had never been recovered from his lost Condition to have attained the end of his Creation if God himself had not undertaken the great and otherwise insuperable Work of his Recovery by being made Man and in doing and suffering what he did to regain his Love. And therefore lastly whereas Christs bloody Death and Passion was the strongest and most endearing Argument and Motive of all other Testimonies of his stupendious Love to man for drawing his Affections off from the Love of the World to the Love of God which is the purging away of Sin the shedding of Christs pretious Blood on the Cross is said to be a Sacrifice for Sin that is for the putting or taking away of Sin even as the sacred Text it self directly asserteth He appeared to put away Sin by the Sacrifice of himself Hebr. 9. 26. Hence it is that mans Redemption and Salvation are so frequently attributed to Christs Death on the Cross it being the most remarkable Instance of his Love and thereupon the potentest Motive of all others to win mans firm Affection to himself For that our Blessed Saviours Incarnation and whatsoever he either did or suffered in his Manhood are likewise real Causes of mans Redemption and Salvation the Churches Litany assures us in which we pray to be delivered from all Sin and Mischief from the Crafts and Assaults of the Devil from the Wrath of God and from everlasting Damnation by the Mystery of Christs holy Incarnation by his holy Nativity and Circumcision by his Baptism Fasting and Temptation by his Agony and Bloody Sweat by his glorious Resurrection and Ascension and by his sending of the Holy Ghost aswell as by his Cross and Passion Object 6. If after all the Endeavour that hath been used to frame Arguments to solve Objections and to explicate how mans Redemption Reconciliation and Salvation are in a true scriptural Sense wrought by Christ for clearing the Assertion that the sincere habitual Love of God or Charity is the Formal Cause of Justification it be found that the Assertion it self is repugnant to the 11th Article of our Religion wherein it is said that we are justified by Faith only for the Merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ all that has been done is nothing better not to say worse then labour in vain Solut. That Christ's Doings and Sufferings which constitute his Merit are a real Cause of mans Justification has been both asserted and proved in this Section so that if any difference be between what the 11th Article teaches and what is averred by me concerning Justification 't is only after what manner the Merit of Christ justifies a Sinner namely whether as an Efficient or a Formal Cause And yet even as to this also there will be found no difference when the matter is well discussed For I stedfastly hold and maintain together with the Article that Christ's Merit is apprehended and applied to a Sinner for his Justification by Faith only whilst he firmly believes that God through them will according to his free Promise in the Gospel deliver him from the Slavery of Sin and the Consequent of it everlasting Misery so that in regard it is the Grace of Faith alone which draws the Merit of Christ home to a Christians Soul whence it becomes an effectual Motive to gain his Affections in turning them from the false Pleasures of the World unto God the sole true Delight of the Soul which is to be an efficient Cause of cleansing the Heart from Sin through Charity it must needs be that in this sense we are justified for the Merit of Christ by Faith only And that the 11th Article of Religion is to be understood in this sense seems clear both from the words wherein it is expressed and from the Churches Homily referred to for a fuller explication of what they intend The words of the Article are these We are accounted righteous before God only for the Merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by Faith and not for our own Works or Deservings Wherefore that we are justified by Faith alone is a most wholsome Doctrine and very full of Comfort as more largely is expressed in the Homily of Justification Here 't is plain that our Blessed Saviour is affirmed to be the meritorious Cause of Justification and it is undeniably true that aswell Divines as Philosophers place a Meritorious Cause among the efficient Causes whence the learned Prelate Forbesius writeth thus Justitia Christi nos justificari ut Causa formali atque etiam meritoria ut asserunt qui priorem tuentur sententiam nempe Christi Justitiam esse Causam formalem Justificationis dici non potest nequit enim fieri ut eadem res sit simul Causa efficiens ad quam Meritum reducitur Formalis ejusdem effecti quia sic simul de essentia effecti foret non foret cum Causa formulis sit interna 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 efficiens autem externa uti constat Considerationes modestae pacificae Lib 2. Cap. 3. Paragr 5. Seeing then it is impossible that a Meritorious Cause should be a Formal Cause and that in the 11th Article no mention is made of a Formal Cause it remains that the Merit of Christ spoken of in the Article is either an efficient Cause of Mans Justification or else none at all And the same is likewise manifest from the Churches Homily referred to in the Article in which we read Part 2. Par. 4. as follows You shall understand that in our Justification by Christ it is not all one thing the Office of God unto Man and the Office of Man unto God. Justification is not the Office of Man but of God or Man cannot make himself righteous by his own Works neither in part nor in the whole for that were the greatest Arrogancy and Presumption of Man that Antichrist could set up against God to affirm that Man might by his own Works take away and purge his own Sins and so justifie himself What can well be more plain unless it were expressed in the very Language of the Schools then that God is here affirmed and Man denied to be the efficient Cause of his Justification But Justification is the Office of God only and is not a thing which we render to him but which we receive of him not which we give to him but which we take of him by his free mercy and by the only merits of his most dearly beloved Son our only Redeemer Saviour and Justifier Jesus Christ Here the free Mercy of God and the Merits of Christ are put together as Causes of the same kind and who is ignorant that the free Mercy of God is an efficient Cause only of Justification so that the true understanding of this Doctrine We be freely justified by Faith without Works or that we be justified by Faith in Christ only is not that this our own Act to believe in Christ or this our Faith in Christ which is
hearty Affection unto God Par. 6 7 8. Object 2. The sincere habitual Love to God above all things cannot of it self alone justifie any one because the Divine Law requires that a Man love his Neighbour also as himself Solut. True it doth so but since it is impossible but that he who cordially desires and accordingly stedfastly endeavours to enjoy God eternally should also unfeignedly wish the like to his Neighbour which comprehends all Mankind and assists him when occasion serves in what is necessarily conducible thereunto so far as he well can in doing of which the Duty of loving a Mans Neighbour as himself is fulfilled as will be at large set forth in the Explanation of the Decalogue Sect. 18. and 19. 'T is plain that he who loves God above all things doth in consequence thereto of necessity love his Neighbour like as himself If a Man love me he will keep my Words John 14. 23. And this Commandment have we from him that he who loveth God loves his Brother also 1 John 4. 21. But of this more hereafter in the three last Sections Object 3. If Men be formally justified by their own habitual Righteousness then are they not formally justified by the Righteousness of Christ imputed to them But Men are formally justified by the Righteousness of Christ imputed to them Christ is made unto us Righteousness 1 Cor. 1. 30. Therefore Men are not formally justified by their own habitual Righteousness Solut. In answer to the proof of the Minor Proposition viz. That Christ is made unto us Righteousness I return that in the same Text he is likewise said to be made unto us Wisdom and Sanctification and Redemption and therefore if Christ's Righteousness can be proved from thence to be the formal Cause of man's Justification or that man is formally just thereby by the same Text it may be equally and as well proved that man is formally wise and formally holy by the Wisdom and Holiness of Christ which if he truly were then would a justified Person be as just wise and Holy as Christ himself and consequently he ought to have no remorse for any thing he ever did nor to crave pardon for his Sins and by consequence since Sin is a Transgression of the Law unless he no more transgress God's Law than our Blessed Saviour himself did he 'l be a Transgressor of the Law and not a Transgressor of the Law a Sinner and no Sinner at the same time which is impossible Christ's Righteousness therefore in the quoted Text is Metonymically to be understood for the efficient Cause of man's Righteousness even as his Wisdom and Holiness likewise are in respect of our being wise and holy In this sense all the meritorious Doings and Sufferings of Christ may be rightly said to be ours whilst by virtue of them Grace is wrought in our Hearts by which we overcome the Temptations of the World the Flesh and the Devil so that the Benefit of them really redounds to us and whatever Righteousness we have here or shall have hereafter it is the very effect of the righteousness of Christ For since rational Arguments Motives are the proper inducements whereby a Rational Creature is inclined to Good whilst through them the Understanding is illuminated with Truth and the Will excited to the love of it 't is evident that nothing possibly besides except the immediate irresistible Will of God could so effectually work on mens rational Souls to cause them to forsake the love of the World for the love of God as Arguments and Motives fetcht from the consideration of Christ's love to man his Incarnation Doctrine Conversation Passion Resurrection Ascension Session at the right hand of his Father and his coming to Judgment Whence in very truth those men who in attributing man's formal Righteousness to the Righteousness of Christ made his by imputation through Faith think they attribute more to Christ and give him greater honour than they do that hold the sincere habitual love of God to be the formal cause of Justification are under a manifest Mistake For since Christ is personally God and not personally Man and that the infinite value of his precious merits is from the hypostatical Union of his Manhood with the Deity 't is plain that it is far more excellent and glorious that Christ's righteousness which comprehends the whole merit of all his active and passive Obedience should be the efficient Cause of man's Justification by producing a real habitual Righteousness in his Soul than the formal cause thereof by a meer imputed Righteousness because such imputed Righteousness in case it were possible would be the Righteousness of Christ as man for otherwise a righteous person would be infinitely righteous and consequently be God since nothing is infinitely perfect in any respect whatever but he alone whereas if his Righteousness be the efficient Cause of man's Righteousness it is proper to him as he is both God and Man. But indeed it is impossible that Christ's Righteousness should become formally man's for seeing it is personal and thence a thing extrinsecal to every one but himself 't is not possible to become a formal Cause to others in that a formal Cause whether it be substantial or accidental is an internal Cause and essentially constitutive of the thing whereof it is a Cause For instance Man's Soul is the formal Cause and a substantial essential part of man as man or a rational Animal Prudence is the formal Cause and an accidental essential part of man as he is prudent and so is Temperance of a temperate man and every Abstract else of the Concrete to which it is appropriated For what is a prudent man but one habitually indued with Prudence or a temperate man but one whom the habit of Temperance formally makes such And must not a righteous person by parallel Reason be one habitually possessed of Righteousness If it were not thus but that on the contrary a prudent man could be prudent by the Prudence of another without the Habit of Prudence within himself then were it possible that a man might be prudent though really imprudent in all his doings and so be prudent and utterly imprudent at once And if a man could be temperate without the Virtue of Temperance inherent in him he might possibly be temperate when he wallowed in the Sink of all filthy Pleasures and thence be temperate and not at all temperate at the same time And so in like manner if a man could be righteous by the Righteousness of another without any inherent Righteousness of his own he might possibly at the same instant be righteous and a notorious Transgressor of God's Law and consequently be a just and unjust person a Sinner and no Sinner both together If it were replied that God always in the very moment wherein Christ's Righteousness through Faith is imputed to any man infuses entire holiness into his Soul so that he exactly keeps every Divine Precept I would make this
within us doth justifie us and deserve our Justification for that were to count our selves to be justified by some Act or Vertue within our selves The Act or Vertue here mentioned being set in opposition to the Merits of Christ which are an efficient Cause 't is in effect as if it were said The Merit of Christ only and not any Act or Virtue of our own whatsoever is the efficient Cause of our Justification But the true understanding and meaning hereof is that although we hear Gods Word and believe it and although we have Faith Hope and Charity Repentance Dread and Fear of God within and do never so many Works thereunto yet we must renounce the merit of all our said Virtues of Faith Hope and Charity and all other Vertues and good Works which we either have done shall do or can do as things that be far too weak and unsufficient and imperfect to deserve remission of our Sins and our Justification and therefore we must trust only in Gods Mercy and that Sacrifice which our High Priest and Saviour offered upon the Cross Lo here again Christs Merits and Mans are set one against the other which would be impertinent if they were not spoken of the same sort of Causes but of Causes different in kind and a meritorious Cause is an efficient Cause as was seen above The Merit of Christ then in the 11th Article of our Religion is not to be understood of the Formal Cause of Mans Justification or Righteousness but of the efficient Cause thereof in respect of which I assert it to be most truly said that We are justified by Faith only because by it alone Christs Merits are applied to us SECT XII Neither by the Light of Nature nor by the Law of Moses without Christ could ever any either Jew or Gentile be eternally saved and come to Glory but through him both of them might The Christian Religion is in many respects preferable to the Law of Nature and the Law of Moses The Injunction of the Judaical Ordinances Rites and Ceremonies had a farther Tendency then the exacting of meer Obedience 1. SInce the ultimate End of creating Man was that he might be eternally happy through the perfect Love of God for ever Sect. 4. it plainly follows that inasmuch as no man since Adams Fall can attain to the perfect Love of God but through Christ Sect. 9. and 11. There is none other Name under Heaven given among Men whereby we must be saved Acts 4. 12. 2. For though some few do by nature i. e. the Light of natural Reason the things contained in the Law viz. the Moral for the Gentiles could not by the Law of Nature observe the Ceremonial Law of the Jews Rom. 2. 14. by being brought through a serious Consideration of the glorious Structure of the World more especially of Man himself and of Gods Providence in preserving and governing all things to adore the Divine Majesty to pray to him and to praise him as the Author of all Good and thence contract an habitual Love to him above the Enjoyment of the vain Pleasures of the World. And albeit many by the Law of Moses have not only obtained the habit of Charity but have also acquired an high degree and measure thereof yet in that neither Jew nor Gentile could ever without Christ attain to the perfect Love of God Sect. 9. and 11. 't is clear that through Christ they must do it if ever they arrive at eternal Bliss 3. Which most blessed State forasmuch as God is no respecter of Persons but in every Nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted with him Acts 10. 34 35. and that he who habitually loves God above all things is Righteous Sect. 11. every one who departs this Life with an habitual Love to God shall at length obtain For seeing all must appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his Body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad 2 Cor. 5. 10. 't is plain that every righteous man whatsoever shall receive a righteous mans Reward at the last day which Reward is everlasting Bliss 4. For since nothing is wanting to one endued with sincere Charity but something to perfect the same in him to make him for ever happy and that the glorious appearance of Christ coming to Judgment will throughly purge out of the Soul of every one habitually possessed of Charity all the Relicks of worldly Affections Sect. 11. Solut. of Object 4. and thereby entirely disposed and ultimately and immediately prepared to obtain the Beatific Vision 't is evident that the Reward which every righteous man shall have at the last day is everlasting Bliss Object 1. If every one of all Mankind from the beginning of the World to the end thereof that habitually loves God above all things and consequently his Neighbour as himself Sect. 11. Solut. of Object 2. when he leaves this World shall at length be eternally blessed through Christ what need men concern themselves so much as they do what Religion they be of Solut. It concerns every one so much as his Salvation is worth to be solicitous to be a Member of the Catholic Christian Religion not only because there 's small hopes that he who is not desirous to take the best course he can to be saved will in sincerity of heart observe the Rules of any Law whatever but also because if notwithstanding the Divine Excellency of the Precepts Motives and Discipline of the Gospel-Dispensation thousands perish within the Bosom of Christ's Visible Church through the strong Temptations of the World the Flesh and the Devil wherewith they are overcome the perdition of Souls will be certainly much greater and more general where those potent Adversaries of man's Bliss find small Resistance made against them Wherefore since no man ever attain'd to live a virtuous Life in order to the End for which he was created but in regard he was directed and inclined thereunto either by the Law of Nature or by some Revealed Law of which later sort there are only two the Jewish and the Christian 't is apparent that if the Christian Religion be in many respects highly preferable for the obtaining of Felicity by it to them both it alone where it can be had is to be chosen and embraced And that the Christian Religion is in many respects highly preferable to them both for that End is evident For First It doth exceedingly much more fully and clearly reveal to the World the Nature of God the Immortality of the Soul the Excellency of the Fruit of a virtuous godly Life after Death and the intolerable Torments of the Wicked in the World to come Secondly It gives far more perfect Rules and shews abundantly more efficacious Helps and Means of leading such a Life as must bring men to Felicity if ever they attain thereto Thirdly It propounds infinitely more convincing and powerful Arguments
other World will by being eternally separated from its Pleasures convert into a hopeless desire and upon that account grow more furious impatient For of all the torments of the Mind I know none that is comparable to that of an outragious desire joyn'd with despair of satisfaction which is just the case of sensual worldly-minded Souls in the other Life where they are full of sharp and unrebated desires and like starved men that are shut up between two dead Walls are tormented with a fierce but hopeless hunger which having nothing else to feed on preys and quarries on themselves and in this desolate condition they are forced to wander to and fro tormented with a restlefs Rage and Hunger and unsatisfied desire oraving Food but neither finding nor expecting any and so in unexpressible Anguish they pine away a long Eternity And though they might find Content and Satisfaction could they but diver their affections another way and reconcile them to the heavenly Enjoyments yet being irrecoverably pre-engaged to sensual Goods they have no Savour nor Relish of any thing else but are like Feverish Tongues that disgust and nauseate the most grateful Liquors by reason of their own over flowing Gall. Lastly if in any thing I have writ about Christ's meritorious Satisfaction I peradventure fully accord not with some Divines the difference when the Matter is duly weigh'd will prove I hope to be only verbal For I assert sect 11. First That Christ's death on the Cross was of infinite value and merit Secondly That by and through the same Remission of Sin Justification and every other Good whether of Grace or Glory are obtain'd Thirdly That Christ's Crucifixion was as real and proper an expiatory Sacrifice for Sin as any under the Law of Moses but of infinitely more value ever was Fourthly That God's Justice is de jure prevented thereby from being exerted agaist Sinners in their everlasting Destruction The only difference then if any remaining is in this That I cannot apprehend what some others perchance think viz. That Christ's Merits operate upon God and work an Effect of Mercy and Favour in his Will whereas I humbly conceive them to be a secondary efficient Cause subservient to God's Love to Man for conveying and applying the same unto him by being an effectual Means of converting his Affections from the Vanities of the World unto God that he may be eternally saved for which I offer to serious consideration these following Reasons inducing me thereto 1. That Christ's most gracious doings and sufferings for Man are held by all Christians to be a Meritorious Cause 2ly That a Meritorious Cause is an efficient Cause 3ly That it is the Property of an Efficient Cause to work some real Effect 4ly That it seems plainly impossible that any real Effect should be wrought in God who is impassible and immutable sect 1. par 8 9. for otherwise seeing whatsoever is in God is God sect 1. par 11. such an Effect would be God himself and so the Merits of Christ would be the efficient Cause of the Deity 5ly That Christ's Merits therefore are not an antecedent but a subsequent Cause to the merciful-lovingkindness of God to Man by which the eternal Goodness actually confers all the happy Effects of divine Favour and Grace on him whereby he is delivered from Sathan Sin and Damnation and brought to everlasting Bliss If it be replied that however plausible yea certainly true this arguing be yet there is something more in Christ's Suffering for the Sin of Man than what hath hitherto been said namely the satisfying Divine Justice I answer that strictly speaking neither Justice nor Mercy nor other Attributes of God are formally distinct either from one another or from the very Essence of the Deity Sect. 1. Par. 11. and therefore albeit I willingly grant that Christ died for all men even the Reprobate as to me seems plain from these Words of the Apostle But there were false Prophets also among the People even as there shall be false Teachers among you who privily shall bring in damnable Heresies even denying the Lord that bought them and bring upon themselves swift Damnation 2 Pet. 2. 1. yet it was not to this very intent and purpose that he should undergo those Pains and Punishments which were allotted for Sin the everlasting Torments of Hell but to put Mankind thereby into a Way State and Condition that not any one should finally perish save only such as embraced not the Mercy of God in Christ manifested to the World in his Holy Gospel for what Justice is it that the Damned should suffer the Pains of Hell in case Christ had as truly and fully satisfied for them as if they had already undergone them themselves If it be answered that the actual Benefit of Christ's Satisfaction only reaches to those who believe in him and obey his Word so as that they shall not perish but have everlasting Life I readily own that Christ's Merits and more especially his bloody Death and Passion did in this sense abundantly satisfie Divine Justice for by these he really affected that none can justly be damned to whom they are applied by a lively and efficacious Faith Sect. 11. so that at the last day it will be equally just for God to render some for and through the Merits of Christ eternally blessed as it will be to give up others for their Sins to be for ever miserably afflicted and contrariwise it would be alike unjust to save the Wicked in that day who do not believe in Christ and obey him as to destroy the Godly who believe and put their Trust and Confidence in him whose Death on the Cross was as real a propitiatory Sacrifice for Sin but of infinitely more value as the annual expiatory Sacrifice under the Law as by the explanation of the Nature and Efficacy of it will appear The Sacrifice of Expiation was never compleat and perfect nor had the designed and due Effect of its Institution by the sole slaying and offering of the Beast however rightly and solemnly performed both by the Priest and People unless they added thereto the afflicting of themselves as is plain by Levit. 16. ver 29 30 31. In the seventh Month in the tenth Day of the Month ye shall afflict your Souls and do no Work at all whether it be one of your own Country or a Stranger that sojourneth among you For on that day shall the Priest make an Atonement for you to cleanse you that ye may be clean from all your Sins before the LORD It shall be a Sabbath of Rest unto you and ye shall afflict your Souls by a Statute for ever And again Chapt. 23. ver 27 28 29 30 31 32. On the tenth Day of this seventh Month there shall be a Day of Atonement it shall be an holy Convocation unto you and ye shall afflict your Souls and offer an Offering made by Fire unto the LORD And ye shall do no work in that