short of that which is saving and justifying which admitteth to Baptisme seeing it is in reformed Churches generally and universally taught Mr. T. very well knowing as all do know that in these last ages it is a doctrine generally received and setting himself to oppose it saith that he can derive its pedigree no higher than Zwinglius but he hath heard of those that were Zwinglius his seniors to be of the same mind as the Reader may see in my answer to his letter The Jesuites generally charge it upon Calvin and Beza and those of that party and well they may as their opinion but not as their invention As to that charge they stand acquitted by their adversaries Suarez in Thom. part 3. tom 3. q. 69. art 8. dis 27. Sect. 1. speaking of this opinion saith It is ancienter then Calvin as appears by Waldens tom de Sacram. tit 3. cap. 53 54. yet Calvin saith he either encreased or revived it as appears by Ruardus Lindanus Prateolus and others This easily may be yielded and if Chamier may be heard all Protestants embraced it Mr. Baxter in the words before may see the opinion of that Divine whom he so deservedly magnifies Mr. Cobbet full against him notwithstanding he lives where the greatest strength of that party is that are his opposites Let the Reader observe his fourth conclusion pag. 52. The Church in dispensing an enjoyned initiatory seal of the Covenant of grace looketh unto visibility of interest in the Covenant to guide her in the application thereof nor is it the saving interest of the persons in view that is her rule by which she is therein to proceed And compare with it the close of his whole discourse upon it in these words And I the more wonder that any which confesse that it 's not to be denyed that God would have infants of believers in some sense to be accounted his to belong to his Church and family and not to the Devills as true in facie Ecclesiae visibilis c. yet do oppose us in this particular now in question If he please to peruse Pareus 1 Cor. 7.14 as he shall find Stapleton in objections there produced his friend so Pareus fully his adversary And I shall adde one testimony that carries many more in the belly of it in which the Reader may see that Dr. Ward in this thing now in agitation hath the generall vote of reformed Churches for him and against Mr. Baxter Apollonius speaking to the question Quaestio quarta An infantes quorum parentes proximi solenni Ecclesiastico foedere alicui particulari Ecclesiae sese non adjungunt in Ecclesia non sint baptizandi sed ut baptismi in capaces privilegiorum Ecclesiae expertes sint aestimandi Resp. Existimant Reformati quod federalis quaedam sanctitas qua jus habent illi qui hoc modo sancti sunt ad media salutis Sacramentum Baptismi qua ab Ethnicis Turcis similibusque aliis infidelibus separantur 1 Cor. 7.14 toti nationi seu populo communicetur cui Deus tabulas sui foederis ita impertit ut easdem suscipiant profiteantur quos ad statum visibilis Ecclesiae suae vocat ducit Rom. 11.16 17 18 19 20. Haec foederalis sanctitas transfertur ad posteros non per proximorum parentum sanctitatom inhaerentem qui sua fide vel infidelitate eam posteriis proximis vel tollerent vel stabilirent sed misericordi Dei voluntate qua foederis illius privilegia externa parentibus etiam remotioribus promissa extendit constanter impertit in multas generationes posteris fidem profitentibus etiam iis quorum parentes proximi impii in foedere Dei perfidi fuere Whether infants whose immediate parents do not joyn themselves by any solemn Ecclesiastical Covenant to any particular Church are not to be baptized in the Church but are to be esteemed incapable of Baptisme and void of Church priviledges answers the question in these words The reformed hold that a certain foederall holinesse whereby those that are in this manner holy have right to the means of salvation and whereby they are differenced from Heathens Turkes and other like infidels 1 Cor. 7.14 is communicated to the whole Nation or people to whom God do's so impart the tables of his Covenant that they receive and professe them whom he calls and brings to the state of his church visible Rom. 11.16 17 18 19 20. This foederall holinesse is transmitted to posterity saith he not by the inherent holinesse of immediate parents which either their faith or unbelief should take away or establish to their immediate posterity but by the good and gracious will of God whereby he extends and constantly bestowes the outward priviledges promised to more remote parents for many generations to posterity professing the faith even to those whose immediate parents have been found wicked and false in their Covenant quoting these texts Ps 106.35 36 44 45. Isa 63.10 11.51.1 2 3. Ezek. 20.8 And confirming this assertion with severall arguments the last of which is this c Quia adulti omnes in Novo Testamento à Johanne Baptista Apostolis sunt baptizati telonarii milites quicunque ex Judea circumjacentibus regionibus ad Baptismum devenerunt absque longiore examine si modo fidem profiterentur peccata confiterentur et si hypocritae genimina viperarum homines malae frugis iter eos essent proinde infantes eorum ad baptismum admittendi Causam hanc pro praxi Ecclesiarum Reformatarum multis disputat Cl. Walaeus in locis communibus operum in Folio pag 494 495. Because all of years in the New Testament were baptized by John Baptist and the Apostles as Publicanes Souldiers and whosoever out of Judea and the regions round about came to Baptisme wit hout any further tryal provided that they professed their faith and confessed their sins though there were many Hypocrites generations of vipers and men of dissolute courses amongst them and therefore saith he their infants are also to be admitted unto Baptisme adding that learned Walaeus largely defends this cause for the practice of reformed Churches in his Common places pag. 494 495. adding yet further d Rejicimus igitur Antitheses eorum qui denegant Baptismum filiis eorum qui impie vivunt vita sua improba efficatiam baptismi sui irritam erga se reddunt Hisce opponimus judicium Leydensium in Synopsi Theol. ubi sic disserunt disput 44. thes 50. We therefore reject the contrary opinion of those which deny Baptisme to the children of those who live wickedly and by
whatsoever is charged but enquire further what they deliver of the efficacy of it Thomas Aquinas Part 3. quaest 73. art 3. putting differences between Baptisme and the Lords Supper assignes this for one Baptisme is the beginning of spiritual life and the entrance of the Sacraments The Eucharist is the consummation of spiritual life and the end of all Sacraments And further The receiving of Baptisme is necessary to begin spiritual life The receiving of the Eucharist is necessary for the consummation of it The Councell of Florence quoted by Suarez disput 7. Quaest 62. saith By Baptisme we are spiritually born again and are nourished by the Divine Alimony of the Eucharist Suarez disput 63. Quaest 79. laies down this conclusion This Sacrament is not instituted per se to conferre the first grace and confirmes it by multiplicity of Authors and the Churches custome who never used to give the Sacrament unlesse it be to those whom she believes to be cleansed from sin by Baptisme or penance And thus argues it by reason The Sacrament saith he doth not suppose the effect that it serves to work but this Sacrament doth suppose the man to be just that receives it 2. Meat saith he is not ordayned of it self to quicken or raise the dead but to nourish or strengthen a man already alive But this Sacrament is instituted as meat and drink And though he after affirmes that this Sacrament sometimes and as by accident conferres the first grace which according to his principles he hath much a do to make out yet he acknowledges that many and grave Divines held the contrary quoting Gabriel Alensis Bonaventure and Major And their distinction is well enough known That as a Sacrifice offered it takes away sin but as a Sacrament received it onely nourishes and increases spiritual life By all which it appeares how farre those of that part are from assent to this position and no marvell when they will hold their communicants in that ignorance as to look after no more then consecration to inquire nothing into the institution The way of the Sacraments work as a visible Word as a demonstrative sign in the aggravation of sin and tender of pardon is to them a mystery As for the other part of the charge Nor oppose the unanimous judgement of Protestant Writers which is the opposition of the unanimous judgement of Protestant Authors I know many are produced speaking of the Sacraments as no causes of spiritual life or vessels to convey it but as seales and testimonies of Gods good will towards us To which I fully subscribe as after shall God willing appear But how farre most of them come short when they are throughly examined of that position which is laid down as their opinion That they are appointed to seal unto a man that saving interest in Christ and the Covenant of grace that he hath already may easily be demonstrated First That position hath that confusion in it that many of them will not own and is inconsistent almost with all their principles This makes interest in the Covenant of grace and interest in Christ which is understood of interest as a lively member the same when it is well known that they make Covenant-interest farre more large then interest in Christ see Mr. Cobbet in his Vindication pag. 48. quoting not alone Tertullian Cyprian Gregory Nazianzen Jerome Austin among the Ancient but also Amesius Chamier Luther Calvin Beza Pareus Peter Martyr Bucer Melanchton Mr. Philpot for this latitude of the Covenant Pareus who is not looked upon as any dissenting man from the rest of his brethren speaks fully When it was objected that all Israel was not in Covenant with God nor all the infants of Christians because some among them were and are reprobates he answeres To be in Covenant or to have interest in it is taken two waies either according to the right of Covenant or the benefit of it He is in Covenant that either obtaines the benefits of the Covenant which are pardon of sin Adoption regeneration salvation or which hath onely the right or outward symbole of the Covenant He applies his distinction that that proposition That no reprobate is in Covenant with God is onely true of the benefits of the Covenant which heretofore were and still are peculiar to the Elect but being understood of the right and outward symbole of the Covenant it is to be denyed for that indifferently belongs to all that are born in the Church among which many are reprobates as the event doth demonstrate neither is it lawful for the Church to exclude any that by their own impiety do not exclude themselves which Israelites in times past did and Apostatizing Christians now do to their greater damnation whether they be of those that by a true faith receive the benefits of the Covenant or whether they be those that remain hypocrites All of his practice must necessarily be of his judgement unless we believe that their practice militates against their principles And that this is the practise of the reformed Churches in general needs not to be shewn Secondly They cannot then baptize any upon the account of Covenant-holinesse but onely holinesse of regeneration This is plain If the right be theirs alone that have their interest as in Covenant so also in Christ onely these must be baptized or else we must baptize without right And that they do not onely baptize but dispute for Baptisme upon a bare Covenant-interest without any further title is manifest Thirdly This stands not with that which they hold concerning the way of the Sacraments sealing which according to them can be no evidence that he does believe as some assert evidences of faith must be in the soul and not in the Sacrament neither doth it absolutely make up to the soul the benefit of the Covenant then no man without infallible revelation such as it seems Ananias had concerning Paul could administer it It seals the benefits of the Covenant upon Gods terms and propositions which when the soul makes good there is Gods seal for performance That this is the judgement of Protestant Divines I have elsewhere declared Treatise of the Covenant pag. 35 36. so that their Doctrine of the Sacraments doth not oppose the position delivered Hitherto I have considered some generall charges against this position now I must look into some Arguments in form produced against it Several particular arguments answered First Sacraments say some are signes as appears in their definition and not causes of what they signifie signes declaring and shewing that we have Faith in Christ remission of sin by him and union with him To let that slip passe making them no causes because they are signes as though no signe were a cause of the thing signified This to me is as strange as new that Sacramental signes declare and shew that we have faith and remission of sins The Sacrament now in question is a signe of the body and blood of Christ
farre as I could learn that it did succeed and spread as little as almost any error that ever I knew spring up in the Church Plain Scripture proof of Infants c. pag. 294. so inconsiderable was the party that stood for it And Vorstius speaking in the name of Protestant Divines in general saith b Id potissimum quaeritur an Sacramenta sint signa tantum sigilla foederis gratiae sive externa symbola signacula foederi gratiae appensa divinitus ad hoc institura ut gratiam Dei salutarem in foedere promissam nobis significent atque ita fidem nostram suo modo confirment simul publice testaram reddant quae quidem communis est Evangelicorum sententia an vero preaterea sint causae efficientes hujus salutaris justificantis gratiae sive an sint effectiva gratiae ejusdem organa nempe ad hoc divinitus institura ut gratiam istam realiter instar vasorum in se contineant omnibus illa percipientibus candem vi sua imprimant reipsa conferant quae Bellarmini Pontificiorum omnium opinio est It is disputed whether Sacraments are onely signes and seales of the Covenant of grace or outward signes annext the Covenant and appointed for this of God that they should signify saving grace of God promised in the Covenant and signifying seal and after their manner confirm our faith and give publick testimony of it which saith he is the common opinion of Protestants or whether they be further efficient causes of this saving and justifying grace or whether they be effective instruments of this grace appointed of God for this thing that they should indeed containe it in them and convey it which is the opinion of all Papists Vorstius Anti. Bellar. ad Contro 1 Gen. And our men further judge that opinion of the opus operatum or of the outward Sacramental action as though without the faith and pious motion of those that use it it could justifie any to be evidently false and pernicious And they teach that all Sacraments by the ordination of God himself have onely a power to signifie and seal and not to conferre the grace of the Gospel it self And whereas several passages in the Liturgy of this Church did seem to favour the opposite opinion affixing adoption membership of Christ and inheritance of the Kingdom of heaven and regeneration to Baptisme we know how great offence it gave to many eminently Learned and pious putting them upon omission of those passages And also what Interpretation as with a grain of salt others put upon them that they were onely Sacramentally such And doubtlesse these either hit upon the meaning of the Church which was held to these phrases in imitation of many hyperbolical speeches in the Fathers or else the Church had mist the meaning of Scriptures so loth were the sons of the Church to be quarrelling with their mother and yet more loth with her to run into errors The Observation it self if heeded hath a caution or limit in it Affirming that Sacraments work no otherwise then as signs and seals and that they conferre no inward graces or priviledges further then they work upon the understanding and faith of those that receive them it implyes that they do conferre what an outward symbole or sign is apt to and of powder to convey and that outward priviledges in Sacraments are either conferred of infallibly evidenced This is clear the Apostle having so far undervalued Circumcision in the flesh as to make it Parallell with uncircumcision so that a circumcised Jew and an uncircumcised Gentile differed nothing as to their Spiritual state and condition inferres by way of objection What advantage then hath the Jew and what profit is there of circumcision And answers not that outward circumcision is altogether unprofitable but that it hath much profit and instances in one eminent one To them are committed the Oracles of God This is the inheritance of the Congregation of Jacob Deut. 33.4 as Moses speaks and carrying with it this great priviledge it conveyes with it all other inferiour Church-priviledges right to the Passeover upon this account was theirs Exod. 12.48 and not otherwise So it is with Baptisme men are taken into the Church at this door according to the Commission given to the Apostles Disciple all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father c. Whatsoever they were and whomsoever they professedly served before they are this way taken in as the consecrate servants of the whole Trinity and added to the Church Act 2.47 When they had by the Covenant a precedent title in Baptisme they have a solemn inauguration By one Spirit we are all Baptized into one body 1 Cor. 12.13 It is the Spirits work to shape the heart of unbelieving Corinthians to enter into one visible Church-body as that work of Gods power whereby he did perswade Japhet to dwell in the tents of Shem Gen. 9.27 And therefore when c Durandus docet characterem esse ens rationis id est respectum advenientem ex deputatione ad certum officium qualis est relatio in Doctoribus Praetoribus c. Quae sententia vix distinguitur ab haeresi hujus temporis Durand denyed that the Character which the Church of Rome speaks of was any quality in the soul but meerly a relation comming as by way of deputation to an office or duty exemplifying it by the relation that is seen in Doctors Praetors c Bellar. lib. 2. de Sacramen effectu cap. 14. saith That this opinion can scarcely be distinguished from the Heresie of this time d Haeretici non negant neque negare possunt quin sit aliqua relatio rationis in Ministris quae non est in aliis qui non sunt deputati ad ministrandum And further saith That Heretiques do not deny nor can deny but that there is some relation in Ministers which is not in others who are not deputed to the Ministery We do confesse indeed that there is that relation in Christians to Christ by the work done in the Sacrament of Baptisme which is not in Heathens And though we deny Orders to be any Sacrament yet we confesse there is that relation in Ministers to Christ by vertue of their Ordination that is not in those that are not called to the work of the Ministery There are those indeed that do deny it But those that Bellarmine had to deal with and that he charges for Heretiques as Luther Melancthon Calvin Beza Peter Martyr Chemnitius willingly yeeld it And in case this were all the character that they talke of to be imprinted in Baptisme yea in Ordination we should never contend about it And as these priviledges are conferred as to actual interest in the initiatory Sacacraments both of Baptisme and Circumcision so the same priviledges in the following Sacraments are infallibly evidenced as appears in that text 1 Cor. 10.17 The Apostle there making it
his businesse to take off Christians from their resort to the Idols temples to eat there of that which had been offered in sacrifice which they judged to be within the verge of their liberty An Idol being nothing in the world tells them that as joyning with Jewes in their sacrifice offered on the Altar did declare them to be one body with the Jewes and eating of the Sacramental bread did make them one body Christian so also going to the Heathens sacrifices did evidence them to be one body Heathen The Apostle as we see Rom. 1.5 thought no understanding man would question it we must therefore readily yeeld it which holds true of the Passeover seeing onely the circumcised who were in saith Jewes were to be admitted do it Exod. 12.48 And this I suppose is that which Reverend Gataker means opposing that tenent that the Sacraments conferre grace by the work done where there is no barre put and having quoted testimonies of Bishop Abbot Calvin and Whitaker sharpely enough declaring themselves against it adds That for the axiome it self I will not contend about it if that effect of the Sacraments be understood for which they were instituted of God and the Word be taken in a more large sense for all that whatsoever it be that may be any impediment that the Sacraments cannot have their effect Though perhaps in these words of his he had some other intentions It were an endlesse labour to lanch out into the controversie and to gather up the various opinions of those of a contrary judgment and their different thoughts to make good their tenents whether of those that deny Sacraments to be Seales as generally the Papists whom Anabaptists in this follow at the heels as in most other things both about the Covenant and Sacraments Or Lutherans who yeelding them to be seales as well as signes yet affirim that these are lesse principal offices and uses of Sacraments the chief end is to be instruments of conveyance of grace to the soul Or dissenting brethren among Protestants some of them falling in with Popish Schoolmen wholly closing with their tenent that Sacraments conferre grace where no bar is put to hinder their working or others that hold it with limit onely to Baptisme and that to elect children not daring to put reprobates into a state of regeneration or remission of sin nor yet to assert that the elect are alwayes thus regenerate in Baptisme But that it holds so in ordinary Or of some that I have met with in discourse that suppose that Baptisme hath his work in those elect infants where God foresees that death will prevent their regeneration by the Word or others that say that God works by Baptisme to regeneration and forgivenesse of sin but according to pleasure they dare not assign to whom Some of these I judge to be more evidently opposite to the Scripture then others yet I confesse I see not foundation in the Word for any of them These that are thus agreed that the Sacraments as instruments conferre grace without respect had to the receivers faith yet are at odds among themselves what manner of instruments they are He that pleases may read in Suarez disput 9. quaest 62. art 4. Sect. 2. six several opinions about it some will have them to be no efficient but material causes onely as a dish conveying a medicine is no cause of health but a material instrument onely of conveyance Others hold that they conferre grace per modum impetrationis because the Minister and the Church obtaines of God by prayer grace by them Others say that they are conditions without which God gives not grace Others yet say that the Sacraments are causes of grace because when they are applyed they move God to conferre it As we say they work by way of sign on our understanding so they say they work by way of sign with God moving him to remember his promise Others say they conferre grace because God in a more special manner appears in them as a principal agent or efficient which my Authour complaines is very obscure But he that will consult the Authour of this opinion which is Henricus à Gandavo Quod. quart quaest 37. may find much against any power in the Sacraments to conferre or to speak in his language to create grace in the soul creation being solely the prerogative of God and above the power of any creature to be assistent in it yet lest he should run upon an heresy against the determination of the Catholick Church in making them no more then signs and seals he is put upon it to come off thus blewly that Suarez with all his high wit cannot find out his meaning Suarez himself concludes that they are Physical instruments in the conveyance of grace and that they are causes of grace because by a true Physical action they concur to the sanctification of men Having with much adoe endeavoured to prove a possibility of their working of grace in a Physicall way he concludes that this is their way of working and that not barely in working some disposition towards grace not reaching grace it self nor yet in working an union only of grace with the soul But in the most proper and rigorous sense Sacraments Physically work grace the very Physicall action by which Grace is wrought and drawn out of the obediential power of the soul truly really and Physically depending on the Sacraments which he judges to be most agreeable to the dignity of the Sacraments the phrases of Scripture and Councels and Fathers about them But it might pitty the Reader to see how miserably he comes off with this assertion of his only telling us that the Scripture sayes we are cleansed sanctified or regenerate of water or the laver of regeneration and washing of water in the Word of life without the least light given us to let us understand that these phrases must be taken in his Physical sense meaning adding some sentences of Fathers who ordinarily give that in their writings to the sign which is proper to the thing signified finding yet opposite sentences in them that much troubles him in which in an orthodox way they explain themselves sufficiently against his position In case in this position of his of the Physicall working of Sacraments he had only understood that they work according to the nature of the office and place assigned unto them there might have been just cause to have subscribed to his judgment It is of the nature of a sign to hold forth to us the thing signified of a relative symbole to ingage to the filling up of such a relation It is of the nature of a seal to confirm every grant past in Covenant but to give a Physicall power to those elementary substances to create Grace in or confer grace upon the soul is a monstrous tenent A little Philosophy will accquaint us with the natural properties of water and as applyed in washing experience will soon discover it The
reconciliation applyable to man by faith which is the means or instrument whereby we receive the mercy of God So also Gal. 2.16 is very full Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but by faith in Christ Jesus The Apostle there first in the negative shewes where our justification is not and in the next place tells us in the affirmative where it is so that all works of all kinds are by him excluded and faith onely is acknowledged Whereas one saith that Paul doth either in expresse words or in the sense and scope of his speech exclude onely the works of the Law that is the fulfilling of the condition of the Law our selves but never the fulfilling of the Gospel-conditions that we may have part in Christ It is fully against the Apostle if by fulfilling the Gospel-condition any thing but faith be understood All works are excluded and faith as in opposition to works is acknowledged and we have our part or interest in Christ in or by fulfilling of no other Gospel-condition then that of faith whereby we receive Christ and Christ dwells in us John 1.12 Eph. 3.17 The same Authour teaches us to distinguish betwixt our first possession of Justification which is upon our contract with Christ or meer faith and the confirmation continuation and accomplishment of it whose condition is also sincere obedience and perseverance But being first possest of justification we are justified and of this Paul still speaks and there is no intercision of it nor any other way in progresse of time to be interested in it Being justified we enter upon are reconciled state which is never lost and held up onely by Christ upon the interest of our faith Obedience and Perseverance are both of necessity to obtain the end of our Faith the salvation of our soules but not to give us this interest in Christ Sin in the elect-regenerate may work a man as hath been said under present wrath but renders him not a child of wrath brings upon him an inaptitude for glory but makes him not simply liable to condemnation for eternity This accomplishment of Justification in the sense spoken to is no other then glorification and these two are distinct links in Paul's golden chain as it is called Rom. 8.30 Whom he did predestinate them also he called and whom he called them also he justified and whom he justified them he also glorified As Predestination differs from vocation and justification so Justification also from glorification when our first possession of Justification is acknowledged to be of meer faith Paul's justification is confessed to be of meer faith likewise The same Authour saith Paul doth by the word faith especially direct your thoughts to Christ believed in for to be justified by Christ and to be justified by receiving Christ is with him all one and I am sure faith alone receives Christ and no Evangelical work either of obedience or perseverance therefore Faith alone justifies There is added And when he doth mention faith as the condition he alwayes implyeth obedience to Christ therefore believing and obeying the Gospel are put for the two summaries of the whole conditions But Faith as an instrument receiving Christ is the condition when the Evangelist complains that He came to his own and his own received him not Joh. 1.11 he points out their neglect of the condition required They were his in Covenant or else they had not been called his own and in not receiving him they failed in the condition required of them and in the words following the Evangelist speaks of those of his own in Covenant that did make good the condition of it and that is no otherwise then by believing But as many as received him to them he gave power to be the Sons of God even to them that believe on his Name And this faith implyes onely acceptation though it be an act of the soul that yeelds obedience It is further said Our full justification and our everlasting salvation have the same conditions on our part But sincere Obedience is without all doubt a condition of our salvation Therefore also of our justification Here is either a manifest tautology or an errour For either full justification and salvation are both one and so here is a tautology or else if they differ it is an errour The same are not conditions of both strictly taken onely Faith gives title to Christ for Justification Works qualifie as a condition in order to salvation And whereas it is further said It would be as derogatory to Christs righteousnesse if we be saved by works as if we be justified by them Either of both is doubtlesse derogatory to it and therefore still disclaimed in Scriptures and alwayes expresly denyed except in that one Text of James Jam. 2. which speakes to Justification and must admit of another interpretation then our Authour would put upon it otherwise he can neither be reconciled to himself nor to the whole current of the Gospel Works may be causa sine quâ non of salvation or a qualification of those that are saved as Heb. 5.9 He became the Authour of eternal salvation to all them that obey him But this is not to be saved by works which the Apostle denyes Eph. 2.9 Not of works lest any man should boast And works of this efficiency wrought through grace will raise a man to boastings as appears in the Pharisees God I thank thee But seeing there are several new questions started Whether Faith be an instrument in Justification Whether works do not justifie Whether the new Covenant have any condition Whether Faith be not the alone condition And how Repentance can be a condition of the Covenant and not of Justification And Mr. Ball is almost on every hand appealed to I suppose it will not be ungrateful to the Reader if in this place I commend to him the words of that Reverend Authour though it be in a larger way then quotations are ordinarily brought in which we have not barely his authority which I do not offer to put in the balance with any but the Points in question with singular strength debated and spoken to Treating of the Covenant of Grace pag. 18. he saith Repentance is called for in this Covenant as it setteth forth the subject capable of salvation by faith Luke 13.5 Acts 11.18 2 Cor. 7.10 Ezek. 18.27 but is it self onely an acknowledgment of sin no healing of our wound or cause of our acquittance The feeling of pain and sicknesse causeth a man to desire and seek remedy but it is no remedy it self Hunger and thirst make a man desire and seek for food but a man is not fed by being hungry By repentance we know our selves we feel our sicknesse we hunger and thirst after grace but the hand which we stretch forth to receive it is faith alone without which repentance is nothing but darknesse and despair Repentance is the condition of faith and the qualification of
a learned Papist joynes with Protestants in the doctrine of Justification and many others This great wit of the Popish party reading Mr. Calvin to confute him in the point of justification was confuted by him and wrote with us against his own party as is not onely affirmed by men of our party as Davenant de just habit cap. 29. pag. 382. Albertus Pighius saith he in his controversies largely explains and confirms our opinion 1. He excludes inherent righteousnesse from any efficacy in justification 2. He manifestly approves the imputation of Christs righteousnesse Lastly He gives his reason why the righteousnesse of Christ is imputed to us for justification And then addes Many more things are found in the same author who though in other controversies he maintains a fierce warre with Protestants yet being overcome with the clear light of truth in this of Justification he fell off from the Papists and came over to our party And Capel in his preface to Mr. Pembles tract of justification Pighius saith he though of a peevish spirit enough yet reading Calvin to confute Calvin in the very doctrine of justification was confuted himself and wrote with us but also acknowledged by our adversaries Albertus Pighius is checkt by Bellarmine saith Dr. Prideaux lect 5. Pag. 165. for that in reading our authors himself at last became a Lutheran in this article And that Pighius may not stand alone on our parts among Romanists Davenant in the place quoted produces many others 1. The whole covent of Canons at Cullen in their book which they entituled Antididagma Who acknowledge the imputed righteousnesse of Christ to be the chief cause of our justification Titu de justific 2. The Romish party in the Conference of Ratisbone Who saith he gave their vote the same way pag. 47. 3. Isidore Clacius orat 40. in Luc. 4. Naclantus Episcopus Clodiensis cap. 1. ad Ephes pag. 59 72. The two first of these authorities are quoted by Dr. Prideaux likewise Adding that Cassander Stapulensis Peraldus Ferus Arius Montanus did tread in the same path and therefore miserably suffer by the Index Expurgatorius Cardinal Contarenus is likewise frequently quoted by Amesius as on our party And Dr. Prideaux saith that almost four yeares before the Councel of Trent he had so asserted the orthodox doctrine of Justification that being as is thought taken away by poyson he did not long survive And for the whole space between Gregory and the reformation our author pronounces it that authors generally for the most part were more sound in their commentaries then in their disputations and in their meditations soliloquies and conflict of temptations then in their polemicks Bringing in Chemnitius instancing in Bonaventure and others So that in case they have one of eminence amongst us we have one of theirs as eminent and in case he should prove too light we have many more into the bargain to make up weight There followes Now to the thing it self Your Arguments for faiths instrumentality to Justification I will consider when I can find them And his Reader will consider no more of his jeeres when he can look into his books and his eyes miffe of them Some of those of whom he hath made boast as his converts in this controversy have professed themselves satisfied with that which I have written though Mr. Baxter cannot find it I am told that I begin and say more for faiths Instrumentality in receiving Christ than for the instrumentality of it in Justification And the truth is I know not how to distinguish them If it be an instrument to receive Christ that doth justifie it is with me an instrument in Justification If mine eye be an instrument by which I receive in light for sight then mine eye is the organ or instrument of sight If I prove the one I think I cannot be denyed the other The Instrumentality of faith for receiving Christ is thus reasoned against If Faith be the instrument of receiving Christ then it is either the act or the habit of Faith that is the Instrument I am well aware that if I shall affirm either of these that then either some text of Scripture will be called for specifying such habit or act of faith in justification or a needlesse stirre will be made about these Logical notions The safest way then is to say with Scripture that faith is the grace that receives Christ and that interests us in propitiation in his blood and the grace by which upon that account we are justified without limitation of it to either the act or habit Neither can any answer as I suppose be thus given but such as will coincidere If I say the habit justifies it is as it puts forth it self into act Whether the act of faith or the habit doth justifie If I say the act justifies it must be as it comes from the habit and so both habit and act justifie Neither doth a mans justification cease when the habit of Faith in sleep ceaseth acting seeing justification denotes a state which is remaining and abiding It is further said Receiving strictly taken is ever passive A reason then may be seen why Divines have called faith a passive instrument in justification and Mr. Baxter may see a fair answer to the high and indeed scornful censure that he gives to the most learned as himself stiles them in his preface to this apology The most learned saith he in the upshot flie to this that credere is not agere but pati and is but Actio Grammatica or the name of action but Physically or Hyperphysically a suffering Is not here a curious doctrine of faith and Justification If Aristotle had been a Christian he could not have comprehended it But I confesse I see no reason to make receiving Neither receiving not believing are in the Authors thoughts meerly passive and consequently believing to be at least meerly passive There is alwaies an act of the will in rational agents in receiving properly so called and often of the hand The receivers of custome are agents for the States and in their receipt are active Receiving in a civil ethical lesse proper sense as is further said is but the act of accepting what is offered But is not this accepting properly receiving or is not receiving properly so called at least necessarily joyned with it in such civil ethical reception When I give a beggar an almes does not he in as strict a sense receive it as I do give it and this is either his act of acceptance or that which accompanies it If I put water into a vessel the vessel rather contains it then receives it If I give a child a lash he rather suffers then receives â—t So that receiving strictly taken is as well active as passive and rather active then passive There is added When it is onely a relation or a jus ad rem that is offered consent or acceptance is an act so necessary ordinarily to the possession
comparing me to plunderers in time of fight which would but weary the Reader to see repeated whereas after other words I add I do not doubt but it will easily appear that those Divines that with a concurrent judgement without almost a dissenting voyce have made faith an instrument in this work speaking most aptly and most agreeably to the nature of an instrument He is pleased to reply But Sir what 's the cause of this sudden change Through their great condescension I have received animadversions from many of the most learned judicious Divines that I know in England And of all these there is but one man that doth own the doctrine of faiths instrumentality but they disclaime it all some with distaste others with a modest excuse of them that use it and the gentle Interpretation of a metaphorical instrument and that remote for so they would have me Interpret our Divines I told you this when I saw you and you asked me whether Mr. C. were against it To which I answer not so much as diverse others that write to me but judge you by his own words which are these Object But though faith be not the instrument of our justification may it not be called the instrument of receiving Christ Answ I think they mean so and no more who call faith the instrument of our justification c. I shall not be unwilling to yeeld to you that to speak exactly faith may better be called a condition of our justification so farre Mr. C. To this I answer 1. Why have we not the authority of Divines that are open to all mens eyes rather then of those that lye dormant in his hands and there are sure more in the presse then in his private study in Manuscripts No one is produced and I scarce think can be produced 2. I would he would publish to the world the labours of these eminently learned persons that we as well as he might see their weak opposition of plain Scripture which somewhere is his free censure 3. There are those if intelligence do not deceive me that he hath said he hath brought to his judgement in this thing that yet have professed themselves satisfied with that which I have said and are they of both our minds 4. For Mr. C. upon the coming forth of this Apology he wrote to me among other things in these words Mr. C. vindicated Mr. Baxter pag. 19. citeth some words of mine about faiths instrumentality but it had been fair to have signified what I say further about it especially in my second writing when I perceived what advantage he did take of that which I had said before onely to avoid contending about words which I do not like so far Mr. C. I said in my Treatise the work about which faith is imployed is not an absolute but a relative work a work of God towards man not without the actuall concurrence of man such in which neither God nor man are sole efficients nor any act of God or man can be sole instruments but there must be a mutual concurrence of both To this is replyed A dangerous doctrine in my judgement to be so nakedly affirmed no doubt but justification is a relative change and it is past controversie that it is not without the actual concurrence of man for he must perform the condition on which God will justifie him But that God is not the sole efficient nor any act of God the sole instrument I durst not have affirmed without proof Neither durst I have charged any mans speech with danger of that nature without disproof unlesse I should think it enough to make it so because in my judgement it appears so and that which is here granted as without controversie is with me a proof sufficient If it be not done without the actual concurrence of man and is done by such concurrence of which we have as many proofs as there is mention of justification by faith there must be some kind of efficiency in this concurrence There is somewhat of efficiency in mans concurrence by faith in Justifâ—cation that man should be justified by faith and faith have no hand at all in it I cannot reach I bring for proof the absurdity that will follow upon denyal in these words This must needs be granted unlesse we will bring in Dr. Crispes passive recipiency of Christ Christs abode in man without man in spight of man and suppose him to be justified in unbelief To this is replyed This is very naked asserting why did you not shew some reason of this ill consequence It 's past any reach to see the least If I were too short it is now done to my hands where a mutual concurrence of God and man in the work is confest tell me how it can be denyed unlesse Christ come into man without man and in spite of him for if man act in it he must needs be an agent It followes Why do you still confound Christs real abode in us by his Spirit with the relation we have upon justification when even now you affirmed it was a relative work as you call it I pray by the next shew us more clearly how these absurdities follow that doctrine And doth not a relative work of this nature necessarily presuppose this abode by the Spirit and is not a relative change a necessary consequent of it If strangers to Christ be justified by Christ The relative change in Justification necessarily presupposes a reall I am to learn in the doctrine of justification that desire of his I think is already satisfied I further say faith is disabled from this office in justification by this argument If faith be an instrument It is the instrument of God or man c. to which in my Treatise I answered it is the instrument of man though man do not justifie himself yet he concurres as a ready willing agent with God in it To which is replyed If this be not a palpable contradiction saying and unsaying my Logick is lesse then I thought it had been If it be mans instrument of justification and yet man do not justifie himself then either man is not man or an Instrument is not an instrument or justifying is not justifying It seems he would have us by the way know that his thoughts of his own Logick are not low The Author acquit from the charge of a palpable contradiction but if other mens Logick cannot solve this contradiction yet me thinks his might who sayes receiving strictly taken is ever passive and a man may be passive in justification and not justifie himself But perhaps with me it is of more difficulty that have affirmed That reception hath still somewhat at least of action in it but this reception here in question hath no more of action then serves to possesse it self of a free gift which ever adds honour to the giver not to the receiver I distinguish therefore of instruments of meer reception and instruments
a principal efficient Mr. Baxter is I am sure as zealous as I can be to assert a conditionate Covenant and if an adversary be as streight-laced to him and me in that as he is to me in this he will hardly prove a condition either in the Covenant of works or grace I will as soon find the word instrument in Scripture applyed to justification as he shall find the word condition applyed to either Covenant And he can name I think no word implying a condition that is alwayes put for a condition and the context wheresoever we are said to be justified by faith or that Christ is a propitiation through faith is in all indifferent Readers eyes as clear for an instrument in justification as those which he and I can bring which yet are clear enough for a conditionate Covenant And that doctrine hath farre more adversaries then this though there is little cause that any man should be an adversary in either He sayes the same answer serves to Act. 15.9 and then the same reply may serve There followes To what you say from Rom. 8.13 I reply 1. An adjutor or concause is ill called an instrument must the Spirit needs be our instrument because it is by the Spirit as if by signified onely an instrument Mr. Baxters head was doubtlesse on somewhat else either when he read these passage of mine or when he framed his answer I never had it in my thoughts that justification is expressely spoken to in any of these texts nor was it my businesse to find out any instrument in them though I doubt not but that faith is spoken to instrument in two of them and as a condition non-instrumental in none of them neither did I dream of making the Spirit an instrument All that I intended was to prove The acts of God are entitled to man and the acts of man to God in Scripture that the acts of man were intitled to God and so the acts of God to man not considering as the businesse in hand let not to it about what these acts are exercised if they prove that It is to me sufficient whether it be in Justification Sanctification Mortification or any other work There is added 2. All this is nothing to the businesse of justification nothing directly immediately but much by way of Analogy It is enough to prove That to be the instrument of man and the instrument of God are not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And if he desire a proof more punctually applyed to justification let him consult Rom 3.30 It is one God that shall justifie the circumcision by faith and the uncircumcision through faith and Gal. 3.8 The Scripture foreseeing that God would justifie the Heathen through faith Faith for justification is usually ascribed to man being properly his act and therefore that text of the Prophet Hab. 2.4 The just shall live by his faith is by the Apostle more then once applyed to justification And in the text now quoted this act of faith is ascribed to God for that work I explained my self man neither justifies nor sanctifies himself yet by faith he is raised to close with God in both c. To this is answered If man justifie not himself and yet faith be his instrument of justifying then farewell old Logick Mr. Baxter is the first great Logitian that I ever heard talk so much of his Logick in the last Section but one we had it and now we have it in the same thing again there I shewed that old Logick may stand and yet his consequence not yeelded 2. It is said If man sanctifie not himself under God as to the progresse and acts of sanctification then farewell old Theology And if man may be said to sanctifie himself further then hath been said or so as to be a principal efficient which will follow from Mr. Baxters reasonings then welcome the newest Divinity It will not be denyed that a sanctified man differs from one that is unsanctified and then in case it may be allowed to say I sanctifie my self he may say I make my self to differ which I never heard that any in direct termes would say against the Apostle but Grevenchovius as I find him cited by Dr. Featly and yet it seems it is my great error that I will not say so I lift man up in that height in justification as to pardon his own sin in holding that it is of faith that it may be of grace not of works lest any should boast And I raise him not high enough in sanctification If I say no more then that by faith he receives power from God by the Spirit for it that text 1 Pet. 1.22 would farre better have served my purpose if I had first hit upon it The Spirit of God and not man is to have the denomination in sanctification Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit They that have done any thing in purifying their hearts through the Spirit will rather entitle the Spirit of God then themselves to it and will judge that he rather then they should be denominated a sanctifier And for other texts that are hinted and one mentioned 2 Cor. 7.1 To argue from the Command to the power is that old Theologie that I am ready to bid farewell to As God requires it so he doth often undertake it and declares that it is his work to do it Ezek. 36.25 26. Deut. 30.6 I think few will say that they make their own hearts new There is added 3. To close with God in pardoning me signifieth not that I pardon my self or that I or any act of mine is an efficient cause of pardon This is for me therefore I am contented it should be said over again and my faith is the instrument wherewith I close with God In case it be the instrument wherewith I receive Christ as Mr. Baxter hath sometimes yeelded There followes 4. When you say that faith as an instrument receiveth righteousnesse to justification you speak exactly the conceptions of most Divines that I have met with or read that go your way and therefore these words deserve a little further consideration and after some enquiry into their meaning There is added but these things must be more accurately considered I think Here it is confessed that I tread in the beaten road and that I do appear in the common cause and comparing what is here said with that which in his conclusion he delivers The Author is confest to appear in the common cause in behalf of Protestants It appears that the Divines of this corner of the world for 1300. years past have all taken this way which is all that go under the name Protestant whether Calvinist or Lutheran as they are wont to be distinguished I shall therefore expect that some of those that by grace have obtained to be as of the first three among Davids worthies will step in with their Auxiliary helps in case the
cause be prejudiced by my weaknesse He asigns me to the party of those that he calls Reformers pag. 16. on what party himself stands it is easie then to determine Having said that these things are to be more accurately considered he expresses himself without any one title of Scripture in eight particulars I shall as briefly as I can take notice of the sum of them Mr Faxters eight heads taken into consideration 1. It must be known that the righteousnesse given to us is not the righteousnesse whereby Christs person was righteous for accidents perish being removed from the subject but it is a righteousness merited by Christs satisfaction and obedience for us Here we have a negation with its reasons and an opposite affirmation without any reason at all The negation is That the righteousnesse given us is not the righteousnesse whereby Christs person was righteous The reason is Accidents perish being removed from the subject and therefore the righteousnesse given us is not the righteousnesse whereby Christs person was righteous impliying that the reformed party take righteousnesse for justification out of Christ and leave him belike without any righteousnesse and put it into themselves and so as Christ was before so now they are inherently righteous He well knowes that they hold that it is still in Christ and of grace reckoned to be ours and therefore that of accidents perishing needed not an opinion which he vehemently opposeth in his Preface to his Confession If Christ onely saith he were righteous Christ onely would be reputed and judged righteous and Christ onely would be happy The Judge of the world will not justifie the unrighteous meerly because another is righteous nor can the holy Ghost take complacency in an unholy sinner because another is holy And yet himself holds That the Judge of the world will not onely take an infant born under the defilement of sin into Covenant as holy but also justifie him though in his opinion uncapable of any real change by the Spirit barely upon the account of the parents state in grace through regeneration We cannot be righteous through Christs righteousnesse notwithstanding we know that in the Gospel of grace it is reckoned ours and by faith have our interest Yet an infant is righteous by the parents rigteousnesse Notwithstanding we read not of any such imputation or any such way of interest by faith or otherwise I must crave leave to hold to the former which he leaves though not with his but Scripture comment upon it God does not justifie us meerly because another is righteous but because Christ is made of God to us righteousnesse 1 Cor. 1.30 and is Jehovah our righteousnesse Jer. 23.6 And to leave the latter which he holds I believe neither regeneration nor justification to be from Parent to child ex Traduce In which sense that holds Nemo nascitur sed fit Christianus I choose rather with Walaeus to subscribe to the opinion of Calvin lib. 4. instit cap. 16. Sect. 20. That Infants are baptized into future Repentance and faith which he saies is the opinion of most other Authors I believe Mr. Baxter chiefly took up this opinion of justification of infants tanquam Apendices parentum for Amiraldus his sake who had it from Camero Amiraldus qui nihil Cameronis imitatur preter naevos idem dicit and was his follower as aged and reverend Molinaeus saith in nothing but his blemishes And I would not have so good a friend and eminent ornament to the Church to make either of them in these his precedents The affirmation is that it is a righteousnesse merited by Christs satisfaction and obedience Here is a Proposition delivered with very little accuratenesse 1. The righteousnesse given is here distinguished from his obedience when certainly this obedience is that which is given to us By the obedience of one many shall be made righteous Rom. 5.29 2. Christs satisfaction and obedience are here distinguished when his satisfaction was his obedience Joh. 10.18 Phil. 2. 3. His satisfaction is distinguished from this righteousnesse when I think it is plain that it self is righteousnesse Christs own as a Redeemer Ours as redeemed ones when Christ had taken upon him our sins he had not stood righteous in Gods sight without a discharge and this discharge is our acquittal and deliverance Queries put concerning this righteousnesse 4. We hear not whence this righteousnesse thus merited is where it resides and how made ours Is it a righteousnesse by a new Creation as the light was once made to shine out of darknesse was it put immediately into Christ or given immediately to us which seems to be Mr. Baxters thoughts to avoid perishing of accidents Is it one gift indefinitely at once for all or to all or is it given particularly numerically individually Is it made ours without us or by us If it be made ours whether is it by our acceptation through faith or ability merited for us to work it and so Christ merited that we might merit 2. It must needs be known saith he that the faith which is the justifying condition is terminated on Christ himself as the object and not on his righteousnesse which he gives us in remission remission or rigteousnesse may be the end of the sinner in receiving Christ but righteousnesse or remission is not the object received by that act which is made the condition of justification or at least but a secondary more remote object c. In this whole piece we have an affirmation a negation a concession and illustration Our Faith being terminated on Christ it is terminated on righteousnesse For the affirmation that faith is terminated on Christ we grant but that it is not therefore terminated on the righteousnesse which he gives in remission for remission I think was intended we are to learn And when it is granted that remission is the end which is ill confounded with righteousnesse one being the cause the other the effect it must be granted that a righteous Christ is the object and that Christ is received upon account of his righteousnesse were not this an accurate way of distinguishing to say that a man ready to perish with cold goes to the fire and not to heat for warmth The heart ready to perish with thirst goeth to the water and not to moisture If the soul ready to perish in unrighteousnesse goes to Christ for righteousnesse his faith cannot be terminated on Christ but it must be terminated on righteousnesse as the eye cannot be fixed on the sunne but it must be fixed on light We are holpen with a similitude As a woman doth not marry a mans riches but the man Though it may be her end in marrying the man to be enriched by him nor is her receiving his riches the condition of her first Legal right to them but her taking the man for her husband If Christ and righteousnesse were separable as a man and riches are this simile might be to
in the first gives interest in all All the promises of God in Christ being Yea and Amen 2 Cor. 1.19 6. It must be remembred saith he that the thing that faith receives naturally and properly is not Christ himself or his righteousnesse but the species of what is represented as its object And that faiths reception of Christ himself and his righteousnesse or of right to him is but receptio metaphorica vel actio ad receptionem propriam necessaria and that the true reception which is pati non agere doth follow faith And therefore Christ himself is received onely Receptione fide ethicâ activâ metaphoricâ species Christi praedicati recipitur receptione naturali intelligendo Jus ad Christum recipitur receptione naturali passivâ propriâ Mr. Baxters friend let him know that he understood not his former I would I had acquaintance with him to help me in this for if he had not understood him here he would likely have said as much as before unlesse perhaps his modesty would not suffer him to be so much on the excepting hand That which I think I do understand I know not how to make to agree who would not here think but it were the natural property or act of faith to receive the species of Christ yet Sect. 10. pag. 2. he saith that every other grace that hath Christ for his object is thus far an instrument of receiving him that is the species of him as he expresses himselfe as well as faith but none so properly as knowledge which also he here as we see repeates species Christi praedicati recipitur receptione naturali intelligendo So that faith lesse properly and not so naturally receives him Knowledge in this hath the preeminence who would not think from these words that it were proper and peculiar to believers thus to receive Christ yet in the place quoted pag. 22. it is said that he thus dwells in every wicâ—ed man that thus thinketh of him It seemes then that Judas in his thoughts to betray Christ did as much to this receiving of him if not more then others in believing of him It is there said that doubtlesse he doth not dwell in that deep and special manner as in his chosen yet if it be most properly by knowledge that he thus dwells then they that know most have the most deep indwelling and that is more in devils then in some if not any chosen ones The reception of Christ himself his righteousnesse or of right to Christ is here confest to be an act of saith and who but Mr. Baxter would look for a more true reception yet the true reception which is pati non agere doth follow faith and though the believer receive the actual efficacious gift yet it is not his faith that receiveth it as we have in the close of the Paragraph In his English he sayes that faiths reception of Christ himself or of right to Christ is but receptio metaphorica and opposed to true reception which is pati non agere In his Latine he saith Jus ad Christum recipitur receptione naturali passiva propria faith with him is an acceptance of a freely given Christ and life in him yet a believer receives the efficacious giving but his faith doth not receive it I would mind Mr. Baxter of that rule of his own Vbi lex non distinguit c. and where he meets with these distinctions in the Word of God I know not and he goes not about to make known Scripture speaks of receiving Christ and not the species of Christ onely Scripture tells us of receiving Christ by faith and not of the species onely which an unsanctified knowledge without faith may reach The Species of Christ can neither justifie us nor purifie us nor yet give victory over the world nor make resistance against Satan yet all this through faith Christ doth and therefore faith doth not receive the bare species if we could be content with Gospel-simplicity truth might stand and these distinction be laid aside 7. The great thing therefore that I would desire to be observed is this that though faith were an instrument of the aforesaid objective or of the ethical metaphorical reception of Christ which yet is not properly being ipsa receptio yet it is not therefore the insturmental cause of the passive proper reception of right to Christ or righteousnesse Whether we have not that again here denyed which before was asserted let the Reader judge However Reasons are given of it Faith is an instrument of the proper reception of Christ 1. In the negative Of this saith he it is onely the condition and not the proper instrument with an objection prevented in a parenthesis I shall shew hereafter that it is impossible to be both I shall wait therefore till this be shewen for I despair I confesse ever to see such impossibility I know an instrument quâ instrument differs from a condition quâ a condition but that one and the same thing is in an utter incapacity to be both an instrument and an instrumental condition I do not believe I may give a man a piece of money with a proviso that he take it in a sawcer or a pair of tonges this now is the condition yet the tonges or sawcers are his instruments to receive it Faith doth more then morally qualifie the subject to be a fit patient to be justified 2. We have a positive reason It doth morally qualifie the subject to be a fit patient to be justified as Mr. Benjamin Woodbridge saith truly in his excellent Sermon of Justification I have not this Sermon though I know that he hath often applauded it but how excellent soever I had rather have had a quotation out of John's Gospel or Paul's Peters or Johns Epistles And if he affirm that which is here quoted out of him as I do not question I hope to dye in a different opinion from him This subject that is onely morally qualified to be a fit patient to be justified is not yet in possession of Christ of life by Christ Mr. Baxter is morally qualified for the degree of Doctor and yet he is no Doctor was morally qualified to be called by the State for consultation about Religion when as yet he was not called and might have dyed and never have been called but faith puts into an actual possession of Christ and Justification by him By him all that believer are justified from all things I should rather take Humiliation Conviction Compunction soul-emptinesse to be such moral qualification as is here mentioned and this I have learnt from our Saviour Matth. 11.28 Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy-laden and I will give you rest Such are morally qualified for the justified mans rest â—nd peace And more fully in the Parable Luk. 18. the Publ cane that came not with a list of vertues as the Pharisee did but was so clogged with sin that he stood afar off from
the mercy-seat durst not lift up his eyes to heaven seeing a large list of sins and not of vertues or praise-worthy carriages goes away justified rather then the Pharisee Here is a subject morally qualified to be a fit patient to be justified not yet actually justified which also was their case Acts 2.37 with the Jaylours Act. 16.30 which I think neither Mr. Baxter nor Mr. Woodbridge can find affirmed of any actually in the faith who according to Scripture are actually justified and not barely qualified to be fit patients in due time to receive it There followes I would have Pareus here put against this which is quoted out of Mr. Woodbridge speaking by way of objection against the Orthodox doctrine of Justification he saith Faith justifies that is Fides justificat i. e. disponit ad justitiam Respondeo Glossa contorta Scripturae ignota et repugnans Justificare enim dicitur fides accipiendo donum justitiae absque operibus non disponendo ad justitiam Nec justificatio fit per motum sicut calefactâ—o sed per imputationem Quod si sicret per motum admodum impâ—oprie fidei tribueretur Neque enim motus ad rem est res ipsa nec dispositio generat sed est via ad generationem Non igitur per motum dispositionis fides justificat it disposes or fits for Justification and answers A wrested glosse unknown to Scripture and contrary to it For faith is said to justifie by receiving the gift of righteousnesse without works and not by disposing for righteousnesse Neither is Justification by motion as is warmth but by imputations And if it were by motion it were most improperly ascrib'd to faith Neither is motion to a thing the thing it self nor doth a disposition obtain any thing but is the way to obtain it Therefore faith do's not justifie by any motion of disposition Pareus in Rom 3. Dub. 8. The reason of this is That this is onely donation or the will of the donour signified that can efficiently convey a right to his own benefits the receiver is not the giver and therefore not the conveyer of right I wonder what this is a reason of if it be intended for a reason of that which goeth immediately befote that faith doth morally qualifie in the way mentioned it is above me to see any reason in it It is further said Every instrument is an efficient cause and therefore must effect and it is onely giving that effecteth this right But it effects no such right without receiving where it is given upon that proviso that it be thus and thus received After much ado and to what purpose let others judge The conclusion is The great thing therefore that I affirm is this that if you will needs call faith the instrument of apprehending Christ or righteousnesse yet doth it not justifie proxime formaliter as such but as the condition of the gift performed And the great thing that I would affirm is That the instrumental apprehending Christ or righteousnesse is this condition of the gift It is given upon condition that we make use of our faith to apprehend it and so the summe is That faith doth not justifie formaliter proxime as apprehending Christ or righteousnesse because it doth justifie proxime formaliter as thus apprehending Faith as a condition certainly doth somewhat and this it is that it doth according to the Scripture The eighth and last of his accurate heads followes In which he saies he opens his meaning together about this point though as he saies with some repetitions I cannot then without repetitions give any further answer which to the Reader would be too troublesome yet somewhat is observable that I find not before Faith saith he must first be faith i. e. apprehensio Christi in order of nature before it can be the condition of right Actual existence not necessary to the being of a condition in a Covenant If faith must have an actual being before it can be the condition of right then perfect obedience according to the old rule as Mr. Baxter calls it must first be perfect obedience in actual being before it can be a condition of the Covenant of works and so it will follow that that Covenant hath no condition seeing there is no such actual obedience A condition may be a condition though not made good though never made good The delivery in of an hundred foreskins of the Philistines was Davids condition for Marriage of Sauls daughter before any Philistine was slain and had stood as a condition though had never been given in If he mean that faith must be faith before the condition be made good this is false for the actual being of it is the making of it good and so it is as much as if I said I must wink in order of nature before I shut my eyes He further distinguishes of apprehensio Christi and conditio praestita when apprehensio Christi is conditio praestita as though I should distinguish between Abrahams sacrificing of his son and his obedience of Gods command in sacrificing him when all know that his sacrificing him was his obedience To say that there is such a thing as faith in the general notion before Christ doth constitute a condition were somewhat but to say that we believe or apprehend Christ before we perform the condition is to say we must perform the condition before we perform it Having led the Reader through all this accuratenesse I must further consider his animadversions I said The Spirit will do nothing without our faith and our faith can do nothing without the Spirit man cannot justifie himself by believing without God and God will not justifie an unbelieving man faith then is the act of man man believes yet the instrument of God that justifies onely believers To which I have a multiplication either of answers and scornes in place of answers 1. It is said The Spirits working in sanctification is nothing to our question of justification It is yet somewhat for illustration for which alone it was brought though nothing for proof for which it was never intended 2. It is said The Spirit works our first faith without faiths coworking and that is more then nothing What need he to have told me this when I had told it him before as the Reader may see in words which he omits I speak there of the Spirits work in the soul where faith is implanted 3. The Spirit moveth faith to action before faith moveth it self Here is an exception to fill up the number If I move my pen to write before it move then I write something without my pen. 4. It is said It is not so easily proved as said That the Spirit never exciteth any good act in the soul nor yet restraineth from any evill without the coworking of faith But why is not this disproved with ease I would know for my learning what act of the Spirit upon a beleeving soul is
of it first a piece of a Concession Secondly a Simile The Concession is That the Gospel without the concomitance of faith doth not actually justifie else faith were no condition or causa sine qua non That faith should barely wait effecting nothing and gain no further honour then here is assigned will appear a strange assertion If it had its efficacy where it was in being in miraculous cures so that it was said Thy faith hath made thee whole I think it is much rather efficacious in justification there being so much spoken of justification by faith I desire Mr. Baxter to consider the words of his learned dying friend Mr. Gataker in his letter to him And surely faith as a medium seems to have a more peculiar office in the transaction of that main businesse of Justification then either repentance or any other grace as the love or fear of God and the like Which to me seems the more apparent because I find it so oft said in the Word that men are justified by faith but no where by repentance Albeit that also be as a condition thereunto required as also that form of speech 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fides or fiducia in sanguine seems to intimate and imply that this grace hath a more special reference then any other to the satisfaction made to Gods Justice for our sins by Christs sufferings which alone we can plead for our discharge of them at Gods Tribunal Much more followes worthy of Mr. Baxters consideration in laying so high a charge as he hath done on our Reformers in this particular There followes a Simile as full of obscurity as the earth is of darknesse and it were aesie so far as it is intelligible to make it appear how much it halteth but that I will not trouble the Reader with such impertinencies and I look for proofs rather then Similes and here is no proof at all I further infer in my Treatise Mr. Pemble therefore affirming the Word to be an instrument of Gods Spirit presently addes Now instruments are either cooperative or passive and the Word must be one of these two Cooperative he saith it is not and gives his reason It is therefore saith he a passive instrument working onely per modum objecti as it containes a declaration of the Divine will and it proposeth to the understanding and will the things to be known believed and practised Here many exceptions are taken Whether the Word be a passive instrument or cooperative with the Spirit First That Mr. Pemble speakes of the Word as the instrument of sanctification we speak of it as conveying right to Christ and as justifying Secondly That Mr. Pembles reason of the passive instrumentality of the Word is but this that it cannot be declared what operative force there should be in the bare declaration of Gods will Thirdly That himself will undertake to declare that an operation there is by the agency of this declaration though not punctually how it operates Fourthly That this passive instrumentality of the Word in sanctifying doth very ill agree with the language of Scripture which makes the Word to be mighty powerful pulling down strong-holds c. Fifthly That Mr. Pemble herein is single and singular To speak to these in order To the first I say Though Mr. Pemble gives an instance of the Words work in sanctification yet there is no reason to believe that he limits his whole discourse to it indefinitely affirming that it is a passive instrument and giving instance in one there is no imaginable reason that he can exclude the other For his second He lets his Reader know that he took an hasty view of Mr. Pemble when he said that this was all his reason he may see the thing fully argued by him mihi pag. 97 98 99 c in quarto which is too long to transcribe The work which is done upon the soul is wrought by the Spirit as the principal agent whether it be to regeneration progressive sanctification or in order to justification every previous work in tendency towards these is from the Spirit likewise as illumination conviction the beginning and whole progresse is by the Spirit The Word is no more then an instrument and all that the Word doth is by power from the Spirit and therefore said to be mighty through God 2 Cor. 10.5 Now the Spirit must work by way of power either on the Word or the soul as its object It must infuse power and strength into the one as the principal agent in the work Mr. Pemble denies that it works thus by an infusion of power into the Word and affirmes that the infusion of strength is into the soul and not into the Word which the Apostle confirmes Ephes 3.16 As for his third which he saies he will undertake to declare he brings nothing but bare authorities He faith he hath read many that say one thing and some that say another but himself is of Scotus his mind and we have not one syllable to induce any other to be of the same judgement His fourth Mr. Pemble answers and saith That all those phrases there reckoned up are to be understood by a metonymy which though they properly belong to the invisible power of the Holy Ghost giving effect unto his own Word yet are figuratively attributed unto the Word it self which he useth as his visible instrument explaining himself by several similitudes For his last If Mr. Pemble be thus sole and singular he was much mistaken Having fully spoke his judgement in this thing he addes pag. 99. And this is the sentence of the Orthodox Church touching the nature and distinction of these two callings Inward by the work of the Spirit outward by the voice of the Word The Arminians are of another opinion whose judgement saith he about this matter is thus c. At large laying down their doctrine And it were easy to multiply those testimonies that take all efficacy or energy from the Word to give it to the Spirit usually quoting 1 Cor. 3.6 7. 2 Cor. 3.6 2 Cor. 10.4 5. He tells me I doubt whether you believe him or your self throughly for if you did I think you would preach but coldly I am perswaded you look your preaching should operate actively And does he think Mr. Pemble did believe his own doctrine or was he a cold Preacher he delivers his doctrine with confidence and backes it with reasons and the workes that he hath left behind argue that he spake with some heat and fervour and I wish that I could gain more heat both in prayer and preaching and I do look that my preaching should operate actively but whether of it self or through the power of the Spirit there lyes the question He concludes If it were proved that there were an hundred passive instruments it would never be proved that faith is one as an instrument doth signifie an efficient cause of Gods work of justifying us neither really nor reputatively is
tryal is our faith not barely the doctrine of faith as some would have it whereby we may conclude that we are of such a Church in which Christ is visibly resident in Ordinances but the grace of faith whereby he makes his abode in our soules The reason annexed is put by way of interrogation or question Know ye not your own selves how that Jesus Christ is in you except ye be reprobates which doth not imply that all are Reprobates that know not in present that Christ is in them but this is all that is implyed or can be gathered that Jesus Christ is in all that are not reprobates where reprobate is not yet opposed to the Elect as though all such were everlastingly cast-awayes in whom Christ is not in present But as the word is used Jer. 6.30 reprobate silver that is unfit for use or service so it is here taken such in present are not in a saving but in a lost condition and therefore it much concerns us to put this upon the tryal Motives to perswade to get assurance of this grace 1. Necessity of Faith For Motives to put men upon this work consider First the necessity of this grace and that upon a several account 1. Without Faith as you have heard we are without this righteousnesse None in unbelief can say of Christ Jehovah our righteousnesse All the good that Christ does unbelief loses so much good that Christ can do thee of so much unbelief strips thee The Apostle tells us of unsearchable riches in Christ Ephes 3.8 Such that none can summe up nor he that is highest in skill in Arithmetique calculate Christ is the Fathers Store-house Magazine or rich Exchequer The Father hath not a gift for any of his but he layes it up in Christ and a faith receives it from Christ Noah by faith was heir of this righteousnesse Heb. 11.7 The rest of the world wanting this grace went without this inheritance The rest of Canaan was lost by unbelief Heb. 3.18 The rest of heaven will be thus lost in like manner God hath chosen the poor of this world rich in faith heires of the Kingdome which he hath prepared for those that love him Jam. 2.5 The rich of this world destitute of this Faith make forfeiture of this Kingdome Is Christ a gift Faith receives him and unbelief is wanting Is Christ food Faith feeds upon him and unbelief is hunger-starved Is Christ rayment Faith puts him on and unbelief is naked Is Christ a Medicine Faith applyes him and unbelief languisheth Is Christ a laver Faith drencheth and douzeth it self in him and unbelief is filthy and defiled Is Christ a pardon Faith sues it out and unbelief lyeth under guilt Is Christ satisfaction Faith makes the plea and attains a discharge and unbelief remains indebted 2. Without Faith the soul is under the wrath of God and his ireful displeasure This is a necessary result from the former The man of unbelief wants that which might be interposed as an atonement and might stand as a skreen or shield for his guard And it is also fully laid down in Christ's words Joh. 3.36 He that believeth not the Son shall not see life but the wrath of God abideth on him What Zophar saith of the wicked man Job 20.29 This is his portion from God and the heritage appointed him of God that Christ sayes of unbelievers so long as they remain in unbelief so long wrath abides on them All by nature are the children of wrath having no other inheritance and the man of unbelief never gets from under wrath to attain any other portion This is an aggregate of all miseries when all is reckoned up that can be named to make miserable wrath comprizeth it all to the uttermost to infinitenesse As is the man so is his strength say Zeba and Zalmunna Judg. 8.21 As is God so is his wrath with this motive the Psalmist presseth to faith Psal 2.12 Thy sin hath merit enough to damne and thou hast not any interest in Christ to save or deliver He that is void of Faith and yet under no such feares it is not because there is no cause of feares but that such a soul is not awakened to see his fearful deplored and desperate condition If the rich glutton had seen Hell gaping for him and the Devil ready to hale and drag him he could not then have had any list to his every-dayes Gorgeous apparrel nor yet any appetite to his delicate fare That is the condition of secure sensual ones till Hell-fire flame about them they think they are sure of heaven 3. Without faith there is no benefit to be had or good to be found in any Ordinances No Ordinance is useful but either as it is improved by Faith already seated in the soul or as it is serviceable to the plantation of it No duty of any kind works to acceptance from an unbelievers hand Abel's sacrifice was accepted when Cain's could not gain acceptance Gen. 4.4 5. The Apostle shews us the reason of this difference Heb. 11.4 By faith Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice then Cain The Parable of the sower tells us how few profitable hearers of the Word there can be found and the Apostle gives the reason Heb. 4.2 The Word is not mixt with faith in those that hear it It is effectual alone in believers 1 Thess 2.13 and no more have audience in prayer then those that profit in hearing and there is one and the same reason of both Jam. 1.6 7. And that man is doubtlesse under an heavy Judgment that never gets good when he hears from God nor obtains his request when he seeks to God At the Lords Table they eat bread but feed not on Christ they take the Cup but have no interest in the blood of the new Covenant 4. Without faith nothing is done that God accepts The man and the work both displease Heb. 11.6 There must be a concurrence of all requisites to render a work good and acceptable But in an unbelievers work the matter of the work excepted all requisites are wanting The rise is from a fountain that is unclean and the unbelieving soul cannot go so high as to make the glory of God the end And the rule is above him in the work to look after 5. Without Faith the whole of man head breast and bowels are all open to Satan Faith is a Christians shield Ephes 6.16 and a shield is the defence not of one part but the guard of the whole A man without faith is a Souldier without armes and destitute of all power to make any manner of resistance Satan leads such an one at pleasure There is nothing of Christ nothing of grace nothing of the Spirit to stand up in opposition Some devils are not resisted without strength of faith Mark 9.29 No devil without faith can be vanquished or overcome Mot. 2 Secondly Consider the benefits of faith the glory that doth accompany it The benefits that
these that they cannot cast them out of themselves 2. Faith makes that resolute choyce of Christ that it suffers all manner of afflictions rather than to be driven and divided from him After ye were illuminated saith the Apostle to the believing Hebrewes ye suffered a great fight of afflictions Heb. 10.32 To save the labour of turning over large Volumes of Martyrologies read over that little book of Martyrs as some have called Heb. 11. especially ver 35 36 37 38. Faith kindles that flame that many waters cannot quench Christ upon earth was a man of sorrowes and acquainted with griefs yet he had those disciples that never left him till he came to the Crosse and then sollicitously enquired after him Where Christ dwells by faith there the Spirit strengthens for sufferings Ephes 3.16 17. If men now look into their hearts and see themselves willing to follow Christ in fair weather and to own his cause whilest it costs them nothing but in worldly respects rather gain by the bargain but when trouble ariseth they are gone These may look into the Parable of the sower whether this be not an evidence of a rocky and stony heart A strong wind is the tryal of the root of the tree of the foundation of the house an hot scorching fire of the truth of the mettal It is true that self-ends sometimes put a man upon sufferings But it is alwayes true that self-ends onely put a man upon profession when he will not stand out in sufferings They whose Religion is the States Religion the Times Religion will not lose an hair by any profession they make Self and not Faith carries on that profession 3. As faith carries the soul up to Christ to be one with him so also it carries it on in every affection and office of love to his brethren In Jesus Christ neither Circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision but faith which worketh by love Gal. 5.6 It is not to be of this opinion or of that which men call their faith nor of this Nation nor of that which too oft prescribes all that men in their way of faith believe But to be possest of that faith which works by love which commends us unto God A man may be of this or that faith according to pleasure and yet his faith utterly destitute of that grace Faith carries a man not any further at all towards Christ then his love carries him on towards his brethren An idle faith is a dead faith and a dead faith never reacheth righteousnesse to Justification and life James never disputed against Paul's assertion of Justification by faith onely Writing after him as is generally confest he did not write to contradict any doctrine or correct any errours delivered by him When Paul concludes Justification by faith James concludes that it is by a working faith Where it works not it doth not then justifie and where it works to acceptation it works by love CHAP. XIII SECT I. Of the number of Sacraments AS a result from all that hath been said of the nature and use of Sacraments we may conclude the definite and distinct number of them So many Ordinances that we can find in Old or New Testament-Scriptures that are signs and seales of this nature as here hath been set out from the Apostles words so many Sacraments there are truly so called equally worthy of that honour of Sacraments with this of Circumcision being every way of the same nature and use they are deservedly to have the same esteem But falling short of such they are to have esteem as they are and their dignity may challenge but not to be put into this number The way to find out the number of Sacraments And I know no other way then this to find out the set and definite number of them Those trifling arguments made use of by some that the matter of New Testament-Sacraments viz. Water and Blood came out of the side of Christ and that blood and water as John affirms bear witnesse on earth are not worthy to be mentioned save onely that they are used by some of eminent name And upon diligent search we shall find onely two stated standing Ordinances in Old Testament-Scriptures and onely two in New Testament-Scriptures that are to be thus received We have not indeed any distinct Text in either of both Testaments expresly testifying that there are two and two onely Sacraments as we find it ordinarily in Catechismes Neither is there any distinct Text in the Law or Prophets that as we would that men should do to us so we should do to them Yet our Saviour Matth. 7.12 tells us that that rule is both in the Law and in the Prophets being a clear result from that which the Law and the Prophets have delivered The like may we say concerning the number of Sacraments It is as clear a result from that which is delivered to us both from Old and New Testament-Scriptures so that the conclusion is twofold drawn by way of deduction of this nature 1. Two onely standing Ordinances in the Old Testament of the nature of Sacraments Two onely Sacraments in the New Testament There were in Old Testament-times onely two standing Ordinances of the nature of Sacraments viz. Circumcision and the Passeover 2. There are in New Testament-times onely two Sacraments viz. Baptisme and the Lords Supper We shall begin with Old Testament-times and here our way of discovery is First To find out all those Signes or Ordinances that are set up in competition as Sacraments Secondly To enquire into the nature and use of them Thirdly To find out how nigh they come to the nature of Sacraments and what agreement they have with them Fourthly where it is that they are defective and fall short of Sacraments truly so called SECT II. Rainbowe no Sacrament THe first that offers it self is the Rainbowe of which we might speak First as it is in nature for discovery of the physical being of it Secondly as a sign appointed of God But the first consideration of it is not my businesse but the work of Philosophers who out of Aristotle have defined it to be A Bowe of many colours seated in an hollow and duskish cloud The definition of a Rainbow appearing upon the reflection of the Sun in opposition against it He that pleaseth may read further in Magirus physiol peripat lib. 4. cap. 5. Keckerman Syst Phys lib. 6. ad finem Zanch. de oper Dei lib. 3. cap. 3. Valesius de Sacrâ Philosoph cap. 9. So that the efficient cause is the Sun The subject in which it appeares is a cloud standing in Diametrical opposition The thing it self is the reflex of the Sun The form and shape is a bowe of variety of colours Whereupon it is generally concluded that there were bowes of this nature before the flood the Sun being then in equal vigour to produce it and clouds in which the reflex might be apparent And the cause being then as
desired to be found as I think in judgment not having his own righteousness but that which is through the faith of Christ the righteousnesse which is of God by faith I think he could find no other which would be as a Screen or cover to hide sin or keep off the wrath of God He knew nothing by himself He could not therefore be charged as unbelieving or impenitent Yet he was not thereby justified 1 Cor. 4.4 Be it faith as a work or other work of obedience they are all within the command of the Law and I dare not rest there for Justification And the Apostle acquaints us with no other way then faith for interest in this righteousnesse You farther say in in the place quoted They that will needs to the great disgrace of their understandings deny that there is any such thing as Justification at Judgment muâ—t either say that there is no Judgment or that all are Condemned or that judging doth not contain Justification and Condemnation as its distinct species but some men shall then be judged who shall neither be Justified nor Condemned All men have not their understandings elevated to one pitch I know no Justification to be expected then specifically distinct from that which did precede I would for the bettering of my understanding learn whether this Justification at the day of Judgment be not a Justification of men already justified yea of men already in possession of their Crown except of those who then are found alive though not compleat in regard of the absence of the body I have fought a good fight says the Apostle I have finished my course henceforth there is laid up for me a Crown of Righteousnes 2 Tim. 4.7 8. At the end of his combat he receives his Crown This must needs be unlesse we will be of the Mortalists Judgment to deny any separate existence of the Soul Or of theirs that assert the Souls-sleeping both of them against the Apostle who saith To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord 2 Cor. 5.8 And upon that account had a desire to depart be with Christ Phil. 1.23 which present advantage seem'd to him to over-weigh or at least to ballance all the good that the Church migh reap by his labour surviving Your third distinction is between the Physicall operation of Christ and his benefits on the intellect of the Believer per modum objecti apprehensi as an intelligible species and the morall conveiance of right to Christ and his benefit which is by an act of law or Covenant-donation If you call the first a Justification then very bad men in the Church on earth and the worst of Devils in hell may be justified They may have such operations upon their understanding You seem else where to distinguish between the acceptance of him by faith and this morall conveyance of right Your fourth distinction is between those two question What justifieth ex parte Christi and what justifieth or is required to our Justification ex parte peccatoris Which as it is laid is without exception Your fifth is between the true efficient causes of our Justification and the meer condition sine qua non et cum qua Which I can scarse tell whether to approve or disapprove with your comment upon it I have spoken to it Your last distinction is between Christs meriting mans Justification and this actuall justifying him by constitution or sentence which as the fourth is above exception Your propositions offer themselves in the next place to consideration 1. You say Christ did merit our Justification or a power to Justifie not as a King but by satisfying the justice of God in the form of a servant This I imbrace with thanks and do believe that it will draw more with it 2. You say Christ doth justifie constistutivè as King and Lord viz. ut Dominus Redemptor i. e Quoad valorem rei he conferreth it Ut dominus gratis benefaciens But Quoad modum conditionalem conferendi Ut Rector et Benefactor For it is Christs enacting the New Law or Covenant by which he doth legally pardon or confer remission and constitute us righteous supposing the condition performed on our part And this is not an act of Christ as a Priest or Sacrificer but joyntly Ut Benefactor et Rector Hereto me are termini novi and Theologia nova But let the terms alone of Dominus Redemptor Rector Benefactor That which you ascribe to Christ in this place so far as I understand Scripture still gives to the Father Christ gave himself for us indeed according to his Fathers command but the Father gives him to us and he that gave his Son appoints the terms on which Justification and Salvation is to be obtained by him God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on him should not perish John 3.16 So that this New Law if you will call it so is of the Fathers appointment John 6.40 This is the will of him that sent me that every one who seeth the Son and believeth on him may have everlasting life And in this sense if we will follow Scripture The Father justifies Rom. 8.33 34. It is God that Justifies whche is that condemneth Christs work is to work us into a posture to obtain it The Father judicially acts in it 3. You say Christ doth justifie by sentence as he is Judge and King and not as Priest Answ If he justifie by sentence Then he condemnes by sentence when yet he says J 1.47 He judges that is condemnes none The truth is as the Psalmist speaks God is Judge himself Psal 50.6 and the Apostle tells us he hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousnesse by the man whom he hath ordained Act. 17.31 This unquestionably Christ doth as King but in this Kingly power he is no other then the Fathers Agent who hath set him on his holy Hill of Zion Psal 2.6 He is therefore at the Fathers right hand as prime in power for that work Those that are next to him that is chief are so seated and Zebedees Children look'd for it in Christs temporall Kingdome When this is done Christs mediatory power will be finished and he shall give up his Kingdome to the Father 4. You say Sententiall Justification is the most full compleat and eminent Justification That in Law being quoad sententiam but vertuall Justification Answ To this I have spoken upon the first distinction 5. You say Faith justifies not by receiving Christ as an object which is to make a reall impression and mutation on the intellect according to the nature of the species I say to justifie is not to make such a reall change c. Answ To this I have spoke under that head of the instrumentality of faith The works ancedent to this of Justification as Humiliation Regeneration faith imply a reall change Such a change is wrought in the Justified Soul
Then works do not consummate for Paul casts off all works from this office and he speaks according to you of Justification in toto and if James speaks of it only as consummate and finished why does he instance in Rahab this being the first that was heard of her being in faith or grace The Authors that you follow are wont to say that Paul speaks of the first and James of the second Justification and it had been more for your advantage fully to have followed them then to have said that Paul speaks principally of the first yet speaks of the second likewise Yet you may see how hardly those of that opinion have been put to it Bellarmine that knows as well how to stickle for an opinion as another says that Paul speaking of the first Justication fetches a proof from Abraham which is understood of the second Justification and James speaking of the second Justification fetches a proof from Rahab which is the first Justification which as long since I have observed in the vindication of this text agrees like harp and harrow So that if the Authors that I follow have missed the meaning of these Apostles those that follow you are much lesse like to find it Yet after all this labour for a Reconciliation of this seeming difference between these great Apostles the Reader stands much engaged for that which you have brought to light from Reverend Mr. Gatakers hand in his Letter written to you where we see in what judgement he both liv'd and died taking it up as he saies when he was a novice and persisting in it to his last wholly differing from you and agreeing with me In Paul the question is saith he of sin in generall concerning which when any man shall be therewith charged there is no means whereby he may be justified that is justly assoyled from the otherwise just charge of being a sinner but by his faith in Christs blood Christs blood having made satisfaction to Gods Justice for sin and his faith in it giving him a right to it and interest in it This he understands of all sin through the whole course of a believers life first and last faith is his way of Justification Whereas in James saith he the question is concerning some speciall sin and the questioned persons guilt of it or freedome from it What speciall sin he means he explaines himself to wit Whether a man be a true or counterfeit believer a sound and sincere or a false and feigned professor In which case any person that is so wrongfully charged may plead not guilty and offer himself to be tryed by his works as in some cases Gods Saints have done even with appeal to God himself And what differs this from what I say onely the faith that is not counterfeit but evidenced by works justifies The truth of his faith is questioned whensoever the sincerity of his profession is thus charged This is no more then that which is ordinarily affirmed that faith justifies the person and works justifie faith 4. You say The ordinary exposition of the word faith Jam. 2.24 vindicated If with the named Expositors you understand by works a working fâith either you grant as much as I affirme in sense or else you must utterly nul all the Apostles arguing from v. 13. to the end Answ It were too tedious to follow you through this large discourse and you very well save me the paines when you adde I suppose you will say Faith which Justifies must be working but it Justifies not quâ— operans And so indeed I do say and you answer true nor quà fides i. e. qâ—à apprehendit objectum if the quà speaks the formall reason of its interest in Justification To this I say If it neither Justifies quà operans nor quà apprehendens objectum I would fain know how or under what notion it justifies Do's it justifie nihil agendo I may well say Cedo tertium If you say as I think you will it justifies quà conditio Is it conditio nec operans nec apprehendens A faith neither working nor receiving is certainly as bad as the faith that James speaks of that profits nothing You demand further Why cannot faith Justifie except it be working I answer Because if it be faith to apprehend or receive then it is in life for if not alive it cannot receive If it be alive then it doth work You say The Apostle doth not plead for a meer necessity of signification or discovery but for a necessity ut medii ad Justificationem Even that Justification which he calls imputing of righteousness and that by God I answer He enquires what that faith is that is medium ad Justificationem and determines that it is not a dead but a working faith that is this Justifying medium and this strengthens and not nuls the Apostles argumentation When you have made it your business to overthrow my interpretation you set upon my reason and say As for your single argument here I answer And I may reply 1. That one argument to the purposâ— is to be preferred before 31 which are all besides the qâ—estion 2. That you might have found a double argument but that you industriously leave out one to make it single You say it is a weak ground to maintain that James twelve times in thirteen verses by works means not works and by faith alone which he still opposeth doth not mean faith alone and all this because you cannot see the connexion of one verse to the former or the force of one cited Scripture And I hope I may without offence tell you tht this kind of reasoning or answering adds advantage neither to your cause nor reputation You take it for granted and would perswade your Reader that if I suppose the word is once figurative where the proper acceptation is both destructive to the sense and repugnant to the whole tenor of the Gospel which was my second reason by you omitted that I must therefore so interpret it all along But you have had Scripture instances to the contrary and are directed where you may be further furnished I conclude that when James affirms that faith without works is dead and therefore cannot justifie ad sayes Abraham was justified by works when he offered Isaac which Scripture says was a work of faith of if that do not please was done by faith Heb. 11.17 and further sayes that in his justification by works the Scripture was fulfill'd which sayes he was justified by faith Is it not a fair interpretation to understand a working faith which is alone of possible power to justifie when the Scripture also ascribing this instanced justifying work of Abrham to the faith of Abraham as we see Heb. 11.17 In the close of your ten arguments you speak your sense of the danger which is like to follow upon this tenent which I have thought most meet to reserve to this place What sad effects say you it may produce to
writers of note much differing one from the other in one particular subject I think I should first mention Bp. Davenant and Mr. Richard Br. in the point of justification Your Reader may well judge that he is amongst those that you say Confes pag. 459. you may safely and boldly advise all those that love the everlasting happiness of their souls that they take heed of Where you warn all such that they take heed of their doctrine who make the meer receiving of that is affiance in the righteousness of Christ to be the sole condition of their first justification excluding Repentance and the reception of Christ as a Teacher and King and Head and Husband from being any condition of it yea and will have no other condition of our justification at judgement who call that affiance only by the name of justifying faith and all other acts by the name of works And as to that which you here assert that he speaks as much as you for the interest of works in justification you may conceit it but those that have perused him will hardly be induced to assent to it Why is it then that he admits no other condition in the Covenant then faith only (m) In hoc foedere ad obtinendam reconciliationem justificationem atque aeternam vitam non alia requiritur conditio quà m verae vivae fidei In this Covenant saith he cap. 30. de Justit act pag. 396 there is no other condition then that of true faith required to obtain Reconciliation Justification and life eternall And having quoted Rom. 3.16 Rom. 4.5 Gal. 3.8 he adds Justification therefore and right to life eternall is suspended upon condition of faith alone But good works are also required of justified men not to constitute a state of justification or demerit life eternall but to yield obedience and testifie thankfulness towards God who justified us freely and hath markt out that way for their walk whom he hath designed for the kingdome of glory How is it (n) Justificatio igitur jus ad aeternam vitam ex conditione solius fidei suspenditur Sed ab hominibus jam justificatis opera etiam bona exiguntur non ad constituendum statum justificationis aut promerendam vitam aeternam sed ad exhibendam obedientiam testificandum gratitudinem erga Deum qui nos gratuito justificavit atque ad ambulandum in illâ viâ quam ad regnum gloriae designatis ipse delineavit then Haec gratia sc inhaerens ut saepe dictum est est appendix five consequens gratuitae justificationis that again and again as he says himself hath said that it is but an Appendix or consequence of Justification pag. 317 If he thus interest works in Justification how he will be reconciled to himself where in the passage before quoted he says that They that affirme that man is Justified by other vertues or works do not leave the whole glory of Mans salvation in Justification alone to God but ascribe some part to themselves And in all that you quote out of him Pag. 319 c. to Pag. 326. how little is there that looks this way You think you have just cause to charge contradictions upon the Reverend Author of the first and second part of Justification Because having delivered that very doctrine which here is held forth out of Davenant concerning the imputation of Christs active obedience in which they scarce differ in termes yet afterwards adds Though holy works do not justifie yet by them a man is continued in a state and condition of Justification So that did not the Covenant of grace interpose grosse and wicked waies would cut off our Justification and put us in a state of condemnation If you can reconcile Davenant to Davenant which I doubt not may be done this Author may then be as easily reconciled to himself Passages of this kind only you quote out of Davenant which are as much opposite to himself as to the Author now mentioned SECT VI. Vnbelief and Impenitence in professed Christians are violations of the Covenant of Grace THe next you enter upon is a Query How far unbelief and impenitence in professed Christians are violations of the new Covenant Opposing your self against that Position of mine Chap. 33. Pag. 245. The men in impenitency and unbelief that lie in sin and live in the neglect of the Sacrifice of the blood of Christ live in a continuall breach of Covenant Here you confesse that I cite no words of yours and therefore you are uncertain whether it is intended against you To which I say that it is intended against all that deny what in the Position is asserted which you seem to do Aphor. Thes 34. Pag. 163 Where you say That the Covenant of grace is not properly said be violated or its conditions broken except they be finally broken But before I enter upon the thing it self Men in finall unbelief and impenitency in Covenant with God a give me leave to assume thus much out of your own mouth That men in finall unbelief and impenitency are in Covenant with God This is clear They that break Covenant and render themselves properly guilty of the violation of if are in Covenant The breach of promise presupposes making of a promise and bâ—each of Covenant presupposes entrance into Covenant Jer. 34.18 The Lord threatneth those that trasgressed his Covenant and had not performed the words of Covenant And those that thus transgressed Covenant did likewise as wee see there enter into Covenant But these as you affirm break Covenant and render themselves properly guilty of violation of the conditions of it Therefore it follows that they are in Covenant And as the Covenant is that they transgresse such the Covenant is that they enter They do not enter one Covenant and transgresse another They transgresse a reall and not equivocall halfe-erring Covenant It is therefore a reall and not an equivocall halfe-erring Covenant that they enter And as this clearly follows from hence so that from you prosition that immediatly goes before it That Christs passive obedience and merit was only to satisfie for the violation of the Covenant of works but no at all for the violation of the Covenant of grace it clearly follows Universall Redemption overthown That there is no universall Redemption by Christs Death or satisfaction If Christ died not for satisfaction of their sin that stand guilty of the breach of the Covenant of grace then he died not for the sins of all This is clear But according to you he died not to make satisfaction for their sin that thus stand guilty Therefore he died not for the sins of all Yea it will follow that he dyed for the lesser part only of those that make profession of his name Seeing the greater part die in impenitency and unbelief Yea it will follow that he dyed for the Elect only For Faith and repentance are proper to the Elect All others
your self having in this very page said The condition is his that performeth it not his that imposeth it And I am sure that God imposeth and we perform the conditions of Faith and Repentance therefore they are not his conditions but ours You say There are sufficient reasons why God is said not to believe though he cause us to believe If you please to produce these reasons I shall he artily thank you I have said plainly enough that God causes us to believe denâ—'d that he is properly said to believe Your reasons then must needs be acceptable You tell me of Praedeterminants and their Adversaries Jesuites Arminians All of which acknowledge God to be the cause of uâ—â—acts And I acknowledge the same and so far there is a â—aire and â—â—iâ—ndly accord Bâ—t you say I adventure a step farher and say that faith and repentance are mans work and not Gods To which yâ—u reply 1. What meane you then to yeeld afterward that God worketh all our works in us Those which he worketh are sure his work Answ What need you to aske that question when I there explaine mine own meaning Your â—râ—uâ—ent à conjugatis What God worketh is his work must have its due limits or else you will run into many absurdities God works our motion from place to place and yet he himself does not move The text it self by me quoted gives an answer Having asserted that God works them the denominâ—tion is still given to man God workâ— all our works in uâ— when he has wrought them they are yet said to be ours I freely subscribe to that of Eâ—â—ius upon the words Deus omne bonum ac totum ab initio bonae voluntatis usque ad consummationem boni operis in nobis efficâ—citer operatur ordine sc causalitatis You â—dde I never met with any Orthodox Divine but would yeeld that Faith is a work of Gods Spirit and the Spirits work is doubtleâ—s Gods work Farther telling me If you go the Common way of he Praedeterminants you must acknowledge that God is the Physicall Efficient Praedeâ—ermining Principall Immediate cause of every act of every creature and therefore doubtlesse of our Faith and that both immediatione virtutis suppositi So that it is more properly his act then ours Here you furnish me with an answer Though in the highest way of Praedeterminants I should ascribe all in every act to God yet they are not Gods works or acts in a rigid proper sense but by a Metonymie of the cause He works them because he work us for the acting of them and so I explained my self We are his workmanship fitted and prepared for good works Christ was the principall efficient when he raised Lazarus yet it was Lazarus and not Christ that did rise Concerning acts of this nature that we are upon I believe that Quod voluntas agit liberè agit interim ex naturâ non est libera ad bonum sed per gratiam liberata libera in radice non in termino Homo denuò natus vult perficit quod est bonum Deus autem operatur velle perficere ordine sc causalitatis You professe your self of Bp. Davenants mind who saith As for the predetermination of mens wills it is a controversie between the Dominicans and Jesuits with whose Metaphysicall speculations our Protestant Divines love not to torture their brains or at least should not Declaring your self that you take it to be a poynt beyond the knowledge of any man which way God works on the will in these respects I much marvaile then that you will so much trouble your Reader about it You tell us that if you must incline to any way it would be rather to Durandus for stronger reasons then you find in Ludovicus à Dola who yet you say hath more then you have seen well answered And yet perhaps à Dola in case he had seen your arguments would have judged his as strong as yours Notwithstanding your great abilities to give answer to them when all others that you have seene have been wanting So farr as I have looked into the Author I see him a man of much modesty and one in whome reason is not wanting though I will not undertake to declare either with or against him When I say Our dexterity for holy duties is from the frame into which grace puts us and so still the work is ours though power for action is vouchsafed of God You reply Both velle and perficere are the gift of God and not only posse velle perficere To which I say I had thought that Power for action had included that wnich you say and not denyed it namely a powerfull inclination of the will to the work Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power Psal 110.3 The will is still mans when grace has wrought him up to it I had thought there had been no such danger in Paules words Phil. 4.13 I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me You conclude that I have not confuted your answer namely to your Quaerists question when indeed I never intended it and if I would now go about it I need not finding it as I think done to my hand You give in your reason 1. That I have not disproved the absolute promise of the first speciall Grace Answ You say no more of this in your reply to your Querist that I can find but Whether the Apostle mention it as an absolute promise is a great doubt and that you think we may call it an absolute promise when you had said before that they are meer gratious predictions 2. These supposed promises as you say in your answer are not within the proper conditionall Covenant and therefore I had nothing to do with it 2. You further say that I have not disproved God to be the Author of our faith so as that it is his work Answ I do not find that in all your answer and you most unfairely make the title of this Section to be Whether Faith and Repentance are Gods works My businsse was against your Querist affirming them to be Gods conditions not ours 3. You say If I had yet Believing which is our work is not the same with giving faith or moving us to believe which is Gods work Answ This I confesse You did not affirme it before that I know and I yeeld it now The former is ours viz. to believe the latter Gods viz. to give Faith or move us to believe A mighty proofe sure that your answer is not confuted if it had been intended because I have gainsayed what your answer never asserted For that wich I intended not against you but as I thought for you That Faith and Repentance are our conditions and not Gods I thus further argue Arguments evincing that Faith and Repentance are our conditions and not Gods in the proper conditionall Covenant Those conditions that are not mentioned in the proper conditionall Covenant
it such To which I say I read in Divines of a justification active and that is the work of God and a justification passive of which man is the subject as I read of a double miraculous faith one active to work a cure the other passive to be cured Paul saw that the Cripple at Lystra had faith to be healed Acts 14.9 Yet I suppose that this is called a passive faith not that it acted not at all which is contradicted by Christ in saying Thy faith hath made thee whole but that it served for a passive work on the diseased so I think this faith which tends to our justification is not meerly passive though it serves for such a work as receives that denomination When I receive a gift that enriches I act Yet he that gives onely does enrich and I that receive am enriched so it is in justification we do not justifie but are justified and yet act in receiving Christ for justification as sick ones in Christs tyme did not heal but were healed yet their faith acted for cure and ours for justification I confesse I did somewhat needlessely runne upon this discourse of passive instruments upon occasion of Mr. Pembles words and Mr. Baxters denyal that there was any such thing as a passive instrument never intending to make faith meerly passive which was never my opinion neither am I altogether without scruple in that which Mr. Pemble delivers yet I would have those that are confidently opposite to weigh the streng◠〈◊〉 his reasons and find out if they can a more moderate middle◠〈◊〉 to ascribe somewhat more to the Word without injury do◠〈◊〉 the working of Gods Spirit I am afraid to utter any thing that may be prejudicial to either and of two extreames detracting from the Spirit I take to be the greater which I leave to the learned after a more full enquiry further to determine I am loath to trouble the Reader with that which upon occasion of some passages in Mr. Baxters Aphorismes I mentioned that if Burgersdicius his gladius and culter be active instruments and Keckermans incus c. yet it followeth not that there is no passive instrument but onely to rectifie Mr. Baxters complaint that these words do import an intimation as he expresses it that I said all these were active instruments And as the words stand in my Book it is hard to say what they import It should have been expressed and Keckermans incus c. and his scamnum and mensa accubitus and terra ambulationis no instruments which words I know not by what meanes were left out yet the Reader may see that they were intended seeing they are opposed to the other which are made active instruments But so much is spoken of passive instruments by others that I may well spare my paines neither is it any way necessary for me to speak to them seeing though I doubt not but there are thousands of such kind of instruments I put not faith into that number as I know many godly learned do But it is easie to bear a dissent in a word of art when the thing in question is agreed upon As to the rest which followes in this tract against me in this thing there is very little but what hath been spoken to and this paper already growing more big then is meet for an interposition in this kind in a positive Treatise though not impertinent to the subject in hand I am loath to cause it to swell further with impertinencies onely I must take notice of two passages one where I am charged with ignorance the other with complyance with Rome in the height of their doctrine of merit In the first there are several particulars 1. A charge of misunderstanding Mr. Br. when it was hoped that I had understood better I suspect saith he by your words when you say the Word is produced and held forth of God and by your discourse all along that you understand not what I mean by the Covenants justifying yet I had hoped you had understood the thing it self So 〈◊〉 it is taken for granted that he cannot be mistaken when 〈◊〉 â—ruth is known Mr. Baxters writings and truth are one and 〈◊〉 same 2. My error is detected and I am sent where I may understand my self better You seem to think that the Covenant justifies by some real operation on the soul as the Papists say and our Divines say it sanctifies or as it doth justifie in foro Conscientiae by giving assurance and comfort but Sir saith he I opened my thoughts fully in Aphoris pag. 173 174 c. I scarce bestowed so many words on any one particular point But I marvel that it should be expected that my new learning should be bottomed on his doctrine there delivered seeing himself there speaks with so much vacillancy Mr. Baxters former vacillancy and hesitation in this doctrine pag. 176. I dare not be too confident in so dark a point but it seemeth to me that this justifying transient act is the enacting or promulgation of the new Covenant wherein justification is conferred upon every believer and in the close of all when he hath spoke his full mind he addes pag. 180. This is the present apprehension I have of the nature of remission and justification adding Si quid novisti rectigus c. But now he peremptorily sayes I speak not of the effect of Gods Word as preached to mens heart but as it is lex promulgata foedus testamentum and so doth convey right or constitute the duenesse of the benefit 1 Joh. 5.11 12. I would learn of my Catechrist that is now thus raised out of douhtings in this manner to take the chair 1. Whether this enacting or promulgation of the new Covenant which is the transient act in which justification is conferred on every believer find men in the faith upon the promulgation of it If so then actual faith ptecedes any knowledge of the Covenant if not whether he presupposeth that men upon the Lawes promulgation will believe of themselves without any further work or whether God makes use of any other instrument for the work of faith If these be answered in the negative that men will not believe of themselves upon such promulgation nor there is any other like instrument for this work then I think it must follow that God makes use of this Covenant thus enacted to work men to believe and so I am further confirmed in my former supposed mistake that the Covenant works by a real operation on the soul in order to justification Namely By working men out of unbelief into faith I had thought that when Paul and Appollos are Ministers by whom men believe that they had by the means of this encted or promulgated Covenant brought men to this posture And though justification be a relative change and not a real as is truly affirmed yet that a real change had been wrought in the soul for this work Whereas
I desire Mr. Baxter to take into consideration that Text of the Apostle Rom. 8.3 What the Law could not do in that it was weakned through the flesh c. And whether he understand it respective to sanctification which is not agreed upon among Interpreters to give his Reader satisfaction Quomodo patitur Lex in hac debilitatione Quid patitur ut fi at impotens et inefficax Quomodo haec impotentia inefficacia fuit in carne utrum eminenter an formaliter Quomodo agit Caro in hoc influxu debilitativo in legem And I doubt not but I may as easily answer his Queries in order to the vindication of my assertion as he may mine in vindication of that which the Apostle delivers Answering the last all is indeed answered Caro agit injiciendo obices remoras Quo minus Lex operatur in corde hominis Spiritus agit per fidem ut causa removens impedimentum E medio tollens obices remoras istas Incitando potenter inclinando animam in amplexum promissionis divinae I desire also his full Comment on the Apostles words 2 Cor. 3.6 Who hath made us able Ministers of the New Testament not of the Letter but of the Spirit for the Letter killeth but the Spirit giveth life with a satisfying answer to all like Quaeries that thence may be made I suppose he will grant that they are able Ministers of the New Testament no otherwise then in preaching the Gospel and when the bare Scripture as Tremelius reads it is of power onely to kill we may demand how the Gospel suffers in receiving any such quickening power from the Spirit And indeed the Gospel suffers not but the soul in receiving power to answer the Gospels call whether to Justification oâ— sanctification And that the Spirit makes use of faith in this quickening power I think will not be denyed seeing the Apostle tells us The life that I live in the flesh is by faith in the Son of God Faith therefore hath its hand in the Spirits quickening work and he addes Sure you do not take the foregoing words for proof adding What though onely believers are justified by the Covenant doth it follow that faith gives efficacy and power to the Covenant to justifie then either there are no conditions or causae sine quibus non or else they are all efficients and give efficacy and power to other efficients I confesse those words taken by themselves in that sense as he may fancy and the words in themselves may bear will not come up to a full proof Justification may be restrained onely to believers and yet faith have no hand in it but seeing other Scriptures give an efficiency to faith in this work some of them speaking of it as Gods instrument Rom. 3.30 most of them as mans we may well then know that Scripture holds it not out as any such naked condition To others the Gospel-grant lyes dead to these through faith it is effectuall There is added Your terms of faiths giving power through the Spirit tell me that sure you still look at the wrong act of the Gospel not at its moral act of conveyance or donation but at its reall operation on mans heart I do look at the act of the Gospel as its real operation on mans heart and yet I look at the right act of it The Gospel is an instrument to justifie by the intervening act of faith according to Protestants and by the intervening work of sanctification according to Papists and according to both there is a real work on the soul necessary to put into a posture for Justification All know that Divines distinguish between redemption wrought by Christ and the application of it Redemption is the proper work of the Son but Application they ascribe to the Spirit a Hinc Pater Filius mittere dicuntur Spiritum ad applicationem istam perficiendam The Father and the Son are said saith Amesius to send the Spirit to perfect this application Medull Theol. Cap. 24. Sect. 5. And whereas I am told that neither Scripture nor Divines use to say that the Gospel remitteth sin or justifieth by the Spirit nor doth the Spirit otherwise do it then by inditing the Gospel c. Though I own not this phrase that is here put upon me and I might expect so much priviledge as to be Master of my own words yet I would have it taken into further consideration whether Divines use his language or mine or whether they judge not that tâ—â—e the right act of the Gospel for pardon of sin which I mention The Leyden Divines having spoke of the application of the righteousnesse of Christ Disp 33. Sect. 21. have these words Sect 24. b Haec applicatio in nobis fit à Spiritu sancto 1 Cor. 6.11 dono scilicet fidei Ipse enim eam per Ministerium Evangelii Quod Ministerium Spiritûs dicitur 2 Cor. 3.8 ingenerat ac verbo suo ac Sacramentis confirmat auget Phil. 1.29 Gal. 5.5 Unde Spiritus fidei dicitur 2 Cor. 4.13 quâ Deum ut gratiosum Christum ut redemptorem ejusque justitiam ex eâ vitam aeternam apprehendimus Joan. 1.12 Rom. 9.30 This application in us is made by the holy Spirit 1 Cor. 6.11 viz. by the gift of faith For he works it by the Ministery of the Gospel which is called the Ministery of the Spirit 2 Cor. 3.8 and encreases it by his Word and Sacraments Phil. 1.29 Gal. 5 5. From whence it is called the Spirit of faith 2 Cor. 4.13 whereby we apprehend God as gracious Christ as Redeemer and his righteousnesse and from it everlasting life Joh. 1.12 Rom. 9.30 And Sect. 25. This application on our part is made by faith Rom. 5.1 Acts 26.18 A parte nostrâ fide Rom. 5.2 Actor 26.18 ex fide per fidem Ro. 3.30 Justistficamur justificat nos Deus By faith and through faith Rom. 3.30 We are justified and God justified us with much more to that purpose And Ravanellus in verbum justificatio speaking of the instrument of justification saith it is either outward or inward c Causa instrumentalis externa verbum Dei Sâ—cramenta ut patet ex Rom. 4.11 ubi circumcisio appellatur s gillum justitiae fidei nam verbum Dei Sacramenta sunt organa per quae Deus nos vocat per quae operatur conservat ac auget in nobis fidem obsignatque in cordibus nostris gratiam justificationis atque adeo Ministri Ecclesiae alii qui docent nos viam salutis Dan. 12.3 The outward instrumental cause he saith is the Word of God and the Sacraments as appears from Rom. 4.11 where circumcision is called the seal of the righteousnesse of faith for saith he the Word of God and Sacraments are instruments by which God doth call and by which he works preserves and encreases faith in us and seals in